Mahmud al-Kashgari Quotes
We came down on them like a flood! We went out among their cities! We tore down the idol-temples, We shat on the Buddha's head!
This quotation illustrates that the Muslim conquest and attempt to destroy and desecrate the symbols of other religions was not limited to Christianity—it was ALL other religions. In that sense, Christianity and Islam of the period were very similar at the time—intolerance to the point of murder and destruction of any “heathen” religion.
Mahmud al-Kashgari, ~1005 - ~1102, Moslem Uyghur scholar and lexicographer of Turkic languages, Poem commerating the Turko-Islamic conquest of the Buddhist, Tocharian Kingdom of Khotan
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The Sultan, led 17 different military expeditions to India to spread the Muslim faith He is one of the few major conquerors of the world who was never defeated in Battle. He conquered the Lahore area and others of India that became Muslim and eventually became Pakistan. He was the first Islamic leader to bear the Title of Sultan demonstrating the separation of the civil power from the Caliph.
It is this verse that for some Muslims justifies terrorism against non-Muslims. See {584354} for a specific example. There are similar provisions in the Old Testament which a few extremely conservative Jews and Christians have used to advocate for blasphemy being a capital crime. Note that if an unbeliever repents and becomes a Muslim, he should be spared.
He arrived in 1527, 7 years before De Soto and in a 6,000 mile ordeal, was the first white to cross the explore the interior of the continent. He was describing the Spanish slavers behavior with respect to the Indians of the New World.
The writer was born and brought up a Muslim and because he criticizes Islam, he has had a death fatwa issued against him much like Salman Rushdie.
This quotation is one of history’s great examples of the classic problem of quotes taken out of context. The Blog was dealing with the potential reactions if Islamic terrorists set off a nuclear device or a radioactive dirty bomb in the United States. Lowry was reporting that in the event of a retaliation there was then a considerable amount of sentiment for attacking Mecca, the holy city of Islam. However, the Arab press picked up Lowry’s quote and Muslims throughout the world were told that the Editor of a prestigious American Journal admitted that there was much American public sentiment for a nuclear attack on Islam’s holiest city. By the time this “fact” was spread by word of mouth, a huge proportion of Muslims the world over truly believed that America was indeed out to destroy Islam. The fact that the “sentiment” was only in the context of a hypothetical retaliation for a first nuclear strike was totally lost by the time it reached most Muslims.
In September of 2006 Pope Benedict XVI, quoted this statement in a lecture to theological students. There was much distress and protest among Muslim leaders.
Since Muslims try and convert others, one who changes religion and becomes a Muslim is exempt. The death penalty is reserved for Muslims who leave the religion.
When the Turks defeated the Christians, the only explanation many Christians could conceive of was that God was on the side of the Turks.
A publicity seeking fundamentalist Christian minister in Florida had publicly burned a Koran to the moral condemnation of the President and most other government leaders, as well as clergy of all faiths. However, after the President of Afghanistan condemned the act, there were attacks on a United Nations compound in that country and a number of innocent people were killed and two beheaded. Yet most Muslim clerics were reluctant to morally condemn the murders while they were vociferous in castigating the Koran burning. Some were intimidated and feared that they would be attacked if they criticized the Islamic fundamentalism that advocated the murders and terrorism.
Voltaire had little respect for any organized religion, but found Islam particularly barbaric and absurd. However he was also very negative about Christianity. See {621191} . The Ottoman Empire, centered in Turkey, then controlled all the Islamic countries of the Middle East. Europeans then often referred to all Muslims as “Turks.”
In the early stages of Islam, Muhammad had hoped to convert the Jews and others on the Arabian Peninsula. When they refused to be converted, he warred against them usually killing the men, and taking the women and children as slaves. The result was that non-believing tribes were “cleansed” from the Arabian Peninsula. The Muslims at the time preferred children as slaves. For then they could convert the children against their will. Adults in Islam must accept Islam in order to convert. Children are regarded as having no such maturity of decision making and therefore opposition to conversion may be ignored and they may be forced. Critics of Islam and those who argue that Islam is at odds with all other religions point to this quotation. They claim that it is the only religion whose founder and fundamental scriptures demand war against others for no other reason than that they believe in a different religion. The Catholic Church during the Crusades and the Inquisition had a similar philosophy as did Christian missionaries colonizing Africa later. One difference is that most Christians today repudiate the doctrine as against the true spirit and teachings of Christ and view it as historical error, while very few modern Muslims repudiate this quotation of the Prophet.
In one of the historical ironies of the 12th century, a Christian sect preferred the rule of the Muslims than their Christian brethren—on the grounds of religious tolerance. It illustrates the changes that take place over time. By the 21st century, it was the Christians who were thought of as tolerant and the Muslims as the opposite.
The eighty years refer to the time since the fall of the Ottoman Empire which is looked upon by many Muslims as a dual disaster: The West destroying the last Muslim military geopolitical state and the rise of modern Turkey as a secular state.
Mahmud ibn Hussayn ibn Muhammed al-Kashgari was an 11th-century Kara-Khanid scholar and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Kashgar.
