The Kingdom Come

The Obama White House has tasked NASA to "find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering." -- source

The elites often like to claim that while pre-Medieval and Medieval Europe was groping around in the so-called "Dark Ages", Islam and Muslim culture was imparting to the world, great scientific strides. But let's back up a little. Where were the great centers of learning and knowledge resource BEFORE the advent of Islam?

Perhaps the most advanced center was in Alexandria Egypt, which before Islam began to conquer the Greco-Roman-Christian world Alexandria warehoused the largest library. The "ALEXANDRINA BYBLIOTHECE" originally named after Alexander the Great (not a Muslim) and first constructed in the third century B.C. had been partially or completely destroyed in the succeeding years and rebuilt. But the Great Library was ultimately and completely destroyed under the Muslim conquest of Egypt in September 641 A.D. (resource)

In truth, the Muslims went about conquering the Hellenistic world, which up to this point had been the main contributors and protectors of advanced knowledge. To portray Europeans as dolts that had to be educated by Muslims is a complete revision of history when instead, the Greco-Roman Empire dominated all of the regions we now consider to be Europe, along with most of the "Middle-East" regions. If anything, Europe went "dark" when the Muslims destroyed the Eastern Roman Empire including Constantinople and further disallowed Western traders to travel east either via land or the Mediterranean (This is the reason the European countries were so obsessed with finding an alternate trade route to the "east", which resulted in finding the "New World" and circumnavigating Africa. -- source) Especially telling is this quote:

"The meteoric rise of Islam closed off any further European exploration or exploitation of the spice routes. Conversely, a whole new world was opened up for the merchants of the Muslim world. Their newly found power allowed them to venture deep into Asia as never before. The Islamic texts give the first detailed descriptions of the emporiums of the East. By at least the ninth century, a massive trade ensued between the two regions greatly enriching the the Islamic caliphate. Magnificent cities and buildings were constructed throughout the Muslim lands at the same time that Europe sunk into the dark ages." -- source

So, it was not so much that Islam has given the world scientific advances but rather that Islam stole and stifled other cultures which under Hellenistic control had more opportunity to advance.

I understand why the Obama White House is attempting a policy of helping Muslims "feel good about their historic contribution", but the historic FACT is that Islam hasn't contributed as much as Obama may think. Obama's policy is to bring Islam in as an unheralded contributor, to "level the playing field" but it is simply more of Obama's "distribution" mentality, whether it is an attempt to distribute other people's wealth or to distribute credit for advancement; Obama's liberal mentality that there are no "losers" in the world is playing out in everything Obama does.