Afghanistan, Islam and national success?
Let me begin with, in the US we are very poorly informed about Islam, Afghanistan, and all the players involved with the US exit from Afghanistan.
I am left with the impression that the Taliban and ISIS are primitive people lacking in the ability to manage a modern city, let alone a whole nation. On the other hand, Islam/Muslims were the most advanced people on earth in the 9th and 14th centuries. They had the best bureaucratic order and most advanced economic concepts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islamic_economics
I am hoping people who are better informed than I am, reply to my question of the chances of any Islamic group turning Afghanistan into a successful nation. Why was Islam so successful in the past and why might it be hard for the Taliban or ISIS to bring Afghanistan to success today?
I am left with the impression that the Taliban and ISIS are primitive people lacking in the ability to manage a modern city, let alone a whole nation. On the other hand, Islam/Muslims were the most advanced people on earth in the 9th and 14th centuries. They had the best bureaucratic order and most advanced economic concepts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islamic_economics
I am hoping people who are better informed than I am, reply to my question of the chances of any Islamic group turning Afghanistan into a successful nation. Why was Islam so successful in the past and why might it be hard for the Taliban or ISIS to bring Afghanistan to success today?
Comments (233)
From a historical perspective, the Taliban and ISIS are comparable to the "primitive" tribal barbarians, who sacked Rome, bringing an end to a world-wide military empire, but releasing & spreading the energy of a new world-dominating Imperial religion. At the time (circa 410 to 455 AD) the Vandals (etc) were disorganized & uncivilized, but fierce & hungry & bloodthirsty.
Centuries later, many of us on this presumably modern & civilized forum are descendants of those uncouth barbarians, So, there is room for hope that Afghanistan can recover from decades of being squeezed between the rock of dug-in defensive intolerant Islamic tradition, and the driving force of forward-leaning & aggressive Western Capitalism. Yet, it remains to be seen, if this sacking of a remote outpost of capitalist imperialism, will be followed by an adaptation of money-driven Western notions of civilization, or by a resurgence of the Islamic brand of sword-won colonialism. Or, perhaps to a re-flowering of the Golden Age of Islamic philosophy. :smile:
Wouldn't that be nice!
It did not happen out of the blue though. It was all borrowed from the Greeks, Persians, and others. And there was a gradual transition (and learning) phase.
When Muslim Arabs conquered Christian countries like Syria, Egypt, etc., that had been part of the Byzantine Empire, they took over the entire administrative apparatus sometimes complete with Christian officials.
The same applies to architects, scientists, philosophers, artists, military leaders, etc. They did not disappear, they simply adopted Arab names and language and carried on as normal until they were gradually replaced with Muslims.
Islam was successful in the past because it celebrated diversity and pluralism. It practiced religious tolerance. The fundamentalist groups you are talking about are at war with modernism and pluralism and are essentially a savage pietistic reform movement. People keep saying Islam needs a reformation. The problem is Islamic State may be what a reformation in Islam looks like. Stephen Schwartz wrote an interesting book on the nature of Islam's struggle with fundamentalism called the Two Faces of Islam back in 2002. Irshad Manji ( a gay, Canadian Islamic woman) wrote an equally interesting book on the nature of contemporary Islamic intolerance called The Trouble with Islam. It's hard to imagine a successful state emerging from a foundation of captious hatred, but anything is possible.
Correct. They were forced to be tolerant. Arab culture was inadequate to support an empire and dominate the more advanced cultures of the conquered territories. The only medical system was that of the Greeks. The only philosophy going was Plato and Aristotle ....
This is why Muslim rulers initiated the Translation Movement that had hundreds of Greek and other texts translated into Arabic from the 700’s onward.
Graeco-Arabic translation movement - Wikipedia
Unfortunately, this did not last. Islamic and Arab culture could not compete with the cultures of Greece, Persia, and India, and turned against "foreign sciences" that were perceived as undermining Islam. It didn't take long for the West to catch up and it all went downhill after that.
The Alemanni and Burgundians in Germany, the Franks in France, the Angles and Saxons in England, the Vandals and Visigoths in Spain and North Africa, the Lombards in Italy, the Bavarians in Austria, etc., etc.
It was the Franks who stopped the Muslim Arabs from invading France via Spain. Norman and Frankish warriors fought with the Greeks against Arabs and Turks. And it was the Vandal and Visigoth kingdoms of North Spain that started the anti-Islamic resistance in that country.
The Greeks were finally beaten by the Muslim Turks in 1453. But when Austrian Franks and Bavarians together with their Polish and Lithuanian allies stopped the Turks outside Vienna in 1683, putting an end to Islamic supremacy, Germans still headed the Holy Roman Empire of the West.
Napoleon brought an end to Old Europe by putting liberalism and money in charge. He was then beaten by the British, and the rest is history.
As for Islam, whatever power it may have today is based on oil. But oil is no substitute for history and culture. And Islam does not seem to be a force for progress ....
When it comes to Afghanistan, you should start by defining what success would be.
Yet basically Saudi-Arabia has it's legal system based on Sharia law and uniquely in the Muslim world, Sharia has been adopted by Saudi Arabia in an uncodified form. So basically yes, an Islamic group could theoretically turn the country into a successful nation. Saudi-Arabia has been run for a long time by Islamists. Then there's Iran as the other example.
(Saudi universities at least have money...even if there is sharia law.)
In realistic terms, this is extremely unlikely. Several reasons:
- The multitude of internal problems Afghanistan suffers from (that are too lengthy for this answer).
- That the West is totally against Taliban rule and will see the Emirate of Afghanistan as a "terrorist haven".
- That Pakistan basically wants to have a weak controllable Afghanistan. It's basic worries are that a) India might get a foothold in Afghanistan and have close relations with it and b) the Pashtuns, living on both sides of the Durand-line will create problems for Pakistan as there have been skirmishes all the time at the border and the Tribal areas of Pakistan (see here).
- The West has basically confiscated the foreign reserves of the country and the Emirate will see likely immediate economic problems. The banking sector has been already shut down.
- The Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban) is already burdened with a huge former Afghan government, which the country has no ability to pay for. This is the reason for the collapse of the Afghan government, basically similar happened with the pro-Soviet Najibullah regime.
- There is one of the biggest brain drains in anywhere in the World in Afghanistan as doctors and engineers are trying to leave the country. Not a promising start for a future "success".
- Joe Biden has reverted back to the old way of simply using drone strikes to fight "the Global War on Terror" already. It's quite likely that the attacks against ISIS-K aren't the last ones.
And finally, it's usually that the most radical, most fanatic elements of a group take power or have a far bigger role than the so-called "moderates". So back to home for women in Afghanistan, which will severely hamper the economic prospects of the country.
Either the Taliban must educate its women or the Taliban must allow men doctors to examine women patients.
The mullahs will never solve this dilemma. :rofl:
Ironically. the biggest obstacle to the Taliban, in attempting to establish an orderly Islamic state in Afghanistan, is internal tensions. According to news reports, ISIS may be their biggest revolutionary competition. And ISIS seems to as opposed to Taliban apostates as to American infidels.
During the 16th century Reformation era. the Roman Church was internally divided, and savagely intolerant of tolerance. To wit : the Inquisition, burning fellow Christians at the stake. Since then, it has continued to fragment from a world-dominating religious empire, to just another burned-out core of its former glory, with ornate church buildings turned into nightclubs.
In the same sense, history repeats itself again. And Islam seems to be undergoing its own earthquake Reformation, beginning with Sunni versus Shiite, then on down to smaller sects. Maybe that's just as well --- better for them to fight among themselves than to re-conquer the whole world in the name of a long-dead prophet. Maybe diversity and pluralism will likewise re-arise from the blood & ashes, like the Phoenix. :cool:
Afghanistan crisis: What makes Islamic State-Khorasan enemy of Taliban
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/afghanistan-taliban-islamic-state-crisis-1847109-2021-08-30
Not really surprising and old news. The schism between the isms is a reoccurring problem with competing fundamentalists.
Quoting Gnomon
:up:
:100: :up:
Quoting Gnomon
A long time ago I read an intel paper written by Scott Ritter. It was about the complexities of the situation in Iraq, specifically, and the region, generally. It went so much deeper than the Shiite/Sunni divide that I was ashamed of our fourth estate and the way it was simplifying everything for (what it perceived as it's stupid?) audience consumption. I guess I should not have been surprised since I used to thrive on such analysis, and I remember the White Papers and what not, but I guess that when I left off of such things I assumed there was at least a third grader at the gate.
I totally love a historical perspective. If Islam regains its glory, I do think that will happen in Afghanistan because they are not coming from a civilization. Nomadic people do not develope civilizations. It is city living that develops civilization but as you said, those civilizations can fall.
Absolutely, what they developed did not come out of the blue, and that is why I do not expect Afghanistan Muslims to do well. I think you hit upon something. Back in the day, they were looking forward and were willing to adopt what they could learn from others. But I think the Taliban and ISIS are looking backwards, and therefore it will not succeed. This time the Taliban pushed away the people who could have helped them move forward.
I think some of them are capable of being good leaders, but their followers value violence and will not become "weak city people". It is like being a gang leader. I am thinking of Weber here and the different kinds of leadership. A gang leader can not betray the gang by not being one of them. They invaded with brutal men who do not know it is not okay to rape and brutalize females and so they had to tell the women what they must do for their own safety. I don't think this will be an easy transition to acting like civilized people.
I think it is exactly because of this brutal male instinct that the Koran speaks of protecting women and treating them well. Unfortunately, it takes more than a holy book to civilize people.
"New Human Rights Watch research shows that the Taliban have been training and deploying children for various military operations including the production and planting of improvised explosive devices (IED). In Kunduz province, the Taliban have increasingly used madrasas, or Islamic religious schools, to provide military training to children between the ages of 13 and 17, many of whom have been deployed in combat." This is a problem for a civilization with females. Age matters and the age of these fighters is not apt to lead to civilized behavior.
That appears to be a well-informed answer. I am impressed. I am also uneasy because the US seems to be experiencing the same intolerance.
War is good for religion and religion is good for war.
As far as the Taliban are concerned, that the invading NATO armies are out of the country is already a success. And for a majority of Afghans, it's a big relief. Foreign troops were consistently reported as the biggest danger for Afghans in annual polls of the Asia Foundation.
Now of course, the hard part is to govern this country. For that to happen, they will need to keep the movement together, defang ISIS, and find some agreement with non-Taliban forces. My money is on anarchy instead, but you never know.
That is way too dismissive of the early Muslim genius. The early Muslim conquerors were committed to science, equality between races, and freedom of thought (within limits), contrary to a lot of the polities they overthrew. That is why the Muslim conquest happened so rapidly: the people like liberators.
Quoting Olivier5
Or too dismissive of the prevailing culture in what just earlier had been part of the Roman Empire or the Sassanid Empire. Besides, this was many centuries later that Hellenism, thanks to Alexander the Great, had already influenced the area, so I assume Plato and Aristotle were quite well known already.
And let's not forget that the West re-learned it's philosophy and math basically from the muslims. The Dark Ages were quite dark, you know.
These global powers could send money and arms to the factions they want to see in power, however civilized people are unlikely to go to war simply because a large nation wants them to.
Religious extremism was the spark that was needed for people to take up arms.
As to why: natural resources, military industrial complex, Israeli geopolitics, to name a few.
They were willing to learn from others primarily because they lacked the knowledge the others possessed and that the Muslims needed to control the conquered territories. They learned how to run an empire from those who already had an empire, i.e., the Greeks, etc.
Of course the Taliban and ISIS are looking backwards, but this is true of Islam in general. In fact, Islam started as a movement of return to the past. This is why the Christians called them Ishmaelites. Muslims thought that Judaism and Christianity were distortions of Abraham and Moses' original teachings and that Islam, as transmitted through Abraham's son Ishmael was the true religion.
So, it may be said that, by definition, Islam was (and is) a backward-looking religion.
I'm assuming that by "the West" you mean Western Europe. I agree that the Dark Ages were possibly quite dark in Finland and some other parts of Western Europe.
In contrast, the parts of Eastern Europe under Greek control (Eastern Roman Empire) had no need to re-learn philosophy from the Arabs. On the contrary, it was the Arabs who learned from the Greeks and transmitted some of that knowledge to Western Europe!
That is true, but by "the West" people typically forget (or ignore) East Rome.
My point is that the populations that the Muslims conquered likely knew the philosophy too. And just like noted, muslims quickly noted the importance of knowledge and philosophy. Unfortunately that "renaissance", if you can call it so, didn't last for much time.
Yet coming back to the subject, I'm really not very optimistic of how the Emirate of Afghanistan will succeed. Far too much of radical islam is against everything considered Western. And Western philosophy goes with it too.
As someone noted already, this depends on how you define success. If their goal is to maintain age-old traditions unaffected by foreign influences, they might do well.
I think now success would be defined simply as peace: no bombs going off, war going on in some part of the country. The first obstacle is how the Emirate deals with Panshjir valley. And if other places become Panshjir valley, that would be a bad start. Likely life will be harder in Kabul. The economy will surely be worse.
It's easy to be an insurgent as you can pick your fights. Far more difficult to be the authority. At least now the Taliban is starting from a far better position than it was during the mid 1990's. It's up to them how they manage the situation.
ISIS is a common enemy of the US and Taliban. I expect some collaboration on this front at least. The CIA and co. are pragmatic folks, they speak with whom they need to speak.
What struck me years ago working there, was how puerile their political speech was; how manichean and crude (not unlike some MAGA-capped evangelicals mind you). They were seeing heros and vilains, where I was seeing just one big and raw power struggle. Alliances were temporary and fluid, frequently between past enemies. Of course foreigners have the luxury of not taking side, so there's that too: Afghans are part of the problem and part of any possible solution, in ways that foreigners will never care enough to be. It's their soddin' country after all.
Maybe they're better this time around... In my culture we have a warning against "insulting the future". Anything is possible, and this country has always defied prediction. Perfect peace is not achievable, there's always one jang somewhere or another in Afghanistan. But if the main cities / populated areas could be at peace, that would mean a lot.
Now the T. have no access to international banking. That should be a big deal for any government, even them. Alternatives exist of course, but costly. They will have to behave, at least nominally, in order to gain access. Or they will fail as a modern state.
I think the Muslim conquest happened because constant wars had left the Byzantine and Persian empires weakened.
And the notion that the populations conquered by Muslim Arabs felt “liberated” seems doubtful to say the least. The Spanish definitely did not feel liberated and the same applies to North African and Mid Eastern populations.
Resistance to Muslim occupation was in fact very common and ranged from passive non-cooperation and flight to sabotage and armed uprisings. In Egypt, which had a Christian-majority population for several centuries after the Muslim conquest, there were at least nine Christian uprisings between 694 and 832 alone:
Bashmurian revolts - Wikipedia
Well, I don't think it's a matter of "dismissing the Arabs". More like asserting historical fact.
The very concept of Arabs being "a great civilization" is doubtful - unless you take the typical American approach of calling everyone in the region "Arabs". When I ask Arabs which Arab country they think comes top in terms of history, culture, civilization, and language, they immediately say Egypt or Syria with Saudi Arabia always getting a thumbs down.
There is a very good historical reason for this. Egypt and Syria had great civilizations of their own and later came under Persian, Greek, Roman, and Christian-Hellenistic rule before being invaded and conquered by Arabs. In contrast, Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, had nothing. This is precisely why Muslim Arabs were forced to adopt other cultures in order to control the new territories they conquered.
The resulting "great civilization" that brought together Greek, Persian, Indian, and other cultural elements under Islamic rule was at most "Islamic" but not Arab.
That is what I am talking about: a dismissive, almost racist attitude towards them. It's very common in some corners of the 'west', unfortunately.
Yes they are. They ought to be.
But fun fact: The American voter isn't. The ordinary US soldier isn't either.
Hence policy is made by what the voter wants in a democracy. Or otherwise you would have to have politicians with real leadership skills to change and mold the views of the voter, to make him or her to understand that realpolitik is the way to go. For example to us Finns this is easy to understand as we know that we are the quite dispensable country, so for us foreign policy is not about right or wrong, but basically survival.
Yet I view this as an American virtue. Americans will deeply think of the morality of their actions and will constantly have a huge debate about their actions. But this makes extremely hard to do this kind of thinking what you referred to. I gather that the CIA is in no mood to have some clandestine thing exploding in their faces later after this debacle.
Large part of Americans don't see things from the viewpoint of realpolitik where former enemies suddenly can come to be your friends or totally normal once the fighting stops. The US has had truly ideological opponents with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The last time they actually had an enemy they didn't utterly loath (at least later) was the United Kingdom and actually Spain. Above all, the Blob, the Foreign Policy establishment has played only the fear card and a black and white picture to the Americans, that any kind of other discourse is extremely difficult.
This can be seen from that especially when faced with a fanatic enemy that doesn't share similar culture, even the old veterans rarely if ever meet their old enemies. There is a deep hatred against the Japanese and I'm sure that the Global War on Terror will never have a "get together meeting" of old Taliban fighters meeting their counterparts after many years.
US Domestic policy will lead to that the US will truly leave Afghanistan. As it has left already other Central Asian countries. The only reason would be perhaps an ISIS-K attack in continental US. The Russians and the Chinese can be happy how things are going now.
Egyptians, Iranians, Afghans, Pakistanis, Indians, Indonesians, Malaysians, and many others are not Arabs.
You may find some elements of Arab culture in populations that Muslim Arabs invaded and occupied in the Middle Ages but this does not amount to “great Arab civilization”. That sounds more like a political concept to me.
DNA Analysis proves that Egyptians are not Arabs – Egypt Independent
Nope, they are not. The Chinese were very happy with NATO troops keeping the peace in Afghanistan. The Taliban could get pro-Uighur, you see? The Russians pretend to laugh at the US (as their protégé, Najibullah, resisted for two years after the withdrawal of soviet troops, offering a sharp contrast with Ghani) but they are nervous. And Tajikistan has already aligned with the Northern Alliance.
I'd disagree. Don't think that these countries are so obsessed with Afghanistan as the US is. Both have already dealt with their own internal "muslim problem" quite ruthlessly and successfully. The Second Chechen war was won and the Uighurs are in concentration camps.
Russia NATO expansion and US military bases in their near abroad is number 1 threat to Russia. They have stated this officially in their military doctrine:
See how low in the threat level of international terrorism is? It's from point a to b at point j. Afghan Taleban aren't a problem. As Russians do follow their military doctrine, they are genuinely happy that the US is out of their back yard.
And as I noted far earlier before the Afghan government had collapsed, Russia was already holding large military exercises with neighboring countries Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Countries that earlier held US bases (but not anymore).
And China?
Here is what they say:
The rhetoric is quite different from the US. Above all, even ISIS isn't now interested in China:
The US is the one who sees everything from the viewpoint of fighting muslim terrorism. China or Russia have not announced a "Global war of Terrorism".
The fact is that Egyptians, Iranians, Afghans, Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, Indonesians, Malaysians, and many others are NOT Arabs. Even Syrians and some other Arabic-speaking populations are not strictly Arabs.
Arab language and culture did not reach the more distant areas of Islamic influence. By the time it reached Persia, Islamic culture was no longer Arab. Mahmud of Ghazni who invaded India was of Turkic extraction, born in Afghanistan, and spoke Persian. The Mughal Empire was ruled by people of Turkic and Mongol descent and its culture and language were Persian, etc.
The only thing that actually unites those populations is Islam. So, in historical and cultural terms you could say “the Golden Age of Islam”. But I wouldn’t group them under “Arab civilization”.
That is not exactly what they want. The first thing they accomplished is convincing Turkey to operate the airport. The airport is essential to receive foreign aid and International organizations are scrambling to get those who stayed in Afghanistan and those who have fled, food. The only way to feed the large populations today is with modern technology and never in history have people followed someone when they are starving. No one who has had modern plumbing and understands the control of disease is going to settle for living as people did before indoor plumbing. Bottom line, success means living in the 21 century also throughout the koran there are sentences that support learning such as "God will exalt those of you who believe and those who have knowledge to high degrees". This has a large part to play in the earlier success of Islam.
Islam comes out of an existing civilization and Mohammad was a trader. Succuss in trading and economics is a hallmark of the historical Islam, but not the Taliban who come from the backwoods and have been nomadic. The Sumerian story of Ishmael tells of the difference between those who live in the city and those who do not. We might want to apply that story to what is happening in Afghanistan. Even though the invaders are Muslim, they are not civilized Muslims and I think the International effort to change that region failed because it did not recognize the important difference between the nomads and city people.
History of Islam - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › History_of_Islam
Baghdad was home to Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians, in addition to the growing Muslim population. Like his father, Al-Hadi was open to his people ...
?Early sources and historiography · ?Early period · ?Islamic Golden Age · ?Islam in Africa
I think it is a mistake to think it is Islam that defines our enemy because the enemy is those nomadic hicks who have lived for war all this time. Another serious problem is they turned male children into warriors and they do not respect women and will be a social problem for a long time. But perhaps we should keep in mind so did the Germans resort to recruiting child soldiers.
Yes, and that civilization surpassed Christian Europe. My above post was too long so quickly I say in this short post, the enemy is not Islam. The enemy is backward people who think they are doing the will of God, not so different from some Christians. War is good for religion and religion is good for war.
I guess you're right: they seem to be interested in keeping channels open with the rest of the world. Good sign, I guess.
As for enemies... The Americans always look for some enemy or another. I guess they're convenient to justify enormous military spending, huh?
Whoo, whoo, the US was known for its resistance to entering wars and coming up with the idea of a United Nations, to resolve conflicts with reason, a hallmark of democracy. It also has a history of using the military to defend its economic interest. Seriously, we need to understand the difference and why we were in Afghanistan in the first place and especially why we turned on Saddam and invaded Iraq. We made enemies and need to take responsibility for that, but as long as we believe the war is Christians against Muslims, we will not be living with the truth.
I love your statement. :heart: When in the 21 century has the US fought a war for survival? Our constitution tried to limit our wars to our defense and survival but that has not been the reason for the wars of the US since Eisenhower established the Military-Industrial Complex. The US was not in Afghanistan because God willed us to be there. The US was not in Afghanistan because it was a nation that threatened our nation. The US was not in Afghanistan to spread democracy. We do have politicians with real leadership skills. We are fed lies and still believe them.
I love Biden's move of delaying our exit until the anniversary of 9/11 so he could counteract the bad news that he knew would result from the withdrawal, and use television to hammer away at remembering 9/11 desperately hoping to rekindle the fear and lies that made us willing to support a war that never should have happened.
:rage: who here does not believe the enemy is Muslims? Our belief that the enemy is Muslims is US/ Christian propaganda. The enemy that gets us into war is the Military-Industrial Complex, the oil industry and banking, and Christians believing they are doing the will of God when the US commits acts of war.
