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the-printer | 2 years ago
After some thought, it's obvious that it's beyond the scope of this book to address the history of the Islamic conquest to the extent that you desire (I failed in my part to recognize this earlier). I can understand how it can be interpreted that the book is advertised in a way that compels some of its Western readership to assume an implicit guilt or adversarial role as "Islamophobes" who denigrate the influence that the Islamic world had on its land. I myself was skeptic of this tone at first, but as a whole it simply isn't the responsibility of this particular book to cater to readers who want the history of the Islamic conquests from the perspective of the West (as the colonized) to be brought forth aside from the architectural influences that the conquests had. War and colonization involve more than just the bloodshed of the belligerents. For us to even focus on the just the event of conquest at the expense of what occurred afterward does a historical and cultural injustice. The Islamic conquests are in fact unique in this regard, as opposed to say, the Belgian Congo.
The irony here is that I can make the same accusation of "self-flagellation" to those who are desperate to be recognized as "the colonized" (in this instance by a cultural "other", in a sense) as I can make against people who woefully lament their history as "the colonizers". The former accusation feels even more apt because if so much lengths have to be taken to recall this history, maybe that's indicative of the significant steps that the region (as a collective) has made in progressing past that stage of their legacy. Of course I feel that there are some exemptions.
But on the whole, as I've said elsewhere, the Western world (as a hegemonic region that claims the most prosperous nations materially) in a way has lost the "narrative privilege" of the periods where they didn't have the upper hand being popularly discussed.Of course there are exceptions to this, but the Islamic conquests primarily have the distinction of being carried out by nations who if not foreigners themselves were driven by motives—the Islamic faith—entirely foreign to the invaded lands. It's not that there's anything to erase or twist, my hunch is that aside from specific historical discussions like this one, it's not worth mentioning.
mistrial9|2 years ago
from a scripture point of view, they are both Abrahamic religions, use a book as the center of wisdom, buildings to house worship.. but let's set that huge likeness aside.
India, the Middle-East and Europe, all expanded at a certain time via tribal groups maturing into land-owning, army building principalities. The City-state and the male-heirarchy of arms, taxes and authority. The book contains the "King of Kings" .. this seems trivial to observe but it is not. Original tribal groups had vastly different social structures, religious beliefs, literacy rates but ultimately did not scale.
I propose that the Muslim expansion into Christian lands was polarized but similar military methods on both sides, all with the knowledge of Rome in the background. Contrary to what each saw when looking in the mirror each morning, they had a lot of similarities. Compare to trading, agricultural or other practices, who saw these Empire builders as the blood-thirsty ego cases that they were. Compare to the military conquest of South America by Christians much later.
Invoke "otherness" all you like, but there are layers to that, and more layers under that. Evolution ends quickly by the sword, and those empire builders, of all stripes, ended a lot of human social evolution exactly that way.
the-printer|2 years ago
If we were to refer to scripture we would find that the concept of an "Abrahamic religion" is non-existent, and the presence of scripture itself as a primary fundamental source and houses of worship do little by way of comparing any religion.
The rest of the similarities that you list are useful, but it's unlikely that the valuable context that can be gleaned from any sociopolitical similitudes in retrospect were prioritized when the events in question were taking place. The glaring theological differences between Islam and Christianity were the defining factor as to why the Muslim conquests began at all. We can view sociopolitical similarities as non-trivial, but in respect to the initial impetus (the spread of the Islam), they become trivial. This isn't to discount any likenesses that can be found across certain structures within these regions or how these structures were affected as regions spread and interacted with each other, but the significance varies and how each region interpreted these similarities at that time likely varied as well. In the context of the Islamic conquests as a whole, the belief itself is paramount in beginning any discussions about them.
The point that I'm trying to make is that on the whole, i.e. beginning from as early as 629, how the Islamic conquests can be perceived is exceptional compared to other conflicts that took place involving Western European nations, in particular the conflicts that took place between Western European nations themselves. This exception could be compared to that of how the Islamic conquests of European territories could be perceived from the perspective of the Islamic states as opposed to the early conflicts that took place in Syria/Yemen, for example.
"Likeness" is equally nuanced, is often forsaken for opposing motives and is worthless unless it is predicated by shared principles, especially at the scale that we are discussing.
the_lego|2 years ago
You misunderstand me. If the author simply did not address it at all, and left it as "Saracen influence/legacy", or "influence of Saracen wars/conquest/invasion/conflict/presence..", I would have been content (even with something as neutral as 'presence'). It is perfectly reasonable to focus on architecture, and mostly or even entirely ignore wars.
It is in ascribing guilt to the victims ("stealing", "debt", "Islamophobia"), that changed it from mere focus on a narrow topic, to lying by omission.
the-printer|2 years ago