On reading the headline I thought that they were praying to David Cameron...now there is a scary thought.

Indeed, they should be praying to the West (DC in particular). Because for many crimes they have committed, they would have been stoned to death or hacked off a hand or foot or both. So these criminals are rightfully thankfull to the West for being in the good conditions they are now.

Dan: "Personally methinks it was the fleeing Byzantine Coptic’s that reintroduced classical learning to the west. The demographic parallels between our current demographic pickle and their decline and fall are striking. Although they were bound to have some “Islamic” scholars after the fall of Constantinople, probably the same pie in the sky types that get mathematics but find human nature an enigma, and didn’t flea in time."
 
Firstly, although Coptic Christianity inspired Christian monasticism in the Western Roman Empire and in its Germanic successor kingdoms, there is no evidence to suggest that Aegyptian Copts migrated en masse to Western Europe. Various monastic orders in Italy, Ireland and England preserved and studied Greco-Roman intellectual materials, which led to the Northumbrian revival of learning (600s-700s) which fueled the Carolingian Renaissance (700s-800s) at the Palace School in Francia and ultimately the Italian Renaissance. Secondly, despite the scholarly work undertaken in England and Francia, the preservation and reproduction in Italy and Ireland and the later work of the glossators (1000s-1100s), Islamic scholars engaged with Greco-Roman knowledge to a much greater degree than their European contemporaries (600s-1200s). In fact, many materials studied at the Palace School were in fact received from Islamic sources and included commentaries by Arab scholars. Indeed, irrespective of its preceeding revivals in learning, Greco-Roman knowledge exploded beyond clerical confines during the Italian Renaissance (1300s). Thus, despite both Islamic civilization and Christendom beginning to engage with Greco-Roman intellectual materials around the same time period, economic and political circumstances conspired to confine study and preservation in Europe mainly to monastic communities, whereas Islamic societies flourished in a Golden Age until internal decay and external pressures caused them to decline.

Apparently they were too stupid to figure that out.

This annecdote of wrong direction does show the unimportance of direction in prayers. That should be true as God is invisible and omnipresent.

To those talking about the muslim intellectuals in the middle ages, they were not developing knowledge themselves. The more historical tracts I examine, i find that most knowledge attributed to muslims is actually translations muslims made of great Christian libraries in lands conquered by muslims.
The libraries of the Assyrians, for example. Their knowledge was handed down to them from ancient Greece through Roman development. When Assyria was conquered by the paedophile prophets followers, surprise surprise lots of knowledge from their libraries suddenly was 'discovered' by islamic scholars.
Islamic knowledge is a sham to conceal conquest.
Signature: Defend Christendom. Defend Jewry. Oppose socialism in Europe.

@ Amsterdamsky

Personally methinks it was the fleeing Byzantine Coptic’s that reintroduced classical learning to the west. The demographic parallels between our current demographic pickle and their decline and fall are striking.

Although they were bound to have some “Islamic” scholars after the fall of Constantinople, probably the same pie in the sky types that get mathematics but find human nature an enigma, and didn’t flea in time.  

What happened may be the same sort of left-right reversal that occurs when we look at an image in the mirror. Put a compass on the floor of the cell, note the direction of north, then paint the image on the ceiling while preserving the direction of north. East and West will be reversed.

"On a round world all directions point to Mecca"No they don't.  A man looking east at the equator is in no way looking towards the north pole.  

Well you have to admit praying towards Washington has a delicious irony to it. Thanks for a wee laugh on this Friday morning.

Islam must say the earth is flat or something. On a round world all directions face Mecca. I really don't buy the crap about "scientifically advanced muslims" from the middle ages either. They are even more anti-science than the Catholic Church and that is difficult.