Muslim Inventions

May 30, 2011 at 12:59 pm

The State Department in the US has a “1001 Muslim Inventions” program dedicated to praising the supposedly wonderful inventions by Muslims that make our everyday lives oh-so-much easier. In the introduction to a video released last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton goes utterly overboard in the introduction:

I am delighted to send greetings to each of you at this year’s “1001Inventions,” celebrating a millennium of science and innovation in the Muslim world.

This exhibition honors the remarkable accomplishments of Muslims throughout history: from a woman who founded a university in the 9th century – to a 13th century inventor and mechanical engineer – to a surgeon whose writings influenced European medicine for hundreds of years.

And, of course, we’re seeing the impact of technology in the Muslim world right now – as young people throughout the Middle East and North Africa find new ways to use social networking to get organized and express their aspirations.

Odd how Twitter is a wonderful institution when Islamic terrorists are busy overthrowing governments in the Middle East and setting up oppressive totalitarian sharia states but utterly utterly bad when you want to shine a light into corruption in South Tyneside or keep your shagging tales quiet.

Interesting too that they can only list things from the 9th to the 13th Century, which is about where they stopped as a society anyway. NASA couldn’t do much better when instructed that one of their primary missions was Muslim “outreach”.

Perhaps both of those organisations have forgotten the major scientific leaps in the last few years – brought to you by Islam – in suicide vest technology.