This is a really cool 'moving' map:

http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/history-of-religion.html

That's excellent !!!

Fascinating. Though i note one mistake, the east (NY and Washington) and west coast (hollywood) of America does not have the Jewish colour.

wrote on Nov 8^th, 2007 at 12:05am:

Fascinating. Though i note one mistake, the east (NY and Washington) and west coast (hollywood) of America does not have the Jewish colour.

lol

There is something interesting with Hinduism. It started shrinking back, then Islam 'conquered' northern India, leaving it almost completely gone, then very recently Hinduism reasserted itself. Does anyone know what caused this?

Interesting map, has quite a lot of inaccuracy in it though. for instance Muslims didn't even goto Irian Jaya (West Papua) as far as I'm aware, and if they did, I doubt they'd all of a sudden halt with a giant north-south line when they reached what one day would become Papua New Guinea. Obviously they just said "Indonesia is Muslim, so we'll just colour Indonesia's current borders green".

freediver,

Hinduism never died down, they lived, in much the same numbers, under Islamic rule that's all, then the British when they left, handed the country to the Hindus, not to the Muslims who actually allowed them (stupidly) to come in, in the first place.

This map just shows which religion was politically dominant over the land, rather than where the adherents are actually spread.

They have also an "Imperial history of the Middle East" flash show, that is shocking. They've completely left out the Mamelukes, who ruled ALL of the Middle East for about 300 years and then as Ottoman vassals for a further 200 years in Egypt alone,  I guess they just included it as part of Saladin's Kingdom, they're all damn Saracens anyway.

They seem to focus quite a lot on the State of Israel and the Crusader Kingdoms, which really are quite insignificant little blemishes on the overall history of the Middle East. So did the other presentation.

Well, that's what interests a lot of westerners. It helps to put the crusades into perspective, and they do come across as insignificant. Obviously the maps are only meant to give a cursory introduction. For most people, including myself, it was truly eye opening to see history presented in that way. You would need many hours of study (at least) via conventional learning methods to get that sort of overview.

With PNG, do 'they' know exactly how far Islam reached? Most of the rapid Christian expansion is shown as a rapidly expanding circle, so it is not like it gives a false impression of detailed accuracy.

Yeh it is kind of informative to visualise it in that way, certainly puts a broader perspective on things.

I've always found it quite a coincidence how Hinduism and Judaism both sprang forth sects that grew into much larger religions than the original, through the coming of some all-great central person who revolutionised the teachings, and this map highlights that.

Strange though that they show Judaism starting with the birth of Abraham (Pbuh), who was in fact father of the Arabs (as well as Jews), and therefore Islam, whilst Jews consider themselves to follow the religion of Moses (Pbuh) and that he was the founder of their religion. It's even stranger because Yehudah (from where we get the word Judaism) was a descendant of Abraham, did he follow the religion founded by his descendant?

I've seen similar maps before to illustrate the expansion of the Islamic Caliphate and also another to illustrate the expansions of the Western & Eastern Blocs during the Cold War. And actually recently I made a (static) map of the Islamic world to illustrate one of the Hadith (sayings) of Muhammad (Pbuh).

http://bayt.ibrahim.ms/muslim_lands.png


Quote:

With PNG, do 'they' know exactly how far Islam reached?

As far as I know, Islam never ruled any part of Papua. Indonesia annexed it in the early 1960's long after Islam had ceased to exist as an empire.

abu_rashid wrote on Jul 3^rd, 2008 at 7:39pm:

Hinduism never died down, they lived, in much the same numbers, under Islamic rule that's all, then the British when they left, handed the country to the Hindus, not to the Muslims who actually allowed them (stupidly) to come in, in the first place.

Agreed. However, their numbers did dwindle a little with many converting (primarily) to Islam when Muslims ruled and Christianity during the British colonial raj reign. There was an surge of Hindu nationalism when their numbers became alarmingly low. This gave rise to onternal civil unrest which became one of the culminating factors that led to the partition of the British Indian Empire. This was done along ethnic lines creating the Dominion of Pakistan (later to become Islamic Republic of Pakistan). There were rioting and fighting between Hindus and Muslims further enhance Hindu nationalism.

It wasn't along ethnic lines, it was along religious lines.

A large portion of Pakistanis are actually ethnically Indians, who were forced to flee during the partition period.

It's quite flawed in places, but very interesting anyway. For example more of Tanzania is Muslim than the map depicts.