Can a Jew be a Christian and still be a Jew?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Actually Hindus were treated fairly well by the Moghuls until the reign of Aurangzeb, a viscious zealot.

The Moghuls weren't the first Moslem rulers in India. They took over the Afgani Lodi Sultanate of Dehli, and well before that, Moslem invaders destroyed Hindu temples because of the depictions of human sex on them.

Edan, saying that the Jews were oppressed under the Moslems is like saying the Greeks were oppressed by the Romans. Everyone was oppressed by the Romans, but the Greeks were better off than most, and ended up taking over the Empire.

In an empire with four classes of citizens (Moslems, Children of the Book, pagans, and slave), being a second class citizen isn't really oppression. Depending on where you stand, it could seem to be priveledge. Oppressed people don't prosper, and the Jews prospered under Moslem rule (mostly).

Finally, you fail to take into account that what we consider opression today was the norm back then. The French kings oppressed the French. The English knigs oppressed the English. The Turks were oppressed by the Sultan. Everyone except for monarchs were oppressed back then. Restrictaded trades, special taxes, limitations on property were the norm for everyone. Having your property arbitrarily seized, being spit on and cursed by your fellow subjects, assaulted, murdered, etc. that was oppression back then.

[Edan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Having your property arbitrarily seized, being spit on and cursed by your fellow subjects, assaulted, murdered, etc. that was oppression back then.

And incidents like that did occur, particularily in North Africa, but also throughout the muslim world. There were times when,the Jews were able to live peacefully and be able to thrive, as I already have stated, but there were also times when they were definatly being oppressed. And so the statement that Jews "suffered from little oppression in the Muslim world" is false

Finally, you fail to take into account that what we consider opression today was the norm back then.

Well, oppression was in fashion in Europe, too. Doesn't mean it was right.

[chequita guevara]

Over a period of fourteen hundred years, the ravings of Mad Ali and one extremist dynasty in Spain do not a tendency make. Aberations don't make a rule, nor do they negate one. These isolated incients are not evidence of anti-semitism.

Oddly enough, Mad Ali, who did go after the Jews inspired the Druze sect of Islam, which today are staunch allies of Israel. Course, Mad Ali also had price gougers sodomized by his servant Masoud, had dogs killed, and went after the Christians. There was a reason he is known as Mad Ali.

[Edan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Over a period of fourteen hundred years, the ravings of Mad Ali and one extremist dynasty in Spain do not a tendency make.

And if it was just one extremist in one corner of the Muslim world, you would be right. You do know that the "Muslim world" was more than just Spain, right?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Edan
Well, oppression was in fashion in Europe, too. Doesn't mean it was right.

While I agree that the conditions under which the average European lived were rather horrid, and that no human being should have had to experience it, it was the way things were done for more than a thousand years. But if we use modern values for determining what was and wasn't oppressive back then, we won't reach any useful conclusions.

How were the Jews oppressed, over and above the normal oppression experienced by non-state religions, foreigners, etc. Were the Jews specifically targetted or were they caught up in larger trends? Were they oppressed or is there a better term to describe what happened?

When you answer these questions, it's hard to sustain a conclusion that the Jews were oppressed under Islam. This isn't to say that there weren't aberations, and it's not to say it was a life we'd like to live today, but the difference in quality of life between the average Jew and average Moslem during the years of the calipates was very small. It was more a nuisance than oppression. Being slightly inconvenienced is not a basis on which to claim oppression. If it is, then you must admit that the Arabs of Israel are oppressed.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Edan


And if it was just one extremist in one corner of the Muslim world, you would be right. You do know that the "Muslim world" was more than just Spain, right?

Which is why a mad ruler of Egypt and a vicious, but short lived dynasty in Spain can't be used as examples of why life under Islam was so bad.

[Edan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Which is why a mad ruler of Egypt and a vicious, but short lived dynasty in Spain can't be used as examples of why life under Islam was so bad.

And other examples from places like Morocco, Yemen, Bagdad, Syria, etc.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Edan
And other examples from places like Morocco, Yemen, Bagdad, Syria, etc.

Apparently weren't important enough to be discuessed in any of my Jewish or Moslem histories.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
"I find anti-semitism nothing THAT special, a specific kind
of the thing mentioned above, but still, nothing unique"

Anti-semitism was a persistent, destructive phenomenon directed against a weak minorty for hundreds of years. There is nothing comparable in european history. If you want to look at numbers murdered relative to population or numbers expelled relative to population you can. The hatred was an animating force in western culture, even where persecutions were not taking place. Even where NO Jews lived. (EG Merchant of Venice is an anti-semitic play - written when there were NO Jews in England - any anti-Polish plays by Shakespeare?)

Im sorry you cant see this. I do not intend to discuss it further.

Everyone "knew" Jews, meaning they heard of them...
Anyway. You can complain about that Christians for centuries had bad feelings towards Jews - and in fact, why not - but again, compare your situation to the situation of pagans or Muslims in Christian states, and You'll see it was better. The phenomenon is not that Jews were treaten as inferior, but that they were allowed "tolerated" at all.

[chequita guevara]

Pagans were converted. Moslems were expelled. Jews were cheated, expelled, convereted, and slaughtered. Tollerated is not a word I would use to describe Europe's treatment of Jews.

[Bereta_Eder]

Europe (and people outside of Europe to Europe) have done some pretty nast things to themselves too.

[Elok]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Pagans were converted. Moslems were expelled. Jews were cheated, expelled, convereted, and slaughtered. Tollerated is not a word I would use to describe Europe's treatment of Jews.

On the other hand, early Islam gave pagans a choice between conversion and death, and merely overtaxed and belittled Christians and Jews until they switched sides. Can't we just agree that we're all evil monsters at heart and stop there?

[Bereta_Eder]

"Islam" murdered millions of Christians too.

[Dom Pedro II]

Almost everybody has murdered somebody else at some point... and the group being killed probably did their own bit of slaughtering at another time.

Personally, I think the Jews have had such a long history of being abused because they actually survived long enough to BE abused for so long... I mean, thing about how many of the Semitic peoples that far back in time have actually managed to survive with their culture intact to this very day...

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
Almost everybody has murdered somebody else at some point... and the group being killed probably did their own bit of slaughtering at another time.

Not necessairily.