Yes and no. While the spread of Islamic regimes was a matter of conquest, the spread of Islam as a religion, rather than a political force was accomplished in a number of ways, including extensive Sufi proselytizing ( Sufism was undoubtedly heavily influenced by Hindu mysticism and then “backcrossed” to become a major attraction to converts ), but also natural population growth in regions where Islam became established as the prevailing folk religion - East Bengal being the exemplar of this. In this sense tomndeb has a point, though you can certainly argue particulars.
See in particular The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier: 1204-1760 by Richard M. Eaton ( 1993, University of California Press ).
Not to say that the sacking of temples et al didn’t occur, but they tended to be sporadic outbursts, rather than regular policy. Ruling Muslim elites quickly adopted more pragmatic attitudes and usually extended the “People of the Book” designation to include Hindus, so as to more easily incorporate them into larger polity. Particularly as the at least partial cooperation of local Hindu nobility was so often necessary to the maintanence of minority Muslim regimes. Muslim rulers usually depended heavily on Brahman administrators and Kshatriyas, Kayasthas and similar castes as vassals - intermediarie between the Muslim rulers and the bulk of the population ( and they all in turn depended on state patronage ).
Peaceful given the times. Muslim rulers, in general, integrated well into the Hindu ethos. One could argue that they had to do so in order to rule effectively. Akbar, in fact, created a new “religion”, an amalgam of Islam and Hinduism. Aurangzeb was a nasty egg but did not represent the average Mughal king.
I find it significan that you keep hammering away at the specific Muslim invaders (who engaged in run-of-the-mill conquest) while ignoring the actual conversions of the millions of people who adopted Islam across Southeast Asia and Oceania. You are hardly making a case for “bad” Islam by pointing out where they acted just like Christians while deliberately ignoring the rest of the events I noted.
I don’t really see much point in threads like these because whether islam is beneficial or harmful is beside the point. Either way it’s here. Even if we conclude that islam is the most dangerous force ever to confront humanity (which is entirely possible) what are we supposed to do about it?
Considering whether islam is beneficial or harmful is nothing more than an intellectual exercise. I think that the non-muslim world has always de facto considered islam to be harmful and has always resisted it. The catholic church considers islam to be one of the great heresies. Islam spread into the indian subcontinent but ran into a brick wall when it came up against the fiercely independantly-minded Punjabis - the unstoppable force met an immovable object.
The non-muslim world has been fighting islam ever since it first appeared. This “war” has been going on so long that we’ve now all got used to it (both muslim and non-muslim) and we’ve all reached accommodations so that the war only sporadically becomes “hot”. It is now more a case that both sides view each other warily, circling each other in the boxing ring.
Having said all that (and bearing in mind it’s all an intellectual exercise) there are things that crop up in threads like these that always puzzle me, but maybe I see things too simplistically. For example, John Mace said:
and then UDS said:
I don’t understand these people. There would be no vacuum. It is entirely possible to imagine what the world would be like if there had been no islam. Maybe not in detail but in general. Speculation is entirely valid, I would think. This is what the world would be like:
Pakistan, India and Bangladesh would all be hindu. In fact there would be no Pakistan or Bangladesh (probably) since they are divided along religious lines. This means that there would be no Kashmir crisis, Pakistan and India wouldn’t be glaring at each other threatening each other with nuclear weapons. The whole sub-continent would probably be democratic.
Arabia and North Africa would be pagan/christian. Persia/Iran would be zoroastrian. There would be no Taliban, no al Qaeda, no wahabbi.
The wearing of veils by women would be an entirely cultural thing with no religious significance whatsoever and would therefore be much easier for women to fight against (if they wished).
Democracy would be much more widespead. There is an ongoing argument about whether islam is incompatable with democracy. Maybe it’s not incompatable but I think most people accept that it does create difficulties that have to be overcome - without islam these difficulties would not be there.
The Palestine problem would take on a different hue since all the Palestinians would be christian and therefore would not be defending the house of islam.
The Philippines would be christian and therefore would not have a “muslim problem” in the south.
There would be whole new ranges of beer to try since all the African countries and Asian countries would brew their own.
1.2 billion people would still have their foreskins.
