thread for other stuff relating to islam

[Islam Imamate]

My overall hope is that eventually humanity wizens up enough that this archaic nonsense falls by the wayside.

As an aside, there are those that have apostatized from Islam who predict it's collapse in the near future. Also, there are droves (thousands upon thousands) leaving that religion daily - new converts and those brought up in the religion. This doesn't get reported enough.

Islam is growing though. Its mostly due to the ridiculous birth rate in developing Islamic countries but do you really think a significant number of people are going to convert away from Islam in the Islamic World? Even in the West Muslims tend to form isolated communities.

Islam isn't going anywhere and you're not going to win hearts and minds telling Muslims "Your religion sucks, get over it" no matter how true you think that statement is.

 

[jehosafats]

You're not going to get rid of Islam, not in 10 years and probably not in 100 years so we have to learn to live with it.

The Torah is also filled with violence and yet Jews aren't killing people for not observing the Sabbath. I think what people like Maajid are trying to do is bring Islam to something like that, where they can keep the old texts but just interpret them differently or just accept some as relics of the past and move on into the 21st century. I think its possible, I know Muslims who are great people. It involves a level of ignorance and mental gymnastics towards their own religion but its certainly possible to be a moderate Muslim.

Christianity used to be the major religion on the Arabian peninsula. That is, until the Jewish Himyarites slaughtered a reported 20,000 of their Christian subjects, prompting swift response from Axum and Byzantium. The number of casualties may be inflated, but there hasn't been a substantial Christian presence on the peninsula since a century before Islam.

I get the impression Muslims and Jews got along for the most part. There were identifable pecking orders whenever they coexisted, but the lands of Christendom proved unkind to the Jews, who tended to prosper and were in less fear of conversion in the lands of Islam.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Christianity used to be the major religion on the Arabian peninsula. That is, until the Jewish Himyarites slaughtered a reported 20,000 of their Christian subjects, prompting swift response from Axum and Byzantium. The number of casualties may be inflated, but there hasn't been a substantial Christian presence on the peninsula since a century before Islam.

I get the impression Muslims and Jews got along for the most part. There were identifable pecking orders whenever they coexisted, but the lands of Christendom proved unkind to the Jews, who tended to prosper and were in less fear of conversion in the lands of Islam.

I'm talking about the present but thanks for the history lesson(and I don't mean that sarcastically).

 

[squeezewax]

good on him!

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog...dam_tells_islamists_to_fk_off_on_live_tv.html

 

[dissolved]

Islam is growing though. Its mostly due to the ridiculous birth rate in developing Islamic countries but do you really think a significant number of people are going to convert away from Islam in the Islamic World? Even in the West Muslims tend to form isolated communities.

Islam isn't going anywhere and you're not going to win hearts and minds telling Muslims "Your religion sucks, get over it" no matter how true you think that statement is.

Both articles are worth reading:

http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-myths-fastest-growing.htm

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Fastest_Growing_Religion

All the actual data available reveals that Islam is neither the fastest growing religion by number of adherents or the fastest growing by percentage-increase.

You are right, though, that Islam's greatest growth is due to birthrate in 3rd world countries.

 

[MeatheadMike]

Islam is growing though. Its mostly due to the ridiculous birth rate in developing Islamic countries but do you really think a significant number of people are going to convert away from Islam in the Islamic World? Even in the West Muslims tend to form isolated communities.

Islam isn't going anywhere and you're not going to win hearts and minds telling Muslims "Your religion sucks, get over it" no matter how true you think that statement is.

Yea, the penalty for converting away from Islam is death, so once you are in that's how they keep you in. The high birth rate in those developing countries is indeed the primary contributor to the rise of Islam... but there also seems to be a high conversion rate to Islam from people in Western countries, which is baffling to me.

Not sure why those people find Islam so appealing. What does it offer that makes it so much better than any other religion?

 

[dissolved]

Yea, the penalty for converting away from Islam is death, so once you are in that's how they keep you in. The high birth rate in those developing countries is indeed the primary contributor to the rise of Islam... but there also seems to be a high conversion rate to Islam from people in Western countries, which is baffling to me.

Not sure why those people find Islam so appealing. What does it offer that makes it so much better than any other religion?

Read the links I posted - particularly the wikiislam one.

