The Moors re-civilized Europe after the fall of Rome

[GrandmasterP]

"Put out the light, and then put out the light:

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister."

 

(Othello at 5.2 in lines 9 & 10)

Edited April 3, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Fight facts with facts. Seems more than a few are afraid to be called racist, but facts are not racist and that is how this battle is being fought. Some facts may be presented in an imbalanced way, but I started the topic to balance out those imbalances. If you have honestly looked at the info I have provided and still have reason to disagree, I await to hear those reasons so that I can counter them with other ones. We are here to learn so please, put your cards on the table.

[Nungali]

Its not your intention that is disputed but the way you phrase it , makes it seem 'all encompassing' , eg.

Further, the knowledge in Egypt may have borrowed from various sources, however, my point in this thread is to show the absurdity of modern perceptions of race and civilization, since the people who are the most responsible for passing civilization onto other nationalities throughout history were mostly black Africans.

 

They aren't facts. That is a very generalised and inaccurate statement ... and goes much further than the thread topic.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Its not your intention that is disputed but the way you phrase it , makes it seem 'all encompassing' , eg.

 

They aren't facts. That is a very generalised and inaccurate statement ... and goes much further than the thread topic.

 

Okay, you may have something there, about a side note comment here or there. For example, I'm just assuming the other races didn't show up until about 200,000 years following the advent of the homosapien, though it seems to me like a fair estimate out of the 600,000 thousand years it took to get to even the beginning of progressive civilization.

 

However, if you put the influence of the Ancient Egyptians and the Moors together, there isn't much competition for most responsible for passing civilization onto other nationalities throughout history.

 

For example, the Chinese obviously had a huge influence on modern day realities due to gunpowder, printing, and the compass, however, given that gunpowder and the compass were mostly used as tools of domination and cultural destruction, these advances can't really be compared with the influence of Ancient Egypt and the Moors.

 

Nonetheless, the main point I want to be understood in this thread is that

 

1. The Moors in Europe were predominantly black Africans

2. For 700 years, these Moors had the most power, education, and wealth in Europe

3. This destroys all, unfortunate yet prevalent, modern day racist myths against people merely because they have African ancestry

 

4, 5, and 6 are verging on off topic here, but, for good measure, and to bury those racist myths for good:

4. The Ancient Egyptians were black Africans (see above video "what Africans really look like")

5. Ancient Egypt was the center of learning in the ancient world, where the scholars of Greece and Rome went to learn and then became "geniuses" of their nation because their nation was not educated in Egyptian knowledge.

6. The Moors carried on much of the Egyptian knowledge which is now found in Freemasonic architecture and city planning (it was a Moor who altered Washington's city plan to fit this knowledge).

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Here's some paintings of Moors with dates of the paintings:

 

http://moorishsociety.com/tag/moorish-paintings/

 

Note that the later paintings followed the earlier paintings in depicting Moors as what today would be called Black.

 

Here's wikipedia of painter Ludwig Deutsch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Deutsch

 

Rudolf Ernst

Note how many white people you see with power in these paintings compared to how many black people you see with power.

 

When looking at all of these paintings, it seems to make sense that some say "Moorish" used to mean the same thing as "Black" does today.

 

They might look slightly more East African like Ethiopian, rather than predominantly West African, but Black people, Moorish people, had the most education, power, and wealth in Europe from approx 700 BCE until 1492 when the "Christians" took over and moved west.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Taomeow]

It wasn't the Moors after all...

 

[CloudHands]

Reading what I red is not a good way to start a day.

 

Because we have, for some, to start back with the basics :

First and last... there is no human races but only human race (scientific fact). Differences are cultural, I know it's a very common error but there is no good reason to keep going this (#@~#!!!!!!) way.

 

 

"Modern humans (Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens sapiens) are the only extant members of the hominid clade, a branch of great apes characterized by erect posture and bipedal locomotion; manual dexterity and increased tool use; and a general trend toward larger, more complex brains and societies."

