French church attacked by terrorists

[A'isha]

Given the fact that Goitein changed his mind and basically agrees with Tritton that jizya was probably an important factor of mass islamization (something which you denied previously, this is what happens when the accounts of non muslims are overlooked)) and with Bat Ye'or

As seen by the quotes above from the very last book Goitein ever wrote, no he didn't. He even talked quite explicitly about "the openness of Mediterranean society during the good years of the High Middle Ages"!

True Bostom was careless with his sources here*

He wasn't "careless with his sources", he deliberately butchered Goitein's article when he quoted it to cut out the parts where that article disagreed with his ******** attack on Lewis, and he uncritically cited a blatant misquote deliberately and deceptively made by a virulent racist!

(it seems that you have access to resources I can only dream of

This is the most self-indicting thing you've yet written, since you have access to the exact same "resources" I used to find the original Mècheroutiette article, since it's freely and publicly available with just a little effort. The only difference is that I decided to actually put in that effort to see for myself what the original source showed about what "Sheik Abd—ul—Hack" was really saying, while you preferred to repeat what some medical doctor (whose only qualification is apparently that he hates Islam as much as you do, because he's certainly a grotesque mockery of a scholar) wrote, which in turn was merely him repeating what some 90-year-old book written by a French racist said, which itself then turned out to be a giant pile of deceptively edited and misleading crap, merely because all that nonsense so conformed to your pre-determined opinions regarding Islam that you didn't even think to question it, much less verify it for yourself.

EDIT: In fact, you did more than that, confidently proclaiming of the article which you hadn't even seen for yourself that it was written "at a time when very few muslims denied that islam is at conquering the world", when in fact the actual article in question shows the precise opposite: Muslims at the time declaring that such an interpretation of Islam is "tendentious", "tortuous", "evidence that this mindset is not that of the Prophet of Mecca", and "a reckless goal devoid of value and not supported by any evidence"!

what 'fellow traveller' organization are yo part of?)

Really? Really?!

 

[metacristi]

Goitein was emphatically clear that he changed his mind about the impact of jizya (part of 'dhimma package'), he largely agrees with Tritton there, don't try to hide behind a smoke screen (he also documented the existence of a purely Islamic type of anti-Semitism - Jew hatred - during Middle Ages). The non-muslim sources are obviously much more important than some in Academia think today.

There is no subject of Islamic social history on which the present writer had to modify his views so radically while passing from literary to documentary sources, i.e., from the study of Muslim books to that of the records of the Cairo Geniza as the jizya or jāliya, the poll tax to be paid by non-Muslims.

Finally the fact that the dhimma is 'better than nothing' (to paraphrase Bernard Lewis) does not make it a good thing, deserving to be praised at this time (indeed we heard at UN not many years ago even the nonsense that the 'Ottoman tolerance' should be commended today), since it is still a form of evil only marginally better than that in the pre-Enlightenment Christendom, after the First Crusade. Unfortunately Jizya remains the price paid by non muslims under muslim rule to be left alive in utter contempt with the always present danger of being killed at the smallest perception of 'treason' (following Muhammad's example at Khaybar).

 

[A'isha]

Goitein was emphatically clear that he changed his mind about the impact of jizya (part of 'dhimma package'),

Yes, and he did so not at the end of his life to agree with Bat Ye'or, but in 1963 (when the article you quote was published), seven years before he praised the "medieval religious democracy" of the Jewish and Christian minority communities under Islam and their cooperative partnership with the Islamic authorities, and twenty-two years before he described "the openness of Mediterranean society during the good years of the High Middle Ages" and how it contrasted favorably with Christian Europe.

Contra Bat Ye'or (and you), Goitein believed, right up until his death, the same thing Lewis does, that while the situation of religious minorities in Islamic territories wasn't great, it was a hell of a lot better than the situation of religious minorities in Christian lands.

 

[McHrozni]

Contra Bat Ye'or (and you), Goitein believed, right up until his death, the same thing Lewis does, that while the situation of religious minorities in Islamic territories wasn't great, it was a hell of a lot better than the situation of religious minorities in Christian lands.