The US is unlikely to have a new enemy as long as fracking meets our oil needs. However, it could very well create new enemies. I so wish we would learn from Athens and Rome but that is another topic. I write to stir our conscience and raise our wisdom and I appreciate help in doing this.
But for the Taliban and ISIS what the US did in Afghanistan is like letting in the killer wasp that destroy all the bees needed for pollination. We screwed them over so badly because we did not have a good understanding of human reality. We were not there for any of the good reasons. We were there to maintain control of oil until fracking gave us independence from foreign oil. The idea of nation-building came after we were there and it was poorly thought out.
The nation-building may have succeeded had we used Islam for the foundation of that nation.
I happen to think that what was missing was Afghan own governance traditions, and in particular their reliance on communal decision making through institutions called shuras and jirghas. Very little of that tradition was reflected in the constitution drafted in 2004 or 2005 (after the US invasion and under the nation-building project), which was inspired from Switzerland...
Or, maybe, if you had stayed away. But 'we' and 'you' here are euphemisms. They take for granted that you, or the average folk in general, had a say in all this. You didn't.
Quoting Olivier5
There's nothing communal about them.
In general, anyone who makes this about Islam, either to attack Islam as the problem or to present it as the solution, is, at best, a useful idiot.
Meaning?
Meaning what it says. Decisions made by an oligarchy are not communal decisions, they are decisions by few men which affect the 'community'.
Lots of folks show up in jirgas. It is innacurate to characterize them as a form of oligarchy. Of course only men talk.
I can characterize modern democracies as oligarchies, let alone tribal circle jerking.
Quoting Olivier5
Of course.
Well, during the Spanish-American war the Spanish didn't actually attack you (likely the explosion on the Maine was an accident). Or what about the Mexican-American War? That too wasn't about defense.
(Map of Mexico prior to some events with the US)
Yet one should ask, which other country would have defended South Korea? It hadn't been a Western colony. I think that we have South Koreans that haven't seen starvation and don't live in a totalitarian state as their northern counterparts is great outcome for humanity. Or at least for the 52 million South Koreans. And if the 25 million now North Koreans would be similar as the South Koreans today and the division of Korea a sidenote in history, what would be so bad? Soviet Union tried a similar tactic in Northern Iran, made a puppet regime there, but the Iranians (South Iran?) defeated the puppet state. (And for some time Iran was the best and strongest ally of the US in the Middle East...before becoming it's enemy.)
Or how many would have died more in the Yugoslavian Civil War if it wouldn't have been for the US intervention? Is that so bad that actually there peace has prevailed and the hated "nation building" actually worked?
Just to say that the US has done good when it has engaged in war, so to think it is all bad is simply not true.
Quoting Athena
Actually, the Emirate of Afghanistan tried to give Osama bin Laden to the US. That wasn't at all enough for the US. In fact, the Trump Doha peace deal is hugely more lenient than what Bush demanded in 2001. In 2001 the Taliban would have immediately jumped on such deal that Trump now gave them. And how much "diplomatic effort" there was can be seen that the war was started only a few weeks after 9/11.
The US went straight to war with the Taliban in 2001. It has been at war with the Taliban since then until now. The idea that "The US first went to fight Al Qaeda and then lost it's objective and wandered off to 'nation building' is simply wrong. It's that strategic narcissism, believing your own propaganda. A denial or basically a lie.
I’m assuming that by “Arab civilization” you mean things like architecture, language, literature. and other cultural traits that are characteristic of Arab populations.
I’m also assuming that if this “Arab civilization” existed, then it must have had a timeline, geographic location, and evidence to confirm it.
If so, then I can see no “Arab civilization” in India.
Even the Abbasid Caliphate based at Baghdad that you mention, was not the beginning of an Arab ethnic and cultural Empire but the end of it, being the result of the Revolution of 750 AD against Arab domination - at the same time when other uprisings against Arab rule were taking place in Egypt, Spain (Battle of Covadonga), and elsewhere.
This is the true reason behind “Islamic tolerance”: Muslim Arabs, being outnumbered, were forced to recognize other cultures and religions, and over time were replaced by non-Arabs and their language, culture, and “civilization” disappeared. The only thing that was left is Islam.
The Arabs had no literature, science, or philosophy comparable to those of Greece, Persia, and India. This is precisely why Arab rulers started the Translation Movement that had hundreds of Greek manuscripts translated into Arabic, and this played an important role in the Islamic Golden Age.
I think the Arabs invaded Christian and other countries to bring Islam, not “civilization”. :smile:
I think there is a contradiction there. We condemn war as "good for religion" but we glorify a religion that was spread through war.
Plus, by definition, Islamic religion and culture are based on Sharia Law which means subordination of women to men, floggings, amputations, beheadings, stoning, etc. and in more strict Islamic regimes, imposition of burkas, prohibition of music and alcoholic drinks, etc.
Islamic states are based on Sharia Law. You can’t separate Islam from Islamic Law.
Maybe you are not looking in the right place... Note that you can't see an Indian civilization in Arabia either.
I don't need to as I never claimed that there was one.
It was you who claimed that there was this "great Arab civilization". Unfortunately, you failed to explain where exactly it was, what it consisted in, and when it took place!
I meant the Abbasid caliphate, as you must know. They lasted over 400 years, which ain't that bad. As well as Al Andalouz, at least the first few centuries of it were really brilliant culturally.
Islam succeeded mainly because of its geographical location as the centre of the world, between Europe, India and China. Trade brought through combinations of technology, philosophy and goods that nobody else had access to. This changed when boats began to replace carts as the major form of transportation for goods.
The complexity of Islam needs to be addressed also, theological interpretation is varied and ranges from a complete denial of free will and rationality to the celebration of free will and rationality. Those latter interpretations were more dominant during the 9th-12th centuries. Not only is Islam a varied religion today but interpretations throughout those times have changed.
The Islam of the Taliban is quite clearly counterproductive, compare them with the CCP who act like corporate overlords hellbent on efficiency, development and surpassing the West. The Taliban is more concerned about theological, philosophical and moral matters. To succeed, the Taliban could try to extract the resources of Afghanistan and use those funds for development but that would require collaboration with foreign powers. I don't think the leaders of ISIS or the Taliban are primitive, they're actually quite sophisticated but Islam isn't just supremely counterproductive, it's a distraction.
In the 9th century, a government can clumsily and ineffectively allow science to be practised in the ideal location and see positive results, while still practising backward traditions. They can outpace the other primitive and backward cultures of the world while doing that. Now, our expectations and standards are higher, meeting the standards of being a developed nation is an incredibly difficult task. Afghanistan had a chance, when it was becoming secularised and Westernised, Islam, corruption and communism ruined that chance.
Most importantly, ISIS and The Taliban are militia war groups and terrorists, even if they weren't Islamists, who would want such leaders? Who would expect anything from their leadership?
Sure. But the Roman Empire lasted much longer than 400 years. So Roman civilization must have been even better, and Egyptian civilization that lasted a few thousand years, must have been the best.
And as I said, the Abbasid Caliphate was not the beginning of an Arab ethnic and cultural Empire but the end of it, being the result of the Revolution of 750 AD against Arab domination. So it doesn't really qualify as "Arab civilization", nor could it have been, as most of its cultural features were non-Arab.
Plus, if this "brilliant Arab civilization" was so brilliant, why where the occupied countries rebelling against it in Egypt (Bashmurian revolts), Spain (Battle of Covadonga), and elsewhere?
The Abbassid were one single dynasty, not two dozen dynasties like in the case of Egypt, so the comparison is biased. But yeah, the Egyptians did really well for a long time (with ups and downs).
Quoting Apollodorus
Oh please. Most of America's cultural features are not American, if you go that way.
Correct. America is a mixture of cultures. That's why no one calls it "great English civilization".
The same applies to the supposed "great Arab civilization". The Abbasid Caliphate was a mixture of Greek, Persian, and Arab elements. Islamic philosophy, for example, was based on Classical Greek philosophy. There were attempts to combine Greek philosophy with Islamic teachings, but that did not make it "Arab".
The other thing is that Islam spread through military invasion and conquest which involved killing, raping, pillaging, enslaving, exploiting and suppressing the conquered populations.
This is why there were numerous uprisings against Arab rule from Spain to Egypt and Persia.
Moreover, Arabs were in fact regarded as backward and uncivilized people by the populations under Arab occupation. For example, in Persia, there was an extensive local literature deriding Arabs for eating snakes, mice, and lizards.
IRANIAN IDENTITY iii. MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC PERIOD – Encyclopaedia Iranica
IMHO I think it is important to take a more objective view of the facts and not get carried away by legends and political propaganda.
Every civilization is a mix of cultures, though, except the most primitive perhaps.
Quoting Apollodorus
And Berber, and Jewish, and Syriak, and more... but that synchretism was made possible by an Arab language shared by most and under an Arab aristocracy. Even Persian got to be infused with many Arab words and from there on written in the Arabic script.
You seem very well informed and I would like to know how you became informed so I might follow that path?
I have not seen anything that would make me think the Taliban is sophisticated. All my information is about the militia war groups and I am comparing this to nazi Germany. While some great music and philosophy has come from Germany, that degree of sophistication is not reflected in the thugs that gave the nazi party control of Germany. Both look to me like male hormones out of control. The peak of uncontrolled patriarchy. Women may steal each other's children but they do not turn them into warriors and put them on the front line. What ISIS and the Taliban have done is not civilized, and it doesn't seem to matter if they worship the Christian God or Allah, these men, Roman, German, or Afghanistan tribes are a plague to civilization.
I think your question needs to be tweaked. Not who would want such leaders, but under what conditions do such leaders come to power? A hidden question, is the US experiencing conditions that could lead to that kind of power taking control?
And were brought down by Muslims, who's state actually still exists even today. :wink:
Quoting Apollodorus
I agree with this. I think the obsession on things "Arab" is a far more modern issue and likely grew out of Pan-Arabism, which has it's origins in the 19th Century and was ever so popular during the 1950's and 1960's during Nasser's rule. I bet the Abbassids didn't think of themselves as Arabic. Islamic culture with a caliphate was naturally universal. And since the Prophet Mohammad was the first ruler of the Caliphate, the bond to a state is obvious in Islam.
So why the insistence of Arabs and Arabism?
Why so?
The answer of course is the most successful Islamic nation that is still among us, even if it doesn't have a Sultan as it's leader. The Ottomans, the Ottoman Empire and modern day Turkey. The guys who actually conquered the last bastion of the Roman empire.
(The neo-ottomanism that a certain Recep Erdogan likes!)
Very interesting! I want more information. How does this tie into a change of attitude that began during 1950-1960? Eisenhower and the establishment of the Military-Industrial complex and using the Cia for the Iranian coup?
Are we talking about something that is equal to Bush's evil axis that gave the US government permission to do whatever it deemed necessary to get military control of the mid-east?
When we had to stop explaining our imperialism as defending democracy against communist we we needed a new enemy. A small band of renegades led by Bin Laden wasn't good enough, so we associated all of Islam with the terrorist threat we face and this new evil was expertly created by Bush, right? All the time hiding why countries we never heard about were suddenly in our daily news.
Wow, why did you say that? The US adopted the communist income tax and is now destroying the family to have every adult in the workforce and is talk about the government's responsibility for raising our children. It adopted the German models of bureaucracy and education that shifts power and authority away from individuals to the government. It replaced liberal education with education for technology for military and industrial purpose. It replaced Greek and Roman classical philosophers with German philosophers.
Why would you say what we have is not American? Do you mean this is not the democracy we once defended?
Quoting Athena
A lot of my understanding about this topic of historical Islam comes from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60JboffOhaw&ab_channel=CaspianReport
This channel, caspianreport, is probably the best place to learn about geopolitics around the world. There are many interesting videos on the Taliban and Afghanistan, as well. That is the best place for you to go.
I say the Taliban are sophisticated because they know how to use social media, they know how to play the media, they are involved in deeply complicated geopolitical games. It's not a high standard for sophistication but all of these terrorist groups are fairly sophisticated in this sense. It's not as simple as running around with guns and terrorising the innocent, like what you see in Africa. They're far more sophisticated than the Nazi party was before they came to power.
How do groups like ISIS, The Taliban or the Nazi party come to power? The answer is simple and always the same, it's misery and hardship. ISIS took power because of the chaos in Syria and Iraq, the Taliban took power because of the war with the Soviet Union, the Nazi party took power after WW1 and during the great depression.
What protects nations like the US from such events isn't the people or culture, it's the democratic institutions and strong legal system. For the US to become an authoritarian state (in the true sense of the word), would require these institutions to fail. Trump's antics demonstrate just how hard it actually is to disrupt these Western democracies. The system rebuffed his efforts to claim the election was a hoax and the march on the capitol pretty easily, it didn't come close to threatening to change anything. For a Western democracy to fall, something catastrophic would need to occur, not saying that's the only way but it's the most likely way.
Not exactly by Muslims. With the exception of Spain, the West remained mostly under Germanic control. It was the Visigoths that initiated anti-Islamic resistance in Spain. Unfortunately, Franks and other Germanic warlords decided to sack Constantinople in 1204 and the Eastern Roman Empire never fully recovered. It still lasted another two centuries before it fell to the Turks, though.
I think that without help from the West, the East would have fallen to the Turks anyway, whether Muslims or not. The West woke up to reality when the Turks later camped outside Vienna but by then the East was lost.
Quoting ssu
Well, England's Fabian Socialists (the Fabian Society and the Labour Party) had this great idea of converting the Arabs to socialism in order to defeat capitalism. The result was Arab Socialism and Nationalism.
Of course, the Abbasid Caliphate was more Persian than Arab and after 934 when the Persian Buyid rulers took over, the Arab caliphs were mere figureheads. This is why I'm saying that the Abbasid Caliphate was only part-Arab and later non-Arab, hence the "great Arab civilization" is really just a myth. It is more modern political construct than historical fact.
And, yes, Turkey likes to imagine itself as the leader of the Islamic world. It was Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who held the title of Caliph, who instigated the Muslim revivalist movement in British India that later spawned the Caliphate Movement, Islamism, Jihadism, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Pakistan's Islamic Party (Jamaat-e Islami) and, eventually (with US-UK assistance) al-Qaeda and Taliban.
As a matter of fact, Turkey after WW2 was on its way out. Unfortunately, the Rockefellers and their front man Kissinger decided to rebuild Turkey in order to put pressure on the Soviets and expand their worldwide petroleum and banking empire.
It was Kissinger who introduced the idea of a "Turkish world from the Adriatic to North China" and this was picked up by Erdogan who saw that now was the chance to rebuild the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate with himself as Sultan and Caliph:
From the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China – TEPAV
Vice versa, why the insistence (among some) on erasing Arabs from history? Give to Mohamad what belongs to Mohamad.
I agree. Give him Islam. :smile:
What you are talking about is called "the Golden Age of Islam", not "great Arab civilization". As already explained, there is a very good reason for this.
Nothing to do with "erasing" anything.
The syncretism was Persian and had started during the Second Golden Era (498–622) of the Sasanian Empire, i.e. long before Islam:
Sasanian Empire - Wikipedia
The fall of Constantinople was what I referred to being "the last bastion of the Roman empire" to be conquered. And Turks then were muslims.
Why Pan-Arabism was so hip is because naturally you had had Middle East under Ottoman control, which then in WW1 had been taken away from them. The Arab revolt (with the famous Lawrence of Arabia) was a clear sign of Arab nationalism and that the people were not at all loyal and devoted subjects of the Sultan. And in the 1950's Nasser and the military coup that overthrew the King of Egypt were basically nationalists and later socialists, not at all islamists. So hardly the slogan would be to form a new Caliphate as the old Ottoman Empire with a Sultan hadn't worked, was revolted against and had lost to the West.
(Nasser trying to make Egypt and Syria one single country. At least the flags are similar still.)
Also, it should be noted, that Kemalism of Kemal Atatürk was for westernization as a way to defend Turkey from outside powers and the religious aspects of the Ottoman Empire was seen as a reason for the weakness of the Empire.
(A Kemalist propaganda picture. Down with the Old, back then...)
People look to find from history things that suite them for the present.
I think you are mixing up your dates, and Arabs with Turks :smile:
The All-India Caliphate Committee was founded in 1919.
The All-India Muslim League that started the Caliphate Movement was backed by Lord Morley (Secretary of State for Indian Affairs), Lord Minto (Governor General of India), Mahatma Gandhi, Annie Besant, and other members of the Fabian Society.
And the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928.
Muslim revivalism and Islamism were well underway before Nasser. And it was encouraged by England's Fabian Socialists who wanted to break up the British Empire and transform it into a worldwide Socialist Commonwealth. The same Fabian Socialists encouraged Ireland's Republicans and Nationalists and other similar movements in Africa and elsewhere.
"Arab Nationalism" was not what you think, it was an instrument for the propagation of socialism ....
The Persian were beaten by the student of Aristotle, and under Greek control for a while; so of course they assimilated Greek philosohers before the Arab...
The synchretism of al Andalus was not Persian in any way. So what was it? Spanish?
As you must be aware, we don't read history as written by the Arabs.
E.g. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, by Amin Maalouf is interesting in that it present the Christians as the bad guys.
?
I was referring to the Egyptian revolution of 1952. the military coup that topple king Farouk. Egypt had already been a kingdom during the era of the British protectorate.
Who reads history in other language than English? I read naturally Finnish, but even Finnish or German would be difficult to follow.
Quoting Olivier5
Actually, the real bad guys are the Mongols during that era. Saladin isn't the great hero, the Mamluk Sultan Baibars is the great here.
Another example of the West thinking always it's the center of everything. ( I remember even OBL himself was comparing the US invasion of Iraq to the Mongol invasion, not the crusades.)
Err, inter alia the French, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, and the Arabs of course.
I'm not so good in languages. :yikes:
If Kemalism was in any way inspired by Ataturk's agnosticism, and Ba'athism inspired by Aflaq's Christianity, it could be said that these types of Arab-nationalist ideologies (inspired by Western thought) were against Islamism in state affairs.
Exactly. So it was the Persians that had Plato and Aristotle translated before the Arabs. The Arabs merely continued what the Persians had already started. And the same applies to architecture, arts, etc.
Islamic architecture was based on Byzantine and Persian models. Islamic art including “Arabesque” decorations was based on Roman, Byzantine, and Persian traditions. Islamic gardens were Persian and Greek. Islamic philosophy and medicine were Greek, etc. The main Arab contribution was language and script, and this is not enough to make an “Arab civilization”.
Quoting Olivier5
Good question. Maybe we should try to find out.
By definition, “cultural syncretism” is a mixture of cultures. So, for starters, it was not “Arab”. The Spanish were (partly) under Arab rule but many were Christians who had their own culture and language.
Spain - Culture of Muslim Spain | Britannica
If the Arabs of Spain had such an advanced culture as you believe, why did they need to introduce knowledge from elsewhere? What they introduced, e.g. philosophy, was non-Arab. And non-Arab influence grew over time, so that at the height of the Islamic Golden Age, non-Arab influence was strongest and Arab influence weakest.
Take philosophy, for example.
There was no Arab philosophy until al-Kindi (9th century). And al-Kindi became a philosopher after being appointed to supervise the translation by Christian scholars of Greek philosophical works into Arabic.
Al-Kindi | Wikipedia
So, it took the Arabs 200 years to develop a philosophy, and only after coming into contact with Greek philosophy in Persia!
I think you are not paying attention.
You keep forgetting a “small detail”, namely the British Empire, i.e. the largest empire in world history!
It is important to bear in mind two things:
1. How the British Empire worked.
2. That British policy in India, Mid East, Africa, etc. was controlled by the Fabian Socialists of the Fabian Society and Labour Party. Sidney Webb, co-founder of the Fabian Society and Labour Party, was Secretary of State for the Colonies.
Why do you think the British Empire became “British Commonwealth” under Labour rule?
Because the Fabian Socialists and their Liberal allies had always wanted to organize the world into a few economic and political blocs or “commonwealths” and later federate them into a world state. The idea of “world government” or “international government” was promoted by the Fabian Society and the Labour Party from the early 1900’s.
The same people encouraged Arab Nationalism and Islamism as explained in my previous post.
I'm not an expert, but I would agree. During those time when nationalism (& socialism) were the new in the Middle East, Islamism likely was seen as negatively, even if religion wasn't dismissed (as in the West).
Once those failed, back to the "good 'ol ideas".
Quoting Apollodorus
I think you lost me.
British Empire? Yes, Egypt was a protectorate. Yet don't forget the French in the wider picture. But anyway, decolonization is a rather different matter.
The Taliban could be described as crazy but...not that crazy...yet.
You could try making a thread about what's required for democracy, I think one can make an argument for culture being important but only way before the actual democracy has fallen. Most democracies don't even get off the ground, they start without the necessary legal institutions to defend them and fall into authoritarianism from the getgo. It's just impossible for civilians to investigate and redemy corruption, to
charge politicians with criminal activity, to prevent laws from being passed or repealed, at least as a long-term strategy.
In recent times, we've seen populations organise through social media to demand democracy, such as with the Arab Springs, but it did not result in any democracy, only chaos and anarchy after the authoritarians were deposed. The citizens can organise demonstrations and revolts, but they cannot manage a long-term democracy, that requires the necessary institutions and laws.
That is the same as Genghis Khan's reasoning and the lifestyles are similar. What is not understood is building trade and industry can result in the wealth to have schools, hospitals, and feed everyone.
You make an excellent point, most democracies including all the places the Allies have invaded, except Germany (formerly a Christian republic) and Japan, do not succeed and that is because the education that transmits a culture for democracy, must come first. When the Americans were Americanizing Japan, following WWII, Deming, an American took his democratic model of industry to Japan and taught the Japanism industrialist to use his model for industry. Had the US done the same in Afghanistan, the Taliban might have been kept out because the people would have experienced their own power, instead of leaving them to be as dependent as small children. But hell, not even in the US has replaced its autocratic industry with the democratic model. The US is very hypocritical when it claims to be spreading democracy. That just is not true!
How do you think a democracy happens without education and transmitting a culture for it?
I watched the link explaining the rise and fall of Islam and clearly when people start believing determinism and that they are God's/Allah's, favorite people, things turn sour. That has hurt Christian countries, the Islam empire, and the USSR communist. Insanity follows determinism and stops the healthy growth of an empire/nation. Especially when a leader uses religion for personal power and creating enemies that must be conquered.
You can not have a strong and healthy democracy with that belief.
It isn’t about liking or disliking anyone, it’s about seeing beyond propaganda.
If we look at the matter objectively, the following points become clear:
1. Cultural syncretism was started by Persia’s own rulers, the main center of it being at the city of Gundeshapur in Southwest Persia where under Persian King Khusraw I (531-579 AD), Christian, Pagan Greek, Persian Zoroastrian, Indian, and Chinese scholars came together to form an important seat of learning where research in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine was carried out.
