Western Imperialism: The reason for growth of radical islam and poor muslim lands

Response: To the contrary, it is rather clear that you have no idea what imperialism is and your logic of history is irrational. How do we know? Simple. You have not one source that you can provide tha says that the muslims rule in Spain did not last for centuries as well as their rule in India. The amount of centuries does not even matter. As such, that means that the empires were in dominant control, yet they did not expand. So this is not imperialism. The same applies to North Africa. No regime was in the way to prevent expansion in Africa at the time when muslims first gained control. Yet they did not expand.

Now this usually triggers the same response by those who insist on propagating that muslims were imperialists by stating that the muslims did try to expand but were defeated. Yet such an argument fails to support imperialism because if the muslims were defeated, then they would not have ruled for centuries in any land. The result of defeat is not a century of rule by the ones defeated. In order for the muslims to rule any land in Spain for centuries without being conquered by Europe, that means that Europe could not defeat them at the time. This means that the muslims could easily conquer Europe within thise centuries. Yet they never did. That proves that the reason for not conquering Europe was because they had no ambition to do so because they were not imperialists.


Unlike western conquest. They set out to defeat the muslim lands and seeked more land to conquer, such as America. Thus the evidence is clear who the imperialist were.

No one denies that battles were fought and armies were built by muslims to invade territories and lands, so there is no hypocrisy. However, invasion and battles does not mean imperialsim.

Response: The youtube clip is a clip from the history channel itself, so it is very much credible.

As for islamic imperialism, there has never been a such. An imperialists continues to conquer until all is under control. Yet the muslims ruled Spain for 800 years without expansion. They ruled India for 1000 years and NorthAfrica for centuries without expansion. That's not imperialism. The West on the other hand conquered muslim land as well as North America with the sole intent on imperialism.

Humiliation is the exact word I'd use for it. From being a great civilisation that extends from Morocco to China and almost kicked Christian Europe's arses, to having your lands taken from you by those same Christian Europeans a few centuries later... well, it's not very nice.

In the West, some talk about 'Islamization' of our society, which is nonsense, but we never stop to consider the opposite and far more likely scenario- the Westernisation of the Muslim world. Again, this breeds radical Islamism, as it is interpreted as modern imperialism.

Many non-muslims have a misconception of why muslim lands are in such bad conditions, constantly engaging in extreme violence, and their hatred towards the West. Many blame the islamic texts for the reason.

The evidence appears to disagree with this notion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TojC0uY5cW8

Is the West and its imperialism the blame for the growth of radical islam and the establishment of poor and conflicting muslim states?

Let's have a dialogue.

The ignorance and incomprehension in this hurts my head. Please read any reputable history of the Middle Ages. The Oxford or Cambridge histories will suit fine, and they have specific chapters on the relevant periods and regions which will acquaint you with the basic outlines as well as the detail. Goodness gracious, even the chronology provided at the front or back of most histories will be enough to disabuse you of your fantasies.

One of the most headache-inducing clams you make is that Muslims could not have been defeated by Europeans, because then Muslim rule would no have continued. The conclusion that you draw is that Muslims were not attempting to expand and thus were not imperialists. This is simply nonsense in terms of principle, definition, and specifics. In principle, it is possible, indeed common, for an empire or a country to be defeated in a battle or war, especially one of intervention or expansion, without losing control over the majority or the entirety of the territory it rules. Take just a few examples from recent history. America was famously defeated in Vietnam, and yet America continues to exist. Argentina was defeated in their attempt to take the Falklands, and yet Argentina still exists and controls the same territory it did before the war. Want an example from 'classic' European imperialism? The British Empire was driven out of Afghanistan with the utter destruction of its army, and yet the British Empire continued to rule India, from where its attempt to expand into Afghanistan was launched, for over 100 years. Or how about an Islamic example? Muslim Egypt has repeatedly attempted to conquer Israel. Each time the have been defeated, and yet Muslims still rule Egypt. You are also wrong in your definition of imperialism. Imperialism does not require limitless expansion in either intent or fact. Again, the barest acquaintance with the scholarship on this issue will set you straight. Lastly, and most importantly from a historical standpoint, you are wrong in specific fact. As much as you may try to magic it away with faulty 'logic,' the fact remains that the Islamic empires were repeatedly defeated in their attempts at expansion, for example at Poitiers in 732, which marked the furthest extent of Islamic imperial expansion in the west, and at Vienna in 1529, which marked the furthest extent of Islamic imperial expansion in the east (speaking in regards to Europe). These defeats stopped expansion; they did not remove Islamic control from the areas they had already conquered. That took hundreds more years.
Ultimately, your conclusions are based on a mix of ignorance, flawed reasoning, and incomprehension, and do not stand up to the slightest scrutiny.