There are probably hundreds of easily foreseeable consequences if islam had never existed. I dunno why people pretend that it’s impossible to say anything about the subject. It is, however, all just an intellectual exercise since we live in this world (where islam does exist) and not an imaginary one. One day islam will collapse under the weight of it’s own ridiculousness but until then we just have to deal with it.
And also, take heart, because if one starts from the presumption that Mohammed just made it all up then one has to conclude that, bad as it is, it could have been much worse.
All the muslims I know (and I know lots) are all extremely nice (moderate) people apart from the one blind spot in their personalities when it comes to religion. Their level of belief and lack of any degree of healthy religious scepticism sets off my excessive-belief-o-matic alarm but apart from that they’re ok.
[No, no, no. You’re not speculating deeply enough. For instance:
A couple of points occur to me here. First, you’re assuming that the only reason Islam partly supplanted Hinduism in the subcontinent is the arrival of Islam. Not necessarily so. The internal factors which contributed to Hindus accepting Islam might have led them to accept some other belief if Islam had not been the one to present itself to them. The people who invaded/migrated into India might have done even if they had not been Muslims, and this would have changed India. Or, if they hadn’t, some other people might have done, and this would have changed India even more.
The British took over an Islamic polity in India. If that polity had not existed, the colonial history of India might have been very different. It might have been colonised much earlier, or much later, or by someone other than the British. I see no reason to assume that the continent would be democratic at all.
Again, you’re assuming that, if Islam had not supplanted these faiths, nothing else would have. This seems to me to be a mistake. It’s at least possible (and, I would argue, probable) that Islam supplanted the earlier faiths in these regions partly because, in those places, at those times, it met needs which the preceding faiths didn’t meet. And, if so, those faiths were liable to be supplanted by something, if not necessarily Islam.
Granted. But what would be there instead?
This seems to me to be wildly unlikely. An aweful lot of cultural phenomena acquire a religious signficance and, in fact, veil-wearing in Islam is probably one of these. Remember that in the past head-covering had a religious significance in mainstream Christianity, too, and it still does in Judaism.
If Palestinians (and Arabs generally) were Christian, relationships between Europe and the Middle East would be very different. I have already suggested that the Jewish nation might not have survived into modern times without Islam; you don’t say why you reject this possibility. Even if Judaism survived, you can’t assume that a Christian Middle East would have been colonised by Europe or, if it were, that the European powers would have established a Jewish state over the protests of fellow-Christians. In other words, there is no reason to assume that the state of Israel would exist at all.
I could go on. My basic criticism of your approach is that you are looking at Islam exclusively as an original cause having a number of fairly immediate effects, and not as part of a much longer chain (or series of interconnecting chains) of cause and effect. The social, economic and cultural conditions which lead to the spread of Islam would have existed even if Islam did not, and they would have had some outcome.
You seem to assume that if islam hadn’t been invented then some other belief would have been invented. I beg to differ. Beliefs don’t get invented that often - I think that the safest assumption to make is that if islam hadn’t been invented then we would have been left with those beliefs that are here now ie christianity, hinduism etc and also zoroastrianism which was completely wiped out by islam.
It is illogical to blithely assume that some other belief - x belief - would have come along had not islam appeared.
True these people might have invaded anyway but they would probably have been christian or zoroastrian. Let’s assume then that present day Pakistan is christian - would this have lead to partition and a nuclear stand-off? Maybe, maybe not, who knows? You can’t assume it would. And yet we know for a fact that the muslim/hindu combination lead to ill feeling. Therefore we can say for certain that the muslim/hindu combination didn’t work but we can’t say for certain that a christian/hindu combination wouldn’t have worked or a zoroastrian/hindu combination wouldn’t have worked.
If not islam then what? Martianism?
You seem to assume that something else would have appeared by magic. That some other faith was somehow pre-ordained. There are many factors that account for the success of islam in Africa not least the fact that it was the predominant power in Africa at the time and if you wanted to “get on” in life you converted to the new religion.
Not because you necessarily “saw the light” just that you saw which way the wind was blowing and you jumped on board.
The possibility that christians might have killed all the jews?
Wasn’t really the christian’s style. They persecuted the jews, sure, and they expelled them to other lands but they didn’t tend to genocide them until the nazis came along. I agree that jews found sanctuary in muslim lands but I don’t think you can say that the christians would have killed them all.
