Islamic view on the Day of Judgement
The Quran says:
Sunnah/Hadith says:
Source and more information
Islamic view on the Day of Judgement
The Quran says:
Sunnah/Hadith says:
Source and more information
AreaCode707
Lifer
- Sep 21, 2001
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Riprorin, not to criticize but I don't know if it's fair to call him to answer for the actions of Islamic leaders. His offer was to produce his thoughts, backed up by scriptures, on theological points of the Islamic religion.
Thank you again. Some people like Riporin have a lack of comprehension. I said exactly what you said in my original post.
HotChic, Sultan alleges that the Quran isn't anti-Christian and anti-Jewish and the verses I cited are out of context, yet the persecution of non-Muslisms in Islamic countries is well-documented.
If it doesn't come from the Quran, what's the source of the mistreatment of Christians and Jews in Islamic countries?
I'd like to understand the apparent disconnect.
Sure, if you want to compare it to Rwanda then you can say that it has a high level of education. However, you did not clarify your statement. I decided to clarify it and apparently you are upset over such clarification. Again, you should expect comments from your own statements. If you are not ready for such a 'challenge', then that is your own fault.
If you are saying that you are now comparing it to Rwanda, then what you said was deceiving and worthless. If you say that you did well on a test, but scored a 25 out of 100 (with a class average of 90 - and your only other sample is a person that scored a 10) then that is pretty deceiving.
Well I guess that's what happens when you're a poor and backwords third world country.
But I'm sure that there are some Muslim majority countries that are not as oppressive as you seem to imply.
But your last question, about apostasy, was answered by Sultan who says that apostasy is punishable by death.
Sultan, do you think that there can be a bridge so long as Muslims continue to drive non-Muslims from their lands and deny them the rights that Muslims enjoy in Western countries?
This is a long thread, and I've learned a few things from it. Thanks for starting it Sultan, although you and I disagree on a great many things.
I am interested both in what the religion teaches, and how it is followed as the latter is actually more important. Maybe the latter needs to be taken to a separate thread, but it already seems present in this thread despite Sultan's intention.
I believe the issue is that to Sultan the former is the only thing that is important, as it is the way he seems to view things. He does not seem to understand that others consider the latter important.
Hitler was raised Jewish. His parents abused him and he took out his anger against them on all Jews. He became a Christian fundamentalist, as psycho as any fundamentalist.
I believe in the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints when someone leaves the Church their name can be added to the Church wall in Salt Lake City as a soul to save. Church members are to have no further contact with any name on the wall unless they are trying to bring the soul back to the Church. Or so it was explained by a Mormon friend. Is this similar?
I do not see homosexuality mentioned in any of these versus. They talk about lewdness, wickedness, and mischief, but where does it define homosexuality as any of these?
Religion was definitely a part of all the crusades. Religion was used to drum up support. Some of the crusades were purely about religion, for example the Albigensian and Baltic Crusades. These occurred during the same time frame, but are not generally taught in school as they are the uglier side of Christianity. During the crusades they were not called crusades, the people considered themselves "Knights of Christ", and the numbers were assigned later. The Albigensian and Baltic Crusades were not numbered as they were better left forgotten.
Actually, if this thread is for our edification of Islam, please explain.
As HotChic requested, you provided a link to the explanation of Surah 4. If I understood the article correctly, it provided the reasons why it was necessary at the time to unite and keep separate from the Jews and Christians. However, I did not see it state that this is no longer necessary. To this day a lot of the Arab world shuns Jews and Christians (not all of the Arab world). You seem to indicate throughout the thread that the Quran and Sunnah are to be taken litteraly and it is not up to individual followers to decide on what should be followed. How is "But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah" taken any way other than not making friends with Jews and Christians? This is also 005.051 in the second link you provided. Do you believe that most Muslims follow this teaching, and do you personally (if you can answer yes/no and do not mind doing so)?
005.063 in two of the interpretations call rabbis evil. That is sure to offend Jews.
005.064 "And the Jews say: The hand of Allah is tied up! Their hands shall be shackled and they shall be cursed for what they say." How is this interpreted? Should Jews be arrested or is this treated metaphorically in context as in Jews shackle themselves in ignorance?
