Re: Are Islam and Democracy Incompatible?

Adrian Dharma Wijaya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> i was read all your statement, this is my statement:
> 1. you are agree with me about christian and jew teaching on they holy
> book, arn't you?
> 2. you said, christian and jew don't teach again that racialism teaching
> of they religion??? don't be kidding!!! what of backgroud of christian
> and jew threatment to the world especialy to moslem??? revelation from
> holy ghost, if the holy book doesn't as background of they
> threatments???

I can see you have no familiarity with history. Perhaps you
should simply, simply access history textbooks which are available
through this very internet and get acquainted with the world's
history. You shall discover, just to cite one instance, that when
the Spanish conquered the New World the secular/military establishment
sought/fought very hard to make the natives slaves; and that it was
through the efforts/struggle of the Catholic Church and its priests
that this was prevented. [It is also the case that the cause of
abolition of slavery in America and elsewhere was primarily, and
sometimes, exclusively carried out by the Christian Churches
against very powerful commercial/political interests. Please read!]

The distinction between West/Islam is fundamental: There may be
many Christian criminals but they are not encouraged to their crimes
by Christian teachings/institutions. This can not be said of Islam.
 
> 3. moslem teach to do bad threatment to the world??? oh yeah, self
> defense of moslem as same as with attacking the world, we can see with
> open eyes about the worlds threatment to moslem now a days???

Here are a few quotes from easily assessable texts in Usenet
(make sure you include the complete URL in your browser):

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3BBFE174.A653EC77%40aol.com&output=gplain

If not the most authoritative, at least the most renowned 
historian of the 20th Century, Will Durant's essay on "The 
Moslem Conquest" (page 459 of the "Our Oriental Heritage" 
volume in his massive "Story of Civilization) should suffice 
to hint at the scale of the human catastrophe that Islam has 
been to Planet Earth. --Other Usenet quotes of interest here:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8hkg1u%245k7%241%40nnrp1.deja.com&output=gplain

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8v7nb8%24nas%241%40nnrp1.deja.com&output=gplain

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=932877830.1804%40www.remarq.com&output=gplain

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=933668917.13366%40www.remarq.com&output=gplain

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Bharat-2232.990903%40news.mantra.com&output=gplain

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=5785c0f4.0110022140.7a478f61%40posting.google.com&output=gplain

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=d0197aa3.0110031244.54eb5d50%40posting.google.com&output=gplain

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8ljfag%244um%241%40gnamma.connect.com.au&output=gplain

> 4. moslem never have trace now a days from moslem glorious on the
> past??? if you study the knowledge on the worlds now a days, you can
> track to the past and you can find who are develop that knowledge!!!

Sir, Islam was born among the most barbarous/uncivilized nomads
on this planet. Do you really believe such brutes would have
produced ANY civilized bahavior?!?!?! What Muslims did was to
conquer (and destroy for the most part) many ancient civilizations
in Egypt/Africa, modern Irag and Persia, and especially in India
from which civilizations they "salvaged" a grain of the mountain
of knowledge they plundered. If you look carefully at the "Islamic
scholars" of the golden age most of them were either slaves or
"new converts" (convert or die), and very few of them were Arabs.

In any case, to remedy my "unbalanced" approach, and to help
satisfy your thirst for a more comprehensive historical view,
here's the reprint of a letter sent to Carly Fiorina, CEO of
Hewlett Packard Corporation, in response to a speech given by 
her on September 26, 2001 which you can find at this url:

www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/speeches/fiorina/minnesota01.htm

             What Arab Civilization?

November 7, 2001 
Carly Fiorina 
Hewlett-Packard 
3000 Hanover Street 
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185 

Dear Madame Fiorina: 

It is with great interest that I read your
speech delivered on September 26, 2001, titled
"Technology, Business and Our way of Life:
What's Next" [sic]. I was particularly
interested in the story you told at the end of
your speech, about the Arab/Muslim civilization.