Gundeshapur – Wikipedia
When the Arabs invaded and conquered Persia in 638 AD, their culture was not in any way superior to that of the Persians. Therefore, they made no contribution to the advancement of culture. On the contrary, as already stated, they were regarded as culturally inferior by the Persians.
The Abbasid Caliphate came into existence in 750 AD, following a revolution against the Arab Umayyad rulers. After the revolution, the Abbasids founded Baghdad as a seat of learning where they did no more than carry on what the Persians had started two centuries earlier.
2. The Arabs of Arabia had no architecture, arts, literature, science, medicine, philosophy, or anything else of note. No grand mosques, palaces, royal gardens and parks. They borrowed everything from the Byzantine Greeks and Persians. The earliest Arab Islamic monument, the Dome of the Rock that the Arabs built on Temple Mount in Jerusalem in 692, had its architecture and mosaic ornamentation copied from nearby Byzantine churches and palaces.
- Dome of the Rock, History and Architecture – Britannica
Invading Persia and doing what the Persians had already been doing, does not constitute cultural improvement.
3. The only thing that remains is Arab language and script. But this was no improvement either as the Persians already had a language and script of their own! In fact, though forced to use Arabic in addition to Persian, the Persians have preserved their language to this day. And the script introduced by the Arabs was very similar to the existing Persian (Pahlavi) script, both of them having the same Aramaic origin.
4. Islamic rule in Arab-occupied territories was based on oppression and slavery:
- Abbasid Caliphate: Status of Women – Wikipedia
I don’t think the enslavement, rape, torture and murder of millions of innocent people should be romanticized and glorified.
Try to think a bit harder then. It is a well-known fact that there were major tensions between Hindus and Muslims in British India and that, for geostrategic (and cultural) reasons, the British have always sided with the Muslims.
As War Secretary Thomas Macaulay stated in the 1840’s “If our government does take a part [in the Muslim-Hindu conflict], there cannot be a doubt that Mahometanism is entitled to the preference”.
The All-India Muslim League was one of the instruments used by the British for their own purposes. The League started the Caliphate Movement, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, and the Jamaat-e Islami of Pakistan.
Jamaat-e-Islami – Wikipedia
Jamaat-e Islami belongs to the same Deobandi sect operating in Pakistan’s Pashtun belt that controls most of Pakistan’s Islamic seminaries funded by Saudi Arabia and from which the Taliban was recruited by US, UK, and Pakistan ….
India?
I think you are confusing the topic that we were discussing.
So, according to you Muslim Arabs never invaded the countries they invaded, conquered, enslaved and oppressed???
In that case, I wonder why there were so many uprisings against Arab rule?!
These uprisings already started during the Damascus-based Arab Caliphate of the Umayyads (661–751 AD).
694 AD Bashmurian Revolts, Egypt
718/722 Battle of Covadonga, Spain.
740 AD Berber Uprising in Morocco.
Berber Revolt - Wikipedia
750 AD Anti-Umayyad Revolution, Persia, resulting in the overthrow of Umayyad rule.
Rebellions against Arab domination and for religious freedom (including better treatment of women) continued during the early Abbasid era, e.g.:
Behafarid Revolt of Ustadh Sis (767 AD).
Khorramite Rebellion of Babak Khoramdin (816–837 AD).
Rebellion of Mazyar (833-839 AD).
Etc., etc.
But it looks like you prefer floggings, stoning, beheadings, limb amputations, forced conversions, and other progressive features of Islamic civilization. Maybe you should join the Taliban .... :grin:
The topic is "Afghanistan, Islam and national success". Perhaps you have forgotten.
Pakistan was part of British India and that was where the Muslim League, the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e Islami, and eventually, the Taliban started. No?
I've been wandering around with Afghan Mujaheddin for years, prior to the Taliban. Now, I know you probably meant it as an insult, but I don't take insults from racists very seriously.
How could that possibly be an "insult"? Sharia law was part of the "great civilization" you admire. Good for the emancipation of women and the promotion of liberal philosophy too .... :grin:
No, yet Afghanistan is different from Pakistan. And wasn't part of British India. The influence that the British had until 1919 was limited.
Quoting Apollodorus
This is incorrect. Muslim Brotherhood was started in Egypt.
The Muslim League started the Caliphate Movement in 1919 to restore the Ottoman Caliphate and was of course in touch with Muslims from other countries, including Egypt.
Abul Ala Maududi was a leading Islamist ideologue who wrote al-Jihad fi al-Islam. (Jihad in Islam).
Abul A'la Maududi – Wikipedia
Maududi was a member of the Caliphate Movement and inspired the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in 1928) and Jamaat-e Islami which he personally co-founded in 1941.
MB and JI were the largest Islamist organizations that gave birth to the modern Jihad movement:
Analysis: The roots of Jihad - BBC
But perhaps the news hasn't reached Finland yet .... :smile:
As an aside, a few Arab authors are herewith highly recommended:
Yasmina Khadra is a Algerian author of (mainly) crime novels with a social and political slant. The Attack is pretty good, set in Israel & West Bank.
Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese author who writes in French. The Crusades through Arab Eyes, and Samarkand are probably his best known works. His Samarkand is a masterpiece of history-based fiction.
An excellent (well-known, consecrated, more literary) Moroccan writer is Tahar Ben Jelloun.
Evidently, literature Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz has written at length about Egypt, à la John Dos Passos. Including about Islam, women, poverty, the whole gamut of social issues. Writing in Egypt and in Arabic, he tended to avoid directly political themes.
For the idealists among us, Kahlil Gibran is this Lebanese writer who penned The Prophet. I must confess to liking bits of it. Sometimes considered a philosopher although he himself rejected the title, according to Wikipedia.
Edward Said should be a familiar name. He was an American citizen born in Palestine, professor of literature at Columbia and well-known critique of what he called "orientalism", i.e. the western gaze on Arabs and other eastern folks.
Still, generally the Muslim Brotherhood is viewed to be founded in Egypt by Hassan Al-Banna.
Quoting Apollodorus
There you said it yourself.
The Muslim Brotherhood may have been physically founded in Egypt. But I am talking about the ideology.
The ideology started in British India in the 1800’s with Muslim revivalist movements like Aligarh Movement and the Deobandi Movement.
Together with the All-India Muslim League they initiated the Caliphate Movement to restore the Islamic Caliphate. This was an international movement with members all over the Muslim world.
Muslim Brotherhood founders al-Banna and Qutb were in the Caliphate Movement.
Maududi who wrote Jihad in Islam in the early 1920's, founded Jamaat-e Islami of Pakistan that spawned the Mujahedin movement in Afghanistan.
Zawahiri who was a follower of Qutb founded Islamic Jihad which teamed up with al-Qaeda in Sudan.
The Deobandis of Pakistan with Saudi funds ran the Islamic schools from which the Taliban were recruited.
So, it’s the Deobandis and Jamaat on the Pakistani side, with some involvement from the Muslim Brotherhood/Islamic Jihad on the Egyptian side. Of course, they spawned other organizations through which they have supported the Taliban and international Jihad.
The reason democracy-building in Germany, Italy, Japan and SK was easier is because the legal and social infrastructure existed prior to the attempt. it's not because the West did a better job of convincing people of the merits of democracy. The second reason it was easier is that the democracy was established during peacetime, those nations had stopped resisting and weren't being attacked. Lastly, the existence of these nations wasn't controversial, there was one language, one culture, one identity (largely).
Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were all cases of higher difficulty, in every sense. These nations lacked that legal and social infrastructure, corruption was rampant and war was endless. National unity was lacking, there were so many economic, social and political problems in each case.
When one looks at flawed democracies or dictatorships in South America, Africa, SEA and around the world, you see the population knows their government is corrupt and inadequate. But unless the accusation is highly specific, backed up with evidence and made by a government body with the power to inflict consequences, it doesn't mean much. I think Americans in particular, have a naive view about themselves, they think their democracy exists because the citizens want it more and are more willing to defend it. As I already said, with the Arab Springs, populations were willing to overthrow their governments, that is the highest level of resolve, to risk life and limb for democracy. The end result was chaos and anarchy because that's not really how democracies work, they don't survive based on the level of enthusiasm of their citizens. It's just American political campaigning, stroking the ego of voters to secure votes.
A big issue also is that all three wars, the US never really went in intending to do any nation-building. They ended up doing it as a result of necessity and did a pretty half-assed job. The key thing to do is to set up these institutions, to give the means to a country like Afghanistan to root out corruption because that clearly didn't happen, the Taliban was able to walk over Afghanistan as if it didn't even have a government.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/america-enabled-afghanistan-s-corruption-years-taliban-knew-it-ncna1277327
Our biggest disagreement seems to be different ideas about the importance of education. I don't think there can be good citizenship without education for that. I don't believe a democracy can exist for long without education for citizenship because if citizens are not educated to defend their democracy, they can not defend their democracy. For that reason, I believe the US is in big trouble because it stopped educating for good citizenship and now has the reactionary politics that put Hitler in power, and culture wars are tearing us apart. Our banking system continues to fail and when this happens we do not punish the wrongdoers, and our coins that once had value because of the metals in them, are no longer made with those valuable metals and therefore have no value. We are living with so many lies and extremely few of us could put our democracy back together if it did fall. Not enough of us know how to do that to make it a real possibility. And add to that, our industry is autocratic and people don't understand why that matters.
However, your explanation of people having no experience with democracy and no understanding of the necessary institutions seems obviously correct.
Didn't the thinking for our democracy begin in Athens and then Rome which became Italy and the place where the renascence began? I met a Serian professor who had a better understanding of democracy than anyone I have met in the US. Weren't German philosophers well educated in the Greek and Roman Classics before developing their own philosophy? The American Revolution began as an intellectual revolution and democracy can not be manifest without it. Except for Japan, that is a curiosity to me, unless we give Deming credit for the change.
I watched the video about Islam and was overwhelmed with information! Your brain seems to handle information much better than mine so I am asking you to attempt to make all this information more comprehensive to me. Why all the different organizations? Do they have different justifications for existing? Do they have different stated purpose?
I don't know if I want to add this to the thread, but what is their moral imperative, and can it be blended with Christianity? Like right now the US can be seen as the moral enemy of all that is good and how important might this be in escalating the problem instead of leading to peace?
Especially after watching the video, I am a bit broken-hearted that the US did not use Islam for nation-building. I wonder if anyone thinks that would have succeeded?
Okay, now we are getting down to the nitty grittty. The reality this link speaks of pisses me off and most certainly has moral and political implications regarding western political action and acts of war.
Quoting Wikipedia
It is my understanding the stated purpose of communism and Islam in the physical, social, mental, and spiritual well-being of everyone in a civilized society and I am having a hard time understanding why the British and Americans are opposed to that?
Last time I checked, the British and Americans were NOT opposed to Islam at all. Nor should they be, I agree.
:lol: I laugh because I immediately disagree with what you said, and then when I try to explain that disagreement, my brain freezes. Have you experienced that? It is weird.
How about this, when you entered someone's home, you do not start taking what that person has. You should not disrespect that person and attempt to correct the way that person has decided how to do things. If that person is opposed to drinking alcoholic beverages, you do not sit in the living room and have a beer. If a person does not want you to talk about your religion in their home, you should not talk about your religion. If the person believes a woman should dress modestly, then that is how a woman should dress in that person's home. It is simply a matter of good morals and good manners. I do not believe the British and Americans have behaved with good manners.
I like your analogy to a person's home. The other day I was thinking about that, and the fact that in many neighborhoods there is that family. The parents, of course, ostensibly have sovereignty over their home and the teenagers that reside therein. Now, if they want to let the kids run wild in the house, that's fine. But when their kids start trashing the neighborhood, come over to my house and trash it, I have a right to redress. If I get no satisfaction, then, eventually, I will go over to their house, along with the majority of the neighborhood, kick their fucking door in, beat the shit out of them, kill the fucking kids and leave. But in deference to their right to run their house the way they want, I will not then hang around and try to teach them good parenting skills.
Oh, and while I want to tip my hat to cultural sensitivity, I won't stand idly by and watch them fuck little boys or cut the clitoris off little girls with a piece of broken Coke bottle (not Afghanistan, I know, I'm just making a point here). You see, while it is expected that I should be culturally sensitive, I also expect people to be sensitive to my culture. Part of my culture is killing monarchs, racists, slave owners, traitors, emperors, dictators and other vermin who abuse the innocent. I simply ask that others honor my culture. I don't' think that is a big ask. :grin:
That could indicate the presence of a cliché. Something you took for granted without prior examination.
Thanks and what do you think about the point I made?
I had to check to be sure this is the thread on Afghanistan and not my thread about Patriarchy versus Matriarchy. I would say your idea of how to deal with people who are different is pretty patriarchal and I think that mentality is what caused the American effort to make a difference in Afghanistan to fail. I do not believe using violence to defend our sense of how the world should be is the way to have a better world. However, it is in complete agreement with what some Muslims are doing.
It is not like foreigners can just enter a country and impact that country culturally or politically. They may not even be able to assimilate because of prejudice against them. The US assured most foreigners would be assimilated by providing education for good citizenship. It was understood that by teaching the children American values the parents would learn. However, education for technology brought an end to transmitting a culture and preparing the young for citizenship. I think the new mentality has led to poor American judgment and failure.
Yeah, that patriarchy can cause problems. I just hope that when you go over to the neighbor's house and politely ask them to please keep their teens in check (and to please turn the kids over to authorities to answer for their acts), there is not some patriarchal SOB in his wife-beater, beer in hand, who tells you "Go fuck yourself, and deal with my teens when they are in your yard, not when they've skedaddled back to my house". Oh, and "Get off'n my land, you little . . .".
:wink:
I have a big problem with that because it goes against the Koran. We can know when people make a law, be it a government law or a holy book law, when people are doing what they should not do or they are failing to do what they should do. We have proof in this thread that those terrible acts of war are not limited to what "those people" have done, but seems to be an instinctive behavior when "we" are dealing with "them" and males dominate.
I am very troubled by my sisters in Afghanistan fighting for a better reality and being deserted by the US. My sisters in Africa and South America are not getting as much support as they need for a better world. But I am hoping someday my sisters are united and strong and humanity does a better job of being civilized. We can use the Bible or the Koran for a better reality and I don't know if reason will ever be as effective as religion? Rule by reason requires too much thinking and people avoid it. Rule by reason does not have the emotional appeal that religions have.
Grandmothers learn quickly that if they want to make a difference, they better be very tactful and very careful about how they word themselves because we have no power over others and if we are seen as offensive, we find ourselves excommunicated from family. The point is, your way does not get good results. Not in Afghanistan, your neighborhood, or your family.
The only problem with "my way" is that it wasn't "my way." My way did not involve hanging around and trying to teach good parenting habits to an asshole, or coddling his kids, or nation building. My way, swift and violent, has worked wonders for centuries. It's unfortunate, but sometimes you have to light a back-fire to put out the flames. If your way worked when dealing with assholes then I guess we wouldn't have any assholes. Yet the world is full of them and yes, I am probably one of them. But if you'd get out there and get the job done with the neighbor then I'd be more than happy to stand down and go back the garden. In fact, if you promise to protect me from assholes, then I'll gladly turn over any reigns I might have. But maybe you should post a bond, first? Or submit some insurance coverage?
Likely as just like with communism, it's the means how this "well-being of everyone" is achieved I guess.
I think the basic uneasiness with the Muslim Brotherhood is that it doesn't respect so much "Western" democratic values like minority rights etc.
Well, I think a detailed account may be beyond the scope of this thread or forum.
However, as I was trying to explain to @ssu, it is essential to understand how empires operate.
Suppose you are one of the liberal imperialists running the British Empire. You are sitting in front of the fireplace in your large house in the English countryside, holding an imperial map in one hand, and a glass of Scottish whiskey in the other.
Your main concern is to keep your empire together. As you examine your map, you notice three critical spots (among many others): India, Afghanistan, Egypt.
India is one of the most important parts of your empire. To protect India, you must make sure that Napoleon, the Russians or anyone else don’t get their hands on Afghanistan and get access to the Indian Ocean. To control trade with India, you need the Suez Canal and for this you need to control Egypt.
At the same time, there is mounting Muslim resistance to British rule. You can’t afford to upset all the millions of Muslim natives from Northwest India to Egypt. So you must play one resistance group (and the occasional pro-British group) off against another. Once this has been understood, everything else happens against this background.
The main Muslim revivalist movements in 1800’s British India were the Aligarh and Deobandi movements.
Sayyed Ahmad Khan was a pro-British Indian Muslim from Delhi who worked for the East India Company. In 1875, he founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College of Aligarh which later became the Aligarh Muslim University, India’s first Muslim university.
The people associated with the Aligarh University started the Aligarh Movement that later spawned the All-India Muslim League, the Caliphate Movement, and the Jamaat-e Islami of Pakistan.
At about the same time, the Deobandis formed their own movement whose founders were connected with the Anglo-Arabic College of Delhi, a.k.a. Delhi College, which was organized by the same British East India Company and was obviously another British operation. The Deobandis established Muslim religious schools in British India (which in 1947 was divided into India and Pakistan).
The Soviets aimed to expand their influence in Afghanistan by introducing communism there with a view to eventually taking over. In 1979, they invaded Afghanistan to protect the communist-led government there. Many Afghans fled across the border to Pakistan where they were radicalized in Deobandi schools funded by Pakistan, Saudi, America, and Britain, and organized by Jamaat. In addition, they were trained, funded, and armed by Pak (ISI), US (CIA), and UK (MI6, SAS), becoming the Mujahedin guerrillas fighting the Soviets.
After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the same Jamaat-Deobandi infrastructure that was used to radicalize the Mujahedin, was used to radicalize the Taliban. Taliban founder Mullah Omar graduated from a Deobandi school in Pakistan, joined the Mujahedin and founded the Taliban in 1994.
From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban held about two thirds of Afghanistan until they were beaten by a coalition of Mujahedin and Western forces, after which the Taliban withdrew over the border to Pakistan from where they have been launching attacks into Afghanistan until they seized power again in 2021.
In the meantime, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (founded in 1928) created Islamic Jihad that collaborated with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Remember that both India and Egypt were under British occupation. Egypt and India were connected through the Suez Canal which was controlled by the Suez Canal Company (which was co-owned by the British). The Muslim Brotherhood was created by employees of the Suez Canal Company.
British occupation means the British run the military and intelligence. If you add military and intelligence, you get Military Intelligence (Section) 6 = MI6 a.k.a. SIS (Secret Intelligence Service)!
How does MI6 operate? By funding and training local organizations that act in line with British interests. And the same goes for the CIA and others.
In this case, we can clearly see the British connections of the Aligarh, Deobandi, and Muslim Brotherhood projects. (There are many others in Iran, Iraq and elsewhere.)
Different groups may represent different Muslim denominations or factions within denominations purportedly fighting against the "corrupting" influence of western religion and culture. As various mass movements emerge, organizations are founded by foreign governments or local groups to manipulate those movements in line with their agendas. Just like with political parties, allegiances may change over time and this keeps the situation fluid. Organizations may also set up new outfits for reasons of deniability. A religious organization may found an educational or political offshoot, and a political organization may found a paramilitary group or terror organization, in order to divert attention from the original founders, etc.
But, regardless of who is behind these groups, the general effect is that they encourage a gradual shift in the direction of radical, anti-western Islam. To make matters worse, as America and Europe are opting out of political and military involvement, other powers like China, Russia, and Islamic states are ready to back these groups to secure a slice of the geopolitical cake (in the form of oil or other interests) for themselves, and this exacerbates the problems for the Western world and for freedom and democracy ....
Quoting Apollodorus
Right. By first killing the Afghan president. I wouldn't use the term "protect" there.
Quoting Apollodorus
I think it's more true to say that the CIA simply organized the money and arms procurement while the Pakistani ISI was basically in control of day to day operations and which rebel groups got the arms. No CIA agents entered Afghanistan, while some British agents did enter the country to train the rebels.
Pakistani ISI wasn't here a rogue actor or an agent of the CIA, the Pakistani involvement was lead directly from the top, from general Zia ul-Haq, the dictator of Pakistan who was a devote muslim. I think he is the main reason just why Pakistan got so entangled with islamist terrorists in the first place.
Quoting Apollodorus
I would hold the ISI having here a bigger role than just islamic schools on the creation and backing of the Taliban movement.
Quoting Apollodorus
Northern Alliance would be proper as both Pashtun fighters of the Taliban and members were mujaheddin opposing the Soviet invasion. That Pakistan could be both "being an ally in the War on Terror" and supporting the Taliban and harboring Al Qaeda leaders and then get away with it is at least to me quite incredible.
President Imran Khan meeting Trump...
...and then meeting the Taliban, those that have now "broken the shackles of slavery" according to him:
And Pakistanis are quite open about the role of the ISI in this. The former ISI director Hamid Gul went on to say in Pakistani TV the following:
And where did they find OBL?
Thanks. I’m not sure your observation is of much help to Athena though.
The truth of the matter is that the Marxist Kabul government aimed to extend communist rule to the rest of Afghanistan. This resulted in a Muslim insurgency that Kabul was unable to suppress. The Soviets intervened to reinforce communist rule.
They did kill Amin, who was the leader of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (not “president”), but replaced him with Karmal whom they regarded as more competent and reliable.
So, the Soviets intervened to protect the communist-led regime, not a particular individual.
At that point, Carter ordered US assistance to the anti-communist Mujahedin.
Milestones: 1977–1980 - Office of the Historian
Of course Pakistan had (and still has) an interest in extending its influence over Afghanistan. No one disputes this.
Well, it’s a shame you weren’t there to tell them. They certainly thought it was in line with the Koran. After all, this is why they invaded all those countries, to bring Islam to them! And raping, enslaving, etc., was the reward and “lawful booty” they thought was due to them as per the Koran.
Women and children were the first to suffer, being abused in all sorts of ways by the invaders who were not accountable to anyone.
- Abbasid Caliphate: Status of Women – Wikipedia
See also Nabia Abbott, Two Queens of Baghdad
The prospect of sex seems to be central to the Islamic project. Arabia at the time of Mohammad was inhabited by many Christians and Jews in whose tradition paradise was a place of happiness and enjoyment of a range of pleasures from food to sexual relations (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anith 25a, Kethuboth 77b, Berakoth 57b).
Similarly, the Koran promises pure virgins for the right believers:
And the Hadith tradition promises 72 virgins as a reward for waging war on non-Muslims:
Obviously, enjoying female slaves captured by invading other countries was regarded as a foretaste of paradise and must have been part of the motivation behind the invasions.
