I beg to differ. First, I am not a right winger.

Second, I stand by the view of famed historian Will Durant. Note that I quoted him. I also note that such view is well supported in a standard work on Indian history, The Cambridge History of India, which notes mass killings on an extraordinary scale by Muslims of non-Muslims for the sin of being non-Muslim followers of non-permitted religions.

You assert that the theological underpinnings did not exist. Are you joking? By the year 1000, there was pretty good Islamic theology that had been in place for centuries. The same for law, which was pretty well developed going back to the 9th Century, much less the 11th Century. See David Cook, Understanding Jihad. You may wish to examine chapter one of his book which can be read here. http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10213/10213.ch01.html

You may also note this section which relates to Shari’a law:

Out of the disorganized mass of hadith a coherent body of law was produced. By the early ninth century, Muslim jurists had begun to codify the basic materials of the tradition to form the shari’a, sometimes translated as the “Divine Law.” Although this was never a unified body of law, and is essentially the sum total of all the jurists’ discussions and commentaries on the subject, it provides a focus for legal and definitional aspects of jihad that are not addressed in the Qur’ an or the hadith literature. It also seems clear that the jurists of Islam wanted to regulate the nature of the warfare, as they did other aspects of social intercourse.

One of the bases for this type of regulation was defining the manner in which war should be declared and what its limits were.

The Messenger of Allah, when he would send a commander with a raid or an army would enjoin upon him the fear of Allah, especially with regard to himself, but also with regard to the Muslims, and say: When you meet your polytheist enemy, call to him [to choose] between three possibilities—accept whichever one they accept, and desist from them:

1. Call them to Islam; if they accept, then accept it from them and desist from them. Then [if they accept Islam] call them to move from their homes to the home of the muhajirun [immigrants]; if they do this, then they will have the rights and the responsibilities of the muhajirun. If

2. they refuse, then designate their home, and inform them that they will be like the Muslim Bedouin—Allah’s law, which is incumbent upon the believers, will be incumbent upon them, but they will not have any right to the movable or nonmovable spoils, except when they fight at the side of the Muslims.

3. If they refuse, then call them to pay the jizya [poll tax]. If they accept, then accept it from them and desist from them.

4. If they refuse, then ask Allah for aid against them, and fight them. If you besiege the people of a fortress, and they desire to surrender unconditionally (ala hukm Allah), do not accept this from them, but let them surrender according to your judgment, and do with them what you wish afterwards.25

With these statements jihad is made into a legal process, regulated, and defined. While the Muslim history books leave us with the impression that Muslims always acted in accordance with the above regulations, this is difficult to accept and is not backed up by non-Muslim sources. But the mere establishment of such regulations, albeit with the goal of augmenting the Islamic polity, was a step toward systematizing warfare.

Now, there is also source material for the specific references about dealing with non-Muslims when they were conquered. I have correctly cited to them, as this is a subject about which I have made a careful study of first hand sources. I shall have to see whether I can find such materials online, in which case I can provide them to you.

“Likely the greatest slaughter of a discreet group of people in all history is the slaughter in the Indian subcontinent in which 80 million people were killed by the Muslim invaders between 1000 and 1525.”

The source you quote has its detractors:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_Muslim_Population_in_Medieval_India

“Simon Digby criticized the book in a review in “Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies”:

“The author is known for his detailed studies of the Khalji dynasty and of the fifteenth-century Delhi Sultanate. He is well versed in the sources of medieval North Indian history. In the present study he has assembled almost all the conceivably relevant data and for this reason it will remain of value as a compendium of references. Yet the unknown variables are so great and the quality of the data yielded by our sources so poor that almost any detailed general estimates of population based upon them must appear wilful, if not fantastic.” ”

Here is some classic BS:

“Again: those who invaded the Indian subcontinent - perhaps misunderstanding their own faith - concluded that the inhabitants being of non-permitted faiths, had the choice to convert or be put to the sword. About that, there is no doubt.”

In fact Muslims and Buddhists lived together peacefully for hundreds of years. Moreover, the idea of “People of the Book” was extended to a large number of people whose religions had a book. Early Muslim scholars estimated over a hundred prophets sent to peoples all over the world giving each of their communities guidance in a book. It was established in the past that both Hindus and Buddhists are considered “People of the Book” - granted this is not agreed on universally by all Muslims, past or present.

And here is more BS:

“What I claimed is that, in conquering, Muslim armies have historically tended to adhere to classical theological notions, well established in accordance with the view of the existing legal schools which, in fact, did hold basically to the views I ascribed to them.”

