According to the Quran, there is no compulsion in Islaam. Also, a person could preach Islaam all they want, but it is God who guides a person towards it.
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According to the Quran, there is no compulsion in Islaam. Also, a person could preach Islaam all they want, but it is God who guides a person towards it.
@ Monkeybarz:
Thay had to have serfs because of feudalism. Serfs would always come from giaours, which means infidel and therefore lower class.
Maybe 3 years ago, we had discussion in GenChat regarding slave trade. It's funny how ppl usually omiss Arab/Tatar slave trade. Everybody seems to be familiar with middle passage, and everything related to slavery en route to North AMerica, and yet they don't know anything about Indian ocean, North Africa and Central Asia slavetrade.
Muslim slavery was different, there were strict laws one had to adhere to. It was also seen as war loot especially with Turks and the Ottomans. The child slave system was different, that was to create a ruling class loyal to the Sultan to serve in the army and as statesmen. The type of slavery allowed in Muslim empires really depended on the Sultans and the religious leaders, if you had a tolerant Sultan you had minimal slavery, if you had a war minded one well taking slaves were considered spoils of war and you needed to keep the army happy. The system was different and can't really be compared to Christian slavery.Quote:
Originally Posted by monkeybarz
As to why the Muslims didn't fully convert, well they did. The Arabs managed to convert the Persians and the Turks to Islam which is kinda the whole of Central Asia, Muslims did take other muslims as slaves to for example the Mamluks of Egypt were a slave army of mainly Turks but many others to taken from Central Asia, who eventually got too strong and ruled Egypt. Ottoman pirates took many slaves in Western Europe as well.
The Ottomans converted a lot in Eastern europe but not to the extent that the Christians went to. In the early Ottoman days there was more content to live with the other religions, during the Spanish Inquisition the Ottoman Sultan sent ships to bring the Jews of Spain to Istanbul, he gave them citizenship and their descendants still live there they got these weird Spanish names. I think it was more to do with 'if i can tax them why kill them'. Thats probably why the Islamic empires became insanely wealthy. To convert them all though would have probably been a smarter idea down the line.
I assumed the Bosnians/Albanians converted to Islam on their own terms, although my Albanian friends are convinced that the Turks "paid them off," like the way they [Saudis] pay European girls to wear hijabs (not sure what the accomplishes). And I know Muslims converted early pagans, every religion does that, that's why Christianity grew so big. But I meant later conquests.
It just seems a little odd that--after having conquered Spain and controlled it for over 700 years--it never once occurred to them to convert the Spaniards. If Spain were a Muslim country today, it would make life for the Muslims easier, politically. Instead, they had to face the fury of bitch Queen Isabella, who might actually be the worst person ever. Holy crap what a wretch. Kicked out all the Jews and Muslims, ignited the Inquisition...the hell happened to all the Moors?? she either killed them all or they assimilated to Spanish life. I'm shocked the Jews survived. but yeah, I read about the Sultan sending ships to Spain to rescue Jewish refugees. Did he take any Moors??
I just finished reading the biography of Mehmed the Conqueror ("The Grand Turk," 2009). The author seemed to have a bias against Mehmed. He talked about the European leaders celebrating his death, which I'm sure they did, since the Pope thought he was "Satan's spawn," but he wasn't THAT ruthless. I'm currently reading the book about the Siege of Vienna in 1683, which I suppose was the beginning of the end for the Ottoman Empire. the world would've been a lot different had they conquered Vienna, for better or worse.
I think in the later periods there were a lot of political repercussions that would have sprung from a mass conversion of Christians to Islam. Early on Islamic empires focused more on converting the pagan instead of the other people of the book. They were far more tolerant back then.Quote:
Originally Posted by monkeybarz
Mehmed the Conqueror himself was fairly tolerant, I don't think he deserves the ruthless tag he gets from western historians. He allowed the Orthodox Church to live on, he called the Greeks back to live in Constantinople. Mehmed was one of the more devout Ottoman rulers. I think he receives a bad image because of his conquest of Constantinople which was a huge deal.
Like I said there would have been political repercussions though, in the 16th century the Ottomans had a great alliance with the French and things would have been sour if the Ottomans took upon a policy of conversion. After that in the later period the empire was simply too weak, any action against the Christians and you had either the Europeans or the Russians breathing down your neck. You could say that it was a tactical mistake by both the Moors and Ottomans to not convert their populations when they were strongest because by the end of it they paid.
how do today's Turks feel about the Ottoman Empire's legacy? do they embrace it or are they embarrassed about it? it seems like the Empire failed to "get with the times" starting in the 1700s. their army became obsolete and old-fashioned. the Islamic Golden Age of 750-1258 was long gone by that point. it's too bad the Turks were so stubborn later on and refused to modernize.
even if you're not a Turk, it's hard to read about the Ottoman Empire's decline during the 18th and 19th century and not feel bad for them. the Russians really gave them a hard time, as did the rest of Europe. it's like they let the Empire exist for their own personal benefit/amusement, because they knew it would cause chaos if all those Middle Eastern/Balkan countries were left on their own....which it did!
