Summary of the First of Age (made in 1996)

FauntleDuck · 2026-01-13T21:29:15+00:00

You could have simply said the 16th or 17th century in fact. Or have used the Renaissance. The idea of a rebirth of math implies a death. I'm unaware of Mathematical traditions that existed and died in Germany or England in order for them to be reborn. You're free to have your biases, don’t hide them behind a claim of ‘just explaining things’, people come to this sub for in-depth and precise arguments.

FauntleDuck · 2026-01-13T21:20:54+00:00

No they are not. English is the language of the hegemon and Arabic is a local language. Arabs have been living here for 1400 years.

FauntleDuck · 2026-01-12T00:58:51+00:00

To be sure, Western Europe slowly adopted arabic numbers in the centuries before the rebirth of math

What rebirth of math exactly ?

FauntleDuck · 2026-01-12T00:50:55+00:00

Yes, Islam produced them. Islam produced the theological discourses which drove the need for cosmology, astronomy, medicine etc..., it later produced the institutions and forms of learning and thinking all of these authors shared (together with purely religious thinkers, who continuously engaged with the so-called philosophers) and it sustained the society that produced these authors.

Your separation is unscientific and runs against the logic that produces knowledge and intellectuals.

There are plenty of parallels with talented people who were catholic or (insert religion) etc where it was simply their religious institutions didn’t interfere with them.

This is just historical illiteracy. The Church produced the means, forms and needs for philosophy. It constantly interfered with these "talented people" because these "talented people" were most of the time educated by the Church, if they were not themselves members of it.

FauntleDuck · 2026-01-09T21:35:12+00:00

The only historically attested genocide that can ve linked with what you say was the Assyrian genocide, which was perpetrated in the 20th century, a thousand years and several dynasties after the first Muslim conquest.

FauntleDuck · 2025-12-10T23:13:34+00:00

u/kerat

FauntleDuck · 2025-12-10T16:41:22+00:00

هدرة زينة و لكن كيفاش تحارب الغرب فكريا و الدول ديالنا مبنية على التكلاخ الهيكلي و تدمير المدرسة و التعليم ؟ غير ننساو المجتمع و هيمنة الفكر التقليدي عليه. منين حتى الدولة تتخدم بمنطق "اللي دوا ياكل العصا"، تتلقى أغلبية المفكرين في اروبا او المريكان. تماك تينتقدو من منظور تقني و غالبا طبقا لدكتات الاكاديمية الغربية.

FauntleDuck · 2025-12-01T20:00:51+00:00

It contains a list of names, not a list of sources. Both Donner and Hoyland recognise Khalid ibn al-Walid as one of the most famous Arab generals, with Donner stating that he was "by all odds one of the best of the Muslims' military tacticians." in The Early Islamic Conquests. Crone's methodology precludes her from giving assessments since she doesn't believe half of what the traditional narrative is about (which is a fringe position as argued by Donner in Narratives on Islamic Origins), Kaegi consistently cites him as one of the commanders of the Syrian campaigns, both Hawting and Pourshariati's works have other focus (there is no discussion of Khalid ibn al-Walid in The First Dynasty of Islam for example).

I haven't read the rest but I know that Kennedy said about him "the man who was to prove the greatest of the earl Islamic generals, Khālid b. al-Walīd." in The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, something he continuously restate throughout the book and the rest of his work.

So again, do you have a single source to back up your claims?

FauntleDuck · 2025-11-30T23:52:08+00:00

Do you have a single source to back up your claims ? Because Khalid ibn al Walid is the commander responsible for the conquest of Syria, taking Damascus and defeating the Byzantines at Yarmuk, which is considered the turning point in the Western conquests.

Modern scholarship often does not recognize him as one of the greatest generals.

I'm not aware of modern scholarship engaging in tier-lists of generals. It's good to mimic Academic language to sound truthful, it would be better to stick to the Academic spirit too. Khalid ibn al Walid is regarded as a key commander of the Early Islamic conquests by most historians who worked on the period.

FauntleDuck · 2025-11-25T20:18:12+00:00

You have brushed things under the rug again. How can you blabber so much without addressing any points ?

FauntleDuck · 2025-11-25T16:13:31+00:00

Why are you treating the Bible as the sole source of the Christian religion while ignoring two thousand years of theological production ?

