[Vision2020] Follow up - Islam the religion of peace!

[Andreas Schou]

On 6/3/07, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Andreas,
>
> You wrote: "However terrible terrorism may be, it has been considerably less
> successful at eliminating Judaism in the Transjordan than the Inquisition
> was in eliminating Islam in Spain."
>
> If I didn't know better, I would think you were trying to argue that
> terrorist bombings are better than the Spanish Inquisition solely based on
> the measurement of how many Jews vs. Muslims remain in a given area without
> looking at other contributing factors.

No, actually, that's exactly what I'm arguing. Terrorist bombings are
beestings. Worth paying attention to -- but it makes roughly as much
sense to base one's foreign policy on terrorism as it makes to base
one's camping plans on the possibility of being mauled by lions.

> Muslims in Spain were a minority with no military, political, or economic
> power. Jews in the Transjordan area are fighting third world technological
> countries throwing dirt clumps and sand at their Howitzers, with the world's
> only superpower, the United States, right behind them. You are comparing
> apples to oranges so to speak.

No, at the time of the Reconquista, Muslims were a *majority* in
southern Spain. al-Andalus was a Muslim nation that was, although less
homogenous than the other Iberian kingdoms of the time, had Islam as
the state religion.

-- ACS