Most Turks are proud of the Ottomans, I don't think theres an embarrassment of it at all. Though for a long time there wasn't much emphasis on them, in history books there was more on the birth of the republic than there was on the Ottomans, only a few chapters on 600 years of Ottoman rule. More was taught about pre-Ottoman Turkish empires. The Ottomans were perceived as Arab lovers who sold out the Turk, this was the view of the Ottomans the modern republic was built on.Quote:
Originally Posted by monkeybarz
Things are changing though there has been a push by the government and media to make the Ottomans popular again. The government wants to bring mandatory Ottoman lessons in schools, more Ottoman history is taught. I mean they even began celebrating the conquest of Istanbul on a much larger scale. Before nobody gave a shit now though its a big thing. Plus you got TV shows on the Ottomans which glorify them. Its all proportional to the rise of Conservatism in the country. The Conservatives are pro-Ottoman while the secularists are pro-Republic. Whoever has more influence in the country at that time determines the general view on the Ottomans.
Turkey is a bit weird on the subject, some will say fuck the Ottomans they weren't Turkish. While others will say fuck the Republic we would have preferred to live under English rule because they believe the modern Turkish republic was built by atheists.
Turkish TV show are widely popular throughout the Balkans. Especially 'Suleiman the Magnificent' which is awful to me. There are at least 5 turkish TV shows on programs in former Yugoslavia. There are even some Arab show which are popular in muslim regions and those are the worst.
All I want to say is that there is an obvious pressure coming out of muslim countries and economy isn't helping neither. Wars have played their role also. Secular muslim leaders have been marginalized and lots of help was obtained from Arab countries during those turmoils.
I think theres always a special focus on the muslims in the balkans reason why there is always this effort to fund them. Its because balkan muslims are white and european, they hold a kinda ceremonial place in the muslim world, no one gives a shit about the muslims in Myanmar or the Uygurs in China, just another bunch of brown people for most.Quote:
Originally Posted by SL33
So theres always this push to bring them closer to the central muslim world. The Saudi's fund like crazy so do many other gulf states. Everyone is pushing an agenda at the end of the day and they just happen to have shitloads of money. I would prefer muslim countries to spend their money on developing technology and education. They instead prefer to build mosques and more mosques in other countries.
I read somewhere that ISIS recruiters in Europe specifically target Bosnian and Albanian girls because they prettier than other muslim girls lol.
HANZO, can you share your thoughts about European refugee crisis and situation in Syria and Iraq?
Also, it seems to me that radical islamists are pushing hard through Sub-saharan Africa, Just look at Boko Haram and Janjaweed movement in Sudan.
Boko Haram is a modern phase of a recurrent political situation. Islam gets brought into the sahel, after some years someone decides it's not being followed well enough, launches jihad, kills non-muslims and non-fundamentalists, establishes caliphate, collapses, islam gets lax, cycle restarts.
Boko Haram right now was a northern nigerian reaction to losing power to the south with Goodluck Jonathan becoming president. It started as a fundamentalist movement but as soon as Goodluck won, northern politicians (muslim, and control most of the oil) starting pumping a lot of money into the group. When Goodluck would attack they would say he's violating human rights, and lobby the UK and US to looking at the 'atrocities'.
Boko Haram became it's own boss because it had the money, membership, and political will to work independently and began funding themselves through bank robbery, looting, and ties to the gulf arab fundamentalists movements. There has also been suspicion of Turkish envolvement.
The media is painting it as a part of ISIS, but at one point it was a 'part' of alquaeda in the sahel or whatever they called it. It's just the culture up there sadly. They will prevail, carve out their caliphate and in that caliphate another boko haram will overthrow them. It's been happening for decades.
It's really bad and I don't think people realise just how bad it is. They interviewed a guy in Turkey waiting to cross over into Greece on TV, and the guy spoke good English, he said he had 2 houses, 2 cars and a few shops. He was obviously a well educated man who had a very good life in Syria. Again on Turkish TV they showed pictures of Syrians waiting to get on boats to Greece dressed in expensive clothing. Some of these people are the Syrian middle class so they really ain't your typical refugees.Quote:
Originally Posted by SL33
There are hundreds of thousands of them waiting to go to Europe, already 2 million in Turkey alone. Turkey can't cope and I don't think Europe can either, but that doesn't mean that they should shut the door. If they do shut the door they should atleast come up with a plan to solve the problem, not just talk which Europeans have become exceedingly good at lately. I mean theres that picture today of the little Syrian kid dead on a Turkish beach, something must be done.
