freediver wrote on Jan 20^th, 2009 at 12:44pm:

Quote: Within this theocracy, I believe Muslim 'fundamentalists', like all religious zealots, would become oppressive and intolerant towards non-Muslims [quote]Religious institutions have proven they cannot be trusted to be equitable towards those who do not follow their tenets. Sooner or later they will discriminate and there will always be the sense that adherents to the state religion will have advantages not available to non-adherents.

There is nothing 'sooner or later' about it. It's not that Islam or its institutions cannot be trusted to treat non-Muslims equitably. Rather it is fundamental to Islam that they be treated inequitably. It is not the fundamentalist Muslims that are the problem, but mainstream Islam.[/quote]
Yes, but no different to Catholicism which considers itrelf to be the one tru church with all other Christian denominations necessarily illegitimate. A Catholic Theocracy, such as the Papal States (annexed by Italy in the 19th century with the exception of The Vatican) also discriminated against non-Catholics and non-Christians.

The Buddhist 'Theocracy' of Tibet discriminated against non-Buddhists and endured internal sectarianism.

It is religio/political government itself which cannot be trusted to govern with equity and justice.

Calanen wrote on Jan 20^th, 2009 at 1:30pm:

If Saladin had destroyed his army or killed Richard I might agree with you. But Richard was able to return to England with his army intact, after conquering Acre and with an agreement to permit the pilgrims to go to the Holy Land unmolested.

Returned to England without achieving his goal, which was the capture of Jerusalem. In fact he didn't even get close. This is a defeat in anyone's language, and unfortunately for you, most creditable historians all agree.

And you also fail to mention that he was 'allowed' to return with his army...you see, Saladin was a great man, with great morals and ethics. If he was a Christian leader, then no doubt Richards army would of been attacked during its retreat....decimating his army.

Unlike the crusading leaders (for example - Count Raymond of Toulouse ), Saladin actually upheld his agreements.


Calanen wrote on Jan 20^th, 2009 at 1:30pm:

Not quite true. He killed the captives not for 'no reason' but because Saladin wouldnt (or couldnt) pay the ransom for them. There were so many of them, that if Saladin attackd they would also attack the Crusaders, so Richard ordered them executed. Execution of prisoners occured on both sides.

Many Crusader soldiers were also captured and held prisoner by Saladin...Richard did not pay ransom for them, and guess what, they were not murdered in cold blood. On the contrary, many married muslim wives and reverted to Islam.

As long as they promised to not fight against the muslims, they were allowed to either leave Palestine, or convert to Islam and live in peace.

I know which option I would rather.


Calanen wrote on Jan 20^th, 2009 at 1:30pm:

Maybe not all. He killed the Knights Templar and Hospitallers he captured.

What a complete load of nonsense. The majority of the Knights Templers left Palestine and returned to Europe. They were killed by Philip (with assistance from the Pope) in 1307 (Friday 13th).

Some Hospitallers were killed due to the role they played in the murder of Saladin's sister by Count Raymond of Toulouse, when they killed 200 pilgrims on their way to Haj, despite an agreement between the King of Jerusalem and Saladin that Pilgrims would be allowed safe passage.


Calanen wrote on Jan 20^th, 2009 at 1:30pm:

It's a bit different to having his 'butt whipped' nor was he decisively whipped. That's just more muslim hyperbole, like Hamas claiming a great victory after they huddle in the dust and rubble, cowering in the basement of a hospital.

His goal was the capture of Jerusalem, and he didn't get close to achieving his goal. This is a butt whipping in anyone's language.

To add insult to his wounds, he was captured en route to England by Austrians...and held to ransom. Its safe to say his whole campaign in Palestine was a disaster which really didn't achieve much at all.


Calanen wrote on Jan 20^th, 2009 at 1:30pm:

It's not his coat of arms, its the motto ON his coat of arms. His coat of arms is three lions. Thats not the coat of arms of NSW. 'Whats that supposed to prove,' - I know you have no respect for this country's heritage or this state's heritage, or the courts, so it's not supposed to prove or mean anything to you. To the good people of NSW, the coats of arms that hang in the courts mean something, and they respect them.

Tell me once again what link does Richard the Lionheart have with NSW's heritage?

Like I said...having a lion in the NSW coat of arms is irrelevant.


Calanen wrote on Jan 20^th, 2009 at 1:30pm:

I'm saying that Richard had nothing to do with the loss of Jerusalem. He wasnt there when it was captured.

No one ever claimed that he was.

Lestat wrote on Jan 20^th, 2009 at 2:49pm:

Calanen wrote on Jan 20th, 2009 at 1:30pm: It's not his coat of arms, its the motto ON his coat of arms. His coat of arms is three lions. Thats not the coat of arms of NSW. 'Whats that supposed to prove,' - I know you have no respect for this country's heritage or this state's heritage, or the courts, so it's not supposed to prove or mean anything to you. To the good people of NSW, the coats of arms that hang in the courts mean something, and they respect them. Tell me once again what link does Richard the Lionheart have with NSW's heritage? Like I said...having a lion in the NSW coat of arms is irrelevant.

