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You are right. And in addition to being a totalitarian political ideology masquerading as a religion, in addition to being anti-American because it opposes a republican form of government and equal rights for all citizens regardless of sex as guaranteed by our Constitution, Islam is a CHRISTIAN HERESY.

It is a classic pagan adaptation of the precepts and theology of Christianity dumbed down to appeal to the ignorant desert people living on the fringe of the Christian world. Mohamed used the resentments and hatreds of these barbarian peoples to unify them and create a formidible military force that advanced this "religion" by the sword. Similar to the advance of communism in our own day.

The legal theories encompassed in Islam are mediated through Sharia Law ~ and every educate and rational Moslem scholar recognizes that these are the legal theories of the Ancient pre-Christian Eastern Roman Empire.

The theology is now known to arise out of a Christian missionary manual prepared in Damascus for the purpose of Christianizing the Arabs at Mecca. The written form of Arabic is certainly a derivative of Aramaic, widely spoken in the region right up to Mohammad's time.

The concept of the mosque, as a men's social center, is hardly new ~ but I suspect it was doable in Arabia no more recently than Mohammad's day ~ due to the almost total poverty of everybody in the region.

Many of the customs and ceremonies, e.g. invisible washing, 5 time a day prayers, and so on are certainly Arabian Peninsula inventions. The Kaaba was already on the scene.

The most advanced Christian scholarly thinking on the matter is that Mohammad was, at most, a local reformer of the then pagan religion and practices of the Arabs in Mecca and Medina. He sought "assistance" from outside sources ~ probably Coptic and Gnostic ~ and got it. Once he'd achieved a degree of success by beating the Meccans in battle, he sought to portray his local reforms as also necessary to Judaism.

There were actually many "tribes" and areas accessible on the trade routes passing through Mecca where the predominant religion was actually Judaism. The old Noble Arab families will tell you all about it ~ their families were, in fact, Jews. Then they converted.

By the time Islam got to Afghanistan even it's most brutal beliefs and practices were probably rather adavanced in the eyes of the people living there. Even today it would not be possible for your typical Taliban to imagine how Moslems in Cairo live and work.