One major difference between Islam and Christianity is how they spread. Most original Christian countries didn't become such through conquest, but rather through being conquered. Franks, Goths, Vandals, Saxons and others were all pagan invaders, who conquered Christian lands and have in turn converted to the religion of the conquered peoples.

This is significantly different from Islam, which was spread by the sword. Yet somehow, in the minds of some people, that during it's most tolerant period Islamic states were somewhat more tolerant of the people who they subjugated than Christians were of those who changed their religion (for the most part) in their own lands were during the worst period of Christianity, absolves Islam of all guilt.

It is generally agreed a comparison of apples and oranges is inappropriate. You need to compare apples to apples to be able to judge accurately.

What was the penalty for apostasy in Islam? You have to compare Christian treatment of heretics to that, not to their treatment of conquered peoples who were made second class citizens in their own land.

McHrozni

 

[A'isha]

One major difference between Islam and Christianity is how they spread. Most original Christian countries didn't become such through conquest, but rather through being conquered. Franks, Goths, Vandals, Saxons and others were all pagan invaders, who conquered Christian lands and have in turn converted to the religion of the conquered peoples.

This is significantly different from Islam, which was spread by the sword. Yet somehow, in the minds of some people, that during it's most tolerant period Islamic states were somewhat more tolerant of the people who they subjugated than Christians were of those who changed their religion (for the most part) in their own lands were during the worst period of Christianity, absolves Islam of all guilt.

Christianity was "spread by the sword" just as much as Islam was. Take the conversion of the Franks, for instance. Clovis, the first to unite the various Frankish tribes under him, had been openly antagonistic towards his wife's Catholic Christian religion, but had himself baptized after a victory over the rival Germanic tribe of the Alemanni. But this wasn't just a personal conversion, since even back then the subjects of the king were the same religion as the king, whether they wanted to be or not - and a large number didn't want to. One of the resisters, the petty king of one of the sub-tribes of Franks under Clovis, rallied a number of Frankish nobles and warriors who wished to remain pagan to his banner. Clovis promptly attacked them, defeated them in battle, executed that petty king and his brothers who led them, and forcibly baptized their recalcitrant followers.

What was the penalty for apostasy in Islam?

Same as it is in the Bible.

You have to compare Christian treatment of heretics to that, not to their treatment of conquered peoples who were made second class citizens in their own land.

A later Frankish king, Charlemagne, who forcibly converted all the Saxons he conquered, once executed by beheading 4,500 of them who had apostasized from the Christianity that had been forced upon them six years earlier and attempting to return to their original pagan religion. Ten years later, he issued the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, which decreed a death sentence for any Saxon who refused to be baptized.

 

[metacristi]

Yes, and he did so not at the end of his life to agree with Bat Ye'or, but in 1963 (when the article you quote was published), seven years before he praised the "medieval religious democracy" of the Jewish and Christian minority communities under Islam and their cooperative partnership with the Islamic authorities, and twenty-two years before he described "the openness of Mediterranean society during the good years of the High Middle Ages" and how it contrasted favorably with Christian Europe.

Contra Bat Ye'or (and you), Goitein believed, right up until his death, the same thing Lewis does, that while the situation of religious minorities in Islamic territories wasn't great, it was a hell of a lot better than the situation of religious minorities in Christian lands.

I don't think Goitein ever changed, after 1963, the view that Jizya might have caused mass conversion of the poor, that the dhimmis were outsiders under Islamic 'protection' or that a religiously linked (growing) body of discriminations existed since the beginning of islam (no matter the way Bostom quoted him). He seems somehow to think that the dhimma still worked well overall yet to me he looks much more critical than Lewis in this problem (and in the existence of an inbuilt anti semtism in Islam which Lewis denies).

