How Eurocentric is your day?

[ensho]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KK06Ak01.html


-snip-

This autumn, I began my first lecture on Eurocentrism by asking my students, “How Eurocentric is your day?” I explained what I wanted to hear from them. Can they get through a typical day without running into ideas, institutions, values, technologies and products that originated outside the West - in China, India, the Islamicate or Africa?

The question befuddled my students. I proceeded to pepper them with questions about the things they do during a typical day, from the time they wake up.

Unbeknownst, my students discover that they wake up in "pajamas", trousers of Indian origin with an Urdu-Persian name. Out of bed, they shower with soap and shampoo, whose origins go back to the Middle East and India. Their toothbrush with bristles was invented in China in the fifteenth century. At some point after waking up, my students use toilet paper and tissue, also Chinese inventions of great antiquity.

-snip-

I walk my student through her breakfast. Most likely, this consists of cereals, coffee and orange juice, with sugar added to the bargain. None originated in Europe. Cereals were first cultivated in the Fertile Crescent some 10,000 years BCE. Coffee, orange and sugar still carry - in their etymology - telltale signs of their origins, going back to the Arabs, Ethiopians and Indians. Try to imagine your life without these stimulants and sources of calories.

How far could my students go without the alphabet, numbers and paper? Yet, the alphabet came to Europe courtesy of the ancient Phoenicians. As their name suggests, the Arabs, who, in turn, obtained them from the Indians, brought Arabic numerals to Europe. Paper came from China, also brought to Europe by the Muslims.

-snip-

In her prayer, my Christian student turns to a God who - in his human form - walked the earth in Palestine and spoke Aramaic, a close cousin of Arabic. When her thoughts turn to afterlife, my student thinks of the Day of Judgment, paradise and hell, concepts borrowed from the ancient Egyptians and Persians. "Paradise" entered into English, via Greek, from the ancient Avestan pairidaeza.

-snip-

Our student runs into fields of study - algebra, trigonometry, astronomy, chemistry, medicine and philosophy - that were introduced, via Latin, to Western Europe from the Islamicate. She also encounters a variety of scientific terms - algorithm, alkali, borax, amalgam, alembic, amber, calibrate, azimuth and nadir - which have Arabic roots.

-snip-

On a clear night, with a telescope on her dormitory rooftop, our student can watch stars, many of which still carry Arabic names. This might be a fitting closure to a day in the life of our student, who, more likely than not, remains Eurocentric in her understanding of world history, little aware of the multifarious bonds that connect her life to different parts of the "Orient".
-------------------------------


the snips are just as interesting

the religiously insane will say all of the above is not true, while their heads are stuck in the sand.

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

[Cybergata]

2. Again, Native Americans were left out!

They developed potatoes, corn and many other foods that are very adaptable to difficult climates. CHOCOLATE!

[Indenturedebtor]

9. Yep and no mention of Jews

I like how he used the Roman name for Israel as well.

Here's a small list of things that do have a big daily impact

Albert Einstein Physicist
Jonas Salk Created first Polio Vaccine.
Albert Sabin Developed the oral vaccine for Polio.
Galileo Discovered the speed of light
Selman Waksman Discovered Streptomycin. Coined the word 'antibiotic'.
Gabriel Lipmann Discovered color photography.
Baruch Blumberg Discovered origin and spread of infectious diseases.
G. Edelman Discovered chemical structure of antibodies.
Briton Epstein Identified first cancer virus.
Maria Meyer Structure of atomic nuclei.
Julius Mayer Discovered law of thermodynamics.
Sigmund Freud Father of Psychotherapy.
Christopher Columbus (Marano) Discovered the Americas.
Benjamin Disraeli Prime Minister of Great Britain 1804-1881
Isaac Singer Invented the sewing machine.
Levi Strauss Largest manufacturer of Denim Jeans.
Joseph Pulitzer Established 'Pulitzer Prize' for achievements in journalism, literature, music & art.

[Vehl]

31. You left out the Mayan mathematics! They had a calender more accurate than our current one :)

[Cybergata]

3. Again, Native Americans were left out!

They developed potatoes, corn and many other foods that are very adaptable to difficult climates. CHOCOLATE!

