Bush commutes Libby sentence

[Occhidiangela]

This seems like a very blinkered view of history---for maybe 700 years Islamic civilization was one of the most cultured and tolerant part of the world, responsible, for example, for the preservation of knowledge from the ancient world that was all but forgotten by what passed for civilization in Western Europe at the time. I can highly recommend reading the accounts of Ibn Battuta, a 14th century Muslim from Morocco who traveled 75,000 miles over 29 years across the entire Islamic world (as well as to Sri Lanka, China, Byzantium and Russia).

If you call "clutured" the principle of taxing people for having a different religion, second class citizenship, full participation in the slave trade, and conversion by the sword for those not part of Abrahamic sects, sure, but I think Islam was "enclutured" by the PErsian, Greek, Egyptian, and other actual civilized societies, and all it brought was social cohesion and order via a common cultural rule set.

Let's not give it more credit that it is due, since Mohamed wasn't a mathematician, nor a logician, but a leader, warrior, and merchant. IMO, a key contribution of Islam, like Christianity, was its impact on spreading the written word and thus empowering literacy, albeit for non secular aims.

Occhi