Unfortunately both approaches fell in front of the criticisms put forward by Bat Ye'or, Ellul and ibn Warraq. Indeed finally they both fail to explain why prosperous large majorities of non muslims transformed in scattered poor minorities in just a few hundered of years (almost extinct today). Why the dhimmis were so severely discriminated in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th, 18th & 19th centuries, as amply documented by the western travellers in the Orient, and only the strong pressure of the European Powers stopped that? Where is the 'blossoming' of minorities part here (the colonial rule for example changed nothing at this level)? Dhimma did not work that well it seems to me** (the limited 'autonomy' of non muslims being also the by product of the religiously inspired refusal of muslims to live in the same towns with the dhimmis and the fact that the latter represented 'milking cows' for the umma). Whether you like it or not the 'dhimmitude' approach, in Bat Ye'or's terminology, is still at least a legitimate direction of research. I dare say that as islam creates more and more problems in the West (it will) so this approach will become more and more plausible in Western Academia.

But finally you are not in the same category with Goitein or Lewis who think they represent a 'middle path' (still a type of orientalists you often criticized before), I'm afraid your rosy presentation of islam and its past and the systematic methodology to attack persons not arguments* place you definitely in the Saidist category. A dead end I'm afraid.


*for example you should have placed Servier in his historical, colonialist, context otherwise even Churchill for example will appear as being 'racist' due to his criticism of the muslim individual (milder indeed but not that far)

** the situation in Europe was not that black as some try to present it. Indeed before the first Crusade there were basically no large persecutions of the Jews, following the Rhineland massacres the papacy issued 'Sicut Judaeis (albeit revoked in later centuries) and Poland adopted a realpolitik concerning the Jews not that far from what we saw in the Islamic world, this long after the first Crusade. Finally it is worth noting that the large persecutions of the Jews predate those in Christendom, imposing distinct signs for the religious minorities was already in place in the Islamic world when Christians introduced them and a form of Inqusition had already been instituted by the Almohads when Spain produced her version (possibly they copied them from the muslims).

 

[A'isha]

He seems somehow to think that the dhimma still worked well overall yet to me he looks much more critical than Lewis in this problem (and in the existence of an inbuilt anti semtism in Islam which Lewis denies).

Lewis doesn't deny it, he just thinks it took a different form (he addresses this directly in his book What Went Wrong?).

And the fact that actual Islamic scholarship contains a range of opinions, from Goitein's to Esposito's, kind of punctures your claim that it's all a slave to Saidism.

Unfortunately both approaches fell short to the criticisms put forward by Bat Ye'or, Ellul and ibn Warraq. Indeed finally they both fail to explain why prosperous large majorities of non muslims transformed in scattered poor minorities in just a few hundered of years (almost extinct today).

As Betts pointed out, even Ye'or's own book on the subject doesn't support that assertion, with Muslims remaining the minority in Egypt for half a millennia after the Islamic conquests (and not becoming an overwhelming majority until the fourteenth century, nearly a thousand years after the conquest of Egypt), and Ye'or herself admitted that the Catholic-Orthodox schism and the resultant intra-religious conflicts probably had as much to do with the non-European Christian communities' decline after the eleventh century as Islam did.

But finally you are not in the same category with Goitein or Lewis who think they represent a 'middle path' (still a type of orientalists you often criticized before), I'm afraid your rosy presentation of islam and its past and the systematic methodology to attack persons not arguments* place you definitely in the Saidist category. A dead end I'm afraid.

You've been strawmanning my position on that for years, falsely accusing me of having a "honey and milk" view when I've flat-out told you before that my own position is "Non-Muslims were not treated anywhere close to equals, but they were still treated better than non-Christians (especially Jews) were in Europe" (which is precisely the position articulated by both Goitein and Lewis).

*for example you should have placed Servier in his historical, colonialist, context

The "historical context" is that he deliberately butchered the Mècheroutiette article he was citing, combining the words of multiple people and pretending they were all said by one person while not acknowledging that those words were actually quoted and criticised within the article itself (or, indeed, that the article was actually written by someone other who he cited it to).

otherwise even Churchill for example will appear as being 'racist' due to his criticism of the muslim individual (milder indeed but not that far)

Yes, when you say things like "The intelligence of an Arab rises as high as the faculty of imitation. Put him on a motor-car or a locomotive engine, and after a certain time of apprenticeship, they will be able to drive it; but if the machine should get out of order, he will be quite incapable of repairing it, and still less could he make a new one", no amount of whining about "historical, colonialist context" and how it's just "criticism of the muslim individual" will make you not appear racist.

And that applies to Winston Churchill as well.

