Palace Quotes
The palace, which had belonged to the Ottoman Caliphs, who were called “Shadows of Allah on Earth”.
It was never submitted as evidence in any proceeding or made a part of the U. S. investigatory record of war crimes of World War II. Nor was it ever found in Japan in the official records. The only copy was found in 2003 at the home of Bonner F. Fellers one of MacArthur’s top aids in the Japanese Occupation. Fellers and McArthur advocated not further investigating or trying the Japanese Emperor either because they, believed he was not guilty or because they thought his trial would be too disruptive to the occupation. The authenticity of this monologue has not been verified. Apologists for the Emperor argue that it shows that he was a virtual prisoner of the militarists and unable to stop the war or any of the war crimes; others argue that the Japanese military would never have gone against the will of the Emperor and that this document was probably prepared with the coaching of General Fellers as ex post facto “evidence” of the Emperor’s innocence. See {643148} and {601309} for examples of Fellers manipulating the “evidence.”
The Palace of Wisdom is said to be the first official non-religious academy or university in the Islamic World—it seems the Christian world as well. It taught the sciences including astronomy, logic, philosophy, mathematics, as well as history, theology, languages and medicine. Note that women were educated also, albeit separately. And this was under a Caliph who was a fundamentalist. This quotation is frequently used to demonstrate that the recent trend of some Islamic fundamentalism—the Taliban for example—toward keeping females in ignorance is not a Muslim tradition and has not traditionally been interpreted as a mandate of the religion until recently. Note that the same male “professors” who taught the men, also taught the women. So just as women could be in the presence of male close relatives, teachers were provided the same exception, unlike the interpretation of the Taliban and other fundamentalist Muslims who would not allow women to be taught be men if at all.