[pampango]

4. Always great to teach (remind) people (particularly young ones) that our society's accomplishments

are built on a foundation of knowledge and achievement from others who have gone before us. :)

[Brewman_Jax]

5. K&R

:kick:

[Confusious]

6. trigonometry, astronomy, chemistry, medicine and philosophy

were all Greek, though expanded by the Muslims, before they turned to religocraziness. Like how he left that out.

[Indenturedebtor]

11. Mmmm I don't agree with that statement

Medicine was Egyptian before it was greek. Astronomy was and is practiced by all peoples. Philosophy is also practiced by all peoples. The forms that Philosophy and Astronomy now take (in the west) were heavily influenced by the Greeks but they certainly didn't invent them.

[Confusious]

13. OK

Hippocratic oath, the the rod of Asclepius with its single encoiled serpent, constellations are greek, name a philosopher before plato and socrates. They were the first to put them into a form of knowledge that could be passed on.

You could discover the meaning of life, but if you don't pass it on, does it matter or mean anything to anyone but you?

Besides that, did you even read the article? He was talking about the Chinese inventing paper, and then skipped into the muslim world and Medicine, Astronomy and Philosophy. I read that he was claiming that Islam started Medicine, Astronomy, Philosophy. They started other things, such as algebra, but those, no.

[comrade snarky]

14. 2500 years before there was a Hippocratic Oath

There was Imhotep.

Philosopher, poet, architect and Visir to the Pharaoh Djoser. He designed the Step Pyramid at Saquara, one of the first Egyptian pyramids. In his writings you'll find the proverb "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we will die". He was renowned as a healer and writer on medicine. Egyptologists today hope to find his tomb, if they do there will probably be a wealth of writings on early medicine. By the time of Hippocrates he was worshiped as a god.

His name is still well enough known to the general public 4500 years after he died that Hollywood used it in those mummy movies.


The Greeks didn't originate everything but they sure wanted everyone else to think they did.

[Confusious]

16. I never said they did

"His name is still well enough known to the general public 4500 years after he died that Hollywood used it in those mummy movies"

Not really, I know more about history then the average person, and I didn't know who he was.

"By the time of Hippocrates he was worshiped as a god."

By the Egyptians, and not for anything but being part of the ruling click.

I'm sure he passed all that knowledge on, and thats why its called the Imhotep oath, and not the Hippocratic oath.

Another person who didn't read the article.

I just had a problem with him claiming that these particulars came from the Muslim world, in a form that would be passed on to later generations.

[comrade snarky]

24. Oh... well, if you don't know about him...

You're the one who couldn't name a philosopher before the Greeks. Don't get pissy with me for your own ignorance.

If you think the legacy of Imhotep is that he was a member of the ruling class we're done here. You don't know diddly about it and apparently prefer top stay that way.

[Confusious]

27. I don't see you naming one before either.

And I wasn't being pissy. I'm sorry if you read that. I was just getting exasperated defending the fact that I thought most of the stuff I listed came from the greeks, when the author made it sound like it came from the muslim world. *SHHHEEESSSHH*

Medicine

Imhotep is credited with being the founder<10><11><12> of medicine and with being the author of a medical treatise remarkable for being devoid of magical thinking, the so-called Edwin Smith papyrus containing anatomical observations, ailments, and cures. The surviving papyrus was probably written around 1700 BC but may be a copy of texts a thousand years older. This attribution of authorship is speculative, however.<13>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imhotep

Your right, as far as this goes, but I still think the Greeks, while they did not invent it, gave it more prominence in their world, and so people remember that.

Christoper Columbus didn't discover the "new world", but no one in Europe remembers the first few times it was "found", so he gets the credit.

[Indenturedebtor]

50. No matter what - Islam didn't appear till sometime around 600 AD

So pretty much none of this stuff but Algebra had much of anything to do with Islam.

[Confusious]

54. Finally!

My entire point!

[Johonny]

17. I agree

Read a good science book a while back on the different pre Greek ancient cultures and their different levels of science and math. It's an interesting read. Not sure the point of my ancient culture is bigger than your ancient culture thread. But I guess some people don't understand ancient cultures did talk and communicate ideas with each other.