Classical theological notions were not even developed at the time the Muslims entered Afghanistan or India. In Sunni Islam there were tens of schools of law which varied widely and were sometimes in flux according to the principles they held. George Makdisi’s “The Rise of Colleges” is a good book on Islamic education in Medieval Iraq.

Bottom line Neal - you seem to NOT understand that the scholarly work on Islamic/Middle East history is filled with bias - and you seem to attach importance to what ever justifies your prejudicial notions of right and wrong.

I still do not see your answer to my question. I answered yours. You can answer mine.

Minit ago I mentioned wondering what had become of the once high & mighty Sassoons? Well, here’s one now! Excerpt, scroll down for full article:

>”Aggies for Israel and the Davis community are appalled that Ward Churchill will be speaking at UC Davis,” said Yoni Sassoon, vice president of Aggies for Israel in an e-mail interview.

>Sassoon, a sophomore economics major, said Churchill’s lecture title alone is offensive and incendiary.

>”Zionism does not share a ‘common theme’ with Nazism and saying that it does is clearly false and openly inflammatory,” he said. “Ward Churchill and the extreme groups that are hosting him are dangerously using false comparisons between Jews and Nazis to defame Israel.”

>”As students, we hope this speech does not [incite] hate on campus,” Sassoon said.”
Ward Churchill to speak on campus tonight
Controversial essayist polarizes student groups
By: PATRICK McCARTNEY
Posted: 11/27/07
Free-speech activist and former University of Colorado ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill will speak tonight at 8 p.m. in 123 Sciences Lecture Hall. Churchill, who has been widely criticized for his controversial Sept. 11 essay, will give a talk titled “Zionism, Manifest Destiny, and Nazi Lebensraumpolitik: Three Variations on a Common Theme.”

Churchill’s visit is sponsored by the Students for Peace & Justice and co-sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan.

“We decided to invite Professor Churchill due to the fact that he is a prolific scholar and award-winning professor in demand around the country and internationally. Also, his case is widely recognized as a test case for Academic Freedom around the country - and given the current repressive atmosphere at UC Davis in that arena, it seems especially appropriate,” said Amir Ali, an event organizer and junior neurobiology, physiology and behavior major.

After an investigation, the University of Colorado fired Churchill in 2006 for plagiarism and academic integrity violations. In addition, critics have questioned whether or not he is American Indian, as he claims to be.

Churchill contends his firing was in retaliation for his essay on Sept. 11 titled “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens”, in which he wrote that the Americans working in the Twin Towers were “little Eichmanns,” an allusion to convicted Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. The fallout from his essay garnered wide publicity and cries of outrage across the nation.

Several student groups, including Aggies for Israel, have criticized SPJ’s decision to invite Churchill to campus.

“Aggies for Israel and the Davis community are appalled that Ward Churchill will be speaking at UC Davis,” said Yoni Sassoon, vice president of Aggies for Israel in an e-mail interview.

Sassoon, a sophomore economics major, said Churchill’s lecture title alone is offensive and incendiary.

“Zionism does not share a ‘common theme’ with Nazism and saying that it does is clearly false and openly inflammatory,” he said. “Ward Churchill and the extreme groups that are hosting him are dangerously using false comparisons between Jews and Nazis to defame Israel.”

“As students, we hope this speech does not [incite] hate on campus,” Sassoon said.

When asked about the title of the lecture, Ali said he was unaware of the specifics of what Churchill will discuss.

“I cannot speak for Ward Churchill, as I’m not his spokesman. But what I can tell you from the title is that he will be paralleling these ideas and providing the audience with the common, generally overlooked, similarities - and more importantly, consequences,” he said.

Khalida Fazel, president of the MSA, said the organization believes Churchill has a right to share his views.

“The MSA does not necessarily condemn or condone everything Churchill says, but we stand by his right to express his opinions on issues we feel are extremely relevant to the current domestic and international state of affairs,” said Fazel, a senior civil engineering major, in an e-mail interview.

“Granted, [Churchill] is indeed a controversial figure, but his perspective is one that has been suppressed in public and private discourse, and what better setting to engage with these issues than on a university campus,” Fazel said.

Allison Daley, chair of the Davis College Republicans, dismissed Churchill’s credibility.

“Ward Churchill coming to speak… is a disgrace and an embarrassment to UC Davis. Presumably groups on campus bring speakers who represent their beliefs and values. Radical groups bring radical speakers,” said Daley, a junior political science major.