Correct me if i am wrong.

But i'm sure that the lion [singular] was also the motif of the Tribe of Judah?




With all of these prominent Joo motif's used within British institutions, sounds like the makings of another hidden Zionist conspiracy to take over the world to me.



http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/photos/trafalgar_lion.jpg
Trafalgar Square

MODERN DAY EXAMPLE OF ISLAMIC REVISIONISM [against Western cultural records]....



".....Rewriting history is a major enterprise for jihad apologists, and an eminently successful one: the myths of the tolerant, pluralistic Muslim Spain, and the tolerant, pluralistic Ottoman Empire have entered the popular consciousness, despite mountains of evidence to disprove both...."


".......In all the cultures where Islam has become ascendant, the Muslim authorities have attempted to rewrite the history of the conquered lands to obliterate the memory of anything that went before Islam. By this method the cultural contribution of civilizations that preceded Islam — during jahiliyah, “the days of ignorance” — is minimized, denigrated, and distorted.
The destruction of physical evidence is part of the revisionist task. To the average Western scholar, the Bamiyan Buddhas and the archeological artifacts buried in the ancient rubble under the Temple Mount are priceless treasures which must be preserved, restored, studied, and admired. But to a Muslim they are abominations and must be destroyed....."


"......To the untrained eye the damage is barely visible. Yet within the handbound pages of books charting how Europeans travelled to Mesopotamia, Persia and the Mogul empire from the 16th century onwards, the damage caused by one Iranian academic to a priceless British Library collection is irreversible.
Leading scholars at the library are at a loss to explain why Farhad Hakimzadeh, a Harvard-educated businessman, publisher and intellectual, took a scalpel to the leaves of 150 books that have been in the nation's collection for centuries. The monetary damage he caused over seven years is in the region of £400,000 but Dr Kristian Jensen, head of the British and early printed collections at the library, said no price could be placed upon the books and maps that he had defaced and stolen."

sourced from.....

Harvard-educated Iranian academic sliced sections out of priceless historical books
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/024486.php




++++++++++++




Islam is a lie and truth is killing it.
Posted by: Alaskan
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/023681.php#c602782

Thanks for the example Yadda. I added this to the wiki on deception of non-Muslims:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Deception_of_Non-Muslims#Revising_history:_science_and_the_.27peaceful.27_empire_fairytale

freediver wrote on Jan 21^st, 2009 at 1:18pm:

Thanks for the example Yadda. I added this to the wiki on deception of non-Muslims: http://www.ozpolitic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Deception_of_Non-Muslims#Revising_history:_science_and_the_.27peaceful.27_empire_fairytale

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You must be getting seriously desperate if your including entries from yadda.

Why don't you just remove the lot and provide a link to Jihadwatch and be done with it.

your a funny man Freediver. :D:D

Are you saying that the thing about Farhad Hakimzadeh is wrong?

freediver wrote on Jan 21^st, 2009 at 2:41pm:

Are you saying that the thing about Farhad Hakimzadeh is wrong?

lol..did you even read the link. Or the rubbish that yadda posted.

No evidence, nothing to back up its claim, just incorrect dribble.

how do you explain the fact that many western historians accept the 'arabic' versions of history. For example, without fail, all western historians agree that before the advent of Islam in arabia, the arabs were in fact living in ignorance.

But hey...forget it.

Doesn't matter what I am saying....please, carry on. Please, include it in your wiki.

Please do...if people thought it was a joke before, this will just confirm it.

:D:D

How do you know it is incorrect?

Red herring: Western Historians agree that...., therefor the fairytale is in fact true.

freediver wrote on Jan 21^st, 2009 at 3:12pm:

How do you know it is incorrect? Red herring: Western Historians agree that...., therefor the fairytale is in fact true.

Fine, its incorrect. Carry on. Please...include it in your wiki. I dare you.

:D

How do you know it is incorrect?

April 21, 2004
Andalusian Myth, Eurabian Reality

Inventing the past, and denying the present. A Jihad Watch EXCLUSIVE essay by Bat Ye'or and Andrew G. Bostom:

   On Sunday, April 18, 2004, this revealing exchange took place between outgoing Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, and interviewer Chris Wallace of FoxNews:

   Chris Wallace: “In the apartment that was blown up, police found a videotape in which the bombers referred to Spain as Andalusia, what it was called by the Muslim Moors before they were driven out in 1492.”

   Jose Maria Aznar (through the translator): “So this means that Iraq, for them, was just a pretext. In the eyes of Islamic terrorism, it looks at the West, and Spain is a very special part of this parcel, because they feel that to recover Spain is to get back some of their territory.”

