University of Sankore Confirmed PLUS Images of the Bezerker and MORE!

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by NFIH


Well, of course one doesn't have to literally force anyone to adopt the conquering culture. The "conquered" culture accepts the conquering culture because it's, well, been conquered. It is a somewhat natural consequence of being conquering.

Originally posted by johnmcd


Really couldn't disagree more.

I could, and do!

Conquered cultures certainly don't voluntarily adopt the cultures of conquerers, at least that's not the norm. From my own country's history, untill our declaration of independence in the early 20th century, we were intermittently under the rule of the Swedes and the Russians, for hundreds of years, yet Finns retained their own language and culture, even in the face of attempts by the Russians to actively intergrate Finns to Russian culture.

The countries behind the iron curtain didn't adopt Russian culture either; after the collapse of communism, what remains is the national identities and cultures of these nations.

Mostly it is human instinct to resist conquerers to the end, not to become like them.

Of course, how a conqured nation responds to being conquered much depends on the nation in question. For example, India took on the English language from colonnial times. But then again, who can say that Indian culture isn't highly distinctive, and very different from Brittish culture?

Tibet is under the rule of China, but despite active attempts at integration, Tibetans still consider then Tibetans and not Chinese, and the Buddhism-centered culture shows no signs of dying out.

I think that more cultural spread and adoption occurs through voluntary adoption, through trade and other contacts with foreign nations than through conquered nations adopting the ways of their masters.

More recently, Iraq is in practice under the rule of the Americans at the moment, and we can all see how "eager" the people of Iraq are to adopt American culture.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by NFIH
Well, of course one doesn't have to literally force anyone to adopt the conquering culture. The "conquered" culture accepts the conquering culture because it's, well, been conquered. It is a somewhat natural consequence of being conquering.

Not necessarily. For example, after the fall of the Roman Empire, which culture eventually prevailed?

Another example. When another tribe/country conquered China, inevitably that tribe/country became "Han-ised," as it took up Chinese culture.

Originally posted by NFIH
It reminds me of Dick's The Man In the High Castle, postulating an alternate future where Japan and Germany won WWII. American culture is reduced to a novelty and Americans in fact adapt German and Japanese "ways of being." Not because those ways are better, but simply because America lost and the Axis won.

Sure, but that's only a novel, which isn't very useful for supporting your point.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MightyTiny
Tibet is under the rule of China, but despite active attempts at integration, Tibetans still consider then Tibetans and not Chinese, and the Buddhism-centered culture shows no signs of dying out.

Integration is not assimilation.

[MightyTiny]

True - perhaps I should have said "despite active attempts at assimilation".

[johnmcd]

I wonder if this belief about guns being the real engine for cultural spread lies behind the current 'hearts and minds' strategy?

[NFIH]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Not necessarily. For example, after the fall of the Roman Empire, which culture eventually prevailed?

Another example. When another tribe/country conquered China, inevitably that tribe/country became "Han-ised," as it took up Chinese culture.

OK, but all I'm saying is that it's "usual" for the conquered people to adopt the culture of the conqueror, willingly or not.

For example, English is the dominant language of the world--and language is the single greatest expression of culture. It is only dominant because the nations that spoke English were the most physically powerful. I'm sure there are plenty of people that don't want to speak English but if they want to do anything in the world, they're pretty much going to have to speak English

Sure, but that's only a novel, which isn't very useful for supporting your point.

I said it "reminded" me of the discussion being had here, did I not? And it does illustrate the point about how cultures can spread--namely, at the point of a gun.

[NFIH]

Originally posted by johnmcd


Really couldn't disagree more.

LOL! Were you planning on explaining why?

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by NFIH


LOL! Were you planning on explaining why?

I think that if you look at history the attempts to supplant culture with force are the ones which are most doomed to failure.

I actually disagree with you that language is the greatest expression of culture. It's a media - not a message. Culture is in the message. Language is not a culture, nor an alphabet. The books, poems and speeches that be made in that language are the culture.

[padillah]

I, for one, would like to apologise for statements made by Autotropx Sox on behalf of Americans.

Most of the people I know do not view Muslim as backwater to any degree.

I would also like to applaud Solver for his restraint in allowing Autotropx Sox a few posts to defend himself (and, hopefully, extricate himself) before bringing down the hammer. I know the flag he displays is not his country but it does make me think he is sympathetic and still remained open-minded enough to rebut someone attacking Arabs in general.

