Early Christianity in Asia and Africa

[abaris]

The Ottomans were a different story.  They were muslims but by then the die was cast.

And so were the Mongols later on. Karakorum, according to recent archeological finds, was a rather tolerant melting pot too. Geared at trade with the known world rather than anything else.

Also, just because the Ottomans were muslims doesn't change the fact that they were considered opporessors by many. First, large regions they occupied are Shia, while the Ottomans were Sunni. Secondly they occupied once proud kingdoms already having their own culture.

Which was one of the reasons why Lawrence had such an easy time delivering his empty promise of independency if they just participated in defeating the Ottomans. One of the reasons for the resentment against the West, since they just exchanged their colonial masters after WWI.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

No it did, I don't see how it couldn't have been violent personally. But there wasn't this extreme "convert to Islam or die" sentiment behind it that has become fashionable among modern jihadists.

Which wasn't the case in the organised realms. At the most, christians and jews had to pay higher taxes to excercise their religion. Proselityzing, of course, was forbidden. But as a general rule, a jew was much better off in one of the Islamic kingdoms than he was in the West at the same time.

That's because Jews were always collaborators with the muslims.

[Minimalist]

The Ottomans were a different story.  They were muslims but by then the die was cast.

And so were the Mongols later on. Karakorum, according to recent archeological finds, was a rather tolerant melting pot too. Geared at trade with the known world rather than anything else.

Also, just because the Ottomans were muslims doesn't change the fact that they were considered opporessors by many. First, large regions they occupied are Shia, while the Ottomans were Sunni. Secondly they occupied once proud kingdoms already having their own culture.

Which was one of the reasons why Lawrence had such an easy time delivering his empty promise of independency if they just participated in defeating the Ottomans. One of the reasons for the resentment against the West, since they just exchanged their colonial masters after WWI.

No argument but the Ottomans were after the fact.  The reaction of the muslims in the aftermath of the initial Mongol onslaught was the beginning of the end for jesusism in Asia.

[Regina]

As much as they might love this book for showing clear examples of muslim toleration of xtians and jews at least at the beginning it is analysis like this which will get the fatwas and rocks flying.  Muslims are no longer "tolerant."

And why do you think this came to be? The region we're talking about is centuries of Ottoman oppression, followed by Western oppression, turning right into dictatorships. Sometimes Western, sometimes Soviet puppets.

They never had a chance at forming their own identity and culture. And looking at the map with its straight lines, shows everyone with two brain cells to rub together that these aren't grown but forced countries. Same as Africa.

I don't know if that was necessarily the case in The Middle East. Although the modern, standardised borders were laid out by colonists, lots of the Middle Eastern nationalities have a existed for a long time and have strong historical identities. Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Oman and Iran (as "Persia") all go way back, for example. I think the straight-line borders, unlike in Africa, can mainly be attributed to the climate here. These are hot desert countries with large areas that are totally uninhabitable, so a lot of these artificial borders have been placed where there are just no people so there's never been a real need for official borders before. A lot of them also fall where the desert has historically been seen as a geographical barrier and border anyway (such as the Egypt-Libya and Saudi-Oman borders).

It's not as extreme a case as in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the colonists just threw borders down wherever convenient at the expense of indigenous heritage.

With that said I still think people are overplaying this utopian "tolerance" early Muslims are said to have had. However much they might have "tolerated" religious minorities, they were still a colonising culture themselves who took over places by conquest. I think it's interesting that we can have legitimate conversations about the effects of "Ottoman colonisation" and "European colonisation" on The Middle East, but we then forget that the whole region (outside of the Central Arabian Peninsula, where Arab culture originates) is a product of Arab/Islamic colonisation in the first place. That has effects on the culture too.

[abaris]

I don't know if that was necessarily the case in The Middle East. Although the modern, standardised borders were laid out by colonists, lots of the Middle Eastern nationalities have a existed for a long time and have strong historical identities.

No, they haven't. These are artificial constructs, merely using historical names. Not national identities. Since the peoples living there aren't the ones associated with that terminology. Iraq, just to give one example, is the sum of three former Ottoman provinces.

[Minimalist]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%8..._Agreement

Sykes–Picot Agreement

The Agreement is considered to have shaped the region, defining the borders of Iraq and Syria and leading to the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.[6]

[Minimalist]

And the trend accelerates.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/...-five-yea/

Iraq’s ancient Christian population could be gone within five years in the face of Isil

Catchy headline but the story makes it clear that this was going on long before Isil.