Arabs didn't invent zero

There are some very real contributions to mathematics made by Arab Muslims, but they are vastly inflated by the Western press and indeed by Muslim themselves. The Brussels Journal has this to say on the topic:

I heard the claim from one European reader that “The Arab world invented the zero, and it’s been downhill ever since.” This is false, but unfortunately not an uncommon mistake. Our numeral system dates back to India during the post-Roman era, but it came to Europe via the medieval Middle East which is why these numbers are called “Arabic” numbers in many European languages. Yet even Muslims admit that they imported these numerals from India. Calling them “Arabic” numerals is this therefore deeply misleading. “Hindu-Arabic” number system could be accepted, but the preferred term should be “Indian numerals.”

Read it all here.

The Pope and his European Crusade

I like this guy, he's really got balls:

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution that overthrew Communism in Czechoslovakia, the pope is visiting what many religious observers, unfairly or not, consider the ground zero of religious apathy in Europe. Vatican officials said that he had chosen the Czech Republic for a mission central to his papacy: fomenting a continentwide spiritual revolt against what Benedict labeled Saturday as “atheist ideology,” “hedonistic consumerism” and “a growing drift toward ethical and cultural relativism.”

From IHT.

Tarek Fatah on Israel and Palestine

It caused the 1948 “Naqba”—the Catastrophe—but it was not Israel alone. It was politician Nuri as-Said’s Iraqis who sold out after secret deals made on the island of Rhodes; it was Jordan’s King Abdullah trying to reach backroom deals with Israel’s Golda Meier; but above all it was the arrogance and self-righteousness that made us refuse every advantage that came our way, lose every war we fought, and fail to develop a literate, democratic, secular society as an answer to Israel’s challenge. The all-or-nothing strategy meant “all” for the monarchs and mullahs, and “nothing” for the Palestinians.

Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State
Tarek Fatah
Wiley, 2008, pp 78, 79

Elders are priests? From 1 Clement

It is often said by fellow evangelicals that it is a post-Constantinian development (and maybe even medieval) that the elders and deacons of the Church started to be identified with Aaronic priests and Levites of the OT. And that because of this the 'biblical' concept of the priesthood of all believers was gradually lost.

The problem? Clement, a disciple of Paul and bishop of Rome, writing around the year 100AD, makes the connection explicitly himself:

1 Clement 40 -- LET US PRESERVE IN THE CHURCH THE ORDER APPOINTED BY GOD.

These things therefore being manifest to us, and since we look into the depths of the divine knowledge, it behoves us to do all things in [their proper] order, which the Lord has commanded us to perform at stated times. He has enjoined offerings [to be presented] and service to be performed [to Him], and that not thoughtlessly or irregularly, but at the appointed times and hours. Where and by whom He desires these things to be done, He Himself has fixed by His own supreme will, in order that all things being piously done according to His good pleasure, may be acceptable to Him. Those, therefore, who present their offerings at the appointed times, are accepted and blessed; for inasmuch as they follow the laws of the Lord, they sin not. For his own peculiar services are assigned to the high priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and their own special ministrations devolve on the Levites. The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen.

Christian Lange on the Islamic vision of hell

Am reading right now parts of a recently-published volume called Public Violence in Islamic Societies (2009 Edinburgh University Press) and one of the articles in it, 'State Punishment and Eschatology' by Christian Lange, has some great clarifications regarding the medieval Islamic understanding of hell:

In the eschatological imaginaire of medieval Islam, punishment of Muslims in the other world is thus conceived of as a real threat. There is a tangible fear of becoming the target of divine acts of violence after death. This is not an ever-present fear, perhaps, but rather, a nagging suspicion that things might go terribly wrong after all. (p 160).

