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Post by praefectusurbanus on Oct 28, 2009 22:25:11 GMT
All of these conquests occured in the first Islamic century, which I agreed were expansionist. The Zengids and Saladin fought defensive wars against the Crusades and attempted to unify the Muslim empire. Their wars were not expansionist. [/quote] In response to the first, no, they weren't all carried out in the 7th century. Islam had taken most of Spain in the 8th century and the Spanish Reconquista lasted until the end of the 15th century. The Turkish war with the Byzantines wasn't defensive by anyones definition, as the Turks clearly showed with their raids into and eventual conquest of Asia Minor in the 11th century. The Seljuqs only got forced into the defensive when Alexios I Komnenos came to the throne and started beating back the invaders and retaking lost Byzantine territories, but after the severe weakening of Byzantium by a number of civil wars and the fourth crusade the Turks resumed their predations and expansion (see "The Crusades: A Short History" by Jonathan Riley-Smith and "Byzantium and the Crusades" by Jonathan Harris). As to the idea that the Muslims were waging a defensive war, medieval historian Thomas Madden points out: "Now put this down in your notebook, because it will be on the test: The crusades were in every way a defensive war. They were the West's belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world. While the Arabs were busy in the seventh through the tenth centuries winning an opulent and sophisticated empire, Europe was defending itself against outside invaders and then digging out from the mess they left behind. Only in the eleventh century were Europeans able to take much notice of the East. The event that led to the crusades was the Turkish conquest of most of Christian Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Christian emperor in Constantinople, faced with the loss of half of his empire, appealed for help to the rude but energetic Europeans. He got it. More than he wanted, in fact." [/quote]Was Islam also to blame for Christian expansion in Europe and the Americas (across three continents) from the period 800 to 1800 AD? See for example The making of Europe: conquest, colonization and cultural change 950-1350 by Robert Bartlett and Christianity Comes to the Americas, 1492-1776 by Charles Lippy.[/quote] I don't see what bearing that has on my statement about the Byzantines trying to reestablish control and stability on their borders and calling for aid from the West. If you want to discuss the new world, however, I'd be more than happy to do it in a new thread or a different post, but for the moment we're discussing something that's difficult and complex enough as is and I'm far too lazy to debate on both topics at the same time. :-) To say that the Mehemet II was motivated in his conquest of Constantinople because of the papal bull "Dum Diversas" is rather naive and a gross understatement. There were previous attempts by the Ottomans to take the city before the 1450s with the objective of crushing the Byzantine empire and opening up the conquest of Europe but which were thrown back (the siege of 1422 led by Murad II, for example) Murad II's seige of Constantinople followed Manuel II's attempt to divide the Ottoman elite. The examples above were simply to show Ottoman aggression was not one-sided. Sure, in some of its wars between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries it was motivated by conquest, but often the wars were either defensive or strategic necessities.[/quote] Manuel II's attempts to meddle with Turkish politics merely reflects the common practice by the Byzantines to weaken stronger neighbors through provoking infighting and rebellions (again, see "Byzantium and the Crusades" by Jonathan Harris). Manuel was merely following longstanding Byzantine methods for such a situation by dividing his enemies and taking advantage of the situation to strengthen the position of the Oiukemene. That his actions only served to bring the Turkish attention towards conquering Constantinople does not stop the fact that conflict was inevitable, and the Byzantines and Turks would have both been aware of this. Unfortunately for Manuel, his scheme failed and helped accelerate the Turkish move towards taking the city.
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Post by zameel on Oct 29, 2009 16:31:54 GMT
In response to the first, no, they weren't all carried out in the 7th century. Islam had taken most of Spain in the 8th century and the Spanish Reconquista lasted until the end of the 15th century I did not say they were all carried out in the seventh century. I said they were carried out in the first Islamic century, which as KY Blankinship shows was the period of Islamic expansionism or as he calls it "the jihad state". This period lasted from about 634 to 740 AD. The crusades were in every way a defensive war. They were the West's belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world. While the Arabs were busy in the seventh through the tenth centuries winning an opulent and sophisticated empire, Europe was defending itself against outside invaders and then digging out from the mess they left behind. Only in the eleventh century were Europeans able to take much notice of the East. The event that led to the crusades was the Turkish conquest of most of Christian Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Christian emperor in Constantinople, faced with the loss of half of his empire, appealed for help to the rude but energetic Europeans. He got it. More than he wanted, in fact From the perspective of Byzantium, the request for aid was to improve diplomacy with the Turks, not conquest. After Manzikert the Seljuks receded by 1092 with the death of the last great sultan. HEJ Cowdrey writes “Crusaders by the thousands, under independent command, spoiling for war, and whom [Alexius] could not control, were not what the circumstances of Byzantium in 1095 called for”. The crusades were certainly not motivated by defence or establishing peace between the Byzantines and the Turks. But the above comment is typical of those who attempt to construct Islam and Christianity as homogenous entities, ignoring the complexities of the situation, in order to draw an ideological divide between the two faiths.