And my basic criticism of your approach is that you completely ignore those causal factors that are exclusively islamic. You assume that it all would have happened anyway whatever religion was in town. Thereby bypassing the need to examine a particular ideology’s effect on history, in this case islam.
I disagree. Beliefs get invented all the time. Only a few of them grow to be dominant belief systems in a large part of the world, however. By definition, only a few can.
I don’t see why that assumption is any safer than an equally arbitrary assumption that the factors which enabled Islam to (partly) supplant Hinduism in India would have enabled something else to do so. The “something else” could be, but doesn’t have to be, some belief system which is very minor, or even unheard-of, in our world. For instance, Islam largely (though not entirely) replaced the once-flourishing Jacobite Christianity. Had it not done so, it is entirely possible that Jacobite Christianity (a) would have replaced Zoroastrianism, and (b) would have moved into India in the way that Islam did – i.e. India might have been much more Christian, much earlier, than in fact it was. And that, in turn, might have accelerated European colonialism, or it might have retarded it. Either of which would have profound implications for India today.
No more illogical than blithely assuming that it wouldn’t. My point is that we can’t make either assumption.
Exactly. We don’t know. On what basis do you speculate, for instance, that Pakistan would even exist? Or that (as you said in an earlier post) the subcontinent would be more democratic than it now is? If Islam had not existed you have to account for thirteen centuries of hypothetical events before considering whether the Indian subcontinent would be democratic.
Exactly. And if Islam wasn’t the predominant power, something else would have been. Initially Christianity, obviously, in North Africa, but as Christianity was fairly easily and rapidly supplanted by Islam when that challenge came, there’s no reason to suppose it would necessarily have withstood any other challenge. I’m not assuming that it would have collapsed; I’m just pointing out that there’s no reason to suppose that the continued survival and dominance of Christianity was more likely than its replacement by something other than Islam.
If you argue that, but for Islam, Christianity would have continued as the dominant belief system in North Africa, it seems to me that you have to show that Islam only replaced Christianity because of some uniquely Islamic aspect to it, something that no other challenge to Christianity would present. Alternatively, you have to argue that there would have been no other challenge to Christianity. I don’t see you making either argument; just assuming the continued survival and dominance of Christianity.
I didn’t say they would kill them all; just that Judaism might not have survived. The Christians may not have embarked on systematic genocide, but they did practice forced conversions and expulsions. And expulsions might not have been an option if there was no Islamic world to expel Jews to. And a host of cultural factors other than forced conversion might have encouraged conversions. And Judaism would have been culturally weakened without the relative safety of the Islamic world in which to study, develop their thinking, etc. And, without the Muslim infidels to scapegoat, who knows where Christian rulers might have looked for an enemy against which they could form common cause?
All unknowns. My point is not that Judaism would not have survived, just that we cannot assume its survival.
No. I don’t assume that “it all would have happened anyway”; I just assume that something would have happened. Or, rather, I reject the assumption that nothing, or at any rate nothing very different, would have happened.
Far from assuming that “it would all have happened anyway” I think events would have unfolded quite differently, and the further away we get from the seventh century the greater the differences would be, so that the world in the 21st century would be different in ways we cannot really imagine. I think it is you who are failing to recognise who differently events might have unfolded.
Worth noting that there are nearly as many Muslims in India as there are in Pakistan. By population it is the third-largest Muslim country in the world. I would suggest that there was nothing at all inevitable about the partition.
Your point is sound enough in one respect, but IMHO you come off as bit to sure of your conclusions - a little more caution about the exclusivity of your “causal factors” might be in order. Just as a couple of for instances…
1). A Kashmir faultline could develop for any number of reasons - it is part of a natural geographic break between the subcontinent and central Asia, a prosperous little “penninsula” that would be an attraction to both a northern India centered state and a Hindu Kush/Afghanistan or eastern Persia or Transoxania-centered state. Religion need not be an issue to create an unstable border.
