News

The brilliant answer to what the world would look like without Muslims

Picture:
Picture:
Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Animosity against Muslims is a prevalent issue.

A report commissioned by the government over integration has been criticised for focusing on Muslims.

The Casey Review mentions Muslims 249 times, while other communities, from Poland for example, take a back seat, perhaps due to terror attacks and the horrors of Isis which are splashed across the news regularly.

However terrorism is by no means limited to Isis or to Muslims.

On Saturday thirty-eight people died in Istanbul after a car bomb hit a police vehicle, and a suicide bomber caused further fatalities near the Vodafone Arena.

The attack was later claimed by Kurdish militant group the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), indicating heightened tension between the Kurdish minority and the Turkish government.

According to one study, more than half of Britons see mainstream Islam as a threat to Western liberal democracy.

This underlying xenophobic sentiment was perhaps best expressed when one Tumblr user posed a very simple question, with a very inflammatory image:

Imagine a world without Muslims.

Picture: MicDotCom/Tumblr

But what followed was a response with a list of things invented by or significantly developed by Muslims and the Islamic world:

  • Coffee
  • Cameras (first optic camera, Ibn al-Haytham)
  • Experimental Physics
  • Chess
  • Soap
  • Perfume/spirits
  • Irrigation
  • Crank-shaft, internal combustion engine, valves, pistons
  • Combination locks
  • Architectural innovation (pointed arch -European Gothic cathedrals adopted this technique as it made the building much stronger, rose windows, dome buildings, round towers, etc.)
  • Surgical instruments
  • Anaesthesia
  • Windmill
  • Treatment of Cowpox/inocculation
  • Fountain pen
  • Numbering system (of Hindu derivation)
  • Algebra/Trigonometry
  • Modern Cryptology
  • 3 course meal
  • Crystal glasses
  • Carpets
  • Cheques
  • Gardens used for beauty and meditation instead of for herbs and kitchen.
  • First degree-granting institution, also known as the University
  • Optics
  • Musical notes
  • Toothbrush
  • Hospitals
  • Bathing
  • Quilting
  • Soft drinks
  • Lipstick and eyeliner
  • Plastic surgery
  • Calligraphy
  • Manufacturing of paper and cloth
  • Parachute

Well then.

HT Mic.com

More: Show this Facebook post to anyone who thinks all terrorists are Muslims

More: Show this list to anyone who says a Muslim city wouldn't elect a Christian leader

The Conversation (0)
x