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Islamic Conversations - Warfare

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T.N. Sampson

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This thread covers the topic of Islamic holy wars, their driving force and impact on other lands. It is in response to points written by widows son on the General Freemasonry Discussion forum. My apologies to any offended by my movement of the discussion to this forum, but I thought it proper given the material.

In my discussions, I rely quite a bit on John J. O’Neill’s Holy Warriors: Islam and the Demise of ClassicalCivilization.


widows son said:
As for Muslims hating Christians you are wrong, that is fundamentalist propaganda, only in recent time has there been wide spread hostility to Christians and westerners. There are examples of brutality against Christians by Muslims in the past, but the majority of it was isolated and due to conquest, consequentially other populations and ethnicities succumbed to the Muslim sword side by side with Christians.
Islamic hostility towards non-believers has existed since the time of Mohammad, and the warfare it feeds comes directly from him. Many verses from the Koran and Haddith support that contention. Supported as well is Mohammad’s view of Jews,which was similarly atrocious. As with jihad, Islamic hatred of the Jews is absolute and relentless. Essentially, Islam is unique in that its primary scriptures advocate the use of force as a religious duty. In his own campaigns, Mohammad encouraged looting and murder, and his troops were promised a share of all booty captured. The latter fact alone guaranteed a high interest in Muslim warriors in attacking their enemies.
The fighting and dying have continued since Mohammad’s time.

Here’s a recap of events occurring shortly after Islam arrived on the scene:
The war Islam unleashed upon Christendom in the 630s was to continue unabated for centuries. To recapitulate briefly, the conquest of Egypt in 638 or 639 was followed by a general assault on the west, including North Africa and Mediterranean Europe. By the mid-600s, southern Italy and Byzantium had been attacked, and by 700 all of North Africa was subdued. Spain was next in the jihadis’ sights, and the Straits of Gibraltar were crossed in 711. The Iberian Peninsula was quickly overrun, and shortly thereafter Muslim armies crossed the Pyrenees and penetrated into the heart of France. The whole of Europe was now in the utmost peril. A Frankish leader called Charles, the Martel, or “Hammer,†famously halted them at Tours in 732.
The fighting also occurred in the East, and by 750 Muslim armies had conquered Persia, Afghanistan and had advanced into India. Worse, by the mid-seventh century the Mediterranean Sea was blockaded by Muslim pirates, a problem that continued into the 19[SUP]th[/SUP] century. As the trade carried out over the Mediterranean was a mainstay of Western Europe’s prosperity, material and intellectual poverty were the result of such piracy. Piling onto all of this was the increasing incidence of Viking raids throughout northern and western Europe, whose primary motivation was obtaining slaves to sell to the Muslim world. All of this led to the end of Classic civilization, and seriously threatened the survival of Christianity as a viable faith.

The Muslims brought a new type of warfare with them, one of terrible violence and brutality, a war without end and without rules. This new type of war influenced Christianity by injecting the same elements of intolerance and hatred towards Muslims that the Muslim armies had shown towards them. Similarly, it has been opined that in the East, the pacifistic Buddhism was replaced by a more warlike Hinduism, and the development of the even more militantly-inclined Sikh movement, all in response to Muslim invasion and the catastrophe it brought to the conquered peoples.

Islam had always had bloody borders, and no where was that more evident than in Spain. From 722 –1492 the Reconquista pitched the two sides in perpetual conflict until the Christian forces finally achieved their victory. This victory only came when the Viking threat was neutralized, and knights from France and Germany were freed up to come into Spain to assist in the fight.

Life under Muslim rule as a non-Muslim was precarious. Special taxes had to be paid, special clothing worn, severe curtailment of religious activity and a near-complete loss of legal rights were the norm. It was a slavery, but without the chains. Violence could, and did, break out at any time against the non-Muslims and there wasn't a thing they could do about it. So much for a religion of peace.

Muslims are deadly serious that one day the entire world will worship Allah, and any tactic that furthers that goal is seen as acceptable.

I think a more accurate statement would be that Muslims were increasingly hostile to Christians due to the crusades, which was just an excuse to unite Europe with the pope as the ruler.
All crusades have their roots in Muslim expansion, a fact clear from history. The first call for a crusade was actually in 846 in response to a Muslim attack on Italy. In the 20 years before the First Crusade, renewed Islamic attacks resulted in the loss to Christianity of the whole of Asia Minor and Anatolia. Constantinople was thus at grave risk of destruction, which resulted in the call for the Crusade. Thus, the crusades are properly seen as defensive moves to counter the Islamic threat. A notable feature of that call was the concept of holy war, in which the participants were promised heavenly rewards for earthly combat. This concept was directly copied from the Muslims.


Now your comments regarding Islam are hateful and ignorant and don't belong on a masonic forum of tolerance
Facts are neither hateful nor ignorant, and one would wonder why the truth is unacceptable on a Masonic forum. Cordially, Skip.

 

scialytic

Premium Member
Brothers, please don't be baited into this conversation. This man is an anti-mason and is clearly trying to provoke in-fighting between Brethren.
 
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