 

[Zankou]

Christianity used to be the major religion on the Arabian peninsula. That is, until the Jewish Himyarites slaughtered a reported 20,000 of their Christian subjects, prompting swift response from Axum and Byzantium. The number of casualties may be inflated, but there hasn't been a substantial Christian presence on the peninsula since a century before Islam.

I get the impression Muslims and Jews got along for the most part. There were identifable pecking orders whenever they coexisted, but the lands of Christendom proved unkind to the Jews, who tended to prosper and were in less fear of conversion in the lands of Islam.

That is sort of true and sort of not. Christianity was a major religion in Nabatea (essentially Jordan), and in Najran (ASA speaking South, basically Yemen). It was never a major region in the main Peninsula itself though, particularly not in the Hijaz (the Mecca/Medina area).

You are right about the brutal massacre of the Najran Christians by the Jewish Himyarite king Dhu Nuwas, which the Ethiopians avenged -- a fascinating bit of history. It has to also be remembered that the Jews typically allied themselves with the Persians against the Byzantines, assisting the Persians to defeat the hated Byzantine rule, and when the Persians conquered Jerusalem and took it away from the Byzantines, the victorious Jews then turned against the Jerusalem Christians and brutally massacred them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_conquest_and_occupation_of_Jerusalem

Then when Heraclius miraculously took Jerusalem back from the Sassanians, the Christians returned the favor.

Basically everybody in the region was a complete bunch of dicks, and the early Arabic rulers (they were hardly recognizably Islamic until around 690 AD) were probably far and away the best of the lot. People were sick and tired of the Byzantines and Sassanians, and most everybody in the region preferred the emerging Islamic rule to orthodox Christian, Persian, or Jewish rule. Honestly if you had to rank them in terms of dickishness as political overlords in the time period c. 650 AD, the Jews were probably the worst, then the Byzantines, then the Persians, and the new Arab rulers were pretty clearly the least terrible (particularly since they spent most of their time fighting each other).

Contrary to prevailing misconceptions, most of the worst parts of Islam were not there at the start, but were largely written centuries later, along with emerging shariah, in places like Baghdad. It took several centuries for the huge apparatus of orthodox Sunni Islam to emerge, evolve, and calcify. Probably not coincidentally, that is also when the region began its endless decline.

 

[dissolved]

That is sort of true and sort of not. Christianity was a major religion in Nabatea (essentially Jordan), and in Najran (ASA speaking South, basically Yemen). It was never a major region in the main Peninsula itself though, particularly not in the Hijaz (the Mecca/Medina area).

You are right about the brutal massacre of the Najran Christians by the Jewish Himyarite king Dhu Nuwas, which the Ethiopians avenged -- a fascinating bit of history. It has to also be remembered that the Jews typically allied themselves with the Persians against the Byzantines, assisting the Persians to defeat the hated Byzantine rule, and when the Persians conquered Jerusalem and took it away from the Byzantines, the victorious Jews then turned against the Jerusalem Christians and brutally massacred them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_conquest_and_occupation_of_Jerusalem

Then when Heraclius miraculously took Jerusalem back from the Sassanians, the Christians returned the favor.

Basically everybody in the region was a complete bunch of dicks, and the early Arabic rulers (they were hardly recognizably Islamic until around 690 AD) were probably far and away the best of the lot. People were sick and tired of the Byzantines and Sassanians, and most everybody in the region preferred the emerging Islamic rule to orthodox Christian, Persian, or Jewish rule. Honestly if you had to rank them in terms of dickishness as political overlords in the time period c. 650 AD, the Jews were probably the worst, then the Byzantines, then the Persians, and the new Arab rulers were pretty clearly the least terrible (particularly since they spent most of their time fighting each other).

Contrary to prevailing misconceptions, most of the worst parts of Islam were not there at the start, but were largely written centuries later, along with emerging shariah, in places like Baghdad. It took several centuries for the huge apparatus of orthodox Sunni Islam to emerge, evolve, and calcify. Probably not coincidentally, that is also when the region began its endless decline.

Interesting and good stuff - particularly that last paragraph (to me anyway).

 

[Islam Imamate]

Both articles are worth reading:

http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-myths-fastest-growing.htm

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Fastest_Growing_Religion



You are right, though, that Islam's greatest growth is due to birthrate in 3rd world countries.

