Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site rlvd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!mcvax!ukc!warwick!rlvd!mike From: mike@rlvd.UUCP (Mike Woods) Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: Re: Islam (long but informative) Message-ID: <686@rlvd.UUCP> Date: Fri, 9-Aug-85 07:26:02 EDT Article-I.D.: rlvd.686 Posted: Fri Aug 9 07:26:02 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 01:06:06 EDT References: <264@harvard.ARPA> <3200042@uiucdcsb> <526@scc.UUCP> Reply-To: mike@rlvd.UUCP (Mike Woods) Organization: Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, Atlas Buildings, U.K. Lines: 22 Xpath: warwick ubu In article <526@scc.UUCP> steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) writes: > > The Islamic people took the books of the Greeks and kept them. >The Christians in Europe burned them books. After the worst part >of the "dark ages" the books were reintroduced to Europe. During >the dark ages, the Islamic civilization invented Algebra and so >on . . . > According to my understanding of history (which is perhaps a little shaky), Greek, Roman, and just about all other literature was lost because of the fall of the Roman empire and a subsequent lack of anyone to prevserve the books. The Christians (or to be precise, the monks) saved what they could but as it took a looong time to copy a book their efforts were devoted to Christian literature (mainly the Bible). In all, it was a lack of a civilised world that destroyed Greek literature, not overt action by the Christians. Mike. Yes, I am a Christian. No I am not biased, just objective.