   Islamic scholar Mordechai Nisan recently discussed the contention by the founder of the Institute of Islamic Education, M. Amir Ali, that Medieval Spain had actually been "liberated" by Muslim forces, who "deposed its tyrants". Nisan extrapolated this ahistorical narrative line, and pondered:

   "Reflecting on March 11, as Muslim terrorism killed 200 and wounded 1,400 in Madrid, one wonders whether one day this event will also not be commemorated as a liberating moment. "

   Events surrounding the completion of the new Granada Mosque, which was marked by celebratory announcements July 10, 2003 of a “…return of Islam to Spain”, were also consistent with Nisan's dark musings. At a conference entitled “Islam in Europe” that accompanied the opening of the mosque, disconcerting statements were made by European Muslim leaders. Specifically, the keynote speaker at this conference, Umar Ibrahim Vadillo, a Spanish Muslim leader, encouraged Muslims to cause an economic collapse of Western economies (by ceasing to use Western currencies, and switching to gold dinars), while the German Muslim leader Abu Bakr Rieger told Muslim attendees to avoid adapting their Islamic religious practices to accommodate European (i.e., Western Enlightenment?) values.


Shortly after this event, a Wall Street Journal editorialist in a grossly distorted encomium to Muslim Spain, mentioned the “pan-confessional humanism” of Andalusian Islam, and even asserted: "one could argue that the oft-bewailed missing ‘reformation’ of Islam was under way there until it was aborted by the Inquisition."

María Rosa Menocal, Yale Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, in her 2002 hagiography of Muslim Spain, The Ornament of the World, has further maintained that "the new Islamic polity not only allowed Jews and Christians to survive, but following Qur’anic mandate, by and large protected them."

We believe that reiterating these ahistorical, roseate claims about Muslim Spain abets the contemporary Islamist agenda, and retards the evolution of a liberal, reformed “Euro-Islam” fully compatible with post-Enlightenment Western values.

Iberia (Spain) was conquered in 710-716 AD by Arab tribes originating from northern, central and southern Arabia. Massive Berber and Arab immigration, and the colonization of the Iberian peninsula, followed the conquest. Most churches were converted into mosques. Although the conquest had been planned and conducted jointly with a strong faction of royal Iberian Christian dissidents, including a bishop, it proceeded as a classical jihad with massive pillages, enslavement, deportations and killings.

Toledo, which had first submitted to the Arabs in 711 or 712, revolted in 713. The town was punished by pillage and all the notables had their throats cut. In 730, the Cerdagne (in Septimania, near Barcelona) was ravaged and a bishop burned alive. In the regions under stable Islamic control, Jews and Christians were tolerated as dhimmis - like elsewhere in other Islamic lands - and could not build new churches or synagogues nor restore the old ones. Segregated in special quarters, they had to wear discriminatory clothing. Subjected to heavy taxes, the Christian peasantry formed a servile class attached to the Arab domains; many abandoned their land and fled to the towns. Harsh reprisals with mutilations and crucifixions* would sanction the Mozarab (Christian dhimmis) calls for help from the Christian kings. Moreover, if one dhimmi harmed a Muslim, the whole community would lose its status of protection, leaving it open to pillage, enslavement and arbitrary killing.

By the end of the eighth century, the rulers of North Africa and of Andalusia had introduced Malikism, one of the most rigorous schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and subsequently repressed the other Muslim schools of law. Three quarters of a century ago, at a time when political correctness was not dominating historical publication and discourse, Evariste Lévi-Provençal, the pre-eminent scholar of Andalusia, wrote: "The Muslim Andalusian state thus appears from its earliest origins as the defender and champion of a jealous orthodoxy, more and more ossified in a blind respect for a rigid doctrine, suspecting and condemning in advance the least effort of rational speculation."

The humiliating status imposed on the dhimmis and the confiscation of their land provoked many revolts, punished by massacres, as in Toledo (761, 784-86, 797). After another Toledan revolt in 806, seven hundred inhabitants were executed. Insurrections erupted in Saragossa from 781 to 881, Cordova (805), Merida (805-813, 828 and the following year, and later in 868), and yet again in Toledo (811-819); the insurgents were crucified, as prescribed in Qur’an 5:33*.

The revolt in Cordova of 818 was crushed by three days of massacres and pillage, with 300 notables crucified and 20 000 families expelled. Feuding was endemic in the Andalusian cities between the different sectors of the population: Arab and Berber colonizers, Iberian Muslim converts (Muwalladun) and Christian dhimmis (Mozarabs). There were rarely periods of peace in the Amirate of Cordova (756-912), nor later.

Al-Andalus represented the land of jihad par excellence. Every year, sometimes twice a year, raiding expeditions were sent to ravage the Christian Spanish kingdoms to the north, the Basque regions, or France and the Rhone valley, bringing back booty and slaves. Andalusian corsairs attacked and invaded along the Sicilian and Italian coasts, even as far as the Aegean Islands, looting and burning as they went. Thousands of people were deported to slavery in Andalusia, where the caliph kept a militia of tens of thousand of Christian slaves brought from all parts of Christian Europe (the Saqaliba), and a harem filled with captured Christian women. Society was sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines, with the Arab tribes at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the Berbers who were never recognized as equals, despite their Islamization; lower in the scale came the mullawadun converts and, at the very bottom, the dhimmi Christians and Jews.

