Re: OT More pens (was Re: Phoneme winnowing continues)

On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 08:58:58PM -0700, Garth Wallace wrote:
> >I believe Moslems would disagree. esp., about their importance being solely
> >a geographical issue.
>
> Even if you define "importance" in terms of contact with the Western
> world, Islam has a couple of major points in its favor: Islamic
> civilization preserved some important writings of Aristotle that were
> otherwise lost, and then there were the Crusades.
I corrected Stone privately, but just for the record: I never said that
the importance of Islam was geographical.  I said that the current tension
between Muslims and Jews was largely motivated by geography.j There's
a difference.  Of course Islam is very important in Western history!
The Islamic cultures of the Near East were making scientific and mathematical
discoveries and producing art while Europe was in the dark ages, for instance.

-Mark