[Marblehead]

Fight facts with facts. Seems more than a few are afraid to be called racist, but facts are not racist and that is how this battle is being fought. Some facts may be presented in an imbalanced way, but I started the topic to balance out those imbalances. If you have honestly looked at the info I have provided and still have reason to disagree, I await to hear those reasons so that I can counter them with other ones. We are here to learn so please, put your cards on the table.

I acknowledge your good intentions. I have presented alternate considerations. I did not try to demean any one or any group of people. I did my best to present factual information.

 

I have no intention of suggesting that one group of people are better than another group. Different societies evolve based on their own variables.

 

I have already been accused of being a racial bigot just because I use the "N" word. How wrong is that!?

 

Thing is, whenever we polarize people we will be giving support to those who wish to denigrate other groups of people. This never leads to anything good.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Reading what I red is not a good way to start a day.

 

Because we have, for some, to start back with the basics :

First and last... there is no human races but only human race (scientific fact). Differences are cultural, I know it's a very common error but there is no good reason to keep going this (#@~#!!!!!!) way.

 

 

"Modern humans (Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens sapiens) are the only extant members of the hominid clade, a branch of great apes characterized by erect posture and bipedal locomotion; manual dexterity and increased tool use; and a general trend toward larger, more complex brains and societies."

 

The fact of the matter is that most people do not think the way you do. This is why I created the thread, to prove that racial theory is myth and B.S.

 

It's also fine and dandy for a lot of people to say "oh race doesn't matter, don't even talk about it" when they aren't subject to racial discrimination on a daily basis due to the existing racial myths which they want to simply ignore as if that will actually get rid of them.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Harmonious Emptiness]

I acknowledge your good intentions. I have presented alternate considerations. I did not try to demean any one or any group of people. I did my best to present factual information.

 

I have no intention of suggesting that one group of people are better than another group. Different societies evolve based on their own variables.

 

I have already been accused of being a racial bigot just because I use the "N" word. How wrong is that!?

 

Thing is, whenever we polarize people we will be giving support to those who wish to denigrate other groups of people. This never leads to anything good.

 

Did that say what it looks like it said?

[GrandmasterP]

Nice is a nice N word.

If that word MH refers to is what I hope it isn't then that N word isn't a nice word at all.

No more from me on that topic.

Edited April 4, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Apech]

Nice is a nice N word.

If that word MH refers to is what I hope it isn't then that N word isn't a nice word at all.

No more from me on that topic.

 

 

In Marbleheads defence people use that word as part of street language ... I wouldn't use it because its so loaded.

[GrandmasterP]

+1

No criticism of MH was intended to be implied.

He's a throughly good guy.

Edited April 4, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Marblehead]

Did that say what it looks like it said?

Yes. But you know what? No one who has ever accused me of being a racial bigot for using the word has everasked me in what context I use the word and certainly no one has ever asked me to explain my justification for using it. I am defined by others based solely on the use of one word.

 

Samuel Jackson and John Travolta used the word numerous times in the movie "Pulp Fiction" and people thought it was "cool". John Lennon used it in the title and lyrics of a song and people thought it was very imaginative. I use it and I'm a racial bigot. My Black friends use it in order to properly express themselves. I was once called a "N" by a very well educated Black man. (Long story.)

 

I don't talk about races of people. But I do use the proper words when referring to a niggardly person. And yes indeed I have seen and known white, brown, red, yellow and black skinned niggardly people.

 

So let's stop talking about race even though our government supports racial descrimination. Let's talk about being human and humane.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Fight facts with facts. Seems more than a few are afraid to be called racist, but facts are not racist and that is how this battle is being fought. Some facts may be presented in an imbalanced way, but I started the topic to balance out those imbalances. If you have honestly looked at the info I have provided and still have reason to disagree, I await to hear those reasons so that I can counter them with other ones. We are here to learn so please, put your cards on the table. (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

Do you mean fight 'facts' like these:

 

Spain only united in terms of the Hapsburg court in 1492. The preceding 700~900 years were the domain of peoples of all the North African cultures under the umbrella of the advanced and progressive Califate in Iberia— and it is reasonable to state categorically that none of its influence is attributable to anything remotely Egyptian. (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

 

with facts like these:

 

 

With this cute animated gif, even you and 'deci belle' should understand that by 1300 the only Islamic Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula was the Emirate of Granada, which survived as long as it did because it was a tributary state of the Kingdom of Castile.