The Andalusian Maliki jurist Ibn Abdun (d. 1134) offered these telling legal opinions regarding Jews and Christians in Seville around 1100 C.E.: "No…Jew or Christian may be allowed to wear the dress of an aristocrat, nor of a jurist, nor of a wealthy individual; on the contrary they must be detested and avoided. It is forbidden to [greet] them with the [expression], ‘Peace be upon you’. In effect, ‘Satan has gained possession of them, and caused them to forget God’s warning. They are the confederates of Satan’s party; Satan’s confederates will surely be the losers!’ (Qur’an 58:19 [modern Dawood translation]). A distinctive sign must be imposed upon them in order that they may be recognized and this will be for them a form of disgrace."

Ibn Abdun also forbade the selling of scientific books to dhimmis, under the pretext that they translated them and attributed them to their co-religionists and bishops. In fact, plagiarism is difficult to prove since whole Jewish and Christian libraries were looted and destroyed. Another prominent Andalusian jurist, Ibn Hazm of Cordoba (d. 1064), wrote that Allah has established the infidels’ ownership of their property merely to provide booty for Muslims.

In Granada, the Jewish viziers Samuel Ibn Naghrela and his son Joseph, who protected the Jewish community, were both assassinated between 1056 to 1066, followed by the annihilation of the Jewish population by the local Muslims. It is estimated that up to five thousand Jews perished in the pogrom by Muslims that accompanied the 1066 assassination. This figure equals or exceeds the number of Jews reportedly killed by the Crusaders during their pillage of the Rhineland, some thirty years later, at the outset of the First Crusade.

The Granada pogrom was likely to have been incited, in part, by the bitter anti-Jewish ode of Abu Ishaq, a well known Muslim jurist and poet of the times, who wrote: "Put them back where they belong and reduce them to the lowest of the low..turn your eyes to other [Muslim] countries and you will find the Jews there are outcast dogs...Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them...They have violated our covenant with them so how can you be held guilty against the violators?"

The Muslim Berber Almohads in Spain and North Africa (1130-1232) wreaked enormous destruction on both the Jewish and Christian populations. This devastation- massacre, captivity, and forced conversion- was described by the Jewish chronicler Abraham Ibn Daud, and the poet Abraham Ibn Ezra. Suspicious of the sincerity of the Jewish converts to Islam, Muslim “inquisitors” (i.e., antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed the children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslim educators. Maimonides, the renowned philosopher and physician, experienced the Almohad persecutions, and had to flee Cordoba with his entire family in 1148, temporarily residing in Fez — disguised as a Muslim — before finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt.

Indeed, although Maimonides is frequently referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Andalusia, his own words debunk this utopian view of the Islamic treatment of Jews: "..the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.."

A valid summary assessment of interfaith relationships in Muslim Spain, and the contemporary currents responsible for obfuscating that history, can be found in Richard Fletcher's engaging Moorish Spain. Mr. Fletcher offers these sobering, unassailable observations:

"The witness of those who lived through the horrors of the Berber conquest, of the Andalusian fitnah in the early eleventh century, of the Almoravid invasion- to mention only a few disruptive episodes- must give it [i.e., the roseate view of Muslim Spain] the lie. The simple and verifiable historical truth is that Moorish Spain was more often a land of turmoil than it was of tranquility...Tolerance? Ask the Jews of Granada who were massacred in 1066, or the Christians who were deported by the Almoravids to Morocco in 1126 (like the Moriscos five centuries later)…In the second half of the twentieth century a new agent of obfuscation makes its appearance: the guilt of the liberal conscience, which sees the evils of colonialism- assumed rather than demonstrated-foreshadowed in the Christian conquest of al-Andalus and the persecution of the Moriscos (but not, oddly, in the Moorish conquest and colonization). Stir the mix well together and issue it free to credulous academics and media persons throughout the western world. Then pour it generously over the truth…in the cultural conditions that prevail in the west today the past has to be marketed, and to be successfully marketed it has to be attractively packaged. Medieval Spain in a state of nature lacks wide appeal. Self-indulgent fantasies of glamour...do wonders for sharpening up its image. But Moorish Spain was not a tolerant and enlightened society even in its most cultivated epoch."

The socio-political history of Andalusia was characterized by a particularly oppressive dhimmitude that is completely incompatible with modern notions of equality between individuals, regardless of religious faith. At the dawn of the 21st century, we must insist that Muslims in the West adopt post-Enlightenment societal standards of equality, not "tolerance," abandoning forever their hagiography of the brutal, discriminatory standards practiced by the classical Maliki jurists of "enlightened" Andalusia.

*The Noble Qur'an- Three esteemed translations, online:
Sura 005, Verse 033
YUSUF ALI: "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;"
PICKTHAL: "The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom;"
SHAKIR: "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement"

Bat Ye'or, www.dhimmitude.org, www.dhimmi.org , is the author most recently of Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, and the forthcoming Eurabia.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/2004/04/001665print.html

Quote:

the insurgents were crucified, as prescribed in Qur’an 5:33*.

I haven't heard anything about crucifixion before.