EDIT:

the situation in Europe was not that black as some try to present it. Indeed before the first Crusade there were basically no large persecutions of the Jews

There were plenty of mass persecutions in Europe before the Crusades. Mobs regularly burnt synagogues and massacred Jews in Antioch in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries. Gregory of Tours recorded how the Bishop of Clermont in 576 ordered all Jews in his lands to convert to Christianity or escape into exile - 500 converted, the rest escaped to Marseilles. Just a few years later, the Frankish king, Chilperec, made the conversion order kingdom-wide. In Visigothic Spain, Jews were likewise ordered to convert en masse in the Seventh Century, by a succession of Visigothic kings. In the early 11th Century, decades before the First Crusade, there were such widespread persecutions of Jews in France that a Hebrew pamphlet published in the 12th or 13th Century reported that Jewish women threw themselves into rivers in an effort to escape the attacking mobs and drowned (along with the usual convert-or-die decrees).

So even if your odd defense that there were no mass persecutions of Jews before the First Crusade actually were any kind of defense, it's not true.

 

[Mycroft]

I don't think Goitein ever changed, after 1963, the view that Jizya might have caused mass conversion of the poor,

Did this "Jizya" involve pearl necklaces?

 

[McHrozni]

Christianity was "spread by the sword" just as much as Islam was. Take the conversion of the Franks, for instance. Clovis, the first to unite the various Frankish tribes under him, had been openly antagonistic towards his wife's Catholic Christian religion, but had himself baptized after a victory over the rival Germanic tribe of the Alemanni. But this wasn't just a personal conversion, since even back then the subjects of the king were the same religion as the king, whether they wanted to be or not - and a large number didn't want to. One of the resisters, the petty king of one of the sub-tribes of Franks under Clovis, rallied a number of Frankish nobles and warriors who wished to remain pagan to his banner. Clovis promptly attacked them, defeated them in battle, executed that petty king and his brothers who led them, and forcibly baptized their recalcitrant followers.

In other words, it's early spread was absolutely nothing like Islam, which arrived as a conquering army, raped the land and made inhabitants third class citizens in their own land or converted them.

Same as it is in the Bible.

Which verse was that again?

I can find plenty in Islam. Sahih Bukhari 84:57 is a good example, far from unique, but fairly straightforward.

Furthermore, you probably misunderstood my question. Heretics are members of your own religion, who follow an incorrect ... interpretation, if you will. Persecution of those is usually carried out with substantially more vigor and often involves far more cruelty. Europe had it's share of those - Cathars were quite prominent in the era you simply adore, and Catholics indeed persecuted them severely.

How did Muslims tackle the problem of splintering their religion? In a very peaceful and tolerant way, surely. Other than an occasional beheading or the threat being buried alive, a Muslim heretic practically had nothing to worry about.

A later Frankish king, Charlemagne, who forcibly converted all the Saxons he conquered, once executed by beheading 4,500 of them who had apostasized from the Christianity that had been forced upon them six years earlier and attempting to return to their original pagan religion. Ten years later, he issued the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, which decreed a death sentence for any Saxon who refused to be baptized.

Charlemagne was an interesting fellow. No doubt the extended conflict with the 'extremely peaceful' Umayyids, particularly from his grandfather, had a profound effect on him and showed him what worked.

If you consider these Frankish kings as the yardstick by which to judge Christianity I will pick Boko Haram as the yardstick by which to judge Islam.

Deal?

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

In the early 11th Century, decades before the First Crusade, there were such widespread persecutions of Jews in France that a Hebrew pamphlet published in the 12th or 13th Century reported that Jewish women threw themselves into rivers in an effort to escape the attacking mobs and drowned (along with the usual convert-or-die decrees).

No doubt a Jewish pamphlet published 100 (or is it 200?) years after the event is entirely accurate and can not be doubted. Incidentally, there are Jews in France today, about half a million or so. More than in all 'tolerant' Muslim lands combined, if I'm not very much mistaken.

Can you explain why that is?

So even if your odd defense that there were no mass persecutions of Jews before the First Crusade actually were any kind of defense, it's not true.

