Great thread, everyone. Sorry to enter so late but I had always been taught that the social rules laid out by Islam were, for their time, a relaxation of the normal lifestyles for women. Tho I think that keeping the face covered (and for that matter all of the body parts) is backward, by the times in which Islam was formed, they were an improvement.
Could early and general acceptance of the faith by women be another factor of Islam’s growth?
Karen Armstrong’s new book, “Islam: A Short History,” makes the argument that one of Islam’s chief selling points during Muhammad’s preaching career (612-632) was that the One God had finally revealed His message to the Arabs through Muhammad, as He had done earlier to the Jews through Abraham and the Christians through Jesus. So ethnicity probably played some role in Islam’s early spread through Arabia.
(OTOH, from what I gather, 7th-Century Arabia was far from politically united – it was a collection of independent, often warring tribes. Being a member of the Quraysh probably won Muhammad few converts among tribes who were enemies of his people.)
As noted earlier, Islam then spread out to becomea multi-cultural faith, just like Christianity. Neither faith is indigenous to the Indian sub-continent or to Southeast Asia. Yet Islam gained far more converts in those places than Christianity ever has.
I’ve arrived at the discussions a bit too late, but felt I had to reply to this one…
Correction: The Islamic afterlife is not exclusive to men, silly.
From the Qur’an (4:124):
“And whoever does righteous good deeds, MALE OR FEMALE, and is a true believer in the Oneness of Allâh (Muslim), such will enter Paradise…”
And yet again (40:40):
“…whosoever does a righteous deed, WHETHER MALE OR FEMALE, and is a true believer (in the Oneness of Allâh), such will enter Paradise…”
Correction again: According to the Qur’an, a man’s wife (or a woman’s hunsband) dwells with him/her in heaven.
Again to quote the Qur’an (36:55-6):
“Verily, the dwellers of the Paradise, that Day, will be busy in joyful things; They and their spouses will be in pleasant shade, reclining on thrones.”
In fact, Muslims are instructed in the Qur’an to seek salvation for their entire families, not just themselves (66:6):
“O you who believe! Ward off from yourselves and your families a Fire (Hell)…”
Saying that early Muslims didn’t care about what happens to their wives and daughters is far from the truth.
My point has nothing to do with whether or not Islam (or any other religious tradition) includes racist doctrine or encourages/discourages racism. What I am saying is that it is reasonable to assume that people who are of one ethnic group may be more open to the message of someone who shares their ethnic background than one who is not.
Telling me that people in the 6th and 7th century were as open minded and politically correct with respect to race and ethnic issues as some people are today seems to be a bit of a stretch. But if you can believe that, I have a great new religion I’d like to discuss with you…
Well, here we go again.
(1) I would hazard that those seeking a single explantion for relative successes and failures of either religion in terms of conversion are just digging a whole
(2) The above point is valid, but as another poster noted, indigenous Christians were found throughout the regions eventually converted to Islam – Africa, Indian sub-Contenient etc.
(3) Reasons for conversion probably are multivariant and too complicated to be reduced to one statement, beyond, Religion X happened to be there at the right place at the right time.
(1) Race is essentially at 19th century concept. (The idea that a certain kind of physical morphology trumps everything else in group identity) There is no reason to suppose that folks of the 7th century (when Islam emerges, 600s AD) had any awareness of race (in the meaning of ascribing unified races, white, black etc.) Quite clearly from early writing, Arabs of the peninsula considered their ethnic group to be distinguishable from all their neighbors more or less equally. There’s no real sign that they felt themselves more different from the Habash (Ethiopians, Somalis etc.) than from the Hellenized semitic populations to the north. Indeed the Qura’an and other sources indicate the opposite, although physically speaking it is probable that they were largely closer in physical looks.
(2) Re conversion. I doubt that having ethnic confreres is 100% of the process. Clearly the racism of 19th century Christianity, which more or less barred full participation of non-Europeans in the churches was a major impediment to that specific era in conversion. Just as, for example, one finds that early Islam suffered from native “Arabism” – a kind of ethnocentrism of early Arabian muslims vis-a-vis the new converts. A real struggle occured to overturn Arabian feelings they could be the only true Muslims (nver mind what texts say, people are just going to be donkeys no matter what.) Eventually the new converts won, and apparently conversions took off.
