Kuwait isn’t Arab?
Anyway, that was my point. Besides the non-Arab countries of Israel & Turkey Iran is the only country in the Middle East to take part in Olympiads. IOW, none of the Arab countries except Kuwait do. And Kuwait too, just started and are performing miserably so far. Their entire team score was 8, as compared to the top score of 227. They placed 80 of 82 countries. Iran placed 17 and Turkey 8.
Tomndebb, that’s exactly the point I was trying to make, thank you.
Does the University of Cairo=al Azhar? My uncle went to the former in the Seventies and left in disgust after a semester, because nobody showed up for the lectures, and your whole grade seemed to depend on how much you bribed the professors. And he was from Brooklyn and had run for the City Council too, so it’s not like he was totally unfamiliar with corruption 
Here’s the mission statement of Georgetown University:
Even in the 19th century, 20% of the students were Protestant; now it’s about 55% Catholic, 5% Jewish, 3% Muslim, and 23% Protestant and other. There’s a:
and chaplins for Jewish, Orthodox, Muslim, and various Protestant denominations.
And this is one of the leading Catholic universities in the US. Here’s another, my Mom’s alma mater, Fordham University, and their mission statement.
Now, of course there’s some religious colleges in the US that are stricter, but almost none of them restrict attendees to only their religion, and such smaller universities as Brandeis have great diversity too.
And the point I was trying to make in the beginning is that for far too many people in the Arab world, the madrassas are the ONLY choice. That’s not productive at all and does not turn out people who are capable of competing in the global marketplace. If they think the global marketplace is not worth competing in, that’s fine, but I think the unrest in such countries shows that the desperate poverty that results is not something they want.
Links to the department offerings at various Tunisian univerities ( click on the names up top ):
http://www.universites.tn/anglais/university/iset/p_iset.htm
The University of Algiers site is mostly in French and a little annoying to navigate:
http://www.univ-alger.dz/faculte.htm
No, I meant Turkey, like Iran, isn’t Arab, but you forgot to mention them as a participating ME country.
Anyway, I’m not arguing these schools are superb, by any means. I was just making the very minor point ( and it was the ONLY point I was trying to make ) to Jojo that Al-Azhar University’s numerical profusion of theologically oriented programs aren’t necessarily the norm for Middle Eastern universities.
No, this is Cairo University:
http://www.cu.edu.eg/default.asp
http://www.cu.edu.eg/Faculties/
http://www.cu.edu.eg/General%20Info/facts/Statisticals.asp
Whoops! Got it, thanks.
I am a bit confused.
Are people discussing the adequacy of universities in the Arab world arguing that this issue is a cause of relative decline in the Arab world, or one of its effects?
It kinda depends on the poster.
Milum wants to pretend that Christianity got ahead because of some imagined moral superiority, despite the fact that Christianity had a 589 year head start (using “traditional” dates) and took 1500 years to reach a point comparable to a point that Islamic Arabs reached in around 300 years.
Alan Owen Bess wants to promote his own brand of ignorance and simply deny that that society ever did all the things that history records they accomplished.
Beagle wants to cite a number of 19th and 20th century phenomena (while studiously ignoring a number of other 18th, 19th, and 20th century phenomena) and claim that those events were responsible for a decline that began several huindred years earlier.
You pays your money and you takes your pick. The university discussions are just normal thread slippage and are not directly realted to the OP.
Two points:
Has it in fact been established that there has been any decline in Arab culture? Or is it possible that they’ve simply advanced at a much slower pace than Europeans over the past several centuries, and seem to have declined only by comparison?
With regards to the tomndebb/AOB dispute, I don’t know about other fields, but my understanding is the AOB is essentially correct with regards to mathematics. I took a course in history of mathematics, and the authors of the text I was studying said that the significance of the Arab contribution to math was not in the advances that they made, which were relatively modest, but in that they preserved the teachings of mathematicians from other cultures, most notably Greece, at a time when they were being neglected in Europe.
Well I’m not claiming to be an expert or anything - only noting what I read. And your cite seems to acknowledge that the conventional wisdom is what I’ve said. So who is to say that your cite is correct? I note that your author gives credit for the development of algebra to an Arab named al-Khwarizmi, while a random google search for the origins of algebra turns up this site, which claims that “Algebra was brought from ancient Babylon, Egypt and India to Europe via Italy by the Arabs”.
You can search the web and find something in support of almost any claim. At any rate, it would appear that conventional wisdom on this subject is with AOB.
I agree. I was supporting you in your contention that you were given your (bad) information by your math instructor. From my linked site:
(Stephen J. Gould spent an enormous amount of effort in his long career of essays in Science noting that scientists (and science texts) frequently mangle the true history of science while maintaining the received mythology. In this case, it appears that European mathematicians have suppressed their own “memory” of the achievements of the Islamic Arabs.)
And while I suppose that one can challenge any report by claiming that one can find just about anything on the internet, I will point out that the source of my information is that noted Muslim apologist school, the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
I do not suggest that the “conventional wisdom” is non-existant, I note that AOB’s claims, however “conventional,” are factually in error.
