Sunday, July 11, 2010

Charles Bolden’s outreach to Muslims ignores the West’s influence on science.

National Review
 "In the 16th century, astronomer Taqī al-Dīn built one of the world’s great observatories in Istanbul. It rivaled that of the pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe — while it lasted.
"“Taqī al-Dīn’s observatory was razed to the ground by a squad of Janissaries, by order of the sultan, on the recommendation of the Chief Mufti,” Bernard Lewis writes in his book What Went Wrong? “This observatory had many predecessors in the lands of Islam; it had no successors until the age of modernization.” "

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