Why didn’t Christianty spread to the east? It’s true that Christianity had a 600 year “head start” on Islam, but that didn’t help it much when it came to converting the east, especially places like India and China, because the Persian Empire was in the way. Because the Persians were enemies of Rome (Byzantium, whatever), they weren’t going to let a big conversion effort happen, or large numbers of missionaries pass through or settle, because if people converted, especially to Orthodoxy, this would strengthen Rome at Persian expense. They did allow Nestorian missionaries however, because the Nestorians were largely apolitical, and, if anything, usually in opposition to Roman interests…which is why you see, and saw, Nestorian communities in Persia, India, and China. Because the Nestorians didn’t have much in the way or organized power, however (or the resources of an empire backing the conversion effort), they didn’t succeed in large scale conversions. Remember also, that most of the Middle East and North Africa was Christian until Islam came along, and two of the “Eastern” Christian populations today, the Armenians and the Ethiopians, are among the oldest Christian churches in the world…both Ethiopia and Armenia have traditions saying they were the first nation to convert to Christianity…which one is true, I’m not sure of, but they were both among the first.
Why did Islam succeed in the east, then? The same reason Christianity succeeded in Europe. There was a large conversion effort, backed by the state, who saw political benefits in converting neighbors to the state religion, and thereby bringing them under state control, along with benefits provided to converts, or penalties to non-converts i.e. “Convert or die”, “Convert, or we’ll make you pay a tax”, “You want to trade? Convert, then.”, “You can have a government job if you convert.”
Someone (I forget who) had asked for other examples as to where the head of a group of people converted to Christianity, and then made everyone else do so. Off the top of my head, two groups that come to mind are the Bulgars and the Avars (and, of course, Rome in the first place). Some cases where Christianity were spread directly by force, would be the Prussians (actually, more or less exterminated by Charlemagne…who then moved in new settlers, who also became known as Prussians), and Poland and Lithuania, where the Teutonic Knights played major roles.
Who said it was 100%? I am suggesting that it was A factor.
As far as recognition of racial/ethnic differences goes, before assuming that racism did not exist in the 6th and 7th century (or mere recognition of physical differences between races) based upon absence of written evidence of this, one might want to consider the literacy rates at the time and who might be writing. Perhaps (look out – an unresearched hypothesis coming) the writers were the more enlightened people of the era and as such did not regard race as a materially important issue (much the same case among the educated/enlightened in modern society).
I’m unamazed by Captain Amazing’s analysis.
Oddly Roman power seemed unable to stop Christians within their own borders, why is the the Persians are supposed to be more effective? The logic escapes me.
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However, this rather begs the question as Christians converted the Roman Empire, oddly enough, without its own backing. It seems that having an Empire behind you is not a necessary condition for achieving a large number of conversions. It might help, but here the example of the Orthodox vs the Coptic church suggests Imperial (in this case Byzantine) might does not help you very much.
The experience of Islam outside the Mediterranean core suggests that it too achieved most conversion (silly to talk about a religion as a person but its a shortcut.) through small scale efforts, not through imperial ones.
Excellent point, but again we have to note that neither early conversion (who knows who was first) came without state support.
Which East? Islam largely succeed in the same places Christianity had before it, with the exception of the old Persian Empire. After that, with the exception of the Indian states, conversions came through other means, largely trade contacts.
In what sense? You seem to suppose a common brownieness brotherliness helped Islam along. That’s nonesensical. Before European colonialism, no such frame of refernce existed. However, if what you mean is that Islamic missionaries tended to be closer to the native population as compared with 19th century European Christian missionaries, sure. But then that has nothing to do with the question on hand.
Recognition of physical differnces is not the same as racism. It is not a matter of absence of written evidence. Ethno-centrism is easy to find in all kinds of records. The idea of “races” like White, Black etc. that’s something that emerges in the 18th century and blossoms in the 19th century. Before this people had different, more specific “reasons” to hate each other. In the 7th century, as I noted, all evidence points to skin color not being an overriding feature of that particular time and place’s brew of ethnic hatreds. Later on we can clearly find some instances of this, but its a later development. But in any case, there’s no reason to connect these questions with the spread of Christianity in the years before Islam or Islam later on. There as certainly no reason to connect the Christians with being whiter than Muslims given Ethiopian Christians, Egyptian Christians etc.