005.069 seems to contradict other statements and seems to say that Jews and Christians who follow Allah have no reason to fear.
Surah 5 definitely distances Islam from Catholicism, by calling the trinity blasphemy.
002.216 "Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not."
This is not a clear-cut "War is ordained by Allah." To me it seems more of sorry, but sometimes war is necessary. If you can provide an interpretation, that would be appreciated.
There is also 002.279, but I am not sure how to interpret that verse. The translation is pretty ambiguous and could have many meanings.
002.282 seeems to indicate that in financial matters women count as half a man. The Torah and Bible have similar politically incorrect statements.
As for Surah 5, Riprorin's quote kind of implied that Muslim's should burn Christian's while the 3 interpretations on the link you provided say that Allah will burn all non-believers in Hell (big difference, 005.010). A lot of religions including a lot of sects of Christianity believe non-believers will go to Hell, so this is nothing new.
If you are trying to fight those interpretations, it would be very helpful to provide a better interpretation to illustrate how people misinterpret the religion. I am sure Riprorin's sources are biased, but these biases are common in the US. Please refute them.
Another question, can you explain the difference between Arab, Islam, and Muslim as the terms are used fairly interchangably in the US, but if I understand correctly Arab at least is not the same as the other two and refers to the region?
I am interested both in what the religion teaches, and how it is followed as the latter is actually more important. Maybe the latter needs to be taken to a separate thread, but it already seems present in this thread despite Sultan's intention.
I believe the issue is that to Sultan the former is the only thing that is important, as it is the way he seems to view things. He does not seem to understand that others consider the latter important.
Hitler was raised Jewish. His parents abused him and he took out his anger against them on all Jews. He became a Christian fundamentalist, as psycho as any fundamentalist.
I believe in the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints when someone leaves the Church their name can be added to the Church wall in Salt Lake City as a soul to save. Church members are to have no further contact with any name on the wall unless they are trying to bring the soul back to the Church. Or so it was explained by a Mormon friend. Is this similar?
I do not see homosexuality mentioned in any of these versus. They talk about lewdness, wickedness, and mischief, but where does it define homosexuality as any of these?
Religion was definitely a part of all the crusades. Religion was used to drum up support. Some of the crusades were purely about religion, for example the Albigensian and Baltic Crusades. These occurred during the same time frame, but are not generally taught in school as they are the uglier side of Christianity. During the crusades they were not called crusades, the people considered themselves "Knights of Christ", and the numbers were assigned later. The Albigensian and Baltic Crusades were not numbered as they were better left forgotten.
Originally posted by: rufruf44
Not related to the thread, but Eid Mubarak to all moslem in the board.
Actually, if this thread is for our edification of Islam, please explain.
As HotChic requested, you provided a link to the explanation of Surah 4. If I understood the article correctly, it provided the reasons why it was necessary at the time to unite and keep separate from the Jews and Christians. However, I did not see it state that this is no longer necessary. To this day a lot of the Arab world shuns Jews and Christians (not all of the Arab world). You seem to indicate throughout the thread that the Quran and Sunnah are to be taken litteraly and it is not up to individual followers to decide on what should be followed. How is "But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah" taken any way other than not making friends with Jews and Christians? This is also 005.051 in the second link you provided. Do you believe that most Muslims follow this teaching, and do you personally (if you can answer yes/no and do not mind doing so)?
005.063 in two of the interpretations call rabbis evil. That is sure to offend Jews.
005.064 "And the Jews say: The hand of Allah is tied up! Their hands shall be shackled and they shall be cursed for what they say." How is this interpreted? Should Jews be arrested or is this treated metaphorically in context as in Jews shackle themselves in ignorance?
005.069 seems to contradict other statements and seems to say that Jews and Christians who follow Allah have no reason to fear.
Surah 5 definitely distances Islam from Catholicism, by calling the trinity blasphemy.
002.216 "Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not."
This is not a clear-cut "War is ordained by Allah." To me it seems more of sorry, but sometimes war is necessary. If you can provide an interpretation, that would be appreciated.
There is also 002.279, but I am not sure how to interpret that verse. The translation is pretty ambiguous and could have many meanings.
