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=> "Infidels" by Andrew Wheatcroft

"Infidels" by Andrew Wheatcroft

Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Saturday, October 23 2010, 20:00:51 (UTC)
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Wheatcroft is director of the international postgraduate Centre for Publishing Studies at the University of Stirling in Scotland. I realize he doesn't have a mechanical engineering degree from Baghdad "U", but let's read him anyway.

Regarding the Arab attack against Damascus....

"...a Monophysite Christian (Syriac, his)bishop, who had been treated as a heretic by the Byzantines, informed a Muslim commander, Khalid, that the east gate of the city was weakly defended, and even supplied the Muslims with ladders to scale the wall....the two Muslim forces met in the center of the city,and Abu Ubaid insisted that it should be respected and its people not put to the sword...For some time, half the Cathedral of St John was used for Christian worship, and half was turned into a mosque."

For this we see that our Christians were in the habit of betraying their neighbors whenever they thought to gain an advantage...in this case they helped Muslims against fellow-Christians, because those fellow Christians had been persecuting them and they must have believed that the Muslims would not....later in their dismal history they would betray their Muslim neighbors to Christians because they believed the Christians would defend them....

We also learn that the Arabs refused the common Christian practice of killing everyone in sight once they were victorious.

And, as if that wasn't enough, we also learn that although they were victorious and could have done as they wished, the Arabs took only half the space in a Christian church to use as a mosque, when all the rules of warfare and all Christian propaganda said they could have taken it all, forbidden Christian practice and even forcibly converted the Christians...none of which they did...none of which they EVER did.

It is true that Muslim attitudes towards Christians became less and less friendly and benign, but again this was because of what Christians later DID and not because of their religion.

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"Infidels" by Andrew Wheatcroft pancho - Saturday, October 23 2010, 20:00:51 (UTC)
- Re: "Infidels" by Andrew Wheatcroft pancho - 10/23 20:10

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