It is interesting to note that, despite their ugliness and general nastiness, the gaolers of hell are angels. They are, as it were, on the side of power. In a sense, they are agents of God's siyasa, His terrifying but ultimately just use of punishment. (p 163)

On the Relation between commerce and mission and Providence

Note that this is from way back in 1863:

And has not He made Britain and America great in [merchant] ships for this end? Let our rich merchants beware of boasting that the arms of their own skill and enterprise have done all this. God has assuredly done it, in order, among other things, to provide means and afford facilities for the setting up of his Kingdom. But it does not follow from this that the missionary is to be, in any sense, an auxiliary to the trader.

p 77, The Heathen World and the Duty of the Church
Alexander Robb
Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot 1863

If Europe's values aren't Christian then what are they?

From a WSJ book review:

Most European elites, though, have not debated seriously the potential effects of introducing into this land of postmodern chatter millions of devout believers in another religion, one previously seen as antagonistic to European culture. As Mr. Caldwell says, Europe's elites seem hardly to have considered that the ethical views they pride themselves on have little meaning when divorced from Christian origins.

Many Europeans are determined to defend their values— witness France's ban on headscarves in schools—but it is hard to defend what you cannot define. "There is no consensus, not even the beginning of a consensus," Mr. Caldwell writes, "about what European values are." When the Netherlands decided not long ago to try to define its values and inculcate them in prospective new residents, it ended up producing a ghastly naturalization packet that included a video that featured "gays expressing affection in public, and bare-breasted women on the beach." Welkom, immigrants!

USA: Anti-every religion (except Islam)

Great quote here from an Islamic author:

"Upon landing in the U.S. after speaking at a conference in Poland, I noticed that the first picture welcoming international visitors to the U.S. at Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) was of two Muslim women wearing the hijab. The photo also portrayed a mosque and the crescent as a symbol for Islam. I have noticed on other visits to the airport that the same photo is in the same position: Window A1 of the immigration hall, where the travelers show customs officials their documentation. I have checked the other pictures in the hall to see if other religions are also represented in the same manner. To my surprise, there are none. The ONLY religious symbols that exist in such a manifest manner are the Islamic ones. This situation raises an important question: why don't the airport authorities acknowledge other faiths as well? If the answer is that Muslims are a minority, then why doesn't acknowledge the other religious minorities?"

From this author, the quote is HERE.

The Early Church called the Eucharist a sacrifice

It is hard to argue with such a clear statement as that which we find in the Didache (written c. 100):

And when coming together on the Lord's own day, break bread and give thanks after confessing your transgressions. In that manner, your sacrifice will be pure. And do not let anyone coming with a quarrel against a brother join you until they get reconciled, in order that your sacrifice is not impure. For this has been spoken of by the Lord, "in every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great King," says the Lord, "and My name is wonderful among the nations." (Didache 14:1-3)

There is no interstice between 100 AD and the Apostolic period. The Gospel of John was probably taking its present form at the time and, according to some scholars, 2 Peter had not yet been written.

The Apostolic Church called the eucharist a sacrifice and had no problem with that sort of language.

Prayer, Ramadan, Cookies

Hi All,

My wife made some cookies and I went out today to visit three groups of friends to give them a plate of cookies as a Ramadan gift, along with a nicely printed Sermon on the Mount in Arabic.

Please say a prayer for the people who received this. We have known them all for some time and have good relationships with all of them.

Salam,

AD

Sayyid Qutb on the Western concept of religion

These research scholars [who define jihad as defensive warfare], with their defeated mentality, have adopted the Western concept of 'religion', which is merely a name for 'belief' in the heart, having no relation to the practical affairs of life, and therefore they conceive of religious war as a war to impose belief on peoples' hearts.

Milestones, 76.

The important thing here is that Qutb is correct in finding the Western category of 'religion' as shallow and false. --AD

Sayyid Qutb on the rights of Islam over society

Thus, wherever an Islamic community exists which is a concrete example of the Divinely-ordered system of life, it has a God-given right to step forward and take control of the political authority so that it may establish the Divine system on earth, while it leaves the matter of belief to individual conscience.

Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, p 76.

The slow death of the Jordan River

The BBC has a great photo-series about the Jordan River. Do check it out. Very sad.

In Pictures: Journey down the Jordan

And remember my predictions about the next big war being about water--not oil.