Either way it isn't going anywhere in the near future and probably not in the distant future either and so alienating Islam and perpetuating the narrative that Islam is at war with the West will only strengthen extremism at home and abroad, which is why guys like Maajid are so important.

Yea, the penalty for converting away from Islam is death, so once you are in that's how they keep you in. The high birth rate in those developing countries is indeed the primary contributor to the rise of Islam... but there also seems to be a high conversion rate to Islam from people in Western countries, which is baffling to me.

Not sure why those people find Islam so appealing. What does it offer that makes it so much better than any other religion?

My mother is a convert. She grew up a Catholic and said to me that Islam seemed to offer a much more personal relationship with God. Seems like a strange reason though, since other forms of Christianity also offer that. She says marrying a Muslim(my fahter) had nothing to do with it but of course I'm skeptical of that claim.

 

[jehosafats]

That is sort of true and sort of not. Christianity was a major religion in Nabatea (essentially Jordan), and in Najran (ASA speaking South, basically Yemen). It was never a major region in the main Peninsula itself though, particularly not in the Hijaz (the Mecca/Medina area).

You are right about the brutal massacre of the Najran Christians by the Jewish Himyarite king Dhu Nuwas, which the Ethiopians avenged -- a fascinating bit of history. It has to also be remembered that the Jews typically allied themselves with the Persians against the Byzantines, assisting the Persians to defeat the hated Byzantine rule, and when the Persians conquered Jerusalem and took it away from the Byzantines, the victorious Jews then turned against the Jerusalem Christians and brutally massacred them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_conquest_and_occupation_of_Jerusalem

Then when Heraclius miraculously took Jerusalem back from the Sassanians, the Christians returned the favor.

Basically everybody in the region was a complete bunch of dicks, and the early Arabic rulers (they were hardly recognizably Islamic until around 690 AD) were probably far and away the best of the lot. People were sick and tired of the Byzantines and Sassanians, and most everybody in the region preferred the emerging Islamic rule to orthodox Christian, Persian, or Jewish rule. Honestly if you had to rank them in terms of dickishness as political overlords in the time period c. 650 AD, the Jews were probably the worst, then the Byzantines, then the Persians, and the new Arab rulers were pretty clearly the least terrible (particularly since they spent most of their time fighting each other).

Contrary to prevailing misconceptions, most of the worst parts of Islam were not there at the start, but were largely written centuries later, along with emerging shariah, in places like Baghdad. It took several centuries for the huge apparatus of orthodox Sunni Islam to emerge, evolve, and calcify. Probably not coincidentally, that is also when the region began its endless decline.

Major does imply the Christians dominated the Hijaz, which you're right, they didn't. But they did form a substantial part of the population.

The Arabs themselves didn't seem to have much interest in ruling foreign domains. They tended to drift right back into a nomadic lifestyle. The Banu Hilial and Banu Sulaym were extreme cases, but they're instructive, in so far as the way they swooped down on the sedentary populations of Tunis and Algeria, then happily turned lush, garden-filled settlements into desert wastelands. It may explain why the most renowned scholars of the Islamic era were Persian, Berber, Egyptian, etc.

 

[MeatheadMike]

Read the links I posted - particularly the wikiislam one.

Interesting indeed.

My mother is a convert. She grew up a Catholic and said to me that Islam seemed to offer a much more personal relationship with God. Seems like a strange reason though, since other forms of Christianity also offer that. She says marrying a Muslim(my fahter) had nothing to do with it but of course I'm skeptical of that claim.

I have a cousin in Germany that converted because he was dating a Muslim girl and wanted to impress her I guess. What's funny is after they broke up he stayed a Muslim, and still follows all the rules etc... I guess he took that penalty of death for apostasy seriously.

Either way it isn't going anywhere in the near future and probably not in the distant future either and so alienating Islam and perpetuating the narrative that Islam is at war with the West will only strengthen extremism at home and abroad, which is why guys like Maajid are so important.

According to that wikiislam article 2/3 of the Muslims in the US are first generation (foreign born). If that's true for all other Western countries... there's a good chance that it may go by the wayside within the next few generations (just like pretty much all other religions). So in 100 years who knows. But yea I agree that alienating them only causes more problems.