002.282 seeems to indicate that in financial matters women count as half a man. The Torah and Bible have similar politically incorrect statements.
As for Surah 5, Riprorin's quote kind of implied that Muslim's should burn Christian's while the 3 interpretations on the link you provided say that Allah will burn all non-believers in Hell (big difference, 005.010). A lot of religions including a lot of sects of Christianity believe non-believers will go to Hell, so this is nothing new.
If you are trying to fight those interpretations, it would be very helpful to provide a better interpretation to illustrate how people misinterpret the religion. I am sure Riprorin's sources are biased, but these biases are common in the US. Please refute them.
Another question, can you explain the difference between Arab, Islam, and Muslim as the terms are used fairly interchangably in the US, but if I understand correctly Arab at least is not the same as the other two and refers to the region?
I think one of the reasons the west dominates is precisely due to the the fact that so many christians are "watered down" so to speak. Christianity has undergone reformations and has definately changed with the times. Think about how much science has changed western society and Christianity for the better.
Now I ask why doesn't the Islamic middle east dominate the west? They had the knowledge of the greeks and egyptians before the west did. Why is it that they didn't advance that knowledge and make any real progress in the way europe eventually would? Why the stagnation?
No doubt the reasons are numerous and complex, but I think the stranglehold of Islam is one of the main causes. Muslims seem to have no freedom whatsoever. I'm guessing Sultan was born to Muslim parents and was indoctrinated as a child to believe in Islam. He had no choice. Under Islamic law an adult muslim has no choice to question his religion or leave it since his punishment would be death. Christians also have no choice as children, but most christians believe you have free will to choose to follow christianity or not as an adult, without fear of violent repurcussions. Also Islam seems to be very resistant to change. Much of the old testament is disregarded by modern Christians. They kind of ignore the passages that contradict modern knowledge by saying it was specific to the times...etc. I think this is a good thing. When confronted with evidence that contradicts your beliefs, you should change your beliefs. This is a fundamental aspect of science, yet it seems to me that there is nothing in Islam that allows for correction/change since the quran is "the one perfect unadultered word of God".
I do have questions for Sultan or other Western Muslims :
Does Islam allow a muslim to support entities that cause harm to Islam and kill other muslims? More specifically; as a muslim american you obide by american laws and pay taxes, yes? These taxes eventually aid Israel, in particular their military. The Israeli miitary has killed many muslims and I think its safe to assume that muslims want Israel gone from the Middle East. Also the US military's war in Iraq and Afghanistan surely displeases most muslims.
Isn't it going against your faith to choose to live in America and indirectly support the killing of fellow Muslims? Why do you choose to live in America or other western countries instead of an Islamic country?
This is very strange to me that you can only truly understand the Qu'ran if you read it in Qu'ranic Arabic. It's convenient for muslims to claim this when asked about passages that appear to be very violent though
. When muslims go to services at their mosque do they bring a copy of the Qu'ran to read? Or are they just taught the Qu'ran by the mosque leaders? Are Muslims supposed to read and study the Qu'ran on their own or just learn by proxy?
Muslims, ideally, are supposed to read and interpret the scriptures themselves. It is fard (obligatory) for every muslim to read the Qu'ran. Both things happen, mosque leaders read scripture and give sermons and Muslims themselves are supposed to read the Book as much as they can.
The persecution of unpopular Christian sects, Jews, and Moslems at the hands of Christians is well documented too. Monotheism has a strong tendency toward intolerance, which sometimes culture can overcome, but oft times, it cannot.
When the Arabs first conquered the Middle East and North Africa, all of which were Christian terroritories at the time, they were welcomed because they offered the Monophysite Christians of those areas a freedom from persecution at the hands of their Catholic/Orthodox Christian brethren to the north.
The Jews lived happily in Spain under Islamic rule, but when the Reconquista brought all of Spain under Christian rule, not only were the Islamic peoples forced to flee, but the Jews too were forced to hide or flee to avoid being tortured and murdered by the Christian Inquisition.