Kudos to the site, in general.

Now, on topic.

I like when Firaxis puts in the more obscure references. It makes me want to look them up and see what they really were. Besides, given the expanse of the computer world, how much common knowledge can their target audience be expected to have.

That is to say, given the number of people that have bought this game something is going to be "obscure" to someone no matter what you do. So embrace it!

Tom P.

[Jaybe]

The definition of culture is definitely fuzzy enough to invite different interpretations. Literature, architecture, visual art, music, surviving monuments, ....

How about giving a ranking of what matters most in culture for a never-ending argument.

[Arrian]

Good post, padillah. Seconded.

-Arrian

[LordShiva]

Thirded

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Autotropx Sox
It doesn't matter if you think I am owned or not Lord Shiva.

The point still stands that the University of Sankore was a religious monastery teaching philosophy and theology related to Islam, not science, mathematics, and generally important things which have contributed to modern ideas, beliefs, and cultural values. Sure, if Islam had became the prominent force in the world and had stomped Europe out during the Middle Ages, its impact on the modern world would be great; but it didn't.

And, as it stands, the University of Sankore, like almost all things from the period of Muslim hegemony over the Middle East, Africa, and Parts of Asia, is obscure, unimportant, and utterly useless to a game trying to give us the highest achievements of human kind, not the lesser ones.

Honestly, keep your PC propaganda at home.

What makes this post so desperately sad, is that you're playing a game called 'civilization' and yet choose to disparage one of the prime movers of the development of the Western world from being a cultural backwater- a 'peninsula of Asia' in effect- to being a group of world powers which colonized the Americas, parts of Africa and Australasia.

It's no coincidence that the first Europeans to enter the Indian Ocean via the Cape were helped by Islamic naval technology and Judaeo-Islamic cartographical skills. When Vasco da Gama reached East Africa, he needed the aid of a Muslim pilot.

It's also no coincidence, that Europe's first university founded and run by laymen was the University of Naples, established by Emperor Frederick II, a man who esteemed Islamic learning and civilization, made a peace treaty with Muslim powers, and was considered a heretic by some in the Christian West.

The curriculum at mediaeval Western universities was made up of the trivium and the quadrivium, or the seven liberal arts, and the study of grammar, or logic, was used thus:

In the high Middle Ages, as a way of educating their students, university masters would engage in public debates on all manner of things, including theological questions. This practice, which had its origins in the ancient Greece of Aristotle, came to be called Scholasticism and was used by the Church to refute ideas considered heretical by using logic to expose "false" beliefs.

http://www.triviumpublishing.com/articles/trivium.html

The notion that mediaeval Western universities functioned as a secular strictly science only variety of M.I.T. is entirely ludicrous.

We even have mediaeval scientists doubting their own discoveries and logic BECAUSE THEY CONFLICT WITH HOLY SCRIPTURE AND ARISTOTLE.

Sankore was not a monastery- Islam and Judaism, unlike Christianity, take a more realistic approach to human sexuality. Sankore didn't simply churn out celibate monks:

To the wider community, the university furnished teachers, men of religion, jurists, and a class of merchants, notaries, and clerks. There emerged within the vicinity of the Sankore’ University/Mosque complex scholarly guilds who combined the teaching of `ilm with the transmission of professional vocations.

There were the Alfa guilds responsible for the transmission of the craft of scribe, tailoring and embroidery.

There were the Arma guilds responsible for the transmission tanning and leatherwork. There were the Modibe’ guild responsible for the transmission of city planning, architecture, masjid construction and the important craft of grave digging (malu). They also supervised the gabibi guild of masons (soro banna), carpentry, and smiting (diamouasi).”

http://www.sankore.org/public_html/index2.html

It seems your particular way of seeing things has already been predicted:

Our teacher, the late Waziri of Sokoto, Junayd ibn Muhammad al-Bukhari once said:

"Knowledge is universal and eternal but it has a social and cultural stamp. It also has a purpose and a commitment to a particular world view. It therefore cannot be neutral."

Fortunately in Old Europe we can regard the cultural and scientific achievements of Islam from centuries of intimate contact and trade with Muslim states and individuals:

Hugo of Santalla:

" it befits us to imitate the Arabs especially, for they are as it were our teachers and the pioneers."