And as Mohammad married Aisha at the age of six (and apparently consummated the marriage when she was nine) it is obvious that female slaves were regarded as ripe for sex at an age when they were virtually still children .....
Mullah Omar has a point though, no? People are willing to spend so much on statues but only paltry amounts on actual people (men, women, and children).
Yes. Just like they did in Hungary 1956 or in Czechoslovakia 1968.
It's interesting to note that to crush the "Prague Spring" the Soviet Union along with Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary, deployed half a million troops into the small country. The Soviet forces in Afghanistan were of the similar size of the Obama surge later (little over 100 000), which in both occasions wasn't enough to pacify the rather large mountainous country.
Quoting Apollodorus
I think it's just an issue that we just should remember, because too many times we see everything from the prism of the West doing things in the World. Having the typical narrative that nearly all bad happens in the World because of the US (or something like that). The US is just one actor and in these regions the countries themselves have their own independent objectives and agendas. To think of them just as pawns or victims of the US or the West is just wrong.
Because I have been listening to an explanation of what science has to do with liberty and because in the past Islam was very successful and more advanced than Europe, I judge what is most important is liberalism and science. Islam was both liberal and scientific when it was the center of world trade.
Being conservative and antiscience leads to failure and here is an interesting point, in China, it is the communists who are conservative. The communists of the USSR were atheist and deterministic, firmly rejecting quantum physics and Einstein's relativity. And in the US we are experiencing the solution to overpopulation. Ignorance, and a pandemic, and we remain trapped in an economy dependent on oil, although since 1920 it has been known that is the path to economic disaster and war. :grin: I think we need to understand ourselves before we can understand those we disagree with? We share being human in common. :lol:
Personally, I am in favor of saving the statues for everyone. We have not had the ability to feed everyone and even if they did, they would multiply and the problem would get worse. However, we can feed everyone's spiritual well being and destroying cathedrals, mosques and Buddist statues is wrong. Those who destroyed the Buddist statues would know that if it were a mosque being destroyed.
:100: :up: I'm no big fan of religion but I find the guy's excuse to be disingenuous.
I want to make a point of what history and age have to do with all this. Shall we begin with people did not have a long life expectancy? How do men think before 35 years of age? In a primitive situation, with a life expectancy of 35 years and no careers goals such as we have today, what should we expect? :lol: Yeah, heaven might look like a lot of women available for sex. By the time a man is 60 he might want fewer women and might dislike being called to war even more than the young farmers of Rome who probably thought raping and pillaging would be a great adventure.
The Taliban was using male children for war and this horde of males is mostly young. For sure they are not thinking about the children's college fund or their stock portfolio and retirement. They are thinking with their bodies and about how to satisfy their physical urges and how to impress their peers. Maybe the leaders are more sophisticated. In the right situation, humans improve with age.
I hear ya. Nevertheless, one of humanity's biggest problems is not getting our priorities right. For instance, save for a few enlightened countries, the defense budget outstrips the health budget which to me is taking the stand that we would rather die of disease than die from an enemy's bullet. It seems to make sense at some level but that's precisely the point - we, some of us at least, are facing so much pressure that we have to resort to this kinda warped logic.
What's this?
I knew only Lysenkoism and it's war against genetics, but naturally the "political correctness" went on to every field of science there is.
Well, likely the atomic bomb turned Stalin's opinion about it in an instant!
Quoting Athena
When it was. It's an interesting history just why it then went into the backwardness and only was abruptly awakened by Napoleon invading Egypt. But then it was too late and the Ottoman Empire was "the sick man of Europe".
Correct. However, this isn't about "a person". It is about the Muslim Arabs who invaded Egypt, Syria, Persia, and many other countries in the 7th century AD, i.e., immediately after the emergence of Islam. Without the Arab invasions, the enslaved non-Arabs would have not been enslaved.
Quoting Athena
Sure. But we don’t know to what extent those rules were actually observed.
Plus I don't think the Arabs were under attack, so their invasions don't really qualify as "self-defense". I think the prospect of booty and of securing an easy life on the back of the conquered populations was the primary motivation.
The Arabs did not have an advanced culture. Persian literature, for example, describes them as "uncivilized":
In the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) the great Persian poet Ferdowsi wrote:
- A. Pagden, The 2,500 Year Struggle Between East and West, p. 178
The Persians had an established tradition of cultural syncretism based on urban centers like Ctesiphon and Gundeshapur where Christian, Sabian, Zoroastrian, Pagan, Buddhist, and other scholars were active in the promotion of learning.
With the exception of religion and culture, the Arabs adopted the more advanced cultures of the conquered populations.
But, over time, they realized that those cultures were a challenge to Islam. And that was when they started executing people especially those influenced by Greek philosophy like Mansur al-Hallaj (922 AD) and Suhrawardi (1191 AD):
Al-Hallaj - Wikipedia
Suhrawardi - Wikipedia
This was when Muslim rulers began to turn against “foreign sciences” i.e. the cultural elements that had provided the foundations of "Islamic civilization" and this eventually brought their downfall. The decline of Islamic culture began in the 1100’s, before the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258.
We also need to bear in mind that under Muslim rule non-Muslims including Christians and Jews were regarded as second-class people and were tolerated only if they accepted Muslim superiority and paid a religious tax called “jizya”. And of course they had restricted rights.
Yeah, this is your punchline argument. Hmm.
What I was referring to was that for the Mamluks, the vassals of the Ottomans, and for the Ottomans themselves the French invasion force was a surprise. Only some 115 years earlier the Ottomans had been sieging Vienna, but now an equal size force of French nearly annihilated the Mamluk / Ottoman force without losing many troops in the Battle of the Pyramids.
But of course, Napoleon later fled back to France and the French force was later destroyed. But it showed what was to come, yet the Ottoman Empire couldn't pull off a Meiji Restoration like Japan did. Is this due to religion or because of the problems of the Ottoman Empire, I don't know. It's an interesting question. Hence when WW1 came around, the Ottomans were not ready and couldn't stay out of the war.
The citizens cannot hold the government accountable, the government is supposed to be self-regulating. In Australia, where I live, politicians are forced to resign because of mishandled travel expenses. One example:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/19/liberal-mps-shock-2am-resignation-while-facing-icac-charges-plunges-sa-into-minority-government
It can be quite comical to see what Australian MPs are charged with when juxtaposed with what the politicians of other nations are able to get away with. But it's what a healthy democracy looks like, and Afghanistan's corruption problem going unaddressed is the biggest problem here. Neither unifying people with Islam nor educating the populace is going to help much.
Do you disagree and why do you think either of these things would help?
Sure, but at the same time we can't ignore the West. As I said, it is essential to understand the concept of empire.
The British always had a special interest in Northwest India and Afghanistan. After the 1947 partition when Northwest India became Pakistan, the British focused on Pakistan.
On partition in 1947, Pakistan ceased to be part of the British Empire but became part of the British Commonwealth which replaced the Empire, and Pakistan’s leadership retained close links to British military and intelligence.
In the same year, Pakistan went to war with India over Kashmir. After the war, in 1948, the British created Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) as a sister organization of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) through which they directed Pakistan's foreign policy.
India was run by Fabian Socialists like Nehru and was getting closer to Soviet Russia. So, it was in the interest of the British to encourage Muslim fundamentalism in Pakistan to prevent Russian penetration of the region.
In fact, the British were highly active throughout the region. In 1953, British MI6 together with the CIA staged a coup in Iran to prevent a communist takeover (and to get their hands on Iranian oil).
The Iranian Revolution of 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini took over, was used by Britain for the same purpose of preventing Iran from turning left and getting closer to Russia.
Britain and the Iranian Revolution – Middle East Eye
Obviously, Britain and America’s anti-Russian stance meant that there was an interest in backing anti-communist Muslim fundamentalism in the region. The Islamization of Iran was taking place at exactly the same time as the Islamization of Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Gen Zia ul-Haq had been trained by the British and had served as an officer in the British Indian Army. He also had close links to the Deobandis, Jamaat, and the Islamic clergy assembly Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (JUI).
In 1977, as Muslim fundamentalism was on the rise, Zia seized power in a coup and started a comprehensive Islamization program in Pakistan. Under Zia hundreds of thousands of students were radicalized in religious schools run by Jamaat and JUI.
Following Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher heaped praise on Zia, announcing that Pakistan was now on the frontline in the war in Afghanistan and started arming Pakistan. Pakistan has had a leading hand in Afghanistan ever since.
Mark Curtis, Britain, Islamisation and state terror in Pakistan
So, when talking about Afghanistan, it is important to understand the role played by Britain and its close Pakistani ally.
This is why there are demos in Afghanistan against Pakistan:
Afghanistan: Taliban fire warning shots at protest in Kabul - BBC News
Christians are very proud of how much charity they give. At one time the US government paired up with preachers to get people to accept low wages and lusting for wealth was frowned upon. I have old grade school textbooks that stress cooperation and say things like friendship is better than money. In general, most people did not expect to earn enough to pay income taxes before the second world war, and speaking of war, the US demobilized after every war until Eisenhower and the Korean war. The US military ability was ranked 17th, with very small countries ranking better prepared for war. Iran liked the US very much because we seemed to chase the British out of Iran, but then we attempted to become an occupying force and Eisenhower approved of the CIA instigating a coup. I think our troubles with Muslim nations are of our own making. The only thing most citizens know if they know anything at all, is we were saving the world from communism.
The wealth and poverty issue would be great in another thread. I have some very interesting books on the subject. I am now reading one written in 1865 that argues in favor of accumulating wealth and I want to understand that argument before starting a thread. A thread bringing Christians and Muslims together would be great, but I need to do a lot more studying to do that. Should I make the effort?
It's no wonder that the ISI is praised for it's professionalism as it has obviously been set up by talented experts, the British, in the first place.
Yet the interesting thing here to note that when Great Britain indeed had influence on the institutions of these young countries, it didn't go the way France has gone with it's colonies especially in Africa. When you look at the French in Sub-Saharan Africa, they basically never left and intervene all the time still. France stayed in Africa. France never shread the idea of it being one of the Great Powers. The UK looked and found a place next to the US as it's trusted ally (which now looking things, wasn't such an outstanding move as the US doesn't care much if anything about it's allies, when they don't have a lobby group like the AIPAC). France sustained it's armed forces ability to operate independently and the French Foreign Legion has been quite active even after the wars of decolonization ended.
Neo-imperialism after decolonization? All the foreign militaries in Africa. Note the amount of bases that France has:
The UK was a different animal. It was humbled by the Suez Crisis and largely put aside that imperial touch that it had earlier. Especially faced with a catastrophic Palestine withdrawal, it didn't stay there as a major player. To sell arms to the oil rich countries was enough I guess. BP found other places (like the North Sea) to operate than Iran. Operation Ajax wouldn't have happened if it wouldn't have been for Kermit Roosevelt and the CIA. During the Cold War once the greatest Navy in the World assumed it's primary role to be anti-submarine warfare, not power projection, which likely was the reason for the Falklands/Malvinas war. (If the Royal Navy would have held to one flat top carrier with F-4 Phantoms, it would have likely deterred Argentina from trying to annex the Falklands.)
This means that when we make larger historical projections, we should note that the UK of today is quite different from the Empire it had in the past. It doesn't have the similar aspirations and not the similar will for imperialism as in the past. Hence today it's much more important what the followers of ZIa think to do now than what the UK foreign office thinks to do there.
It might well be in the future what the US thinks and what it's President says doesn't matter so much as earlier, if the withdrawal continues.
How Pakistan view the World, according to the Pakistani cartoonist Sabir Nazar:
In the Puritan US a politician can lie big time and do plenty of things I think are appalling but oh my god, if the politician is a man and touches a woman or comments on how she looks, today he will be tarred and feather and driven out of town. This is a complete flip from the 1970-1980 shows like Mash and Gomer Plie, and many more that got laughs because of inappropriate male behavior. We expected men to be sexual predators and we did create a rape culture. I don't think we should throw stones at Muslims for behaving as though men can not help themselves so women must become prisoners in their homes as we are not dealing with the same problem. Only recently we have dealt with the problem differently. My grandmother was horrified when my mother came home from summer camp with shorts and a bra. My mother became a WWII pin-up girl as we mobilized for WWII, and suddenly at the end of the war, women were to return to their homes, and stay there!
When my son and daughter came of age, Reagan was lying to us, and we slashed domestic budgets and poured everything into military spending. Those were hard years as my teenagers thought I was a fool for not lying and doing whatever it took to get ahead. And people still love Reagan. And was there ever a bigger liar than Trump and he is loved. Niccolo Machiavelli, said, it is much safer to be feared than loved. Especially Trump has done an excellent job of being feared and loved. What is up with that?
We can not keep our leaders accountable when we have no agreements on the principles we must defend.
Here is what the Koran has to say about leadership:
Not so different from those who support Trump. I was blown away by how a good friend saw Trump and as the pandemic raged on, our friendship ended. What is a philosophical statement we can make about this? People will be thrilled to follow some really awful leaders, especially when they believe their leader has God on his side and their prayers give the man the power of God to be a good father or the nation. Really, how different are the Christians and Muslims? The only weakness I see in both religions is the divisions in the religions and how they bash each other. :roll:
Christianity has been a force in the world of charity for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, christian charity has been marred by much controversy - I believe the donations were a cover for a more insidious objective, proselytizing. I'm sure that there are huge benefits in being/becoming christian but I was under the impression they were of the spiritual and moral nature, not monetary.
The USA's military capabilities are there for all to see. Which country has been/is ever ready to project power? Anytime, the USA doesn't get what it wants, it engages in gunboat diplomacy and saber rattling - read the headlines of news media for the past 60 years, you'll get an idea of what I mean.
Nevertheless, the USA is the world's only hope for peace and stability but...it's not the best option, it's the least worst.
As for communism, it's become some kind of bogey man, capitalist countries use to scare people into submitting to their demands and creed. Communism is dead! We don't need to dig up the rotting corpse of an old enemy to bring people in line. What we need to do is, in the absence of the red menace, overhaul the system that we've tolerated to counter Marxism. You know, like a soldier, who after a battle, tends to the demons inside him.
I don't know why I said what I said. Suffice it to say that these are not my own views but that of others which I offer as ponderables.
:lol: I don't think many citizens are aware of how their tax dollars are being spent and the global level politics. Just pick a political party or one issue and vote accordingly as though voting is about our petty human desires.
Well, we know that.
But it is wrong to assume that the British have no influence. It's just that they prefer to operate in a more behind-the-scenes way than the French.
And Pakistan is still a member of the British Commonwealth which has exactly the same map as the British Empire:
Member Countries - The Commonwealth
In any case, Britain and Pakistan are the main culprits responsible for the mess. And America is not far behind. It was the Americans (as well as Britain and others) that encouraged Muslim radicals from all over the world to flock to Pakistan and join the Mujahedin in the jihad against the Soviets.
In addition to the Mujahedin, three important terror organizations emerged under Zia, (1) Harkat al-Jehad al-Islami (HUJI), founded in 1980 by JUI, and (2) Lashkar-e Taiba (LET), founded in 1987 by Muslim Brotherhood operatives with the assistance of ISI and bin Laden. HUJI focused on Afghanistan and LET on India.
The third (3) was Maktaba al-Khidmat founded in 1982 by Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Azzam's deputy was Osama bin Laden who was funding the Mujahedin. The CIA and ISI were encouraging and helping them along .....
From that point, things got more and more lethal. US Deputy State Secretary Richard Armitage did tell the Pakistanis after 9/11 in 2001 that the US would bomb them back to the Stone Age if they didn't sort out the terrorists. But the Pakistanis have carried on playing their usual double game, and the West got fooled one more time.
An interesting question is, why was ISI director general Mahmood Ahmed in Washington at the time?
Totally agree. It does look like the thread has veered slightly off course. :gasp:
But at least @ssu's pictures have brought some color to it ....
Oh, I so want to argue against what you said just for the fun of it and I love your ending statement that clarifies we are playing with all these ideas is just fun. :love:
What if we could bring Islam and Christianity together? I know that is an insane idea considering neither religion can avoid division and fighting against each other, so there is not one Christianity or one Islam. And some of us are strongly opposed to both religions, but how can we be philosophical about all this and work on reasoning for peace? Instead of attempting to have peace through power? Ah, is this thread about Afghanistan or patriarchy versus matriarchy, and do we want to bring an end to rape culture, as in raping the earth as we rape each other? :lol:
I think my comment about communism was the bait switch. The threatening enemy was communism until the USSR fell, so we had to have a new enemy to do exactly what the US stood against from its very beginning, that is maintain its WWII military might and fight for global control. The new enemy became terrorists but that is very hard to defend and use to justify our military presence around the world. Who are the terrorist? They are not a nation and wars are against nations, not a handful of nuts cases. Oh, the terrorists are Muslims. You know those people who do not know God and follow his commandments and who are jealous of the US because God blesses the US and not them. Right there, that is proof of who God favors and it is the will of God that we control the resources of the world. But everyone can have religious freedom so we should not attack people for how they understand and worship God. Obviously, religious freedom makes us superior to Muslims and their notion of Shia law is threatening to us. cockco, cuckoo Can we call that reasoning? What is really happening? Is there are a philosophy that explains this insanity?
They are not a nation, but many (especially the fundamentalists) see themselves as one world-wide Muslim community or ummah.
And they see Westerners exactly as we see them, i.e., as the "bad guys".
Additionally, though most Muslims are not terrorists, they do agree with Islamic Law. And the problem with Islamic Law is that it tends to become more and more oppressive in addition to encouraging extremism.
The terrorists' reasoning is that if 75% of Muslims want Sharia Law, then it is right for them to fight the 25% that do not. And this goes for non-Muslim countries too. If Muslims are a minority, this means that Islam is being "suppressed" and this situation needs to be redressed by creating a Muslim majority.
India is a good illustration. The Muslim minority in British India demanded their own state. In 1947, they got Pakistan and Bangladesh. But some Muslims chose to stay behind in India and now the fundamentalists among them (and those of Pakistan) demand that they be liberated from infidel "oppression".
As fundamentalism is popular with the uneducated masses (and even some of the educated classes), politicians tend to encourage it for their own agenda, and one wave of fundamentalism is followed by a more radical one, just as the Mujahedin were followed by the Taliban and the Taliban by al-Qaeda ....
When Europeans began sailing around the tip of Africa to reach China and India, it was the end of Islam's glory. The mid-east stopped being the all-important middle man that connected the East with the West. Also, the connection between East and West resulted in the renaissance, a reawakening of scientific thinking that made mankind more dependent on what could be learned and then do under his own power, instead of being dependent on a God. We returned to an explanation of nature being the cause, instead of everything being the will of a God. This radically changed the West and man's understanding of his position in the world, throwing the West into progressive motion and Islam into decline.
Where is the center of the Muslim world? Like attacking the Mormons may seem like a good thing to do but it would not change the power and influence of the United States. It is futile to attack something that is not a centralized power, but like an invasive species, impossible to get rid of and spreading everywhere.
I see Westerns as the bad guys. At one time the US had all the minerals and resources it needed, But England and France, and then Germany were spreading everywhere and competing to control world resources. Then they were united by world wars and where Britain began to loose power, the US stepped in. It is like the story of Athens and the Persian war, which caused Athens to developed a navy and then merchants and didn't want to give up spreading its power once it had a taste of it. Sparta slapped Athens down and then Roman became the dominant power, but thanks to Alexander the Great Hellenism was spread everywhere.
:lol: My time is up but I must comment about the fighting for what we believe is right. The Christian right seems to be winning the fight against abortion rights. There is talk of this uniting democrats who might come out in larger numbers and defend the right to have an abortion. Fighting for what gives our lives purpose and meaning is a wonderful thing. The problem is the rules for fighting. When we include military weapons in the fighting, the destructiveness can not be justified.
There may not be a global center for the whole Muslim ummah, but there are centers of radicalism that can be tackled if there is a political will to do so. And you can take counter-measures against the governments that support them.
Seeing that Muslims demand Islamic states for themselves, perhaps the solution would be for non-Muslims to demand their own states? China and India seem to already be doing this.
Otherwise, I think the conflict is bound to continue until one side defeats the other ....
And this just shows just how awesome the English, sorry, the British are in these things. Russia tried this with the CIS, but failed to get the Baltics obviously into this commonwealth and has fought wars and annexed parts of former members Ukraine and Georgia. Other members naturally have taken notice of this. So not so friendly Commonwealth that one after all.
And they don't play cricket.
This just shows the strategic narcissism of the US and it's carefree ignorance of the objectives of other countries.
When it comes to Afghanistan in 2001, the real objective would have been to give assurances to Pakistan that it can indeed leave out in the cold it's own creation, the Taliban, yet be totally confident that it's back, Afghanistan, will be safe from Indian influence. The Afghan question is a huge one for Pakistan as there is the Durand line dividing the Pashtuns into two and Afghanistan even itself has been a threat to Pakistan. Here was the opportunity for the US to use it's closest ally, the UK, perhaps through it's Commonwealth connections to assure that indeed Pakistan would be safe and on the same time reassure India that there was no foul play here.
But that didn't happen. The US diplomacy was then "either you are with us or against us". And while from the start the US was declaring that it was only in Afghanistan because of Al Qaeda and would not be long around, it's totally natural for Pakistan to believe this "We will go out from here" message and both back the Taliban and play along with the War on Terror.
And when Pakistan did this, what could the US do? Bomb Islamabad? Hence not only get the remnants of the Taliban fight against it, but also have even Punjabis from Pakistan to volunteer to fight in Afghanistan against the US? Add one nuclear armed country to the Axis-of-evil?
No, here the strategic narcissism, term invented aptly by former national security advisor H.R. McMaster, kicked in and caused the Pakistani aid to the Taliban simply becoming a "politically-incorrect" issue and the continuation of US aid to Pakistan becoming a reason for a hope that somehow Pakistan would change it's course. US simply didn't know what to do with Pakistan. Yet with the aid from Pakistan and the sanctuary of Pakistan, the Taliban won the war.
The muteness about Pakistan and it's role in the collapse of the Afghan government and the victorious offensive of the Taliban tells how incapable the US is to face real geopolitics and will easily lull itself into repeating it's own invented discourse about the events where no thought was given to other actors than itself.
Quoting Apollodorus
I agree with this.
But what's the point of having that subtle behind-the-scenes approach when you have to just take what a US President hastily decides things without even consulting you first? Was the UK government informed about the deal with the Taliban during the Trump administration? To my knowledge, no. Was the UK government consulted when the Afghan government was collapsing? Again, to my knowledge, no.
What's the point of having a smart behind-the-scenes diplomacy when the Leader of the alliance simply makes decisions for itself without ever consulting you?
Quoting Apollodorus
The US doesn't attack countries with known nuclear weapons. It attacks only the one's with alleged nuclear weapons.
