mralstoner.

You just skimmed the piece, didn't you? You've come in with a rigid preconception, and any message that was anything less than a total damnation of Islam wouldn't suffice.

The piece is far from an apologetic piece. It quite frankly acknowledges the backslide in rights and development in Islamic nations, and goes to great lengths to explore what it describes as a 'lack of freedom' throughout much of the Middle East. How is that at all apologetic?

You however, fail to acknowledge that once upon a time, Islamic nations were more developed and had a higher vitality than Western nations.

Surely assessing the reasons behind this historical change is more important than scoring cheap points. Your comment takes one section from one book, without historical context, and claims that this should be representative of all Islamic sects at all points in history?

And you think that is a worthy rebuttal to this piece?

The section on commerce was particularly fascinating, I thought and worthy of further consideration. Damn good piece, should be compulsory reading for anyone engaging in debates on Islam.

"once upon a time, Islamic nations were more developed and had a higher vitality than Western nations."

As all fairy tales begin, once upon a time in the depths of history Islam may have had "higher vitality", what ever that is, but the point is Islam is still mired in that historical context.

It has not changed, it has not had a reformation; it is still as implacable and hegemonic as it ever was.

Islam was and remains a blueprint for military expansion. It has no seperation of religion and politics so its military impetus is continually ratified by divine pronouncements; the Koran is nothing more than a guide for expansion and tactics for dealing with Infidels; as Sam Harris notes in his definitive book on Islam, The End of Faith, on nearly every page of the Koran "observant Muslims are instructed to despise non-believers".

One of the most astounding aspects of the West's interactions with Islam is the belief by the chattering classes, who now dictate policy in most Western nations, that Islam wishes the West well, when not only is there ample evidence in the Koran to the contrary but continual and persistent statements from Islamic scholars that they want Sharia law introduced into the West.

That is the same Sharia law which has remained unchanged since "once upon a time" and which saw its most recent manifestation here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2171004/Taliban-love-triangle-fighters-executed-helpless-Afghan-woman-22-death.html

Let me say this: anyone who writes or says anything supportive of Islam is at best a fool

Just as Christianity has its fundamental schools of thought and historic religious suppression, so also does Islam.
Stoning and ritual beheading, i.e., proceeded Islam!
As did an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth rebellious belligerence.
These older traditions were seamlessly included!
But just like all other religions, much of what has been accorded to the original teachings, was inserted into a reviewed, revised, extensively edited or patently completely corrupted belief system, at a much later date.
[Sun worshipping atheist, Constantine. Was reportedly responsible for the earliest version of today's bible.
Take Jihad, i.e. The Prophet Mohamed, bless his name, was obliged to correct his 2IC, when returning from one of many battles against the Christian crusaders, [crusades that massacred six million Muslins,] when his lieutenant compared the war to Jihad?
Mohamed corrected him quite forcibly, saying that Jihad was not a holy war or "crusade"; but rather, an entirely internal bloodless struggle, against one's own internal demons. [If only we could all do just that much, there'd simply be no wars or want!]
Moreover, that one who knowingly or deliberately spilled so much as a single drop of innocent blood, could never ever enter paradise.
The prophet Mohamed, bless his name, lived in very humble circumstances, a simple mud hut.
He clearly understood much of what he taught would be corrupted by evil men for evil purposes.
Therefore, he created a copy of his original teachings and secreted them in a cavity in the wall of his Home.
When these turned up relatively recently, and according to very cogent eyewitness accounts, Saudi religious officialism rushed in and confiscated them.
Given they were never ever heard of or seen again, they may have been deliberately destroyed?
Understandable, given so much that is now taught by Saudi Imams, is completely at odds with the original writings of the Prophet, or older un-revised Islamic orthodoxy!?
Good men only need stand and do nothing for evil to prosper. Which arguably encapsulates the entire story of Islamic oppression?
Ditto, all other forms of religious oppression, intolerance or unequal treatment!
Rhrosty.

We owe our alphabet and numerical system to Arab scholars.
And stories like Arabian knights, Ali Baba and the forty thieves, etc/etc to Middle Eastern Writers.
These stories invariably tell stories where unlikely heroes topple illegitimate rulers and dictators.
The oldest known library, stacked to the rafters, with scholarly tomes, was located in Alexandria, even as our Anglo Saxon ancestors, were moving out of their caves and into mud huts, to till the land with stone tipped wooden instruments.
It is interesting just how easy it was to turn The middle East into divided warlike camps armed to the teeth and still willing, it would seem, to seek to revenge the ancient crusades, with a western blood bath.
Or just how easily the spirit of freedom was repressed by warlike uneducated Power hungry psychopaths, who used every means, including recruiting a very revised form of Islam, to gain their illegitimate ends?
Even so, the spirit that created The littlest thief, who toppled a tyrant, is very much alive and well in the middle east, as is the hostility/blame shifting to all things white or western.
It is little more than history repeating itself. Given just how easy it was for intensely evil Nazis to blame a Jewish minority for all the evils in the world or endemic Germanic poverty etc/etc!
Ditto those extremely ignorant patently racist white supremists, who now blame Islam for all the world's troubles?
There is a power struggle going on in the Middle east between good and evil, which is clearly not assisted by blame shifting ignorant activists!
The lunatics' hands are being progressively prised from the positions of power in the "asylum"/Syria/Egypt/Lybia!
The lunatic brotherhood of hate cannot be allowed to win or simply get away with blaming the west or whites, for all their problems.
After all, the Middle East and or its potentates, earn an annual four plus trillions from oil sales!
Therefore it follows, there should be no want or endemic poverty in the Middle East; and or, what follows from that?
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty,
You are so wide of the mark I don’t know where to begin!

It sounds like you’ve gleaned most of your information from some of those one-eyed brochures that the local mosque might hand out to unworldly infidels on their open days

There are in fact TWO types of jihad":
i) The “lesser’, which refers to wars against infidels & apostates ,&
ii) The “greater” which refer to personal salvation

Contrary to you rose-coloured view, the “lesser” form has been very much in evidence, prominent even, from the early days of Islam.

“The prophet himself engaged in many military battles and could be merciless to his enemies, even those who simply attacked him verbally. His original sympathies with Jews and Christians as “Peoples of the Book” gave way to a harsher treatment when they did not follow Islam. In one infamous episode, Muhammad cut the heads off hundreds of Jewish males of the Beni Quraiza tribe who did not side with him in battle. The prophet is quoted as saying, “The sword is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the day of judgment his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.”

And here’s a few more:

1) Believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them find in you a harshness; and know that Allah is with the godfearing" (Sura al-Tawba 9:123).
2) "Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not." (Sura AL-BAQARA 2:16) The Qura

Rhrosty,

I generally agree with SPQR, you are, off the mark.

(1)We don't owe our alphabet to Arab scholars, but to the Phoenicians, Arabs certainly didn't invent the modern numerical system, it's an Indian development.

(2)The library of Alexandria was a product of Hellenistic civilisation, not Islamic, in fact Arab invaders are blamed by some historians for its destruction.

(3)Some of the the "Arabian nights" stories have origins as far away as India and pre-Islamic Persia, the Arabs transmitted those tales to the West, they didn't 'invent' them.

(4) Unlike Christianity, Islam was spread by the sword from its inception, the Crusades were in fact a counter attack in response to 450 years of Islamic aggression.

I certainly don't agree with Western policies in the ME, particularly America's uncritical support of Zionism, but let's get the history straight.