Islam in Europe (Documentary) Discussion - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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End of Roman society, feudalism, rise of religious power, beginnings of the nation-state, renaissance (476 - 1492 CE).
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History has its peculiarities. For instance, the notion of motivation draws one to baffle over what inspires others and where is 'pride' from? It's so hard to contemplate, but what is the human?

The Greek ruler Theodosius (?), closed Egyptian schools and forced Justinian rules on the populations of Europe, forcing the dark ages on a people in the name of Christianity. The "Moors" take over Spain, rule it for 700 years and upon their abolition their records are destroyed despite their charity and altruism. Why?
By Smilin' Dave
#1922275
The Greek ruler Theodosius (?), closed Egyptian schools and forced Justinian rules on the populations of Europe, forcing the dark ages on a people in the name of Christianity. The "Moors" take over Spain, rule it for 700 years and upon their abolition their records are destroyed despite their charity and altruism. Why?

Information control? Making it harder for people to understand life without the system makes it more unlikely they will question it or otherwise destabilise it. In the case of the schools, they also represent a cultural centre and hence a potential locus for dissent.
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By Thunderhawk
#13051376
Not having time to watch those video right now (though I probably will later)..

The "Moors" take over Spain, rule it for 700 years and upon their abolition their records are destroyed despite their charity and altruism. Why?

Weren't the first batch of moors the enlightened ones who were tolerant, set up the university, developed agriculture and infrastructure of the the country, constructed the marvels, drank wine, etc..

And the second batch of Moors who took over, surviving on the accomplishments of the previous rulers while they instituted the same kind of, but less severe, oppressive policies the Christian Spaniards imposed a century later?
By Zyx
#13051815
Heh, I just reached this far in the documentary, but it's more complicated than that.

The original batch were awesome. They had a fatal flaw, however, in that their latest leader didn't allow the military to recruit among their citizens. The military had to hire mercenaries. This mercenary military overthrew the original government, factionalized them and weakened the original batch's outreach, leaving only city-states in the wake of a Christian north that attacked each city one by one, exploiting them with mafia-like governance and imposing famine and disease on the Muslim population. Soon, the Muslims appealed to the Moroccans who were more fundamentalist and simple-living who attacked the Christians and the old Muslim's ways, hence was the first Holy War. Interesting stuff!

There's an account on a Christian doctor who kills two of his patients for simple things that a Muslim doctor could have intelligently prescribed for the people's health. One also gets to read how different the Muslim society was from the feudalistic society of the Christians. Namely, the peasants would own property and lease it, hoping to reap rewards from the person working on 'their' lands. In Europe, the land lords instead had land for game or show, just a waste really.

There's also the account of how 'romance' comes into our society. It's interesting but supposedly the first troubadour, the French who brought 'romance' as a genre to England, was a King who acquired Muslim bards during the first Holy War. That the bards were skilled in 'romance' clearly reveals how we owe 'romance' as a genre to the Muslims. Interesting!!!

You should watch it. I haven't completed it, yet. Watching in snippets. It's good stuff.
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By Corporatios
#13052637
The Greek ruler Theodosius (?), closed Egyptian schools and forced Justinian rules on the populations of Europe, forcing the dark ages on a people in the name of Christianity.


Actually, Theodosius closed every school considered Pagan(Greek too), and imposed Christianity as the only religion in Byzantium. He is mainly responsible for the end of ancient Greek civilization. I'm not sure though Egyptians were Muslim when this happened.

Besides that, his judicial work is considered as one of his achievements. Justinian rules was a vast project that included all roman and early byzantine laws, and is considered one of the most advanced law systems of the past. I don't know if that was bad.
By Zyx
#13052669
Aye, I was writing that for the sake of conversation. I don't know much about Theodosius. As to Egyptians being Muslims around the 4th century. Impossible. Islam was much later.

This documentary keeps getting interesting, and I forget to put out more information on it. Others should post what they find interesting on it too. Supposedly, though, in the 1600s, the Crusades was rewritten to become a Holy War. As in, the war had never been fought over religion. I find it interesting that it was rewritten around that time. I also think that there is that link to the word 'eurocentrism.' What are the 1600s for human history?