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Post by praefectusurbanus on Oct 29, 2009 18:28:40 GMT
In response to the first, no, they weren't all carried out in the 7th century. Islam had taken most of Spain in the 8th century and the Spanish Reconquista lasted until the end of the 15th century I did not say they were all carried out in the seventh century. I said they were carried out in the first Islamic century, which as KY Blankinship shows was the period of Islamic expansionism or as he calls it "the jihad state". This period lasted from about 634 to 740 AD. While it is true that "the jihad state" broke apart into smaller factions after the first century of Islam, that does not stop the fact that expansion was continued by the new Muslim kingdoms well after their initial push out of Arabia: the Islamic power of Aghlabid in North Africa launched a massive assault with some 10,000 men on Sicily in 831, besieging and taking Palermo on the pretext of aiding the rebel Eupyhmius before setting up a base of operations enabling them attack Italy itself. The Moors from Spain threatened both Italy and France (Moorish forces reinforced Ziyadat Allah I's army at the aforementioned siege of Palermo), as well as preying on shipping in the Mediterranean. Muhammad of Ghur built a Muslim kingdom in northern India, waging war against the Hindu principalities and killing the Rajput prince Prithviraj III at the second battle of Turain in 1192. So while the unified Islamic empire was (as you rightly pointed out) broken, my point is that expansion did not stop: it continued to be an important focus of the independent Muslim kingdoms which had arisen to take the place of the "jihad state". The crusades were in every way a defensive war. They were the West's belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world. While the Arabs were busy in the seventh through the tenth centuries winning an opulent and sophisticated empire, Europe was defending itself against outside invaders and then digging out from the mess they left behind. Only in the eleventh century were Europeans able to take much notice of the East. The event that led to the crusades was the Turkish conquest of most of Christian Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Christian emperor in Constantinople, faced with the loss of half of his empire, appealed for help to the rude but energetic Europeans. He got it. More than he wanted, in fact From the perspective of Byzantium, the request for aid was to improve diplomacy with the Turks, not conquest. After Manzikert the Seljuks receded by 1092 with the death of the last great sultan. HEJ Cowdrey writes “Crusaders by the thousands, under independent command, spoiling for war, and whom [Alexius] could not control, were not what the circumstances of Byzantium in 1095 called for”. The crusades were certainly not motivated by defence or establishing peace between the Byzantines and the Turks. But the above comment is typical of those who attempt to construct Islam and Christianity as homogenous entities, ignoring the complexities of the situation, in order to draw an ideological divide between the two faiths. I'm not quite sure what you mean: nowhere does Madden say that they were motivated by the goal of "establishing peace between the Byzantines and the Turks", and he clearly states that the help Alexios was expecting and what he received was not what he envisaged. Read the whole article here, and pick up his "The New Concise History of the Crusades" for good measure: article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzhhODM1MDhkYWMxNTRiYmRjMzg2NmY2YjM3ZTRiZDQ=A primary motivation for the crusades was the call to defend the east, as can be seen in Pope Gregory VII's letter in 1074 to the western church: "The example of our Redeemer and the duty of brotherly love demand that we set our hearts on delivering our siblings. Just as He offered his life for us, so we should offer our lives for our siblings. Let it be known that we, trusting in God's mercy and the might of His power, are preparing in every possible way to carry aid to the Christian empire as soon as possible, with God's help." (quoted from "Crusades: The Illustrated History", University of Michigan press, ed. by Thomas Madden) The earliest seeds of the crusading movement can be seen in Spain, where growing numbers of nobles and warriors from other European states made armed pilgrimages to see holy shrines and aid in the defense and retaking of previously Christian lands. When Urban II came to the pontifical throne he established two main objectives for the crusade, as outlined by Jonathan Riley-Smith in "The Crusades: A Short History": the liberation of the eastern churches and the retaking of Jerusalem, with the latter being the main goal. This obviously was not what Alexios had in mind, but by focusing on what was seen in the west as the Holiest of cities, Urban ensured support for the endeavor from the whole of western Christendom as the operation became an armed pilgrimage to retake and defend what was to them the greatest of shrines.