“Ward Churchill has fabricated his education and his ethnicity, and has called for the eradication of the United States itself. Worst of all is his pathetic claim to fame - writing that the victims of 9/11 deserved to die and that the U.S. may need more 9/11s,” she said.

Ali said he believed Churchill’s opinions have been twisted by popular media.

“Ward Churchill’s views on the 9/11 attacks have been grossly misrepresented by the mass media,” Ali said.

Ali also cited Churchill’s human rights award from the University of Arkansas’ Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights for his essay on Sept. 11.

“The issue he raises is looking at why people might be motivated to engage in such attacks, and that’s something everyone should discuss. [Republican presidential candidate] Ron Paul proposed a similar [argument] in the discussion of etiology on a national platform, and no one other than Rudy Giuliani questioned him and/or asked him to apologize,” Ali said.

In 2006, the Investigative Committee of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct at the University of Colorado at Boulder concluded Churchill had committed falsification, fabrication, plagiarism and “failure to comply with established standards regarding author names on publications [and] serious deviation from accepted practices in reporting results from research”, according to a CU news report released on May 16, 2006.

Churchill responded to the findings on his official site.

“This ‘investigation’ has all along been a pretext to punish me for engaging constitutionally-protected speech and, more generally, to discredit the sorts of alternative historical perspective I represent,” Churchill said.

But CU has contended Churchill’s firing is unrelated to his opinions. According to a June 25, 2006 statement by University of Colorado Interim Vice Chancellor Vince DiStefano, “The content and rhetoric of Professor Churchill’s essay on 9/11 and other works that we examined were protected by the First Amendment.”

However, DiStefano agreed that Churchill had engaged in academic dishonesty and recommended his termination. The CU Regents fired Churchill in July 2007.

Hamilton College invited Churchill to speak in 2005, but rescinded his invitation after hundreds of letters of protest and safety concerns. UC Davis Assistant Vice Chancellor Griselda Castro said free speech laws allow Churchill to speak at UC Davis and campus security will be present at tonight’s event.

“The Office of Student Programs and Activities has worked closely with the sponsoring student organizations and the campus police department to ensure a safe environment consistent with the law and campus policy for free expression and dissent,” she said.

Castro emphasized that the university is not sponsoring Churchill’s visit and he does not represent its opinions.

“Freedom of expression applies to all members of our campus and society in general,” she said. “While the university does not encourage or discourage provocative speakers from coming to campus, we hope that when they do, it will give members of our campus community another opportunity to put the principles of community into practice by modeling civil and respectful discourse that is at the core of a free society.”

The California Aggie contacted Churchill through his wife, who said he was traveling and would not be available for an interview before press time.

“Aggies for Israel and the Davis community are appalled that Ward Churchill will be speaking at UC Davis,” said Yoni Sassoon, vice president of Aggies for Israel in an e-mail interview.

Sassoon, a sophomore economics major, said Churchill’s lecture title alone is offensive and incendiary.

“Zionism does not share a ‘common theme’ with Nazism and saying that it does is clearly false and openly inflammatory,” he said. “Ward Churchill and the extreme groups that are hosting him are dangerously using false comparisons between Jews and Nazis to defame Israel.”

“As students, we hope this speech does not [incite] hate on campus,” Sassoon said.

© Copyright 2007 The California Aggie

What is the basis for your opinion?

As I see it, you are full of beeswax. But, I await your explanation of how Israel is inherently different or worse than Germany, a country no one seems to want to eliminate.

But I do thank you for making clear where you’re coming from: you’re just another tiny cog in the Zionist Ideological State Apparatus, trying to justify the unjustifiable. Presenting assertion after unsupported assertion, all to waste other people’s time.

I do not think that countries have rights, only people do. If you mean to ask whether Jews have a right to a state, the short answer is “Yes,” to the same extent that any other group of people have a right to a state. I do not see how they are less entitled than any other group. Do you?

If you mean to ask whether Jews have the right to a state in its current location, I would also answer “Yes.” I do not see how the situation in Israel is any different than scores of other states where people have been displaced at the time a state was created. Pakistan’s separation from India comes to mind as a state which displaced more than 18 times the number of people that have been displaced in connection with Israel’s creation. And that does not include the million refugees who died in connection therewith.

Similarly, modern Poland came into existence with the displacement of more people than were displaced in connection with Israel’s creation. The same for the former Czechoslovakia. The same for Greece, by a wide margin. The same for Turkey, in which wholesale ethnic cleansing of Christians occurred, not to mention genocide. Etc., etc.