2). The opposition to Israel has only recently taken on a strident Islamic tone and then only among certain segments of the populace. Local Arab Christians were and are just as stridently anti-Israel as local Arab Muslims ( and were the original transmitters of anti-Semitic thought in the modern sense to the Muslim populace in earlier decades/centuries, at least according to Bernard Lewis ). Christian-run Lebanon invaded Israel in 1948. Christian Palestinians have been prominent terrorists. To suggest opposition would be any less rabid in a Christian Holy Land seems unwarranted. If anything UDS is correct - the establishment of Israel as an independent state in the 20th century would probably be less likely.
3). The Philipines could just as easily have a “tribal” problem in the south. No telling if Christian ( of Hindu, or Buddhist, or animist ) Tausugs in the Sulu, used to their own centralized state, would be any more inclined to accept rule from Luzon ( or Spain and the U.S. ) than Muslim Tausugs. The Sulu archipelago centralized early based on trade contact with Indonesia/Malaysia - doubtless they would have from sheer proximity anyway, Islam or no ( and may have gone Hindu rather Muslim actually, since that was the earlier dominant religious paradigm in that region ).
The world would be very different if Islam had never arisen or failed to expand much out of the Arabian penninsula. But how isnot always easily divinable.
And what is your assurance that Persian Zoroastrianism, unchecked by Islam, would never have expanded to fill the void–perhaps generating its own schism that would have created a system that we would find more threatening than some find Islam?
So? Female circumcision and clitorectomy persists in areas dominated by Muslims, by Christians, and by Animists.
On the other hand, the vast majority of Muslim-dominated states do not require veils on women.
Or, democracy may not exist anywhere. Without the power struggles engendered in Europe due to the Crusades, there is no guarantee that the notion that a populace could choose its own laws or leaders would take hold in Europe. Where is the guarantee that the Protestant Reformation would have occurred in an alternative history? The RCC (and most early Protestants) taught that power was bestowed upon kings from above, by God. It was only in the fracturing of Europe that a few countries began experimenting with other forms. (Heck, without the Crusades for Richard Coeur de Lion to go gallivanting after–taking much of his English treasury, there might have been no need for his brother and successor John to go taxing his barons into rebellion, removing the incentive for the Magna Carta.)
As Tamerlane has noted, the rebellion in the Philipines is strongly infulenced by ethnic factors that happen to fall along religious lines. Without Islam, they could be waging a pagan (or possibly Buddhist) war for independence.
BTW, The Catholic Church does not consider Islam a heresy. To be heretical, one must stand inside the church and proclaim a separate teaching. As a pagan, Mohammed was never inside the church to begin with. The current statement of the RCC regarding Islam is (from the Catechism):
I am not trying to make a case for “bad” Islam anymore than I would try to make a case for “bad” Christianity, “bad” socialism" or “bad” capitalism. I am, however, rather exasperated that both you and Tamarlane are trying to present those Muslim invasions as far more benign than they actually were.
Christianity’s success resulted largely from the fact that the early Christians gained control of the Roman state. No doubt there were many peaceful and sincere conversions, but the bottom line was that the Christians held the reins of political power. To deny that would be dishonest. Similarly, military conquest was crucial to the spread of Islam in India and surrounding regions. No doubt there were many peaceful and sincere conversions, but the bottom line was that the Muslims held the reins of political power, and to deny it would also be dishonest. Entire cities were put to the sword, and millions died during those campaigns, and that makes it a sick joke to speak of Islam “peacefully migrating” into the subcontinent.
Look, I know we’re not supposed to speak unpleasant truths about Islam or Muslims today–wouldn’t want anyone to think we’re prejudiced, now, would we?–but both you and Tamarlane are going much too far.
Actually, if you re-read carefully, you might note that I never made any claims about the Muslim invasions being particularly benign.
Absolutely agree and I said as much.
It certainly would be. Thankfully I never said any such thing :).
What I actually said was “yes and no.”
The reason I said that is that the spread of Islam was absolutely promulgated by conquest. There can be no argument about that. It introduced Islam and fostered the atmosphere under which Islam could readily penetrate the subcontinent. But examinations of conversion patterns, which tended to concentrate away from the center of Muslim political control in India, seems to indicate that actual conversion did not depend from the state, but rather from a combination of both endogenous and exogenous factors and were not necessarily a matter of either just accomodation to the elites ( which was, as I noted, not generally necessary, as Hindus could be integrated into the Muslim state system perfectly fine without converting ) or forceful attempts by the state to impose its religion.
