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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The AFRICOM Question.

The following is an official document from the United States Defense Department.It details the United States involvement in the military and political crisis on the continent of Africa:
On February 6, 2007, President Bush directed the creation of U.S. Africa Command. The decision was the culmination of a 10-year thought process within the Department of Defense (DOD) acknowledging the emerging strategic importance of Africa, and recognizing that peace and stability on the continent impacts not only Africans, but the interests of the U.S. and international community as well. Yet, the department’s regional command structure did not account for Africa in a comprehensive way, with three different U.S. military headquarters maintaining relationships with African countries. The creation of U.S. Africa Command will enable DOD to better focus its resources to support and enhance existing U.S. initiatives that help African nations, the African Union, and the regional economic communities succeed. It also provides African nations and regional organizations an integrated DOD coordination point to help address security and related needs.


AFRICOM reflects a more integrated staff structure.A Different Kind of Command
Designers of U.S. Africa Command clearly understand the relationships between security, development, diplomacy and prosperity in Africa. As a result, U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, reflects a much more integrated staff structure, one that includes significant management and staff representation by Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other U.S. government agencies involved in Africa. The command will also seek to incorporate partner nations and humanitarian organizations, from Africa and elsewhere, to work alongside the U.S. staff on common approaches to shared interests.


Building Partner Capacity AFRICOM is a headquarters staff whose mission entails coordinating the kind of support that will enable African governments and existing regional organizations, such as the African Standby Force, to have greater capacity to provide security and respond in times of need.
The creation of AFRICOM does not mean the U.S. military will take a leading role in African security matters, nor will it establish large U.S. troop bases. Rather, AFRICOM is a headquarters staff whose mission entails coordinating the kind of support that will enable African governments and existing regional organizations, such as the African Standby Force, to have greater capacity to provide security and respond in times of need. AFRICOM will build on the many African-U.S. security cooperation activities already underway, yet be able to better coordinate DOD support with other U.S. government departments and agencies to make those activities even more effective.

U.S. officials are currently in consultation with African leaders on where and what kind of presence AFRICOM should have. AFRICOM Presence
AFRICOM will be headquartered at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, for the foreseeable future. The staff is examining opportunities to have a presence on the continent, in the form of administrative offices, but only if it adds value to the security assistance that the United States provides, and only in full diplomatic consultation and agreement with potential host nations.


The Way Ahead
AFRICOM is still in its early planning stages. The command began initial operations in October 2007 and is still formulating mission, staffing and location options.
Kalagenesis Responds
If you are any student of history and African history in particular then you would know that the American government cannot be trusted to bring any good to this region of the world.Just look at Iraq.No that was a little to easy.Lets look at Central America,and compared that to Japan in the 80's with South east Asia.We the United States meddled in Latin America in a communist witch hunt for decades spending billions in an endless game of gotcha and cat and mouse games with so called rebels.The result is a weak underdeveloped region with strife,poverty and narco drug trafficking.Is it no wonder why men like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro rise to power?Japan in the 80's transfered billions of yen in capital to its former wartime colonies during the era of endaga or "powerful yen".Now Japan has regional trading partners for its products,both consumer and industrial.All the while the U.S. was pursuing endless militarist mischief in Latin America.
Now the same incompetent forces want to bring their failures to the African continent.Same thing a place where never ending wars will ensue as surely as I am sitting here.The problem with AFRICOM is first we have a racist White power structure who only wants the same thing from Africa.Cheap raw materials,open markets and a weak decentralized continent.China is growing in influence on the continent in every country China is building infastructure,roads,hospitals,mines,factories,ect.While America still wants the same outdated relationship with the same corupt lackys on the continent.What Bush wants is to bring the command now stationed in Germany under the orders of a European command to Africa.Now there will be no guarantee that the African command will be independent of the European command just play by ear.
If this was truly about America helping Africa then why do they virtually no African American representation in AFRICOM?A nearly lily White advisory board.It seems Bush isn't trying to build brides with Africa and African people with all the recent hoopla can see through this.The African-American and continent Africans want to be free from this yoke of white supremecy,and no matter how they try to dress it up we see it for what it is.The man who is chosen to"lead"AFRICOM is General William 'kip' Ward an African American general,so far the only Black man in AFRICOM.Only one African country said it would host it the was Liberia the long step child of America.Funny how the only female head of state on the great continent was the one that agreed to this.
Where are the African-American leaders,business people statesmen ect?They should be the ones driving AFRICOM,not the same racist imperialist who've ruined Latin America.Pan Africanist this is our time to shine and get involved,because if we build Africa the we are setting ourselves free.

