> It's jarring to think that if intelligent life were on Kepler 452-b and observing Earth, we're so far away that they would be seeing our "civilizations" in 615 AD: shrinking global population as the old Roman and Byzantine empires are overrun by barbarian hordes and Arab conquest, with some pockets of human progress in China.
Is there something uncivilized about the Arab conquest of Byzantine lands? Had the Kepler 452-b-ians been observing Earthians but a few hundred years prior, they'd have seen the Romans doing much the same to expand their own empire. And the Arabs did quite a good job to not only preserve the Roman intellectual and scientific state of the art, but to contribute their own advancements of those fields.
Not a dig at anyone, especially not the Arabs who basically preserved philosophy and mathematics while Europe entered the Dark Ages. My point was simply that Kepler 452b-ians observing Earth would be seeing lots of war and destruction even though we're currently peacefully collaborating among mankind to discover and explore planets.
> My point was simply that Kepler 452b-ians observing Earth would be seeing lots of war and destruction even though we're currently peacefully collaborating among mankind to discover and explore planets.
There's a quite a bit more human energy going into war and destruction right now than into "peacefully collaborating among mankind to discover and explore planets."
> observing Earth would be seeing lots of war and destruction even though we're currently peacefully collaborating among mankind to discover and explore planets.
If they were observing us today, they'd still see plenty of war and destruction.
It just so happens that a fraction of the worlds population lives under "peaceful" conditions. That's not universally true.
It is more proper to refer to them as Muslims, not Arabs. The whole point of Islam was to unite everyone under the same ideology. That's why it's called the Islamic civilization.
Was anybody but Arabs involved in the conquest of the early 7th century? Ie I'm sure other people took on Islam afterwards but he was talking about a specific point in history.
We don't call the Spanish conquest of the Americas a Christian one even though they were Christians who ultimately converted everybody to Christianity.
Quite a few of the Prophet's companions were not Arabs, but yes the majority were. Nonetheless, it is more correct to identify as a Muslim before an Arab.
What irritates me greatly is when historians refer to the Muslim scientists of the Islamic Golden Age as "Arabs", when most of them were not Arabs at all. It's such a simpleminded and sweeping generalisation that clearly shows the thoroughness of the so-called orientalists.
I think it may be the preferred nomenclature in the Muslim world since all the people who were conquered are now Muslim - so they should have an easier time accepting the fact of being Islamicized as that's their culture now (whereas bringing up the fact that they were conquered by a foreign people might stir up tensions).
I agree with you about the second point. I guess it's due to the fact that they wrote in Arabic and many of the people they actually belonged to no longer exist (for example al-Khwārizm was from a Persian family but born in what is today Uzbekistan - I actually visited his hometown :)
>What irritates me greatly is when historians refer to the Muslim scientists of the Islamic Golden Age as "Arabs"
To me it's strange to ascribe such areas of study to the religion. What does Islam really have to do with optics besides Ibn Al-Haytham being a Muslim? No one ever ascribes enlightenment science as 'Christian science'.
I'm sure some people track these sort of tribal affiliations between inhabitants of the British isles over the course of a millenium, too, but again I'd consider it a silly thing to get riled up about.
Is there something uncivilized about the Arab conquest of Byzantine lands? Had the Kepler 452-b-ians been observing Earthians but a few hundred years prior, they'd have seen the Romans doing much the same to expand their own empire. And the Arabs did quite a good job to not only preserve the Roman intellectual and scientific state of the art, but to contribute their own advancements of those fields.