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Subject: How Evil is Islam? - Islamophobes, this one's for You.
bigfella    4/19/2006 8:56:59 AM
I have been having a lot of fun reading some of the ramblings of our collection of Islamophobes here on SP. Sadly I didn't save the comments, but they generally imply (or state) 'only under Islam' do X bad things happen. Lots of trashing of the Koran, Mohammed etc. I think my favourite one was the suggestion that somehow Islam was to blame for the Sicilian Mafia (that one should get a prize). Of course, none of this is new or even surprising. The enemy is always the most evil thing ever, and his means the most evil means ever used. The 'dreaded Hun' raped Belgian nuns in WW1, Communists ate babies (the Birchers were still pushing this one in the 70s). If you need further evidence, do a tour of the 'war crimes museum' in Ho Chi Minh City some time. Those nasty imperialists & their puppets! So, I've decided to give you all a chance to prove to me just how nasty the baddies are, but there are some rules: *Don't bother quoting the Koran, the Prophet or any Hadith at me. Not only do most religions contain nasty quotes, but until we get some Koranic scholars on SP the Bible Brigade will always have an unfair advantage when it comes to 'contextualizing' the nasty bits. *Don't bother quoting your favourite nasty Imam or lunatic muslim newspaper. Words are not the issue here. Reagan didn't bomb Russia, Bus Snr. did bring in new taxes & Clinton did have sexual relations with Lewinsky. Actions are what interests me here. *No blustering about methods. Some people can apparently find a moral difference between killing civilians with a suicide bomb & precision ordinance, napalm or a Kalashnikov. I can't, so don't waste my time trying to tell me how much worse one is ove the other. Further, as horrific as suicide bombings (or car bombings, or any other such nasties) are, a few dozen dead in Baghdad or Tel Aviv are pretty small bikkies in the death stakes. This is going to be a simple body count comparison. I want your list or biggest & nastiest Muslim wars & killing sprees. We can even have categories of you like. We can have costliest wars where Muslims were clearly the aggressor and largest acts of mass murder by Muslims. If, as so many of you insist, Islam is so evil, violent & backwards, then the past 1400 years should yield a veritable treasure trove of mass murders & body counts, You have your mission, I await your findings.
 
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olive greens    RE:How Evil is Islam? - Islamophobes, this one's for You.   4/19/2006 10:25:56 AM
Bigfella: You have thrown the gauntlet at the whole assembly, its time for you to do some research. I am sure you are familiar with Taimur-i-lung of Samarkhand, maybe even Babur the Mughal. But are you familiar with these friendly characters revered in many a Muslim neighbourhood: * Muhammed of Ghazni * Muhammed of Ghori * Allaudin Khilji * Muhammed Tughlaq * Adil Shah & other Deccan Sultans * Shah Jahan {when he is not building (with essentially slave labour) up-turned toilet bowls} * Aurangzeb * Nadir Shah of Iran * Ahmed Shah Durrani (Abdali) * Gen. "Tiger" Niazi But your ignorance of these fellas doesnt nearly bother me as your assumption that history is the only reason why people fear certain aspects of Islam. Fact is, even now there are many Muslims ready to follow in the foot-steps of these men given a chance. Oh, given this is all limited to continental Asia and if you wonder why some Americans, Australians and Europeans are so paranoid about it? I dont know. Maybe at some instinctual level they realize that there is a predatory element to these depradations. That Persia, Byzantine and India were targetted precisely because they were plum picking at that point of time. That Byzantine, and Persia have been already digested, India is too poor and far too resistant. That Western world is where the riches (material and spiritual {ie converts}) lie. So they fear.
 
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Shirrush    RE: Uh?   4/19/2006 11:29:57 AM
This might be yet another stupid flame thread aimed at eliciting insipid comparisons between little-known and poorly-understood historical facts on one hand, and todays World War in-the-making on the other hand. There is also a remote possibility that somebody is trying to freeload his entire PhD thesis on "Islams depredations: an historical and comparative study" , on the more erudite and articulate posters of the India board such as http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/30-76327.asp> Dr. Olive Greens here . On this, I am certainly not going to cooperate because unpaid work is against my religious ethics, and because humanities are definitely not my thing. Since you already have a very concise summary that contains many useful keywords for your chapter titled "The Moguls: South Asian Mayhem" , and since I am in an unusually benign and helpful mood today, I may suggest that you try to get to the most acute point of your entire thesis, by researching into the civilizations lost to Islam rather than delving into the dull statistics of the cumulative body count. Start with "How and Why did Egypt/Mesopotamia/North Africa/Sudan become Arab countries". Also, taking a good, hard archeologist's look at the few scattered remnants of these civilizations such as the Copts of Egypt or the Assyrians of Iraq, would certainly go a long way toward making your work a more remarkable one in the infinite ocean of such academic endeavours. Cheers; DLL a.k.a. Staff Sergeant Shirrush, the Second Secular Cavalry Cy., the Talmudic Battalion, Strategypage's Bible Brigade.
 