Your hypothesis is simply ahistorical.
That strikes me as absurd as one can find all kinds of hatreds and dislikes expressed. Skin color in and of itself just was not a big thing yet. That’s not from better character, simple the conditions of the time.
“Oddly Roman power seemed unable to stop Christians within their own borders, why is the the Persians are supposed to be more effective? The logic escapes me.”
History by analogy??? Not the best of processes if you ask me.
There are drastic differences that would account for why the Persians were “able to stop the spread of Christianity” (if that’s how you want to put it).
A distinction needs to be made here (and it’s a distinction I failed to make in my earlier post) between the spread of Christianity before it became the official state religion and after. Christianity originally (before it became officially adopted by the state) spread throughout the Roman empire, and not far outside it, due, in large part, it looks like, to the internal transportation and communication networks within the Empire. You were nominally under the same government, with an established road network, from Spain to Armenia, from Egypt to Britian. It’s the same reason early Christianity was strongest around the Mediteranean…Mare Nostrum was the center of transportation and commerce within the Empire. Why it succeeded in becoming the religion of the Empire is dealt with by Cecil in his column, and I won’t add to that, except to say that, if you’re in a place with a lot of political and social unrest, you’re scared about your future, and most of the religious groups are exclusive (Worshipers of Isis were largely female, worshipers of Mithras were largely soldiers, etc.), a religion that 1. Is open to everyone, 2. Is eschatalogical and apocalyptic, with future rewards for believers, and 3. Doesn’t impose much in the way of ritual or complicated moral codes on believers, is going to be popular. After Christianity was adopted, it became an instrument of state power. To say, though, Christianity had a 600 year “head start” is true, but, within that six hundred year period, Christianity managed to convert the Roman Empire and Ireland, and was moving north into the Russian steppes…so it’s not like the religion sat on it’s hands.
Living now, with access to airplanes, CNN, and the Internet, we’ve become spoiled in terms of information exchange. Messages that would have taken years to convey 2000 years ago get transmitted in seconds now. For an early Christian missionary to travel to and try to win converts in Persia would have required several months travel to an enemy nation, where he would have been looked on with suspicion because of his nation of birth, trying to convert people from a religion (Zoroasterism) which was supported by the state, and in which, apostasy was severely punished. After the conversion of the Roman Empire, such an attempt was made even more difficult by affairs of state.
As to why Islam succeded in places like Syria, Egypt, etc (all those parts of the Empire that once was Christian), the conquering Muslim states put a great deal of pressure on the conversions of the conquered. If you weren’t Muslim, you were the victim of state sponsored discrimination, which is a pretty big incentive to convert. They were, in the words of an Azeri friend, “Sword-Muslims”. The same also explains India. As for Indonesia, it was a combination of strength of arguments, economic and military support of Muslim and pro-Muslim leaders, and in some cases, direct invasion…basically, the same thing Christianity did in Europe.
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Fair enough, and while I would not go with your narrative in its entirety it is not implausible (while noting that end runs around the Persians accured, the explanation has to sought in differing social circumstances in target areas).
No, they did not put pressure on the populations to convert (if we are talking about Syria, Egypt, Iraq. Quite the contrary, as Dhimmis were excellent sources of tax revenue, they rulers did not encourage conversion. Now, one might say that higher taxes is discriminatory, but they were generally lower and more regularly collected than the pre-Muslim taxes. Legal rights were respected, and in the early days before the Arabization of the administration, much work was to be had. Even after decrees were issued Arabizing administration, large numbers of non-Muslims still found work in the admnistration. Of course peasants of any religion suffered, and it was marginally worse to be dhimmi, but relative to the time and in comparision with Christian positio vis-a-vis non-Christians, freedom reigned.
Odd, it took centuries for Muslim demographic majorities to emerge. I don’t think this is an accurate picture vis-a-vis the era.
As other posters have noted, sword muslims is textually forbidden (forced conversion in its most naked sense of at the sword is forbidden). Now of course what is written and what is done is another matter, but history largely indicates for at least partially out of self-interest this prohibition was respected. Indeed in the Middle Eastern core, substantial minorities – in fact until Crusader times (3rd Crusade) majorities of non-Muslims lived peacefully for centuries. Hardly a picture of mass forced conversion.