Sounds reasonable, actually.
(Even if it should be noted that Pakistani soldiers do have been killed in US drone strikes. Oops.)
Well, every country does what it can.
Besides, Afghanistan was a US-UK-NATO joint operation. After it became clear that the war on Taliban could not be won by military means, the whole project became pointless and politically unsustainable.
You just can’t win a war against an opponent based in Pakistan by sitting in Afghanistan. The real problem is Pakistan but there is no political will to solve that problem.
Once Trump had decided to get out of Afghanistan and the other NATO members were unwilling to carry on without the US, there was nothing the British could have done about it.
BTW this discussion could perhaps be continued elsewhere as it looks like @Athena wants her thread back ….
For example Vietnam didn't have it peaceful after the South collapsed and the country was unified. Then they had a border war with China and then intervened and overthrew the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Only afterwards it's been rather peaceful in that area of the World. even if South-East Asia has it's fair share of insurgents lurking in the jungles.
I don't wish to make the issue a game to be played without care or concern; if anyone insists its a game, so be it, but the consequences won't be a laughing matter. That's that.
There are two ways we can manage this. Either attempt some sorta unification of religions, politics, ideologies, etc. or just learn to accept our differences and agree to coexist peacefully i.e. stamp out diversity or embrace it. Which path the world chooses will decide the future of humanity.
That means Armageddon because it is it is not just a branch of Islam that is fundamentalist and more than willing to enter war against the powers of evil. It is just as much an Evangelical Christian thing. These are the folks Bush appealed to when he assured the Brits that there would be no problem getting the US to show their "power and glory" in a war against Iraq. These are the same people who got Trump elected. I don't know what can be done about this Christian and Muslim fundamentalism but we can not correct the problem if we do not properly identify it.
I just got a better understanding that while the US is the center of Christian fundamentalism, Saudi Arabia is the center of Muslim fundamentalism, and it never made sense to me that we made war on Afghanistan and then Iraq, but not Bin Laden's home Saudi Arabia.
The center of this problematic brand of Islam is not so different from the fundamentalist Evangelical Christians who are well organized to get their man in the presidency and to use political means to make US laws conform with their literal interpretation of the Bible. These are the folks Bush was appealing to when he turned our war powers on Iraq and sanctioned torturing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. This was announced as our Power and Glory and Evanical Christians loved it. Why don't see the mentality is the same? Political powers using religion to enhance their power.
I don't think we should ignore that what is happening is driven by both fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims. The makes the center of the problem, not a geological location, but literal thinking and fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. Weapons of war can not kill this enemy.
I am so sorry! I never meant to indicate I take all this lightly and it certainly is no game to me, but if we loose our sense of humor, there is no hope. I don't think there is any chance of sanity if we do not focus on reasoning. Number one to this goal is correcting the problem of literal thinking by using education to prepare people for abstract thinking. We need to teach people "how to think" and that is not education for technology. If everyone interpreting their holy book abstractly there would be hope of reasoning ending religious conflict.
However, we have all signs of the last days and this also needs to be addressed. People do not kill everyone around them when they need those people for labor. The US is not the only country overwhelmed by refugees. What we have today is overpopulation and our faith that technology makes it possible to continue overpopulating the earth is as bad as believing a god will protect us from the consequences of our bad judgment and bad actions. I am not sure we have a future if we do not have the right reasoning and education for technology will not bring us to good reasoning.
We had a chance in Afghanistan and we blew it because of our failure to understand the education that is essential for higher-order thinking skills, and the 2012 Texas Republican agenda was to prevent education for the higher-order thinking skills, and the teachers in Texas had to take Texas to the Supreme Court, to stop the leadership of Texas from teaching creationism as science. Texas supported Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush and using our military force to regain and maintain control of foreign oil, leading to the extreme division of the rich in poor, the powerful, and the powerless in the mid-east, which in turn leads to the fundamentalist fight against evil. There would not be the problem we have today, without the actions of the US. And this paragraph is trying to say too much. :cry: If people do not learn the higher-order thinking skills, which we could have taught the Afghanistanians when we were there, there is no hope. But it isn't only the mid-east fundamentalist who need to learn the higher-order thinking skills.
This is exactly the point that I have been trying to make :smile:
Of course fundamentalism, of any denomination, should be opposed. The question is, what can be done about it?
As I said, it is essential to understand how empires operate in order to understand how we got to this point. However, this is only the first step. The second step, which is equally important, is to understand the opponent.
For starters, we must avoid kidding ourselves and romanticizing Islam. The 7th century Arab is an outsider to what we call civilization, i.e., the urban civilization of Greece, Rome and Persia. He is at home in the Arabian desert whose barren expanse is only interrupted by scattered oases. But he is not content in the desert. For he has seen the unparalleled wealth and opulence of Christian Syria when traveling to the seasonal market at Damascus and the rich merchandise carried by the returning caravans which he and his comrades in arms have often raided. He has also heard of Constantinople, the “Great City of the Romans” (R?miyyat al-Kubra) “nothing like which was ever built, neither before nor after”.
Presumably, getting their hands on the gold and silver of Greece and Persia, and enslaving their populations, especially the women, was one of the motivations behind the Arab invasions. But the religious aspect of it should not be neglected.
Islam means submission to the will of God as supposedly revealed in the Koran.
Submission means Peace, non-submission means War or struggle between the forces of submission and the forces of rebellion.
Islamic Law (Sharia) divides the world into (1) areas of Peace or Islam, called the “House of Islam”, Dar al-Islam, where Islamic Law prevails, and (2) areas of War or Struggle, called the “House of War”, Dar al-Harb, where non-Islamic Law prevails.
The concepts of “House of Islam” and “House of War” do not appear to occur either in the Koran or in oral Hadith tradition. However, they were introduced by Muslim law-makers during the Muslim conquests and are part of Islamic Law.
Divisions of the world in Islam - Wikipedia
Presumably, Muslims who accept Islamic Law, also accept the division of the world into these two antagonistic camps, in which case it is not difficult to see why Muslim extremists see the existence of territories that are not subject to Islamic Law as a provocation and invitation, indeed obligation, to wage holy war or jihad against the “infidels.”
What compounds the problem is the Muslim belief that Islam was the original true religion that has been distorted by Jews and Christians whose current scriptures teach falsehoods and lead believers astray.
Clearly, the issue is more complex than it may seem.
So, can Islam be reformed? On the available evidence, I tend to doubt it. If we think about it, Christianity emerged within the evolved culture of Greece and Rome. In contrast, Islam had no comparable cultural background. It moderated itself for tactical reasons and through contact with other cultures. But it never reformed itself.
When external pressures force it to do so, Islam will stay within a certain range of moderation. But left on its own, its own inner logic will cause it to return to its unreformed and unmoderated roots.
This may be seen from the example of Pakistan. So long as it was part of British India, surrounded by Hindus, and dominated by European culture, it moderated itself for reasons of self-preservation. After Independence, when its main point of outside contact was Mecca in ultra-fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, it became more and more radical.
Education seems to be part of the problem. When you have millions of Muslim villagers with little or no education except what they are told by radical mullahs, then the outcome is entirely predictable. And, as we can see, there is a growing movement of opposition against Western education.
The name of the Islamist extremist organization "Boko Haram" (active in Niger and other African countries) literally means "Western education is forbidden" or "(Western) Book Forbidden," the only permitted book being the Koran.
Boko Haram - Wikipedia
Morever, the crux of the problem is this: The Taliban is about Islam, not Afghanistan. The west, on other hand, despite the possibility that it's just lip service, want Afghans to think hard and feel deeply about Afghanistan. That's all I have to say.
That gives a good perspective.
Can we agree on some truths?
While the Taliban and ISIS mean well, religious truths can not take the place of understanding how to run a government and economic system in the modern world. In the past when the Muslims were the middle man between East and West they had an advanced economic and bureaucratic system, the best for the time in history, but even if everyone remembered it, is that enough in today's world with the large populations dependent on many services such as clean water and sewage systems, a year round food supply, electricity, education for living with 21 century technology and employment?
Right now the Taliban can not pay wages, so the people are starving and many may die of starvation. Others will die if the medical system collapses and because these people have not been paid wages, the medical system is likely to collapse. An invading army can do only so much to enforce social order, but if people are dying, the invading army can not build a nation. Might the Taliban realize they bit off more than they can chew?
They might indeed. But it may equally be a cynical ploy to get the world to recognize their government and start pouring billions in aid into the coffers of their Islamic Emirate.
Thank you, thank you. The answer to your question is yes. But until we share the same source of information I don't think anyone will believe me. At least over ten years of trying to convence people of the importance of education, have not gotten good results.
My source of information is several books on the history of education. I am sure many people in the forum would love these books, but you will not find them in a regular book store. However these books can be found on line- Textbook in the History of Education by Paul Monroe 1910 and A History of Education by James Mulhern. Then I have old gradeschool text books and other books about education. Or we can come to the same information through an explanation of Liberal Education coming out of the Age of Reason and what scientific thinking has to do with what makes the West different from the East. A difference that was the foundation of war between the Greeks and Persians and has never been resolved. Your last statement is exactly right.
That would be a terrible mistake for the reason TheMadFool mentioned. This conflict is as old as the Persain war with the Greeks. Any help the Taliban gets needs to remain in the control of those who provide the help. The Taliban must be kept in the position of beggars, until they are developed enough to be independent. I am putting that out there for the purpose of discussion, not because I am sure what I am thinking. But I would never give a teenager or young adult an unlimited credit and hope nothing goes wrong. In God or Allah we trust, must never be a supported belief! It must be very clear who is providing the needs of the people and what it takes to provide those needs. That is the East West difference. (until we come to Trump and then the East and West mentality is exactly the same.)
[quote=Anthony Kenny (An Illustrated Brief History Of Western Philosophy)]A recent historian of philosophy, Anthony Gottlieb, describes its (religion's) impact in terms of the tale of Sleeping Beauty. "Having pricked its finger on Christian theology, philosophy fell asleep for about a thousand years until awakened by the kiss of Descartes"[/quote]
I suppose we shoudn't be too hasty in our judgment of Islam, it's the youngest religion there is. If all goes well, Islam should produce its own Descartes who'll then give the kiss of life to the Islamic world. I won't live long enough to see that happening. :sad:
I see Christianity as just as good or bad as Islam. I hear about what is happening in Texas and wonder if are we coming to the end of our democracy because of Christian radicals? Texas is behind our conflicts with the mid-east and is no more tolerant of non Christian beliefs or racial differences than radical Muslims are tolerant of others. What do you think makes fundamentalist Christians different from fundamentalist Muslims? The Christian Mythology that takes credit for our democracy is no different from what you said about Muslims, and the power of that Christian mythology is the direct result of replacing liberal education with education for technology and leaving moral training to the church.
You are probably right in a sense. However, we shouldn't ignore the differences.
For example:
1. Christianity spread through persuasion, Islam spread through invasion and conquest.
2. There are very few (if any) Christian fundamentalist governments in the world, but many Muslim fundamentalist ones.
3. There are very few (if any) Christian terror organizations, but many Muslim ones.
4. Women are more likely to be oppressed and discriminated against in Muslim than in Christian countries, etc.
I think, ultimately, what matters is not which religion is theoretically "better", but which of them shows more respect for freedom, democracy, and human rights.
Of course some may argue that the US President is "just as good or as bad" as the head of the Taliban, but I think this is debatable.
Are you sure Christianity was not spread by the sword? We might have read different accounts of history?
What were the steps of persuasion used? How about economic warfare?
Point two, yes, many countries have not modernized as the West did following the renaissance in Europe. And thanks to this discussion, I have been pondering how anyone could write a history book for the East that made them think democracy is their inheritance from the Greeks and Rome?
Point three, would you call the KKK a terrorist organization? How about the Nazis?
Point four, And none of us had equal rights for that long. We sure can not applaud Christianity for our equal rights gains and protection from sexual predators because Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are basically the same patriarchial religion.
"I think, ultimately, what matters is not which religion is theoretically "better", but which of them shows more respect for freedom, democracy, and human rights." Yes, but that is what we gained through philosophy and conditions that lead to women having liberty, it is not because of religious differences. And can we keep in mind, at one time Isam was far more advanced than Christian Europe, and can we focus on why that was so? I think it is a mistake to think Christianity is better for democracy than Islam. If it had been for the renaissance and philosophy, we would not be a democracy and we would have protected freedom of speech and would not have liberty. Our failure to understand that and what it means to defend democracy in the classroom has us in deep trouble right.
Our president in the US was born a nation that began with liberal/classical education and had education to teach citizenship and defend democracy. We stopped that in 1958 and left moral training to the church. That was a huge mistake.
One more thing Kennedy and Biden were/are Catholic and that means universalism. Most US Presidents are Protestant and that means nationalism like the Christian Republic of Germany we defeated in two world wars and now resemble in many ways.
True about Renaissance and philosophy. Philosophy was locked up in dogma until that point, for the most part.
Thank you and we should know the big, big difference was Aristotle and the Catholic church's Scholasticism that got philosophical and scientific thinking going. But even at this point, not much would have happened. The silk road lead to Europe replacing Roman numerals with Arabic (Indian) numbers which gave us the essential math to progress and also the technology of printing and making paper from China and that made it possible to make books that spread knowledge, including the Bible written in the languages people spoke so they read the Bible and determine truth for themselves. This was not so different from the forces that made Islam great, and it was what lead to democracy, not Christianity.
Absolutely sure. Christianity started as a peaceful movement within the Roman Empire and spread peacefully and gradually through its teachings. In contrast, Islam started as a militarized group that took over Arabia by force of arms and then started invading Christian, Persian and other lands. The Koran explicitly says that Mohammad can have four wives plus as many female slaves captured in war as he pleases. The Bible does not say this of Jesus. There are some huge differences that should not be overlooked IMHO.
Quoting Athena
If you ask me, I think they couldn’t, because it isn’t. This is precisely why they reject that “inheritance”. They’ve been doing that since the 1100’s.
Quoting Athena
Sure. But (1) KKK and neo-Nazis are racist, not religious fundamentalist, (2) they are not supported by Western governments, or indeed, by the Western public, and (3) they do not attack Muslim countries.
Quoting Athena
If they are all “basically the same”, then there seems to be no point having this discussion! :smile:
Quoting Athena
We can focus on anything you want, it’s your thread.
But the philosophy was not Islamic. Aristotle was not a Muslim. The eastern part of the Roman Empire never lost its cultural heritage including philosophy. It was only the western part and that was because it was overrun by Germanic tribes that did not have a tradition of philosophy and learning. Nothing to do with Christianity.
Quoting Athena
I am not aware of US education being controlled by the Church. My impression was that it is controlled by liberals of various denominations?
Quoting Athena
Sure. But Obama was a Protestant. And they are the presidents elected by the American people who are free to choose different presidents.
:gasp: Are you being sarcastic or is that what you really believe. If that is what you believe we have read different books. What can people do when they believe different facts and do not agree about something as important as how the world came to be as it is today?
I don't think complicated historical events can be broken down into monolithic stages like this. Metaphysical mutations don't seem like good explanations for historical events, IMO. The material basis (like advancements in trade technology) is what drives events; ideological changes are an effect, not the cause. It doesn't make any sense to me that one region of the planet progressed simply because the inhabitants started believing in something different. It just seems more like mythology than history.
Oh dear, we don't usually disagree and I am uncomfortable with this. If the Southern government had made racist laws and protect racism as a way of life, there would not the Black pain and anger that we have today, and please, that was supported by Christianity and still is.
Yes, Judaism, Christianity, Islam are the same religion but with different cultural understandings of the God of Abraham religion. And discussing this could be a way to better judgment and even peace. We need to end the lies that have been very divisive and are behind the wars we have had.
However, there are times when our disagreements lead to me searching for more information and this piece of information seems very important to resolving a misunderstanding.
Quoting Muslim Philosophy
I do not think the Taliban was influenced by Aristotle. The condition of life for the Taliban does not promote a refined intellect. They are not seeing the more civilized aspects of their Holy Book because the conditions of their lives not supporting civilized living. This was also true of Christians who lived for holy wars, not the refinement of civilization.
I do not think the US would elect a person who was not Protestant or at least Catholic. I would go into shock if an atheist or even a deist, became our president. Christian domination in the US has questionable power of domination and not all of these people are knowingly and intentionally influenced by Aristotle, however, oddly many of them do embrace Neitzche and Hegel and the notion of national Protestanism. That is an ingredient of war and the Military-Industrial Complex and very bad decisions made in the Mid East.
What is a metaphysical mutation?
I am adding information I just came across because of Schopenhauer's post. I am still not sure of what metaphysical mutation means but understand it now seems important.
Wow, I think you get the prize for the best post of the day! I did not have this information but thanks to you I looked for it. :love:
Quoting Stanford
Now things may be making sense to me? My brain is overheated and I am going for a walk. I found a book on my shelf that will help me know more about Al-Ghzaile. Maybe I will know a little more when I return? Jeeze, I have been avoiding all this brain work and understanding why the Shia and Sunni are at odds with each other, but if this is connected to Aristotle and a metaphysic mutation, I MUST understand it.
"This is the dawning of the Angel Aquarius". :lol: That doesn't belong in this thread but maybe a thread about the New Age, a time of high tech and peace and the end of tyranny. Sorry, my bad, but talk of a metaphysical mutation set this line of thinking off. I love not being too sure of what I know and realizing totally unexplored possibilities.
Well, if you have any evidence that Jesus and St Paul spread Christianity by force of arms, feel free to post it here. :smile:
Anyway, as I said, the issue is very complex, and I don’t think you will be able to fix all the loose ends, to be quite honest. You would need a team of scholars and experts to sort out the historical and cultural background in the first place, let alone anything else ....
IMO the concept of “European Dark Ages” does not really stand to objective scrutiny. The teaching of philosophy in the eastern part of the Roman Empire was carried on without interruption from Plato and Aristotle to the modern era.
Where did the Arabs get Plato and Aristotle from? From the Greeks! Who translated Plato and Aristotle into Arabic for them? The Eastern Christians!
Meantime, the West was overrun by Germanic tribes: the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Franks in France, the Vandals and Visigoths in Spain, etc. Latin and Greek were no longer widely used, and traveling was more difficult. The Western Empire disintegrated into separate kingdoms.
In 797 AD, Irene of Athens became Empress of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Pope Leo III did not like the idea of a female emperor, declared the throne vacant, and in 800 decided to crown Charlemagne, King of the Franks, as Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The Greeks who saw themselves as the rightful heirs of the Roman Empire protested and this developed into hostile relations between East and West. The conflict led to the East-West Schism of 1054 and the Western sacking of the Eastern capital Constantinople in 1204.
So, I think it can be seen that the West lost its Greek and Roman cultural heritage NOT because of the Church but because the Romans lost control of their Empire to Germanic barbarians. And the West began to translate Aristotle from Arabic into Latin, not because his works were not available in the Greek East, but because knowledge of Greek had been mostly lost in the West and because of the animosity between West and East.
Moreover, this happened at a time when philosophy had begun to be suppressed in the Islamic world. After that, the Abbasid Caliphate was taken over by Turks and Mongols (1258) and that was the end of the “Golden Age of Islam”.
The Italian scholar Petrarch who lived in the 1300’s and is widely regarded as the “Father of the Renaissance”, was in fact opposed to the Averroists who only knew Aristotle from Arabic commentaries translated into Latin. He started collecting manuscripts of the works of Classical authors and he was inspired by the Abbott Barlaam of Calabria who had lived most of his life in Greece (as head of the Monastery of St Gregory).
Petrarch had read Augustine and Cicero (a manuscript of whom he had inherited from his father) as well as Plato's Phaedo and Timaeus that were available in Latin translation and received a Greek copy of Homer from the Greek scholar Gen. Nicholas Sygerus. Petrarch’s friend Boccaccio was another prominent promoter of Greek language and literature. Whilst commissioning the translation of Euripides and Aristotle from Greek into Latin, they introduced the idea of studying the Classics in the original Greek. Their follower Coluccio Salutati continued their work and in 1395 founded a chair of Greek at the University of Florence for the Greek scholar Manuel Chrysoloras. Other scholars and philosophers from Greece followed in the next decades.
Petrarch | Encyclopedia
Apparently, Petrarch coined the phrase “Dark Ages” and this was later used by Protestants to attack Catholics and blame them for the “Dark Ages”, etc.
However, 1) Petrarch was referring to the western part of the Roman Empire (the Latin West), 2) as Petrarch (and everyone else) was obviously aware, the Eastern Roman Empire (the Greek East) was still extant (until it was conquered by the Muslim Turks in 1453), and 3) the concept of “European Dark Ages” is out of date and is no longer recognized by most scholars.
There are many other misconceptions about the “Dark Ages” and the same goes for the “Islamic Golden Age” that, incidentally, was coined in the 1800’s as an expression of Western Orientalism.
So, it seems that some are working with outdated concepts from a bygone era and wrong historical data.
See also:
Medieval Monasticism as Preserver of Western Civilization
Some people seem to think that Islam is superior to anything human civilization has ever produced. But what puzzles me is why so many women feel the need to embrace Islam?
In the Koran, Surah 4, an-Nisa (“Women”), Allah commands that men are to dominate women and beat them if they misbehave or disobey:
Allah then commands that men can marry four wives:
(“That your right hands possess” is a frequent Koranic expression used to refer to slaves.)
Allah also commands that men who cannot afford to marry free women, can take female slaves and women captured in war instead:
In Surah 33 al-Ahzab (“The Combined Forces”) Allah gives exclusive permission to Prophet Mohammad to take more wives than four from among women captured in war or any other women “that want to give themselves to him”:
In Surah 66, at-Tahrim (“The Prohibition”), Allah has a special message to Mohammad’s wives in which he tells them that if they are disobedient and Mohammad divorces them, then Allah himself will give him new, better, submissive and obedient wives:
Islamic Law says that a Muslim man can divorce his wife or wives by pronouncing the word “talaq” (“divorce”) three times. If divorce is so easy for an ordinary Muslim, presumably, it was even easier for Prophet Mohammad.
The oral Hadith tradition has it that Mohammad had nine wives, and he may well have had more wives or partners:
Obviously, as Mohammad was waging war on the Christian and Jewish tribes of Arabia, there was a constant supply of fresh captive women with whom the Muslim leadership could deal as they pleased.
However, several eye-witness statements from the Hadith relate that Mohammad was eventually poisoned by a Jewish woman in retaliation for the torture and beheading of her husband Kinana, the chief of the Jews at Khaibar:
Muhammad’s Death – WikiIslam
Mohammad’s father-in-law and successor Caliph Omar, was similarly killed by a Persian slave, Piruz Nahavandi a.k.a. Abu Lulu. On seeing Persian children slaves in Medina, Piruz said:
So saying, he made himself a dagger smeared with poison and, while Omar was leading the morning prayers, Piruz attacked him, stabbing him six times in the stomach.