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displacedjim    RE:How Evil is Islam? - Islamophobes, this one's for You.   4/19/2006 11:49:21 AM
Not trying to detract from the scholarly responses so far, but while you're responding to their challenges to your main point, I'd also love to see you back up this little base canard, "Communists ate babies (the Birchers were still pushing this one in the 70s)." Displacedjim Proud to be a John Birch Society member since 1986.
 
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swhitebull    RE:How Evil is Islam? - Islamophobes, this one's for You.   4/19/2006 12:53:44 PM
A laundry list of modern-day Arab and Muslim ethnic cleansings, massacres and funtimes from several years ago, in a discussion on European moral authority when they chide or condemn Israeli retaliations against PALI homicide bombers: http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/36-10545.asp A bit heated, but the person I was debating with fit the stereotype of the European that knows more and has more moral authority than anyone else. No offense meant to any of our posters. swhitebull
 
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Arbalest    RE:How Evil is Islam? - Islamophobes, this one's for You.   4/19/2006 1:10:52 PM
Very well. Assuming that this is an attempt to gather material for a PhD thesis, and accepting the ground rules: >>> *Don't bother quoting the Koran . . . *Don't bother quoting your favourite nasty Imam . . . *No blustering about methods. <<< I point out the following, all of which were known or published pre-9/11: 1) Prior to about 1900AD, Islam seems to have been spread almost exclusively via conquest or violence, express or implied. Mesopotamia and Persia, North Africa and into Spain, were all obtained by conquest within the first 100 or so years following the death of Mohammed. Sub-Saharan Africa was a source of slaves, and for 700 years before the Europeans made a voyage south past the Canaries (about 1440AD). The condition of the non-Muslim population can be determined by looking at: Darfur (today), Egypt (today, check out the religious rioting today), Nigeria (who let the POLIO out? woof, woof.). 2) India has been discussed by on this thread by OG. For more information, please consult the India board. I recommend a recent thread: WHO LOOTED INDIA MORE 9/8/2005 6:07:40 PM http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/72-15736.asp as the first post contains a very concise set of examples of Muslim behavior, and mentions religion only to identify locations, structures, and who did what to whom. The follow-up posts are also recommended. 3) Indonesia and Central Asia are possible exceptions. The Muslims conquered what are now the modern ‘Stans (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, etc. and the southern edge of Kazakhstan) as far as the south end of Lake Balkhash (east of modern Tashkent) and defeated a Chinese army at Talas in 751. ‘Ibn Battuta mentions in his book, while he was in what is now Indonesia, that some of his co-religionists there were fighting the infidel. But it is possible that the situation was resolved by other means, and I don’t have enough information. 4) Recall the Turkish threat (~1400-1700) to Europe, and the treatment of Christians, in the Balkans, and elsewhere. Their method of recruiting Janissaries is, I suspect, still remembered by the Croats and Serbs. 5) Le us discuss slavery for a moment. While slavery died out in Europe with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and reappeared in the 1500’s, it is also true that the concept that slavery, for anyone, is wrong, is a EUROPEAN concept. The British and other colonial powers, for whatever other evils they did, put a stop to the slave trade in Africa (or so we thought). The American Civil War was accepted as the final test of the question of the legitimacy of slavery (not legitimate). But check out the happenings in Darfur (today) and southern Sudan (today). Apparently, Some People do not accept the ACW's outcome. 6) Justice? See, for example: "Iranian Teenage Rape Victim Hanged", http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5184 There are other examples, easily found. 7) Then there’s the question of race and racism. There is a great deal of talk about race problems in the US, and elsewhere, and the fingers point back to events over the last few hundred years. Frank M. Snowden’s book, "Before Color Prejudice", ISBN 0-674-06380-5 (cloth), -06381-3 (paper) argues that in the Ancient World, (Rome, Greece, and before), being black African was not an easy thing, but was not necessarily, in and of itself, a permanent limiting factor. But his evidence is very, very small, and more than one reading is needed. But Bernard Lewis’ "Race and Slavery in the Middle East", ISBN 0-19-505326-5 (ppbk) details the view of black Africans in the early Muslim world. You might find the views of men in Muslim lands of 800AD, many of whom possess the finest education available from Alexandria, Damascus, Baghdad, at that time, rather startling. Pay particular attention to the quotes at the beginning of Chapter 4. Remember, this is 1000 years before the existence of the American Deep South, and these are quotes of educated men. This should be enough to get a thesis started.
 