Now “Tax Muslims” is another issue entirely, but how do we ever know the sincerity of conversion?
My readings have suggested that after the initial and quite bloody conquest, things settled down into a middle eastern pattern for many of the same reasons as the Middle East had. Taxes, convenience and getting worn out. Conversion seems to have come largely much later, for similar reasons, plus to escape the caste situation.
It seems, to my limited knowledge to that small scale conversion based on trading relationships was the dominant form.
Okay, so this is a week old and exceedingly stale. But it’s so difficult to just let misinformation sit there…
You have made a grievous error in scale. You have chosen Zen as being representative of Mahayana and some undetermined Tibetan tradition as being representative of Tibetan Buddhism. You have compounded this error by conflating style of practice with motivation for practice. You couldn’t have picked two more unrelated criteria. Really, it’s the Buddhist equivalent of looking at Quakers and dervishes and deciding that Christianity and Islam can’t both be Abrahamic religions because the practices are so superficially different.
Please bone up a little on Tibetan practice before you dig yourself in deeper. If nothing else, consult your favorite search engine on “Nyingma practice” and surf a while.
Dear brothers and sister, I was disturbed to read some good and some disturbing replies on this thread. The reality is that Islam broke out at an alarming rate throughout the world because of the equality it offers to Every ethnic race, creed, or sex. Although many cultures from Islamic Countries act unfair towards the women, in ISLAM it is different, Women are co-equals to man, every right to a man is to a woman, we have respect for the womb which bore us, (Eve, Hawwa in Arabic). As for Islam spreading through force, yes the rule of the country(ies) were through war, but in Islam as stated in the Quran, “There is NO Compulsion in Religion” There is even a chapter in the Quran dedicated to respecting others beliefs by giving the message that “you worship that which ye worship, I worship that which I worship, nor do you worship which i worship, nor do I worship that which you worship.” it is called Surah (Chapter) Kafiruun (unbelievers). During the spread of Islam, when the armies were victorious in nations, the Muslims gave the non Muslims the option of Paying Jizya (tax) for protection, everything else stayed the same including the peoples religious faith. Islam does not burst through doors, Islam burst through the hearst of man. One thing i can ask all those who deny what I am saying is "lets say Islam did spread by war, Why then is Islam the fastest growing religion today, including in America and Europe, we are not at war, we are not forcing anyone, then why are their 6 Million new Muslims a year throughout the world. And why did statistics from ABC’s 20/20 say by the year 2020, 1/6 people in the world would be Muslims, and by the year 20/50 1/3 people would be born Muslims? Please answer this friends.
Peace be upon you all.
As has already been discussed in this thread, some Muslims maintain that there is compulsion in religion, although not necessarily of the form “Convert or die”. However, after a person has voluntarily converted, there are Muslims who argue that that person has no right to change their mind. Do a search on “apostasy” on the Islam Questions & Answers site, and read the articles on “Punishment of one who leaves Islaam” and “Why death is the punishment for apostasy”. The article Ruling on one who neglects prayer on the same site seems to make Islamic religious rituals mandatory for believers, on pain of death. The Islamic laws advocated by many Muslims on blasphemy have certainly been used to constrain critics of Islam; Christian missionaries would also no doubt argue that the apostasy law seeks to constrain them from doing the duties of their religion by proselytizing.
P.S. I cannot make the links to the two apostasy articles work. The URL’s are:
http://www.islam-qa.com/QA/5|Jurisprudence_and_Islamic_Rulings(Fiqh)/Alhudood_WatTa’azeerat(Punishment_and_Judicial_Sentences)/Punishment_of_one_who_leaves_Islaam.27031998.696.shtml
and
http://www.islam-qa.com/QA/5|Jurisprudence_and_Islamic_Rulings(Fiqh)/Alhudood_WatTa’azeerat(Punishment_and_Judicial_Sentences)/Why_death_is_the_punishment_for_apostasy.31031998.811.shtml
As you can see, the board software is hell-bent on putting a line break in the middle of the domain name.
(tried to fix links, but was unsuccessful. sorry)
[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 10-04-2000 at 01:05 PM]
I don’t suppose the moderator could just take that post out and shoot it, could they?
