Are you saying here with this emphasis, Prashna, that there is no such thing as an unreasonable fear or hatred of Muslims?! I hope I'm mistaking the meaning and you'll put me right.
Is it not unreasonable, not to fear?
As Islam flourished, considerable cultural and scientific progress was made leading to the Golden Ages of Islam in Egypt, Iraq, Iran and India. ...
I come from India and I can assure you that the Islamic invaders inflicted very considerable pain and suffering, and tried to eradicate Sanaatana Dharma.
Many thousands of desecrated temples in India still bear silent testimony to the trail of savage and wanton destruction left by the Islamic invaders.
And that was long, long before the British Empire was even conceived.
exactly how can what happened so many years ago affect now,
This is how...
I come from India and I can assure you that the Islamic invaders inflicted very considerable pain and suffering
This is a long story, too long to explain in a forum post - so you'll need to do your own research. The gist is:
Thanks James, superb post!
Although not a Muslim myself, I certainly appreciate much of the history and I'm glad that you managed to get across what you did in such a compact and germane delivery. Clearly there is much much more geared almost exclusively around 'causality' that daily attracts individuals to the Islamic fundementalist path & the West has had a major hand in that ans still does... acceptance of responsibility is the first step in addressing a problem and all I see is denial still.
Sure, as others say each person should be able to decide for themselves that following a destructive or hateful path is a downward spiral... but people are only people...:o
It's kind of you, James, to try to give a succinct summary of Whabism. I know such things aren't easy in just a net forum post.
However, the concept that the doings of people in the present are all the responsibility and caused by people in the past reminds me of the innate (DNA - or soul) or environment (nurture) argument about what shapes human personality. It's never just one. We are born as individuals with free will. Like many, for example, I was born completely outside any religion. While I did grow up within a culture, I rejected that at about age 20. It's pretty blatent, and a waste of time to argue the point, that we are born with free will.
Whabist concept of Sharia is about chopping peoples limbs off that you don't like or who don't agree with you.
Chopping off of limbs began quite outside of any British Empire influence.
(I hope it's not true and I'll have to research it, but no time right now: I read that Shah Jahan chopped off the arms of all the artisans who built the Taj Mahal, so it couldn't be reproduced. But I find this hard to believe and will look it up when I can. Anyone know?)
Islam shocked me when I read the hagiography of how it began and spread - it was virtually conceived within bloodshed, and spread through military conquest. I mean from the very first years, as you will know. Muhammad was as much as anything else a war-leader. So let's not pretend it all went wrong when the British Empire came along? Last year I was in Hampi, India, a wonderful Hindu civilisation of great culture which was overrun and flattened by Muslim invaders before the British even knew India existed.
It's not my point to be anti-Muslim, but to point out that a PoV can be too unbalanced in the other direction.
V
Islam shocked me when I read the hagiography of how it began and spread - it was virtually conceived within bloodshed, and spread through military conquest. I mean from the very first years, as you will know. Muhammad was as much as anything else a war-leader. So let's not pretend it all went wrong when the British Empire came along? Last year I was in Hampi, India, a wonderful Hindu civilisation of great culture which was overrun and flattened by Muslim invaders before the British even knew India existed.
It's not my point to be anti-Muslim, but to point out that a PoV can be too unbalanced in the other direction. V
Hi V, my last post was not to disagree with your earlier sentiment mate , as I do see and agree with you in many ways but I think James' post was relevant in relation to the question he was asked
But I was surprised to read that the method of the spread of Islam in it's early days "shocked" you as this was how 'people' did stuff - period...but I also feel that the subject of the early domination of Islam is (within this context I feel) a bit of a red herring in that the 7th Century spread of military campaigns in the name of religion were the accepted norm almost globally, moreover highly bloody conquests, slavery and subjugation were de rigeur throughout major continents including Europe (and its Christian vehicle) What James talks about is almost yesterday in terms of historical cause & effect with the Destruction of the Ottoman Empire and thereafter.
As for Hindu temples destroyed by Muslims, (as you know I was brought up as a Sikh so Im sure you can appreciate how Islam is historically perceived by my family) Hindus are engaging in the destruction of Mosques right now today - in both the most northern and southern parts of the Indian Sub Continent.
Otherwise the Emperor Ashoka would also be relevant in that he imposed Buddhism as the only religion to be practised across the whole of India at one stage what happened to the Hindu temples then?And then, that leads me to say that personally I believe as much damage if not more came from within the Hindu belief systems due almost wholly to, devised by and delivered by those decided that only they understood the texts and had the right to read them as the people were too stupid and lowly to have access to them. Creating, justifying the grafting on a very twisted version of caste that kept millions upon 100s of millions of Hindus on a never ending cycle of worthless & spirit broken human decade after decade after decade.
No, the recent history of the West in this area has a real hand (directly or indirectly) to fuelling the flames of Islamic fundamentalism IMHO;)
Thank you James for a very enlightening post!
I agree with the others though that it is too simplistic to just put it all down to the British. Apart from anything else, that is taking away all personal responsibility. Where the sacred texts of any religion seem to encourage violence, that has to be taken into account. I think of the Mosaic laws which included an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and we today see the fruits of that.
Two or three years ago, there was a television series which traced the roots of the present day Islamist and Christian fundamentalism back to the 1950's when two men in California were disgusted by the immoral behaviour that had developed after the war (we look back now and think that was a golden age of sobriety|)
The one man (forgotten his name) was Egyptian and went back and started the Muslim Brotherhood (forgive me if I have forgotten the facts here) but the assasination attempt on Nasser in 1954 was put down to them and they were brutally tortured. This caused such hatred and resentment, that others followed in their footsteps and eventually one of the disciples was our friend Osama.