 

[Zankou]

There is no evidence that there was any significant Christian population in the Hijaz itself, or anywhere in the Eastern Arabian peninsula for that matter. Actually, despite traditional Muslim narratives, the Hijaz seems to have been almost uninhabited, archaeologically speaking, until well into the conquest era. This is an area of considerable archaeological research at the moment.

The only evidence of any significant Christian population in the Arabian peninsula itself comes from the extreme Southwest corner, adjacent to Ethiopia, Najran specifically being the center. Christianity also penetrated the Nabatean region of Arabia in the North quite early. But the early Christian churches were intensely hierarchical, operating in communion with other churches and the church hierarchy. There is really no good evidence of 'hidden Christians' within the Arabian peninsula itself. Interestingly enough, there is almost no evidence of any Jews within the central Arabian peninsula itself either, despite the fact that the Qur'an's context clearly includes a substantial Jewish population! Hoyland wrote a recent article on the subject, and it is amazing how little evidence there is, and how geographically restricted that evidence is (almost entirely NW Arabia):

https://www.academia.edu/9659736/The_Jews_of_Hijaz_and_their_Inscriptions

This is part of why modern scholars tend to think Islam generally may have originated in a much more Northern context, such as the Nabatean region, than Islamic tradition contends. There is a strong trend to reject the idea of Islam emerging within the pagan central Arabian peninsula.

One confusing factor is that people wrongly think of "Arabs" who lived "in Arabia," but the actual situation involved a vast array of different peoples speaking a vast array of different Central Semitic Arabic-ish dialects extending from Mesopotamia through Syria through Jordan and all the way down the middle of the Peninsula, until they met the Ancient South Arabian languages (which, confusingly, had no relation at all to Arabic). All of these people outside the Arabian peninsula itself were still seen and called "Arabs," and many of them were Christians in the pre-Islamic era. It is quite possible that much of the Qur'an derives from such Northern Arabic Christian contexts -- this is a great puzzle that scholars are working out.

The reknowned scholars of the Islamic era were virtually all Central Asians (many Christians/Jews), and the reason is very simple: Because Central Asia was already a glorious center of world civilization prior to Islam, whereas Arabic speakers were a fairly marginal and illiterate lot by comparison.

 

[dissolved]

Either way it isn't going anywhere in the near future and probably not in the distant future either and so alienating Islam and perpetuating the narrative that Islam is at war with the West will only strengthen extremism at home and abroad, which is why guys like Maajid are so important.

My mother is a convert. She grew up a Catholic and said to me that Islam seemed to offer a much more personal relationship with God. Seems like a strange reason though, since other forms of Christianity also offer that. She says marrying a Muslim(my fahter) had nothing to do with it but of course I'm skeptical of that claim.

Funny enough (regarding your second paragraph), religious testimonials in general seem largely dubious. Actually, let's be honest, most testimonials about motivation whether education/career-path, spouse and many other things . . . Well, there's a lot of contrived narrative involved in the retelling. It's an interesting side-note. Most people converted to whatever religion they're a part of because of birth-place, upbringing, a significant person in their life telling them/convincing them (in many cases rather easily) that their religion was the right one. It's too bad that this is the way it is.

 

[europe1]

Berber, Egyptian

Many of them where Berbers? Didn't think of that. Any noteworthy names?

As Zankou said, the center of Islamic study was in Central Asia/Iran.

 

[IDL]

LOL

Not a fan of Hanity, but what he did to this guy was pretty funny.

Hannity makes a career of talking over people it seems. Or maybe I am thinking of O'Reily.

Maybe O'Reily and Hannity should interview each other and battle royal

 

[jehosafats]

There is no evidence that there was any significant Christian population in the Hijaz itself, or anywhere in the Eastern Arabian peninsula for that matter. Actually, despite traditional Muslim narratives, the Hijaz seems to have been almost uninhabited, archaeologically speaking, until well into the conquest era. This is an area of considerable archaeological research at the moment.