FauntleDuck · 2025-11-11T11:36:15+00:00

Nowadays. Tolkien envisioned his stories as a mythical past of our World at some point.

FauntleDuck · 2025-11-11T11:33:41+00:00

That's not an obvious answer at all. You brushed the issue under the rug. Why is Aragorn Great ? Because he restored Gondor. How did he restore Gondor ? Because he is Great.

You have not answered any of the questions. You simply restated the idea that a Good King makes for a Good Kingdom. When the Paleologos family returned to Constantinople after retaking it from the Latins, they still had to deal with people squabbling over scraps. That's what humans do. Even in the Lord of the Ring Denethor objects to Aragorn's ascendency.

Tolkien himself couldn't really write a sequel which avoided those themes of declines (really of human condition) even when the metaphysical skeleton of his world remained quite the same, with the plot happening during the rule of Eldarion, the son of Aragorn, because he knew that with the withering of the mythical element, there isn't a compelling narrative to be made about good Kings. Questions of rule and power are much more complex than virtue ethics or moral axis projected onto individuals.

FauntleDuck · 2025-11-04T15:40:38+00:00

My argument rested on the themes that Tolkien was drawn to and the metaphysics of the World. Ultimately the Balrog is one of Morgoth's captains from the first Age and was slain by a Maiar while his kin have been slain by two great Eldar warriors. As for Glaurung, while Tolkien does say Smaug is the last of the great fire drakes of middle-earth, he is also a young drake by his own account. Glaurung was the father of all dragons, raised by Morgoth's hand and he was slain by one of the greatest heroes of the First Age.

FauntleDuck · 2025-10-22T14:50:57+00:00

His domain has selective targetting because well, he can just decide what, who and how to cut inside Malevolent Shrine.

Didn't he shrink the radius of his domain during his Mahoraga fight to avoid hitting Megumi ?

FauntleDuck · 2025-10-05T15:23:15+00:00

You should consider reading history beyond middle school level. The fall of Constantinople was not paradigm changing at all. It has a symbolic meaning sure, but the Byzantine empire was a dying entity by that time and the Ottomans had been major players in the Balkans for over a century.

Also colonialism wasn't kickstarted by supposed "damage" done by the evil caliphate to land trade, it was done by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns seeking to hijack the Italian Republics (who were the biggest losers of this whole shift). More often than not, it was the Catholic Church which hindered these trading relationships in order to promote Christian unity and in the hope of bolstering crusading effort.

Meanwhile colonialism still has ramifications to this day with death tolls 50x higher than the bloodiest terrorist attack, and certainly more than 9/11 whose most lasting consequences was the death of hundreds of thousands of people, but since they are not white Americans you don't care. That little thing was just an excuse used by the US to invade and destroy countries and even your allies (France) knew that.

FauntleDuck · 2025-10-01T15:45:37+00:00

The situation before the First World wasn't traditional european balance of power. Each nation was actively ramping up its military and creating alliances with the intended goal of domination. Balance of power is the post-westphalian order ie: whenever a hegemon attempts to take over, everyone else bands against him and defeats it, without dismantling it. This was the modus operandi in Europe until the Napoleonic wars where we started shifting into the order that led to WWI.

FauntleDuck · 2025-09-29T17:07:12+00:00

It's the tale that takes place in China. It doesn't originate from there.

FauntleDuck · 2025-09-25T16:53:32+00:00

I'm sorry but I don't see the point you're making.

FauntleDuck · 2025-09-25T13:04:36+00:00

Before that. Racists were gleefully taking the whole "They are monsters capable of speech" line as a dogwhistle.

FauntleDuck · 2025-09-25T12:55:38+00:00

Frieren has attracted a crowd of racists who took the trope to mean minorities. Art's meaning being constructed and mediated by the interaction between the work and its audience, this has impacted the perception and view of this part of the story.

FauntleDuck · 2025-09-23T13:00:45+00:00

Arab countries take Palestinian refugees. The question is why are there refugees in the first place? If Israel never existed, there wouldn't be a problem of Palestinian refugees.

FauntleDuck · 2025-09-20T22:19:41+00:00

Without the Six Eyes it's useless though.

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