Sheep and goats in the late antique world

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Mar 12, 2014 at 09:04

Hi Yuval

You are comparing apples and oranges.

Up until 115CE at the time of the Jewish uprising the population of the Jews in the Roman Empire was about 10% of the population so they were a minority and the Jews lived among pagans and later on Christians that raised and ate pigs and that was an important source of high quality protein

Compare this with the fact that within a very short time most of the population of the conquered lands by the Arabs converted to Islam

As far as i know the God of Israel never told Jewish people that the lands of others belong to them. The God of Muhammad did say that the lands as well as the women of the infidels belong to his followers and this is why the Arabs had no hesitation to not just invade the lands of others but also to use and abuse the lands of infidels

Now compare this with the massive immigration of the Arabs and those that converted to Islam in places like Egypt and North Africa. The Arabs brought with them the sheep and goat which in turn grazed on the produce in the cultivated lands in both Egypt and North Afrca and the end result was a disaster in the case of Egypt the country changed from being the bread basket of the late antique world to massive starvation and decline in population within 100 years after the Arab invasion of Egypt in 642CE and the same happened in North Africa where the old cultivated lands that were created by the Romans was gone in no time and the desert was in

The arrival or the Arabs and their goat and sheep was a disaster to the people of Egypt and North Africa

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