Religious persecution of course existed all over the world. In some cases this was despite teachings of tolerance, sometimes it was unrelated to religious teachings and sometimes it was incited by religious teachings.

Islam has teachings for both very modest levels of tolerance and very severe levels of persecution. It's the religion of convenience, if the unbelievers fall into the correct category the Muslim ruler is allowed to exploit them, if they don't fall in the category or if he feels like it, the is more than welcome to kill all who don't convert. That some Christian kings persecuted Jews in no way absolves Islam.

McHrozni

 

[A'isha]

In other words, it's early spread was absolutely nothing like Islam, which arrived as a conquering army, raped the land and made inhabitants third class citizens in their own land or converted them.

The main difference was that after the Muslim conquests, conversions were actively discouraged for the first few centuries afterwards, while the contemporary Christian rulers had a more "convert or die" attitude, both among the peoples they conquered and their own people who had not converted.

Which verse was that again?

Deuteronomy 13:6-11

Furthermore, you probably misunderstood my question. Heretics are members of your own religion, who follow an incorrect ... interpretation, if you will. Persecution of those is usually carried out with substantially more vigor and often involves far more cruelty. Europe had it's share of those - Cathars were quite prominent in the era you simply adore, and Catholics indeed persecuted them severely.

How did Muslims tackle the problem of splintering their religion? In a very peaceful and tolerant way, surely. Other than an occasional beheading or the threat being buried alive, a Muslim heretic practically had nothing to worry about.

It depended on the time and place. Offshoot groups like the Shia were often tolerated, but there were periods of intense persecution, such as in the Ottoman Empire under Selim I, during his war with Safavid Persia.

Charlemagne was an interesting fellow. No doubt the extended conflict with the 'extremely peaceful' Umayyids, particularly from his grandfather, had a profound effect on him and showed him what worked.

By Charlemagne's time they were the Abbasids, and his major expedition into al-Andalus was done as the military ally of the Muslim ruler of Barcelona against the Muslim enemies of that ruler. On his return, his army was attacked by an alliance of Muslim Zaragozans and Christian and Pagan Basques (The Reconquista, especially in the early and middle period, was characterized by individual Muslim and Christian states allying with each other against other Muslim and Christian states).

No doubt a Jewish pamphlet published 100 (or is it 200?) years after the event is entirely accurate and can not be doubted.

Roughly a hundred. The pogrom certainly had enough of an impact on the Jewish community of France to still be discussed even then. Probably because it presaged the later, larger persecutions post-First Crusade that even metacristi acknowledges.

Incidentally, there are Jews in France today, about half a million or so. More than in all 'tolerant' Muslim lands combined, if I'm not very much mistaken.

Can you explain why that is?

A mixture of expulsions and voluntary migrations after the 1948 Israeli war of independence.

Religious persecution of course existed all over the world. In some cases this was despite teachings of tolerance, sometimes it was unrelated to religious teachings and sometimes it was incited by religious teachings.

True.

That some Christian kings persecuted Jews in no way absolves Islam.

And that some Muslim rulers persecuted Jews in no way absolves Christianity.

 

[Belz...]

Deuteronomy 13:6-11

That reads like it applies to the people of Israel specifically.

 

[McHrozni]

The main difference was that after the Muslim conquests, conversions were actively discouraged for the first few centuries afterwards, while the contemporary Christian rulers had a more "convert or die" attitude, both among the peoples they conquered and their own people who had not converted.

It's true that Muslim policy towards some unbelievers was markedly different. They levied substantial extra taxation from them, making them the mainstay of their national budget. Since they paid lower taxes if they converted, conversion was actively discouraged.

This is now billed as proof of 'tolerance', but it was as least as much pure greed.

Deuteronomy 13:6-11

And yet, Christians in their worst period didn't follow that command very strictly. Cathars, for example, were given an option to repent first. Could it be that this is because the command is in the Old Testament, which is abrogated by the New Testament? Why of course it would.

"Abrogation" is a concept a Muslim should understand, I think. Funny, that.

There are two (2) geographic locations mentioned in verses 10 and 11 which provide a rather strong clue who the verses are addressing. Amazingly two countries with those names still exist to this day, I assure you they're the ones involved. Can you guess why Christians ignore this command to this day?
It's not that hard.