The only evidence of any significant Christian population in the Arabian peninsula itself comes from the extreme Southwest corner, adjacent to Ethiopia, Najran specifically being the center. Christianity also penetrated the Nabatean region of Arabia in the North quite early. But the early Christian churches were intensely hierarchical, operating in communion with other churches and the church hierarchy. There is really no good evidence of 'hidden Christians' within the Arabian peninsula itself. Interestingly enough, there is almost no evidence of any Jews within the central Arabian peninsula itself either, despite the fact that the Qur'an's context clearly includes a substantial Jewish population! Hoyland wrote a recent article on the subject, and it is amazing how little evidence there is, and how geographically restricted that evidence is (almost entirely NW Arabia):

https://www.academia.edu/9659736/The_Jews_of_Hijaz_and_their_Inscriptions

This is part of why modern scholars tend to think Islam generally may have originated in a much more Northern context, such as the Nabatean region, than Islamic tradition contends. There is a strong trend to reject the idea of Islam emerging within the pagan central Arabian peninsula.

One confusing factor is that people wrongly think of "Arabs" who lived "in Arabia," but the actual situation involved a vast array of different peoples speaking a vast array of different Central Semitic Arabic-ish dialects extending from Mesopotamia through Syria through Jordan and all the way down the middle of the Peninsula, until they met the Ancient South Arabian languages (which, confusingly, had no relation at all to Arabic). All of these people outside the Arabian peninsula itself were still seen and called "Arabs," and many of them were Christians in the pre-Islamic era. It is quite possible that much of the Qur'an derives from such Northern Arabic Christian contexts -- this is a great puzzle that scholars are working out.

The reknowned scholars of the Islamic era were virtually all Central Asians (many Christians/Jews), and the reason is very simple: Because Central Asia was already a glorious center of world civilization prior to Islam, whereas Arabic speakers were a fairly marginal and illiterate lot by comparison.

I thought it was obvious the Hijaz was but a crossroads prior to the Muslim expansion.

Roman influences along the Syria-Transjordan axis were considerable. There would be no reason to size up the number of Christians as hidden, or even small to begin with, relative to anywhere else. Greco-Romans in Arabia Felix however had only a roundabout idea where the myrrh and frankincense was coming from. Yemen was the other attractor, to this day the most fertile part of the peninsula. Mineans, Sabaeans and Himyarites dealt mainly with imperial Ethiopia and Persia. Indeed, Arabs were first mentioned in the literature as bordering the Yemeni and Ethiopian sides of the Red Sea. Its doubtful Axum and Constaninople would put their pious stamp to use to invade a region where there were no Christians to be found.

I find it more than difficult to qualify the notion the most reknowned scholars of the Islamic era were mainly Christians and Jews of Central Asia. It stretches my credulity even more because Damascus, Baghdad, Basra, etc., were not the epicenters of learning ahead of Cairo, Seville, Cordoba, Al-Qarawiyyin, Naples, etc in perpetuity. There were clear shifts in relevance between the regions throughout the Islamic era, and it would be wrong to state as a category, the Jews and Christians, nevermind the Central Asians, were always the catalysts.

Many of them where Berbers? Didn't think of that. Any noteworthy names?

As Zankou said, the center of Islamic study was in Central Asia/Iran.

Ibn Tufail comes to mind

 

[Johntreksmith]

I have always believed the reason for the Muslims barbaric views comes from the landscapes around them and their relative desolation. Countries like Egypt and turkey have what the average american and average european view as insane opinions. Such as things like if you leave the church and someone kills you it's all good. Thats a pretty widespread view alot of large muslim nations. stuff like that.

thoughts?

 

[squeezewax]

i've been noticing today on the news channels lots of vision of protest over the cartoons in countries like jordan and pakistan.
then we have the pope saying people shouldn't make fun of religion,
i'd not be surprised if one of the world leaders announces something about just that very thing, freedom of speech.
announcing something that they'd say doesn't limit free speech, but in reality it really does. is say this because the western leaders are still in 'apologist' mode. plus history shows that islam gets its way.

 

[ShinkanPo]

i've been noticing today on the news channels lots of vision of protest over the cartoons in countries like jordan and pakistan.
then we have the pope saying people shouldn't make fun of religion,
i'd not be surprised if one of the world leaders announces something about just that very thing, freedom of speech.
announcing something that they'd say doesn't limit free speech, but in reality it really does. is say this because the western leaders are still in 'apologist' mode. plus history shows that islam gets its way.

I am not surprised with the Pope he is a religious leader he will side with religion on this issue,

The difference with the Pope from Abu Bakhar al Bad dady is with the Pope Millitary helicopters circle over head to protect him while with Baddady its to track and launch some missiles at him.