If it makes you feel better, the bald phrase “peaceful migration” is not, in my mind, a perfectly accurate descriptor, either. My exact comment on it was, “…in this sense tomndeb has a point.” The qualifier in this sense should have made it clear enough that I thought it wasn’t the whole story, but maybe I phrased it poorly.
Puh-leese. I know more than a few folks around here think I’m some sort of apologist, but I’m not. There are a number of things of things I don’t care for about Islam ( or any of the Abrahamic religions ). But I don’t think I’m either miscasting or whitewashing the historical record. I have never had any problem acknowledging any documented historical atrocity and there are plenty in India. What I have said is that it is not the whole story and it isn’t. If I may, I thought you were leaning a little bit too far in the other direction, hence my ( to my mind rather reasonable ) correction.
First of all, I notice I said this in a previous post:
That should read “600 million people would still have their foreskins”. We might be able to blame islam for a lot of things but I don’t think we can reasonably hold it responsible for women’s lack of foreskins.
Although now I think about it - if a substantial part of the genepool routinely chops off their foreskin then this might eventually have an impact on evolution. We might evolve smaller foreskins or something. So we can probably blame islam for any small willies that occur in the world.
UDS:
I think we are all taking for granted that this whole train of thought is hugely speculative - what if islam had never existed - so obviously there would be 14 centuries of something to fill the gap where islam used to be. Obviously none of us knows what would have happened - I don’t see why that means we can’t speculate though.
I don’t think that Pakistan would exist, I think it wouldn’t. The only reason the British partitioned India was to separate the muslims and the hindus. If India was all hindu then the British wouldn’t have partitioned it. As regards democracy, the reason I think that democracy would be stronger in an all-hindu India is simply because islam is not very democracy-friendly whereas predominantly hindu India has taken to democracy like a fish to water.
Look, I agree that events would have unfolded hugely differently. The difference between us is that I have no problem imagining what things might have been like. I don’t know that I’m right, it’s impossible to know but I don’t let little things like that get in the way of a good train of thought.
Tamerlane:
You are correct that a Kashmir faultline could have developed for a number of reasons but let’s look at why it did develop - because of partition. Why did partition occur - because of islam. Prior to partition, when India was all one country, there was no trouble in Kashmir and yet all the factors you list as potential trouble-causers were present back then. These factors didn’t cause any trouble before partition so I think it’s reasonable to assume that they wouldn’t have caused trouble had islam never arrived in India.
As regards Palestine, all I said was that the problem would have a different hue. You say that arab christians also opposed Israel but who is to say that arab christians have not been affected by living alongside islam for so long. If there had never been an islam, maybe arab christians would be different to what they are now. Maybe arab christians are like they are partly as a reaction to living in the midst of islam for so long.
As regards the Philipines. I was under the impression that at least part of their gripe was that they want to live under muslim rule, not christian. Consider Malaysia - Malaysia is muslim ruled and yet parts of it (out in the country, away from the capital) think Malaysia is not muslim enough so they tend to be more hardline. Part of the doctrine of islam is that the world is divided into the house of islam and the house of war (non-muslim nations), I think that there is a possible tendency of muslim groups who live on islands or peninsulas (that are ruled by non-muslim nations) to try to gain independance in order to join the house of islam.
Likewise muslim nations are reluctant to grant independance to areas of their country that are not muslim because they don’t want to lose any part of the house of islam once they’ve got hold of it - witness East Timor. Some extremist groups of muslims want Spain back because they think that “once house of islam - always house of islam”.
Tomndebb:
What void? People keep talking about voids and vacuums that would exist if islam wasn’t there. There would be no void, there would just be whatever was there anyway.
Why does female circumcision exist? It’s cultural but why is it in the culture? Because of various religious superstitions and taboos maybe? I’m not saying it’s because of islam, just religious belief generally.
Veils are not mandatory in most muslim countries but islam makes a bigger noise about covering up than other religions. If islam wasn’t there then that “noise” wouldn’t be there - not as loud anyway.
The Magna Carta came about as a result of long standing grievances. The high taxes that sparked the rebellion were just the straw that broke the camels back, Magna Carta would have happened anyway.