What makes Israel a special case is that Arabs refuse entirely to accept Israel’s creation. So, they have made a fight of it, something that Germany did not do when 2.5 million ethnic Germans were marched at gunpoint to the German border after WWII and told never to return - something they still cannot do. Such people, so that we are clear, were not part of the German army and were not settled in other countries during WWII. They were, instead, ethnic Germans who had lived in the homes they lost over the course of many centuries.

That the establishment and maintenance of a state by Jews, in Israel or anywhere else, has been a source of friction, I do not deny. However, contention and fighting does not cancel the right to a state any more than the horrors caused by Germans, French, Brits, Egyptians, Sudanese, Indians, Japanese, Pakistanis, Chinese, etc., etc. having states is a basis to deny a state to such peoples. Were that the case, only angels would have states, something that none of Israel’s accusers are, the last time I looked.

Along with the major continental scale profit-seeking incursions into non-Western societies you describe, (quite well IMO), there is one other which I think may well deserve inclusion in the same category: the attempted but only partially & temporarily successful conquest & colonization of China.

This is a story all about Opium Addiction and the profits from same, so substantial that Her Britannic Majesty saw fit to provide the services of the Royal Navy to the opium entrepreneurs, led by Jardine-Mathieson Company and the House of Sassoon, for the purpose of forcing the Ching government to allow the creation of mass addiction among its subjects.

I haven’t had time to really investigate Jardine-Mathiesen, but I have come across considerable information on the Sassoon family, who after a few decades of dope peddling acquired enough affluence to be accepted — in spite of Jewish and visibly non-white origins — in the top levels of European Society. Sir Victor Sassoon was an intimate of Edward VII; the two enjoyed a friendly rivalry as breeders of racehorses.
The Mumbai branch of the family resisted the call of the European capitals: they had a good thing where they were, dominating the business and banking activity in that city until 1948, when they “made Aliyeh” en masse to the nascent Jewish State.

These facts can be checked simply by typing “Sassoon” into Google. The family history is full of wondrous tales of adventure, miraculous escapes, rising from the ashes, crowned heads, great poets and other amazing phenomena. But what ever became of all the “returnees” from Bombay?

To: “Neal”, whoever you are:

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the proposition that “Israel” has a “right to exist”?

Thank you.
Dan Elliott
Sacramento

Clearly, you do not follow my point. I do not claim - and look back to be sure - that Muslims conquerors were mindless theocrats carrying a sword in one hand and the Koran in the other. I claimed no such thing. Nothing of the sort. In fact, the leaders in the early years of the faith were a rather shrewd and brilliant group, all things considered.

What I claimed is that, in conquering, Muslim armies have historically tended to adhere to classical theological notions, well established in accordance with the view of the existing legal schools which, in fact, did hold basically to the views I ascribed to them.

As for your comments about Avnery, writing a book does not make a person a scholar. I do not take him to be a scholar. I take him to be a politician with an ax to grind. And, since he writes well, he is able to find a publisher.

I also do not claim that a left winger or a right winger cannot be a good scholar. You missed my point. In fact, I take Marxist historian Maxine Rodinson to be among the greatest historian of Islam - most particularly about Mohammad. I also take alleged right winger - in fact, wrongly alleged - Bernard Lewis to be a great scholar of Islam. They hold diametrically opposed views about the world and neither is a centrist.

As for other scholars I would recommend. I take Arab scholar Zeine N. Zeine to be a great scholar of early Arab nationalism. I take the Islamicist Ignaz Goldhizer to be a great scholar of Islam - whose reading is widely acknowledged to be the greatest of any scholar of the subject of all time.

I also take David Cook to be a great scholar of Jihad in early Islam. I take Patricia Crone to be a great scholar of the early centuries of Islam. I take Vahakn Dadrian to be the greatest historian of what happened to the Armenians in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. I can drop a dozen other names of scholars I hold in high regard.

On the other hand, I do not take Esposito to be a great scholar. I note the book you cite and recall that it suggested that the Islamists were not dangerous to the US. History has not supported that view as Islamists have found ways to kill a lot of Americans.

I also do not recall claiming that Islam is intolerant compared to other religions. I claimed that Islamic doctrine was not compatible with the existence of non-permitted religions. That is clearly the case in the Indian subcontinent where Muslims treated non-Muslims as worthless garbage, killing entire nations off - 80 million people all told.