Quote:

In Granada, the Jewish viziers Samuel Ibn Naghrela and his son Joseph, who protected the Jewish community, were both assassinated between 1056 to 1066, followed by the annihilation of the Jewish population by the local Muslims. It is estimated that up to five thousand Jews perished in the pogrom by Muslims that accompanied the 1066 assassination. Indeed, although Maimonides is frequently referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Andalusia, his own words debunk this utopian view of the Islamic treatment of Jews: "..the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.."

I'm starting to suspect that even the 'protection' offered to Dhimmis, which Abu has raised on many occasions, is a farce.

freediver wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2009 at 3:56pm:

Quote: the insurgents were crucified, as prescribed in Qur’an 5:33*. I haven't heard anything about crucifixion before. [quote]In Granada, the Jewish viziers Samuel Ibn Naghrela and his son Joseph, who protected the Jewish community, were both assassinated between 1056 to 1066, followed by the annihilation of the Jewish population by the local Muslims. It is estimated that up to five thousand Jews perished in the pogrom by Muslims that accompanied the 1066 assassination. Indeed, although Maimonides is frequently referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Andalusia, his own words debunk this utopian view of the Islamic treatment of Jews: "..the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.."

I'm starting to suspect that even the 'protection' offered to Dhimmis, which Abu has raised on many occasions, is a farce.[/quote]

It is the arbitrary protection offered to a slave, protection at sufference. If someone does something illegal to you, you had no access to the courts, so what could you do about it? Muslims relied on collective punishment, so whole communities would suffer if a muslim was attacked.

It was a way to keep people subservient, but still working and paying taxes. It was not a privilege to be a dhimmi, it was subjugation - which is why the Spanish revolted, repeatedly and eventually got rid of muslim rule.

freediver wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2009 at 3:56pm:

the insurgents were crucified, as prescribed in Qur’an 5:33 I haven't heard anything about crucifixion before.

Hamas has said it will crucify people.

Calanen,


Quote:

A Jihad Watch EXCLUSIVE essay by Bat Ye'or and Andrew G. Bostom

You've done nothing but bring revisionist nonsense from Zionist propagandists.

Here's how Bat Ye'or's venomous coining ("Eurabia") has been described:

Israeli peace activist Adam Keller, in a letter of protest sent on June 2, 2008 to the Israeli publisher of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, wrote:

   "In 1886 the French antisemite Edouard Drumont published 'La France Juive' (Jewish France), creating the false nightmarish image of a France dominated by Jews, and sowing the poisonous seeds which came to fruit when Vichy French officials collaborated in the mass muder of French Jewry. [...] 'Bat Ye'or' follows in notorious footsteps indeed by creating the false nightmarish image of a Europe dominated by Arabs and Muslims"

According to David Aaronovitch:

  "[Eurabia] is a concept created by a writer called Bat Ye’or who, according to the publicity for her most recent book, "chronicles Arab determination to subdue Europe as a cultural appendage to the Muslim world — and Europe's willingness to be so subjugated". This, as students of conspiracy theories will recognise, is the addition of the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea."

Craig R. Smith in a New York Times article referred to her as one of the "most extreme voices on the new Jewish right."

Johann Hari, a British journalist, argues that "There are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca" and that Bat Ye'or is a "scholar" who argues that Europe is on the brink of being transformed into a conquered continent called "Eurabia"

In a review of The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude the American historian Robert Brenton Betts commented that the book dealt with Judaism at least as much as with Christianity, that the title was misleading and the central premise flawed. He said: "The general tone of the book is strident and anti-Muslim. This is coupled with selective scholarship designed to pick out the worst examples of anti-Christian behavior by Muslim governments, usually in time of war and threats to their own destruction (as in the case of the deplorable Armenian genocide of 1915). Add to this the attempt to demonize the so-called Islamic threat to Western civilization and the end-product is generally unedifying and frequently irritating."

Michael Sells, John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature at the University of Chicago, argued that "by obscuring the existence of pre-Christian and other old, non-Christian communities in Europe as well as the reason for their disappearance in other areas of Europe, Bat Ye’or constructs an invidious comparison between the allegedly humane Europe of Christian and Enlightenment values and the ever present persecution within Islam. Whenever the possibility is raised of actually comparing circumstances of non-Christians in Europe to non-Muslims under Islamic governance in a careful, thoughtful manner, Bat Ye’or forecloses such comparison."

No doubt all "mindless dhimmis" who don't know any better, like anyone else who doesn't swallow your conspiracy theory of secret Islamic plans to take over the Western world, via the 'Protocols of the Elders of Mecca'.


Quote:

Islamic scholar Mordechai Nisan recently discussed...

What a joke, Islamic scholar? Just because his name is foreign sounding, you thought you could pass him off as an Islamic scholar? His name is definitely Semitic, but not Arabic, it's Hebrew. He is a professor at the Hebrew university in Jerusalem, not an Islamic scholar.


Quote:

Toledo, which had first submitted to the Arabs in 711 or 712, revolted in 713. The town was punished by pillage and all the notables had their throats cut....

