PrintJune 2, 2006
Islam, Christianity, Classical Civilization, and Modernity
Western apologists for Islam are wont to say that the Islamic world of a thousand years ago was far advanced of Christendom, militarily, economically, and culturally. This is a curious claim because the implicit standard of judgment is that of modern secularism, a standard that neither the Islamic world nor Christendom could accept, then or now, which, of course, does not prevent Islamists from opportunistically making use of their useful idiots in the West and their useful secular judgments.
In truth, military superiority has alternated between the Islamic world and Christendom in the millennium since Mohammed's immediate successors conquered most of Christendom. The conquered lands being among the most prosperous and many of the remaining Christian territories being relatively poor, the Islamic world began with a great economic advantage over the European hinterlands, which it proceeded to squander. So now the Islamic world is weak and poor and reduced to living in an imagined past...(Read Full Article)