It depended on the time and place. Offshoot groups like the Shia were often tolerated, but there were periods of intense persecution, such as in the Ottoman Empire under Selim I, during his war with Safavid Persia.

Interesting. When you discuss Christianity, you take such incidents as proof of Christian intolerance, yet you completely ignore them with Islam.

Can you at least explain why the double standard?

By Charlemagne's time they were the Abbasids, and his major expedition into al-Andalus was done as the military ally of the Muslim ruler of Barcelona against the Muslim enemies of that ruler. On his return, his army was attacked by an alliance of Muslim Zaragozans and Christian and Pagan Basques (The Reconquista, especially in the early and middle period, was characterized by individual Muslim and Christian states allying with each other against other Muslim and Christian states).

Yes, right, my bad, it was the contact with Abbasids, not Umayyids, that gave the Karolingian dynasty the idea of forced conversions and holy wars. I deeply apologize to any Umayyids my comments might have offended.

That said, you didn't even attempt to address the issue.

A mixture of expulsions and voluntary migrations after the 1948 Israeli war of independence.

I would argue expelling hundreds of thousands of people on religious grounds is a case for intolerance. Wouldn't you?

And that some Muslim rulers persecuted Jews in no way absolves Christianity.

Certainly. You're free to bring it up if and when it will be Papal inquisitors breaking into mosques and beheading Imams. It might actually become very relevant then!

As long as it's Jihadis who break into Catholic churches and beheading elderly priests, however, bringing up Christian intolerance from several centuries ago as proof of Islamic tolerance is just plain bad taste, as well as several other rather unflattering nouns and adjectives, mostly dealing with the species of the parents, their chosen professions and a lack of intelligence of the one making the claim.

No offense.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

That reads like it applies to the poeple of Israel specifically.

Yeah. The part about Egypt and Israel is a bit of a giveaway in this regard. A'shia must've missed it.

McHrozni

 

[A'isha]

Yeah. The part about Egypt and Israel is a bit of a giveaway in this regard. A'shia must've missed it.

McHrozni

The entire book is about the "people of Israel", but that never stopped Christians from applying it: Deuteronomy 5 contains a repeat of the Ten Commandments, and Deuteronomy is the book of the Pentateuch most quoted in the New Testament by Jesus. And, to bring it back to the specific topic at hand, the verses right after the ones I cited, Deuteronomy 13:12-17, were used by Martin Luther in his "On the Jews and Their Lies" to justify the burning of synagogues and Jewish houses.

 

[Belz...]

The entire book is about the "people of Israel", but that never stopped Christians from applying it

I don't know why the Church didn't just cook up a new origin story in a single book and then slap it at the beginning of the Gospels. A reboot, if you will.

 

[A'isha]

It's true that Muslim policy towards some unbelievers was markedly different. They levied substantial extra taxation from them, making them the mainstay of their national budget. Since they paid lower taxes if they converted, conversion was actively discouraged.

Converts in the early period actually had to pay both the jizya and the zakat, and despite converts being thus even more of a revenue source than unbelievers, conversion was still actively discouraged. Islam was seen as an Arab religion and the conquests as an imperial conquest, the Muslim Arab conquerors keeping separate from their non-Muslim, non-Arab subjects in garrison cities such as Fustat in Egypt, with little crossover in the way of conversion until after the Abbasid revolt.

See Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism.

And yet, Christians in their worst period didn't follow that command very strictly. Cathars, for example, were given an option to repent first.

Even the Saudis do that (I can think of two major apostasy trials off the top of my head in the last couple years there where the death penalty was commuted on the condition of repentance), and I highly doubt you see that as a sign of their tolerance and mercy.

Could it be that this is because the command is in the Old Testament, which is abrogated by the New Testament? Why of course it would.

The crusade against the Cathars is the one whose first major military action was one of the most famous religious massacres in history, at the city of Béziers, where (in the words of the Papal legate commanding the crusader army) "Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people". When asked how to tell the heretics from the Catholics in the city, the legate was reported by contemporary chroniclers to have said "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" ("Kill them all, God will know his own"), which is still known even today in popular culture as the phrase "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out".