And I claimed that there was a cost to living under Islamic rule, namely, that there were restrictions that non-Muslims suffered under that rule. Among the costs I mentioned is the fact - and it is a fact - that non-Muslims could not testify against a Muslim in court. That meant that non-Muslims were at the whim of Muslims who, if so inclined, might rob a non-Muslim blind or kill a non-Muslim, in which case, justice was not necessarily available at all if the testimony of a non-Muslim were necessary.

And, I noted that Church bells were illegal. Such, I noted, was a point of contention which only changed in the 19th Century - and something which Muslims resisted.

Nowhere, however, do I claim that Europeans were wonderful rulers over non-Christians. And, I avoid making comparisons as, in fact, I think they are not readily made.

Lastly, why would I claim that Hitchens is a scholar of Islamic history? He is not. He does not even claim to be. He has written on a lot of topics. But, I would never cite to him about Islamic history any more than I would cite to Avnery on anything.

You inquire how the topic came up. My point was to answer your comment. Also, my general point was to counter the theory set forth in the article, which lays the worlds problems all at the feet of the West, which, to me, is a nonsense view.

A former prof used to love to goad students with his comment to the effect that the veneer of civilization is thin to non-existent. I would suggest that the term civilization has nothing to do with decent behavior, and that, in fact, to behave in a civilized manner is to behave in an anti-human manner.

But then, unlike all of you, I am no expert … you know … a has been drip under pressure? Ex Spurt?

G
rgaylor@pvtnetworks.net

“modern civilization did not spring fully formed into the world during the 16th century irrespective of influences from prior, more ancient civilizations. for you to suggest so, is idiocy.”

Firstly, where did I suggest so? I didn’t suggest anything of the sort. Certainly I didn’t say that the modern world system “sprang fully formed” in the 16th century. If the idea is to say that I “implied” that, well, I’m afraid I didn’t imply or suggest it. The modern world system, as I argued in the original article quite clearly, began to take form primarily on the basis of the “discoveries” of new continents in the 15th century, a process that accelerated and intensified over the next few hundred years as settlers, colonists, merchants, missionaries, and other agents increasingly spread outward from their European homelands. This was certainly a new phase in history. I don’t know a single historian of empire who doesn’t acknowledge this.

“to impose a demarcation line in history and deem factual events prior to that line irrelevant to prop up your essay’s implied supposition, (that as institution, slavery and oppression of whole peoples is to be lain solely at the feet of “modern western europeans”) is disingenuous at best.”

Secondly, it is a completely meaningless statement to insist without any kind of historical specifity that “modern civilization” emerged on the basis of “influences” from “prior, more ancient civilizations.” Which influences? Which civilizations? Are you talking about, for instance, the “influence” of Greek thought? And/or Roman political culture? Once again, while interesting and useful lines of inquiry, none of this vague beating-around-the-bush serves to explain how precisely the modern world system emerged, became a viable “system”, and expanded sufficiently so as to take-on a “world” scale. This process of modern western expansion was precisely through the systematization and globalization of genocidal violence.

What I don’t get, is why my reference to the systematization and globalization of genocidal violence since the 15th century, somehow proves your claim that I’m supposing that “slavery and oppression of whole peoples is to be lain solely at the feet of ‘modern western europeans’”. Again, a very odd interpretation of my argument. I do not suppose anywhere in the article that all slavery and oppression is only the fault of modernity. Rather I’m talking about a specific subject of history, the rise of modernity, the period after the “discoveries”, the roots of “our civilization”. Of course slavery and oppression existed before our civilization.

Why does talking about this modern period necessitate that I must “balance” the discussion by talking about “ancient” atrocities too? How does talking about “modern western european” violence since the 16th century automatically entail a negation or denial of all civilizational violence that ever happened prior to that on behalf of say, native peoples?

More to the point, which particular “factual events prior” to around the 15th century are essential for understanding the subject of the article, which is the rise of the modern world system and its associated practices of genocidal violence? In what way does talking about the Ottomon empire, or the fact that slavery previously existed in Africa, actually contribute to understanding how and why modern civilization came about?

The only possible polemical purpose I can think of is to trivialize the violence of the modern world system as if it is nothing more than the continuation of the same kind of barbarism that “human nature” has always been inclined to indulge in, throughout history. As I’ve argued, the scale and character of colonial genocidal violence during this period (and I repeat, amounting to thousands of millions of dead natives worldwide) bears witnesses to its being quantitatively and qualitatively distinctive to previous comparable historical episodes.

Sorry, by the way, if you feel I’m “piffling” down my nose at you. You musn’t take disagreement so personally.

