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What do you see on the screen?
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Is this a world map?
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You’ll say: definitely not.
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What if you are told that what you see now is the true map of the world?
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Surely you will feel disapproval or perhaps discomfort, and you will wonder: and why is it upside down?
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As we turn this map back to its usual position, you will feel comfortable as if things have settled in place!
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But did you ever ask yourself what is the secret behind this feeling of disapproval?
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You will be surprised to learn that the usual form of the world map,
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in which Europe is at the top and Africa at the bottom,
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is not necessarily the correct scientific form,
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or at least, it is not the only form in which we can imagine the world,
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but it is the form imposed by Europe after it dominated the world!
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Let me tell you that this map that you know would have been completely different if it had been produced by a nation other than Europe,
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and it was this nation that excelled in science and power, dominated the world, and colonized the Americas.
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We may conclude that this power will put that nation at the top of the map!
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Why would we imagine?
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This really happened when Muslims were the masters of the world and the stars of science,
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this map that you see in front of you
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was made by the Muslim geographer Al-Sharif Al-Idrisi 9 centuries ago, that is, before Europe knew cartography in its current form!
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Yemen and Africa are shown on the map at the top of the globe, while Europe is at the bottom!
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But the question is: why so much focus on the map?
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Are maps the only thing subject to Europe's scientific standards, or is it broader than that?
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The truth is that the map is not the only thing that has been affected by the domination of Europe and the West,
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but most of the science, ideas and values you see in the world is affected by this dominance.
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The rule is: dominant civilizations shape people's concepts, tastes and worldview!
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This makes us wary of taking science and knowledge for granted as if it were free from any ideological bias.
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The rise of Europe
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The story of the rise of Europe begins about 5 centuries ago, when Europe began to shake off the dark dust of the Middle Ages
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and turn – under the influence of Islamic civilization and its sciences – towards science and technology.
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It was then that Europe discovered the New World – or in other words: America –
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The world that brought it gold, silver and other precious money.
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Dr. George Saliba says in his book "Islamic Sciences and the Rise of the European Renaissance":
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"There was a very important event at the end of the 15th century
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that shook the foundations of the order of the whole world: the discovery of the New World.
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This discovery not only disrupted the Eurasian trade routes, which attracted commercial wealth to Muslim lands for centuries,
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but also brought new raw materials to European countries which had been almost completely depleted in Muslim lands."
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As a result of this discovery, Europe was filled with money with which it financed its scientists
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and established scientific academies to produce more science, as Saliba also tells us:
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"Most of the most important scientific developments that took place in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries
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were the product of this vital cycle of wealth directly resulting from the discovery of the New World.
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This wealth led to more scientific production, scientific production has in turn led to more wealth and so forth."
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The rest of the story is known.
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This filling of power, science and money with the weakness and disintegration of the Islamic world led
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to the greed of Europe for the rest of the world,
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and the phase of occupation and looting of other peoples, which was falsely called "colonialism", began!
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When a civilization dominates the world, it imposes its ideas and vision on the peoples it occupies,
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it sets the policies of those nations and controls their economies, sets their own curricula and dominates the minds of their children.
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The result is terrifying: generations after generations of the peoples of those occupied nations
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believe that what Europe says is what science says, because it is the prevailing and dominating!
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Winner and loser
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Ibn Khaldun tells us in his famous introduction:
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"The defeated is forever fond of emulating the winner in their slogans, dress, costumes and other conditions and traditions,
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and the reason for this is that a person forever believes perfection in the one who overcame them"
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If we take this and go back to the world map and look at longitudes, we will find the middle longitude is Greenwich.
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If we search Google, we will find this misleading phrase: "The Greenwich line is a longitude located exactly in the middle of the globe
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and its degree is 0."
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But the truth is that the Greenwich longitude is a hypothetical imaginary line,
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a longitude that passes in a suburb of the City of London called "Greenwich",
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and the reason for its prevalence and official recognition is that the country that chose it - or imposed it -
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was Great Britain in the 18th century,
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and it was then called "the empire on which the sun never sets" because of its many colonies around the world!
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This is another example of the influence of Western centralism and its domination of minds,
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what appears to be a "geographical fact" is actually a "political choice" imposed by the world's great powers at the time!
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We learn in schools that the Greenwich is the longitude in the middle of the earth, but Britain does not lie in the middle of the earth,
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and any other longitude can be considered the middle one if a powerful empire
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and a dominant civilization stand behind it and impose it on the world!
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The same is true about what we learned as children that Vasco da Gama or Bartolomeo Diaz
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were the first to discover the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa in the 15th century.
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The truth is that they discovered it for Spain and Europe, while Africans and Arabs knew it
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but simply did not need it, because they were able to reach India and China by closer and easier routes!
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But the mentality of the dominant strongly imposes its culture and uses it to control the consciousness of other nations.
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As the defeated is forever fond of emulating the winner as Ibn Khaldun said,
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so they copy their culture and keep it, the good and the bad, thinking that the winner only won because they are totally right.
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Middle Nation
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The Almighty says in his Holy Book:
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{Thus We made you a balanced nation, so that you may be witnesses over mankind and the Messenger a witness over you.},
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The meaning of "balanced nation" is:
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"We have made you a nation of a balanced choice, a compromise among all nations, in beliefs, worship and dealings"
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Imam Ibn Kathir says in his commentary:
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“As Allah made this nation a balanced one, He gave it the perfect law, straightest approaches and clearest doctrine”
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This means that this nation, the best nation ever raised for mankind, should not be a follower of other nations.
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Yes, it benefits from the sciences of all nations, but not give its mind to them.
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This nation, with Muhammad (SAW) as its role model
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and his companions after him, cannot put its mind aside and make nations that deviate from the religion of Allah a standard of right and wrong.
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The Western-centralism that the world suffers from today not only imposes on people of different nations their view of the world and science,
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but also imposes on the world fluctuating values and standards,
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so whenever the West changes its mind on moral issues, the various peoples of the earth follow!
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This is only because Westerners see themselves as the center, and the world revolves around them!
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A century ago, nudity was a moral degradation in Europe, and now it is a desirable freedom,
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and women became a commodity whose bodies are displayed in advertisements to attract customers!
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A few decades ago, homosexuality in Europe was a crime punishable by law,
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and today it is a right that Western countries fiercely defend and hold accountable those who resist it!
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How can such a civilization set an example as it descends from one moral decay to another?
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Just as Western centralism affects science, making the dominant in the West is "science"
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and it is the only "right", it also influences values and ethics.
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This is only because Muslims are weak and not doing their civilized duty.
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Political and military power can control the earth,
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but it cannot control the minds that Allah has honored by knowing His Book and following His Prophet (SAW)
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until conditions change, days change, and become once more world leaders.
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“You are the best nation ever raised for mankind: you enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, and believe in Allah.”
