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To: I_Publius

The Muslims of today are much different than they were a couple thousand years ago, or even earlier. Abraham was promised by the Lord that Ishmael would begat a great nation. It’s a shame what it has become.


46 posted on 12/26/2010 6:59:13 PM PST by Ripliancum ("For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given" Merry Christmas!)
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To: Ripliancum; Elsie
The Muslims of today are much different than they were a couple thousand years ago, or even earlier.

First of all, Muhammad was born in the late 6th century and didn't get things cranked up with Islam until the 7th century. Muslims have been around only for a little over 1300 years.

Abraham was promised by the Lord that Ishmael would begat a great nation. It’s a shame what it has become.

The Arabs are not descendants of Abraham. This notion got its start by Muhammad trying to expropriate the religious mojo of the two high tech civilizations (and the builders of the first permanent cities) of the Arabian Peninsula, the Christian and Jewish kingdoms that had gotten their start on the Arabian Peninsula at least as long ago as the first century AD, almost 600 years before little Mo was born. Islam's relationship to Ishmael is almost exactly the same relationship as the Mormon Church to the so-called 10 lost tribes of Israel. Both are convenient fictions designed to place the originator's ancestors far enough back in the Biblical flow to try to gain some sort of legitimacy as the new people God has chosen to convey his truth to the world after a crooked religious establishment had turned aside to follow its own ways and hide the truth (think of the other groups in Christendom that did the same thing).
52 posted on 12/26/2010 7:25:44 PM PST by aruanan
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To: Ripliancum; I_Publius
The Muslims of today are much different than they were a couple thousand years ago, or even earlier. Abraham was promised by the Lord that Ishmael would begat a great nation. It’s a shame what it has become.

I'm sorry, but your statements are not completely correct:

1. "Ishmael would begat a great nation" -- Ishmael was the ancestor of the Najd Arabs, maybe even of the Bedouins, but that's less likely as I consider the Bedos to be related to Midianites and descended from Abraham via Keturah.
Modern day Muslims -- 80% of these are NOT "Arabs" -- they are Pakistanis/Bangladeshis (Indic peoples), Indonesians/Malaysians (Malay peoples), Iranis, Azerbaijanis, Afghanis (Pathans), Tajiks, Uzbeks etc. (Irani peoples) and African peoples.
I put the term Arab in "" because what we call Arabs now are really not Arabs by blood -- most North Africans from Morocco to Libya are Berbers by blood, "pretending" to be Arabs. Ditto for Egyptians (Coptics), Syrians (Arameans), Iraqis (well, ok, most, but there are some who are pure-blood Arabs, the rest are older populations). Even Yemenis and Omanis are not descended from Ishmael but are different branches of Semites.

2. a 1000 years ago (1000 AD), Islam was still expansionist, it had conquered all of North Africa and the Fatimid Caliph of that time, Muawiyah had destroyed the Church of the Nativity and was persecuting Christian pilgrims and forcing conversions of Christians in Egypt and North Africa (this is what triggered the 1st crusade, a defensive move 300 years after Muslims had conquered Spain, Sicily, southern Italy, Christian North Africa, Syria etc.)
93 posted on 12/27/2010 1:32:45 AM PST by Cronos (Kto jestem? Nie wiem! Ale moj Bog wie!)
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