Islamic Conquest Quotes
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.
Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini. 6 years earlier, the Ottoman Turks, had captured Byzantium (Constantinople, later Istanbul), the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. One o the reasons the city fell was the squabbling of the different Christian national armies about support for the city and the internal bickering of those armies and navies that were there. The Emperor, Constantine XI, the successor to Constantine the Great—the roman Emperor who Christianized the Empire, was killed. Emperor Justinian had built the Hagia Sophia—the largest church at the time and for 1000 years thereafter under a single dome, and this great house of Christianity was turned into a Mosque by the Islamic conquerors.
The source was in the form of an autobiography but was written later by someone unknown. Prior to WWII and the German killing of over 25 million people, Tamerlane was responsible for more killings than any other ruler in the world. 17 million is generally given as the number if one analyses the Persian, Indian and other literature. He controlled the Middle East, the Ottoman States, a part of Russia and Eastern Europe, Persia and much of China and India. Although he himself was a Muslim he warred against other Muslim states and warlords defeating them all. Muslim nations are historically very ambivalent about Tamerlane. Pride as a conqueror is eclipsed by this excessive rapine and murder. In one case, the Persian city of Isfahan, he actually built a giant pyramid of 70,000 decapitated heads of prisoners. Also, the fact that he attacked and defeated major Muslim empires violates a current Muslim notion that there is a unity of Islam. He attacked, conquered and butchered the Ottomans, Syria, Iraq, Persia and the Muslim (Mugal) states of India.
He is a Greek Orthodox Christian, and he correctly observes that the Islamic world was considerably more tolerant than the Christian until the 18th century when Islam had become less tolerant in the Middle East while the Christians were modernizing and going through a cultural and intellectual enlightenment and societal modernization while the Muslims, became less tolerant than they were in earlier years leading to the modern situation.
See {586041} for a Koranic quotation that urges world domination by Islam. In this quotation, The Prophet was talking to his followers at a time when Islam was not even a dominant religion in Arabia. And war was the way in which tribes, groups, and religions and sects, established themselves and grew. Although there are other Koranic passages which tell the faithful that people can only legitimately come to Islam through individual commitment and willingly, this passage not only seems to contradict that but also reflects a desire to punish and disgrace “non-believing” groups. This vengeance motif is also contradictory to much else of the Koran which generally preaches love, forgiveness, and understanding. However, there are contradictions and intellectual inconsistencies within the Koran just as there are within the Old and New Testaments.
This quotation helps to explain the religious revelry in military achievements in Islam.
He was one of the world’s greatest polymaths who among his other accomplishments was the “Father of Sociology” and was the leading Islamic intellectual of his era.
A large part of the Middle East and the now “Arab” states used to be a very large Jewish State. Jews had lived in the Palestinian area and expanded from there, also using conquest as all other nations had and even occasionally, forced conversion, to establish the Jewish State. This was destroyed by the Romans and the Jews have not had a state until 1948 when the UN voted to create Israel.
This is the “logic” by which Islamic terrorists have justified murder of civilians. Just as all Muslim men are fighters for Allah, all infidels are fighters against Allah and thus should die.
The Sunna and Hadith are Islamic Reverential Texts. The “final battle” is prophesised just as in the Christian Book of Revelations such a final battle between good and evil is predicted (Armageddon), and is believed to be in the future by some fundamentalist Christians. One difference however is that a small population of Christians believe this literally, while most Muslims believe in the great battle to come. However in this case, the battle is between the Muslims and the evil heretics—all others.
This event and quotation is an interesting reversal of the 2004 Iraq war where the “Judeo-Christian” United States defeated a Muslim tyrant, freeing the Muslims of the country. In 636 the Muslim Armies attacked Syria which was under the oppressive yoke of the Byzantine Christian Emperor Heraclius. The Muslims won and freed the Christians and Jews. One difference was however that in 636, the Christians and Jews celebrated the Muslim victory as is described herein.
