Monster Media 1993 #2/Image.iso/text/islamnfo.zip/DOMIN

Text File | 1993-04-28 | 5KB | 95 lines

Subject: IS THIS YOUR CULTURE?

In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] () writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> you write:
>>In article <[e-mail]>
indu@iss700writes:
>
>IT IS FACT THAT THE PRESENT DAY INDIAN MUSLIM's ANCESTOR WAS AN INNNOCENT
>HARRASSED AND HUMILIATED HINDU  WHO HAD BEEN FORCED TO TAKE ISLAM BY THESE
>INVADING BRUTES. IT IS NOT BY THE FREE WILL OF HUMANS WHICH HAS BEEN THE
>CONCEPT OF HINDUism, that these people have taken Islam. IT IS AN INSULT
>AND DECIET if we try to ignore those brutalities.

I wish to quote Sir Hamilton A. R. Gibbs, an honorary Fellow of
St. John's College, Oxford, Professor of Arabic and Director of the
Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.  In his book
"Mohammedanism, An Historical Survey" second edition, Oxford University Press,
he writes :

   ...

   "With a strong and skillful government and a faith to inspire its armies,
   it was not long before the new community controlled all Western
   Arabia and looked round for new worlds to conquer. After a slight backwash
   on the death of Mohammed, the wave of conquest swept over Northern and
   Eastern Arabia and broke audaciously upon the outposts of the Eastern
   Roman Empire in Transjordan and of the Persian Empire in Southern Iraq.
   The forces of the two gigantic Empires, exhausted by long warfare a└└inst
   one another, were defeated one after the other in a series of rapid
   and brilliant campaigns. Within six years of Mohammad's death all Syria
   and Iraq were tributary to Medina, and in four years more Egypt was added
   to the new Muslim Empire.

   These astonishing victories, the precursors of still wider conquests
   which were to carry the Arabs in less than a century into Morocco, Spain
   and France, to the gates of Constantinople, far across Central Asia and
   up to the Indus river, confirmed the character of Islam as a strong,
   self-confident, conquering faith. From this came its unyielding, and
   even hostile, attitude to everything that lay outside itself, but also
   its record of broad tolerence within its own community, REFUSAL TO
   PERSECUTE THOSE OF OTHER COMMUNITIES, AND THE DIGNITY WITH WHICH IT
   HAS ENDURED MOMENTS OF ECLIPSE.

   But still more astonishing than the speed of the conquests was their
   orderly character. Some destruction there must have been during the
   years of warfare, but by and large the Arabs, SO FAR FROM LEAVING A
   TRAIL OF RUIN, LED THE WAY TO A NEW INTEGRATION OF PEOPLES AND CULTURE.
   ....Islam emerged into the civilized outer world, not as the  crude
   superstition of marauding hordes, BUT AS A MORAL FORCE THAT COMMANDED
   RESPECT and a coherent doctrine that could challenge on their own ground
   the Christianity of East Rome and the Zoroastrianism of Persia....

   To the people of the conquered countries the Arab supremacy signified
   at first little more than a change of masters. There was no breach in
   the continuity of their life and social institutionsm, NO PERSECUTION,
   NO FORCED CONVERSION. But little by little Islam began to modify the
   old social structure of Western Asia and Egypt, and Arab elements
   to penetrate the old Hellenistic and Persian cultures..


In his book "Islam", London 1951, p. 21 A. S. Tritton writes:

    "The picture of the Muslim soldier advancing with a sword in one hand
    and the Koran in the other is quite false."

De Lacy O' Leary, in his book "Islam at the Crossroads", London 1923, p.8
writes:

     "History makes it clear, however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims
     sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword
     upon conquered races is ONE OF THE MOST FANTASTICALLY ABSURD MYTHS
     THAT HISTORIANS HAVE EVER REPEATED."

In case of India, I believe the muslim armies might have done some excesses.
But such absurd generalizations that non of the native indians accepted Islam
by their own free will is nothing but "most fantastically absurd myths".


Although Islam doesn't stand in need of testimony by non-muslims, I have
quoted these authors to show the Islamophobic minds that even orientalists,
often hostile critics of Islam, did not back off from asserting the truth.

Zafar.

>>-Sayan Bhattacharyya.
>-Indu.
>+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
>|  My  views expressed above are made on a PERSONAL basis                 |
>|  No Group or  Organization   can be held responsible                    |
>|  I'm not against religious Minorities but against religious Minorityism |
>|                                ( for those in quest of truth .......)   |
>+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
From: [e-mail] (Siddiqui Zafar)