Hey, not too bad! We managed to go almost four full weeks before someone decided to ignore the original post and try to turn this into a discussion of the comparative merits of different religions – something I might have expected from one of us arrogant Christians, but surprising to come from a Muslim, who is constrained by the Koran to honor “previous revelations.”
That being said, the primary reason Islam is growing so fast is that it is the dominant religion in many poor countries of the world – Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, much of central Asia, most of the Middle East, much of northern and eastern Africa. High rates of population growth are strongly correlated with poverty and with lack of education, especially for women. These unfortunate social conditions are prevalent in the areas I mention.
However, it would be a serious mistake to infer that Islam is somehow causing these conditions. It is merely a sad coincidence. Islam is no more to blame for Third World poverty than Christianity is to be credited for the relative propserity in Europe and the Americas.
Regardless of how or why Islam is growing today, our focus remains on how and why it spread between the 7th and 15th centuries.
Peace to all,
I just love that somebody bothered to register under the name “NO Compulsion in Islam”.
That’s either a point s/he REALLY wants to make, or s/he doesn’t plan to hang around.
Okay, this is a little late, but here goes:
Chime141: In regard to your ethnicity hypothesis, you might be interested to know that most Middle Eastern and North African people consider themselves to be white. They refer to us honkies as Westerners or “Franks” (an old Crusades term) but not whites. If you think about this, it makes sense: what’s the big physical difference between a Greek and a Turk, anyway?
Moreover, Europeans haven’t always considered themselves a white brotherhood either. As recently as 100 years ago Silicians were not considered white in some quarters.
So the point Collounsbury was making is that, sure, there were ethnic hatreds back then, but people didn’t divide humanity into the same macro-races that they do now. Even today, the lines are pretty blurry.
With all the reply’s to my post, there is still one issue NOBODY has bothered to take into account, with all the hits that the name of Islam and its prayers have taken from MEBuckner, which made him sound veryyyy ignorant. I am not calling him ignorant because I am responding harshly to his comments but because “ignorant” means to speak of something which you don’t know the true facts of. In Islam there is 2 main authorities, the QURAN< and the SUNNAH’s of the Prophet Muhammad. It is only punisheable by Allah/God in Islam not by man. Many Islamic countries today do not have the “Sharia Laws” Laws of God, they have Man made imposed laws made my man. A true Islamic government today does not exist because of the loss of knowledge in Sharia Islam. It started after the colonisation of Islamic countries by the English by introducing many forbiddent things to Muslims which were forbidden, but thats another topic. Back to the topic, if the Quran or Sunnah does not imply that there is death as punishment for leaving Islam then it doesnt not exist no matter which Muslim thinks what. A Christian, Jew or Muslim does not have authority over God’s say. Allah will deal with a Muslim who left Islam on God’s terms not man’s opinions.
AGAIN, I ASK THE QUESTION WHICH ALMOST ALL EITHER OVERLOOKED OR IGNORED? WHY IS ISLAM … STILL… GROWING AT AN ALARMING RATE, AND IF THE PREVIOUS BROTHER OR SISTER’S WORDS WERE TRUE AS TO “ISLAM IS ONLY GROWING IN POOR COUNTRIES”, PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY ISLAM AMERICAS FASTEST GROWING RELIGION. AMERICA IS THE RICHEST COUNTRY TODAY. AGAIN, 20/20 STATISTICS TELL US BY THE YEAR 20/20 1/6 PEOPLE WILL BE MUSLIM IN THE WORLD, (WORLD MEANING RICH AND POOR COUNTRIES), AND BY THE YAER 20/50 1/3 PEOPLE WILL BE MUSLIM IN THIS WORLD (AGAIN WORLD MEANING RICH AND POOR COUNTRIES). . . PLEASE SOMEONE ANSWER THIS FOR ME.
AS FOR MEBuckner, MY FRIEND, I WILL NOT SINK TO PUTTING DOWN OTHER RELIGIONS OR TELL LIES AGAINST ANY LIKE YOU HAVE BUT THE ANSWERS TO YOUR CLAIMS AND THE LINK YOU GAVE TO A MERE MAN’S ““OPINIONS””, DOES NOT HOLD A CANDLE TO THE ANSWERS OF FACTS ON THIS WEBSITE http://www.AOL40.COM
PEACE TO ALL