Islam’s Impact on the West’s Identity

pjmedia.com ^ | 4/25/2018 | Raymond Ibrahim

[rktman]

What role, if any, did Islam play in shaping Europe’s identity, both in the past and present?

Ahmed Akbar, chair of Islamic Studies at American University and author of the new book Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity, claims that Islam had a largely positive impact on Europe’s identity (including by invoking the Myth of the Andalusian Paradise). Thus, any European suspicion or rejection of Muslim migrants is wholly unwarranted. As Akbar elaborates in a recent article:

Note that for Akbar, Europe’s “predator identity” is only “triggered due to perceived threats” — as if Islam never posed any real threat.

As is often the case whenever the sophists apologize for Islam and blame Europe, reality is the exact opposite. Both past and present, Islam’s own well documented “predator identity” — which manifested itself in centuries of jihad and atrocities — was and is responsible for the “militaristic lengths that [non-Muslim] people will resort to in order to protect their identity.”

[rktman]

Well duh. Silly us. A little compassion, some jobs, it'll be awesome. How could we have gotten it so wrong? /S

[Gay State Conservative]

Rotherham

[Shark24]

“Ahmed Akbar, chair of Islamic Studies at American University and author of the new book Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity, claims that Islam had a largely positive impact on Europe’s identity (including by invoking the Myth of the Andalusian Paradise). Thus, any European suspicion or rejection of Muslim migrants is wholly unwarranted”

No, no, no and no. Totally disagree with Ahmed’s claim. And finally....no!

If you need follow up, see my additional posts but they will say: No!

[SandRat]

YOU SONS (REF: GEN 4:1 THRU 4:26) OF CAIN!!!

[Will88]

Ibrahim has written his book with a foreword by Victor Davis Hanson: Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West

I'll be purchasing that one, but it won't be available until August 28 of this year.

Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West

[Sasparilla]

The civilized world was saved from a coming scourge of Islam at Thermopylae
when the Spartans held off Xerxes, and again at the Gates of Vienna in 1683.
It continues to try to metastesize.
Quite a history of failed world conquest continues.

[Verginius Rufus]

The Spartans at Thermopylae were all killed and Xerxes got through. The Persians were defeated later at Salamis and Plataea.

The siege of Vienna in 1683 was the second Turkish attempt--they had tried earlier in 1529.

[Sasparilla]

... Spartans at Thermopylae were all killed and Xerxes got through...

And the delay the Spartans gave the city states time to militarily unite and eventually send Xerxes packing.

[Verginius Rufus]

I don't if three days made that much difference.

The Spartans and most of the Greeks wanted to make their stand at the Isthmus of Corinth and to fight the Persian fleet in the waters nearby. That would have been a disaster (for reasons well explained by Herodotus). It was only because Themistocles tricked Xerxes into attacking at Salamis that the critical naval battle took place there, which the Greeks won. They most likely would have lost a naval battle near the Isthmus.

[YogicCowboy]

Islam caused the Dark Ages.

[Cronos]

The civilized world was saved from a coming scourge of Islam at Thermopylae when the Spartans held off Xerxes

What are you talking about?

1. Xerxes and the Achaemenids were not Muslims -- itslam was over 1000 years in the future.
2. there were many Greeks who fought on the same side INCLUDING Alexander the Great's ancestor king
   
   
3. The Achaemenid world was as civilized if not more civilized than the Greeks
   
   
4. There is no evidence that a Persian victory who have changed history in any way
   
   
5. Xerxes still got through
   
   
6. arguably IF the Achaemenid's successors after the Parthians, the Sassanids, hadn't focused so much energies on fighting Rome, then they would have easily swatted down the Mohammadens in the 7th century
   
   
7. The scourge of Islam still destroyed and conquered one-half of Christianity in the 7th century when they conquered the Coptic, Syriac and Assyrian Churches -- The Assyrian Church stretched across Iran, into India and Mongolia and claimed 1/3rd of all Christians. The Coptic and Syriac Christians were also numerous
   
   
8. Islam also conquered the civilization of India and devastated its western portion
   
   
9. Islam also pushed into Hispania - the victory of the Reconquista is as great as the victory at Vienna or the Battle of Lepanto
   
   
10. Islam has conquered 4 of the 5 early Churches of Christendom - Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople -- do NOT call them failed until we have destroyed them totally.

[Cronos]

Yes, but one needs to also note the nuances in that -- the Dark Ages in Europe were caused by being cut off from the East due to Izlamik conquests

Islam also had a chance - when the Mutawazils stated that logic had a higher place than the Quran - this led to Al-Biruni, Omay Kayyyam, etc. in Central Asia who rejected religion and were the predecessors of grand scientists. But then the entire Sunna school fell under the thought of fatalism that everything, everything is the will of Allah alone - and he follows no logic. That destroyed any chances of science and they declined. The Mongols dealt a death blow and Timur-e-Lang put the last nail in the coffin

[Sasparilla]

If the Persians had won the war and conquered Athens, Athenian democracy would have died in its infancy, a failed experiment after a mere 15 or so years could not have come into being. Greece would fall under Persian rule. Persia fell to Islam centuries later as Muslim Iran.

A Persian victory would have led to a fundamentally different modern Western culture. A Muslim one.

[rktman]

Well, there was that. Mrs. rktman, my sister and Mom went on a trip to southere Spain years ago and someone mentioned the moorish architecture. My sister kept asking “Who are the Moors.” She wasn’t aware of the inroads they and other moose limbs had made into parts of europe way back then. Probably having ‘more’ success today than they did then. Welcomed with open arms now.