You’re probably right, strictly speaking, but Hillaire Belloc disagrees with you:
I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to actually read all the answers here but from a quick overview it seems to me people are straying far away from the OP.
I’ll take it from there because if this must represent a “debate” on Islam then there must be something present that can be discovered as worth debating.
OK. Generally, I ask people who tell me that something is a lie to prove it. Would you care to do that for me = prove to me that what is in Al Qur’an = what most Muslims believe to be the word of God is a lie.
Thank you.
Agree. It is stated in Al Qur’an: “There is no compulsion in religion” (surat al-bakara, 256).
Define “superstitions”.
Take by this in mind that what is to you “superstition” doesn’t need to be “superstition” to others.
Do you say here that your beliefs leave you, because you happen to live in a vacuum? Or do I misunderstand one and another here.
I suppose you once again start from your belief that “Islam” is a lie. Once again I ask you to prove that to me.
prove me also that you don’t influence people around you with your beliefs. You are actually doing just that overhere.
Islam = a religion.
It is a religion with as goal to provide in the after life for a sitiuation that brings happiness to the individual = The believer shall come in an eternal state of peace and happiness.
What happens in this life is seen in that light completely irrelevant as long as it doesn’t endanger the person’s position in the after life.
Give me proof that a guidance towards eternal happiness in the afterlife is " a harmful set of beliefs".
Islam is not responsible for the political games of individuals who incorporate abuse of Islam and while doing this twist the religion Islam to their discretion.
You also fail to mention the attributions of the Western world to the creation and survival of such situations.
Idem.
I fail to see the link you try to make here.
Do you mean there are no failed economical politics on this globe in societies that don’t even have an organized religion and that Islam is the main if not only cause of failing economies?
Once again: prove it to me please.
True to some extend as I explained above already.
Yet also true in societies where religions are banned.
So please prove to me that “Islam” as religion is so much more important in the case you try to make.
Really? I can assure you that my late mother was not “second class” at all and not a “wicked heathen” neither. My late father was not exactly a retarded idiot who needed to marry a “second-class-wicked-heathen” because he just couldn’t find anyone else willing to marry him.
I have a lot of friends who aren’t religious at all. Don’t see them as “second-class” in no matter which place or situation.
Please unfold this “framework” to me in detail.
Then make your case why “this alone” makes Islam “a dangerous force in the world” and add to this why it is then so much more dangerous then whatever you believe in.
So you mean that whatever charity Muslims provide for must be taken over by non Muslims or what exactly is your point? I can’t quite follow this one, sorry.
I’m sorry, but up to now your “conclusion” is worthless. You fail even to provide for one single valid argument.
Well, hear it from someone who is Muslim:
To me Islam has no harmfull consequences at all and I believe that following this religion shall have what you call “beneficial consequences” when my time on earth has ended. If God wills.
I can be wrong, but my impression is that you are only interested in posting your prejudiced views on Islam. Which to me is not starting a debate but only posting your views and telling us all that your views are the truth = you try to sell your beliefs.
So how exactly do you intend to convince me that you are in a position to command me to believe what you believe?
As for your “critical look” on Islam.
Sorry, but before you can “critique” on a subject you need to make yourself familiar with that subject.
An unwarranted claim IMHO. There is no reason to claim that the success of India’s democracy is tied to Hinduism ( and there are certainly some rather undemocratic Hindu extremists running around ). Remember correlation does not imply causation. Not to mention that’s a bit of a slam at ~130 million Indian Muslims, who are also part of said democracy.
Well, just as a nitpick, India was never one country until independence. Not even Asoka managed the task of taking the whole subcontinent and the British demesnes in India don’t count as a “country” ( especially considering the multiplicity of administrations, of which the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was one ). But anyway - yep, Kashmir became an issue because of partition and partition revolved around a Muslim “homeland” ( which, again, given a slightly different set of leadership and a little more give and take in negotiations might never have occurred - both factions started out as part of the same INC and it was particular British courting of Muslim factions that helped promote separatist feelings ).
