Fernand Braudel Quotes

In 2005 an Egyptian writer, Usama Anwar Ukasha, criticized one of the Prophet’s companion’s role for causing dissention and divisiveness in Islamic history. Some called for his legal punishment for slandering a holy figure (see {588714}) and a law case was brought to force him to divorce his wife—so that she would not be “contaminated by his heretical thoughts. Al-Bana argued for freedom of thought and speech on such subjects. His view was particularly important since he was the brother of Hassan Al-Bana, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, a powerful fundamentalist organization. Note that Al-Bana’s call for intellectual freedom does not go so far as to say that it should be legal to criticize The Prophet Muhammad and it illustrates how far even modern Islam has to go to meet reasonable standards of freedom of thought and speech.

The Muslims conquered Spain and controlled it to one extent or another for 600 years.

Some apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood claim that the organization is social and political and not violent or advocates of terrorism. However, quotations like this one calls clearly for the sacrifice of lives. Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization is the Palestinian Branch and Offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which has never repudiated any of their terrorist murders and actively raises money for Hamas. See the original founding principle of the Muslim Brotherhood—{621776}

A large part of the spread of Islam was military conquest and conversion by the sword. However, the Arabs and other people of the desert were great traders and the trade routes went right through the newly Islamic areas. As the camels went, so did the new Muslims and many converted because Islam was a more modern and humane religion than what they had, and in some cases the motivation was to be more acceptable to Arab customers.

The “Caliphate” is the Islamic concept of a single leader of all Muslims in the world who has both Religious and Political power at the same time. After the death of the Prophet Mohammed, there were a succession of Caliphs and Baghdad was considered the seat of the Caliphate for much of that time. For fanatic Muslims who want to bring back the Caliphate, Baghdad has an importance that is almost on a par with Mecca and Jerusalem. The George W, Bush administration did not recognize the importance of Baghdad and Iraq to non-Iraqi Muslims and the importance of driving infidels (Christians) our of their “seat of government,” This was one of the motivations that brought so many “foreign fighters” into Iraq who would not stop at anything in order to get the infidels out.

Nowhere else in the world was there this large a number and density of sophisticated learning institutions. These colleges were midway between a college and a high school in the learning level and student ages of modern times.

Islamic terrorists took over one of the major cities of Mali, a former French colony, and controlled the immediate area imposing Sharia (Islamic Law). The Mali government and military tried to prevent the takeover, but the military was too weak. The French President, with the support of the Mali government, immediately dispatched French special troops to Mali. They quickly defeated and ousted the terrorists before they could attract more Islamic jihadist fighters and before they could incite Muslims in other areas to try and take over to install Sharia.

In the last centuries, Egypt has been intellectually more advanced than the other Arab countries. It has a significant number of modernists who oppose religious influences on Government. During the Arab Spring when the old regime was ousted, the modernists had hopes that a modern democracy would be formed that was not controlled of even significantly influences by religious leaders and where women would have equal rights. However, the first election the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious party won, and then tried to institute Islamic law—Sharia. A coup ousted the Muslim Brotherhood, and then many dreamed again of a modern, non-sexist, secular democracy. Professor Ajami tried to give them a more realistic view.

He was right given the history of Islam thereafter.

El Baradei resigned when he made this statement. After the Arab Spring revolution, Mohammed Morsi had been elected President by a bare 51 pecent of the vote. However, he was a member of the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, an international terrorist organization which advocates Islamic Sharia and Theocracy. He began sizing powers and his government passed a constitution that did not guarantee basic human rights and moved towards a theocracy. Then he eliminated the checks and balances and the public finally revolted bringing 20 million Egyptians into the street in protest. A civil war was eminent and the military stepped in and forced Morsi to resign.

In the Middle Ages, the Muslim World, was the leading scientific, philosophical, mathematical, medical, and historical center of the world. The intellectual decline of Islam has been striking and history has been no exception. The vast majority of 21st century Muslims have little or no idea of the past intellectual achievements of Islam.

Historically, this quotation shows that the negative relationship between the West and Islam and negative views of Islam was not a new phenomenon at the beginning of the 21st century. It existed long before, and as with the 21st century concerns, violence and war were the major concerns.

This was a remarkable public statement for its time. No other political leader of an Islamic country would dare claim that people have a right to be atheists. Very few would even suggest that people should be free to choose their own religion.

He was one of the few Muslim political leaders who at that time called for reform of any aspect of Islam where reform and change are considered blasphemy and heresy by most Islamic theologians and clerics.

While the vast majority of Muslims had little or no thought of Islam ruling or even dominating the non-Muslim part of the world. But of the minority of the Islamic Religious Extremists, most saw a struggle with the Christians, Jews, and other religions of the world until Islam ruled the world—an outcome which most saw as inevitable.