What worries me is that this kind of view of history is now being taken for granted by the general public, especially in some parts of North America. The work done by FFI and Jwatch is bearing fruit, so much so that even ex-muslims such as IBlis are revisionists when it comes to their own histories. Everything starts to be reduced to jihad, rape and pedophilia, as we see from the likes of Rashna and some others.
The problem is that these kinds of generalisations about entire groups are slowly being accepted whereas no one would dare do the same with any other group.
Is it Iblis's history? He has rejected Islam, and speaks accordingly. James Joyce said of Stephen Dedalus that 'History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken' - do you understand how liberating it can be to stand outside the history that is imposed on you, and not to have to hold your tongue, or question, or accept all the the things associated with it. That is real freedom.
I'd say that many of the historical correctives about the contributions to science and culture of various 'Islamic civilisation' are made to counter the alternative narrative that is often propounded by people who want to depict Islam and non Islamic cultures, eras, epochs, histories in certain ways. There has been a whitewash of Islamic history to a startling degree - understandable from an Islamic point of view (after all, Islamic culture is not mature enough to air its dirty laundry in public, unlike Europe and America, or maybe, is totally unwilling to examine its own dark side not because of immaturity but because it does not want to disturb its own rather idealised and false self-image), but politically correct people in the West often white wash Islamic history too - out of a misguided solidarity with the Islamic world and Islamic minorities living in Europe and north America, out of the opposite of 'orientalism', a kind of fetishising of Islam. And I think that it is vitally important to counter this narrative, and do so for the sake of Muslims too, because a truthful examination of their history will enable them to see how they got to be where they are today, and cease the victimhood culture that history has become a fuel vessel for.
As for the vehemence of Iblis's words about Islam's contribution to the universal culture of humanity over the last few hundred years - if you can't detect the pain and anger and impatience in Iblis's words, I think you missed where they partly come from. He is no reductive bigot.
Topic: American soldiers assimilate into Muslamic civilization...