Generally when people rebel against the government and try to make revolutions, they are put down. Notice only the 'notables' were touched, not the general population, compare that to the Catholic conquest of Toldeo, and the subsequent expulsion/murder of EVERY SINGLE Jew and Muslim from the city. In 1492, the Jews were completely eradicated from Toldeo by massacre and expulsion, and the Muslims suffered the same fate in 1502.

Toledo reached its zenith in the era of Islamic Caliphate. The famous 19th. century Spanish historian Pascual de Gayangos wrote:

   "The Muslim scientists of this age were not rivaled in the world. Perhaps among their greatest feats were the famous waterlocks of Toledo"


Quote:

In the regions under stable Islamic control, Jews and Christians were tolerated as dhimmis

The key word here being tolerated. How were Muslims, or any other non-Christians, treated under Christian European nations of the time? "Saracens" were not even tolerated, they were instantly put to death, being the most evil vile creatures that God had suffered to walk the face of the earth. What a joke, that you can mention the TOLERANCE shown by Islam to non-Muslims, in a  time when your own people, whom you have no problem supporting their actions in that time, were completely intolerant of people of other faiths, and simply massacred them on sight, showing them no tolerance whatsoever.


Quote:

Subjected to heavy taxes

Heavier relative to what? Relative to no taxes? Jizya was less than what the Christians asked.

Also regarding Toledo, this city is a very important site regarding relations between the West and Islam. For it was at Toledo that most of the Islamic advances in science and mathematics were relayed to Europe.


Quote:

In the 13th century, Toledo was a major cultural center under the guidance of Alfonso X, called "El Sabio" ("the Wise") for his love of learning. The program of translations, begun under Archbishop Raymond of Toledo, continued to bring vast stores of knowledge to Europe by rendering great academic and philosophical works in Arabic into Latin.

Program of translations


Quote:

Maimonides, the renowned philosopher and physician, experienced the Almohad persecutions, and had to flee Cordoba with his entire family in 1148, temporarily residing in Fez — disguised as a Muslim — before finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt. Indeed, although Maimonides is frequently referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Andalusia, his own words debunk this utopian view of the Islamic treatment of Jews: "..the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.."

Notice how they choose to flee further into Islamic lands, rather than into Christian lands, why do you think that might be? A lot of Muslims and Christians (non-Catholics) fled into North Africa also.

Also, since Rambam studied in the Islamic university in Fez, and stayed there for quite a few years, I doubt he would've remained "disguised as a Muslim".

Also the claim that he moved to the Fatimid Caliphate is nonsense. No doubt to try and imply he left an "extremist Islamic state" to a more "tolerant Islamic state", as the Fatimds are often called, because of the fact they were astray from mainstream Islam. In fact Rambam migrated to the Sultanate of one of the strongest, strictest, orthodox Muslim reformers and fighters of Jihad against invading Crusaders of all time, Sultan Salah ud-Deen al-Ayyubi (Saladin in the West). He actually became the physician of Salah ud-Deen and lived out the rest of his days peacefully under  the rule of Salah ud-Deen. The title Ra'is al-Umma or al-Millah (Head of the [Jewish] Community), was bestowed upon him. His descendants also continued to be powerful figures under the Ayyubid and Mameluk Sultanates right up until the 14th. century.

You Muslims must be on drugs, if Islam is so great and Allah so powerful, why are you second rate citizens, hated by most of the non muslim world, always killing but claim to be peaceful, treat woman like slaves but say their number 1. If Islam is so great, why are they still poor uneducated and still in the gutter. And by the way, their seems to be an awful lot of Muslims heading to non Muslim lands or havent you been outside lately.

Quote:

You Muslims must be on drugs, if Islam is so great and Allah so powerful, why are you second rate citizens

If the economic situation of a civilisation is the measure of it's greatness, then check your history, andd you'll see that for most of it's history, Islam was economically and militarily dominant over the West, whilst the West was backwards both ecnomically and militarily. These things constantly fluctuate and are not the measure of a civilisation's greatness.

America and Australia never existed then and as far as I know, Islam didnt really reach all that far into Europe, the Ottoman turks were sent packing by the Germans, so France, Germany, England, Scandinavia all remained untouched, so to say Islam had any influence over them is rubbish. I have also noticed claims of things achieved before Islam being claimed by them.

I don't recall mentioning America nor Australia.

Islam began in the Arabian peninsula. European Christianity in that time, extended it's rule all the way down into Palestine and even across into Egypt.

Islam moved north, growing astronomically in strength, militarily, economically and technologically century after century, engulfing all of the former lands ruled over by the European Christians, and then continued north to Anatolia, west across North Africa and into the Iberian peninsula to the Pyrenees in France. This expansion of Islam continued across the Mediterranean into Sicily, Corsica and Malta (Today Maltese still speak a variety of Arabic)  and further into Anatolia, until the capital of Eastern Christianity, Constantinople, finally fell to Islam in the 15th. century. The Islamic civilisation continued it's spread into Europe until it reached the Austro-Hungarian capital.