Piruz Nahavandi - Wikipedia
Omar’s successor Uthman, Mohammad’s son-in-law, was assassinated by Kharijite rebels, a Muslim sect.
Uthman’s successor Ali ibn Ali Talib, cousin and son-in-law of Mohammad, also was assassinated by Kharijite rebels.
Husayn ibn Ali, Mohammad’s grandson, and son of Ali ibn Ali Talib, was killed by Yazid, second caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate ….
In 750 AD the Umayyads were finally overthrown by a coalition of Arabs and Persians that founded the Abbasid Caliphate. However, in 861 though still under nominal Abbasid suzerainty, most of Persia, including the Abbasid capital Baghdad, was ruled by Persian dynasties such as the Samanids, Buyids, and Saffarids until about 1055. In addition to Baghdad, the learning centers established by these Persian rulers at Balkh, Bukhara, Gorgan, Hamadan, Herat, Isfahan, Khorasan, Khwarezm, Merv, Nishapur, Rey and elsewhere attracted great poets, mystics, philosophers and scholars like the Christian Abu Sahl Masihi, Avicenna, al-Biruni (“the Father of Comparative Religion”), Ferdowsi, and many others.
Following the Turkish and Mongol invasions, the Safavid Sufi Order was established in the early 1300’s from whose members emerged the founders of the Safavid Empire which lasted from 1501 to 1736. The Safavid rulers revived the Greek- and Persian-inspired philosophy of Suhrawardi (who had been executed by the Abbasids in 1191, during the “Golden Age of Islam”), Avicenna, and others.
Suhrawardi – Wikipedia
M. A. Razavi, Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination
I think an interesting question for modern philosophers would be, how to substitute Suhrawardi and others for religious and political extremism and initiate a new era of enlightenment, tolerance, and peace throughout the world.
That is just how people lived back in the day.
The South used the Bible to justify slavery just as the North used the Bible to argue God opposes slavery. How people interpret their holy books differs, and I see more agreements about the holy books as Christians argue with each Christians and Muslims argue with Muslims, and both of these religions have histories of division and killing each other.
All God of Abraham religions are patriarchal and follow a war god. To continue to think like that is just wrong but that is what many religious people do, and it doesn't matter which holy book they use as their explanation for life and moral judgment. Religion is not compatible with democracy and since the US stopped educating for good citizenship and the defense of democracy, as Thomas Jefferson thought education was essential to a strong Republic, we are no longer a strong Republic and do not have a strong culture for democracy. Please, one religion is not better than the other because they are all about a past that was horrible.
He succeeded. Personally, I think that was a really awful thing to say.
Quoting Apollodorus
Oh yeah, the West did loose its Greek and Roman heritage, but it was regained during the renaissance and this ended the Dark Ages and we entered the Enlightenment and Age of Reason that was the beginning of modernization. And if that had not happened we would be as ignorant as people were in the Dark Ages, totally lacking even basic sanitation, throwing our waste into the streets, and burning witches and Jews when a well was polluted or a plague spread. Please, you are not arguing our better standard of living is because of Christianity, are you?
In that case, I don't think we can say that Islam is superior to other religions.
Quoting Athena
He is simply stating a fact. He doesn't say he wants conflict to happen, he only predicts that it will happen. He introduced what he thought was a better religion that promoted higher values instead of sacrifices and rituals. So, of course there were going to be tensions between those who accepted the new religion and those who kept adhering to the old one.
Quoting Athena
Sure. But it did happen. And if the Germanic tribes hadn't taken over the West, Greek and Roman culture would not have been lost and there would have been no "Dark Ages".
Quoting Apollodorus
How could any one of these religions be superior when they all are based on the same supernatural beliefs including a humanized god and supernatural beings Satan and demons? They all are patriarchies that suppress women.
"I have come to divide people against each other!" Why did Jesus come to do that? Maybe we should move this to the thread about patriarchy and matriarchy because that is not a goal of matriarchy. Or we could start a new thread and talk about how changing circumstances changed people's concsiousness? There was a big change in consciousness when the Hebrews went from being nomadic herders to an agrarian society and being landowners. Then when they go from small-town farmers to big-city merchants there is another consciousness change. These changes increased their separation from nature and God. City dwellers focus intently on "the law" not people living in small towns and close to nature.
[qutoe]Sure. But it did happen. And if the Germanic tribes hadn't taken over the West, Greek and Roman culture would not have been lost and there would have been no "Dark Ages".[/quote]
Those pagan temples were seats of learning. That is where people studied math and medicine and philosophy that later became science. The break between the knowledge of Athens and Roman began with the Christians. Christianity did not carry the math and knowledge of medicine, because they were destroying all that. Medically this set back Christians and kept them in the superstitious darkness of believing it is demons that make us sick.
Have you read Jesus Wars by Philip Jenkins? The beginning of Christianity was anything but peaceful! People were killing each other over the disagreement about Jesus being the son of God or God himself. Constantine was horrified by how viciously Christians were fighting each other. He called the first Council of Nicaea with the hope of stopping the fighting, but it didn't stop the fighting, and in away it made matters worse because the Council of Nicaea ended the free and open unions of Christians, and put them all the control small group men who dictated the restrictions on Christians and held the all under a hierarchy of authority, exactly what Jesus stood against! And under this hierarchy of authority the God who told Hebrews they were not to be slaves because of their special relationship with Him, tells the Christians they honor God by being good slaves! :gasp:
From there Christianity was spread across Europe wiping out all the people that were in their way, The Celts and others had a choice, be Christian or die. If they were not killed by the sword, they could die of starvation resulting from economic warfare. Christians would not do business with non-Christians. Finally, only Christians remained and that seemed to prove God favored them and they had God's truth.
For a while, the Catholics were very much in the wrong, and Protestantism pushed them out of some areas, but they were no more tolerant of religious freedom nor were they respectful of people around the world. Spain, Portugal, and Britian subjected the natives and in the New Land Protestants drove them away and starved them to death on reservations.
People lived in fear of Satan, demons, and God! God did not become the loving God he is today until our bellies were full. When people were starving to death and leaving their children in the forest with the hope they could fend for themselves, God was a fearsome and punishing God, who sent the Mongols and plagues to punish them. I am totally blown away by how Evangelic Christians swoon in the ecstasy of their God as though this loving God who blesses them, is the same God people once feared.
1. If none of those religions are superior then it seems pointless to talk of "Islamic Golden Age" vs. "Christian Dark Ages".
2. Greek and Roman religions were just as patriarchal as Christianity.
3. If you define patriarchy as oppression of women by men and matriarchy as oppression of men by women, where is the difference?
Quoting Athena
This is not supported by the historical evidence:
Ancient Greek medicine – Wikipedia
Apollodorus
2.5k
?Athena
1. If none of those religions are superior then it seems pointless to talk of "Islamic Golden Age" vs. "Christian Dark Ages".
2. Greek and Roman religions were just as patriarchal as Christianity.
3. If you define patriarchy as oppression of women by men and matriarchy as oppression of men by women, where is the difference?
Christianity did not carry the math and knowledge of medicine, because they were destroying all that.
— Athena
This is not supported by the historical evidence:
Study of Hippocratic and Galenic texts all but disappeared in the Latin West in the Early Middle Ages, following the collapse of the Western Empire, although the Hippocratic-Galenic tradition of Greek medicine continued to be studied and practiced in the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium). Beginning in the late eleventh century, the Hippocratic-Galenic tradition returned to the Latin West with a series of translations of the Classical texts, mainly from Arabic translations but occasionally from the original Greek. In the Renaissance, more translations of Galen and Hippocrates directly from the Greek were made from newly available Byzantine manuscripts.
Ancient Greek medicine – Wikipedia[/quote]
I love your post. Our disagreements seem more paradoxical than the head-on conflicts I was dealing with yesterday. I suspect maturity and education have a lot to do with this.
I think the subject of Christianity should go in another thread. I know I am always wondering off topic but I am in favor of keeping threads comprehensible and maybe even good files that can be referred to later if we stay on topic. Also, I think you are I are the only ones participating in this thread and if we start a new one, that might attract others.
However, comparing Islam's golden age with the want was happening in Europe at the time is directly related to this thread, because the success of Islam's golden years proves Islam can be just as successful as Christianity. It is not religious differences that determine their success or failure, but circumstances. Today we can see Muslims in some parts of the world doing very well and nowhere near the mentality of the Taliban. The difference in mentality is a difference in cultures- Islam finds itself in many different cultures, as the Jews existed in many different cultures. And there is the difference of rural or city people. And the difference of national wealth and technological advancement. It is by looking at all the influences other than religion, that we can see a path for the success of Afghanistan or why it can not succeed. It is a mistake to think the only thing that matters is the religion. Let us keep in mind, God's chosen people were sacrificing animals and stoning women, and those who followed Jesus are not God's chosen people. God did not choose the Christians, the Christians chose God.
Greeks and Romans were very patriarchal! Spartan women were liberated but not Athenian women. And Rome, well "Our father who art in heaven" is very Roman! So is conformity very Roman, "When in Rome do as the Roman's do. Any universality of Christianity is Greek and Roman, not Hebrew.
I do not define patriarchy as oppression of women and matriarchy is not oppression of men. Males organize in hierarchies of authority and power/ leaders and followers. Females organize in families. If people are patriarchal or matriarchal is very much about who owns and rules the home/property and that can lead to oppression but I don't think native American males were oppressable. Being submissive is not a male trait. But women in a patriarchy will be submissive when that appears to serve their interests well.
I love your use of history to make a point. You are right, Orthodox Christianity in the east maintained ties to Greek and Roman culture and the West did not. The split of which you spoke is very important, and this goes back to the conditions of success or failure. Western Christians separated themselves from the Greek and Roman philosophy, and then they moved north into Europe where there never was advanced civilizations with global trading partners sharing technology and cultures. Basically the condition of the Taliban in Afghanistan with no ties to the cultures and advancements of Islam, except a book written long ago. Russia had Orthodox Christianity and none of the advancements that the west experienced after the renaissance and I think the Russian communist hatred of Christianity was at least in part the result of church-supported serfdom. Instead of Orthodox Christianity bring out the best in people, it brought the worst and I think climate had a lot to do with that, but also its distance and separation from the ancient civilizations.
:lol: With all that thinking, I am exhausted, but I am also very, very happy. Communicating with someone who is refined, mature, and well informed and I can trust to meet my points of argument with facts and a different perspective is worth living for. This is totally different from what I was dealing with yesterday and that makes me extremely appreciative of your difference. Thank you!
Well, the reason I am using history to make a point is that you cannot philosophize about a topic that involves historical events without first establishing what the historical facts are.
History is largely open to interpretation of historical evidence and it can become subject to misinterpretation and distortion.
The idea of “European Dark Ages” is a case in point. Precisely because it is often used to denigrate European or Western history and culture, it is necessary to see what the truth of it is.
The first thing that becomes obvious is that there is a curious tendency among present-day Westerners to forget that the Roman Empire in the 300’s AD was split in two halves: the Eastern part centered on Constantinople (Greece) and controlled by the Greeks, and the Western part centered on Rome (Italy) and controlled by Romans.
Equally forgotten (or deliberately ignored?) is the fact that the Eastern part lasted for more than a millennium and largely preserved the Greek and Roman culture of the original Roman Empire, including the civic structures, public baths, forums, monuments, and aqueducts of pre-Christian Rome in working condition.
In contrast, the Western part from the 400’s onwards was overrun by Germanic tribes, disintegrated into many separate kingdoms, and lost much of its Greek and Roman heritage.
The second thing that becomes evident from this is that if there was anything like a “Dark Ages”, it was a) in the Western half of the Empire only and b) it was not the result of Christian rule but the result of rule by Germanic warriors who were among the greatest fighters Europe had ever seen, but had no advanced culture and no knowledge or experience of running an empire based on urban civilization.
Meantime, the so-called “Golden Age of Islam” came about in Muslim-dominated Persia, through the cultural fusion of mostly Greek and Persian traditions.
For example, all the Greek medical works available to the Muslim rulers of Persia were obtained from the Christian Eastern Roman Empire and translated into Arabic by Christian scholars like Hunayn ibn Ishaq:
Medicine in the medieval Islamic world - Wikipedia
Moreover, this cultural fusion had already started in pre-Islamic times in urban centers like Harran, Ctesiphon, Gundeshapur, Bishapur and Nishapur, where Christian, Sabian, Zoroastrian, Pagan, Buddhist, and other scholars cooperated in the advancement of learning.
So, the Muslim rulers merely continued what the Persians, Greeks and others had already started centuries before, and only after they were forced to do so by the Persian-Arab revolution of 751 that put the Abbasids in charge. At the same time, the Muslim Arab conquests cut off Europe’s links with Asia, arguably imposing a period of relative isolation on the whole continent. The Greek East had established contact with Persia and India, sending emissaries to China to obtain silk worms for the production of silk in the 500’s. Now all trade with India and the Far East had to be conducted through Muslim-controlled lands.
The Greek East itself, whose Christian rulers provided the Muslims with all the medical, scientific and philosophical corpus of the Classical (Greek and Roman) tradition, was under extreme external pressure. It had already become greatly weakened as a result of endless wars with Persia and lost two important provinces, Syria and Egypt, to the Muslim Arabs early on. In addition to being under constant attack from Arabs, Slavs, Bulgars, Germanic and other tribes, the East was infamously attacked by the West.
The Western attack on the Greek East happened as follows. On becoming Pope in 1198, Innocent III called for a Crusade to liberate the Holy Land from Muslim occupation. Unlike in the previous Crusade when the kings of England, Germany and France had personally led the armies, the new call to arms was answered by French and Venetian knights and barons. En route, a plan was hatched to reinstate Eastern Emperor Alexios Angelos (who had been deposed) in return for financial and military assistance in the campaign against the Muslims.
The Greeks rejected the new emperor and the plan ended with the Crusader army in 1204 attacking, conquering, plundering, burning down, and largely destroying Constantinople, with priceless works of art being lost in the process, and many of its citizens slaughtered. The Crusade against Islam turned into a Crusade against Christians and the Pope himself called it “the work of darkness”. The Greeks finally recaptured their capital in 1261 but their empire never recovered.
Fourth Crusade - Wikipedia
We can see why, in these circumstances, Christian Europe at the time was unable to produce a Golden Age of its own. The causes of this were not religious but political. Europe was cut off from the rest of the world by Muslim states in North Africa and the Mid East. The West was too divided and caught up in internal conflict. The East was forced to defend itself against external attacks and gradually lost all its territories to finally fall to the Turks in 1453.
So, I think it is critical to maintain a balance and some degree of objectivity when dealing with historical events that are at the center of the discussion.
Besides, if we are saying that “Islam saved us from the Dark Ages”, then on what basis can we tell the Taliban that they are wrong to enforce Islam in their own country? IMO the “Dark Ages Theory” tends to undermine the Western claim that we can “enlighten” or “civilize” the Islamic world and seems to be the wrong strategy.
Your account of history is not the same as mine and I rather we stay on good terms than be right about a different account of history. But I think there are somethings we need to consider that are releviant to today and Aghanistans chances of surviving.
All advanced nations are dealing with a barbarian invasion today. In the past, some of those invaders were Christian, just not the same Christianity as Rome had settled on. You know the fight over if Jesus was God or the son of god and when a person must be baptized, etc..
Many of those invading barbarians were people fleeing the Huns or disease, and they did not move in to fight with Rome, but as in the US they were just trying to survive, and some were treated very badly, leaving them to starve to death and to a buffer against violant invaders.
The Celts were not insane and violent people but they did not have a centralized government. Instead, they were spread out and had an amazing road system connecting them. An argument can be made for them being morally superior to Romans because of how they cared for the young, injured, and elderly. And the Romans were chasing after tin the mineral resources held by Celts and others.
Constantine moved east because the silver and gold mines of the west were depleted and there was a huge gold mine in the east. Constantinople was closer to the gold and easier to defend and Rome in the west was bankrupt and hard to defend. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/currency-and-the-collapse-of-the-roman-empire/ Rome in Italy had been the center of world trade until its supply of silver and gold was exhausted. And here is Constantinope as the center of trade routs. https://www.google.com/search?q=constantinople+trade+routes&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS926US926&sxsrf=AOaemvJK8ZM_-CAGs9tDY31ZpiZ27iYaRw:1631634801596&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=MR5YwuA3bIXkbM%252CirPXjD8s2xW4BM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kSouV1aKEJhWJtTpCX5ZsW-jeQX3g&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjz9oGm6f7yAhXMxZ4KHaKgBUAQ9QF6BAgIEAE#imgrc=MR5YwuA3bIXkbM
Aghanstan benefitted from the Silk road and cultural exchange, but the Silk road, and all cities along it, declined when shipping replaced the need for this land route. https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/countries-alongside-silk-road-routes/afghanistan. Afghanistan is land locked and I can not think of any landlocked nation that has done well.
We can not expect landlocked and poor nations to succeed as Roman succeeded long before it was Christian. That is totally unrealistic. And so is the notion that Christianity is what causes nations to succeed and that not being Christian is why nations fail. The success of a nation does not depend on religion. The success of a nation depends on resources, trade routes, liberty and cultural exchange. We are in serious trouble if people believe national success is about religion. That just is not so, however, liberty is very important to success, and Christians who became literate in Greek and Roman classics did become more liberal and did replace Biblical kingdoms with democracy.
That seems like a distorted history to me. Christians destroyed the pagan temples that were places for studying math and medicine and they clung to Jesus's word that we do not have to wash our hands or follow the laws practiced in Judism that were based on experience and health issues. A problem for the Jews, was an incomplete understanding of the science of sanitation and avoiding food poisoning. Moses took his people through a desert where burying human waste was a good health practice, but in a wetter Juresalem, it meant contaminating the water supply and lead to spreading disease and death. At the same time, Christians picked up the eastern notion of demons and demons possessing us and making us sick and that lead to returning to superstition and an inferior understanding of health issue that the Greek medicine. Come on, Christian Europeans dumped their waste in the streets, and burned Jews as witches because they were using herbs for healing, and when plagues came they really persecuted Jews, because the Christians had a very superstitious notion of disease, and to this day some of them are rejecting science and refuse to wear masks or to get vacinated while they pray to Jesus to protect them.
If Evanical Christians and Texas Republicans were not so anti science and anti education for indepentent thinking, I would not care so much about how the religion effects our lives. But there is also knowing how Christians displacing all the indignous people in their path. Not even converting to Christianity saved some of these people, and certianly not people with dark skin who the Bible said were cursed by God and justified their slavery. Please, can we get away from religion? The subject has been very damaging to my friendships with Christians. I am so torn between keeping friends and everything thing I think is very important like liberty and justice and what truth has to do with all our understanding of the world and our decisions, such as occupying Aghanstan with a complete disrespect of Islam and totally failing to help them achieve a strong and united nation. What we did was wrong and we seriously need to give up the notion that we are superior. Our superiority is only temporary as civilizations rise and fall. Our democracy and the search for truth was supposed to avoid the pit falls of previous civilizations, but instead of this making us stronger, it has us pitted against each other as strongly as Sunni and Shia Muslims and the Taliban are pitted against each other. I stand for democracy and that necessrialy is a stand against religion. God did not reveal knowledge of health and good government. Both were the result of human beings trying to figure things out.
Indeed. Apo has a strong bias in favour of Christianity and against Islam. It colors everything he says about history. He's basically a Christian apologetic.
He is very well informed and makes good arguments and he really makes me think. There is a thread about what we want from philosophy and he gives me everything I want. I just worry about offending him. We all feel passionate about something and it is really hard when someone is attacking what we feel passionate about. I would settle for some Christians have done wonderful things, and some Muslims have done wonderful things, and most people mean well. However, the success of a nation is about resources, climate, and trading.
One other point I want to make is, our efforts in Afghanistan may have succeeded if we had built on Islam. It is just as good for democracy as Christianity is. When everything is made legitimate with a belief in a God it goes much better. That is what people will fight for.
He thinks he is, yes. I happen to disagree, often. He looks at history with Walt Disney's eyes, searching for vilains and heroes.
I want to bring this post in play because I agree with it.
https://www.google.com/search?q=countries+surrounding+afghanistan&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS926US926&sxsrf=AOaemvKStUpx_tH7CK5ZZ7NRxKrvbbnoqQ:1631714083731&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=EJNHhDRYoVHDHM%252CXMbzPN4GBml2lM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kSP-vxUoxiGbyeXoFpeVLzwU2Yw3Q&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWodfSkIHzAhVhCjQIHY-SAeIQ9QF6BAgHEAE#imgrc=EJNHhDRYoVHDHM
Look at the countries around Afghanistan. Which ones is the US friendly with? Do you suppose the US failed because it has absolutely no interest in those countries succeeding? What would trade agreements with those countries look like? Afghanistan is land locked so how is it going to trade with the rest of the world? And darthbarracuda, might you tell us what can be expected if there is no trade because you may understand this better than I do.
This thread is not about him and it should be against the rules to derail threads by making the topic the person who made a post. If anyone wants to make personal comments, please send me a personal message and when posting in the thread, please stay on topic.
Then don't mention him...
The way I see it, it's just a discussion. We may have different accounts of history, but discussions are supposed to consider different views, are they not? :smile:
Anyway, the fact is that the Greek East was known to the Arabs by its proper name, “Mamlaka al-Rum” i.e., “Kingdom of the Romans”, the Greeks themselves calling it “Empire of the Romans” (Basileia Romaion) right through to 1453.
In contrast, Western Europe in Arabic was either called by the name of individual countries e.g. “Land of the Franks”, or by the generic term “Europe” (Arufa). In the 10th century, Muslim geographers begin to include Western Europe in the “Kingdom of the Romans” but even then it is ruled by the “King of the Romans” (Malik al-Rum), who resides in Constantinople, the Great City of the Romans (R?miyyat al-Kubra).
But for some strange reason, in the popular history or mythology of the post-war era the Eastern Roman Empire never existed!
This is why I think it is important to keep history separate from politics and politically-influenced cultural trends. Otherwise, terminology used by historians can be misused as a political or cultural weapon that actually distorts history.
There may have been a “Golden Age of Islam” but this refers to a period within the history of Islam. It should not be read to mean that the rest of the world was in darkness.
The same goes for the European “Dark Ages”. As used by Petrarch who introduced it, the idea referred to certain aspects of cultural development in Western Europe as compared to the Classical era, no to Islam.
It was never meant to compare Christian Europe with the Islamic world. It must have been after WWII, when it was fashionable to denigrate European history and culture, and above all, Christianity, that the trend emerged to contrast a “European Dark Age” with an “Islamic Golden Age”.
