We know that the spread of Christianity is mainly the work of Europeans which dates back to the Roman and Byzantine Caesars. The Caesars who accepted Christianity and committed themselves to the task of spreading Christianity were no less cruel than the Caesars who worshipped Jupiter. The tax collectors who collected for the New Rome used torture as briskly as those who had come before. Institutions such as slavery continued. Restrictions against heretics became more numerous as the doctrines of the Church became increasingly more complex and difficult to understand.
Disillusionment with official Christianity was particularly bitter in such regions as the Byzantine Empire, Egypt and North Africa where Greek-speaking Christians dominated non-Europeans. Many of the heresies that flourished in North Africa (where the Greek epithet 'barbarian' was applied so persistently that it has stuck as 'Berber') represented assertions of identity by oppressed groups as much as genuine devotion to doctrinal minutiae. So the ease with which Egypt and North Africa fell to Islam between A.D. 640 and 705 can largely be explained by the resentment of native populations of Byzantine misrule. Yaqut states plainly that most of the people of Barqa adopted Islam. The apparently ready welcome offered to the Arabs in the Western Desert and Barqa seems to suggest that the people of this area were themselves, partly Arabs. Such an idea is by no means far-fetched.[181] The Berbers and the Egyptian Christians, or Copts, saw in the new religion (Islam) a simpler variant of what they believed already, coupled with the inestimable advantage of an easier tax system.[182]
In Spain, the Muslims accepted an invitation to enter the country. The Muslims here too, as elsewhere, found a divided populace of overtaxed peasants, embittered heretics and persecuted Jews, none with any great loyalty to their Visigothic King.[183]
In former Yugoslavia too, all major Turkish conquests were made possible with the help of the natives. The Turks were helped by some Serbs. Turkish rule was more efficient, stable, tolerant and less oppressive than the rule Serbia had been under. Turkish rule abolished the class system of Medieval Serbia. In early days of Turkish rule, the amount of produce, taxation and forced labor for Serbian Peasants was less than the feudal exactions from peasants in many other parts of Europe.[184] No attempt was made to assimilate or proselytize local populations. In spite of all that can be said about later Turkish misrule, the Muslim policy of religious tolerance allowed the beautiful Churches and Monasteries to escape destruction.[185] In contrast to Muslim policy of religious tolerance, some of the leading families of Montenegro (Black Mountain in Yugoslavia) who had embraced Islam under Turkish influence were forcibly reconverted to Christianity after the fall of Turkish rule.[186]
The Crusaders occupied Jerusalem in July A.D. 1099. They massacred the entire Muslim and Jewish population as they had already done in Antioch and other occupied towns, thus causing a kind of fanaticism and ferocity hitherto unknown in the Near East, where the relationship between peoples of different religions was in general tolerant.[187] Christian Priests holding crosses aloft accompanied Crusaders when they occupied Jerusalem in A.D. 1099 and put all the population to the sword, regardless of sex or age.[188]
Thirty-eight years before in what is called the First Crusade in 1063, Pope Alexander II decided to dispatch a force consisting principally of Italians, Franks and Norms to attack the Muslims of Saragossa. The Papal army laid siege to Barbastro, a wealthy Muslim City in the Muslim Kingdom of Lerida in Spain. After a siege of forty days, Barbastro surrendered on term with the honors of war. No sooner, however, did the garrison march out of the town than they were attacked and slaughtered by the Christians in gross violation of the terms of the Capitulation. The civilian inhabitants, who had also been granted an amnesty, were likewise massacred. Six thousand were killed in cold blood, while the women and children were divided between the Christian soldiers as concubines and slaves.[189]
This method was employed during the entire re-conquest until Islam was expelled from Spain, Sicily and other parts of the Europe; massacre and expulsion.