But an alternate history free of Islam might give an entirely different set of territorial problems. Say a Zoroastrian or Nestorian Persia that includes Afghanistan, extending to the Hindu Kush ( as Safavid Persia did up until the 1740’s ) or beyond into the Punjab, independent of Britain, claming Kashmir as part of a Persian-influenced region, where maybe Dari is widely spoken and opposed to Hindu India. Or what if the impact of Islam derailed a potential conflict between rival Hindu movements like Saivism and Vaishnavism, which could have ended up fusing into geographically opposed camps. Say a Dravidian-speaking south vs. a north India, with the dangerous nuclear dividing line being the fertile disputed zone between the Krishna and Tunghabadra rivers in the southwest ( a not infrequent bone of contention in Indian history ). One can speculate endlessly :).
Yeah, they probably would be worse ;). If anything the Muslim populace ( and more particularly Muslim governments ) had a moderating influence on local Christians, not the other way around. Generally local anti-Jewish riots in Muslim states in the pre-modern period originated with the Christian populace first. Check out The Jews of Islam by Bernard Lewis.
That is part of the gripe. My contention is remove that gripe and it is quite possible it would make no difference. The Sulu archipelago and Mindanao “modernized” earlier ( and a century before Islam got there ) than the rest of the Philipines due to closer contact with states of the Indonesian chain ( which were quite substantial even before Islam arrived ). Quite likely they would have resisted the Spanish just as tenaciously and successfully and quite likely have developed a strong independant streak from that experience in the same way they did, just excluding the Islamic rhetoric ( as I said it might have been Hindu rhetoric instead ). Not necessarily. But likely, I think - geography argues in favor of it.
That’s nationalism, far more than religion. Acheh is as Muslim as you get and they want nothing to do with their “brothers” in Indonesia.
That’s just nuts, I grant :p. But I doubt it is a terribly widespread opinion. Heck there are a few loons who want to cleanse the U.S. of “non-whites”. shrug
Don’t count on it. Richard wasn’t quite the weak reed that John was.
It would have happened anyway? Based on what necessary chain of events? If Richard had hung around, he could have inspired a different coalition of nobles who either crushed the agitators or who simply incited a civil war to overthrow him and replace him with a new monarch. And this ignores the fact that the Magna Carta was only offered as a single example of all the myriad events that need to have happened for democratic processes to develop in Europe. (Just as you keep focussing on the violence in India and ignoring the rather peaceful conversion of much of Southeast Asia and Oceania.)
I make no claim that Islam is or Muslims are is always peaceful. I reject as silly the notion that Islam and Muslims are always aggressive and I deny outright the claim that we can know what the world would be like if Islam had not arisen.
Given an odd practice that exists across multiple competing religious systems, (and which is not taught or practiced by any mainstream version of them), I would look to something other than religion as the source. Similarly, veils (and hats among Christian women up until several decades ago) probably have much more to do with culture than religion–even if we can find a few (culturally instilled) religious tracts to support them.
First of all, it was you who brought up the subject of Magna Carta not me.
Second, Magna Carta came about as a result of long-standing grievances. From this British Library page:
(my bold)
Therefore it is entirely reasonable for me to suggest that Magna Carta may well have come about anyway. I could be wrong (who knows) but then so could you.
I think you’re getting me confused with a different poster. I haven’t mentioned violence in India (other than in relation to Kashmir). Not in this thread, not ever. And I have never disputed the peaceful conversion of many in Asia.
So I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I never said you did.
So do I. So it’s just as well I never said that then isn’t it?
So do I. But speculation is fun.
If you want my opinion (which you probably don’t but I’ll give it to you anyway), religion has clouded your mind. Religion stifles free thought. You cannot countenance the idea of musing about a world without one or another religion. Religion is so dear to you that you will defend all religions (even ones you don’t agree with).
You’ll notice that the areligious among us (me and Tamerlane, for example) have no problem with mulling over what the consequences would be in a world without a particular religion (even if we don’t agree) but you don’t want it to even be discussed (because it frightens you maybe?).
This is just another way in which religion stifles criticism of itself, another example of religion stifling free thought. Islam is probably the worst offender at doing this but it is by no means the only offender - they all do it.
Lighten up, free your mind. Don’t try to kill idle speculation. Don’t try to kill free thought. One of the consequences of free thought may eventually be that all the religions disappear but, hey, tough. That’s a price worth paying.