- Encyclopedia Britannica
In addition to the value judgment, the term is also based on a number of historical inaccuracies and falsehoods. In reality, Europe experienced a high degree of sophistication and, especially, technological development at this time.
Also, we need to remember that the “Islamic Golden Age” would not have taken place without the Greek and Roman culture preserved by the Greek East which was Christian.
IMHO the claim A, that “Christianity destroyed Greek and Roman culture” is contradicted by the fact B, that the Muslim Arabs got their knowledge of Classical science, medicine, philosophy, etc. from Christian Europe!
As to the Celts, their religion reportedly involved human sacrifice:
Human sacrifice - Wikipedia
And it would be useful if you had some sources for "Christians starving Celts to death" as personally I am not aware of any ....
Which-hunt may have been practiced centuries ago in Europe, but it still exists in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam:
Witch-hunt - Wikipedia
Yes, I have noticed that. I think it is done to give legal status or authorization to the government and their religion. That legitimacy is weakened by a division in the religion. Considering how divided Christianity is, it is amazing it remains strong but it is mostly Protestants who make our government legitimate and control our national story. It is not in their best interest to include an explanation of Orthodox Christianity and its connection with serfdom. In Russia serfdom wasn't ended until 1861. There is a lot to the Christian story that Christians do not want to remember.
I believe the opposite. I think history is very important. All people tell a story about themselves, but they all clean up their story. When people share the same land but tell different stories of history, there is conflict. If Israel and Palestine taught their children the same history, it would reduce conflict. If the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants told the same history of the US as the many people of color and Native Americans, it would be a whole different understanding of reality and we seem to be working on that now.
. But it was in darkness. The Christians in Rome made that so when they destroyed pagan temples. To be fair the Christians were fighting against each other as much as they fought against non-Christians. It was a fight for power and control and the Roman Catholic Church won. That same fight separated Orthodox Christians in the east from Christians in the west. That fight did turn out the lights in the West. It cut the west off from thousands of years of civilized development and knowledge. That is why the renascence is a generation of knowledge.
I do not understand that argument? The Koran tells people to educate themselves and when they were trading and enjoying a golden age, it was very much a Muslim goal to collect books and be educated. That was not at all true in Europe. Christianity still stands against science and seems to promote ignorance with a Republican argument about the literate elite not being with the people, and the 2012 Texas Republican agenda being to prevent education for higher-order thinking, and their fight to have creationism taught as science. The Bible begins with a story of God cursing humans because of their desire for knowledge and Christians have much to say about that. And as I said before, if it were not for pagan knowledge moving Europe toward science and the modern age, we would still be throwing our sewage out the window and wallowing in our filth and ignorance. Talk about distorted history. The belief that it is Christianity that got us to where we are today just isn't right. And even today, churches are telling their people not to wear masks or to get vaccinated. Yeah, just throw your sewage out the window and burn people as witches if the well is polluted and causing people to die. The old testament has rules for cleanliness and Christians not only ignored them but persecuted Jews.
Huh? The facts are not the facts but only denigrate European history? That makes no sense to me.
Developing technology is not equal to understanding science. For thousands of years, civilizations developed technology. That does not become science until the right questions are asked, and that began in Athens. Science is investigated but technology is created and science conflicts with Christianity. Technology does not conflict with Christianity, but without science the development of technology is retarded and without science, people are living in the dark. This is a big problem when people are afraid of science and the lies of Satan.
[/quote]Also, we need to remember that the “Islamic Golden Age” would not have taken place without the Greek and Roman culture preserved by the Greek East which was Christian.[/quote]
For exactly the same reason Christians would still be in the dark ages if it were not for renasaunce.
{quote]IMHO the claim A, that “Christianity destroyed Greek and Roman culture” is contradicted by the fact B, that the Muslim Arabs got their knowledge of Classical science, medicine, philosophy, etc. from Christian Europe![/quote] ? You are neglecting history.
So did the Hebrews leading to the story of God telling someone to kill his son and then saying not to do. And Jesus is a human sacrifice is he not? Why people believe this human sacrifice was necessary is beyond me. There is no science in that notion.
According to Roman sources, Celtic Druids engaged extensively in human sacrifice. According to Julius Caesar, the slaves and dependents of Gauls of rank would be burnt along with the body of their master as part of his funerary rites. He also describes how they built wicker figures that were filled with living humans and then burned.
Human sacrifice - Wikipedia
And it would be useful if you had some sources for "Christians starving Celts to death" as personally I am not aware of any ....[/quote]
I have to run but real quick, what you said of the Celts does not change the fact that they had better morals than the Romans and the world is still fighting over this moral issue, especially the Muslims and US Christians.
My point is that 1) the very existence of the "dark ages" is debatable and 2) there is no evidence that this was brought about by Christianity.
The way I see it, the idea of a Christian “Dark Age” as opposed to an Islamic “Golden Age” has its roots in 1700’s European fantasies about sultans and seraglios that appealed to the anti-Catholic and anti-religious sentiments of the time. It was later promoted by far-left historians from Chicago like Daniel Boorstin.
So, I think it is absolutely imperative to distinguish between actual history and pseudohistory, mythology, or propaganda.
The fact is that the Muslim Arabs invaded Persia in 633 AD, Syria in 634, Egypt in 639.
At the time of the invasions, Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire (to which Syria and Egypt belonged) had the most advanced civilization in the region. They were NOT in the Stone Age!
Syria and Egypt had been under Greek and Roman rule from the time of Alexander the Great. The Egyptian city of Alexandria had been founded by Alexander in 331 BC and had been a leading intellectual center ever since.
The most advanced medical tradition at the time was that of the Greeks, and the Muslim Arabs acquired knowledge of it from Alexandria.
Persia had its own centers of learning in cities like Harran, Ctesiphon, Gundeshapur, where medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy were studied and taught.
In 825, the Abbasid caliph Al-Ma'mun founded the House of Wisdom (Arabic: ??? ???????; Bayt al-Hikma) in Baghdad, modelled after the Academy of Gondishapur.
He sent envoys to the Byzantine emperor Theophilos, asking him to provide whatever classical texts he had available.
The Christian Hunayn ibn Ishaq was appointed to supervise the translation into Arabic of the works of Galen, Hippocrates, Ptolemy, Archimedes, Pythagoras, Akron of Agrigent, Democritus, Polybos, Diogenes of Apollonia, Plato, Aristotle, Mnesitheus of Athens, Xenocrates, Pedanius Dioscorides, Kriton, Soranus of Ephesus, Archigenes, Antyllus, Rufus of Ephesus.
Later Greek scholars like Oribasius, Philagrius of Epirus, John Philoponus, Gesius of Petra, Alexander of Tralles, Aëtius of Amida, carried on the work of Classical authors and were also translated by Muslim rulers into Syriac and Arabic.
Medicine in the medieval Islamic world – Wikipedia
Constantinople, the capital of the Greek East, was Europe’s largest and culturally most advanced city that had no parallel in the Arab world.
In addition to the Greeks, the Persians too made important contributions to the Islamic Golden Age.
The Arab philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldun (1332 – 1406) wrote:
- Unsur al-Ma’ali, Qabusnama (Mirror for Princes)
And it was not just grammarians, there were Persian theologians, scientists, geographers, mathematicians, philosophers, architects, artists, poets, musicians and more.
[b]But there can be no doubt that the Christian Greeks facilitated the transmission of knowledge from the Classical world by preserving Classical texts and making them available to the Muslims.
This would not have been possible if, as claimed by some, Christianity had “destroyed Greek and Roman culture”.[/b]
Yes, Christian rulers did close down Pagan temples, but physicians and scholars were allowed to carry on their profession so long as they did not practice Paganism.
Byzantine medicine – Wikipedia
In Western Europe too, even though much of Greek and Roman culture was lost as a result of barbarian invasions (not as a result of Christianity!), technological developments were able to build on Classical knowledge and were well ahead of their Islamic counterparts.
The Muslim Arabs had no advanced architecture, no town planning, no streets and therefore no wagons, no draft horses and no wheels, no saddles, no stirrups, no evolved administrative system, no literature and no philosophy.
Virtually all of their knowledge was obtained from Greeks, Persians, Syrians, Jews, Armenians and others.
The Muslims did have knowledge of printing technology acquired from the Chinese but they did not actually use the printing press.
Meantime, Europe continued to make advances in technology and without interference from the Christian Church. In fact, the Church actively encouraged economic and technological development and laid the foundations of capitalism.
The Church was the largest landowner in Europe. The estates held by bishops and monasteries began to develop more productive management techniques, started selling their products for cash, and became the largest lenders, thus driving the emergence of capitalism. There were also many private banks, all approved by the Vatican.
Similarly, Venice, which was under the rule of the Greek East, became a leader of Europe’s commercial economy, developing into a city-state and later republic, before being overtaken by Christian Portugal and Spain which had liberated themselves from Islamic rule.
In contrast, in the Islamic world, production was gradually monopolized by the state and this tended to stifle the development of free market economies.
So, if we look beyond appearances and propaganda I think we discover some interesting things that should not be ignored.
For sure that region had been civilized for thousands of years and the Christians outside of that civilized area did not have the benefit of it. Their belief that they were superior to all others, and God willed them to be all-powerful was just wrong. And boy, were the Christian Crusaders shocked when they saw civilizations far more advanced they were! It caused the Church quite a problem when the Crusaders came home with stories of people who were much more advanced than them and more knowledgeable than them. That must have been very confusing considering they saw themselves as God's favorite people and believed they were the superior people God chose to rule the earth. A belief they still have today. But back in the day, the Church wisely responded by paying attention to the classics and then beginning to educate the people. Scholasticism started by the Catholic Church was essential to pulling Christians out of the dark ages and that progress was because of the Greek and Roman classics, not because of the Bible.
Quoting Apollodorus
The stories vary on the account of who destroyed the library in Alexandria. We know for a fact, Christians destroyed other people's holy places and made them Christian holy places. The Muslims came along and did the same thing, and this insanity continues to this day as Muslims and Jews fight for the holy city of Jerusalem. And Zionist Christians are very much a part of this problem and the injustice done to the Palestinians. You may not be a Zionist Christians but trying to convince me that Christians are better than Muslims goes against my own experience with Christians and Muslims.
Here is an interesting comment about those Crusaders who did not have the benefits of ancient civilizations.
Quoting Mark Damen
Today's Muslim fighters in Afghanistan are not the civilized people but the ones with nothing, who have distorted the meaning of jihad and have nothing else to make them feel important other than being holy warriors. As I have been trying to bring out, the cause of the behavior is not exactly religion, but circumstances and there is really not a significant difference between how human Muslims and human Christians behave. Humans do what humans do and it is circumstances that lead to the behaviors.
Quoting Apollodorus
Quoting Apollodorus
Yes, and unfortunately the Church went through stages, like some Muslims and Christians today, where the people in leadership think that all people need to know is their holy book and they ignore or destroy everything else. It is a fight for power and control. Like a male lion killing all the lioness cubs if they are not his. We were not made by a God. We were made by nature.
In ancient times people had their patron god or goddess and I don't think our intelligence would have advanced if people didn't have many different perspectives because they believed in many gods. From the day of there being only one god, the grounds for a dark age began. Jews, Christians, and Moslems who think their holy book can be the only thing they need to read, and believing their holy book is the best explanation of reality, are all equally wrong. That was true thousands of years ago and it is true today. I can accept a notion of God as a universal God who is not in conflict with science and nature but that is not the God of Abraham. The God of Abraham is a tribal God, and that makes the God of Christians and Muslims, a tribal God. When Christians deified Jesus, that made the problem even worse because that becomes the least abstract God. All the religions opposed worshiping images and Muslims get around this by making their images patterns. Christians however use images to tell their story. We can see God and Satan and demons. Maybe starting a thread about what is wrong with that would be a good idea.
Quoting Apollodorus
That is perhaps another worthy thread, but even less philosophical than this one. However, like a college debate, I would choose to take the Muslim side, so we are not left with only what we know about Christians, and therefore, a possibly false belief that they superior. Of course, your side of the story can include the church and slavery, right? Should there be an explanation of why Rome had slaves and serfs and how Christian wealth including the wealth of the church, was built with slaves and serfs? The Church was the largest landholder at a time when God changed his mind about his people not being slaves, to He wants them to honor Him by good slaves. And lets us talk about banking with knowledge of Babylon, Jews, Christians, and Islam in a thread for that purpose.
Quoting Apollodorus
The rule book for the people of Venice, was Roman law, not the Bible. That is important because the rules for cities based on trade were totally different from the rural estates with serfs that defined most of Europe. We have a lot to discuss but this is enough for today.
IMO economy is a major key to economic and national success. If this thread is about “national success” and “Islam”, which I believe it is, then it should include a discussion of the reasons why Islamic countries have been less successful than Christian ones, and this in turn means discussing the rise of capitalism.
Quoting Athena
Islam also had slaves. Slavery in the Islamic world was abolished in the 1900’s, it was practiced under ISIS (Islamic State) until a few years ago and it is still practiced in some places even now:
History of slavery in the Muslim world – Wikipedia
Quoting Athena
It was not because of the Koran either.
And there are other unresolved issues. For example:
If the Celts were “better” than Greeks and Romans, why admire Greek and Roman culture?
If the Greeks and Romans were “patriarchal” and “worse than the Celts”, why object to Christianity closing down Greek and Roman temples and “destroying” their culture? Should we not welcome it instead?
Moreover, if Christianity “destroyed Greek and Roman culture”, how was Greek and Roman knowledge transmitted to the Muslims?
The truth of the matter is that Celtic religion did involve human sacrifice and Celtic society was dominated by the priestly class that had a monopoly on knowledge. Human sacrifice among the Celts is mentioned by many Roman writers and even in the oral tradition of the Irish Celts (Dindsenchas).
Christianity did not destroy Classical culture. It only abolished the religion which was not a big loss as Roman religion was already developing in the direction of monotheism. The concept of a supreme God who was the Father and King of all other gods was already well-established especially among the educated classes who were also influenced by Platonic beliefs in the ultimate reality of the One.
But Christianity also abolished questionable aspects of Greek and Roman culture like emperor worship, animal sacrifice and gladiator shows. But it did not destroy Classical culture as such. The Church Fathers, including St Paul, were educated men who had a Classical education, spoke Greek and had knowledge of Greek philosophy.
The Church preserved most of the manuscripts of Classical authors like Plato and Aristotle and it saw philosophy as a preparation for Christian theology. It founded the Catechetical School of Alexandria in the 2nd century AD where Classical philosophy was taught alongside Christian theology, science, mathematics, literature, logic and the arts.
In 425 AD the Christian Emperor Theodosius II founded the University of Constantinople (Pandidakterion) with chairs for law, philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, rhetoric and other subjects. Other schools, colleges, polytechnics, libraries and fine arts academies also operated in the city at the time.
University of Constantinople – Wikipedia
As the Christian Greeks in the East preserved the works of Classical Greek authors, the Christian Romans in the West preserved works by Juvenal, Ovid, Horace, Cicero, Terence, Tacitus, Seneca, Varro.
Far from destroying Greek and Roman culture, Christianity in fact preserved most of it. To begin with, it preserved Greek and Latin as the language of government and of the Church. It preserved the administrative apparatus, the legal system, and the infrastructure of the Roman Empire. It preserved science, technology, medicine, literature, arts, philosophy, architecture, engineering, etc.
Some Westerners imagine that Roman architecture was just Greek temples in the traditional rectangular style with a colonnade of columns round about and sloping roof. This style was indeed important and influenced even Renaissance and Neoclassical architecture.
However, there were other styles with octagonal or circular structure and domed roof or a combination of the two styles as in the Pantheon of Rome.
The St Sophia Cathedral of Constantinople which was built in the 500’s had a domed roof similar to that of the Pantheon. The Roman basilica style with aisled-hall plan was also widely used in Christian architecture.
In addition, many Greek and Roman temples, bridges, aqueducts, and theaters are still standing!
The Parthenon Temple to Athena was preserved as a church right in the middle of Athens until it was converted into a mosque (and later damaged) by the Turks in the 1460’s, after the fall of Constantinople and the same goes for many other temples.
Parthenon – Wikipedia
Temple of Hephaestus - Wikipedia
Roman bridges – Wikipedia
Roman aqueduct – Wikipedia
The idea that Protestantism created capitalism was promoted by Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism). But Weber was a Marxist-influenced liberal who wrote that Catholicism was “otherworldly” and “polytheistic”. The reality is that the foundations of capitalism had been laid centuries before in non-Protestant parts of Europe such as Catholic Italy. At any rate, it is undeniable that capitalism became the dominant economic system in Christian Europe, not in the Islamic world, and was essential in the success of Western economies.
Anyway, if we trace the roots of the myth of “Islamic Superiority” we can see that it emerged in the Western European fantasy of Islam as a world of unbound sexual liberty and culinary enjoyment where men could have up to four wives and an unlimited number of female slaves. Intellectuals and artists with overactive imagination and lots of spare time made a nice profit from encouraging their audience to indulge in imageries of sultans and large harems that were projected as “progress” from the more austere and “backward” culture of Christian Europe.
Voltaire, Rousseau, Mozart and many others were afflicted to different degrees with the new mania.
This was later promoted by atheist academics in the post-war era and was ecstatically embraced by the Hippy and New Age counter-culture influenced by Blavatsky, Gurdjieff, Idris Shah, and other self-appointed “gurus”.
It must have been in the cannabis smog of the 60’s and 70’s that the belief emerged that Christians razed everything to the ground after which they retired to their cave dwellings where they have been practicing cannibalism ever since. Replacing Western civilization with Islam – accompanied perhaps by an a-la-carte garnishing of Buddhism, Yoga, and Marx – may have seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, but I think al-Qaeda, Taliban, and Islamic State (ISIS) should long have been a wake-up call even for die-hards. :grin:
? I think it was because of the Koran. I do not know why you feel a need to keep slamming Islam instead of the conditions that lead to human behavior. The commandments of the Koran did lead to collecting books and their control of the Silk Road brought the books and the technology of making paper and block printing into Europe. While Christians monks were bleaching these very valuable books to write their own idea of what was important at the time. Don't you get if you keep slamming Muslims, I will slam Christians? Christians experienced a dark age as Muslims in remote areas are going through a dark age of ignorance.
Christianity is very Roman and Roman was very and materialistic. Roman was also every institutional and the Celts said something to the effect, they not only enslave others but also themselves. I am starting a new thread to discuss Roman Christianity versus spirituality. The Greeks and Celtic people were more spiritual than Rome. The power and glory of Rome was morally inferior unless you like war and destroying our planet. The God of David is a war God from a time when people believed, the people with the strongest god, won the war. The story of Constantine converting Rome to Christianity begins with a war and his vision of God and the Christian Right continues to worship this God. Hegel claimed the state is God. That is Protestant nationalism and it has consumed the US, and Islam also became very bad when it connected with Nietzsche and Hegel.
I offer the Minoan for another possibility.
You have not commented on God saying his people are not to be slaves and then flipping this to
"Ephesians 6:5-8 Paul states, “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ” which is Paul instructing slaves to obey their master." This is very significant. The Bible is not a revealed work of God but the work of men, as are all holy books.
Here is another very offence passage good for the Taliban but it is from the Bible.
"Timothy 2:11, Women should learn in silence and all humility. I do not allow them to teach or to have authority over men; they must keep quiet. This passage seems to limit the role of women as subordinates to men." That is pretty oppressive don't you think?
Very important, indeed.
If the law was Roman, then this is one of the many aspects of Classical culture that Christianity did NOT destroy. In fact, Roman law was preserved in the Greek East into modern times!
But we are talking about Christian society and therefore a Christian-inspired political philosophy and practice that enabled the rise of capitalism which in turn led to democratic systems. The fact that it didn’t happen in the Islamic world should not be ignored.
For starters, I think it is important to understand that the Muslim Arabs’ success in conquering large territories in the beginning was not due to their “superior” culture or military skills as they had neither.
The Greek-controlled Eastern Roman Empire and Persia had been at war with one another for decades which had weakened their defenses, and this enabled the Arabs to invade and conquer Syria, Persia, and Egypt.
The Arabs did conquer parts of Spain but only because a faction of the Visigoths who controlled Spain sided with the Arabs.
The truth of the matter is that Arab culture lacked some essential elements, such as the use of the wheel (which is why wagons and carts were replaced with camels and donkeys under Islamic rule), the solar calendar (that was more suitable for agriculture than the Arab lunar one), advanced knowledge of ship building and sailing, etc.
Traditional Arab ships were sewn together with coconut and palm-tree fiber, and new techniques had to be learned from the Greeks and Persians. After some initial successes, the entire Arab fleet was annihilated by the Greeks at Constantinople in 672.
Similarly, when the Arabs tried to conquer France from Spain, they were defeated by the Aquitanians at Toulouse in 721 and by the Franks at Tours in 732.
The Arabs never managed to conquer Europe and were eventually conquered by Europeans.
Additionally, Islamic society was highly repressive and discriminatory. Arab Muslims were at the top, followed by non-Arab and mixed-race Muslim converts, followed by the vast majority consisting of non-Muslim locals. The latter were subjected to severe taxation and other forms of discrimination.
In Egypt, for example, the non-Muslim majority was initially allowed to build new places of worship. However, this changed when none other than Caliph Harun al-Rashid of the “Islamic Golden Age” issued an edict demanding the destruction of non-Muslim places of worship built after the Muslim conquest. This set a legal precedent that eventually deprived non-Muslims of their rights concerning religious buildings. At the same time, there were popular uprisings caused by maladministration and excessive taxation.
Muslim discrimination, of course, was endemic not only against Christians but also against Jews. Unfortunately, Harun became the hero of Thousand and One Nights and this is how the mythology of “Islamic Enlightenment” was born. As Bernard Lewis put it:
- “The pro-Islamic Jews”, Jewish Life and Thought, Vol. 17, No. 4, 1968, p. 401
Religious discrimination remains a serious problem in many Muslim countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia.
“Persecution of Christians ‘coming close to genocide’ in Middle East – report” – The Guardian
On the whole, we can see that not all claims of “Islamic superiority” stand to scrutiny and that a more balanced and nuanced reading of history is essential.
Even if we were to suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Muslim Arabs did have this “great civilization” in the Middle Ages, the question remains as to 1) why they developed this civilization in places that had been part of the Roman and Persian empires (which already had an advanced civilization) and not in Arabia itself, and 2) why this civilization fell apart after just a few hundred years.
The answer to question 1) is that the so-called “Islamic” civilization really was the civilization of the conquered peoples (B. Lewis, What Went Wrong?).
The answer to question 2) is that “Islamic” civilization was not only built from elements of the conquered civilizations but by the conquered peoples themselves.