[Confusious]

18. great

"It's an interesting read. Not sure the point of my ancient culture is bigger than your ancient culture thread."

Another person who doesn't read articles, or the posts before the one in front of their face.

Review before you post please.

[Johonny]

19. I read all your posts

just agreed with the other poster not you. Sorry.

[comrade snarky]

25. There's some great work being done on early civilizations

It's fascinating the way knowledge spread through the ancient world, Plato himself traveled in Egypt and gave some credit to the "barbarian philosophers". I'm certainly not trying to say the Egyptians were greater, I just didn't want to see 2500 years of human history kissed off in a thread about ethnocentrism.

The primacy of Greek and Roman philosophy and culture is a leftover of 19th century thinking. Well, 19th century thinking and a whole lot of Roman propaganda.

Romans, a people who lived by the creed "If it ain't Roman, it's CRAP!"

[Confusious]

26. That's scottish damn it!

I'm irish. I'm not kissing off 2500 years of anything. I love history and finding out where things come from.

But as far as the things mentioned, the Greeks, I guess you can say "codified" it to be passed on.

Columbus "discovered" the new world, but did he. No one remembers the times before.

[Vehl]

37. Norseman Leif Erickson might demand wergild from you :P!. nt

[comrade snarky]

40. Ha! You posted while I was writing my reply

If great minds think alike does that mean the opposite it true as well?

[Vehl]

44. beat you by 2 mins :))

indeed! maybe its just a defense mechanism that made us do this...i mean...who would want to have a Berserker Viking chasing them with a double headed war-axe in their nightmares!


:fistbump:

[comrade snarky]

39. Leif Erickson holds up an ax and says "Excuse me"

Oh man, now you've done it. :evilgrin:

Egypt is my wife's passion, Pre-Colombian Meso-America is mine. The Teotihuacan civilization and preclassic\classic Maya for the most part.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that no civilization went it alone. OK, maybe Rapa Nui because of the crazy isolation but that's about it. If the Greeks made advances it's largely due to what came before. The Phoenicians, the Minoans, the Egyptians and untold others without whom the Greeks wouldn't have existed as we know them. I'm not trying to minimize the Greeks (messed up Sparta aside, those dudes were creepy) they achieved great things.

I think it's partly due to advances in technology and relative closeness in history that we have elevated the Greeks to such a lofty height. We are closer in time to Plato than Plato was to Imhotep. That and Greek philosophy was kept by the Romans who took it with them to the Byzantine Empire. From there it traveled to the East and then with the fall of Constantinople back to the west. If it weren't for Rome, Greece would be just another set of interesting ruins.

Other civilizations weren't so lucky.

Much Egyptian history and literature was lost in the Library of Alexandria. Mayan writings were burnt by the Spanish conquistadors and the priests who went with them. Out of the hundreds of codices that existed in the 15th century only 3 and a tiny fragment of a 4th survived. The work of a civilization, gone.

[Confusious]

43. My point is a little different

I know none went at it alone, but some made more of an effort which led, for good or ill ( I like to think for more good ) to keep things alive which led to the modern science and the modern world. While I was reading about the papyrus of imhotep which would lead to modern medicine, I also read about another which blamed sickness on demons, and how to get rid of them. The Greatest accomplishment of the greeks was probably sifting through the superstition to find the real, which would lead to modern science.

And yes, no Rome, no Greeks to remember, and probably not a whole lot of other things.

"Much Egyptian history and literature was lost in the Library of Alexandria. Mayan writings were burnt by the Spanish conquistadors and the priests who went with them. Out of the hundreds of codices that existed in the 15th century only 3 and a tiny fragment of a 4th survived. The work of a civilization, gone."

Thats always really. really, really sad.

My heart always sinks when I see them destroy historical artifacts in movies, even if they aren't real.

[comrade snarky]

46. I'm not a greek scholar

But there were a few great ones. Aristotle came close to formalizing a scientific method based on observation.

Astounding!

