islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery

The Arab–Islamic Imperialismrich cultural heritage and even sought to restore their pre-Islamic civilization to replace the brutally imposedIslamic customs and precepts.Shu’ubiya was one such anti-Arab movement among the Persians, Egyptians and Palestinians, whichrose to prominence during the second-third Islamic centuries. One exponent of this movement was the greatPersian General Khayder bin Kawus (aka Afshin), who served under the liberal, freethinking Abbasid Caliphal-Mutasim (d. 842). Despite achieving great military success for the Islamic empire, Afshin had only disdainfor the Arab culture and Islamic religion. Ignaz Goldziher notes of him that ‘He was so little a Muslim that hecruelly maltreated two propagandists of Islam who wished to transform a pagan temple into a mosque; heridiculed Islamic laws.’ Defying Islamic taboos of haraam-halal, ‘He ate meat of strangled animal, and alsoinduced others to do so by saying that such meat was fresher than that of animals killed according to theIslamic rites,’ adds Goldziher. He ridiculed various Islamic customs, such as circumcision and ‘dreamt of therestoration of the Persian Empire and the ‘white religion’ and mocked the Arabs, Maghribines, and MuslimTurks.’ 389 General Afshin, accused of apostasy and conversion to his ancestral religion of Zoroastrianism, wasthrown into prison where he died in 841. 390While taking great pride in their own national and historical achievements, the Shu’ubiya proponentsnever failed to point fingers at the underdeveloped Bedouin culture of the Arabs by calling them wild,uncouth, and uncivilized. They claimed that it was the Persians from whom they learned manners. Theyportrayed the Arabs as tent-dwellers, sheep-herders, camel-drivers, desert-squatters and lizard eaters.According to Ismail al-Thaalibi, they denounced the prevalent culture of sodomy among the Quraysh (Thisaffirms the unbridled and decadent sexual and moral standing of the Arabs noted above). 391 Similarmovements, dedicated to proving the superiority of indigenous culture over the imposed Arab culture, alsotook roots among the Egyptian Copts, the Nabatean Arabs, and most likely, amongst every other people,whom the Arabs had conquered. Firuzan (or Abu Lulu), who assassinated Caliph Omar in 644 to avenge theatrocities committed by the Arab invaders in Persia, is revered as a hero in Iran even today. 392These instances speak volumes about the stunted cultural, social and political development of theArabs—amongst whom, Islam originated and flourished and upon whose cultural norms, the Islamic creedwas based. The kind of unbridled cruelty and culture of sexual slavery, sodomy and huge harems (see Chapteron Slavery), which the Muslim invaders brought along and implanted in far-flung parts of the Muslim world,is a reflection of the lacking in moral and cultural development in the primitive Bedouin Arab society at thetime.The question, then, naturally arises: In what way, and to what extent, was it possible for such anuncultured, underdeveloped people to offer things valuable to the world’s greatest civilizations: India, Persia,Egypt, the Levant and Byzantium?The Arabs in the seventh century seem to have excelled over their conquered peoples only in sexualindulgence and poetry. Large harems and widespread sex-slavery introduced by Muslim invaders all over theconquered lands clearly prove the amoral nature of their sex culture. In poetry, the pre-Islamic Arabs hadexcelled over their immediate neighbors. However, Islam categorically condemns poets and poetry [Quran26:224; Bukhari 8:175–176; Muslim 28:5609]. Still, the Greek poetry excelled the Arab ones. While Muslims389. Goldziher I (1967) Muslim Studies, trs. CR Barber and SM Stern, London, Vol. I, p. 139390. Endress G (1988) An Introduction to Islam, trs. C Hillenbrand, Columbia University Press, New York, p. 172391. Al-Thaalibi I (1968) Lata’if Al-Ma’arif. The Book of Curious and Entertaining Information, ed. CE Bosworth,Edinburgh University Press, p. 25392. Mohammad-Ali E, Tomb of Firuzan (Abu-lolo) in Kashan to be Destroyed, The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studieswebsite, 28 June 2007; http://www.cais-soas.com/News/2007/June2007/28-06.htm (As noted elsewhere, Muslimsources allege that Abu Lulu assassinated Omar over a dispute over tributes)132