Wealthy Europeans sent their children to be educated in Baghdad, and scientists who were persecuted in Europe traveled to Baghdad to study at Dar al-Hikmah (The House of Wisdom) a huge complex of universities setup to gather all the knowledge of the world into one place. Countless technologies and mathematical concepts were introduced to Europe through the translation community in Toledo, where works were transferred from Arabic to Latin.

This is all history, and does nobody any good today, I agree, Muslims cannot live off the past. But you must also recognise that these circumstances fluctuate, and that Islam has seen it's fair share of ups and downs, as has Eurrope/Christianity. It hasn't always been as it is today, as you seem to think.

One could also ask the question, where was Yahweh when Christians were so weak and backwards for centuries? But the question is just nonsensical, as it was when you posed it about Islam.

Living in the past seems to be what Islam does best, might be time to look to the future, while they still have one.

Hence my admission:


Quote:

This is all history, and does nobody any good today, I agree, Muslims cannot live off the past. But you must also recognise that these circumstances fluctuate

You are the one who made the false assertion that the economic/military stature of a civilisation at any given time determines whether the entire civilisation/ideology is 'favoured by God'.

The point you seem content to ignore Abu, is that Islam, and "REALITY", have barely a nodding acquaintance with each other.

We see muslims fabricating there own version of what happened last week(Hamas' great victory?), yet you will only accept what Islamic sources sanction, about what happened hundreds of years ago, and that is plain ignorant.
To dismiss all scholarship, unless it passes the Islamic censors, is blind, stupid, prejudice.

Quote:

We see muslims fabricating there own version of what happened last week(Hamas' great victory?)

Who's fabricated anything? There are indeed some discrepancies in the number of killed, obviously the Zionists have the monopoly on the true figures though, right?

Apart from that, all I've seen is some fruitless argument about whether Israel achieved her aims which were clearly stated at the beginning of the incursion to destroy Hamas' ability to launch rockets. That they clearly did not do, as Hamas still fired rockets even after Israel had ceased her operation. Indicating that the operation did not destroy Hamas' ability to launch rockets. Another stated aim was to weaken Hamas politically, which the complete reverse occured. If you want to insist Israel achieved her aims, so be it, but it's your deluded view which would have barely a nodding acquaintance with reality.

Unless of course you think Israel's aim was merely to cause more civilian casualties, in which case yes she certainly did achieve them.

mozzaok wrote on Jan 26^th, 2009 at 4:11am:

The point you seem content to ignore Abu, is that Islam, and "REALITY", have barely a nodding acquaintance with each other. We see muslims fabricating there own version of what happened last week(Hamas' great victory?), yet you will only accept what Islamic sources sanction, about what happened hundreds of years ago, and that is plain ignorant. To dismiss all scholarship, unless it passes the Islamic censors, is blind, stupid, prejudice.

moz,


Exactly correct.


See my post here, about the imaginary 'Jewish temple' in Jerusalem.

"Exploring ISLAMIC 'mindsnap'"
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1227051349/0#0





You know moz, Jews don't really exist.

They are just a figment of abu's imagination.


;D   ;D   ;D

Quote:

Johann Hari, a British journalist, argues that "There are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca" and that Bat Ye'or is a "scholar" who argues that Europe is on the brink of being transformed into a conquered continent called "Eurabia"

Quote:

No doubt all "mindless dhimmis" who don't know any better, like anyone else who doesn't swallow your conspiracy theory of secret Islamic plans to take over the Western world, via the 'Protocols of the Elders of Mecca'.

Except that the Koran is real and calls on Muslims to use violence to dominate the world. Furthermore, history clearly shows that they have attempted this in the past, gone a long way, and caused great suffering. The elders of Zion on the other hand was a fabrication.


Quote:

What a joke, Islamic scholar? Just because his name is foreign sounding, you thought you could pass him off as an Islamic scholar? His name is definitely Semitic, but not Arabic, it's Hebrew. He is a professor at the Hebrew university in Jerusalem, not an Islamic scholar.

You are confusing Islamic with Muslim, as if only Muslims are qualified to study Islam. This is a bit rich from someone who continually claims to understand the 'real Christianity' better than Christians.


Quote:

Who's fabricated anything? There are indeed some discrepancies in the number of killed, obviously the Zionists have the monopoly on the true figures though, right? Apart from that, all I've seen is some fruitless argument about whether Israel achieved her aims

So all you saw were a few discrepancies in the number killed, and a fruitless debate lead by Lestat about who acvhieved what aims? Did you miss the bit about Hamas claiming a great victory?

freediver wrote on Jan 26^th, 2009 at 12:19pm:

Quote: [quote]What a joke, Islamic scholar? Just because his name is foreign sounding, you thought you could pass him off as an Islamic scholar? His name is definitely Semitic, but not Arabic, it's Hebrew. He is a professor at the Hebrew university in Jerusalem, not an Islamic scholar. You are confusing Islamic with Muslim, as if only Muslims are qualified to study Islam. This is a bit rich from someone who continually claims to understand the 'real Christianity' better than Christians.