Interesting. When you discuss Christianity, you take such incidents as proof of Christian intolerance, yet you completely ignore them with Islam.

Can you at least explain why the double standard?

I'm merely responding in kind to your blanket assertions, to puncture holes in your broad-brushing. My own position, as I've explained to metacristi, is far more nuanced.

I'd be happy to actually discuss the nuances, rather than play whack-a-mole with your generalities, but considering that even old-school conservative Orientalist scholar Bernard Lewis gets accused by the likes of metacristi and Bostom of "Islamophilia" and "apologism for Islam" for having a nuanced view that doesn't agree with the notion "Islam is the evilest evil that ever eviled", I doubt it'd make any difference.

Yes, right, my bad, it was the contact with Abbasids, not Umayyids, that gave the Karolingian dynasty the idea of forced conversions and holy wars. I deeply apologize to any Umayyids my comments might have offended.

That said, you didn't even attempt to address the issue.

Charlemagne didn't get the idea of forced conversions and holy wars from the Abbasids, because a) forced conversions weren't really a characteristic of the Islamic conquest of Spain (though they featured heavily in the Reconquista), and b) the Franks had been doing the forced conversion thing since long before Muhammad was born.

I would argue expelling hundreds of thousands of people on religious grounds is a case for intolerance. Wouldn't you?

Yes, but considering it happened within living memory, using it to judge the entire 1300 year history of Islam strikes me as rather fallacious.

Certainly. You're free to bring it up if and when it will be Papal inquisitors breaking into mosques and beheading Imams. It might actually become very relevant then!

When you cast back into history to justify your comments, you open the door for that same history to be used to criticise your comments.

And I posted the contemporary reaction of local Muslims to the murder of the priest upthread (they were horrified, and refused to even accept the body of the murderer for burial at their mosque). You ignored it. In fact, your first post after I posted that reaction was to assert "people who can understand the Quran in it's native languague are also the ones most likely to commit henious acts of barbarism and justify it by the writings in that book".

Which is...kind of untrue.

as well as several other rather unflattering nouns and adjectives, mostly dealing with the species of the parents, their chosen professions and a lack of intelligence of the one making the claim.

No offense.

You're all class.

 

[A'isha]

I don't know why the Church didn't just cook up a new origin story in a single book and then slap it at the beginning of the Gospels. A reboot, if you will.

Well, it started as a Jewish spinoff sect, and its major figure was Jewish and heavily quoted Jewish scriptures. By the time it really became a separate thing, it was probably too difficult to extricate complete from its Judaic origins, and therefore it was undoubtedly easier to incorporate the Old Testament into the new religion, papering things over with assertions like "the 'Chosen People' aren't the Israelites of the Old Testament, but are us contemporary Christians instead, and the 'Covenant with God' that they had has been transferred to us!" (cf. 1 Peter 2:9), a doctrine that has become known as "Supersessionism".

 

[McHrozni]

... the usual nonsense banter ...

These 'debates' always work the same.
A = Apologist
R = Realist

R: Islam is problematic, and here is the evidence [terrorism, scriptures].
A: That's not true, the scripture is misinterpreted and out of context.
R: [Context provided, says what it seems to say] plus it seems to be very easily understood in the problematic way.
A: Well, our scholars say so. Besides, this is how it was interpreted historically.
R: Not here, here, here, ... and here. Islamic history is full of examples where Islam was a major source of problem.
A: But Christians did bad too, see how evil the scripture is [out of context quote, usually from Old testament].
R: You took that out of context, besides, this is irrelevant.
A: But Christians also did bad, they did [a few examples, usually more than 300 years old]
R: Yes, and? I told you this is irrelevant and doesn't tell us anything about Islam.
A: When you cast back into history to justify your comments, you open the door for that same history to be used to criticize your comments.

The only serious debate at this point can be at which point did you lose completely. I would say it was in lines 4 and 5, although you might be able to persuade me it was at line 6, but certainly no later.

McHrozni

 

[A'isha]

When you're done crowing about how you totally beat up the strawmen you've been arguing with inside your head, please, feel free to address the actual posts I've made.