* Algebra
* Alcohol
* Alchemy (root origin of chemistry)
* Algorithm
* Azimuth
... You will note I haven't even gotten past the first letter of the alphabet yet.
"Chinese alcohol predates recorded history. Dried residue extracted from 9,000-year-old pottery implies that early beers were already being consumed by the neolithic peoples in the area of modern China. Made from rice, honey, grapes, and hawthorn, it seems to have been produced similarly to that of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_alcoholic_beverages#An....
You're aware that alcohol is nothing more than letting something rot for a while by mistake ie fermentation (rice, grapes, corn etc)? Algebra was invented by Greeks and Egyptians, same for algorithm (Euclyd anyone?) etc. The Islamic world built on top of that and helped improved it and that was awesome, but they did not invent any of these fields. I'm from Muslim Syrian origin myself so it's not like I wouldn't enjoy my ancestors taking all the credits for these fields but this is simply not true.
Want to go back to the greeks and see how many of those were borrowed from them?
Or how about the fact that "Arabic Numerals" were borrowed from India?
Information changes hands all the time.
These things were not brought by Islam, anymore than Judaism somehow brought us nuclear fission and relativity because the likes of Teller, Oppenheimer and Einstein were Jews.
As an analogy, I wonder if it would be accurate to say that electricity was brought by a given religion even though some of its most major developments happened in territories where that religion prevails.
Borrowed the word, sure (or at least, borrowed the term "the blue", al-qahoul, relating to an alcohol-based dye used in makeup at one point). Borrowed the thing? Islam bans its production and consumption.
Yeah, though so.
On another, if you change it from "Islam" (as in religion) to "islamic cultures" (from Northern Africa to Middle East to Indonesia), your argument would still stand.
And on a third hand, there are only so much countries on the edge of technological progress. South america, while being mostly christian, doesn't produce many technological revolutions either. But again, although it's not especially rich or safe region, there aren't many terrorists from South America to US and Europe either.
Sorry, I seem to have lost track writing this comment. I know a lot of perfectly valid and logical arguments for both sides of this debate, and yet I have no idea who's "right".
May be we should move to a more specific question from the general "is Islam evil or not" theme?