Muslim Arabs had no advanced education system and no tradition of scholarship. For this reason they employed local scholars from the start in the same way they employed local architects, artisans, engineers, shipwrights, etc.
Though the conquered populations adopted Arabic as the main language of communication with the Arab rulers, and even took on Arab or Arabized names, they retained their local religious and cultural identity.
On average, it took Islam 250 years to spread to 50% of the populations of Syria, Persia, and Egypt. Conversion to Islam was very gradual and, in the beginning, minimal. This means that the scholars who built the “Islamic” civilization were for the most part non-Muslims.
It was in this non-Muslim environment that “Islamic” civilization developed. As the Muslim element gradually increased, the non-Muslim environment decreased and this naturally led to the decline of the civilization it had produced ....
Good idea. European Christians were educated in institutions run by the clergy. The catechetical schools founded in the early days of Christianity at Alexandria and Antioch were run by the Church. Professors from ecclesiastical and lay schools later formed universities like that of Bologna. This shows that Christianity did value and promote knowledge and explicates the important fact that science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else.
Quoting Athena
The Bible does not need to be a revealed work of God. It is sufficient to be the eye-witness account of certain events that manifested divine revelation or were interpreted as such. Matthew says:
So the Christian Bible is not God dictating things, it is a record of eye-witness accounts related to the writer.
Regarding the subordination of women to men, this was not the teaching of Jesus, but the opinion of the author of Timothy which reflected the prevailing situation of the time. And subordination does not necessarily equate “oppression”. The lower ranks of the military are not “oppressed” by the higher echelons just because they are subordinate to them.
The Koran, on the other hand, seems to be a totally different story. It is supposed to be the direct word of Allah as dictated to Mohammad:
St John of Damascus, a Christian scholar who lived in the early days of Islamic rule in Syria, investigated the current claims regarding the Koran and was told that the Koran was given to Mohammad in a dream. He also found out that Mohammad obtained knowledge of Christian scriptures from his close companions some of whom were Christians (of whom there were many in Arabia at the time). He concluded that "This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments, devised his own heresy".
And we know that St John is not lying because it is confirmed by Islamic tradition (Hadith). Mohammad did in fact have Christian friends and relatives and used to spend time on his own in caves in the mountains. When someone hears stories about prophets from his friends, and then spends time on his own thinking about those stories he will likely dream about them and may even conceive the thought that he could be a prophet himself!
In any case case, why did Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) claim that Allah said that of all men he alone could have an unlimited supply of women? And why did Allah tell Mohammad’s wives to be submissive to their husband or else Allah will replace then with better and more submissive ones? What could this mean?! Was the Prophet unable to control his wives and needed some assistance from Allah to subdue them? I think these are important questions that should not be ignored.
Are you crediting Christianity for science? I really don't think so. It absolutely did not carry the logical structure for science. Aristotle gave us a good structure for logic and it was the foundation of scholastic education, but there was a huge backlash to Aristotle because it supported church authority, and did not advance scientific thinking.
Quoting abelard
Quoting Wikipedia And the west slide into the Dark Ages because the Church cut off the wisdom of older civilizations. Let us be clear about this. The Dark Ages were dark because of the power struggle and who it. You can not claim the pagan progress as the Christian good, because the Church cut us off that.
Not even the later decision to once again use Aristotle to support Church authority can give the Church credit for the scientific thinking that followed the renaissance because Aristotle's logic was not good for science. Aristotle's logic is deductive reasoning. Science is inductive reasoning. Francis Bacon is the father of inductive reason and this would not have been possible when the Church was persecuting anyone who spoke of something not approved by the Church.
Quoting Wikipedia
We could not have good reasoning for science until the Protestant Reformation weakened the power of the Church. At the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, there was hope that science would reveal God, but this was dashed when it became obvious the earth was not the center of the universe. This truth was harder for the Protestants to accept than the Catholics because the Protestants depended on a literal interpretation of the Bible. Catholics were comfortable with rationalizing reality and the word of God to fit their theology. Protestants continue to stand in the way of science with Texas attempting to force schools to teach creationism as science. Texas teachers had to turn to the supreme court to stop that.
So while you might want to give Christians credit for the wisdom of pagan civilizations, only by eliminating facts can this be done.
Both Jews and Christians were abundant in his region.
Quoting Wikipedia
I think it is ridiculous to believe Muhammad got his ideas through supernatural means. To me, it is ridiculous to believe in revealed religion. At least 5 Biblical stories are plagiarized Sumerian stories including the Garden of Eden and the flood. Abraham coming from Ur, a former Sumerian city where any literate person could study the archives created by the Sumerians.
If anyone committed heresy it was the Christians! I think Christians have some gall to create a new "revealed religion" and pick and choose what they wanted from the revealed religion of Jews and then say the Muslims committed heresy because the Muslims did the same thing the Christians did. Adjust the religion for their culture, just as Hellenism made it necessary to adjust Judaism. That is some nerve. Then you all kill each other with the egotistical notion of being God's favored people and the only ones to know God's truth. I am sorry but this nonsense that is taking people's lives is not acceptable.
But this is not what I am doing. What I am saying is that Christian culture (and to some extent religion) is based on Classical (Greek and Roman) culture.
Christianity emerged within the cultural context of the Hellenized Roman Empire. Christians had a different religion but they had the same Graeco-Roman culture as Pagan citizens of the Roman Empire. And science as we know it today emerged within Christian society.
But why single out Christians? The Jews got much of their religion and culture from neighboring peoples.
Christianity is not a form of Judaism, it is a different religion with core beliefs and practices that are totally different from Judaism.
In contrast, Islam saw itself as the heir to Judaism and Christianity and a lot of the narratives found in the Koran are taken from those religions, which was the point made by St John.
And, as I said, it is important to bear in mind that the Christian Bible does not claim to have been dictated by God, but the Koran does claim to have been dictated by Allah to Mohammad and there are difficulties with this claim.
If we look at the Koran verse before the one quoted in my previous post, it says:
We are told that Mohammad had 13 wives in total:
Muhammad’s wives - Wikipedia
At the time, however, he apparently only had two, Hafsah and Aishah. Why would the Koran threaten two women with the might of a whole army, terrestrial and celestial, from Allah and the Angels down to the faithful?
To get to the bottom of it, we must consult the Hadith for additional information. And there we find the following interesting statement:
So, the speaker in the Koran is not Allah but Mohammad’s father-in-law Omar! The situation must have been serious enough for it to be included in the Koran. Whatever may have caused it, it is interesting to note that Mohammad’s wives, though said to be “jealous”, were united against their husband and prophet.
In light of the incontrovertible evidence, it would seem that the Koran was not, after all, revealed by Allah to Mohammad and that St John is right.
However, another critical point is, what are the lessons that the women of Afghanistan could draw from this as a basis for political action?
Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that "Afghan women are strong" and they will get their rights in "two or three years". But to do so, political action will be needed.
For sure Christianity is a blend of Judaism and Hellenism. It is also a blend of Egyptian religion and Persian religion. However, that does not make Christianity God's truth. It is not a revealed religion but the work of many minds building on stories others have told. Christianity went through a period of clarifying its theology and rejecting anything that was pagan. That is when it went into the Dark Age. It did not come out of the Dark Age until the rediscovery of pagan documents and the genius of men like Bacon who picked up the philosophical ball and ran with it. Christianity does not get the credit for our progress and growing human potential. It would hold us back in the days of Jesus's time, just like the Taliban are trying to do, if it could. It is about a kingdom with slaves, not a democracy and liberty. The US experiment in democracy with liberty was not expected to succeed.
That is a delicious question. Why single out the Christians? Because they rebelled against the law and gave us a different truth from the revealed religion the Jews followed. Either the Hebrews had a special connection with God and knew God's truth or they did not. Changing it is heresy.
"Heresy is a belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine". Oxford languages. Whoo, what a cheat that is to say "especially Christian" as though it were not the Christians who committed the heresy when they stole the authority to define God's truth from the Jews. And then deny the Muslims their definition of the same God's truth.
Well in the first two hundred years of Islamic rule nothing was created. Only when Ommavid Califate was replaced with a more tolerant Abbasid they started to produce significant scientific and philosophical content.
There is a lot of discussions about the early military success of Islamic armies, the main two reasons:
50 years of devasting war between the eastern roman empire and Sasanid Persia, and egalitarian preachment and equality (of men). Military success is not a sign of civilization, for example, look at Mongols victories.
That is an excellent argument. Our only disagreement at this point appears to be about the Dark Ages.
However, it also goes with Islam encouraging learning and it lead to many Muslims having private libraries filled with the knowledge that was Roman and Greek. And we might say here, that Athenians kept their women home. I think the higher class Romans kept their wives home too, but during the time of Jesus, there was sort of women's liberation movement. None of the females were got the status of disciples but they were important enough to be mentioned in the New Testament and it seems women played a strong role in the acceptance of Christianity.
To say science reemerged in a Christian society seems to deny what the rest of the world achieved and what the achievements of others has to do with the advancements that the west made. Perhaps we could discuss why the west became a leader? We are dealing with Christians opposing science so how can we see them as the friend of science?
To get back to the subject of this thread, we could discuss the Muslims who think they are morally superior, and do they have justification for this? I think they do. However, there was a time when Christians were just as opposed to the materialism, and therefore, the capitalism of today. The industrial revolution came with extremes in wealth and poverty and strong arguments against the lack of morals or industry. We might find it easier to have peace with the Muslims if we look at what they share in common with Christianity, instead of painting them as the enemy. Jews became the money dealers so Christians didn't have to get their hands dirty. You know a lot so perhaps you know of the history of which I speak?
Math is considered to be science. You think all math is inductive reasoning?
Quoting Athena
If I could add something to this. When it comes to science and scientific thought, either the collapse during the Dark Ages or the Renaissance of it later, religion isn't the sole culprit or reason. Yes, it is part of the reasons, but not the only actor. I would think that simply the in the first case the collapse and then a rebirth of a globalized economy is a far more important reason. Science and scientists, just as artists and engineers, need an economy where there is a demand for such highly advanced professions and enough revenue to pay for their services. A poor, regional economy that basically just survives won't create such highly specialized professions. There simply has to be those patreons and their wealth.
That the artists or scientists aren't killed as heretics is of course one issue....
About math and inductive reasoning or deductive reasoning. I have several hours of lectures done by a math professor and he is a joy to watch because he loves math so much and we seem to be naturally programmed to love math and solving puzzles when it is presented well. That involves pi and our perception of beauty which actually makes us feel joy. The professor can talk for at least two hours about invisible knots such as knots in DNA and how maths helps us see the invisible knots. If we have a question we can use math to get an answer. I really think the Greeks got everything moving in the right direction because they began exploring maths and the notion of proofs. THAT IS WHAT SEPARATED THE GREEKS FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD THAT WAS TRAPPED IN SUPERSTITION.
The Greeks also had many gods and I think this was highly important to stimulating thinking. I don't think we would have gotten to where we are today if we began with one god. Many gods, is seeing life through many perspectives and like trading, when one idea bounces into another there are new ideas. Trinity-
"The Triad is the form of the completion of all things". Nichomachus of Gerasa c. 100 A.D. Greek neo- Pythagorean philosopher and mathematician. Greek concepts were essential to accepting a trinity of God and Romans could not do this until they created a word for it, bringing an end to the Jesus wars with those who insisted Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were three gods not one. Islam rejects the trinity that can be understood as 3 gods. In Islam Jesus and Mohammed were prophets and they were not deified.
Anyway,can we have an agreement that trading is important to stimulate both the mind and the economy and the US failed to establish regional relationships that are essential to Afghanistan being a healthy country? Agree the problem is Afghanistan's economic and trading problem and its isolation from others, not Islam? Yes?
Let's remember that we are talking about Afghanistan.
Trade didn't even come to be an issue: trade and economic issues are mainly for peacetime. Not when you are fighting a war (and utterly losing it), you don't care about trade and the economy. These are issues mentioned in rosy speeches.
I'll just repeat myself, but I think it ought to be really looked at how absolutely dysfunctional the whole Afghan policy has been.
I think the real fact is that the US failed utterly to establish any relationship with the neighboring countries by simply not caring at all about these countries and their objectives. It is really no surprise that the US now does not have ANY bases in any of the neighboring countries (unlike Russia, btw). It has to operate from Qatar that is on the Persian Gulf. And because the Taliban had a safe haven in Pakistan (and Pakistan had nuclear weapons), the US was in a very bad situation strategically. And then it simply lost it's will, which was the final nail in the coffin for the "Westernized" Afghanistan.
Simply put it: Americans created their own narrative about the war and for the reasons to fight the war without any interest or thought given either to Afghans, Afghan internal politics or neighboring countries and their objectives. That's the real reason. And you can see it in the commentary now given by Joe Biden extremely well.
A war fought with so much hubris and self centeredness simply will fail.
Who was fighting a war other than the neocons? Other than making things worse and a guilty conscience what else have we gotten out of our investment in the mid-east? Good results require right thinking. I don't see what we have done, as right-thinking. The results sure have not been good!
Quoting USA Today
We have plenty of agreement. What happened was all about the neocon agenda that included Cheney and Bush jr. and the New Century American Project with the goal of securing military control of the mid-east. The neo-cons defined their goal and how they would achieve it, long before 9/11.
https://militarist-monitor.org/profile/project_for_the_new_american_century/.
These folks should have been charged with war crimes long ago, and the Christian Right needs to see how they have been manipulated to achieve military goals that were not about national defense, but the "Power and Glory" the neocons wanted. I am hoping for a history book that reveals the truth including the manipulation of the Christian Right and the real abortion rights political goal. These right to lifer's were thrilled to watch us destroy Iraq with bombs of mass destruction calling this our "Power and Glory" associating it with the power and glory of God. No civilization has more innocent blood its hands than Christian America.
That is why I reacted strongly to you saying "These are issues mentioned in rosy speeches". I do not feel rosy about the lies we were told and the reason the lies could be sold to Christians. It is obvious we were not there for our defense nor to help Afghanistan succeed. And throwing money at these problems is not the answer either. Maybe if we drop religion and start thinking about how the world really works, we might come up with solutions.
As I said on another thread, also the hypothetical Gore administration would have gone to Afghanistan. And to respond to a terrorist attack with a military attack was something that already the Reagan administration had done. It's really, really difficult to think that Americans would have after 9/11. If Bush would have negotiated with the Taliban and gotten them to hand over Osama bin Laden to the US, likely then he would have lost the next election. Even ironic is the Peace-deal that Trump made with the Taliban: they would immediately accepted such a paper in September/October 2001.
The issue never was what to do with Afghanistan. Or how to win...an insurgency of one's own making.
But that doesn’t mean that there is no truth in those stories.
Quoting Athena
I don’t think there is any evidence for that. There was no “Dark Ages” in the Greek East.
Quoting Athena
They didn’t rebel against the Law. Christians rebelled against animal sacrifices, rituals and dietary regulations that in their opinion distracted from true spiritualty. The core of the Law, consisting of the Ten Commandments, was preserved intact.
Quoting Athena
Not at all. There is no connection between one and the other. As already stated, Christianity built upon what was already there in Classical and other traditions. And we can’t deny the fact that modern science developed in the West, not in Arabia.
Quoting Athena
I think this may be another modern era myth. Of course some Jews were involved in monetary transactions. But large-scale money lending (at interest!) was already practiced by Christian estates controlled by monasteries and the Church.
There was some initial opposition to commercial activities by the clergy and monks but by the 1100's this was no longer the case and capitalism was able to develop without hindrance from the Church. There was nothing comparable in the Islamic world where production and exchange came increasingly under the control of the state. It was the economic freedom in Christian Europe that made the difference IMO.
Quoting Athena
Well thank you for mentioning Reagan. Let us take this back a little further to Eisenhower and the establishment of the Military-Industrial Complex in the US. The Germans, or actually the Prussians gave us the model for this, so I wanted to clarify the intentional US adoption of what we defended our democacy against.
Bush had no desire to avoid war because he was with the neocons. The neocons fully understand the power and glory of the Military-Industrial Complex and I think about 99% of US citizens are complete ingnorant of it and what their tax dollars are supporting.
I have no idea why you said Gore would have invaded a country that did not pose a threat to the US? If Kucinich had won the election and become our democratic president, the US would not have gone to war. Kucinich would have lead the US in mourning 9/11 and he would have encouraged the sympathy of all nations including Muslim ones that had not yet become our enemy. Our nation would have taken a completely different path and we would not be in the mess we are in now. And I want to point out the neocons did their best to get Bill Clinton to go to war with Iraq and he opposed such a war.
Reagan was 100% in favor of US military control of the mid-east. He was so supportive of this that he slashed domestic budgets at the height of a long recession caused by OPEC embargoing oil to the US, and poured all our money into military spending. Texas was behind Eisenhower, Reagan, and Bush, and Cheney. And by the way, the most important reason for you to elect someone for being President is this person's stand on abortion. Those right to lifers are the biggest supporters of wars that kill thousands of non-Christian people and display the Power and Glory of their God and their nation.
:grimace: How is that different from rebelling against the law? When God commands something, isn't that the law? Did not God speak through Mose who gave us the commandments? The whole belief is based on believing human beings got revelations from God. Some of those revelations were scientifically correct and Christianity began harmful when it said those commandments did not need to be followed, putting faith in miracles and fear of demons, above good health practices, and eventually burning Jews as witches.
:grimace: This is so hard, if it had been for what others achieved Europe would still be in the Dark Ages. It would not have the math that made a huge difference. It would not have printing nor the paper essential to making books, so it would not literacy. And the huge difference is not the religion people have, but their natural resources, a seaport, and good trade routes, and Christians would not have had those trade routes without eastern technology that made it possible to fenture far from land. In no way did Christianity make things better in the west, except for the Hellenism and Roman imperialism that separated Christianity from Judaism.
Yes, and the British merchants became increasingly under the control of the British government because self-centered people focused on profit are not good people. Want they were doing in India was terrible!
You are effectively saying it is a good thing for landowners to throw people off the land and fence in that land to keep people off it so that it can be used for raising sheep and having a bigger profit than the old agrarian system. And there is nothing wrong with industry buying people's children to use as slave labor with no regard for the health and emotional well-being of the children. You might want to deal with our ugly history and immediate problems, instead of staying within a religious fantasy. We did not get here through the blessing of a God. Our wealth is the result of a lot of human suffering, and giving God credit for our blessings might be a problem with logic. :brow:
Thank you for stating the importance of liberty and entrepreneurship to scientific advancement and wealth.
:lol: Your statement about civilization and the Mongols is delightful! Also, Sparta is well known for its military strength and failure to develop in other ways. Our education for technology for military and industrial purposes has the US on the path of being Spartans rather than Athenians, with a mass dependent on government and industry to provide them employment, rather than their own entrepreneurship and community ties. Who can compete with the big box stores and third-world cheap labor? It is my understanding Islam has a different understanding of a good economy.
I don't know what "religious fantasy" you are talking about, as to my recollection I have never discussed my religious beliefs! I am simply pointing out what I think are inaccuracies and inconsistencies in your statements.
I do admit that you have an interesting interpretation of European history. But it isn’t very convincing. My interpretation is slightly different.
The Celts were disorganized, disunited, and often sided with Rome against other Celts. This is how Rome conquered and colonized them and Celtic language was replaced with Latin.
The Germanic tribes were a different story. They were never colonized and preserved their language to this day. To begin with, they were better organized and disciplined. Some had served as auxiliaries in the Roman army or as Roman allies (foederati) where they learned strategy and tactics, becoming as good if not better than the Romans.
They defeated the Celts, formed independent kingdoms on the outskirts of the Empire and eventually supplanted the Romans. The Western Roman Empire became a Germanic empire consisting of dozens of Germanic kingdoms that later developed into modern European states.
However, even after the fall of the Latin West to the Germanic tribes (in 476), parts of Italy remained under the control of the Greek East which did not go through any “Dark Ages”!
The Republic of Venice, for example, had its capital at Heraclia, named after Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius. Already in the 700’s it had expanded its trade links with the Eastern Roman Empire and had become a major trading center.
Under Byzantine protection and privileges (exemption from taxes and duties, etc.) Venice was able to establish a commercial monopoly throughout the Eastern Roman Empire.
It was first under the influence of the Greeks and later of the Germanic Franks (the new European power who held the title of Emperor of the Romans till 1806) that Italian city-states acquired the wealth that led to the birth of the Renaissance.
And, of course, Portugal and Spain became empires in their own right not during but after they freed themselves from Arab occupation.
Anyway, take a look at Byzantine, Italian, and German architecture during the “Dark Ages” when the “destruction of Roman culture by the Church” is supposed to have taken place. I think you will see that “Dark Ages” is a misnomer:
Byzantine architecture - Wikipedia
Ravenna - Wikipedia
Charlemagne’s Palatine Chapel (805 AD) – Wikipedia
(Click on image to enlarge, click again to enlarge further, and scroll up and down for full view)
Charlemagne’s Palatine Chapel at Aachen (Germany), which incidentally, is just a small part of the original royal palace, has a plan and decoration based on Roman and Greek elements.
As can be seen from the multicolored marble veneer, the bronze decorations, etc., the materials, styles, and techniques used show not only a continuation of Classical architecture but a high degree of sophistication and exceptional craftsmanship that is inconsistent with the concept of “Dark Ages”.
None of this would have been possible had Christianity destroyed Classical culture.
Far from being destroyed, the Classical architecture inherited by the Christianized Roman Empire led to the emergence of several Renaissance periods between the 700’s and 1400’s followed by the Baroque and Neoclassical periods.
Carolingian Renaissance - Wikipedia
In addition to the Church itself, the Christian Carolingian and Habsburg royal houses were particularly involved in the promotion of Classical and Neoclassical architecture and culture.
In the 1600’s and 1700’s it was customary for Northwest Europeans to go on a Grand Tour of Italy as part of education, precisely to acquaint themselves with Classical culture. Greece was under Turkish occupation and therefore less accessible. However, there were plenty of Greek temples in Italy some of which are still standing and this would not have been the case had Christianity wiped out all Classical culture.
At any rate, having seen the breath-taking splendor of ancient architecture and medieval churches, cathedrals, and palaces, people were less inclined to speak of “Dark Ages” than they are today.
Grand Tour – Wikipedia
Unfortunately, after WW2 the Hippie Trail that took the place of the Grand Tour led further and further east, and Europe was forgotten in the mist of counter-culture and political propaganda ….
By the way, Plato’s Academy was razed to the ground by the Romans in 86 BC, not by the Christians.
Apart from unrest, much depends on external factors: Afghan Central bank assets, humanitarian aid, infrastructure development not to mention agriculture.
None of these is uniquely Muslim. As has been pointed out there are several 'more developed' Muslim nations such as Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.
If it was simply a case of Afghanistan and Islam things would be much simpler.