Note to john killebrew (and for other commenters)

Submitted by GW (United States), Jul 29, 2005 at 12:52

John -- To turn down the heat on the discussion, it would be better to have facts in hand. In truth, a lot of Islam spread peacefully. As I understand it (Dr. Pipes, please confirm), Arabian and Persian merchants led the peaceful conversion of most of Indonesia, Malaysia and Mindanao to Islam. Today Indonesia has more Muslims than any other country, and they were not "forced" to accept Islam. Sure a large part of it was through marriages into influential families, but it refutes your generalization. Also, in Mali and much of West Africa, the conversion process was similarly peaceful.

(As an aside -- the leader of Rus in the 1000's was interested in unifying his subjects under one faith. He asked for representatives of the major religions to meet with him, and while impressed with Islam, he chose Orthodox Christianity. No war followed that decision. It was simply a rational process by a seemingly rational head of state.)

(Note to Mohammed and Jesus, both who posted here -- Whoa! M. you suggested "Just check the life of Muslims during the life of Muhammad and then his followers." Well, Abu Bakr, Umar, and Ali all died violently at the hand of other Muslims. So what's your point?

True, Umar defeated the tired and exhausted Persians and Byzantines after they engaged each other in centuries of conflict. Umar was fortunate to have had each of those powers weakened before he came on the scene, but to claim "islam did wipe out Great Empires" is false.

The Byzantine Empire lasted for another 600 years, and the Sassanids took over the Muslim caliphate. So be restrained in your boastful and false claims. As far as security then? Well, Justice changed from Justinian's Code to a more amorphous code that has led to violent interpretation. The economy was fairly globalized and medicine, mathematics, architecture and philosophy flourished, but that had less to do with Muslim extremists, and more to do with Muslim pragmatists. In fact, much of the Muslim Enlightenment darkened after the extremists took over.)

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