This is all interesting. :D
By babilonian
#13054478
The story of Islam in Spain is much like the story of Islam in our days. The Murabitun were the ones that re-invaded Spain with the call for help from one of the Muslim rulers, al-Mutamid to Yusuf ibn Tashfin. However, once those desert people reached Spain and saw how muslims of spain lived. They decided to stay, eventually replacing the muslim Spanish leaders.

Once Yusuf Ibn Tashfin was able to defeat Alfonso VI, he turned against Al-Mutamid. His strategy at war was to bleed Al Mutamid's army and then to engage the enemy with his forces. So at the main battle, he made Al Mutamid fight untill the point where he was on the edge of defeat, then Yusuf engaged Alfonso the last minute to tip over the battle. Of Course, Al Mutamid's army was almost wiped out, so he had no army left to force Yusuf to return to Morocco as he initally promised.
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By noemon
#13055317
Actually, Theodosius closed every school considered Pagan(Greek too), and imposed Christianity as the only religion in Byzantium. He is mainly responsible for the end of ancient Greek civilization. I'm not sure though Egyptians were Muslim when this happened.


Theodosius did not close down any school, he closed down the temples. Schools were separate institutions and were untouched.

Some [polemicists] conjure that the temples also functioned as schools, and hence they say he closed down schools, however that is not the case, it is purely imaginative misinformation hanging around for meme's sake due to its populist anti-christian overtones. Temples were not schools but banks, and the curriculum of schools inside Rome's borders was thoroughly Pagan, during Theodosius and afterwards, even inside exclusively christian schools. After all the christians hated Julian precisely because he banned them from teaching Greek classics and as such from being able to teach anything all-together. "Persecution" of christians consisted of making them unable to teach pagan literature, and their curse was to "stick to Matthew and Luke" instead. The irony of this sentence never fails to amuse me.

Anyhow, Theodosius not only did not close down schools and "forced Dark Ages" as Zyx quoted, but founded Universities such as the University of Constantinople, which was the first university in the planet devoted exclusively to secular(aka "pagan" in the lingo of the times) studies.

"The Dark Ages"
At the time various economic schools, colleges, polytechnics, libraries and fine arts academies were also open in the city, making Constantinople the spiritual centre of the medieval world. Byzantine society was educated by the standards of its time with high levels of literacy comparative to the rest of the world. Significantly it possessed a secular education system that was a continuation of the academies of classical antiquity. Primary education was widely available, even at village level and uniquely in that society for both sexes. It was in this context that the secular University of Constantinople can be understood. Further it was not unique in the empire as for many centuries, before the Muslim conquest, similar institutions operated in such major provincial as Antioch and Alexandria. [3]

The original school was founded in 425 by Emperor Theodosius II with 31 chairs for Law, Philosophy, Medicine, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, Music, Rhetoric and other subjects, 15 to Latin and 16 to Greek. The university existed until the 15th century.[4]

The main content of higher education for most students was rhetoric, philosophy and law with the aim of producing competent, and learned personnel to staff the bureaucratic postings of state and church. In this sense the University was the secular equivalent of the Theological Schools. The university maintained an active philosophical tradition of Platonism and Aristotelism, with the former being the longest unbroken Platonic school, running for close to two millennia until the 15th century [1]
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By Anothroskon
#13229910
The documentary and others of its ilk seek to redress one inaccuracy, the relative misrepresentation of Islam in western historiography but do so at the expense of truth when they perpetuate other misrepresentations like that of the medieval Roman Empire (a.k.a. Byzantium).

For example they perpetuate the myth that it was through Muslim sources that the majority of the Classics reach us today. This is utter hogswash, the people who preserved the Greek and Roman Classics were not the Muslims but the Greeks (or Romans as they called themselves at the time).

I don't want to sound too harsh since one can't expect everything on a single go and these documentaries are an honest step in the right direction.

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