The Impending Collapse of Arab Civilization

U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings ^ | September, 2005 | Lieutenant Colonel James G. Lacey, U.S. Army Reserve

[GOPJ]

Hopefully with the collapse of the Iranian dictatorship there will be a revival of Persian civilization.

The Persian culture produced greatness -- why they took on the Arab stuff is beyond me...

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

You have to be civilized to be considered a "civilization".

[Valin]

Britain, which was a peaceful and ordered civilization.


Your kidding right? The Saxons peaceful, the Celts ordered?.....riiiight.

[razorback-bert]

And the sad fact is that islam cannot be reformed. The koran clearly and explicitly commands the islamic to fight against the unbeliever where ever they are.

Therein lies the problem, what cleric is going to go against the word of Mohammad.

[bboop]

Yes, they had monasteries and peaceful farm settlements.

[Cronos]

the Arabs took Byzantium,

the Seljuk Turks took Byzantium

[Cronos]

Were these indigenous peoples to retrieve their former legacies and beliefs, they'd be better off.

That seems to be happening in Iran where many are looking back at the glories of ancient Persia when they were Zoroastrians and realising thatIslamm was spread by conquerors who were of a lower civilisational standard than Persia (and arguably they still are lower than what the Persian civilisation was at in the 600s)

[Cronos]

Arabsunder Mad Mo were also lucky -- the Byzantine and Persian Empires had been fighting for centuries and they had just managed to finish this fight when the exhausted Empires were attacked by Mo. The peoples under these empires initially welcomed Mo and co as the Empires had had to tax them to the hilt to fight the wars (internal as well as external), but they didn't realise they were choosing the greater of the two devils.

[Cronos]

Japan sits on a rock that contains not one drop of oil, not one speck of gold, or for that matter not one of any mineral or substance of value. Nothing, nada, zip. And yet, Japan is an economic powerhouse

very good point.

[Clemenza]

It's not really clear whether the Muslims have ever had a real civilization, or have merely conquered various other civilizations and built on them until they were destroyed by the essential barbarity of Islam.

Case in point: Iran.

[Cronos]

Then when theArab house collapses, so too does the slammic

[BIGLOOK]

Glad to meet you, Cronos.
It's hard to believe that trade caravans of nomadic Arabs could change ancient civilizations and convert them to Islam. However, they did have two powerful tools; a written language and arithmetic. Gifts (i.e. das Gift in the Germanic) proffered to the poor.

[Cronos]

It's hard to believe that trade caravans of nomadic Arabs could change ancient civilizations and convert them to Islam. However, they did have two powerful tools; a written language and arithmetic. Gifts (i.e. das Gift in the Germanic) proffered to the poor.

Hi Biglook. I'm sorry if this seems condescending and I may be way wrong (and apologise if I am), but please could you tell me if you've read about the conquest of the Middle East byIslam?

What happened was that Mohammed was born in Mecca (or Makkah), then married an elderly widow, got his 'revelations' and started taking pieces of tradition from Jewish, Pagan and Arian & Monophysite (Ethiopian-Yemeni) Christian teachings and formed his own teachings. During this time the Jews supported him as it seemed that he was mostly preaching Talmudic teachings (and during this period you find the peaceful parts of the Koran)

He preached this to the Meccans who tossed him out. He went to Medina (a neighbouring, rival trading city) and found a group of followers who liked his ideas that one could become brigands under the sanction of the moon-deityAllah. The AncientArabs were barbaric but they had rules: such as that one should not rob caravans during a Holy month and that women and children are to be untouched during a fight. however, Mo gave divine sanction to ignore these. Mo's brigands then attacked and conquered Mecca.

And now we answer your point about "trade caravans of nomadic Arabs could change ancient civilizations and convert them to Islam" -- that didn't happen. Mo and his followers conquered the outposts of the Eastern Roman Empire -- Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Mesopotamia, North Africa etc. by force of arms, by the sword. He managed this because the Byzantines had just exhausted themselves defeating the Parthian empire (in Persia) and had over-taxed their people so much that the Mooslimes seemed like saviors.

Ditto with how they conquered Persia.

[Cronos]

However, they did have two powerful tools; a written language and arithmetic

They didn't even have that -- Arabic is derived from Syriac and Aramaic -- They got their script from the Phoenicians as shown below


And they got the language from Syriac as below:



As for Arithmetic they just copied it from the Indians --> remember that what we call Arab numerals and the decimal system are in reality Indian inventions -- created by Indian mathematicians like ARyabhatta etc. who lived before Christ.

[Squantos]

Lots of good sheet ya posted there Cronos......thank's for the info !

[Caesar Soze]

Since the necromancer has already worked his magic on this thread, I'll add this: the LTC seems to be misreading Clash when he imagines the Arab world uniting to make war on another civilization, or Africa acting in some unified fashion. Huntington didn't say that civilizations will be the new actors in international affairs and war; just that conflict will occur along civilizational fault lines. Case in point: the Western European Civ and the ME/North African Civ are currently in conflict in France. No one is imagining that this is some major war with the Grand Army of Europe fighting off the Ummah Expeditionary Force; it's just a conflict appearing at the fault line that rips right through France.

[nopardons]

bttt

Great link!

[BIGLOOK]

Not taking any offense at all. I've read Moussanni and Hilaire Belloc, most of Bernard Lewis' works and many others.
Medina had a large Jewish population and many Christians. Mo sought refuge there, fleeing Mecca (Hajira, correct me if wrong). Most of his writings were plagiarized from the Talmud, corrupted by early Christian heresy, mutable and malleable by whim.
You're correct that Mo's first followers were brigands and outcasts. His first targets were caravans from Mecca to Medina (or points north). Mo's lucky defeat of angry Meccans allowed him to return to Mecca and establish himself and his bizarre religion. Mecca was much more cosmopolitan but easily subdued through fiat (Fatwah). He was a vengeful, murderous bastard.
We'll go on but now I'm off to bed.
I'll attempt to justify my remarks based on an approach to history instilled in me by my high school teacher. He taught all the the basics of political/governmental historical actions but also directed his students to research the common folks, how they lived and what affected their lives and thought.

[Cronos]

mutable and malleable by whim

Quite correct -- it's astonishing how he distorts his own teachings when he felt like it -- for instance, when he took his daughter-in-law to be his wife, saying it was the will ofAllah.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

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