Dedicated to Nadia Murad, a survivor of sexual violence by the Islamic State. 2018 Nobel Prize for Peace.
Warning: For mature readers only.
Discretion advised.
The Impact of Islam (2014)
Author: Emmet Scott
My Muslim friends would not like the contents of this book. In the same vein as Darío Fernández-Morera's 'The Myth of Andalusia', the author tries to rewrite world history as we know it.
The world talks about the Golden Age of Islam of a time when the areas administered by the Muslims were at the epitome of culture and Arab was the lingua franca whilst Europe was in the Dark Ages. The truth, according is from the truth. In fact, it is just the opposite.
The region of the Golden Era, Spain, has been having its own development towards the tail end of the Roman Empire. The Visigoths showed the building prowess constructing large churches with intricate designs. The art of distillation, advances in Mathematics (algebra, number zero and trigonometry), paper printing, silk and gunpowder which are traditionally credited to the Muslims are not indeed their discoveries. Distillation has its roots in Babylonia. Mathematics developed in India and the Chinese are credited for the rest. The Arab contributed nothing. They were barbaric illiterate brash horsemen who were only keen on plundering and destroying anything in their path. Many of peaceful reign and so-called atmosphere for culture were made by non-Arabic converts from Persia, Turks and Mongols. The Arab language commonly used did not mean that they were Arabs by race.
The invaders perhaps helped in the dissemination of knowledge from one part of the world to another, but it was waiting to happen anyway, with or without their intervention. True, the religion promised justice to many underprivileged members at that time, but three members of the society were still marginalised- women and boys, slaves and non-Muslims (kefir).
Slave trade was on a downward trend by the 8th century when Christianity in Europe started talking about equality and human rights. But the Muslim conquerors reignited this trade and made slavery a lucrative market. In fact, the demand for white-skinned slaves drew the Vikings to capture North Europeans. Berber pirates were also active in the high seas to capture European merchant ships and to sell off the crew as white slaves.
In Europe, the Renaissance happened way before the often perceived 14th - 16th centuries. The Benedictine monks worked hard at improving agricultural yields, windmill technology, animal domestication, use of collars that aid use of horses for ploughing and more. Scholastic studies continued. Healing of the sick via plant-based medication and the establishment of hospitals were initialised.
Maybe unfairly, the author accuses the Muslim conquerors, from Abd' er Rahman (756AD) onwards to have set the brutal standards upon which future wars were to be fought. In this way, he justifies the brutality shown by the Spanish Conquistadores on the South Americans and the Crusaders upon their enemies.
Describing Jews as 'The People of the Book' and enjoyed cordial relations with the invaders is a creative fiction. Animosity between the Muslims and the Jews go back to the time of the prophet. Collection of jiziya from non-believers was big business, and the Almohads and the Almoravids, Muslim armies from North Africa found out the hard way that enormous destruction on the Christian and Jewish stronghold was counter-productive as loss of revenues was quite debilitating. They also realised that mass conversion was self-defeating even though the urge to create Darul Islam was overwhelming.
The prosecution of Jews is said to have been initiated in Cordoba and Granada under the watchful eyes of their Muslim conquerors. This is supposed to be the blueprint for other similar aggression against the Jews including the ones conducted by Christian mobs in Rhineland and the rest of Europe. The idea of violence in the name of Christ started here. Indirectly, Mahmud of Ghazni's invasion of India is the genesis of militant Hindus in centuries to come!
The most brutal part of the book must surely be the appendix which gives the final blow to Islam. It questions the existence of Prophet Muhammad and accuses Muslim Arabs as merely a Christian sect called Ebionites who revere the teachings of Moses but not accepting Jesus as the son of God. The Ebonites or Arab Christians, with their Proto-Islam, managed to impress the Sassanids who embraced their belief. The original Quran was apparently written in Syriac script, hence the confusion about 72 virgins and 72 grapes in paradise. Muhammad, as mentioned in the holy scriptures, are no other than that of Jesus. The Quran is a Christian text and corruption in the language and confusion between Joshua and Jesus led to this problem.
Quite a controversial book, this one. Unlike the believers who think that the religion is all-encompassing able to stand the test time, it compares Islam to many of the failed political ideologies that the world has seen. Like communism, despotism and fascism which clamours of a fabled time of past glory and a utopia of rainbows and unicorns, it accuses its followers of imagining a fictitious past that never existed. In the same modus operandi as Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime, they wish to rewrite human history and start with Year Zero.