 

Wikipedia on the Reconquista

 

Wikipedia on Emirate of Granada

 

and just as tiny side note, the Hapsburgs did not unify Spain, it was the Spanish Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile that accomplished that. The Hapsburgs did not rule Spain until the death of Ferdinand in 1516.

 

Wikipedia on Ferdinand and Isabella

 

I don't even want to get into the Arab Slave trade:

 

Wikipedia on the Arab slave trade

 

and the part that the so-called 'Curse of Ham' played in the presence of Blacks in the Iberian Peninsula:

 

Wikipedia on the Curse of Ham

 

While Genesis 9 never says that Ham was black, he became associated with black skin, through folk-etymology deriving his name from a similar, but actually unconnected, word meaning "dark" or "brown". The next stage, are certain fables according to ancient Jewish traditions. According to one legend preserved in the Babylonian Talmud, God cursed Ham because he broke a prohibition on sex aboard the ark and was "was smitten in his skin"; according to another, Noah cursed him because he castrated his father. Although the Talmud refers only to Ham, the version brought in the Medrash goes on further to say "Ham, that Cush came from him" in reference to the blackness, that the curse did not apply to all of Ham but only to his eldest son Cush, Cush being a sub-Saharan African. Thus two distinct traditions existed, one explaining dark skin as the result of a curse on Ham, the other explaining slavery by the separate curse on Canaan.

The two concepts may have become merged in the 7th century by some Muslim writers, the product of a culture with a long history of enslaving black Africans; the origin and persistence of the "Curse of Ham", in which Ham, blackness and slavery became a single curse, was thus the result of Islam's need for a justifying myth. Many mediaeval Muslim authorities including Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Ibn Khaldun, and even the later Book of the Zanj all asserted the view that the effects of Noah's curse on Ham's descendants included blackness, slavery, and a requirement not to let the hair grow past the ears. This is despite the fact that the account of the drunkenness of Noah is not included in the Qur'an. Islam holds that prophets of God are infallible.

 

So much for 'advanced and progressive' Caliphates.

 

I didn't join the Tao Bums to post on things like this and I don't think I am alone in this regard. I despise racism and racists and have since I was a boy in fifties, but I also resent the waste of my time that this post represents, in order to refute just a few pseudo-facts. I wish I could bill you and 'deci belle' for my time as a historical researcher, but I doubt that either of you would pay. The time required to address all of the psudo-facts upon which the original posts are based would be enormous, maybe you want to start paying me to teach you history. If not, then I propose that both this and your other thread on this topic be locked and banished to the Pit so that they stop wasting my time and the time other Tao Bums.

[CloudHands]

The fact of the matter is that most people do not think the way you do. This is why I created the thread, to prove that racial theory is myth and B.S.

 

It's also fine and dandy for a lot of people to say "oh race doesn't matter, don't even talk about it" when they aren't subject to racial discrimination on a daily basis due to the existing racial myths which they want to simply ignore as if that will actually get rid of them.

 

I totally agree with your intention, actually I mainly reacted against the IQ test.

Before someone post this kind of pro racist stuff, he has to know what's an IQ test, and in the present case what is the compared population of the study.

A huge part of the IQ depends on vocabulary and language understanding which is mostly related to education and cultural/social environment.

You can't compare people like that.

Edited April 4, 2014 by CloudHands

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Zhongyongdaoist, thank you for engaging the topic and correcting me on the details of my dates.

 

What I should have said is not that there was no more Moor power in Europe after 1492. True I don't have so many details on the dates.

 

Wikipedia has:

The Moors invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711 and called the territory Al-Andalus, an area which at different times comprised Gibraltar, most of Spain and Portugal, and parts of France. There was also a Moorish presence in what is now Southern Italy, primarily in Sicily. They occupied Mazara on Sicily in 827^[1] and in 1224 were expelled to the settlement of Lucera, which was destroyed in 1300. The religious difference of the Moorish Muslims led to a centuries-long conflict with the Christian kingdoms of Europe called the Reconquista. The Fall of Granada in 1492 saw the end of the Muslim rule in Iberia.

