«As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.»Esta passagem está bem recheada daquele tipo peculiar de crenças enraizadas na cultura progressista ocidental, crenças que não resistem à mais pequena análise. Quanto à suposta influência do Islão na filosofia política ocidental que viria a resultar nos iluminismos inglês, americano e francês, o presidente Obama só pode estar a referir-se à preservação dos textos gregos clássicos em traduções árabes. A este propósito, diz Robert Spencer:
«Aristotle’s work was preserved in Arabic not initially by Muslims at all, but by Christians such as the fifth century priest Probus of Antioch, who introduced Aristotle to the Arabic-speaking world. Another Christian, Huneyn ibn-Ishaq (809-873), translated many works by Aristotle, Galen, Plato and Hippocrates into Syriac. His son then translated them into Arabic. The Syrian Christian Yahya ibn ‘Adi (893-974) also translated works of philosophy into Arabic, and wrote one of his own, The Reformation of Morals. His student, another Christian named Abu ‘Ali ‘Isa ibn Zur’a (943-1008), also translated Aristotle and others from Syriac into Arabic.»Para além disso, muitos textos gregos clássicos chegaram até nós paralelamente através dos mosteiros que conseguiram resistir às destruições bárbaras e não apenas por via árabe. (Cf. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, de Thomas E. Woods, Jr., cap. III, pgs. 39-45)
Spencer contesta ainda a importância do papel atribuído por Obama ao Islão na história da medicina:
«The first Arabic-language medical treatise was written by a Christian priest and translated into Arabic by a Jewish doctor in 683. The first hospital was founded in Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate -- not by a Muslim, but a Nestorian Christian. A pioneering medical school was founded at Gundeshapur in Persia — by Assyrian Christians.»Também a respeito da história da medicina a leitura do livro de Woods, Jr. (cap IX) é esclarecedora, nomeadamente quanto às origens dos hospitais, como os conhecemos.1) Consideremos agora a atribuição aos muçulmanos por Obama de algumas invenções científicas e tecnológicas, nomeadamente instrumentos de orientação e navegação, conceitos matemáticos e mecanismos de impressão gráfica, guiados por Ed Morrissey:
«Muslims didn’t invent the magnetic compass. Credit for that usually goes to the Chinese, who experimented with needles and lodestones as far back as the second century BC. They built a complete compass by the early 12th century, and eventually Marco Polo would bring one back on his travels.Desmascaradas as imposturas, importa considerar qual a sua origem e porque Obama lhes faz eco, com a ajuda deIn fact, the Muslims didn’t even come in second. Europe developed the magnetic compass at the end of the 12th century, while the Arabic compass would come decades later.»
«All modern physics descends from Galileo (1564 -1642); all modern astronomy from Copernicus (1473-1543). If you study Galileo’s works carefully, as I have, you see that he started with the achievements of the Greek mathematical physicist Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 BC - c. 212 BC). If you study Copernicus’ works carefully, as I have, you will see that Copernicus’ great book On the Revolutions is essentially a heliocentric re-working of the geocentric astronomy textbook by the Greek Ptolemy (c. 90 AD - 168 AD). Copernicus mostly used even Ptolemy’s data for the positions of the planets. Note the dates for Archimedes/Galileo and Ptolemy/Copernicus. It is as if the Muslim world never existed. As far as their fundamental contributions to physics and astronomy, it did not. If one reads history of science textbooks prior to about 1980, one will find very little mention of Muslim “contributions” to physics and astronomy. This is reasonable, because there weren’t any. In the past generation, however, political correctness has dictated that Muslims be given credit for discoveries they did not make.»E um pouco mais adiante:
«The cosmology of the Qur’an is obviously geocentric, and as a consequence, Al-Azhar University, which Obama singles out for praise in his speech, still teaches Ptolemaic astronomy.»Tipler considera ainda a efectiva impossibilidade de fazer ciência no Islão. Para os cristãos, o mundo criado por Deus comporta-se de acordo com um conjunto de regras e mecanismos físicos de Sua autoria, os quais Deus deixa funcionar livremente e só muito raramente neles interfere operando milagres. Esta ordem divinamente criada pode perfeitamente ser estudada pelo homem, na sua busca pela verdade e pelo sentido da sua existência, de acordo com a sua natureza inquisitiva da autoria do próprio Deus. Assim, a ciência prosperou no Ocidente cristão como em nenhum outro contexto cultural tendo os religiosos cristãos desempenhado um papel assinalável na ciência ocidental, e.g. Gregor Mendel, padre agostiniano e pai da genética moderna e George Lemaître, padre, autor da "hipótese do átomo primevo", hoje conhecida como teoria do Big Bang. Ora, segundo Tipler, o mesmo não se passa no Islão:
«The reason Muslims never developed fundamental physics is because the leading Muslim theologians declared the idea of fixed physical laws to be heretical. The Qur’an (verse 6:64) states: “The Jews have said, ‘God’s hand is fettered.’ Fettered are their hands, and they are cursed for what they have said. Nay, but His hands are outspread; He expends how He will.” The standard Muslim interpretation of this passage has been that there cannot be unchanging physical laws because Allah may change the laws at any moment. In 1982, the Institute for Policy Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan, criticized a chemistry textbook by saying: “There is latent poison present in the subheading Energy Causes Changes because it gives the impression that energy is the true cause rather than Allah. Similarly it is unIslamic to teach that mixing hydrogen and oxygen automatically produces water. The Islamic way is this: when atoms of hydrogen approach atoms of oxygen, then by the Will of Allah water is produced.” The implication is clear: next week, Allah may change his mind about water being a compound of hydrogen and oxygen. With this sort of worldview, how could one possibly be a scientist?»Tipler ilustra o ambiente anti-científico do Islão descrevendo o caso do físico Mohammed Abdus Salam:
«There was one truly great “Muslim” physicist, the Nobel Prize winning Pakistani, Mohammed Abdus Salam. I put “Muslim” in quotes, because Salam belonged to the Ahmadi sect of Islam, a sect that accepts modern science. But in 1974, the Pakistani parliament declared the Ahmadi sect heretical, and its members are currently being persecuted in Pakistan. Contemporary Muslim historians generally do not list Salam as an important Muslim scientist. Had he remained in Pakistan, he quite possibly would have been killed.»Tipler conclui o artigo considerando os antecedentes da atribuição de méritos ciêntificos a quem os não tinha, o que pode responder à pergunda acima: por que razão Obama diz estas coisas (admitindo que não o faz por ignorância, o que, sendo possível, é improvável):
«During the Cold War, it was commonplace for leftist academics to attribute many discoveries to scientists in Communist countries, discoveries that had actually been made in the West. So now leftist academics attribute to Muslims discoveries that had actually been made by others.»Barack Obama terá proferido estas falsidades no seu sermão no Cairo - se não por mera ignorância e por uma crença ideologicamente adquirida -, por calculismo político, para agradar aos muçulmanos e conquistar a sua simpatia, na presunção de que os conflitos que se multiplicam pelo mundo fora nos quais o Islão se confronta com aqueles que se opõem ao seu domínio se resolvem com a adopção de uma posição humilde por parte do Ocidente e com muita compreensão para com os ressentimentos islâmicos face aos crimes do colonialismo. Neste processo, o presidente norte-americano faz gala de um sórdido desprezo pela verdade.
1) - Versão em português.
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