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Post by knowingthomas on Nov 3, 2009 3:39:12 GMT
Somewhat related, but has anyone hear read God's War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman? I got it last Christmas but I wasn't able to finish it yet.
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Post by krkey1 on Nov 6, 2009 3:33:54 GMT
We got some people at Fort Hood who think Islam is violent.
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Post by bernard on Nov 6, 2009 17:26:01 GMT
Maybe it's psychiatrists who are violent
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Post by zameel on Nov 7, 2009 11:49:07 GMT
We got some people at Fort Hood who think Islam is violent. Why is it that when a Muslim commits horrendous acts of violence it is immediately connected with Islam, but not so when it is a member of any other religion? Recent US soldier-on-soldier shootings: In July, Specialist Armano Baca was charged with murdering a fellow soldier, Ryan Richard Schlack from Wisconsin, after the two had returned from tours in Iraq. Schlack was shot during a party at the central Texas army post and died at a Fort Hood hospital on 18 July. Three months ago, Specialist Jared Lee Bottorff was charged with murder after a shooting at a party near the army post. In May, Sergeant John Russell, from the 54th Engineer Battalion, who had done three tours of duty in Iraq, was charged with the fatal shooting of five colleagues at a clinic in Baghdad. Russell, from Sherman, Texas, had been sent for counselling to the combat stress control centre at Camp Liberty, a US base near the international airport on the outskirts of the Iraqi capital. In a sign of the extent of the military's concern, he had had his weapon taken away a week earlier. Last September, Sergeant Joseph Bozicevich, 39, of Minneapolis was detained after allegedly killing two members of his unit south of Baghdad. The case remains under investigation. In 2008, Corporal Timothy Ayers was sentenced to two years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the fatal 2007 shooting of his platoon sergeant in Iraq. Recent US mass shootings: April 3, 2009: Jiverly Wong, a Vietnamese immigrant, opens fire at an immigrant community centre in Binghamton, New York, killing 11 immigrants and two workers. Wong killed himself at the scene March 10, 2009: Michael McLendon, 28, killed 10 people, including his mother and four other family members in Alabama before himself committing suicide. February 14, 2008: Former student Steven Kazmierczak, 27, kills five students and wound 18 more in shooting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. He then killed himself. December 5, 2007: Robert A. Hawkins, 19, opens fire in a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska killing eight people before taking his own life. April 16, 2007: Cho Seung-Hui, 23, kills 32 students and staff at Virginia Tech before killing himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. ------------- Nidal Hasan was a Muslim his whole life and part of the military for several years. If Islam motivated his violent attack, it seems strange that he would work for the welfare and advancement of the US military all these years. [His view posted on some forums that suicide bombings can at times be justified is, as far as I can see, irrelevant]. What's far more likely is Nidal Hasan's outburst is part of an increasing trend of soldiers taking either their own lives and/or others because of stress, fear of deportation and in Nidal's case there is the added factors of harrassment (e.g. his car bumper sticker "Allah is love" was removed by his colleagues).
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Post by himself on Nov 7, 2009 19:58:56 GMT
Why is it that when a Muslim commits horrendous acts of violence it is immediately connected with Islam, but not so when it is a member of any other religion?
It is not necessarily the case. Only when they do so while crying "God is Great!" There have been a number of such cases where the authorities in the US have gone out of their way to make that distinction. George Bush did so even after 9/11.
I'm not sure I would cite having a bumper sticker removed as a justification for killing strangers. (Or scurrilous cartoons, for that matter.) It is just such things as that that make people wonder about violence-proneness.
None of the other mass murders you mention did their acts "in the name of" anything in particular. In the cases where someone has gone on a shooting spree "in the name of" Christ, there is no shortage of pastors, bishops, or preachers who will step forward and condemn that belief. But when we see that the immediate reaction is to condemn an imagined backlash rather than to condemn the original act itself, it is understandable that others wonder.