As I said before:
Why do Muslims in the West enjoy all freedoms allotted to all citizens of these lands, while Muslim countries do not allow native Christians the same freedom? Muslims in the West build mosques, schools, and educational centers and have access to the media without any restriction. They publicly advertise their activities and are allowed to distribute their Islamic materials freely, while native Christians of any Islamic country are not allowed to do so. Why are Christians in the West allowed to embrace any religion they wish without persecution while a person who chooses to convert to another religion in any Islamic country, is considered an apostate and must be killed if he persists in his apostasy?
Can you answer that?
Why do Muslims in the West enjoy all freedoms allotted to all citizens of these lands, while Muslim countries do not allow native Christians the same freedom? Muslims in the West build mosques, schools, and educational centers and have access to the media without any restriction. They publicly advertise their activities and are allowed to distribute their Islamic materials freely, while native Christians of any Islamic country are not allowed to do so. Why are Christians in the West allowed to embrace any religion they wish without persecution while a person who chooses to convert to another religion in any Islamic country, is considered an apostate and must be killed if he persists in his apostasy?
Can you answer that?
They did dominate Western civilization. Remember that the West when Islam emerged was based on the Mediterranean. The Arabs took northern Africa, the Iberian peninsula, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and Black Sea coast, and southeastern Europe to the gates of Vienna. Most of that area is still dominated by Islam. Today we think of the Atlantic coast countries as the core of the West, but that's because the remainder of Western civilization was conquered by Islam.
The Dark Ages and early Middle Ages in the West happened at the height of Islamic science. When the Inquisition was burning people at the stake, Islamic philosophers and medical doctors had unparalleled freedom to learn and teach. Look at our language of science, which inherited terms like Arabic numerals, algebra, and alcohol, which all come from Islamic culture.
Islam was still a powerful civilization in the 16th century. While the remote domain of Spain was lost by 1492, Islam was still expanding under the banners of the Turks in the Balkans and central Asia. Nestorian Christianity, which had once been the largest branch of the Christian faith, dominating great areas of Asia, had been defeated by Islam. Everything was looking good.
So the question is what happened from the beginning of the 16th century to the final stopping of Islamic expansion at the siege of Vienna at the end of the 17th century to alter the balance between the Western and Islamic civilization? Why did Islam turn inward to fundamentalism, while Europe abandoned fundamentalist religion after centuries of adhering to it and embraced the nascent scientific revolution?
I think the largest reason is simply that Europe was fragmented politically to an extent not duplicated in the Islamic world or in China. When Spain or France went fundamentalist, philosophers and scientists could flee to another country, outside of the jurisdiction of the fundamentalists.
That fragmentation also resulted in a separation of church and state that Islam never experienced. Jesus was an iterant teacher who was sentenced to death; Mohammed was a great conquerer who united the Arabs. True, Constantine made Christianity the religion of the state, but the Western Roman Empire collapsed a century and a half later, leaving the church in Rome and a myriad of independent states fighting over the remnants of empire.
That is a very strange line of reasoning. Not to long ago we used to burn people of put them in jail if they belonged to the "wrong" faith, and pogroms were common in parts of Europe until just a few decades ago.
You can not base you conclusions only on what is happeing today, Islam has been around for some 1400 years; most of the radical fundamentalist movements that we see today are less than 100 years old.
Western democracy (including freedom of religion) has been around for less than 200 years, for 1800 years there was no freedom of religion in the west, during that same period jews and other minorietes could live in peace in muslim countries.
I don't think that's a strange line of reasoning at all. I don't really see how you can justify discrimination, racism, xenophobia, or whatever with saying 'Oh, we've only been doing it for 100 years'. We live in the present, not the past. It's time to modernize and become civil, even if some people have to do it more rapdily.
No one's attempting to justify modern Islamic discrimination, but it's a strange line of reasoning, because he's attempting to tie the essential nature of the Islamic religion to the discrimination. If discrimination was an essential feature of Islam or from the Qu'ran as he suggested earlier, then it would've existed from the beginning, but in fact, Islam was the most tolerant monotheist religion for its first 5-6 centuries.
Please bear with me on this post; I am going to broach some of the more controversial subject matter. It will be easy to simply flame me in response, but I hope that I have been rational and I have faith that the response will be equally sensible.