Ghana's President John Agyekum Kufour's flop in Kenya.

So Kenya has no need for Ghana’s President John Agyekum Kufuor’s mediation in the on-going "Kenyan situation." As embarrassing as it is, I see it as an invitation to the plane-hopping-overseas-travel-addicted Ghanaian head of state to stay home in bed and reflect on the question “what have you done lately for Africa?” I believe it the same question the Kenyans asked and found the Ghanaian so empty that they had no difficulty telling him to take a hike. This is in spite of the fact that Mr. Kufuor is listed as chairman of the AU an organization for which Kwame Nkrumah sacrificed, suffered and eventually died.

For the years that this man has been in power in Ghana, we have endured the painful irony of a him doing his damndest to deny the Osagyefo while at the same time basking in the sunshine of a great man’s enduring legacy – the independence of Ghana linked with the total liberation of all Africa. We have watched in utter dismay as his government assumes positions that sullies Ghana’s commitment to the unity of purpose that Africa needs to battle the unrelenting designs by Europeans to take what they can from Africa and not pay for them.

Under him, Ghana has behaved at the UN and other international arenas the way neo-colonialist western nations would have it. Kufuor has not passed on any opportunity to visit western capitals to buy designer suits, be received in private audiences, be feted at state banquets and prompted to smile for cameras in photo events. No wonder he is listed as one of the best dressed suit-wearing heads of state in the world. Among his rewards (and other African leaders like him) have been invitations to useless photo-taking/dinner events during G-8 summits in recent years. I suspect Mr. Kufuor has somewhere in his trophy case an autographed replica of the torch he carried around Accra in commemoration of the golden jubilee of Queen Elizabeth’s ascension to the British throne.

When British slave trade apologists needed a “native” to help white wash their role as originators, prosecutors and beneficiaries of the devilish enterprise, they sought Mr. Kufuor out. And he obliged. Back in March of the past year, he stood at Elmina and literally repudiated the fight for the payment of reparations to the descendants of Africans enslaved by Europeans and Americans. He said among other things that Africans should look within themselves and “show remorse” rather than pursue demands for the payment of reparations from foreign nations who initiated and principally executed the heinous Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. He was speaking at a ceremony sponsored primarily by the British to mark the 200 years of the passing of legislation by the British government to abolish slave trade in its territories.

Mr. Kufuor made it be known that paying reparations to Africans as compensation for the evil commerce may prove difficult and complex owing to the fact that Africans themselves played primary role in the trade. He pinned the blame squarely on Africans because they themselves actively participated in the capture and sale of their kith and kin to foreigners. He suggested that Africans would find closure and move forward if they would “show remorse and accord those who suffered enslavement and their successors their full human rights."

No one knows whose interest the Ghanaian leader was representing by these pronouncements. Certainly it wasn’t Africa.

Everywhere you turn, Africa is choked with leaders who cannot see, let alone understand, what the Nkrumahs, the Sekou Toures, the Kenyattas, the Haile Selassies etc saw and understood, that “no single part of Africa can be safe, or free to develop fully and independently, while any part remains un-liberated, or while Africa's vast economic resources continue to be exploited by imperialist and neo-colonialist interests. Unless Africa is politically united, under an All-African Union Government, there can be no solution to our political and economic problems." (Kwame Nkrumah)

Let’s hope and pray that our dream of continental/regional integration expressed in the form of the African Union /ECOWAS etc survives the current crop of gutless leadership on the continent.

