Friday, January 29, 2010

Islamic contributions to the World

Many people mistakenly believe I am anti Muslim.This is totally untrue.The truth is I have always been a champion of progress,civilization,and enlightenment.At one time while Europe descended in barbarism and even during the great periods of Rome and Greece the Arab world gave the world logic,math,reason,science,invention ect.This seems to not only be lost in the Western world whom a debt is owed to the Arab world for her climb out of the dark ages in about 1400 AD.But many people dont realise that the Islamic extremist or the Muhammedian strict Quoranic proseletizers are the reason for the Arab or Muslim world's 900 years of decline.When Muslims scholars spread Islam in Europe,Africa,Asia they set up schools,learing centers,arts,culture,trade techniques,commerce and the idea of the rule of law.Also unique in the early days of Islam was the belief in the limited power of the King.Something Rome was not even able to achieve.So most of the world excepted this along side their native culture.
The growth of Sharia stopped progress in the Muslim world
Just as what is happening in Nigeria,Afgahnistan,Egypt ect,progress is being threatened by extremist who want to turn away from science and learning,which leads to human progress but they only want a backward 14th century religion that threatens to send the world into another dark ages.-Kalagenesis
The following is a sample of the contributions of Muslims to the world
Muslim inventions that shaped the modern worldBy Olivia Sterns for CNN
January 29, 2010 7:53 a.m. EST

In 9th century Spain, Muslim inventor Abbas ibn Firnas designed a flying machine -- hundreds of years before da Vinci drew plans of his own.STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Exhibition celebrates 1,000 years of "forgotten" Muslim heritage

From coffee to cranks, items we couldn't live without today are Muslim inventions
Modern hospitals and universities both began in 9th century North Africa
London, England (CNN) -- Think of the origins of that staple of modern life, the cup of coffee, and Italy often springs to mind.

But in fact, Yemen is where the ubiquitous brew has its true origins.

Along with the first university, and even the toothbrush, it is among surprising Muslim inventions that have shaped the world we live in today.

The origins of these fundamental ideas and objects -- the basis of everything from the bicycle to musical scales -- are the focus of "1001 Inventions," a book celebrating "the forgotten" history of 1,000 years of Muslim heritage.

"There's a hole in our knowledge, we leap frog from the Renaissance to the Greeks," professor Salim al-Hassani, Chairman of the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation, and editor of the book told CNN.

"1001 Inventions" is now an exhibition at London's Science Museum. Hassani hopes the exhibition will highlight the contributions of non-Western cultures -- like the Muslim empire that once covered Spain and Portugal, Southern Italy and stretched as far as parts of China -- to present day civilization.

Hospitals as we know them today, with wards and teaching centers, come from 9th century Egypt

--professor Salim al-Hassani

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Here Hassani shares his top 10 outstanding Muslim inventions:

1. Surgery

Around the year 1,000, the celebrated doctor Al Zahrawi published a 1,500 page illustrated encyclopedia of surgery that was used in Europe as a medical reference for the next 500 years. Among his many inventions, Zahrawi discovered the use of dissolving cat gut to stitch wounds -- beforehand a second surgery had to be performed to remove sutures. He also reportedly performed the first caesarean operation and created the first pair of forceps.

2. Coffee

Now the Western world's drink du jour, coffee was first brewed in Yemen around the 9th century. In its earliest days, coffee helped Sufis stay up during late nights of devotion. Later brought to Cairo by a group of students, the coffee buzz soon caught on around the empire. By the 13th century it reached Turkey, but not until the 16th century did the beans start boiling in Europe, brought to Italy by a Venetian trader.

3. Flying machine

"Abbas ibn Firnas was the first person to make a real attempt to construct a flying machine and fly," said Hassani. In the 9th century he designed a winged apparatus, roughly resembling a bird costume. In his most famous trial near Cordoba in Spain, Firnas flew upward for a few moments, before falling to the ground and partially breaking his back. His designs would undoubtedly have been an inspiration for famed Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci's hundreds of years later, said Hassani.

4. University

In 859 a young princess named Fatima al-Firhi founded the first degree-granting university in Fez, Morocco. Her sister Miriam founded an adjacent mosque and together the complex became the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque and University. Still operating almost 1,200 years later, Hassani says he hopes the center will remind people that learning is at the core of the Islamic tradition and that the story of the al-Firhi sisters will inspire young Muslim women around the world today.

5. Algebra

The word algebra comes from the title of a Persian mathematician's famous 9th century treatise "Kitab al-Jabr Wa l-Mugabala" which translates roughly as "The Book of Reasoning and Balancing." Built on the roots of Greek and Hindu systems, the new algebraic order was a unifying system for rational numbers, irrational numbers and geometrical magnitudes. The same mathematician, Al-Khwarizmi, was also the first to introduce the concept of raising a number to a power.

6. Optics

"Many of the most important advances in the study of optics come from the Muslim world," says Hassani. Around the year 1000 Ibn al-Haitham proved that humans see objects by light reflecting off of them and entering the eye, dismissing Euclid and Ptolemy's theories that light was emitted from the eye itself. This great Muslim physicist also discovered the camera obscura phenomenon, which explains how the eye sees images upright due to the connection between the optic nerve and the brain.

7. Music

Muslim musicians have had a profound impact on Europe, dating back to Charlemagne tried to compete with the music of Baghdad and Cordoba, according to Hassani. Among many instruments that arrived in Europe through the Middle East are the lute and the rahab, an ancestor of the violin. Modern musical scales are also said to derive from the Arabic alphabet.

8. Toothbrush

According to Hassani, the Prophet Mohammed popularized the use of the first toothbrush in around 600. Using a twig from the Meswak tree, he cleaned his teeth and freshened his breath. Substances similar to Meswak are used in modern toothpaste.