As an Assyrian, a non-Arab, Christian native of
the Middle East, whose ancestors reach back to
5000 B.C., I wish to clarify some points you
made in this little story, and to alert you to
the dangers of unwittingly being drawn into the
Arabist/Islamist ideology, which seeks to
assimilate all cultures and religions into the
Arab/Islamic fold. 

I know you are a very busy woman, but please
find ten minutes to read what follows, as it is
a perspective that you will not likely get from
anywhere else. I will answer some of the
specific points you made in your speech, then
conclude with a brief perspective on this
Arabist/Islamist ideology. 

Arabs and Muslims appeared on the world scene in
630 A.D., when the armies of Muhammad began
their conquest of the Middle East. We should be
very clear that this was a military conquest,
not a missionary enterprise, and through the use
of force, authorized by a declaration of a Jihad
against infidels, Arabs/Muslims were able to
forcibly convert and assimilate non-Arabs and
non-Mulsims into their fold. Very few indigenous
communities of the Middle East survived this --
primarily Assyrians, Jews, Armenians and Coptics
(of Egypt). 

Having conquered the Middle East, Arabs placed
these communities under a Dhimmi (see the book
Dhimmi, by Bat Ye'Or) system of governance,
where the communities were allowed to rule
themselves as religious minorities (Christians,
Jews and Zoroastrian). These communities had to
pay a tax (called a Jizzya in Arabic) that was,
in effect, a penalty for being non-Muslim, and
that was typically 80% in times of tolerance and
up to 150% in times of oppression. This tax
forced many of these communities to convert to
Islam, as it was designed to do. 

You state, "its architects designed buildings
that defied gravity." I am not sure what you are
referring to, but if you are referring to domes
and arches, the fundamental architectural
breakthrough of using a parabolic shape instead
of a spherical shape for these structures was
made by the Assyrians more than 1300 years
earlier, as evidenced by their archaeological
record. 

You state, "its mathematicians created the
algebra and algorithms that would enable the
building of computers, and the creation of
encryption." The fundamental basis of modern
mathematics had been laid down not hundreds but
thousands of years before by Assyrians and
Babylonians, who already knew of the concept of
zero, of the Pythagorean Theorem, and of many,
many other developments expropriated by
Arabs/Muslims (see History of Babylonian
Mathematics, Neugebauer). 

You state, "its doctors examined the human body,
and found new cures for disease." The
overwhelming majority of these doctors (99%)
were Assyrians. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth
centuries Assyrians began a systematic
translation of the Greek body of knowledge into
Assyrian. At first they concentrated on the
religious works but then quickly moved to
science, philosophy and medicine. Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and many others were
translated into Assyrian, and from Assyrian into
Arabic. It is these Arabic translations which
the Moors brought with them into Spain, and
which the Spaniards translated into Latin and
spread throughout Europe, thus igniting the
European Renaissance. 

By the sixth century A.D., Assyrians had begun
exporting back to Byzantia their own works on
science, philosophy and medicine. In the field
of medicine, the Bakhteesho Assyrian family
produced nine generations of physicians, and
founded the great medical school at Gundeshapur
(Iran). Also in the area of medicine, (the
Assyrian) Hunayn ibn-Ishaq's textbook on
ophthalmology, written in 950 A.D., remained the
authoritative source on the subject until 1800
A.D. 

In the area of philosophy, the Assyrian
philosopher Job of Edessa developed a physical
theory of the universe, in the Assyrian
language, that rivaled Aristotle's theory, and
that sought to replace matter with forces (a
theory that anticipated some ideas in quantum
mechanics, such as the spontaneous creation and
destruction of matter that occurs in the quantum
vacuum). 

One of the greatest Assyrian achievements of the
fourth century was the founding of the first
university in the world, the School of Nisibis,
which had three departments, theology,
philosophy and medicine, and which became a
magnet and center of intellectual development in
the Middle East. The statutes of the School of
Nisibis, which have been preserved, later became
the model upon which the first Italian
university was based (see The Statutes of the
School of Nisibis, by Arthur Voobus). 

When Arabs and Islam swept through the Middle
East in 630 A.D., they encountered 600 years of
Assyrian Christian civilization, with a rich
heritage, a highly developed culture, and
advanced learning institutions. It is this
civilization that became the foundation of the
Arab civilization. 

