various discussions on Islam

[Split from 'Why Arabs Lose Wars']

we.. (parsai ) are the champions ? ... zostarians ,baalists and any other countless animests of north africa ,arabia and the middle east long ago perished or converted under the tolerent and benevolent sword of arab jihad ...the war on kaffirs has never stopped and goes on today in thailand ,india ,ceylon ,luzon ,darfur ,israel , pakistan ,iraq ,chad,chechnaya ,afganistan ,eurabia ect ..in fact anywhere that borders a large muslim population

 

Well with your statment you could also quite nicely describe the christian crusades and conversians by "fire and sword" (not just palestine, but also Spain, south, central and north america, africa, not to mention europe in early middle ages...) and wars against "heretics" and unbelivers.
BTW Zoroastrians are quite well and still breathing in Iran especcialy nort-east of the country.

 

Spain technically was a 'reconquest' after it was taken by the Muslims sometime around the 6th Century, when they conquered most of North Africa (all of which was Christian at the time). I was rather incensed recently to see a programme on TV (by a muslm cleric) which maintained that Muslim people had been peaceloving and kind until those nasty Crusaders arrived in the 12th Century. :roll:

But anyway, we are getting very very off topic.

Oh, and thanks for the info on the Zoroastrians. I thought that they had all been killed off by the Byzantines (with minor mopping up from the Muslims) back in the 5th/6th Century.

 

Acctualy they were. In the time of reconquista christians, jews and muslims were living in peace. BTW most of El Cid's army were local muslims who did not like the idea of being ruled by more religiously dogmatic Mammeluks who were recent arrivals on the Iberian peninsular (mammeluk movement started in egypt as answer to crusades). And who exactly gave sanctuary to jews kicked out of Spain by Torquemada & co? Some left for Poland but most were given sanctuary by Ottoman empire in north africa, Bosnia, Greece and Turkey proper.
Same was in time of the crusades. In middle east all religions were quite normaly living side by side as they all considered same sites as sacred. You realy should brush up your knowledge of the crusades.

Muslims left them more or less in peace that is why they are in N-E of Iran. Bysantines had more of a problem with Manehites as with Zoroastrians as those were more or less out of Bysantine reach ( they lived in Parthian/Persian empire)
Also jewish community in Iran is still quite large. BTW Ahmedinajad paid from his own pocket for part of the renovation of jewish hospital in Teheran recently (hospital is considered as heroic part of Homeini's revolution of 1979 as jewish doctors refused to turn ower wounded protestors to Shah's secret police). Did you know that in Iran one seat in their parlament is reserved for jewish minority representative (where else in the world do they have that except Israel of course), and that some jews attained quite high ranks in Irans army after Homeini's revolution of 1979, especcialy during 1.st gulf war (Iran-Iraq war)?

 

And you might want to look up events like how the Muslims got to Spain in the first place...

My point was that Islam's initial spread was due largely to warfare, and that the Crusades were launched several centuries after that.

Interestingly, they were officially launched in response to wars between different Muslim factions, which denied Christian access to Jerusalem...

 

The Seljuk turks were moving into the Asia minor so of course the Christian kings wouldn't want a strong rival faith right across the border so they did a preemptive strike.

 

Acctualy first crusade was not against muslims but against Albiginians (Katars) in south of France.

First religious war coocked by christians for more or less religious reasons was destruction of Vandal kingdom in now days Tunis and NW Algeria by Bysantinian emperor Justinian (Belizar was commander of the army). This war was started becouse of Vandal pesecution of Vandal converts to Nicen trinity chrisitianity ( Vandals were of Aryanic version of christianity) and bannishment of Nicen trinity bishops to far ends of their empire ( Sardinia, Sicily, and south Tunisian oasis).

 

isnt it ironic that the only people who still practice religious crusade under arms are the very ones that whine about the evils of the crusades of a millinium past....and make some westerners feel guilty ..wouldnt it be great if all crusades could be made to stop ...

 

Woody, us humans are most bloodthisty animals. Give some group a couse and they will kill. That is why i intensly dislike anyone with strong religious streak. Mind you, i'm no atheist but in my opinion fanatics of all religions (including my) should be commited to loony bins, but it probably wouldn't help as poeple would find other reasons to kill eachother. Another problem is that most poeple turn to religion when in deep shit. Words: " Religion is food of the poor" do carry some truth.

