[Lent]

Interesting indeed. I think a couple of books worth reading.

[Capt. Tom]

I don't know how you could make a case Muhammad did not exist when there are at least 6 different Hadiths where the different authors interviewed people who knew Muhammad, were his warriors , were married to him, and were his friends who related what Muhammad said and did about implementing Islam.

Seems to me Muhammad is a well documented historical figure. -Tom

[mvonfr]

Very interesting and highly plausible.

A more general rule can be noticed: barbarians do not create new states but are quite capable on taking over old states and changing them to serve their interests.

cf. the fall of the Roman Empire with Germanic generals initially running Roman provinces the Roman way, or the Norman conquests of parts of Europe later.

[factoryrat]

And here we are, fourteen centuries later, still dealing with the results regardless of their origins.

We’re still dealing with a seventh century battle plan masquerading as a religion, and have followers of nineteenth century communist ideology latching onto it, and wielding it like a club over all of mankind.

Islam and communism is a match made in hell, solely to recreate hell on earth.

[onedoug]

I’m a lot less interested in the beginnings of this muslim crap than I am about how it ends.

[BeauBo]

Interesting theory.

Historical events around that time could have supported this, included the discovery of gold in Arabia (near Medina - possibly the earlier site of King Solomon’s mines), which increased the relative wealth and power of Arab tribes within the Empire, and the plague of justinian (541-542) which devastated Persian (and Byzantine) cities, weakening older elites.

[odds]

I don’t understand why the author is surprised that the Sassanid had Arab Generals and Arab soldiers in their military. The Sassanid Empire ruled today’s Iraq, hence Arabs there. Yes, those Arabs were the very first to convert to Islam and there was betrayal - the Sassanid were primarily brought down from within.

Also, the population of Iran post initial Arab-Islam remained largely SUNNI for a 1000 yrs. There were Shia sects during that time but they were mostly Arabs.

It wasn’t until the Safavid dynasty (a Turkic speaking dynasty ruling Iran) starting in 14th century that Iranians were brutally forced to convert to Shi’ism by the Safavid, and had to say “Ali is Vali”, meaning “Ali is the guardian”. Shi’sm then became the official state religion in Iran, presumably to give Iran a distinct identity vis a vis others in the Islamic world. But it’s important to know that Shi’ism in Iran is relatively new.