There really was a surge in anti-muslim hate crimes in the wake of 9/11. Almost 500. But the number dropped to around 150/yr right after. In 2006, the breakdown in religiously motivated hate crimes in the US was:
967 anti-Jewish 204 other 156 anti-Muslim 135 anti-Christian (76 anti-Catholic; 59 anti-Protestant)
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Post by zameel on Nov 8, 2009 0:49:39 GMT
It is not necessarily the case. Only when they do so while crying "God is Great!" "Allahu akbar" (God is Greatest) is a phrase Muslims say when they do a lot of things, sometimes of religious significance and sometimes not. It does not prove religious motive. It is also Arab vernacular - it's equivilent to a cry for joy/anger. IDF soldiers normally make a prayer before indiscriminately killing Palestinian women and children - does that prove Judaism is to blame? Something a little more specific: Bush said God told him to invade Iraq (which was then not linked to al-Qaeda in any way or the 9-11 attacks, possessed no WMDs and even if it had the means to manufacture them there was no security threat to the US), which he went on to do in 2003 killing a hundred thousand civilians on the way. Why is not Christianity blamed for this? None of the other mass murders you mention did their acts "in the name of" anything in particular There's not evidence Nidal Hasan did this in the name of Islam. Would you admit Bush did Iraq in the name of religion? Or some IDF soldiers fight in the name of religion? Bush's "war" (better described as "massacre") alone killed more than all Muslim terrorist attacks together. I'm not sure I would cite having a bumper sticker removed as a justification for killing strangers I did not justify the attack. I did not justify any of the attacks. Of course all of the shootings above are morally despiciple. But that doesn't mean we can't understand them or explain why they happened. That's very different to justification. It makes more sense to think of this recent shooting as one of a series of soldier-on-soldier shootings related to stress and fear of deployment. But when we see that the immediate reaction is to condemn an imagined backlash rather than to condemn the original act itself, it is understandable that others wonder. This is untrue. All major American Muslim organisations condemned the attacks first before warning against backlash. That was the immediate reaction. It is clear you are predisposed to believing Muslims are self-interested, violent and have no moral sense, which is why you ignore all Muslim condemnations. The biggest Muslim advocacy group CAIR produced a statement immediately saying: “We condemn this cowardly attack in the strongest terms possible and ask that the perpetrators be punished to the full extent of the law. No religious or political ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence. The attack was particularly heinous in that it targeted the all-volunteer army that protects our nation. American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured.” Mosque leaders, imams, scholars, muftis and Muslim intellectuals have condemned all terrorist attacks.
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Post by krkey1 on Nov 8, 2009 2:20:40 GMT
I love when people ask easy questions... So lets see why people think Islam had something to do with this Dear Majors actions
a.) He was screaming Allah Akbar while shooting people. That tends to be the same thing insurgents and terrorist shout when doing their attacks.
b.) He posted stuff on websites praising suicide bombers, Zameel can you think of anyone besides Muslims who use this tactic now days?
c.) He argued with soldiers who supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
d.) He said Muslims should attack Americans.
e.) he attended mosque and owned a Qu'ran
f.) he identified himself as Muslim and as a Palestinian
So in conclusion I think it is a reasonable conclusion religion played some role in his actions.
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Post by zameel on Nov 8, 2009 3:29:17 GMT
I love when people ask easy questions... So lets see why people think Islam had something to do with this Dear Majors actions a.) He was screaming Allah Akbar while shooting people. That tends to be the same thing insurgents and terrorist shout when doing their attacks. b.) He posted stuff on websites praising suicide bombers, Zameel can you think of anyone besides Muslims who use this tactic now days? c.) He argued with soldiers who supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan d.) He said Muslims should attack Americans. e.) he attended mosque and owned a Qu'ran f.) he identified himself as Muslim and as a Palestinian So in conclusion I think it is a reasonable conclusion religion played some role in his actions. In other words, he held perfectly acceptable moral and political and religious opinions. a.) He was screaming Allah Akbar while shooting people. That tends to be the same thing insurgents and terrorist shout when doing their attacks. Like I said above "Allahu akbar" is something Muslims say on many occasions, including simple acts of devotion. It is part of