Otherwise when the epitaph of the ECOWAS comes to be written, it will record the names of the likes of Ghana’s Kufuor and Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo in infamy. In recent negotiations with the European Union over trade protocols, these two gentlemen took their countries out of ECOWAS’ official position that sought to deal with the EU as a block. Simply put, Ghana and Ivory Coast broke rank with the regional body and left their less endowed neighbors in a lurch. They betrayed the single most important bargaining chirp we have – strength in solidarity. By signing individual interim protocols with the EU, Kufuor and Gbagbo effectively broke the back of regional solidarity and allowed the time tested imperialistic divide and conquer strategy to triumph.

And it isn’t like the deal they went slobbering for is in even in their best interest. It is loaded with dangerous implications such as the permanent elimination of all forms of export taxes, which governments all over the developing world including Ghana, to discourage the excessive export of locally produced materials in their raw form, so as to encourage value added processing and export. This is in addition to an EU proposal calling for liberalization of government procurement, investment rules and capital flows.

Even the EU acknowledges that what they were offering could result in the country losing some revenue when import duties on EU goods were removed. For that the EU promises to put in place a fund to compensate for such revenue losses.

The history of our dealings with the European is littered with countless treaties they wrote in their languages that they had never honored. Let alone what amounts to nothing but a promise. And you bought that? An imperialist’s promise? What ever happened to the funds Britain agreed to provide Zimbabwe to buy back the land colonialist had stolen from the Africans by force or arms and colonial usurpation?

You know you have sold out, betrayed Africa, if you take an action or a position that earns the praises of the agent of western imperialism. So when Mr. Filliberto Ceriani Sebregondi, Head of European Union Delegation in Ghana, on December 12 hailed Ghana's decision to sign the go-it-alone interim Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union he was in fact saying “sucker, Africa, you’ve just been had!!” Thanks to the likes of Kufuor and Gbagbo.

Those who do not learn from history’s lessons are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

By G. Ofori Anor
New York City

George W.Bush.The Road to hell is often paved with good intentions.

When George W.Bush became the 43 President of the United States,many felt it was a false presidency.The voter fraud that some accused the Republican party of gave some an excuse not to like or accept his presidency.The second term validated his first term with an overwhelming vote.

From the very start Mr Bush seemed arrogant, cocky self righteous and always had this smirk of deceit on his face.Many of us opposed to him simply by those observations.We for the life of us don't understand why others cant.I can't see why even hard line conservatives aren't turned off by this.After all isn't it truth we all want?Don't we want peace and being seen by the rest of the world as a good country not a bully?

On September 11 2001 Americans were forced to chose sides.No longer could you objectively criticize you government,country.It was now considered by GW and the neo conservatives as treason.They rationalized that America needed to now wage war on it's enemies. Make no mistake there are people who are really trying to destroy this country.But most of us believe the bigger threat comes from these people who say that they are trying to help or protect us.The Patriot Act although never actually read by any congressman,passed in mist of the hysteria after 9/11 attacks. It is now harder for us to travel receive mail,or get certain jobs without 20 different ids.If you think this protects us think again.

I early 2003 Mr Bush decided to take us to war with Irag.We were told we would be safer once this evil dictator Saddam Hussein is removed from power. Along comes GW the cowboy on a white horse to save the day.There is is one small problem that was four years ago, and the country of Irag is in chaos.There is an undercurrent running through America which is bordering on civil war.This all because one man said he wanted to do something good for the people of Irag.Halliburton CEO made 40 million dollars profit in Irag last year!3500 young men and women are dead!23,000 missing limbs, and forever damaged!400 billion tax payer money gone over this war.

"The road to

hell is often paved with good intentions"