Editorial From Baghdad to Silicone Valley The black community and the technological revolution

In 750 , the Abbasids , descendants of Mohammed ' s uncle , overthrew the Umayyad dynasty and became head of the Islamic Empire . Ten years later , Caliph al-Mansûr decided to move the imperial capital from Syria to Iraq , and founded Madînat al-Salâm , " the city of salvation ". e new city then took the name Baghdad , probably after a pre-existing village or market . Baghdad was at the crossroads of the Mediterranean and Indo-Iranian worlds . e city proved to be a key center for the translation of ancient manuscripts , as well as for the elaboration and dissemination of knowledge . Baghdad was the place from which knowledge spread , through phenomena such as the Moorish culture that dominated Andalusia to shed new light on the Western world , which was then plunged into what is commonly referred to as the Dark Ages . If the modern era did not experience a so-called Dark Age , because the contemporaries of the 20th century are still with us today , and perhaps don ' t fully appreciate the perverse e ects of the 20th and early 21st centuries , which have seen some of the most grotesque barbarities , such as the two world wars and the incessant conflicts in the Middle East , Africa and Latin America , inhuman wars such as the one in Palestine , which have nothing to envy the raids of the Visigoths or the Mongols ;

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