Vesalius:

" [they spend their time] unworthily decrying Ibn Sina and the rest of the Arab writers."

In fact, he was so impressed by the scientific acumen of Arab civilization that he began to learn Arabic to read texts in the original.

There were 30 editions of Ibn Sina's 'Ka'nun' printed in Italy between 1500 and 1550- it became a set medical text throughout Europe. It was also one of 80 texts translated from Arabic into Latin in Toledo in the 12th Century by Gerard of Cremona.

In 1531, Otto Brunfels printed an edition of Ibn Sarabiyun's 'Materia Medica', originally composed in the 9th Century.

Insurance, reinsurance, letters of credit, cheques, double entry bookkeeping and of course Arabic numerals were commonplaces across the Dar al Islam before they were taken up by Fibonacci in the 12th Century. To no-one's surprise, I'm sure, Fibonacci was an Italian trading with MuslimNorth Africa:

Fibonacci was born in Italy but was educated in North Africa where his father, Guilielmo, held a diplomatic post. His father's job was to represent the merchants of the Republic of Pisa who were trading in Bugia, later called Bougie and now called Bejaia. Bejaia is a Mediterranean port in northeastern Algeria. The town lies at the mouth of the Wadi Soummam near Mount Gouraya and Cape Carbon. Fibonacci was taught mathematics in Bugia and travelled widely with his father and recognised the enormous advantages of the mathematical systems used in the countries they visited. Fibonacci writes in his famous book Liber abaci (1202):-

" When my father, who had been appointed by his country as public notary in the customs at Bugia acting for the Pisan merchants going there, was in charge, he summoned me to him while I was still a child, and having an eye to usefulness and future convenience, desired me to stay there and receive instruction in the school of accounting. There, when I had been introduced to the art of the Indians' nine symbols through remarkable teaching, knowledge of the art very soon pleased me above all else and I came to understand it, for whatever was studied by the art in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Sicily and Provence, in all its various forms. "

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Fibonacci.html

It still took until the 15th Century for the use of Roman numerals to be entirely superseded by the use of Arabic numerals in Western Europe. Lead a horse to water and all that...



Johannes Kepler thought Ibn Al Haytham ' the Father of Optics' and felt studying his work to be immensely profitable. You, presumably, know better.

Michel Chasles describes al Haytham's work of :

"being at the very origin of our knowledge of optics."

With his 'Optics' al Haytham was one of those Islamic scholars who demonstrated that empirical experiments, learning by trial and observation, showed that the ancient Greeks and others were not infallible. Through direct observation and calculations they contradicted and overturned received opinions based merely on 'authority'- this at a time in the West when it was near sacrilegious to doubt Aristotle.

Humboldt said: " ...the highest level of science is attained by those who themselves cause phenomena to happen, at their own will.

The Arabs reached this level which had been virtually unknown to the ancients."

An Hispano-Moorish astrolabe, dating from c.1300 a.d. :

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Autotropx Sox
Ignorance, honestly, knows no bounds

Algebra was developed in Ancient Babylon,

I'd certainly say someone was proving that....


Prove that algebra was 'developed' in Ancient Babylon by all means.

in spite of the fact that I grew up in Malaysia

And so what ?

George Bushbaby apparently went to university, as did Prince Charles, for all the good it did either of them.

"manifest destiny"

You know that phrase rings a bell. But I'm fairly certain it isn't of Arabic or Islamic origin....

I have yet to see one credible thing actually making the Islamic world of the Middle Ages, its "golden age", a credible period to add into the game. They simply didn't accomplish anything except for the spread of their religion into Asia, Africa, and Europe.

You're right of course.

We should ignore the use of streetlighting in Cordoba at a time when the rest of Europe was just trying to survive.

Ignore any and all Islamic contributions to astronomy- azimuth, nadir, astrolabes, the names of stars like Algol, Altair, Aldebaran, Rigel, Vega, Achernar...

Rule out the introduction of tangents into trigonometry, the substitution of sines for chords, the marriage of algebra with geometry, the solution of cubic equations & research into conic sections, spherical trigonometry, confining the resolution of triangles to certain fundamental theorems, introduction as far back as the 10th Century of tangents into astronomical calculations, the preparation of tables showing motions of stars; (deep breath)

rigorous determination of obliquity of ecliptic & progressive decline, precise estimation of the precession of equinoxes, first precise determination of length of the year, noticing irregularities of the greatest latitude of the moon & the discovery of the 3rd lunar anomaly, now known as a 'variation.'