You state, "Its astronomers looked into the
heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for
space travel and exploration." This is a bit
melodramatic. In fact, the astronomers you refer
to were not Arabs but Chaldeans and Babylonians
(of present day south-Iraq), who for millennia
were known as astronomers and astrologers, and
who were forcibly Arabized and Islamized -- so
rapidly that by 750 A.D. they had disappeared
completely. 

You state, "its writers created thousands of
stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic.
Its poets wrote of love, when others before them
were too steeped in fear to think of such
things." There is very little literature in the
Arabic language that comes from this period you
are referring to (the Koran is the only
significant piece of literature), whereas the
literary output of the Assyrians and Jews was
vast. The third largest corpus of Christian
writing, after Latin and Greek, is by the
Assyrians in the Assyrian language (also called
Syriac); see:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14408a.htm 

You state, "when other nations were afraid of
ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and
kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe
out knowledge from past civilizations, this
civilization kept the knowledge alive, and
passed it on to others." This is a very
important issue you raise, and it goes to the
heart of the matter of what Arab/Islamic
civilization represents. I reviewed a book

http://www.aina.org/aol/peter/greek.htm

titled How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs, in
which the author lists the significant
translators and interpreters of Greek science.
Of the 22 scholars listed, 20 were Assyrians, 1
was Persian and 1 an Arab. I state at the end of
my review: "The salient conclusion which can be
drawn from O'Leary's book is that Assyrians
played a significant role in the shaping of the
Islamic world via the Greek corpus of knowledge.
If this is so, one must then ask the question,
what happened to the Christian communities which
made them lose this great intellectual
enterprise which they had established. One can
ask this same question of the Arabs. Sadly,
O'Leary's book does not answer this question,
and we must look elsewhere for the answer." I
did not answer this question I posed in the
review because it was not the place to answer
it, but the answer is very clear, the Christian
Assyrian community was drained of its population
through forced conversion to Islam (by the 
Jizzya), and once the community had dwindled
below a critical threshold, it ceased producing
the scholars that were the intellectual driving
force of the Islamic civilization, and that is
when the so called "Golden Age of Islam" came to
an end (about 850 A.D.). 

Islam the religion itself was significantly
molded by Assyrians and Jews (see Nestorian
Influence on Islam and Hagarism: the Making of
the Islamic World). 

Arab/Islamic civilization is not a progressive
force, it is a regressive force; it does not
give impetus, it retards. The great civilization
you describe was not an Arab/Muslim
accomplishment, it was an Assyrian
accomplishment that Arabs expropriated and
subsequently lost when they drained, through the
forced conversion of Assyrians to Islam, the
source of the intellectual vitality that
propelled it. What other Arab/Muslim
civilization has risen since? What other
Arab/Muslim successes can we cite? 

You state, "and perhaps we can learn a lesson
from his [Suleiman] example: It was leadership
based on meritocracy, not inheritance. It was
leadership that harnessed the full capabilities
of a very diverse population that included
Christianity, Islamic, and Jewish traditions."

In fact, the Ottomans were extremely oppressive
to non-Muslims. For example, young Christian
boys were forcefully taken from their families,
usually at the age of 8-10, and inducted into
the Janissaries, (yeniceri in Turkish) where
they were Islamized and made to fight for the
Ottoman state. What literary, artistic or
scientific achievements of the Ottomans can we
point to? We can, on the other hand, point to
the genocide of 750,000 Assyrians, 1.5 million
Armenians and 400,000 Greeks in World War One by
the Kemalist "Young Turk" government. This is
the true face of Islam. 

