Date of Award

6-1926

Degree Type

Bachelors Essay

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

Communication

Abstract

Of all the older nations who have carried their arms across vast continents,whose fleets have swept the seven seas, and who have left ineffaceable marks of their achievements on the pages of History, and enriched the world of thought by their discoveries and speculations,the Sarcens stand to us the nearest in time. The modern world is still working with the legacy they left behind,with the intellectu­al wealth they stored for their successors. It is, therefore a matter of regret that in the West a knowledge of their history should be so limited and more than this,that an entirely unfounded and erroneous conception of their civili­zation is so prevalent among the masses. How few among a group of present day High school students would even dream of tracing their chemistry experiments back through the centu­ries to the Sarcens. But what is even more deplorable, comparatively few of their teachers would do it. It is too often thought that Sarcenic civilization was nothing ore than a semi-barbarism characterized chiefly by religious fanaticism. In fact some sociologists condemn the Asiatic mind as incapable of real culture. Spiegel in his Antiquities of Iran says that the Semetic mind is not capable of mastering science or poetry or art. That they are ill-fitted for politics because they have no political idea except that of the family and therefore oscillates between unlimited despotism and complete anarchy, Apart from music his one faculty is religion, his and similar beliefs must be traced to one of two causes: either the author was unconsciously and involuntarily ignorant, of the facts or he purposely perverted the truth for some unknown personal purpose. In either case it is deplorable, inexcusable and plainly sins against fairness and justice to the race they thus condemn. Asiatic culture may differ from European, Sarcenic civilization may not identify itself with Anglo-Saxon or Germanic but does this difference this variation prove anything about the essentials? Logically it merely proves that civilization may be manifest in various forms depending on existing circumstances. This conclusion we all admit. The assumption that the civili­zation of Arabia did not at any time approach and equal if not surpass the recognized culture of other peoples is wholly unwarranted by historical facts. It is true they progressed in civilization as all other nations have pro­gressed and it is also true that their culture declined, and again we may add,as all the nations of antiquity have declined.

Comments

A Thesis submitted to fulfill the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts

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