Do the Muslims here dispute this? How can there be peace in the Middle East when the only solution that will make the Muslims happy is eliminating the Jews? Israel was established because Europe was happy to get rid of Hitler, but they really did not want the Jews back. Europe did not want to give back all the property that was confiscated from the Jews, a lot of which has not been returned to this day. Making the Jews someone else's problem was the solution Europe came up with. Most of Europe would have been fine with Arab countries destroying Israel and removing their problem. In all probability, this would have happened with out the US support of Israel.
The Oslo accords demonstrated that Israel would be willing to pull out of the disputed territories tomorrow if they had any sort of guarantee that they would be left alone after that. If the Palestinians actually could show they could get the suicide bombers under control Israel would be happy to leave. When Israel has tried pulling out of areas, they are forced to go back in because the area becomes suicide bomber training camps. In the past leaving an occupied area has resulted in more deaths for Israelis, how is that encouragement?
Correct me if I am wrong, but Israel did not occupy the West Bank, Gaza, or the Golan Heights until their neighboring countries attacked them. Just like we set up a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at Germany's border after World War I, Israel has been trying to use the zones as a DMZ. I am not sure you can call either one successful.
Yasar Arafat was a terrorist, I only hope the Palestinians do not chose another terrorist as a leader. Then all we need is Sharon to be replaced by someone a little less violent.
Another question, what is the religious significance of Jerusalem to the Muslim religion? Arafat wanted to be buried in Jerusalem. Palestinians make as big of a deal about Jerusalem as the Jews do, but I am not aware of any reason for this other than not being willing to make any compromises and not wanting to let the Jews have what they want. For Jews, Jerusalem is a bigger deal than Mecca is to Muslims, but is it of any religious import to Muslims?
When listing terrorist organizations:
While the US has definitely committed war crimes, there is a difference between civilian casualties and terrorism. The US is not trying to kill civilians. Terrorists are trying to kill civilians. The difference is intent. Many Muslims seem to take this stance of not differentiating between the behavior of the US and Israel and the suicide bombers. There is a world of difference. Statements like this that hurt American's opinion of Muslims. From this thread, even the Quran says that war is sometimes necessary, but terrorism is evil. If Muslims took the stance that their religion seems to teach, it would definitely help public opinion.
How common are Muslims like Faizenne who are full of hate, and 95% of the reasons he gives for hating Jews are not even true?
I am strongly against the Iraq war. It is a war of aggression done for the financial benefit of large US corporations including the US oil industry and military contractors. Again, there is a difference between war of aggression and terrorism. Both are wrong, but there is a difference between the two. It is like the difference between walking up to a man and punching him, and walking up to and kicking a toddler. Both are wrong, but I would be much more upset over the latter.
Suicide "Homicide" bombers have been brought up in this thread, but this is such a major topic I would like to inquire further on it.
On the news we see interviews with Palestinian parents whose child was a suicide bomber, they are proud of what their child has done. The whole community is supportive of them. If the religion of Islam says this behavior is evil, why is it so prevalent?
"All I can answer is that whatever God wants to happen will. Yes, my son Saeed died as a martyr. But every Palestinian who dies as a martyr is our son. All the people's children are our children and we are all responsible for one another. Everyone is important to us and every martyr who dies is as important to us as our son. If you ask my youngest son what he wants to be when he grows up, he will tell you that he wants to be a suicide bomber."
http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/yaghi24.htm
"The women swarmed around the Um Shadi, mother of Mahmoud Hamdan Kwasma, who carried out the suicide bombing on Wednesday in Haifa. They had come in order to praise her for the death of her son in the service of Allah." "The Um Shadi went on to say 'I am proud of my son's deed, we must fight for our faith and not for our nation.'"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/861590/posts
In multiple threads, you have been apologetic if not supportive of the terrorists. Comments like the quote above more than anything are what harm the opinion of Islam in my opinion. In this thread, you seem to state how you are a true follower of Islam, and yet you make comments like the above. How can we interpret this as anything other than Muslims supporting terrorism?
Do the Muslims here dispute this? How can there be peace in the Middle East when the only solution that will make the Muslims happy is eliminating the Jews? Israel was established because Europe was happy to get rid of Hitler, but they really did not want the Jews back. Europe did not want to give back all the property that was confiscated from the Jews, a lot of which has not been returned to this day. Making the Jews someone else's problem was the solution Europe came up with. Most of Europe would have been fine with Arab countries destroying Israel and removing their problem. In all probability, this would have happened with out the US support of Israel.