That's only because the Muslims were defeated in the end. And Muslims did conquer other peoples land...They conquered half of Spain and turned in into an Islam Caliphate..The same happened in Eastern Europe until they were defeated at the Gates of Vienna.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests

Response: Yet with all this rhetoric, you conveniently left out a fundamental fact or are ignorant of it. Even, for the sake of argument, we agree that these countries were defeated and still remained in control, that still proves absolutely nothing. How did they remain in control? Because they signed a treaty! So if you have to sign a treaty to stay in control, then clearly you are not in control.

So in conclusion, your rebuttal is nothing but sheer idiocy and does absolutely nothing in refuting the fact that the muslims were not imperialists.

At one point you take issue with the amount of centuries quoted, then you say the amount is unimportant. In a histroical context it is important to point out that you claiming a load of exageratted rubbish lke "a 1000" should be highlighted for exactly that, rubbish. the facts i quoted are common knowlege to anyone that has read about the history of the regions we are talking about.

In order to get to spain, india, africa, persia etc the emprie of islam had to expand didnt it?- as i pointed out to you earleir, islam was formed in a tiny part of arabia, by arabs. Mohammed didnt click his figures and then come into control of all these forgein regions. He, and his later caliphs all had to spend many years of bloody war to invade and subjigate and lay claim to those foreign lands The primary reason why there are so many moslems in asia and africa is becuase of 700 odd years of rule by moslem invaders. No different to what the British, french etc did in the 17th centuries- they jsut did it a lot quicker. You still sound clueless on the meaining of Imperialism.

they ruled largely for the time up to and including their defeat. Rise of Islamic imperialism coincided with the decline of the roman and persian empires. And the expansion of empire went from the arabian peninsula as far east as northern india and far west as southern spain. but towards the ends of this time the moslems were defeated by, most notebly the mongols, and the european christians. You that over the length of human histroy, empires form almost every corner have at some point held control of most of middle east and central europe- from greeks persians, romans moslems (of various races) mongols, goths, huns and western europeans.

the moslems made their attemtps to invade europe, the first came almost right after mohammeds death, wth the ummayads- it was these intial attpemts that later gave charlemain and the church the excuse of the succession of Crusades. Moslems never got beyond the balkans, souther spain and sicilly and were driven back by local forces. They would have advanced as far as they were able to , militarily. You should also note that when i say moslems, i dont mean every moslem, as by this time moslems also fought against each others armies too. The berbers moors and ottoman turks were the ones who largely were in conflict with europe- and the mughals conflicted with the british in afganistan and india. Both were defeated ultimatly by superior armies, prior to this they made imperial advances becuase they had superior armies ( largely due to the use of the most advanced use of gunpower) Inbetween these two eras the mongols arrived and masacred the moslems and taking over both middle east and central europe. They did this with comparatively tiny armies.

i think if america was genuine interst in conquering moslems lands, it would have little problems, it walked into iraq inside 4 days. I dubt anyone will defend the wests 'imperialism' but it seems entirely hypocirtical to hear a moslem critise about it, when islam was built on such. modern america has interest in exterminating islamists, and going after those that make open threats. it has no interst in occupying moslem countires, bar maybe a few strategic military bases on allied ground.

of course it does

Not really.

As much as non-Muslims have misconceptions about why Muslim lands are in such bad conditions, so are Muslims unfortunately.

On the face of things you could say that the West and imperialism is to blame. However, as Muslims, is it not a belief that “Truly, God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” (Quran 13:11)?

So the blame can be put on the West etc, but in the Qur'an we are encouraged to look at ourselves. And only by changing ourselves will Allah (SWT) give us back our dignity as a collective.

