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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jerome who wrote (53877)	10/5/2001 6:59:07 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

OT history of Islam: re: "Islam essentially conquered other countries and made forced conversions the business model of the day." No, they didn't. From the 7th through the 15th Century, Islam expanded the same way the Roman Empire had in an earlier millenium. After their armies had conquered, they put in place a tiny governing elite of Moslems. The rest of society was left alone, to practice their religions freely. Non-moslems had to pay extra taxes. Their societies were much more pluralistic than contemporary Christian societies. For instance, when the Moslems ruled Spain (750 till 1492) they had a mixed population of Jews, Moslems, and Christians. The University of Toledo was a center of learning, and for preserving the ancient Greek and Roman texts (which otherwise would have been lost forever). When the Christians conquered Spain (these were the same people who gave Columbus his venture capital to try and find China by the westward route), they gave everyone a choice: convert or die. Pogroms and forced conversions are a fixture of Christian, but not Moslem, history.