1. The four schools categorically do not hold to the views you presented. In any case, the four schools do not represent the be-all and end-all of classical Muslim fiqh, legal opinion, neither historically nor now, and Muslim jurists from all ages have issued rulings both inside and outside the domains of those schools.

2. Your narrative, as I’ve noted, is not well-confirmed in “Islamic sources.” I’d like to see which Islamic sources, precisely, you believe confirms your narrative.

3. Try reading respected historical texts like:

Arnold, T W.(1913) The Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith. New York

Cobb, S (1963) Islamic Contributions to Civilization. Washington DC: Avalon

Menocal, M (2002) Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, Back Bay

Cohen, M R (1995) Under crescent and cross, Princeton University

In such texts, your narrative is not merely refuted. It is non-existent.

4. Uri Avnery is indeed a scholar. His first book, “Israel Without Zionists”, was published by Macmillan, a reputed US academic press. Whether he is left right or upside down really is not the issue. Does someone have to be a “centrist” to have credibility as a scholar?

5. Although you arbitrarily dismiss Avnery, you didn’t take objection to my reference to the late O’Leary, a respected scholar of the Middle East, who describes your narrative as an “absurd myth”. Perhaps he too belongs to some unpalatable political category, right-wing, left-wing, or whatever, that automatically renders his argument false?

6. Like most of your comments above, your essay on the Ottomon empire is replete with unsourced statements and vague allegations. Of course the Ottomon’s engaged in acts of repression, violence and discrimination. As you yourself have stated, which society doesn’t? My point , proved by some of the references I’ve mentioned, is that none of this was justified by Islam. Also, why are you now shifting the goal-posts? From first trying to insist “Islam advocated forced conversion or death”, you’ve now shifted to “Islam advocated er discrimination”, to “well, the Ottomon’s in particular implemented some discriminatory practices to do with printing presses and church bells, and… ”

You would sound more credible, perhaps, if you focused on realities, such as the Ottomon’s complicity in the Armenian genocide. But the insistence on the idea that Jews and Christians were “severely discriminated” by the Ottomon’s is a gross distortion.

John L. Esposito, a professor of Religion and International Politics at the Georgetown University, has dealt with some of these very conventional mythologies in his “The Islamic Threat: Myth of Reality” (Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 39):

“For many non-Muslim populations in Byzantine and Persian territories already subjugated to foreign rulers, Islamic rule meant an exchange of rulers, the new ones often more flexible and tolerant, rather than a loss of independence. Many of these populations now enjoyed greater local autonomy and often paid lower taxes… Religiously, Islam proved a more tolerant religion, providing greater religious freedom for Jews and indigenous Christians.”

Does this mean the Ottomon’s provided a paradise on earth for Jews and Christians? Of course not. Does it mean they did not face discrimination? Of course not. But by this point, I fail to understand what the relevance is here.

7. You seem to be trying to imply that the evils of the Ottomon’s, particularly towards its minorities, allows us in hindsight to conclude that its collapse was a “good”, overall; because the Europeans, however destructive, did bring certain benefits, such as erm, the ideas of freedom, Napoloenic intellectual currents, and improved educational systems in… erm “places like Egypt”. [a bemused note: What other places "like Egypt" are there in the world my friend? What does the phrase "like Egypt" even mean?] You’ve just turned history on its head. I would recommend reading Maria Rosa Menocal’s “The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain”, which traces the European Renaissance to trends in Muslim political as well as scientific thought and culture in Spain. Even Christopher Hitchens, in his review of the book in the Nation, concludes that it “is no exaggeration to say that what we presumptuously call ‘Western’ culture is owed in large measure to the Andalusian enlightenment….”

8. If you want a fair, reasonable and well-documented assessment of the actual impact of the Anglo-European imperial subversion of the Ottoman empire, check out Said K Aburish’s “A Brutal Friendship: The west and the Arab elite” (London: Indigo), which charts in grim detail how the British, French and Americans carved out more than 12 fictional nation-states in which archaic socio-economic structures that marginalized majority Arab populations (including Egypt!) were preserved and perpetuated.

2. “Finally, on the sale of African slaves by Africans themselves — once again, we need to be careful about what this is supposed to
imply. That Africans were responsible for their own oppression?

3. “This is not an article about general world history. It’s an article about the emergence of the modern world system, since around the 16th century until now.”