Arabs/Muslims are engaged in an explicit
campaign of destruction and expropriation of
cultures and communities, identities and ideas.
Wherever Arab/Muslim civilization encounters a
non-Arab/Muslim one, it attempts to destroy it
(as the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan were
destroyed, as Persepolis was destroyed by the
Ayotollah Khomenie). This is a pattern that has
been recurring since the advent of Islam, 1400
years ago, and is amply substantiated by the
historical record. If the "foreign" culture
cannot be destroyed, then it is expropriated,
and revisionist historians claim that it is and
was Arab, as is the case of most of the Arab
"accomplishments" you cited in your speech. For
example, Arab history texts in the Middle East
teach that Assyrians were Arabs, a fact that no
reputable scholar would assert, and that no
living Assyrian would accept. Assyrians first
settled Nineveh, one of the major Assyrian
cities, in 5000 B.C., which is 5630 years before
Arabs came into that area. Even the word 'Arab'
is an Assyrian word, meaning "Westerner" (the
first written reference to Arabs was by the
Assyrian King Sennacherib, 800 B.C., in which he
tells of conquering the "ma'rabayeh" --
Westerners. See The Might That Was Assyria, by
H. W. F. Saggs). 

Even in America this Arabization policy

http://aina.org/releases/2001/arabization.htm

continues. On October 27th a coalition of seven
Assyrian and Maronite organizations sent an
official letter 

http://www.aina.org/releases/2001/caamletter.htm

to the Arab American Institute asking it to stop 
identifying Assyrians and Maronites as Arabs, 
which it had been deliberately doing. 

There are minorities and nations struggling for
survival in the Arab/Muslim ocean of the Middle
East and Africa (Assyrians, Armenians, Coptics,
Jews, southern Sudanese, Ethiopians,
Nigerians...), and we must be very sensitive not
to unwittingly and inadvertently support Islamic
fascism and Arab Imperialism, with their
attempts to wipe out all other cultures,
religions and civilizations. It is incumbent
upon each one of us to do our homework and
research when making statements and speeches
about these sensitive matters. 

I hope you found this information enlightening.
For more information, refer to the web links
below. You may contact me at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] for further questions. 

Thank you for your consideration. 

Peter BetBasoo 

Web resources: 

Brief History of Assyrians:
http://www.aina.org/aol/peter/brief.htm

Assyrian International News Agency:
http://www.aina.org/

Assyrian American National Federation:
http://www.aanf.org/

Assyrian Academic Society:
http://www.aas.net/

Zinda Magazine:
http://www.zindamagazine.com/

Beth Suryoyo:
http://www.bethsuryoyo.com/

Nineveh Online:
http://www.nineveh.com/

World Maronite Union:
http://www.maroniteunion.org/

Maronite Research Council:
http://plaza.powersurfr.com/maronites

World Lebanese Organization:
http://www.wlo-usa.org/

Coptic Web:
http://www.copticmail.com/  

thanks: Peter BetBasoo ([EMAIL PROTECTED])

> Yeah, i'm confess, moslem live on decline of life on every sector! It's
> have complicated reason. 

It is NOT complicated but extremely simple: Islam is a MIND-
CONTROL cult, as if you didn't know, in which it is demanded
of every Muslim that they fill their heads with GOD instead
of with science and all aspects of humanity (including music
which illustrates everything Muslims must NOT think about 
to be pious Muslims). This is why Islam can NOT progress:
it is AGAINST Islam to progress. The highest ideal of Islam is 
to imitate the life of a ragged warlord who lived over a thousand 
years ago! THIS is why Muslims are stuck in a world a thousand 
years behind everybody else. And why it must ever remain so 
until they free themselves of Islam. Good luck--You'll need it.

S D Rodrian
http://poems.sdrodrian.com
http://physics.sdrodrian.com
http://democracy.sdrodrian.com

