World without Islam?
- Thread starter Machjo
- Start date
I don't think it matters, really. If Islam had never existed, something else would have and things would be different but no better. The trouble with humanity is, as Christopher Hitchens once put it, our adrenal glands are too big and our frontal lobes are too small. George Carlin got it right too. A person of average intelligence isn't really very smart, these are people who have difficulty understanding the material in a standard grade 12 curriculum, and by definition half of us aren't even that smart.
Yup, until man gets over his fascination with his man made gods, there will be little change in the inhumanity of it all.
I think the word today should Dhimmitude because it could happen sooner than you think, you are so ready for it.
Sounds like one of those hookus-pookus 1980s rainbow-sociologist arguments!
The fact is, Islam could have originated somewhere in the Bavarian Alps and Mecca could have remained Orthodox Christian and I don't believe for a second that a reversal of religions would have changed much in our history other than a couple of footnotes.
Christianity wasn't exactly a progressive religion back in Medieval times. The stuff you see in the headlines today, such as Muslims stoning women, honour rapes, murders et al, were all happening back when religion was rule of the land in Europe.
Look up how Christians treated 'witches' (women who didn't cooperate) and each other. The Sunni / Shia conflict isn't all too different from Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy but the difference between us and them is that we modernized through printing presses whereas the Middle East is still stuck in the past.
The fact is, Islam could have originated somewhere in the Bavarian Alps and Mecca could have remained Orthodox Christian and I don't believe for a second that a reversal of religions would have changed much in our history other than a couple of footnotes.
Christianity wasn't exactly a progressive religion back in Medieval times. The stuff you see in the headlines today, such as Muslims stoning women, honour rapes, murders et al, were all happening back when religion was rule of the land in Europe.
Look up how Christians treated 'witches' (women who didn't cooperate) and each other. The Sunni / Shia conflict isn't all too different from Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy but the difference between us and them is that we modernized through printing presses whereas the Middle East is still stuck in the past.
This topic sounds like background plot for a work alternate history fiction by someone like Harry Turtledove. It might make for an interesting read, but its mostly escapist fiction and has no influence on reality. A world without Islam would have evolved in a vastly different direction from the way things are today.
The Turks, before most of them settled on Islam, were still invading the Byzantium Empire.
Much like the Tatars were rampaging in Eastern Europe and, even though some of them were indeed Christian, that certainty did not stop them from liquidiating the plains!
The biggest change though would be in Northern Africa and namely that it doesn't become a part of the Arab-Afro sphere. No arriving Bedouin Arabs means no Arabization, no genocide of the 'Christian Heathens' (who were actually either European or Berber and not mixed-Arab Muslim descent like most current Northern Africans), no Barbary Pirates (that were a menance in the Mediterranean until the 1820s) and no conquest of Iberia
Much like the Tatars were rampaging in Eastern Europe and, even though some of them were indeed Christian, that certainty did not stop them from liquidiating the plains!
The biggest change though would be in Northern Africa and namely that it doesn't become a part of the Arab-Afro sphere. No arriving Bedouin Arabs means no Arabization, no genocide of the 'Christian Heathens' (who were actually either European or Berber and not mixed-Arab Muslim descent like most current Northern Africans), no Barbary Pirates (that were a menance in the Mediterranean until the 1820s) and no conquest of Iberia
"A world without Islam" coming from a former CIA operative sounds almost like wishful thinking. I hate to think what Muslims might think of this. My guess is they will find it insulting. Some Muslim could very well write a book called "A world without Christianity". Heaven knows Christians have given Muslims all kinds of reasons to hate them. The Crusades are a good example.
Excellent topic.
''history did not begin with 9/11''
This is precisely what I have been saying on this forum for several years. As the commentator says, the British and French have invaded those countries for centuries and killed many more hundreds of thousands while the West looked the other way and celebrated all those deaths and depredations. ''When you are invaded by foreign forces ... '' it is no mystery why people are angry and retaliate. The problem isn't Islam - it is the continued military Western presence and its depredations that is the cause of these hassles.
''history did not begin with 9/11''
This is precisely what I have been saying on this forum for several years. As the commentator says, the British and French have invaded those countries for centuries and killed many more hundreds of thousands while the West looked the other way and celebrated all those deaths and depredations. ''When you are invaded by foreign forces ... '' it is no mystery why people are angry and retaliate. The problem isn't Islam - it is the continued military Western presence and its depredations that is the cause of these hassles.