The blame lies first and foremost at our doorstep. We are too busy going against what has been revealed, too busy not behaving in a righteous manner and forbidding that which is evil and enjoining good, rather we join in with that which is evil (negligence of prayers and family, drinking etc)!

The Muslims will only prevail in 'their lands' once they follow Islam as it should be. We can politicise this issue as much as we want, but it's only through going back to the basics (Tawheed, Sincerity, Prayer) as individuals and as a whole, that we will really see a change.

On the authority of Thawbaan, the Prophet said:

"The People will soon summon one another to attack you, as people when eating invite others to share their food." Someone asked, "Will that be because of our small numbers at that time?" He replied, "No, you will be numerous at that time: but you will be froth and scum like that carried down by a torrent (of water), and Allah will take the fear of you from the breasts (hearts) of your enemy and cast al-wahn into your hearts. " Someone asked, "O Messenger of Allah, what is al-wahn?" He replied, "Love of the world and a hatred of death." [An authentic hadith recorded by Abu Dawud and Ahmad]

I thought the cause of poor and conflicting muslim states had more to do with the restrictive approach to science going back several centuries after Islamic countries at one stage were doing very well in terms of science and innovation. Also, I understand that societies that don't prohibit cousin marriage can result in greater "clannishness". There is less social trust of those beyond family and it's harder to develop the institutions necessary for economic development.

No doubt the conflict with Israel and the Iraq invasion have helped the cause of radicals.

Actually they tried to expand into France and were defeated in 732.

The ottomans also tried to expand into Vienna several times and were defeated. Then there was le panto.

The Muslim never controlled the entire of India so that is just false anyway.

So obviously like all empires. They were imperialists

The Ottoman Empire was poor even before it lost WWI.

I also think there's something odd about complaining at Imperialism directed against an Empire. The Ottomans were themselves a colonial occupier in those Middle Eastern and Balkan lands, and they stayed a lot longer than the League of Nations Mandates.

Response: source please..

Response: Whether you want to call it all or some of India makes no difference. The fact still remains is that there rule was for centuries without defeat, yet they never expanded. That shows that they were not imperialists.

Response: But the question is imperialism. The Ottomans did not set out to conquer land just because they wanted to be the most dominant

Yes they did.

I believe all the problems the muslim world faces today can be easily solved with the rise of the Islamic State similar to the Ottaman State. The reasons are all there in history, of how when Europe was living in the dark ages, the muslims would flourish and advance rapidly, I think it was the CEO of HP, that said that without the research the muslims did under the islamic state, we wouldnt have any of the technology we have today. The reason for this was because the base of the Islamic State is the Quran which specifically encourages the people to think and for this certain policies are put in place to allow people to think, ponder and advance, such as free education, today universities cost around 9000 pounds a year, the first universities that were set up were in Baghdad, Morroco, Southern Spain (when it was muslim) and they were all free because then it would allow the people to gain knowledge and contribute to society.

To talk about western influence, I think this is one of the only reasons why the muslim world is failing. Lets look at Pakistan for example, a country that has one of the world largest armys, one of the worlds largest coal, oil and uranium exporters is in such dire poverty, why? Western Multinational Corporations thats why. The pakistani govt. lives in riches whilst the rest starve because of this western capitalist system. I could give more examples but the bottom line is Capitalism has failed the muslim world, its time the Muslims take on board back the system they originally had.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_River_Berre

After this, the Reconquista began.

No,I want to say some because that is the fact. They couldn't control India and that is why the Maratha Empire emerged.

They were also defeated multiple times by the Maratha Empire.

So, you are wrong on both Europe and India.

Response: Thanks, and according to your own source, the French were fighting the muslim moors who came from Northern Africa. This further supports the fact that muslims were not imperialists. For there is no logical reasoning for an empre in North africa to not expand their territory in Africa, but instead seek to conquer Europe. There was no authority to stop Africa from being conquered in Africa by the muslims. This shows that they were not imperialists and their reasoning to instead fight in Europe was in defense of the imperialism by Europeans.

Response: Yet the fact that you can't provide any source saying the the Muslims did not control India refutes your own claim as false. And whether all or some of India, the fact still remains that they were in control of territory for centuries before defeat, which means that they could not be defeated yet they never expanded their territory, thus proving that they were not imperialists.