Annnnndd then he goes off into a treatise on the 3 types of soul and what creature gets which ones and in what combination. Without attempting to take anything away from them, I have to say I don't find ancient Greece that far outside the arc of development. They had a couple of Leonardo Da Vinci type geniuses and made some fine advancements but I honestly don't think they deserve the level of credit they've been given.

Maybe I'm a little overly sensitive to it ever since college. I had a professor who thought they were the be all end of of human history. He believed that was because they were the first to worship gods in human form. Bzzzzttt Wrong. I brought him Sumerian depictions of gods as human and images of Zeus being worshiped in the form of a snake. Didn't matter. He was old and rigid, facts be damned. Sadly it's not the only time I've found that attitude.

Ever since then I've been wary of Greek adoration.

[Confusious]

47. I don't adorate them

I think they contributed much to certain areas of science and art, and other civilizations did the same, but like you said, since the library of alexandria was burned down ( stoopid christians ( carl sagan: cosmos )) we'll never know.

Even the bible is a rip-off of the babylonians and egyptians.

[Vehl]

33. Reminds me of what the Egyptian Priest tells Solon. From Plato's "Timaeus"

"O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children. And no Greek is an old man. For you have no learning that is hoary with age."


It's found in Plato's Timaeus

"....To this city came Solon, and was received there
with great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in
such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither
he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the
times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of
antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our
part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man,"
and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion
and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and
reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events
of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who
was of a very great age, said:

O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are
never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you.
Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied,
that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down
among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with
age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many
destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest
have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other
lesser ones by innumerable other causes..."

PS: I hope no one misinterprets this as a post dissing the Greeks. I'm but saying that a lot of the paths we take now have already been traversed by those who came before us.

[voc]

28. well done. nt

[comrade snarky]

41. Thanks (nt)

[Indenturedebtor]

49. Constellations aren't greek

The zodiac was most certainly not invented by the greeks, though the greeks made significant contributions to western astronomy. And please ask the Chinese and the Indians to find Caseiopaeia... but they likely would be able to find Leo (though by a different name).

For philosophy consider King Wen of Zhou in China. Consider Moses. And many more who came well before.

Moses and Wen's thoughts are probably better known and were spoken/written a few hundred years before socrates and plato.

There is a western bias towards the greeks because the west went barbaric for a thousand years or so. The greek texts were reintroduced by jews and arabs, and of course the barbarians in the north said "Oh hey look the greeks invented everything!" and the idea stuck.


FYI I thought the article was crap :shrug:

[Confusious]

52. Sorry

Western

In the Western world, the sky of the northern hemisphere is traditionally divided into constellations based on those described by the Ancient Greeks. The first ancient Greek works which dealt with the constellations were books of star myths. The oldest of these was a poem composed by Hesiod in or around the eighth century BC, of which only fragments survive. The most complete existing works dealing with the mythical origins of the constellations are by the Hellenistic writer termed pseudo-Eratosthenes and an early Roman writer styled pseudo-Hyginus.

In the 2nd century AD, the Greek astronomer Ptolemy described the constellations in great detail in his influential work the Almagest. The 48 constellations he described are still used by astronomers today.

The Greeks did not invent it the disciplines, but they most certainly contributed to the formation of modern science.

If you don't write it down and pass it on, you don't get credit.

I'm also talking about science and the arts as taught in Colleges, not about religion.

[Vehl]

32. No...for example..pythagorean theorom was known in China and India centuries before

The Greeks contributed a lot to the sciences, true..but a lot of the things they invented were also invented in other places..oft earlier.

Just because a lot of Greek works survived to this day(thanks to those who translated it into Arabic(during the dark ages) and later into European languages)and are more widely known should not detract from the pioneering work done by others :)

[Confusious]

35. Well, while I may think that may be possible

I would like to see some proof before I say it is true. I hope you can understand that.

As a person who studies history, I know nothing is created in a vacuum.

And also, the credit usually goes to the person who, in a sense, publishes first, and adds to the body of general human knowledge.

examples

salk/sabin
newton/leibniz

[Vehl]

42. It is well documented.

I too am interested in world history(especially ancient history) and I can understand your reluctance to take claims at their face value without supporting evidence. My apologies for assuming that this(the claim about the Pythagorean theorem) is pretty much common knowledge nowadays.