 

where i live religious zealotry takes the form of polite and ernest JWs or mormon teens sometmes knocking on my front door to discuss the words of christ with me , im always happy to debate evolution ,history or whatever with them and send them on their way ..there are no such debates in the arab muslim world , to question the koran or the prophet in any way could spell disaster and the price for leaving that same faith is death .modern christian zealotry by comparisin is of no concern to me nor should it be to any rational person

 

majorwoody, there are 'Christian' extremists who are just as close-minded and vicious as any other extremist out there.

TISO - I whole-heartedly agree with you about fanatics.

 

And as violent as the Muslim extremists? I can't think of any offhand that compare. There may be a few insane individuals who espouse religion while committing serial murders or something along that line but what organized groups of Christian extremists use terror as a tactic?

 

Could you be more specific about the country as some are quite secular?

 

Well, we did have those protestants in the United States who bombed abortion clinics. Not something that I get to worried about.

 

I was thinking more of historical examples. And there are plenty of those, many backed up by State power.

 

What organization was involved in those bombings? AFAIK the bombings of abortion clinics were attacks on the facilities rather than on people. They took place at night when the clinics were deserted. I don't condone such activities but this particular form of radical protest consisted of attacks directed at property rather than at people. A very different matter than suicide bombings in crowded streets, cafe's or buses which are aimed at killing and maiming as many people as possible. And as I indicated earlier I know of no organized groups sponsoring or condoning such attacks.

 

Yes, but how distant in the past are we talking about?

 

Well, most of them were longer ago (if that tortured sentance even makes sense)... At least the bigger ones were.

You do still hear occaisionally of 'Christian' violence in Africa, even on quite a large scale, but that is about it these days. Obviously, there are always individual idiots (from bombing abortion clinics to 'gay-bashing'), but in general the days of large-scale Christian violence are mostly over.

My hope is that this is because most Christians have actually now read the Bible and realised that such things are generally not quite in the spirit of the religion. My fear is that most Christians have just realised that governments will no longer accept crimes commited in the name of God.

 

..well except for many muslim governments who if they are not actually supporting terrorists , are quite happy to look the other way when violence is done to non muslims in the name of god .
christianty really is a religion of peace ,those who perpitrated violence plainly went against the teachings of christ ..however those muslims who wage war on infidels are NOT going against the teachings of mohamid who according to the koran was a brigand , murderer ,theif , rapist ,slavemaster and a child molester ..mohamid was not at all like christ or budda or gandhi and killing unbelivers , even women and children is not a problem for islamists ..
islam means submission ,when all of us non muslims either submit to allah or die ,there will be peace ...and not before ..i dont doubt there are secular leaning muslims who do not feel the need to wipe the kaffirs from the face of the planet ..you dont hear them speak out much as it would be very dangerous for them personally to make such an opinion known in public ..the koran is word for word exactly as written by god ,it cannot be abridged ,edited or watered down in any way ..those who kill the kaffirs are only doing what they are plainly instructed to do ..ie they are not extremists at all ,merely good god fearing muslims...

 

Take off the KKK-hat for one second, and tell me when has a contemporary Islamic nation ever supported a terrorist act? Eh? Name ONE.

America invaded Iraq on an unfounded, unproven basis, screwed up the country, and despite the blunder is now trying to making itself look big by threatening Iran... All the while feeding the world bullshit news about how Muslims are all baby-eating monsters... Its no wonder many people in the Middle East hate America...

There are plently of contemproary examples of atrocities by Christians. And I bet you know them too. :roll:

Slobodan Milosevic
Ku Klux Klan
Hitler
Rwanda 1994

To name but a few... How are any of these any different from violence commited in the name of Islam?

Furthermore the largest, most active terrorist group in the world, the LTTE, is predominantly Hindi. They alone account for something like 50% of all terrorist attacks annually. Why do we never hear about them? Because their beef isn't with America, and as such it is harder to make up interesting 'stories' about them. The 'threat' of militant Islam is just something that the American media has invented in order to get a ratings boost, and it seems you've all swallowed it up...

No Iraqi, Persian or Syrian ever cast the first stone...
Sure, you don't want to live there if you're not Muslim, but what business of that is America's? There is no international Islamic threat coming from these countries. When has war ever been the solution for reform? Europe was not so different only 200 years ago. Give the Middle East time and they might yet follow Turkey's example... From Armenian Genocide to First Female President in under 100 years... Unless we keep scerwing things up, that is

States should have the right to develop their laws and society as they wish, free from American threats. War is not the answer to dealing with relatively minor human rights abuses.