muslims PART 2

[Lief Erikson]

Sorry, I edited my post .

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Well, it is just an overview of Islam. It's not going to go into the complex history of the religion in an 8 page booklet.

Very true. And I've got those complex histories here at home and am reading them right now, so I'm very content .

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

What you said made me finally understand what people mean by submission. It's giving oneself to God, in this case.

Yes. Of course, Muslims in the past were willing to make people "submit to God" by force, so it's not always such a great thing with Islam. But in modern times, it is really peaceful giving of oneself to God, for most Muslims. That is a very positive belief.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

What's innacurate about the last two paragraphs? I have no evidence to support those paragraphs, except I thought the Moors were Muslim, and they went to Spain. It's not impossible that Muslims went to China.

No, they're right about the Muslims having gone to Spain and having gone as far as China. They just didn't mention that they fought their way there with the sword, taking everything and everyone over in violent, unprovoked jihad conquest. Some people welcomed them, for the Byzantines were very harsh toward the Jews and heretics and Christians whose beliefs didn't fully line up with their own. The Muslims weren't so harsh toward these groups as the Christians had been.

Does this mean it's all right that, unprovoked, they attacked the Byzantines and ripped away most of their empire in a bloodbath?

They also clobbered the Sassanid Empire, a major force of the time. That empire they completely demolished, again, unprovoked. They took over huge, huge swaths of territory in holy war.

So that's a very significant historical point that was skipped when they said in those two paragraphs that Islam simply "spread" over all that territory. It didn't mention that it "spread by the sword in holy jihad."

Originally Posted by The Reader

After several years, the Prophet and his followers returned to Makkah and forgave their enemies.

This is a partial truth. The Muslims and the Qur'aysh (the tribe that had done the persecuting) fought a bloody war against one another. After the Muslims had defeated the Qur'aysh, they advanced on Mecca and the Meccans promptly converted to Islam. Then the Prophet forgave them. So it skips talking about the war that came before the forgiveness and which probably was very much present in the Meccans' minds when they converted to Islam.

Originally Posted by The Reader

Then, turning their attention to the Ka’bah (the sanctuary that Abraham built), they removed the idols and redecorated it to the worship of the One God.

This part is kind of funny. They "removed the idols." Removed them in a million pieces . And "redecorated". The word choice there is really funny.

Originally Posted by The Reader

Before the Prophet died at the age of 63, most of the people of Arabia had embraced his message.

This is the only real lie (or inaccuracy) that I can see in it. The rest is all inaccuracy by omission of important points in order to make Islam look peaceful. The lie is that the people of Arabia "embraced" his message. They accepted it because he'd shoved it down their throats at swordpoint. This is proven by the fact that the instant Muhammad died, they all rebelled. In these two wars of succession, known to Muslims as the ridda wars, many of the tribes of Arabia that had been Muslim rebelled and tried to turn back to their native tribal beliefs. They thought that with Muhammad gone, they'd be able to get back to their old religions. Other people pronounced themselves the new "Prophets" and tried to rally a following among Muslims. But the fact that many people rebelled and tried to go back to their old religions the instant that Muhammad was dead proves that they did not "embrace his message."

The successor to Muhammad was named Abu Bakr, and he attacked all the rebels all over again and forced them to return to the true Muslim faith in the "ridda wars," which translates to the "apostasy wars". Those two ridda wars were very extensive and bloody, a terrible (though temporary) shattering of the Muslim faithful.