 

 

but,

 

it still stands that it was the Moors who brought education back to Europe, and it was primarily black Africans who were teaching them maths, sciences, chemistry, literacy, medicine, and hygiene.

 

There was also an Arab slave trade with it's false myths, but the Moors in Europe were no doubt free and thriving, and you can see from the paintings, most of the Moors were black. It's not that hard to find paintings of Moors with light skin, but not as many.

[see post #30]

 

Note that nowhere have I said this means one race has inherently more potential than another. Only that this history of European education destroys present day racial myths based on the idea that whites were teaching all of this stuff, so they're the smart ones.

 

 

The way I see it, it was mostly maths and sciences and other knowledge developed in the ancient world which continued outside of Egypt and then later re-learned by North Africans who taught them to Europe.

 

[edited to add wikipedia quote and refer to post #30]

Edited April 5, 2014 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Another thing I should add here about the Arab-African slave trade, is that, as vortex mentioned in the second thread, those slaves, whether African or white, were all castrated and served in very "non-masculine" roles. They were not warriors as you will find in all of the paintings of black-African Moors.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Another thing I should add here about the Arab-African slave trade, is that, as vortex mentioned in the second thread, those slaves, whether African or white, were all castrated and served in very "non-masculine" roles. They were not warriors as you will find in all of the paintings of black-African Moors.

 

I was already a little ahead of you 'Harmonius Emptiness' and had researched that quote from 'vortex'. It is from a book by Bernard Lewis, Race and Color in Islam (1979). He wrote a later book, Race and Slavery in the Middle East, Oxford Univ Press, 1994; Chapters of which are available online here:

 

Race and Slavery in the Middle East, chaps. 1 & 9

 

Chapter 9 of which, 'Slaves in Arms', deals specifically with the Islamic use of slaves in military service and is available online at the above link.

 

I don't have time right now to excerpt it, but will. In the meantime I suggest you look it up and tell us what you think.

 

 

 

Edit: Rushed the link to Bernard Lewis on Wikipedia did not work, corrected it.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Zhongyongdaoist

[Harmonious Emptiness]

-

Edited April 7, 2014 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Harmonious Emptiness]

edited the post many times, so, here's the final draft:

 

I was already a little ahead of you 'Harmonius Emptiness' and had researched that quote from 'vortex'. It is from a book by Bernard Lewis, Race and Color in Islam (1979). He wrote a later book, Race and Slavery in the Middle East, Oxford Univ Press, 1994; Chapters of which are available online here:

Race and Slavery in the Middle East, chaps. 1 & 9

Chapter 9 of which, 'Slaves in Arms', deals specifically with the Islamic use of slaves in military service and is available online at the above link.

I don't have time right now to excerpt it, but will. In the meantime I suggest you look it up and tell us what you think.

 

 

 

Edit: Rushed the link to Bernard Lewis on Wikipedia did not work, corrected it.

 

quote from above link:

Offspring: The recruitment of the slave population by natural increase seems to have been small and, right through to modern times, insufficient to maintain numbers. This is in striking contrast with conditions in the New World, where the slave population increased very rapidly. Several factors contributed to this difference, perhaps the most important being that the slave population in the Islamic Middle East was constantly drained by the liberation of slaves -- sometimes as an act of piety, most commonly through the recognition and liberation, by a freeman, of his own offspring by a slave mother. There were also other reasons for the low natural increase of the slave population in the Islamic world. They include

• 1. Castration. A fair proportion of male slaves were imported as eunuchs and thus precluded from having offspring. Among these were many who otherwise, by the wealth and power which they acquired, might have founded families .
• 2. Another group of slaves who rose to positions of great power, the military slaves, were normally liberated at some stage in their career, and their offspring were therefore free and not slaves.
• 3. In general, only the lower orders of slaves -- menial, domestic, and manual workers -- remained in the condition of servitude and transmitted that condition to their descendants. There were not many such descendants -- casual mating was not permitted and marriage was not encouraged.

 

So then for 600 years of military people being freed and having offspring with parents in powerful military and political positions -- what do you think happened?