Muslim and Arab culture to pronounce the phrase regularly and is largely associated with adrenaline pumping experiences, just like this one. He posted stuff on websites praising suicide bombers, Zameel can you think of anyone besides Muslims who use this tactic now days? Yes, the Tamil Tigers (Hindu secularists in Sri Lanka) which is the group having commited the largest number of suicide attacks. For example, one Tamil Tiger member killed three in a suicide attack in January this year (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/article964083.ece). Of course the media loves to pick on Muslims, despite the fact terrorism is a tactic used by political groups througout the world (e.g. ETA in Spain, FARC in Colombia, RAF in Germany, Shining Path in Peru). Nidal's arguements justifying suicide bombings in some situations is a typical Muslim argument and the subject of much debate. Of course, nobody's justifying attacking civilians, but like al-Qaradawi, al-Buti and other Muslim scholars who believe some Palestinian suicide attacks may be justified due to the extreme situation (despite Islam's prohibition of suicide), he argued that some can be equated to a soldier who shields other soldiers from a grenade blast by sacrificing himself. c.) He argued with soldiers who supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan So did I once. At an Islamic stall outside my university campus when a British soldier who served in those wars came and spoke to us. I argued the wars were morally unjustifiable; he agreed but said other wars were properly justifiable so he feels comfortable with trusting his government on the more morally objectionable ones. Now, does that mean I'm going to go on a killing spree? This is a common political debate, that I think most sensible Westerners have engaged in. It proves nothing. d.) He said Muslims should attack Americans. He said Iraqis and Afghanis were right to defend themselves against the American invaders. I think he was right. e.) he attended mosque and owned a Qu'ran f.) he identified himself as Muslim and as a Palestinian That's like saying "he is a Muslim" and he has political and moral views associated with being a Muslim Palestinian, which is precisely what you are proving in all of these points. It's as though gathering enough evidence to show he is a Muslim strenghtens your argument that Islam is what motivated his attacks or he commited violence in the name of Islam. He also got a psych degree, served in the military for several years by helping soldiers with psychological problems, attained the rank of major and did a number of other things like drive a car and buy a home - by your argument, Islam played a role in all of these things. Would the fact he didn't keep a proper Islamic beard (which according to most Muslim jurists is a strongly emphasised sunna/tradition) mean anything in your opinion? So in conclusion I think it is a reasonable conclusion religion played some role in his actions So if Seargent John Russell attended church, owned a Bible, had political debates about Bush's war on Iraq, etc. that would mean Christianity played a part in his crazed shooting of his five comrades? The reason we don't know about these things with regards to John Russell is because they were thought to be irrelevant. The only thing different with Nidal Hasan is he is a Muslim and an Arab which suddenly makes his devotion to his religion and whether he possessed a Qur'an or not very relevant. I'm sure an unprejudiced individual can see the hypocrisy.
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Post by himself on Nov 8, 2009 3:35:53 GMT
from the news Danquah assumed the military's chain of command knew about Hasan's doubts, which had been known for more than a year to classmates in a graduate military medical program. His fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan's "anti-American propaganda," but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint.
Zameel seems to think that because some muslims are motivated to violence by their reading of their religion that all muslims are so prone. But as I said, most ordinary people just want to be left alone, and this applies to most muslims as well. It can't all be taqila. My own son-in-law, Basheer, is an example. My Persian friends are entirely secular, so they don't count.
But such a clique need not be a majority of a culture in order to taint that culture. They need only be in the driver's seat, officially or de facto. If we number clusters of violence, from Nigeria to the Phillipines, a rather high proportion involves muslims on one side or both.
Bush said God told him to invade Iraq
Actually, a journalist said that an Arab had said that an Israeli official had said during a negotiation in Gaza that Bush had said something like that. Questioned later, the Israeli official said that he had pointed out that the swift American victory over the secularist Ba'ath tyranny was evidence that Allah favored the Americans. (He claimed that putting events in that theistic context was the only way to get through.) This was transformed by the blog-smog into what folks wanted to believe Bush had said.