It struck me so forcibly because my father in the 50's and 60's was in the anti-Communist department of the Singapore Special branch. The opposition to the Japanese during the war were the communists in the jungles of Malaysia and after the war, they turned their energies on getting rid of the British. My father had many prisoners from the Chinese university but unlike the methods used in Egypt, which bred hatred and revenge, he used logic, kindness and persuasion. He visited his prisoners on an island every weekend (I thought it was great as we spent the day swimming and having picnics) He would talk philosophy with them, take them books, (he even smuggled one into our home to finish his law studies) and eventually turned them all from Communism to Socialism and many became Ministers in the first government. What a different world we might live in today had those in power in Egypt treated their prisoners in the same way as my father did.
Judy
Hi Roger,
I'll have to read your post more slowly when I've time later. Points all taken. My only real point here (getting a bit off-topic as it is from mere Sharia Law) is that it's hard to agree with a "It's not our fault - they (you) made us this way. Until you came along we were pure as white linen" stance. Clearly not! LOL, I don't think the inhabitants of Hampi thought much of the Islamic 'Golden Age' as they were being massacred. (They engaged in battle, but only in self-defence.) And also that each birthed individual does have free will - we aren't robots, utterly programmed by circumstances.
[We've already heard here that Jesus grew up and lived within Jewish Law, whereas a major struggle his disciples had to come to terms with was that he'd supplanted Jewish Law (and oft poked holes in it :)) to a large degree, so they had to likewise change their lives.]
V
Hi Roger,
My only real point here (getting a bit off-topic as it is from mere Sharia Law) is that it's hard to agree with a "It's not our fault - they (you) made us this way. Until you came along we were pure as white linen" stance. Clearly not! LOL, V
I 100% Agree with that mate, but I do feel that many people do not have the luxury of being able to ponder and reflect, refer to (what we assume is) a broad & balalanced view and knowledge and without an emotional 'weighting' - others are used by 'bad men' - they get them fired-up, emtionally charged and primed by events & damaging histories... such is the way of men that function on greed or misguided faith, you and I have said it so often on here pal init?
My father had many prisoners from the Chinese university but unlike the methods used in Egypt, which bred hatred and revenge, he used logic, kindness and persuasion. He visited his prisoners on an island every weekend (I thought it was great as we spent the day swimming and having picnics) He would talk philosophy with them, take them books, (he even smuggled one into our home to finish his law studies) and eventually turned them all from Communism to Socialism and many became Ministers in the first government. What a different world we might live in today had those in power in Egypt treated their prisoners in the same way as my father did. Judy
Quite right Judy. If more of us took your father's example then the world would be a better place. No matter how hard it is (and sometimes it can be really hard) we have to move forward in tolerance and love otherwise we re-create the problems of years ago. No culture/people has been immune from the ravages of another - yet holding onto hatred/dislike merely perpetuates the problem for many generations to come. After all - the old adage says that if you hate another you don't damage him/her - you damage yourself.
Just popping back to apologise for the way my post above looks - the explanation is here: https://www.healthypages.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?p=457182#post457182 On the news last night there was an illiterate Pakistani suicide bomber sent to the border with Afghanistan. He didn't know the Afghans were Muslim (he assumed they were all infidels) and when saluted with the Islamic greeting, didn't push the button. Scary or what? Judy
I don't think the inhabitants of Hampi thought much of the Islamic 'Golden Age' as they were being massacred. (They engaged in battle, but only in self-defence.)
Sorry, V, can't let you get away with this. The Vijayanagar Empire may well have been a paragon of virtue but the empire was put together by the conquest of other people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagar_empire
It didn't just spontaneously arise without bloodshed.
xxx
Good to see your brain has regenerated from the mush you described earlier, Sunanda.
Is there an empire in history that did arise without bloodshed? Or a major religion that didn't get where it is today without killing lots of non-believers?
Brain has not yet regenerated. Am about to post a thread about last night's Attila the Hun!!!
Lots of bloodshed there.
xxx
Just a few thoughtful remarks by the archbishop of Canterbury about a system of arbitration that could be set up within our existing legal framework, and we get all of the above.
Islam seems to frighten so many of us now.
An indicator of how the public's impression of Islam has drastically altered over recent years can be seen when we look back on how it was portrayed in Western popular culture as recently as 1988.
In 'Rambo 3' Sylvester Stallone went to Afghanistan to arm and train the brave Muajahideen freedom fighters. At the time they were valiantly struggling against the evil Soviet occupation. Since then the Berlin wall came down, the Soviet threat diminished, and 9/11 happened. Subsequently the Mujahideen have been re-branded as the Taliban, and along with the name change they also became cowardly terrorists.
At the end of the Rambo 3 DVD (I don't have it!), before the end credits there is this dedication...
'To the gracious people of Afghanistan' (i.e. the enemies of Communism.)
It's the old idea of 'white hats = goodies, black hats = baddies'.
(Sadly, Mr. Stallone still wants to make films about Rambo, as there is another one due out soon. Some things never change.)
Since 9/11 I have noticed the media manipulation of the image of Islam, and the demonisation of aspects of the religion, as I expect, have most of us. Whilst to some extent I understand the reasons behind it, it has made me sad to see how many people have bought into it. I don't remember the Catholic church being demonised in this country because of the actions of the IRA. Is it because to most of us Islam was a religion we never had to deal with, or think about before? Was it something 'they' did, and 'they' were always far away?
In America following 9/11 I remember reading of Sikhs being attacked simply because they were dark skinned and wore turbans. Although that initial ignorant hysteria died down, it's scarily still there in the background, as the fuss about the archbishop's comments, and this thread, proves.
It's all very sad, and I don't want to buy into it.