There is the other perspective though, there are so many Syrians fleeing why don't they pick up a gun and fight to defend their country from ISIS, Assad or whoever? A good question to ask I believe. Previous generations would have done so.
Syria can't be fixed in the current climate. The key players aren't backing down. Lets remember the situation started when the protests happened and as soon as Syrian forces started shooting immediately Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia denounced the government in Damascus. Like hold on a minute talk to Assad find a proper solution to this. They didn't do that they jumped the gun. Just a few years ago Erdogan was going on family holidays with Assad, so it made no sense why he would be so quick to denounce his supposed friend.
Its a bit like the start of WW1 when everyone in Europe thought it would end by Christmas, then it lasted 4 years. Everyone thought Assad would be overthrown as quick as Mubarak was in Egypt. Didn't happen.
For now there is no solution for Syria, I don't think an army can go in and just clean up. You don't know who your fighting, theres so many groups, urban warfare is slow and tedious meaning a lot of casualties will occur. No army or nation would want to undertake that burden. So the situation will remain, there are no real politicians in the region willing to sacrifice their reputation in order to fix the problem.
Somehow I think that Iraq and Syria are done. Obsolete. It's basically a pipeline issue I guess.
Russians will probably save Assad and Alawites because of their traditional ties and orthodox christian minority, but the eastern Syria and non-shiaa Iraq are doomed. Keeping an army of 5.0000-10.000 strong seems to be unbelievably cheap. So that means that this war is set for 10+ years.
These migrants, majority of them is young and almost each and every one of them is capable for war, at least in terms of health and age. But somehow, IDK, there's no ideology or any other motivation for battle. Israel and the Gulf states are the ones who benefit the most anyway.
People from the West are also afraid of drastic demographic changes with this wave of immigration coming from everywhere.
Turkey is so complicated with secular army, islamist Erdogan, pro-CIA Gullen and Kurds. I know a Kurd who owns a hotel and who is considered to be wealthy, and his opinions and agressive, anti-Turkish stance were very strange to me.
Sometimes I think Saddam and Ghadaffi were the only strong Arab leaders in comparison with everybody that followed. This Egyptian Sissi seems to be a decent fellow, allthough I've been wondering about his sponsors.
My knowledge regarding entire Sahara/Sahel is based on Wikipedia, I'm afraid. Yet I know the basics of Darfur crisis, Tuareg liberation movement and things of that nature.
I think Russia's interests in Syria is natural considering Syria and Iran are the only two customers of Russia's military equipment in the middle east. Though I don't think that there is a future for Assad in Syria, if the conflict is resolved somehow, the Assad family will be done in Syria. I don't believe Bashar is a madman, he always comes off as an intelligent guy, the problem lies with the regime and he is taking most if not all the blame for the actions of the regime.
You got thousands of young men who refuse to fight for their country, maybe its a country not worth fighting for, but it is unusual because you don't see it much in history where people choose to flee instead of save their country. The Arabs only once took up arms once and it was against the Turk, but even then they needed an Englishmen to get them going.
Turkey is not an easy place to understand, even I don't get it sometimes but its super entertaining. The war between Erdogan and Gulen is spectacular. Even Enes Kanter got entangled, he a Gulen supporter and he wasn't picked for the national team because of that, he will probably never play for Turkey just because of his political affiliation. At the moment nobody can fuck with Erdogan, say a bad word and whoever you are you are going down. Gulen deserves it though, he and his followers get no sympathy. For a supposed group of good muslims they have involved themselves in some dirty stuff.
With the Kurds, I mean their main argument is that Turkey oppressed them. They fail to state that the Turkish government fucked with everyone in the country. The Kurdish south east is poor, they blame that on the government but it isn't like the rest of the country is wealthy. All the rural areas are dirt poor, the only difference is the Kurds are tribal. They still live by a feudal system where only a few rich Kurdish families control all the land. No investment goes into the south east because time after time machinery is set on fire, workers kidnapped or even killed. They make the situation bad for themselves. The image they paint is that they are heavily oppressed in all departments, even though Turkey has had a Kurdish President, politicians, Turkeys most famous people are Kurds. People don't get fired from their jobs for being Kurdish. They just don't get it, they can have their own country but it wouldn't change anything. The liberals in Turkey along with some Kurds simply believe that the Kurds will form a marxist utopia for them.
i do not know how people believe in a religion that is based on incest. adam fucks eve and they get children, then they children fuck each other and the fuckery continues