Wars of Religion, Christianity vs. Islam

[ferdie]

The majority of Muslims are good people (we are, after all, all just people) the problems arise out of extremist theology, of which there is plenty in the Christian right too.

I wonder what happened to this good muslims, where are they now? When 9/11 hapened here in the U. S. and some muslims were persecuted, the government deployed the police to protect the mosques while issuing statements that violence will not be tolerated or permitted.

 

[Rolltide]

The difference between Islam and Christianity is that Islam is a religion which tells its believers that they should fight and conquer for their faith. Those who say Islam is just like Christianity, and that only a few “extremists” believe in Islamic conquest are deluding themselves.

Islam emerged from the Arabian peninsula as an aggressively expanding religion, which aimed to conquer all the lands of the region. This continuous war or “jihad” began just three years after Muhammad’s death and continued for the next thousand years. In this time Muslim armies overran the Christian lands of

Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine 630 AD
Egypt 650 AD
North Africa, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco 700 AD
Spain 780 AD
**Southern France **790 AD
Sicily 850 AD
**Southern Italy **860 AD
Turkish borders 900 AD
**Armenia and Georgia **1050 AD
**Central Turkey **1070 AD
Greece 1300 AD
**Bulgaria, Serbia and the Balkans **1400 AD
Constantinople1450 AD

Spain was 711 AD, Southern France was 732. Of the nations you mention, Spain, France, Sicily, Southern Italy, and Greece are no longer Muslim. One reason Islam spread so fast in the Middle East was because the local governments were incredibly corrupt, especially the ruling Quraish class in Mecca. Further, once these regions were conquered by the Umayyad Dynasty, the locals usually maintained their own religion. Outside of the Middle East, few people actually converted. In fact, Muslims usually didn’t WANT them to convert, because they received such large tax revenues that they could fund their political conquest. Christians and Jews were free to practice religion however they desired if they paid a 10-20% tax. The only restrictions were that their places of worship were not as large as the largest mosque in the town, and that they could have no political role in the government. They knew that you cannot compel someone to adopt another religion. They were instructed to demonstrate the peacefulness, fairness, and and justness of their religion by example. They believed that over the generations, these groups would eventually convert of their own accord (or at least die out attempting to avoid paying taxes). These people who adopted Arab culture, but not Islam, were known as Mozarabs. (In fact, we still have the Mozarabic Rite of the Catholic Church practiced in Toledo, Spain.)

Ironically, Christianity also played a role in the spread of Islam. The wife of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, Theodora, was famously Monophystite. This heretical Christian sect was tolerated while Justinian was alive, but upon his death, began to be persecuted as heresy. The religious tolerance that Islam practiced at that time provided an outlet for the Monophystites to survive. The Monophistites could remain in the Byzantine Empire as a persecuted minority, or join the Islamic empire and pay the tax for religious freedom and survival. Many chose the Islamic Empire, becoming Mozarabs. This helped to weaken the resistance to invasion in the eastern areas of the Byzantine Empire and aided the advance of Islam.

 

[Rolltide]

I wonder what happened to this good muslims, where are they now? When 9/11 hapened here in the U. S. and some muslims were persecuted, the government deployed the police to protect the mosques while issuing statements that violence will not be tolerated or permitted.

I don’t know where you live. I’ve heard them continuing to speak out against violence here in Alabama, at least on the college campuses…

 

[HelenRose]

I do not know enough about Islam to state an opinion. I understand that the KKK claims to be Christian. It is possible that the radical Muslems are of the same mentality as the KKK and are using their belief system to justify their actions.

 

[Lief_Erikson]

We are all aware of Pope Benedict’s recent comments regarding Islam and the violence caused through the Muslim religion.

Do you think that Islam is by nature a violent, oppressive religion, or is this just what Islamic radicals have turned it into? Is Islam a peaceful religion?

Also, what is the differance between the violence in Islam and the violence in Christianity?

The difference between the violence in Islam and the violence in Christianity is that Islam’s founders initiated their religion with a mandate to violently conquer the entire world. The world was divided into two cities, one of peace and one of war. The city of peace was Islam, which means submission. The city of war is the rest of the world, and there was to be no peace with it. Truces with it could be made, but no lasting peace.

Eventually, this ideal broke down in practice. Islam’s history is far bloodier than that of Christianity, because their purpose from the beginning of their religion was to take over the world by force of arms.

However, most Muslims today are not like this. There is a radical remnant that does practice Islam this way, and their cause is gaining strength because of a string of oppressions (or, in some cases, perceived oppressions) inflicted on many Muslim nations and population groups during the 20th century, by a number of different nations. Russia, India, Israel, the U.S., and others all attacked Muslim lands at various times (for various reasons) and radicalism spread partly as a consequence of this.

The Crusades were different. The First Crusade started when Muslims invaded Byzantine lands, and the Byzantine Emperor appealed to the West for help. It was originally an attempt by Christians to defend themselves.

Various local Christian rulers have chosen of their own initiative to attack other rulers, though. This has only very rarely been done for religious reasons. It’s much more often been done for reasons of economic or political gain.

There never was a mass Christian invasion upon the world.

To answer your first question, I’d say that Islam was by nature violent throughout most of its existence. It became less so over time, due largely to their inability to win wars with a technologically superior West. When faced with this weakness, and by internal divisions, they had to change their ideology to justify their lack of jihad. So Islam today is much less violent. It is a pretty peaceful religion, most of the time.

Of course, there is a very active remnant still that is not so.