One can quibble over the “begnnings” of Algebra, I suppose, but once begun, it was the Islamic Arabs who [ul][li]Freed algebra from the constraints of geometric models[/li][li]defined monomials[/li][li]created the theorem of amicable numbers[/li][li]Stated Wislon’s Theorem several hundred years before Wilson was born[/li][li]created the binomial theorem[/li]created accurate treatises on optics[/ul]etc.
Which is quite an understatement 
Well, I tried to give people here an idea of what I speak about, but they don’t even seem to bother to open the link, or don’t seem make the effort to try to get the idea.
Of course, when one has prejudice in mind and wants to expose nothing esle but that, it is a bit painful to actually reason and think.
So to make it a bit more easy:
For those who are familiar with the Christian religion, especially Christians who recognize the Pope and the influence and authority of the Vatican:
If you want an easy-to-grasp comparison, then consider the Al Azhar as the Vatican of the Sunni Islam and the Grand Sheikh the Pope.
The Vatican is the center of those Christians who believe in the Pope’s authority.
Al Azhar is the center of Sunni Islam.
Of course this is an impossible comparison in the sense that there is in Islam no such function as a Pope and there is no comparable centralization of authority in Islam as the Vatican represents.
So Al-Azhar has in principle no such executive authority as the Pope/Vatican. Yet in practice that is a formality.
The extraordinary prestige of Al Azhar (and look at the date it was opened if you want to have some impression of how long it stand as such) gives its views and opinions in practice the same degree of influence as the Pope/Vatican has for its followers in the Christian world.
Maybe now you have an idea of what the Al Azhar is and represents.
Thank you for making the effort.
Does this make it also clear to you that of course the Al Azhar’s curriculum is focussed primary on the religious studies.
Al-Azhar is the greatest centre for Arabic and Islamic studies (and everything related) all over the world.
Do you have now some idea or do you need some clarifying drawings.
And to the member who was telling the world that s/he decides what is “worth” to be called a university, and told the world that Al Azhar “doesn’t deserve to be called a university”.
Sorry but your comment can only make me smile because of your complete ignorance of the matter you declare yourself the Expert and Deciding Ruler about.
Salaam. A
Okay, I can see that now.
Too bad, the OP was kind of interesting. I liked Tamerlane’s posts, which were quite informative. One quibble I have is that they tend to be more discriptive than explanatory …
For example, he correctly points out the role of the political rise of the Janissarry and Mamluk classes, and the Harem intrigues … but why did the same thing, or something similar, not happen in Europe?
I think that the answer is based on the plurality of the European political landscape, which (unlike the Ottomans, Mamluks or for that matter the Chinese) was never organized into one super-state or empire.
Had it been, as I suggested above (say, by the Hapsburgs), Europe could well have advanced at the same rate as the others (or stagnated, depending on your pov). It was just historical luck that the Mongols crushed the Sung dynasty in China (which was showing signs of a renassance and rise of urban pluralism), that the Ming and Ch’ing dynasties were centralized and stagnant, as were the Ottomans and for that matter Muskovy …
If any one factor is to blame for the situation, it is the military supremacy of the central asian nomad horseman, who directly or indirectly caused the set of circumstances which lead to the surrounding cultures stagnating at just the time that Europe was undergoing its renassance, and eventual domination. [Naturally, the stone-age cultures prevelant in the ROTW had not a chance against the Eurasians - in spite of building impressive monuments and urban civilizations in some cases].
These, ah, interesting, sidenotes aside, what can be done to help Arab intellectuals reclaim their rightful place of status and hiers of a rich Islamic tradition in Arab societies?
I believe that a greater place for Arab science, and that a greater presence of institutions that support home grown science and technology will help decrease fundamentalist extremism and terrorism, will help integrate the Arab and/or Islamic world into the world of modern secular values. But the authors of the 2003 Arab Human Development Report say the converse - that a broader acceptance of secular values like democracy, freedom of speech and information, religious tolerance, are needed in order to have such knowledge generating structures grow. And I suspect that we are both right.
Seems like a catch 22.
There is no doubt that there is a certain feedback mechanism at work. More secular values leads to more science and culture, which leads to more secular values … etc.
The difficulty is, how (and indeed whether) these values can be imported or encouraged to flourish, when they are all associated with what many in the Arab world see as overbearing and obnoxious foreigners.
Perhaps the establishment of various Muslim or Arab chairs within western universities and an extensive use of meetings, symposia and debates outside of the restrictions of the Middle East. I’d also say that they should all be available via the internet and radio in Arabic.
Though that would hardly be a complete solution.
DSeid,
To come back at your question about that report: Which aspect do you want to explore further?
If read some parts of the summary and at first view they make some good points.
Yet at some points they come across as rather ridiculous in their statements. I think here for example when they start talking about the use of the Arabic language, especially the status of the classical form. They don’t even seem to have any idea how archaic (not to be taken in the sense of “primitive” of course, quite the opposite) that (dead) language is. It would be about the same as stating how pitty it is that people don’t speak medieval English anymore, or that classical Chinese isn’t the current language form in China.
Salaam. A
That is actually a pretty good idea. (Of course, currently in the U.S., Middle Eastern studies departments are considered borderline traitors or spies and most of the faculty members from the MENA region are more likely to be followed around and have their funding reduced than to be supported.)
Well it has the advantage that it might drive a better understanding and policy ideas within western nations too. Though given the witch hunt biologist are heading for and the suspicion you mention it would likely be a tough road.