 

 

Imagine a large population of military soldiers who were freed, and mostly Muslim, meaning they were allowed to have power in the Muslim ruled territories, while the white mostly Christians were systemically disenfranchised in the Muslim ruled territories.

 

These black Muslims had children who were free and who's parents held power in society, while the whites were living in deep financial, intellectual, and cultural poverty after the fall of Rome in 400 AD (the European feudal system didn't even start until 900 CE, 200 years after the Moors had conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula).

 

If any of these free people, with their powerful parents, had a child, and the mother was enslaved, the father could simply declare her FREE, and their children would grow up with the same powers!

 

Imagine! Slavery only ended 150 or so years ago in the West, and people are still disenfranchised/not embraced, for the most part, by the cultural majority in "the system."

 

The African descendants in the Iberian Peninsula and the surrounding areas (about 1/4 of Europe) were free and politically advantaged, being Muslim, and often connected to the military. These politically advantaged populations, with their military connections, held lots of power in their territories.

 

The tables were turned in these areas for 600 years when white people were (treated as) the "heathens/infidels," and black people were sitting in the chair of political, economic, and societal privilege, not to mention cultural advantages of education, science, math, literacy, and medicine which the Europeans finally (re)learned from the Moors.

[Marblehead]

I just thought I would mention that I have never owned a slave.

[Apech]

I just thought I would mention that I have never owned a slave.

 

 

That's funny I could have sworn I saw you at Bull Run in the rebel colours.

[Marblehead]

That's funny I could have sworn I saw you at Bull Run in the rebel colours.

Nope. That had to have been someone else.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

edited the post many times, so, here's the final draft:

 

 

quote from above link:

 

Offspring: The recruitment of the slave population by natural increase seems to have been small and, right through to modern times, insufficient to maintain numbers. This is in striking contrast with conditions in the New World, where the slave population increased very rapidly. Several factors contributed to this difference, perhaps the most important being that the slave population in the Islamic Middle East was constantly drained by the liberation of slaves -- sometimes as an act of piety, most commonly through the recognition and liberation, by a freeman, of his own offspring by a slave mother. There were also other reasons for the low natural increase of the slave population in the Islamic world. They include

• 1. Castration. A fair proportion of male slaves were imported as eunuchs and thus precluded from having offspring. Among these were many who otherwise, by the wealth and power which they acquired, might have founded families .
• 2. Another group of slaves who rose to positions of great power, the military slaves, were normally liberated at some stage in their career, and their offspring were therefore free and not slaves.
• 3. In general, only the lower orders of slaves -- menial, domestic, and manual workers -- remained in the condition of servitude and transmitted that condition to their descendants. There were not many such descendants -- casual mating was not permitted and marriage was not encouraged.

 

So then for 600 years of military people being freed and having offspring with parents in powerful military and political positions -- what do you think happened?

 

 

Imagine a large population of military soldiers who were freed, and mostly Muslim, meaning they were allowed to have power in the Muslim ruled territories, while the white mostly Christians were systemically disenfranchised in the Muslim ruled territories.

 

These black Muslims had children who were free and who's parents held power in society, while the whites were living in deep financial, intellectual, and cultural poverty after the fall of Rome in 400 AD (the European feudal system didn't even start until 900 CE, 200 years after the Moors had conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula).

 

If any of these free people, with their powerful parents, had a child, and the mother was enslaved, the father could simply declare her FREE, and their children would grow up with the same powers!

 

Imagine! Slavery only ended 150 or so years ago in the West, and people are still disenfranchised/not embraced, for the most part, by the cultural majority in "the system."

 

The African descendants in the Iberian Peninsula and the surrounding areas (about 1/4 of Europe) were free and politically advantaged, being Muslim, and often connected to the military. These politically advantaged populations, with their military connections, held lots of power in their territories.

 

The tables were turned in these areas for 600 years when white people were (treated as) the "heathens/infidels," and black people were sitting in the chair of political, economic, and societal privilege, not to mention cultural advantages of education, science, math, literacy, and medicine which the Europeans finally (re)learned from the Moors.

 

No?