9. The crank

Many of the basics of modern automatics were first put to use in the Muslim world, including the revolutionary crank-connecting rod system. By converting rotary motion to linear motion, the crank enables the lifting of heavy objects with relative ease. This technology, discovered by Al-Jazari in the 12th century, exploded across the globe, leading to everything from the bicycle to the internal combustion engine.

10. Hospitals

"Hospitals as we know them today, with wards and teaching centers, come from 9th century Egypt," explained Hassani. The first such medical center was the Ahmad ibn Tulun Hospital, founded in 872 in Cairo. Tulun hospital provided free care for anyone who needed it -- a policy based on the Muslim tradition of caring for all who are sick. From Cairo, such hospitals spread around the Muslim world.

For more information on muslim inventions go to: muslimheritage.com. For more information about the exhibition at London's Science Museum go to: science museum.org.uk



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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

South Carolina's Trees Bears'Strange Fruits'




Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.




Kalagenesis
The above was a song written by a Jewish school teacher in the Bronx NY but immortalized by the legendary Blues singer Billy Holiday.The song describes the South of the Post Civil War era.What is unique to the South is the level of human degradation that the Black race endured and continues to endure.The practice of lynching which many experts acknowledge happened throughout the United States since the beginning of this country by no means was confined to the Black race.Everyone from suspected witches,criminals,rapist,foreigners,cheats all were lynched in almost every part of the country.The persecution of the Black people and the level of violence and savagery is something unigue to the American South.In other parts it was mob violence motivated by lies and false acusations.In the South the lynchings involved any Black person who happed to be in the mobs path.And they happened for the pure carnival like atmosphere bring Whites together for a blood thirsty orgy of savage violence.Tulsa Oklahoma,Wilmington NC,Rosewood Fl,St Louis,ect all were attempts at genocide,and the subjugation of the Black race in America.The blood that stained the Southern soil has and still is producing strange fruit.
South Carolina is the definition of the Strange Fruits
The past 20 years while some Southern states have made progress in bringing a New South for its residents.By attracting people from different parts of the world North Carolina,Virginia,Maryland has in fact turned into fairly progressive states.In South Carolina the home of the Godfather of the old segregationist south Strom Thurmond,the state has not moved at all in terms of race relations.White people no matter how uneducated still think they are the superior of Black people.Racial profiling and the Ku Klux Klan still is the order of the day.Now we see the racism seeping into the national stage.Republican Senator Jim Demitt says he wants to use Health Care to break President Obama.Congressman Joe Wilson screams"You lie"infront of Congress at the President,now we have a Lt Gov from that state making a statement liking poor people to animals saying we should not feed them.Now I wonder why no one from this state has spoken up about the crazy racist people in charge in that state?
Southern Trees Have born very strange Black Fruits
When looking at the African American community one cant but notice the very different Southern Black community.This is the community of Tyler Perry,a community still struggling with the direct effects of slavery.From a cultural standpoint the South did not experience the Harlem Renaissance or the Big city dynamics of Detroit or Chicago.What was unique about those areas like New York was the creation of Black enclaves where Black people were parts of those cities.This created a natural sense of unity and kinship which the South did not have, with the exception of Atlanta.Now the music and culture of South Hip hop seems to be the most popular Black music.But if one looks at the language and self degrading images of the South and look at places like Miami,New Orleans,Virginia and see the almost daily carnage which by itself is bad enough.But to Whites in the South this is entertainment.Black on Black crime here in the South is seen as normal.White people are never bothered by so called bad neighborhoods or high crime rates.They are oblivious to the daily carnage as if they are bulletproof.Why is the South the only place in the US like this.It is because it is so rooted in apathy and a system of White supremecy that the people Black and White dont question it just accept it as the natural order.In the South Black women can have seven children and never even expect to get married.Fathers have no fatherly relations with their kids,on the whole it is normal not to know ones father.White people control all of the wealth especially Black people's like it is theirs.This is the Strange Fruits of the Modern South

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Silence is Golden.Sometimes Silence is Yellow


Be good work hard obey the golden rule and your parents and you will go far.How many of us believed this growing up?How many of us were told never to question what our teachers taught us?They say ignorance is bliss.Why are we as Black people so tolerant to the mass degredation and destruction of our people?It is because silence is golden?Silence allows people who do wrong or things to our detrement live in comfort.Silence allows us to sit back and live a life not bothered by compexities and adversities all men must face to improve the world.What does silence do?Well throughout history silence allowed rulers and tyrannts to rule without without breaking a sweat.To the people who do wrong silence is golden.To the people who are victims that silence is yellow.Yellow means not golden but pretty enough to shine and pacify.In Black America silence has allowed people to misrepresent us,what we want and how we want to be viewed.It is not to say we don't have a history of protest in our community we do.It is just we have always relied on certain people to speak for us.The majority of our people hate violence,drugs,crime,ignorance but that does not stop Clear Channel Communication,MTV,BET and the whole so called Hip Hop recording industry from portraying us as subhuman.We are reminded everyday the danger of silence.Traitors and enemies among us doing everything they can to make life hard for us in this land.It is hard enough being Black but when the people in power demonize you for things untrue is is the worst.Silence is killing us.We have to make the world see our struggle.We are like lambs being preyed upon by predators in our community,and exploited by politicians,leaders,business people ect.The true Black man is finally speaking up and people are not liking what they hear.The foundation of American culture is changing.The world is recognizing the rippling muscles of the Black man in America.The whole thug,gangsta thing is a continuation of slavery and bondage.The Pan African superman is emerging ready to build Africa and the Black community.We are mad as hell and we are not taking it anymore!We care about the world we are in and we have alot to say about it.I am tired of being the peon,the butt of America's jokes.We are now looking at realing prosperity and owning a piece of this world.