This is all without of course mentioning any of the innovations in medicine, surgery, dentistry, distillation, chemistry- their discovery of how to distil alcohol from starch/sugary substances, make sulphuric acid from distillation of iron sulphate, the manufacture of nitric acid, aqua regia, sal ammoniac, potash, silver nitrate, corrosive sublimate, cupellation, dyeing innovations, metal extraction, sublimation, crystallization...

'The Hakemite Table' of Ibn Jounis:

The Egyptian astronomer, Ibn Jounis, who flourished during the reign of El Hakam II, prepared the Hakemite Table - which superseded all previous tables and was reproduced in all subsequent works on astronomy, including that of the 13th Century Chinese astronomer Co Cheou King.

The Alfonsine Tables:

In the thirteenth century, Alfonso X of Leon and Castile, also known as Alfonso the Wise, encouraged many Arabic works to be translated into Castilian. Although possibly of later origin, the Alfonsine Tables take the eve of his coronation, 31 May 1252, as the starting point. Along with the canon (derived from the Arabic word 'qanun', meaning 'thread' or 'model') or introductory instructions of John of Saxony, the Alfonsine Tables became a highly influential set of astronomical tables in Europe. Copernicus learnt how to use the Alfonsine Tables at the University of Cracow. By following the rules of calculation, based on periods of planetary motions, in principle the user could derive from the base Alfonsine year the planetary position for any given time or any given place.

http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/tables.html

Copernicus and the (Muslim) Tusi Couplet:

Arabic/Islamic Science and the Renaissance Science in Italy

Between the years 1957 and 1984, Otto Neugebauer, Edward Kennedy, Willy Hartner, Noel Swerdlow, and the present author, as well as others, have managed to determine that the mathematical edifice of Copernican astronomy could not have been built, as it was finally built, by just using the mathematical information available in such classical Greek mathematical and astronomical works as Euclid’s Elements and Ptolemy’s Almagest.

What was needed, and was in fact deployed by Copernicus (1473-1543) himself, was the addition of two new mathematical theorems. Both of those theorems were first produced some three centuries before Copernicus and were used by astronomers working in the Islamic world for the express purpose to reform Greek astronomy.

http://www.columbia.edu/~gas1/project/visions/case1/sci.2.html

Yes, it's all a P.C. plot, I tell's ya!!!!!!

[Yosho]

Originally posted by NFIH


Eh? And here I thought Europe dominated because it had the guns and used them. You've managed to trace it back to the superiority of "European classic music." Haven't heard that one before.

Culture goes where the guns go. This is why American culture is the most dominant culture today. Obviously, many millions of people, especially Europeans, decry American culture but America is the strongest and ergo its culture dominates.

Yeah, I really can't agree with that either.

It is true that culture can spread through conquest, but how many countries around the world has America really conquered and then try to remake in it's own image? If I were to really strech a point, I could possibly name Japan and Germany after WWII, or perhaps the millitary "influence" America excerted over parts of South America, but that's about it.

I would say that the reason American pop cultrue has been so popular is more because a country with a great amount of wealth has chosen to devote a huge amount of it's resources towards pop culture. How much does a Hollywood movie cost? How much is spent on music CD's every year?

Why is it that musicians from all over the world are fighting to "break into" the American market? Because that's where the money is.

When America is willing to spend 100 million dollers on making one movie, and because of the money paid to people in the movie making buisness they have attracted a great deal of talent in those fields from all over the world over the years, both acting, directing, and scriptwriting, it's no surprise that they produce a movie that people all over the world want to watch.

Unless it's changed recently, I believe that the second biggest producer of movies in the world right now is India, (the whole "Bollyworld" movie thing), and you could hardly say that's because India has been conquering people. Some types of Japanese pop culture have become popular in America recently; is that because Japan is a millitary superpower?

While it's presented in a very abstract way, I would say there's something to the idea in civ games that resources spent on culture can allow one nation to gain some kind of "cultural influence" with other nations. I don't really think millitary power has much to do with it at all.