The Oslo accords demonstrated that Israel would be willing to pull out of the disputed territories tomorrow if they had any sort of guarantee that they would be left alone after that. If the Palestinians actually could show they could get the suicide bombers under control Israel would be happy to leave. When Israel has tried pulling out of areas, they are forced to go back in because the area becomes suicide bomber training camps. In the past leaving an occupied area has resulted in more deaths for Israelis, how is that encouragement?
Correct me if I am wrong, but Israel did not occupy the West Bank, Gaza, or the Golan Heights until their neighboring countries attacked them. Just like we set up a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at Germany's border after World War I, Israel has been trying to use the zones as a DMZ. I am not sure you can call either one successful.
Yasar Arafat was a terrorist, I only hope the Palestinians do not chose another terrorist as a leader. Then all we need is Sharon to be replaced by someone a little less violent.
Another question, what is the religious significance of Jerusalem to the Muslim religion? Arafat wanted to be buried in Jerusalem. Palestinians make as big of a deal about Jerusalem as the Jews do, but I am not aware of any reason for this other than not being willing to make any compromises and not wanting to let the Jews have what they want. For Jews, Jerusalem is a bigger deal than Mecca is to Muslims, but is it of any religious import to Muslims?
When listing terrorist organizations:
While the US has definitely committed war crimes, there is a difference between civilian casualties and terrorism. The US is not trying to kill civilians. Terrorists are trying to kill civilians. The difference is intent. Many Muslims seem to take this stance of not differentiating between the behavior of the US and Israel and the suicide bombers. There is a world of difference. Statements like this that hurt American's opinion of Muslims. From this thread, even the Quran says that war is sometimes necessary, but terrorism is evil. If Muslims took the stance that their religion seems to teach, it would definitely help public opinion.
How common are Muslims like Faizenne who are full of hate, and 95% of the reasons he gives for hating Jews are not even true?
I am strongly against the Iraq war. It is a war of aggression done for the financial benefit of large US corporations including the US oil industry and military contractors. Again, there is a difference between war of aggression and terrorism. Both are wrong, but there is a difference between the two. It is like the difference between walking up to a man and punching him, and walking up to and kicking a toddler. Both are wrong, but I would be much more upset over the latter.
Suicide "Homicide" bombers have been brought up in this thread, but this is such a major topic I would like to inquire further on it.
On the news we see interviews with Palestinian parents whose child was a suicide bomber, they are proud of what their child has done. The whole community is supportive of them. If the religion of Islam says this behavior is evil, why is it so prevalent?
"All I can answer is that whatever God wants to happen will. Yes, my son Saeed died as a martyr. But every Palestinian who dies as a martyr is our son. All the people's children are our children and we are all responsible for one another. Everyone is important to us and every martyr who dies is as important to us as our son. If you ask my youngest son what he wants to be when he grows up, he will tell you that he wants to be a suicide bomber."
http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/yaghi24.htm
"The women swarmed around the Um Shadi, mother of Mahmoud Hamdan Kwasma, who carried out the suicide bombing on Wednesday in Haifa. They had come in order to praise her for the death of her son in the service of Allah." "The Um Shadi went on to say 'I am proud of my son's deed, we must fight for our faith and not for our nation.'"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/861590/posts
In multiple threads, you have been apologetic if not supportive of the terrorists. Comments like the quote above more than anything are what harm the opinion of Islam in my opinion. In this thread, you seem to state how you are a true follower of Islam, and yet you make comments like the above. How can we interpret this as anything other than Muslims supporting terrorism?
cquark you quoted the wrong person. I asked that question, not Aimster. I like your explanation.
This is what puzzles me so much. Islamic culture had such a running head start, yet they tripped and fell on their face somehow.
Could it be that Islam is more suited to fundamentalism than Christianity somehow? It's almost as if Muhammad was able to examine Judaism/Christianity and create a religion modelled after them but strengthened in certain aspects.
