harmony wrote:I suppose to some people, your opinion would have weight. But to the average Muslim, or to the guy giving his money to Hamas (even though they may be the same guy, it's possible they aren't), it doesn't matter what you think, Daniel. There are, as you say, many Muslims... millions, in fact... and your example of one Muslim with a peaceful agenda looks a little insubstantial, in light of 9/11 and the aftermath.
It was a scholarly point about the nature of Islam, harmony. And al-Tabari wasn't just "one Muslim." I chose him to represent a much larger number of classical authorities. He was one of the greatest jurists in Islamic history, and, by common consent, the greatest Sunni Qur’an commentator of all time. My point was that the more pacific reading of the Qur’an is not some modern politically correct notion dreamed up by a Western orientalist, but that it's been a major interpretive position since classical Islamic times.
To pretend that the Wahhabis, Hamas, Hizbullah, and the Taliban -- all quite recent movements -- represent Islam, as such, and thus to paint fourteen centuries of Islam (from Morocco and Nigeria to Indonesia and Malaysia and the borders of China, and from Samarqand and Tashkent and Istanbul to Cairo and Nairobi) with a broad brush while failing to note other Islamic thinkers and movements (and altogether omitting the large and venerable tradition of Sufism) from the picture is to engage in caricature, not description.
harmony wrote:Oh, goodie. We can just throw the whole thing in the dumpster because no one, certainly none of the present day terrorists or millions of believers, follows it correctly anyway, right? It's all a mistake, right?
Harmony, try to be rational.
Yes, as a matter of fact, many classical jurists would argue, and more than a few contemporary jurists do argue, that the terrorist interpretation of the Qur’an is wrong.
Do all? Do enough? No. I'm quite willing to say, and have said, that Islam is going through a major crisis right now, and that much of the Islamic world is, to put it mildly, dysfunctional, with evil consequences for itself and its neighbors.
Don't try to paint me as Pollyanna. Nothing I've said justifies that.
harmony wrote:The US government should bring all our troops home from chasing the Taliban in Afghanistan and from everywhere else in the Middle East, because ... well, all those Muslims who think they're following their holy book are just reading it wrong. Really! All that violence, all those lives wasted, all those children blown up... just because those silly Muslims are all reading it wrong.
As a matter of fact, harmony, I strongly support the US effort in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
Try engaging my actual position, instead of your cartoon of me.
harmony wrote:Then why isn't it a religion of peace? I mean, you just got through saying it's not a religion of war... that they're just reading the Koran wrong... so why isn't it a religion of peace?
It's not an either/or toggle switch, harmony.
It's neither a religion of peace (like Quakerism) nor, simply, a religion of war. It contains elements of both. Its history features both. Like most things involving humans, it's a mixture of good and bad. That should scarcely be surprising. I oppose attempts to whitewash Islamic history, but I also oppose attempts to demonize Islam.
harmony wrote:The Arabs spread by the sword, just as the Egyptians and the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Medes and the Romans and the Persians and the Byzantines and many others had done in the region before them, and just as the Turks and the Mongols and the Persians and the French and the British and, yes, on a small scale, the Jews would do in the region after them.
And the Arabs weren't Muslim?
They were. But they expanded, as their predecessors and successors in the region expanded, for many reasons. Just as the Egyptians and the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Medes and the Romans and the Persians and the Byzantines and the Turks and the Mongols and the Persians and the French and the British and the Jews were motivated by normal geopolitical ambitions (e.g., lust for power, greed, hunger for glory, and etc.).
They expanded, but, overwhelmingly, they didn't force conversions. That is, this was, strictly speaking, an Arabic expansion, not an Islamic one.
harmony wrote:How many Christians died in that 500 years, simply because they were not Muslim? 49%?
Perhaps a few. Not, probably, a significant number.
"49%"? Not even remotely. Not within light years. Closer to 49 individuals, probably, than to 49% of the population.
harmony wrote:How many forced conversions were there?
There might have been a few. (It would be surprising if there were absolutely none, given the millions of individuals involved, and humans being what they are.) But there were
very few, on the whole.
harmony wrote:That the countries' respective religions survived their centuries of the Muslim sword to their throats is a testament to the resilience of the conquered religion, not the mercy of the Muslim sword.
Your opinion would carry some weight if there were any evidence that you've ever read a history of Muslim India, Egypt, or Andalusia.
You don't have any idea what you're talking about. (Which, by the way, seems to be pretty much
de rigueur on this board.)