"The Arabs had conquered Spain in A.D. 712, three hundred and sixty years before a period as long as that from the accession of James I in A.D. 1603 to our own times. The English and Scots had, before then, been distinct and often hostile races. Three hundred and sixty years have sufficed to mix them inextricably. It would be no more possible to expel the Scots from England today than it was to drive the Arabs from Spain in AD. 1080. Arabs, Berbers, Spaniards and Goths had become completely intermingled (due to Islamic integration of the society). Another four centuries were to elapse before the last Muslims were driven out from Spain. During this period, the rising intensity of religious fanaticism was to lead to the, often purely superficial, conversion, and the gradual emigration of the more rigid Muslims to Africa. In the final requisite we cannot assume that the Arabs and Berbers went to Black Africa and the Goths and Spaniards remained in the Peninsula, for the races were largely intermixed and the final struggle was religious. The most unbending Muslims (many of whom may have been all or partly Goth or Spanish) went to Africa".[190] Pressure from Rome and the Popes marked the end of the mutual toleration of Christians and Muslims. The ultimate Victory of the Christians in Spain was to be signaled by many acts of cruelty towards the Muslims, carried out, alas in the name of the religion of love. It is interesting to notice that, wherever the Christians and Muslims - particularly Arabized Muslims - were able to mingle together, the spirit of mutual respect and toleration began to appear. This occurred not only in Palestine and Syria, but also in Spain and Sicily.[191]
We must remember that Spain was under the influence of Islamic civilization and Muslims' rule for four centuries as long as from the time of Henry VII, the reformation to our own times. During this period, the majority of the inhabitants of Andalusia had become Muslims, just as the majority of the people of England have become Protestants.
In Andalusia, Arabs, Berbers and original Spaniards were intimately integrated. Infact, there were probably more Latin-Gothic than Arab-Berber blood in Muslim Spain. Moreover, the Andalusians were far more civilized than were the people of the Northern States. Yet neither group seems to have felt itself divided from the other by any racial bar. Alphonso VI of Castile married Zaida, the daughter of Mutamid Ibn Abbad, the King of Seville, although she was a Muslim. Moreover, the offspring of the marriage would have been Emperor of Spain if he had not been killed in the Battle of Ucles.[192]
"Both Muslims and Christians in Spain seem, moreover, to have often felt more sympathy for each other than for either the Norman and French barbarians in Barbastro. It is tempting to believe that the Muslims and the Christians of Spain might have settled down as a single nation with two religions, had it not been for outside interference".[193] The influence of the papacy and the foreign Kings, the fanaticism of Crusaders, the massacre, persecution, expulsion of the Muslims from their home and land forced Islam out of Spain. What proportion of Arab and Berber blood remained in Spain or how much Celtic, Latin or Gothic blood "returned to Africa when the Muslims were driven out, no man can assess. But an immense amount of Arab thought and culture remained in Andulus and spread thence to the rest of the World".[194]The Spanish Muslims whether of European blood or of non-European blood, were persecuted and forced to leave their land, country and home and flee to other areas, mainly to Africa. The number of the Andalusians who fled only to a part of North Africa was so large that in A.D. 1591 Mawlay Ahmad al-Mansur managed to have about 5,000 mainly Spanish Muslim refugees enrolled in an elite force for an expedition to cross the African desert.[195] Those who would like to understand how Muslims were forced out of Andalusia and how Andalusia slipped back to Christian authority after being under Muslim administration for a long time may study how recently Zionists massacred the Palestinians and forced them out of their home-land and country and how international Zionism employed all inhuman means to occupy Palestine. The Muslims in both cases did not abandon their religion they were simply massacred and forced out of their homes and land. Zionism has become merely a combination of the racist, tribalistic aspect of Judaism with modern secular nationalism and hence the Zionists' inhumane and non- Judaic, anti-Semitic, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian attitude and behavior. The plight of the Bosnian Muslims who are natives of the Balkans serves as another example.
