Posted on 10/20/2003 10:44:21 AM PDT by quidnunc
Islam is dying. In its death throes, it has turned not just on its perceived enemies, the modern world, but upon itself, killing with seeming indifference both Muslim and non-Muslim as it thrashes about, filling each day with new corpses, the last of which will be its own.
It took hundreds of years for the Roman Empire to be built and to come to an end. During that long period in the early history of Western civilization, the populations under its control throughout the Mediterranean and up into England were largely permitted to worship any of the many gods in local areas, although they were expected to also honor the state gods of Rome.
By 312 AD, the emperor Constantine began his ascendancy, attributing it to the God of the Christians and, in 325 AD, he called the Council of Nicaea, the first council of bishops to formalize a Christian creed. After that, Christianity, one of many faiths in the vast empire began its path toward becoming, not just the religion of the empire, but one that now numbers more than two billion people worldwide.
In 610 AD, Mohammed began to create Islam to gain control over the desert tribes of Arabia. He built his religion on the wealth acquired through raids on caravans and attacks on cities such as Medina and Mecca. Islams text, the Koran, was said to supercede both the Old and New Testaments, disputing the laws of Judaism and the divinity of Jesus.
Following Mohammeds death in 632 AD, the religion, a warrior cult built around adoration of Mohammed, quickly spread throughout North Africa and into Spain. Today, Islam is estimated to have more than 1.2 billion adherents around the world, although most are largely located in the Middle East and Africa. There are some 31 million in Europe, more than 845 million throughout Asia, and 323 million in Africa. A little over a million are in South America and approximately 2.9 million in North America. It remains a distinctly "Arab" religion.
Islam has literally been at war with all other religions since its inception. It looks at the world as being divided between Islam and the world of the infidel, the unbeliever. The central prayer of Islam, the Kalima, spoken daily, states "There is no God by Allah and Mohammed is His Prophet." A militant religion. Mohammed said, "The sword is the key to Heaven and Hell." By contrast, six hundred years earlier, Jesus said, "He who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword."
A Muslims first allegiance is to Islam. Ones nationality and other allegiances are secondary. In the latter half of the last century, Middle Eastern Arabs strove to establish a national identity and it proved a failure from its inception. In late October, 35 heads of state will gather for a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in an effort to achieve a unified voice for Islam and to try to offset perceptions that Islam is linked to the violence being perpetrated worldwide. Observers, however, note that the OIC is unified only in its support for the Palestinian attacks on Israel.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at torontofreepress.com ...
Most Westerners are unaware that Islam is unable to adapt, to change, and to evolve. These attributes have been the hallmarks of the worlds oldest monotheistic religion, Judaism, and of Christianity which experienced its own Reformation. Instead, Islam is locked into the dictates of the Koran and of the Hadith, a collection of observations based on the life of Mohammed whose rules dictate the most minute aspects of a Muslims life. The death of Islam was written into its birth.
Modern Islam (a contradiction in terms?) is in thrall to malign Muslim fanatics whose idea of utopia is drag the world down into a dystopian medieval hell where a latter-day Caliph will rule over a global theocracy in which every last man, woman and child on earth will be subject to the barbarities of Islamic Sharia law
Can't happen soon enough for me.
Just wait until Middle East countries actually start hearing the word of Jesus. There will be mass conversions no matter what the state law is and the islamic fundamentalists in power know this.
Mission impossible. - tom
I kinda like it THIS way!
BTW: love that word, dystopia.
You're always beating around the bush and trying to sugarcoat your feelings....
Just tell it like it is.... (/sarcasm off)
VERRRRYYYYY well said... thanks
Regards
Kucinich ought to look at Islam while he is looking at native reparations. Islam owes a lot of reparations to everyone they have ever overrun. India, Africa, Byzantium, Iran, etc, on and on.
Complacent foolishness. Islam is growing rapidly in Africa. Asia, and Europe. And it is becoming more fundamentalist, not more moderate.
Islam has been a serious threat to the West for 1300 years, and I think will be for the next 500, at least.
The political creed of Islamism is another story, but the author seems to be making claims about Islam itself. If anyone has non-anecdotal evidence that the faith itself is dying or that people are leaving Islam itself in large numbers I would be interested to see it.
Don't get me wrong, I oppose them. But I want to make rational assertions and reach logical conclusions that will realize the demise of the religion that wants to kill me.
Reduced to violence? Can you show me where in history they have not used the swordpoint and instead even tried "convincing".
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