India and the Muslim perspective

Submitted by Frahad Navkhoda (United Kingdom), Mar 29, 2007 at 10:48

Muslims are making inroads into Latin America and Eastern Europe. Muslims have always been present in Latin America. How else do you think the voyages of Christopher Columbus were funded if not for the Gold and wealth ceased from the coffers of the Sultanate of Granada. Spain was conquered by the Moors on the Battlefield and in the traditional time honoured way. Islam spread through the Iberian peninsula through free choice to the effect that at one point eighty percent of the Iberian- that is combined Spanish and Portugese- populations professed Islam as their faith.

You forgot to mention the introduction of the first tolerant society in Europe where Muslims, Jews and Christians lived in peace, the introduction of Universities, street-lighting and waterways, not to mention the translation of Anciet Greek, Persian and Indian texts that would have been lost to civilisation and without which no European Renaissance would have occured.

You fail to mention that during the Reconquest by the Christian Monarchy Isabel and Fernando, the Jews were given the choice of either converting to Christianity of expulsion from Spain without their possessions and their children. You forget to mention that these Jews were welcomed into the Ottoman Empire with open arms. You forget to mention that the Muslims suffered this same fate, despite guarantees and against signed treatise. Where do you think theses Moors went to if not to North Africa nad the Latin America Expeditions? Why do you think the Spanish Inquisition was carried out if not to root out the Muslims and Jews who professed to have converted to Catholicism and practised their tru Religion in private? where does the expression 'Blue-blooded' come from? What religion were African slaves that were shipped hundreds of miles across the Atlantic in appalling conditions to work for Christian Slave Owners and the Church?

Islam today is in Latin America. The indigeneous people (You forget to mention the destruction of the Native south Americans by the Catholic Church) of Chiapas in Mexico the one Million-strong Muslim communities in Argentina and the million in Brazil, the converts in the Carribbean. As for Eastern Europe, there are communities in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Central Asia and Moscow alone in Russian has a muslim Population of one million. It's not the Muslims in Latin America and Eastern Europe that are missing but your knowlege of them. If it have not been for the Muslims, the Mongol hordes would long have desecrated Europe, both East and West. You're Middle-Age ancestors would never have seen the light.

As for Muslims in India, they fare better and given no more opportunities then the Dalits (Untouchable) by the Brahmin and other Hindu Castes. The Caste sytem may be central in the Hindu faith but is outside of any civilised society and bereft of all humanity.

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