Text 28907, 51 rader
Skriven 2009-03-10 20:58:00 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
  Kommentar till text 28848 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
Ärende: God is dead!
====================
Ward Dossche wrote to Roy Witt on Tuesday March 10 2009 at 11:19:

WD> The largest islamic country in population is Indonesia ...

Doubtless true.

WD> Islam spread there as a revolt against the Christian rulers who
WD> occupied that part of world for quite a while and were pretty
WD> ruthless.

That, however, is conjecture. From the very first, Islam was spread by
conquest, much the same as Christianity in the later Roman era.

WD> Without those Christian rulers who oppressed the local population,
WD> islam would not have taken root there.

More conjecture. Makes a nice story, but still doesn't explain why Islam spread
so quickly from Mecca and Medina over the Arabian peninsula, north Africa and
southern Europe. Except for Europe, there weren't many Christians around there,
and they certainly didn't "oppress" the local population. Of course, the
Moslems didn't either: if you converted to Islam, you were OK by them. If not,
they just cut off your head.

WD> Same as in Pakistan and parts of India plus Africa.

Pakistan? Hey, you _do_ know what happened after 1948, don't you? And that the
Hindu-Moslem problems weren't a one-way street?

As far as Africa was concerned, some surprise: the slave traders came from the
Arabian peninsula and brought their religion with them. Then they sold the
slaves to the Europeans. Presumably slaves who professed Islam were treated
better and possibly even integrated into the local society.

WD> It starts-off as a revolt against colonial rule as a revolution, when
WD> the revolution succeeded islam was established as a mainstay religion.
WD> Anyone not following it was a neo-colonialist and undesired.

Pretty wild speculation, to say the least. History isn't as simple as the above
might seem to indicate.

Cheers, Bob

P.S. You might also think about the fact that so many Islamic leaders were
murdered during the first few hundred years of the movement. None of the old
"turn the other cheek" there, just the good old "Willst Du nicht mein Bruder
sein, haue ich Dir den Schaedel ein" (German saying: "If you don't want to be
my brother, I'll beat your brains out" - means about the same as "If you're not
with us, you're against us").

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