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olive greens    RE:How Evil is Islam? - Islamophobes, this one's for You.   4/19/2006 1:33:26 PM
3) Indonesia and Central Asia are possible exceptions. The Muslims conquered what are now the modern ‘Stans (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, etc. and the southern edge of Kazakhstan) as far as the south end of Lake Balkhash (east of modern Tashkent) and defeated a Chinese army at Talas in 751. ‘Ibn Battuta mentions in his book, while he was in what is now Indonesia, that some of his co-religionists there were fighting the infidel. But it is possible that the situation was resolved by other means, and I don’t have enough information. Just as a disclaimer: To be fair to Islam in India, some coastal communities in Western India - that had long-standing trade relations with Arabs - seemed to have adopted Islam voluntarily and peacefully. This trade line also extended all the way into South East Asia inclusing Malayasia, South Thailand, and Indonesia. The Tang Armies, after being defeated by a joint Abbasid + Turkic-Afghan Army at Talas River, lost the momentum. Retreating, they were ravaged by supposedly "loyal" and "conquered" tribes. That, incidentally, was the largest Chinese empire ever.
 
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flamingknives    No methods, how about intent?   4/19/2006 2:07:47 PM
*No blustering about methods. Some people can apparently find a moral difference between killing civilians with a suicide bomb & precision ordinance, napalm or a Kalashnikov. I can't, so don't waste my time trying to tell me how much worse one is ove the other. Further, as horrific as suicide bombings (or car bombings, or any other such nasties) are, a few dozen dead in Baghdad or Tel Aviv are pretty small bikkies in the death stakes. First off, you'd be surprised how quickly a few dozen, here and there, add up. Secondly, what most people object to is the intent. The suicide bomber, generally, goes after civilians and abuses trust to do so. Modern precision weapons are delivered openly and are generally directed at military targets, so civilian casualties are mistakes. It's the difference between murder and manslaughter. I don't personally reserve censure for Islam. Any fanatical religion has the capacity for serious harm, be they Christian, Facist, Islamic, dedicated to the Emporer or whatever. All extremists must be shot! ;-) I'd further note that the region where Islam is prevelent is distinctly less populous than many other areas in the world, so the key cause for massacres and warfare, population pressure, is less significant and where such problems do occur, they are limited in size due to the fewer people. Just something to bear in mind before someone does a direct numbers comparison.
 
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bigfella    RE:A Quick reply for now, more anon.   4/19/2006 6:04:33 PM
Just a few quick points: My PhD thesis is actually on newspaper coverage of the Vietnam war, so I'm not after someone to do my research for me. What I'm after here is a nice list of nasties. SP folk seem to have no trouble with this when it comes to 'best generals' or 'pretties German tank', so Islamic evil should'nt be that hard. I'm putting the onus on the anti-Islam brigade here to provide the stats. I'll do the research for the replies. Flamingkinves. I agree about fundamentalism, kill 'em all & let the Gods they kill for sort 'em out. On population, however, you are way off the mark. Pakistan & Bangladesh alone contain almost as many people as the USA. Throw in Indonesia & you have more than Europe. Throw in Indian muslims & you crack the half billion mark. There are about 1 billion Muslims in the world. Plenty of scope for big body counts there. Intent doesn't really get anyone off the hook. You are just as dead if the intent was nasty or nice. Besides, I don't think the intent of those nice Orthodox Christians who raped & murdered their way through the former Yugoslavia was any more admirable than that of the latest martyr for islam. Jim, the citation I have for the Birchers is from the San Franciso Chronicle, Oct 4, 1978, p.4. This is a footnote, so I don't have the actual paper. I probably can't find it myself (US papers a bit hard to find in Aus), but you are welcome to look it up & get back to me. Off to work now, more later.
 
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Pseudonym    RE:A Quick reply for now, more anon.   4/19/2006 7:13:17 PM
"Intent doesn't really get anyone off the hook. You are just as dead if the intent was nasty or nice." In a perfect world you would be correct. Unfortunately the world is not perfect, intelligence is not perfect, mistakes are made. I would not cavalierly dismiss intent if you want a good grade, it is a major factor.
 
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TheArmchairCmd    RE:How Evil is Islam? - Islamophobes, this one's for You.   4/19/2006 8:31:05 PM
Body count doesn't work as a measure of morality or bloodthirst. No Islamic civilization has had the ability to kill on an industrial scale.
 
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