How did Islam grow so quickly for so long?
Other methods have been employed by Mohammedans for propagating their faith, such as the purchase or forcible seizure of non-Moslem children in times of plague, famine, war and massacre, or even in times of no special disturbance, and rearing them in the Mohammedan faith. The Janissaries at Constantinople are a case in point. The children of Christians were taken regularly to replenish the ranks of this special body-guard of successive Sultans of Turkey. Another method employed to increase the number of Moslems was the plurality of wives and the use of captive women of non-Moslem races as concubines. These two methods of propagation were conspicuously employed[.]
--James Levy Barton
2 comments:
It isn't really very flattering for a religion to have an impressive rate of growth among the poor, the uneducated, and the violent. (Those same trends we saw during communism's heyday.) The extent of this failure is ubiquitous across the poverty-ridden, economy-failed, women-degrading, despotic nations of the Muslim world, almost all of which are dominated by tyrants and oppressive regimes---where propaganda equals knowledge; understanding a POW; free thinking subjected to fear; love and hate exist in extremes; decisions unthoughtful (siding with failed regimes: Nazis, Communists, Saddams); and hatred and extremism are justified by every small problem that arises.
How sad it is to see our Christian and Jewish sisters and brothers oppressed by such a system, a system that also managed to regress and oppress its own people as well---especially women.
Islam is growing thru a failed sector of society which is hardly helped (except fed) to live and prosper in a modern age. If anything, those converts are joining the unemployment bandwagon. The GDP of all Arab countries combined was less than that of Spain alone in 1999. Not very flattering, but proof that Spain was blessed to regain its Christian heritage after the Muslims were defeated there---or else today Spain's GDP would have been comparable to that of the average Arab country. If these are the Muslim's notion of Islam's success then that explains why the Muslim world is not ceasing to fail (they just can't see or acknowledge a wrong when they see one).
The one way that Muslims will get out of the hole they're in is thru liberalizing their religion (aka Irshad Manji), giving it a much more modern and relevant interpretation, reforming Muslim-influenced Sharia laws, separate religion and politics, and doing away with the violent jihadist ideology prevalent in its history and today. Only then will they learn to live with other people and with themselves. (Tall order, I know, which is why it won't happen any time soon.)
IMHO Irshad Manji's agenda for Islam has about the same prospects as Jack Spong's agenda for Christianity.
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