4.. “These are rather instructive, and revealing, comments. I’m not entirely surprised, however, at the knee-jerk defensiveness of these responses, which appear to be an attempt to trivialise and render irrelevant, or of little significance, the atrocities associated with the rise of the modern world system

knee jerk… hardly… :)
let’s get the facts straight shall we. or, what is the actual point of this exercise? to see your efforts in print, but then piffle down your nose at commentary when called on your progression and procession of illogic?

modern civilization did not spring fully formed into the world during the 16th century irrespective of influences from prior, more ancient civilizations. for you to suggest so, is idiocy.

to impose a demarcation line in history and deem factual events prior to that line irrelevant to prop up your essay’s implied supposition, (that as institution, slavery and oppression of whole peoples is to be lain solely at the feet of “modern western europeans”) is disingenuous at best.

it’s somewhat reminiscent of stateside myth taught as fact in US history books; all southerners were and are traitors in perpetuity, and in their moral turpitude solely invented and practiced black slavery in a vacuum. the north had no slaves, no plantations, no slave ships nor slave markets in their port cities, never profited from black slavery…so the story goes.

on the explicit subject of indigenous african and american populations, i imply nothing…. i’m stating fact. tribal warfare and the capture/exchange of slaves existed in both cultures, long before europeans arrived to capitalize on or foment it.

oppression/slavery as concept/practice have no doubt reached their historical zenith by Western Civilization’s empirical global hegemony… but are by no means exclusive to it.

and in closing,
if your readership (especially here on DV) by some slim chance at this late date, does NOT already question the validity of ANY empirical historian’s pomp and bullshit - as just such…….
ultimately, you labor in vain.

Uri Avnery is not a scholar. He is a politician. He is a former extreme right winger who now is an extreme left winger. But, scholar? of what?

As for the narrative I tell, it is well confirmed in Islamic sources. It is not refuted - at least not in a credible manner.

As for the view of the legal schools, all four of the major legal schools held to the view I presented.

I do wonder how you calculated with such enviable quantitative precision that “95+%” of Muslim theologians alive during the time of the expansion of Muslim rule advocated this.

I’ve already made clear that many historians argue that this is precisely what did NOT happen, not only in the case of Indian Hindus and Buddhists, but in the case Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians. I already mentioned the work of the Indian historian MN Roy, who completely refutes your narrative.

The “historical record” that you point to is very dated literature that it is simply no longer accepted by the vast majority of historians of the Islamic world. As the well-known Arabist De Lace O’ Leary noted in his “Islam at the Crossroads” (1923, p. 8): “History makes it clear, however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims, sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.”

Actually, the Israeli scholar-activist Uri Avnery recently refuted this myth of “Islam and sword” in response to the statements of the Pope. He writes: “How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to ’spread the faith by the sword?’ Well, they just did not…. The story about ’spreading the faith by the sword’ is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims.” http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1159094813/

On your second point, about the topic of the article, my take on modern history differs from yours.

I have not read Professor Ferguson’s books so I cannot comment on them. My own reading suggests something a bit different than his interpretation (at least based on what you present of it).

Which is to say: my view is that the West spread itself in order to dominant and exploit, not to spread freedom. However, regardless of what the West had in mind, the West did introduce some new ideas where they conquered or gained influence and had both a negative and a positive impact on such lands.

In that I have considerable knowledge of this that goes beyond the table top presentation by Ms. Armstrong - about which I can only say that I think her view is plain and simply a radical distortion that does not stand up to even a cursory investigation of fact -, I shall consider the case of the Muslim regions.

Under Ottoman law, the printing press was outlawed for Muslims. Such had been the case since the time that print technology became available. Interestingly, the technology was not outlawed for Christians or Jews so, not really so coincidentally, Jews and Christians tended to be better educated and to be more open to outside ideas than were Muslims. Such, moreover, tended to open Christians and Jews - although, since Jews were knowledgeable about European Christian prejudice, more Christians than Jews - to the idea of ending Muslim rule over Christians.

This situation continued for numerous centuries until the early 18th Century when, realizing that the Ottoman Empire required radical reform in order to survive the, by then, obviously more technically advanced Europeans - in considerable part more advanced due to the printing press and its ability to advance the progress of acquiring knowledge -, the Empire (at least in the Turkish regions and in Europe) toyed with the idea of allowing Muslims to have the printing press.

As with all changes, the idea was resisted as it had revolutionary implications - just as it had in Europe. As a result, it was not to the latter half of the 18th Century that the printing press really made its appearance in a more or less sustained way. In the case of the Arab regions, the printing press did not appear at all for Muslims until the 19th Century, something that placed the Arab regions even further behind the rest of the Ottoman Empire.