The Christians would go to any length to establish themselves and enslave natives. The Tasmanian Aborigines were totally exterminated as late as the end of last century. It is a case of complete and swift genocide recorded and documented. The British Colonists in Tasmania wiped out the whole race within the lifetime of Trugannmi (an Aborigine woman) who was the last to die in 1876. The genocide began with an official massacre, progressed through bestial atrocities committed by escaping British convicts, into full-scale military operations. The last remnants were deported to an offshore island, and died rapidly as a result. Even after death, their bodies were stolen from the grave and mutilated. It all began with British racism, imperialism and ended up with their Christian-Zion.
The Muslims, Arabs, Turks and Mongols ruled over Andalusia, Greece, the Balkans and India, in that order for over five centuries without interfering in culture, religion and way of life of the people they ruled. But western Christian colonialists eradicated completely the natives of America, Australia, and New Zealand in less than a century. Yet the Muslims are accused of using force. The Mongols who entered the Muslim lands as the victors not only accepted Islam but championed the religion of their victors.
Recently there have emerged some researches which have established a kind of balanced view about the history of the spread of Islam, such as those by Karen Armstrong and Thierry Hentsch. According to Armstrong, "...no polity or ideology posed such a continuous challenge to the West as Islam" which is why Western writers and, more unfortunately, 'academics' have not been rational or objective in their study of Islam or the Arabs.
The rise and development of the Western hatred for Muhammad and Islam is very well explained - showing the ignorance, the arrogance, the fear and the contempt of the Western world for Islam. Any unstable nation needs an external "enemy" so as to unite the people and occupy them with other problems. It seems that this also occurred early in Western history - Muhammad became the great enemy of the emerging Western identity" standing for everything that the West hoped it was not:
"Islam was stigmatized as the 'religion of the sword' during the Crusades, a period when Christians themselves must have had a buried worry about this aggressive form of their faith which bore no relation to the pacifist message of Jesus. At a time when the Church was imposing celibacy on reluctant clergy, the astonishing accounts of Muhammad's sexual life reveal far more about the repression of Christians than about the facts of the Prophet's own life. There is a definite note of ill-concealed envy in this depiction of 'Islam' as a self-indulgent and easy-going religion. Finally it was the West, not' Islam', which forbade the open discussion of religious matters. At a time of the Crusades, Europe seemed obsessed by a craving for intellectual conformity and punished its deviants with a zeal that has been unique in the history of religion. The witch hunts of inquisitors and the persecution of the Protestants by the Catholics and vice versa were inspired by abstruse theological opinions which in both Judaism and slam were seen as a private and optional matters. Neither Judaism nor Islam shares the Christians conception of heresy, which raises human ideas about the divine to an unacceptably high level and almost makes them a form of idolatry". These fantasies helped form the identity of the West and Armstrong believes that traces of these old fantasies survive to the present day, having become "so entrenched" in Western culture.
RE:CHRISTIAN INTOLERANCE
by Secular Indian on Mar 20, 2007 05:23 AM Permalink
Have you read the article above ? It clearly shows Islamic bigotry at its best. Aurangzeb brutalizing and killing Hindus for simply being non-muslims. We are not concerned about the Islam vs Christianity debate, it's irrelevant to Hindus. What do Hindus care which is worse. Get over this infantile habit.
RE:RE:RE:CHRISTIAN INTOLERANCE
by Secular Indian on Mar 20, 2007 06:27 AM Permalink
Did you read the article by Mr. Gautier or did your hatred towards non-muslims blind you to it. It clearly states the crimes committed against Hindus in the name of Islam. These are facts Mr. Azeez not opinions and generalizations and feel good non-sense that you love peddling.
RE:CHRISTIAN INTOLERANCE
by Secular Indian on Mar 20, 2007 06:26 AM Permalink
Have you read the article above ? It clearly shows Islamic bigotry at its best. Aurangzeb brutalizing and killing Hindus for simply being non-muslims. We are not concerned about the Islam vs Christianity debate, it's irrelevant to Hindus. What do Hindus care which is worse. Get over this infantile habit.
