Arabs in a time warp

[Guest gthureson]

I was thinking about this while I was out on the balcony having a cigarette the other night.   I need something to do while I am forced outside by myself due to a nicotine addiction.

 

The Islamic World used to be open, friendly to all races and religions, and the most enlightened group of societies in the world.   They had studied the Greek texts that were lost to the west, and were ahead in mathematics, medicine, science.  They were a group of poets, scientists and thinkers.

 

What happened to them?

 

Well, the Crusades happened to them.   The Christian West kept invading, despite the fact that Islam did not deny them access to any holy sites that they wanted to pilgrammage to.   And the Crusaders were, for a lack of a better word, barbarians.   They pillaged and slaughtered, broke treaties and peaces, and did everything in their power to anger and incite the Muslims.

 

Until Babyars came to power in Egypt, and the Mamalukes drove the Christians out once and for all.   And the Mamalukes were reactionary and for wont of a better word...fundamentalists.   Constantinople finally fell because it was impoverished and beaten after being sacked by the West a few times, and that was it for a Western presence in the Middle East.   This gave rise to the Ottoman Empire that existed until the First World War.

 

During this time, the West passed them in just about everything, because reactionary fundamentalists aren't very good at dealing with devolopments in their society, so they generally don't allow them to happen.   And the British had gained a hold in the region, which they did not relinquish until the end of the Second World War.

 

But it got me to thinking.   Until the Crusades, Islam was what proponents of the religion say it is.   A relatively peaceful religon that could co-exist with Christian Europe.   The Christian, by sword and fire, put an end to that.

 

The put Islam on the defensive, and made it neccessary for a more militant form of Islam to ensure they kept the barbarians out.   Almost Nietzchian.   He who fights monsters becomes a monster himself.

 

This is not a well-formed thesis at the moment, just something I considered over a cigarette.   But if nothing else, it should act as a warning for any country currently sliding towards a more fundamentalist form of Christianity to 'battle' the wave of funadementalist Islam.

 

Short term...religous fervor can take you a long ways to achieving your goal.   Long term, it just screws everything up.

[Guest TheMikeSC]

<<<I was thinking about this while I was out on the balcony having a cigarette the other night.   I need something to do while I am forced outside by myself due to a nicotine addiction.

 

The Islamic World used to be open, friendly to all races and religions, and the most enlightened group of societies in the world.   They had studied the Greek texts that were lost to the west, and were ahead in mathematics, medicine, science.  They were a group of poets, scientists and thinkers.>>>

 

 

 

I seem to remember Muslims attempting to overrun Europe as well.

 

 

<<<What happened to them?

 

Well, the Crusades happened to them.   The Christian West kept invading, despite the fact that Islam did not deny them access to any holy sites that they wanted to pilgrammage to.   And the Crusaders were, for a lack of a better word, barbarians.   They pillaged and slaughtered, broke treaties and peaces, and did everything in their power to anger and incite the Muslims.>>>

 

 

You're ignoring that the Muslims attempted to do the exact same thing that happened to them. They attempted to overrun the West.

 

 

<<<Until Babyars came to power in Egypt, and the Mamalukes drove the Christians out once and for all.   And the Mamalukes were reactionary and for wont of a better word...fundamentalists.   Constantinople finally fell because it was impoverished and beaten after being sacked by the West a few times, and that was it for a Western presence in the Middle East.   This gave rise to the Ottoman Empire that existed until the First World War.

 

During this time, the West passed them in just about everything, because reactionary fundamentalists aren't very good at dealing with devolopments in their society, so they generally don't allow them to happen.   And the British had gained a hold in the region, which they did not relinquish until the end of the Second World War.

 

But it got me to thinking.   Until the Crusades, Islam was what proponents of the religion say it is.   A relatively peaceful religon that could co-exist with Christian Europe.   The Christian, by sword and fire, put an end to that.>>>

 

 

Islam was never a religion of peace. It had its share of violence throughout its history.

 

Unlike the other religions, though, Islam never had ANYBODY question the church. Christianity had Martin Luther, Judaism had their reformation in the Middle Ages---but Islam has never had that. To Islam, any attempt to even question WHEN the Koran was written is sacrilege and worthy of a death sentence.

 

 

<<<The put Islam on the defensive, and made it neccessary for a more militant form of Islam to ensure they kept the barbarians out.   Almost Nietzchian.   He who fights monsters becomes a monster himself.

 

This is not a well-formed thesis at the moment, just something I considered over a cigarette.   But if nothing else, it should act as a warning for any country currently sliding towards a more fundamentalist form of Christianity to 'battle' the wave of funadementalist Islam.>>>

 

 

No country is doing that. None are even considering it. Even Israel, which most could understand if they became Jewish fundamentalists, has not done so.

 

 

<<<Short term...religous fervor can take you a long ways to achieving your goal.   Long term, it just screws everything up. >>>

 

 

Only problem is that the West changed.

 

The Muslim world hasn't changed in centuries.

                        -=Mike

[Guest big Dante Cruz]

If it hadn't been for a huge ass force that parked itself right outside of Venice to face an onrushing Muslim army, Europe may very well have turned out to be an Islamic land.  This happened more than once, but Venice was as far as they ever got.  

 

You going to tell me that Islam was a peaceful group?  Not quite.  Mohammed kicked the hell out of the other tribes that wouldn't marry in with him to bring some stability.

 

What does all that mean?  There's no religion in the world that's peaceful.  Besides, Muslims tend to gloss over the Crusades.  They seem them as an irritance, not a major point in history.  As a professor of mine once said: "Muslims view the Crusades as a pimple on the BUTT of Islamic history."

[Guest gthureson]

1) In the initial Islamic fervor, they took Spain.  But remember, it was the Moorish libraries that they captured when they drove them back out that spurred the Renaissance.   Even then, it took a few hundred years to translate and understand what they had, and a schism within the Catholic Church to open a splinter to allow for scientific enlightenment on even a small scale.

 

2) Islam, however, did not kill entire cities.   They took the cities, and then pretty much let them be.   Hell, they did better under Islamic rule than they had under Christian rule.   In Jersusalem, Christians were the Administrators and Jews ran the finances.   Christian Crusaders killed everybody, Christian, Jew and Muslim alike.

 

Its hard to deny that they were barbarians.

 

3) Yes, during the initial wave, they swept through the Middle East and into Spain and parts of Greece.   Three hundred years later, they were pretty much content were they were.

 

They allowed Christian pilgrims in the Middle East.   They got along with the Christians living in the area.

 

And..Christians took Europe by force as well.   Young religons tend to have a burning need to convert everybody.

 

4) And I could argue that the Middle East has not been allowed to enter modern society on its own terms.   Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the increase in the strategic value of oil, there has not been a time where the Middle East could allow democracy to become an entrenched institution.   Why?   Because the West would have to put up with democratically elected fundamendalist governments, embargos and increased oil prices for while until the system did entrench itself and moderate their policies on their own.

 

Due to value of what those countries sit on, there has been a view in the west that they must meddle and make sure leaders friendly to them are in power, which pisses off those living there, and you end up fundamentalists anyway, but they are not elected, and there is no system beyond revolution that will remove them.

 

Democracy has only been favoured in the 3rd/Developing word when:

 

1) There is no strategic value to country so who cares who the yokels elect or if its rigged.  (Much of Africa)

 

2) The person we want in will win.

 

Otherwise, strong arm dictators are the favorite of the west, despite the rhetoric that is fed to the press.

 

The Middle East would elect Islamic religious governments at this point in time, so democracy is not wanted.

 

Anyway, I'm getting off my original point.