Now, as noted above, Christians and Jews did have access to the printing press from very early and so that by the 19th Century - with the ideas of the French revolution in the air -, the Christians of the empire revolted and, in the end, helped to undermine the Ottoman Empire from within, making the country all but ungovernable. The Europeans, of course, pushed the ideas of the French revolution in Ottoman Europe in order to weaken the Ottoman Empire, which was a shrewd calculation.

The ideas of the French revolution were those of democracy and freedom and, in the end, the Christians of Ottoman Europe freed themselves under the banner of the notion of freedom that came out of the French Revolution. That was a good thing, at least in my view. On the other hand, European Christians ethnically cleansed whole regions of Europe of its Muslims who, to the Christian population, were hated overlords.

In Egypt, the conquest of Napoleon brought with it the noted new intellectual notions that were really very alien to the intellectual currents that had ever existed in Arab lands. These ideas (e.g. the European idea of freedom) were absorbed by the intellectual classes and became part of Arab Muslim thinking. So, again: Europeans came to conquer but they did more than conquer.

And, to note, lastly: Europeans improved the educational system of places like Egypt dramatically.

So, this is not a simple question, by which we can say that European dominance was wholly bad. What can be said is that it likely was not all well intended but that there were, as the sociologists like to say, latent consequences.

One needs also to look at what was going on without European meddling. The reality was a stagnant region dominated by outdated, theocratic ideas which kept out the scientific way of thinking and kept the population ignorant, primarily in order to maintain the dominance of a ruling class. The empire ruled over Christians and did not treat them all that well, no matter what Ms. Armstrong claims.

For example, the playing of bells from Churches was not tolerated even in the early 19th Century when, under pressure from Europe, the Empire relented. So, Ms. Armstrong can say that Christians and Jews could practice their faiths. She cannot say that there were no restrictions, as, in fact, there were severe restrictions which carried substantial legal penalties.

And, there were severe societal restrictions. These began to fade only with the Tanzimet reforms of the 19th Century by which, for the first time, non-Muslims gained, among other reforms, at least theoretical access to legal protection by gaining the right to testify against a Muslim in Court. Before that time, a non-Muslim had no legal recourse when attacked or otherwise wronged by a Muslim unless there was a Muslim willing to give testimony. And, as with all societal changes anywhere in the world, there was substantial opposition from those who benefited from the old order, namely, Muslims. As a result, the reforms were put in place but not enforced. And, this created even more friction between the religious groups of the Empire, thus driving a further wedge and, in time, tending to tear the Empire apart.

As I see it, the demise of the Ottoman Empire was more good than bad. That is because the Empire and a stagnant, theocratic order following rules that were outdated. It was not going to reform itself as it was, in its way, stable. Muslims lived as if the world had not changed since the 13th Century. Christians and Jews were severely discriminated against. And, all served the needs of the ruling clique who lived a life of luxury.

Note that my point is about how Muslims, in connection with their invasion of the Indian subcontinent, interpreted Islam, not about how modern liberals of non-Muslim background interpret Islam. Again: those who invaded the Indian subcontinent - perhaps misunderstanding their own faith - concluded that the inhabitants being of non-permitted faiths, had the choice to convert or be put to the sword. About that, there is no doubt.

Also, in lands ruled by Christians and Zoroastrians and other permitted religions, Muslims - again, perhaps misunderstanding their own faith - would offer three possibilities, namely, to enter into a pact of concession (i.e. a dhimma), to convert or to be put to the sword.

And, again: the vast majority (e.g. 95+%) of Muslim theologians during the period when Islamic rule was expanding by military means took the position that is consistent with the approach that was, as a matter of historical record, taken. And, that position is the one denoted above. It is, not all that coincidentally, any different from what appears in the Shari’a.

You also note that Islam is not a monolith. I do not recall claiming that it is. However, Islam does have certain features that distinguish it from, for example, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity and Shintoism.

It is a mistake to claim that Islam is a formless religion with no doctrines commonly held. That, in my view, is what you are doing. It is a way of deflecting criticism of what Muslims did over the ages.

In any event, the above noted doctrine was, in fact, rather universally held by all of the major schools of Islam. So, whether or not Islam is a monolith or not, the dominant thinking on the subject, as matters played out historically, is consistent with what I have written.

Again: so that I am being clear. My reading of the Islamic texts places it among the more interesting of religions. And, like all religions, there is good and bad to be found. In the case of Islam, the bad and the good are something for non-Muslims and, frankly, Muslims to consider, not something to hide behind the distraction that Islam is not a monolith.