RE: Early Christianity in Asia and Africa
May 1, 2016 at 8:10 pm
(This post was last modified: May 1, 2016 at 8:19 pm by Regina.)
I don't believe the "convert or die" stories because it's obvious that didn't happen. There have been indigenous Middle Eastern Christians all throughout history since the spread of Islam, The Copts still number in the millions. Considering Islam has been the majority religion for centuries, they could have wiped these groups out centuries ago if they wanted to. With that said, I don't take the lack of "convert or die" to suddenly mean peaceful and benign. It wasn't "convert or die" but these were still conquests, and where there was resistance to the invasion, it got bloody.
Mediterranean Europe and The Maghreb were definitely ripe for the taking for any spreading civilisation. If it hadn't been the Muslims it would have been someone else. The Northern European Vandals absolutely raped Southern Europe and Northwest Africa and set it on the path to "the dark ages" probably before Muhammad was even born. It was probably nothing for the Muslims to walk straight in and pick up the pieces.
Mediterranean Europe and The Maghreb were definitely ripe for the taking for any spreading civilisation. If it hadn't been the Muslims it would have been someone else. The Northern European Vandals absolutely raped Southern Europe and Northwest Africa and set it on the path to "the dark ages" probably before Muhammad was even born. It was probably nothing for the Muslims to walk straight in and pick up the pieces.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