Warning: For mature readers only.
Discretion advised.
The Impact of Islam (2014)
Author: Emmet Scott
My Muslim friends would not like the contents of this book. In the same vein as Darío Fernández-Morera's 'The Myth of Andalusia', the author tries to rewrite world history as we know it.
The world talks about the Golden Age of Islam of a time when the areas administered by the Muslims were at the epitome of culture and Arab was the lingua franca whilst Europe was in the Dark Ages. The truth, according is from the truth. In fact, it is just the opposite.
The region of the Golden Era, Spain, has been having its own development towards the tail end of the Roman Empire. The Visigoths showed the building prowess constructing large churches with intricate designs. The art of distillation, advances in Mathematics (algebra, number zero and trigonometry), paper printing, silk and gunpowder which are traditionally credited to the Muslims are not indeed their discoveries. Distillation has its roots in Babylonia. Mathematics developed in India and the Chinese are credited for the rest. The Arab contributed nothing. They were barbaric illiterate brash horsemen who were only keen on plundering and destroying anything in their path. Many of peaceful reign and so-called atmosphere for culture were made by non-Arabic converts from Persia, Turks and Mongols. The Arab language commonly used did not mean that they were Arabs by race.
The invaders perhaps helped in the dissemination of knowledge from one part of the world to another, but it was waiting to happen anyway, with or without their intervention. True, the religion promised justice to many underprivileged members at that time, but three members of the society were still marginalised- women and boys, slaves and non-Muslims (kefir).
Slave trade was on a downward trend by the 8th century when Christianity in Europe started talking about equality and human rights. But the Muslim conquerors reignited this trade and made slavery a lucrative market. In fact, the demand for white-skinned slaves drew the Vikings to capture North Europeans. Berber pirates were also active in the high seas to capture European merchant ships and to sell off the crew as white slaves.
In Europe, the Renaissance happened way before the often perceived 14th - 16th centuries. The Benedictine monks worked hard at improving agricultural yields, windmill technology, animal domestication, use of collars that aid use of horses for ploughing and more. Scholastic studies continued. Healing of the sick via plant-based medication and the establishment of hospitals were initialised.
Maybe unfairly, the author accuses the Muslim conquerors, from Abd' er Rahman (756AD) onwards to have set the brutal standards upon which future wars were to be fought. In this way, he justifies the brutality shown by the Spanish Conquistadores on the South Americans and the Crusaders upon their enemies.
Describing Jews as 'The People of the Book' and enjoyed cordial relations with the invaders is a creative fiction. Animosity between the Muslims and the Jews go back to the time of the prophet. Collection of jiziya from non-believers was big business, and the Almohads and the Almoravids, Muslim armies from North Africa found out the hard way that enormous destruction on the Christian and Jewish stronghold was counter-productive as loss of revenues was quite debilitating. They also realised that mass conversion was self-defeating even though the urge to create Darul Islam was overwhelming.
The prosecution of Jews is said to have been initiated in Cordoba and Granada under the watchful eyes of their Muslim conquerors. This is supposed to be the blueprint for other similar aggression against the Jews including the ones conducted by Christian mobs in Rhineland and the rest of Europe. The idea of violence in the name of Christ started here. Indirectly, Mahmud of Ghazni's invasion of India is the genesis of militant Hindus in centuries to come!
The most brutal part of the book must surely be the appendix which gives the final blow to Islam. It questions the existence of Prophet Muhammad and accuses Muslim Arabs as merely a Christian sect called Ebionites who revere the teachings of Moses but not accepting Jesus as the son of God. The Ebonites or Arab Christians, with their Proto-Islam, managed to impress the Sassanids who embraced their belief. The original Quran was apparently written in Syriac script, hence the confusion about 72 virgins and 72 grapes in paradise. Muhammad, as mentioned in the holy scriptures, are no other than that of Jesus. The Quran is a Christian text and corruption in the language and confusion between Joshua and Jesus led to this problem.
Quite a controversial book, this one. Unlike the believers who think that the religion is all-encompassing able to stand the test time, it compares Islam to many of the failed political ideologies that the world has seen. Like communism, despotism and fascism which clamours of a fabled time of past glory and a utopia of rainbows and unicorns, it accuses its followers of imagining a fictitious past that never existed. In the same modus operandi as Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime, they wish to rewrite human history and start with Year Zero.
https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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