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> Despite how bad a few modern Islamist societies may be, it is very wrong to write sentences like "Islam started as an imperialist death cult", like they would
by boxed 2y ago
> Despite how bad a few modern Islamist societies may be, it is very wrong to write sentences like "Islam started as an imperialist death cult", like they would be true and universally applicable.
I said "started" didn't I? I think the historical record is very clear. I meant during the time of the founder.
- defrost 2y agoThe greatest conquest during the time of the founder ... In December 629, after eight years of intermittent fighting with Meccan tribes, Muhammad gathered an army of 10,000 Muslim converts and marched on the city of Mecca. The conquest went largely uncontested, and Muhammad seized the city with minimal casualties. ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Mecca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Mecca hardly sounds like the work of an "an imperialist death cult"
- adrian_b 2y agoThe founder may have had an "imperialist" mindset, where he dreamed to succeed to convert everybody to follow his rules, but in this respect there was no difference between him and any European king or noble, or the Pope, or the Patriarch of Jerusalem, or any Chinese emperor or any successful ruler from any part of the world, at that time. So you cannot single out Islam as a special religion from this point of view. At most it can be said that all monotheistic religions are structured to support imperialism, because they replace the previous multitude of gods, all of which had their specific jobs, at which they could not be supplanted by others, by a single all-powerful God who knows everything and who can do anything, and this structure of the celestial realm is supposed to be mirrored on Earth, where there must also be a single all-powerful ruler, whom everybody must obey without questioning.