Here is the proof.

http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/07305/pythag.htm







Btw its not just the Pythagorean theorem..but a lot of the math/scientific inventions attributed to the Greeks have their counterparts in other civilizations. It was generally assumed that they were invented by the Greeks cos when the renaissance period started the civilizations of the east were entering their dark ages.

a good example is the number systems we use...even today a lot of people(including teachers) call them the "Arabic numerals". and more than 50% still think that the Arabs invented the zero as well. They are wrong on both accounts.

also modern science and mathematics will not have been able to reach this current level of sophistication without the use of the Indian numerals and the concept of 0. Anyone who used roman numerals knows how hard it is to add/subtract using those numerals...let alone multiply/divide

[Confusious]

45. Not really common knowledge at all

I started going back to school last year. No mention of this is my math classes or my history classes, and of course, I don't spend alot of time reading about the history of mathematics, my eyes glaze over from calc. I'm usually more interested in warfare, metals used, armor used, tactics used. Egypt, Rome, and lately reading about china ( Warfare again ). Or how the people lived, what they ate, what they did, etc, etc. Science never really came into it, because I have to learn that all day.

I think the history profs need to get out and do some 'splainin.

[Vehl]

51. A lot of our math classes are outdated when it comes to historical accuracy

Ive rolled my eyes quite a few times during the history classes where they even had a documentary on science/math..which claimed the zero was invented in the middle east..And it was supposedly made in the 80s. But math historians have known for centuries that the zero did not originate there. But no one really bothered to correct the ones who wrote the textbooks...hence it took decades for the facts to percolate down.

I had the good fortune of having a discrete mathematics teacher who was also a math-historian. By the end of the semester all of his students were pretty knowledgeable on the history of math :)


As for history, I love pretty much anything that's related to history. And yes...i am interested in ancient warfare...and I play strategy games that put emphasis on historical realism than on flashy effects. (eg: the "Total war" series of PC games.)

[Confusious]

53. Yea the total war games are my favorites also

Though the AI on the needs some work. Its so uncreative. Seemed like the older ones had a better AI.

[Vehl]

56. yes....I always use mods to make the game more challanging

[Confusious]

58. YEa, I got SPQR or another one

Played for a little while, got my but kicked, and then figured out I needed two armies for every one the computer had, and then proceded to win again every time, and the computer never brought up more armies to challenge me.

Someone needs to write a really good AI program for these games. Its not so much strength, its tactics, and the computer being able to see what your doing.

[Vehl]

62. Yes

There are some AI mods out there which are pretty good. But as we still do not have "True AI" all the so called "AI" actions are but scripted sequences which branch off into many possible actions based on our actions as well as other variables in tree like structure...

so yep...its never as challenging as fighting a good human opponent in one of those multiplayer games

[comrade snarky]

48. The history of India

And it's contributions to the world are largely ignored in the US.

I love history as well and I like to think I have a little better than average understanding of it but I have to admit Indian history is mostly a blank for me. After the stories in the Mahabharata and before the British occupation it's embarrassing how little I know of it. One of the several thousand things I should read up on.

In school I'd always heard western numbers called "Arabic". Imagine my surprise when I went to Egypt and found out the one thing I expected to be able to read was completely different from any numbering system I'd ever seen.


Thanks for your information and opinion. I'm glad your joined the board.

[Vehl]

55. Thank you

Ive always been fascinated by world history. The fact that my granddad was a history teacher probably played a part in it.I grew up learning about the Iliad and the odyssey..along with my native ones. As Joseph Campbell says in his books..many of the world's mythologies do share a lot of traits...from the Hopi creation myths to the Indian stories of the deluge.

Yes, a lot of the history classes here in the colleges do not really delve deep into south Asian history. After all..Asia here almost always means "East Asia" :)

Maybe part of the reason for this lack of information in the US classrooms about India is the relative lack of Indians as opposed to other Asians, such as Chinese and the Japanese. We are relative newcomers.

yes, the Arabic Numbers and the Zero claims always irked me a bit , but i generally let those comments pass than spend time explaining to a dis-interested person about its origins. Its not often that one gets to see people as interested in history as you.