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Post by zameel on Nov 8, 2009 12:43:30 GMT
Actually, a journalist said that an Arab had said that an Israeli official had said during a negotiation in Gaza that Bush had said something like that...This was transformed by the blog-smog Another lie? The Palestinian Foreign Minister heard this directly from Bush and reported it to journalists. The Guardian, BBC, the Telegraph, Times etc. all "blog-smog" spreading rumours? www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usawww.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/10_october/06/bush.shtmlDanquah assumed the military's chain of command knew about Hasan's doubts, which had been known for more than a year to classmates in a graduate military medical program. His fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan's "anti-American propaganda," but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint. Nidal was not anti-American. His cousin Nader told the New York Times that his family were against him joining the military but his response was "No, I was born and raised here, I'm going to do my duty to the country". Is it anti-American to voice your opinion that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are immoral and heinous crimes? That would mean a large proportion of Americans are "anti-American". Besides, there is no evidence that these views sprung from Islam - they are common political views (if they determined extremism, Noam Chomsky an American atheist, is the biggest radical Muslim). Do you think the fact he joined the military and helped soldiers in his capacity as a doctor was inspired by Islam? If not, then why do your imagine his violent outburst was inspired by Islam? Zameel seems to think that because some muslims are motivated to violence by their reading of their religion that all muslims are so prone That is not what I think, but what the Islamophobes think. As I showed in the article linked on the first post, Robert Spencer is skeptical of all Muslim condemnations of terrorism and thinks all Muslims are potential terrorists. He bases this view on a massively selective and narrow reading of the religion which gives the impression Muslims must as a religious duty fight unbelievers; he thus explains away the Muslim majority who are peaceful as either people not devoted to their religion or people who are ignorant of these teachings or are being deliberately deceptive. In other words, most Muslims throughout the world are not practising their religion correctly unless and until they pick up the sword (or the modern equivilent). In reality, of course, it is the teachings of the Qur'an and the Prophet's sunna that inspires most Muslims to be peaceful in today's age. See for example the movement of Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988) in Pakistan who taught non-violent forms of resistance against the British before (or about the same time as and before meeting) Gandhi and before King based solely on his reading of Muslim scriptures. most ordinary people just want to be left alone, and this applies to most muslims as well. It can't all be taqila I assume you mean "taqiyya". This is precisely the Islamophobic attitude above: "all Muslims should be jihadist killers seeking to subjugate all non-Muslims as dhimmis and if they're not then that's down to a temporary truce, hudna, because of weakness or because they're being deliberately deceptive based on the principle of taqiyya [which according to sunni Muslims can be done only in an extreme situation, see Qur'an 16:105-6]". In other words, a religious explanation is always found for Muslims' violence and peacefulness that ensures Islam is essentially violent. The problem with this is (besides it being biased) that it does not take in to account the actual motives and intentions of the individuals involved, instead it tries to explain away all behaviours in terms of Islam and Islamic concepts even if they are centuries old. This is a part of and continuation of the Orientialist heritage which homogenised and essentialised the Muslim world in much the same way. If we number clusters of violence, from Nigeria to the Phillipines, a rather high proportion involves muslims on one side or both Yes and Christians with Christian inspired liberation movements are also violent from Uganda to India. The problem with your statement is not the fact itself but that you assume Muslim fighting in these regions are because of some Islamic worldview. The Islamic resistance in the Philippines (largely in the form of MILF) was created after the Jabidah massacre in the 60s when dozens of Muslims were murdered by the Philippine army. In most places where Muslims were/are involved in violence it is mostly a case of self-determination as with Palestine, Bosnia, Philippines. As David Fromkin showed in his Peace to End All Peace the decolonising process itself ensured the Muslim world would remain in a power struggle between the minority dictatorial pro-Western elite and the Muslim majority - again typical of Islamophobic analysis of Muslim violence throughout the world is ignorance of the effect of colonialism on much of the Muslim world which according to Fromkin before the 1920s was mostly "tranquil".
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Post by Al Moritz on Nov 8, 2009 21:48:01 GMT
You must be kidding me, Mr. Lieberman. What an uncautious fool, who makes such claims without hard evidence: snipurl.com/t570f
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Post by penguinfan on Dec 10, 2009 21:11:08 GMT
Also, the fourth crusade was not "aimed at subjecting Constantinople to Latin rule." It had set forth on other purposes when a dissident Greek prince promised them rich rewards if they would help restore him to the throne. They did so. Then it turned out that he had not been warmly welcomed back, and could not raise the money to pay them. They rioted for their pay and were expelled from the city, where they faced starvation. That was then they turned their arms against the city and the patron who had conned them. The Pope excommunicated the leadership for their actions. Hello himself, not that I am doubting you in any way, but do you have any references that I can read to further explain what you have written regarding the fourth crusade? This was the first I had ever knew that the Crusaders had only traveled to Constantinople at the request of a Greek prince (yes, I checked wikipedia and they also mention this). Do you have a more in-depth account that mentions the crusaders were expelled from the city after they demanded their pay, etc? Also, what were these rules of warfare that if a city did not surrender, they (the inhabitants) were subject to enslavement and pillaging? Again, I am not doubting you, since it was the norm in those days for armies to brutally treat cities this way, but I have never heard of a name for this.
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