> that caused by moslem leave moslem teaching,
> but christian and jew have progress now a days on their life, because
> same reason, because christian and jew leave christian and jew their
> teaching, there are some verses on the bible and torah said to have or
> learn one knowledge god must sacrifice son of god, how much son of god
> must be sacrifice with christian and jew from the past until now a days
> to pay christian and jew sin about learn so many knowledge, remember
> content of Trente concily Italia (1545 - 1563 AD) that forbide christian
> to have and learn knowledge and culture.  
> 
> SDR wrote:
> > 
> > Adrian Dharma Wijaya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > > do you deny all that verses i state on this email???
> > 
> > No! PLEASE re-READ MY REPLY TO YOUR POST (which is included below):
> > In sum, I said: No matter what evil either religion may say... that
> > evil is repudiated in the Judeo-Christian civilization. If does not
> > matter to me whether there are Christian/Jewish terrorists (any
> > more than whether there are "Muslim terrorists")... the difference
> > is that Jews and Christians do not teach the principles and hatred
> > of non-Jews/non-Christians while Muslims DO teach hatred and
> > distrust of non-Muslims (in the course of their general education).
> > 
> > > and you deny that
> > > verses are background of christian and jew threatment to the worlds???
> > 
> > Not so: READ a little history and you shall discover that the
> > Western Powers basically freed their colonies without such colonies
> > having to win their independence by means of wars (even India,
> > which was SUPREMELY profitable to England, achieved its independence
> > primarily by persuasion rather than by war). STUDY the Vietnam War,
> > which WAS a violent war against the French, and you shall properly
> > learn that the U.S. fought AGAINST the effort to make that country
> > a communist colony (the fragmentation of the imagined "communist
> > monolith" aside). Now, you tell me... which colony of Islam has ever
> > been freed by its Muslim masters. I know it took the Spanish 500 long
> > hard years to finally rid themselves of Islamic subjugation.
> > 
> > It is also the West that finally "freed the Arabs" from Turkish
> > subjugation (although nobody can really "free" the "damned" Arabs,
> > who are obviously "damned by Allah" to eternal subjugation, if not
> > foreign then domestic, if not military then religious). And America,
> > which after the Second World War "persuaded" Europe to let go
> > all its colonies: It is this constant efford to leave barbarity behind
> > which is the hallmark of the Western Tradition. There are much
> > older Eastern traditions (in China and India) but they stagnated
> > while the European one thrived and progressed even under the
> > onslaught of the Eastern/Islamic barbarians' invasions.
> > 
> > And it is the progression of history to this date that you should
> > follow to learn the legacy of the Judeo-Christian influence on
> > the Western Tradition: And that without a doubt, if there is to be
> > ANY advancement in Islamic civilization... it shall be due to that
> > same Judeo-Christian tradition--Or Islamic "civilization" shall win
> > and there shall be no progress whatsoever there (as up to now).
> > 
> > > You said it was do on the past, never do again on now a days??? so...
> > > from where christian and jew have reason or background of their
> > > threatment to the world??? Oh yeah, they have from revelation from holy
> > > ghost!!!
> > 
> > Well, I don't know about ghosts (not being particularly superstitious).
> > But one need not bother arguing about meaningless OR meaningful
> > principles: Simply LOOK at the results YOU CAN SEE: With ALL THE
> > MILITARY power to do with "the third world" as they wish, how many
> > such third world nations are colonies of the West at this time. And
> > if you think this is because it would be "embarrassing" for Great
> > Military Powers to exercise their power... you are a child. Israel
> > has the power to subjugate all the Arab nations and make ALL Arabs
> > their slaves. Surely there must be a reason why Israel doesn't do
> > it and thereby become fabulously oil-rich, don't you think? [But I
> > imagine you will say they fear the "glorious" Arab Armies.] And you
> > don't think many oil companies would not prefer to deal with the
> > stability of a single set of Israeli laws rather than with the whims of
> > so many "unstable" Arab potentates!? [I imagine not.]
> > 
> > The answer can be summed up in your very attitude, as in the attitude
> > of Iraqi ordinary people who are attacking American soldiers (soldiers
> > who have given their lives to give them their freedom), attacking them
> > for "occupying" their country: These people's attitudes reflect what
> > they have been taught to expect would be the reason for foreign troops
> > in their country... just as you can expect from this those Iraqi ordinary
> > citizens themselves WOULD DO if they were called to be troops in a
> > foreign country. They cannot grasp that foreign troops would be there
> > for any other purpose than to subjugate and exploit them. And that is
> > the difference between the legacy of the Judeo-Christian traditions of
> > the American soldiers and the Muslim inheritance of those murderous
> > ordinary Iraqi ingrates you would certainly NOT wish EVER to see...
> > "freeing" your country.
> --