Wasn't the middle east very fragmented before Muhammad united all the different tribes under Islam? Why was Islam so successful at uniting different geographic tribes under one religion/juridiction than Christianity?
The fact that politics and the state is integrated with Islam is very important here. Were there any areas in the early middle east that were not governed by Islamic law? Christianity was formed under the oppression of both Rome and Judaism. Islam had no such condition. Muhammad was a conqueror and becuase of that Islam was forced on the people of the middle east. Islam never was the minority religion where it had to adapt to another religion or government. I doubt there is anything in the Qu'ran equivalent to the famous line " Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's."
This is what puzzles me so much. Islamic culture had such a running head start, yet they tripped and fell on their face somehow.
Could it be that Islam is more suited to fundamentalism than Christianity somehow? It's almost as if Muhammad was able to examine Judaism/Christianity and create a religion modelled after them but strengthened in certain aspects.
Wasn't the middle east very fragmented before Muhammad united all the different tribes under Islam? Why was Islam so successful at uniting different geographic tribes under one religion/juridiction than Christianity?
The fact that politics and the state is integrated with Islam is very important here. Were there any areas in the early middle east that were not governed by Islamic law? Christianity was formed under the oppression of both Rome and Judaism. Islam had no such condition. Muhammad was a conqueror and becuase of that Islam was forced on the people of the middle east. Islam never was the minority religion where it had to adapt to another religion or government. I doubt there is anything in the Qu'ran equivalent to the famous line " Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's."
I'm sorry about the misattribution.
I think this actually might be part of the problem. Islam was huge success in its early years, with Mohammed uniting his people and his successors spreading the faith across the world, while Christianity was a tremendous failure, as Jesus converted a bare handful of his people and even Paul and his successors only managed to convert a few percent of the Roman Empire.
As a result of its initial failures, Christianity thrives on persecution, to such a degree that its followers in the extremely Christian US claim that they're persecuted to drum up support. In many ways, Christianity is at its best when it's the faith of the underdog, as the Christians were until the 18th century. However, Islam was based on such stunning success that perhaps it's not a faith that's well adapted to the amazing reversal in power, that's left it humbled before a civilization that Islam thought and showed was inferior for a millenium.
Wasn't the middle east very fragmented before Muhammad united all the different tribes under Islam? Why was Islam so successful at uniting different geographic tribes under one religion/juridiction than Christianity?[/quote]
Before Islam, Rome and Persia were the two superpowers who dominated the Middle East. Christianity was the religion of the Roman Empire, while Zoroastrianism was the religion of the Persian Empire. The two superpowers allowed a number of buffer states like Armenia to exist between them, while to the south lay the Arabian desert, which despite a few rich trading cities, was too expensive to be worth conquering.
I'm not sure why Mohammed was so able to unite the Arabian tribes of the peninsula, but the reason the Arabs were so successful against Rome and Persia was that the two superpowers were exhausted from fighting a massive series of wars against each other. Both had almost achieved ultimate victory at one point, and their armies going back and forth had pillaged and burned most of the provinces nearest the Arabs. Mohammed, or rather his successors who led the Arabs out of the peninsula, had perfect timing.
Yes, this is part of what I meant by Islam starting out as a great success and Christianity as a great failure above. Also, because Islam is what united the Arab world, their political unity and their law has always been based on religion. In the West, unity came from the Romans, who cared little for their subject people's religions, and Christianity was only adapted as the state religion centuries later, just in time for the Western Empire to collapse into a multitude of pagan states. Modern law still draws from the Code of Justinian, who was Emperor in the 6th century, instead of drawing from the religious sources of Jewish law.
Isn't it true that early christians joined the religion voluntarily whereas early Muslims joined at the end of a sword? So of course Islam had a huge advantage since it used force to spread and maintain its base.
When the Arabs invaded the Roman and Persian empires, there of course was a great deal of fighting, but they did not impose their religion by force on the Jews or Christians of Syria, Palestine, and North Africa that they conquered. In fact, they were welcomed by the Christians of those regions, because they offered protection from persecution at the hands of the Western church. Yes, conversion did have advantages--you didn't have to pay the head tax if you converted, for example--but the Caliphate's taxes were lower than those of Rome.
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