history

Submitted by Amir (United States), Feb 21, 2006 at 08:58

"Amir, you have proved the point I am trying to make with your reference. Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine etc were Christians before Islam concurred the lands."

Most of the Middle East has been Muslim majority for more than a thousand years -- except Lebanon which was 50-50 until recently when many Christians migrated to the West during the civil war.

"Perhaps the most important event to occur in Egypt since the unification of the Two Lands by King Menes was the Arab conquest of Egypt. The conquest of the country by the armies of Islam under the command of the Muslim hero, Amr ibn al As, transformed Egypt from a predominantly Christian country to a Muslim country in which the Arabic language and culture were adopted even by those who clung to their Christian or Jewish faiths."

Quote the rest too..

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+eg0023)

-- begin quote ----

"The Arab conquerors treated the Egyptian Copts well. During the battle for Egypt, the Copts had either remained neutral or had actively supported the Arabs. After the surrender, the Coptic patriarch was reinstated, exiled bishops were called home, and churches that had been forcibly turned over to the Byzantines were returned to the Copts. Amr allowed Copts who held office to retain their positions and appointed Copts to other offices. "
--- end quote --------

"My point was when you call Christians minorities, it is actually not a correct statement, because the land was originally for Christians, all Middle East were Christians."

As I said, if you want to go back to history like that, they were pagans before Christianity. Egypt has been Arab and Muslim for more than a thousand years.

"When you say that Islam provided three choices when conquering a country (Convert to Islam, Pay tax or war), the people at that time didn't have much choice, poverty was the main reason Christians converted to Islam and that's exactly my point."

I didn't say anything. I quoted the US library of congress site. See above for the link. As for paying taxes, everyone has to pay taxes to say the US govt. Muslims didn't pay jizya, but they did pay zakat. Also, Christians at that time didn't offer Muslims three choices. Sometimes they offered them no choice (like when the crusaders conquest Jerusalem).

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