Any critical perceptions about ISLAM coming from non-muslims are supposedly invalid.

FD,

This is just another case of,

ISLAM is good.
Everyone else is bad [ignorant].






And of course, there is the point that abu, and muslims claim that Jesus is a muslim.

This is an astounding claim, in that abu, and muslims, reject the veracity all [pre Koranic] historic accounts of the theology of Judaism, and Jesus, upon which the existence and historic accounts of Judaism, and Jesus is based.


It is an amazing fact, that the whole of ISLAM is based, is built upon, the the words which passed through the lips of one man.

But muslims accept [without question] the Koran, alone, as the true 'revelation of knowledge' about itself, and about the true historic account of both Judaism and Christianity.


While the Jewish & Christian Bibles consists of 66 books, by multiple 'authors', transcribed over millennia.

Yet a clear underlying theme [the redemption of mankind] in its pages is a [persistent and] consistent 'message'.

And there is also a substantial amount of archaeology which backs up at least some of the 'facts', and accounts, which are claimed in these combined pages [of the Jewish and Christian Bibles].


Yet muslims would rather believe the words which came out of the lips of one man.

abu_rashid wrote on Feb 16^th, 2009 at 3:51pm:

freediver, Quote: I think Spain has. I thought it was odd that he included Spain in the list, as it was saved from the long downward spiral. Spain even had it's own empire, of sorts. Spain had a brutal colonialist venture into the new world. Which resulted purely in the destruction of civilisations, not in the advancement of civilisation. The eradication of several different civilisations (who were much further behind anyone from Eurasia), and the shipping of all their riches back to Spain, can hardly even begin to compare to the civilisation that existed in Andalus. Unless of course that's your standard for what civilisation is? which wouldn't surprise me.. since it was generally the European modus operandi.

It's odd that you use such different language there. Do you see the Islamic invasion of Spain as brutal? Do you see it as colonialist?


Quote:

We just dispute the claims that Islam spread violently and in an aggressive imperialistic way, like for instance the way the Spanish or English empires spread (and Christianity with them). Just consider the difference in the way Islam dealt with new 'citizens'. They became full citizens

Abu didn't you concede elsewhere that only the Muslim ones became full citizens? Also, in practice, weren't even the Muslim converts considered inferior and treated as inferior?

Quote:

Do you see the Islamic invasion of Spain as brutal? Do you see it as colonialist?

No I don't. It was just the normal mode of operation of ALL states/empires in that time. That's the way empires were, they all had liquid borders, that would contract and expand at various times. Islam was born into that environment, and it held it's own in that environment. It was neither overly brutal about it, nor was it colonialist in the sense the British and Spanish were. A land  became an Islamic land, it didn't become a mere possession of the Caliph, and it's people slaves. That's what Britain and Spain did. They wiped out any less advanced peoples than themselves and looted all of the wealth of the countries in question to be sent back to the homeland. There was no concept of "homeland" in the Islamic empire, the entire empire was one homogenous state.

Do you see it as the same as what the Spanish did in the New World?


Quote:

Abu didn't you concede elsewhere that only the Muslim ones became full citizens?

More of your fantasies of winning debates?


Quote:

Also, in practice, weren't even the Muslim converts considered inferior and treated as inferior?

No. This wouldn't even make sense logically anyway, EVERYONE was a convert to Islam. It began with 0 adherents, did it not? In fact, if anything, there was special priviledge for converts, they were given special allowances at some times, to help them out financially, perhaps because their family might disown them, especially in the very early days, and plunder their belongings (a regular occurence).

I was listening to a discussion on New Zealand's Treaty of Waitangi on the radio the other day. Apparently the idea of signing a treaty with the Maori people was a direct result of the consternation and outrage in Britain regarding the treatment of Australian Aborigines. The British people became concerned that the Crown's intention to claim New Zealand would result in the same brutality towards local natives that had occurred to Aborigines in the colony of New South Wales. The Treaty was an attempt to gain possession of New Zealand by consent.

Also apparently many native Maoris had worked on whaling ships that docked in Sydney and had seen first hand the plight of the local Aboriginal people so they would have been under no illusions as to the nature of methods that would be used to take New Zealand by force.

The Treaty, while hardly a legal document of any note, has become a moral covenant that the Maori people have used to great effect to reclaim land confiscated by the Crown in contravention of the articles of the Treaty.

Abu, you refused to respond to this, on the grounds that we 'didn't want to hear the answer'. It hardly makes the Islamic empire seem homogenous.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1224850702/2#2


Quote:

The concept of toleration is linked to a number of discriminatory obligations in the economic, religious and social fields, imposed by the shari'a on the dhimmis. The transgression by the dhimmis of some of these obligations, abolished their protection, and threaten them with death or slavery. Dhimmis suffered many legal disabilities intended to reduce them to a condition of humiliation, segregation and discrimination. These rules, established from the eight to nine centuries by the founders of the four schools of Islamic law, set the pattern of the Muslim's community's social behavior toward dhimmis.