..yes...the list of things i have to learn is endless...we have a saying "what we have learnt is but like a handful of sand compared to the world of knowledge out there" :)

If you are interested in learning about India/south Asia i would suggest this documentary made by the BBC/PBS. Its called "The Story of India" and is pretty good. It might not be as comprehensive a documentary as one would like to see(but then again that's a herculean task!) but touches all the main points. And is very nicely done.

It can be found on you tube (the following play list has all the episodes in order)
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4801B6BFD418FA4A&page=1


I'ts worth the time:) and also touches on Indian science and maths.


ps: even though i'm hardly an expert on south Asian history, if you do have any questions feel free to ask me/pm me about it. I'll try to help u with it to the best of my ability.

[comrade snarky]

57. Thanks for the offer and the link

When we're talking about a couple of thousand years of history and wave after wave of migrations the high points are all I can do sometimes!

You may be correct that the reason S. Asia is ignored in schools was the low population but I have a nasty suspicion that it has more to do with India being on the other side of the cold war.

[Vehl]

61. YW

haha! yeah that's true. I saw this documentary on Discovery channel lasy year; when they aired it.
But the youtube links are cool too


You might be right about the reason for India being ignored in most of the American textbooks.
Some of textbooks i/ve read make really wild and if one may say offensive claims. No wonder many used to think of India as a land of Holy cows and beggars..

[Merlot]

7. Had a croissant and espresso for breakfast

Please don't tell me that croissants are anything other than French...or I'll have to go drown my sorrows in a large glass of red vino.

[Orangeone]

8. The Turks invented the Croissant nt

[Libertas1776]

10. Actually,

it was more likely invented in response to the Turks, or rather an invasion by the Turks, or so the stories go. In reality, it likely originated in Austria.

eh, regardless of useless random historical tidbits, they still make a kick ass combo with a nice espresso. :9

[XemaSab]

23. The Latin name of the coffee plant:

Coffea arabica. :P

[Vehl]

34. good one! :))

[OffWithTheirHeads]

12. "The French have no word for Entrepeneur"

G.W. Bush (R shitforbrains)

[SammyWinstonJack]

15. +1

:spray:

[Bucky]

22. That's one of my favorite URBAN LEGENDS about Bush, who never actually said that

Too bad. But take heart, the guy who talking about "putting food on our children" said plenty of dumb things in his 8 cursed years of squatting in the people's house. He just didn't make the entrepreneur statement.

[Confusious]

38. Well it's really, really sad

That it sounds like something he would say.

[rucky]

20. I had Top Ramen for lunch. n/t

[Bucky]

21. "I proceeded to pepper them with questions..." ... Ah-hah! Peppers come from India

The Columbian Exchange...

[whoneedstickets]

29. If the Chinese invented TP they apparently thought better of it...

its all squat toilets over there. Not a roll to be found.

[Vehl]

36. here is a funny joke..:P

Once during my humanities class, when the professor was talking about Asia, and a student asked the proff "why don't the Chinese and the Indians use Toilet paper in their countries"

the professor asked the student.

"Lets say that you are walking along a road on a rainy day. Accidentally you slip and fall into a muddy pool. What will you do?

Will you take a piece of paper, scrape the mud off your body and consider yourself clean?"

the student answered "no"

and the professor told him ,
"then, how can you consider yourself clean if you used toilet paper?"


;)

[Vehl]

30. Really good post. +rec, but a lot of the things from the "islamicate" were actually

But a lot of the things from the "islamicate"(this is the first time i've heard of that term) were actually not invented there, but certainly improved upon by the Arabs.

and yes, they were introduced via the "islamicate" to Europe. The term "Arabic" Numerals was used in schools till recently..(they still do in some places..). But as this post rightly points out, those numbers; and the concept of "zero" were from India. The same goes to inventions from China which were passed onto Europe by the Arabs.


ps: let me take this opportunity to list some of the common English words originating from my language :P

Ginger
Catamaran
Coir
Teak
Mango
Curry

[excess_3]

59. how much of this is....... Arab, post 600 AD ? .nt

[mwooldri]

60. True, very true, but how far can you get without running into Scottish ingenuity? nt