[Europe] Lorry rams into Berlin market

[Zottistan]

To be fair, historically Muslims and Arab expansion did make a lot of things better for a lot of people in North Africa, the Middle East and western Asia.

They're just not doing it right now.

What a lot of rubbish. Before the Muslim conquest those places were universally considered the seat of civilisation, and far more civilised than Northern Europe. Now they are dumps and the people are exporting their failure north.

Aside from Egypt most of North Africa was pretty fucking backwards back then, and during this particular period most of Arabia wasn't much better (it had absolutely been the seat of civilization in times before that). Islamic expansion turned them into a group of empires that had all of Europe quaking in their boots.

And yes. Now they are complete failures. I never denied that. There is about seven hundred years between then and now though.

[HMS Vanguard]

What a lot of rubbish. Before the Muslim conquest those places were universally considered the seat of civilisation, and far more civilised than Northern Europe. Now they are dumps and the people are exporting their failure north.

Aside from Egypt most of North Africa was pretty fucking backwards back then, and during this particular period most of Arabia wasn't much better (it had absolutely been the seat of civilization in times before that). Islamic expansion turned them into a group of empires that had all of Europe quaking in their boots.

And yes. Now they are complete failures. I never denied that. There is about seven hundred years between then and now though.

Arabia was backward, and has never been a seat of any kind of civilisation, but the Mediterranean rim minus Europe isn't "Arabia". In the classical world the Mediterranean rim was the seat of civilisation. That Islamic Arabia successfully exported poverty and barbarism at sword point to a previously civilised area is the whole point.

[Zottistan]

Aside from Egypt most of North Africa was pretty fucking backwards back then, and during this particular period most of Arabia wasn't much better (it had absolutely been the seat of civilization in times before that). Islamic expansion turned them into a group of empires that had all of Europe quaking in their boots.

And yes. Now they are complete failures. I never denied that. There is about seven hundred years between then and now though.

Arabia was backward, and has never been a seat of any kind of civilisation, but the Mediterranean rim minus Europe isn't "Arabia". In the classical world the Mediterranean rim was the seat of civilisation. That Islamic Arabia successfully exported poverty and barbarism at sword point to a previously civilised area is the whole point.

The point was that they imported civilization to north Africa and Arabia, which they did. Their effect on the eastern Mediterranean was never in question.

I mean they even brought a form of civilization to southern Spain.

[HMS Vanguard]

Arabia was backward, and has never been a seat of any kind of civilisation, but the Mediterranean rim minus Europe isn't "Arabia". In the classical world the Mediterranean rim was the seat of civilisation. That Islamic Arabia successfully exported poverty and barbarism at sword point to a previously civilised area is the whole point.

The point was that they imported civilization to north Africa and Arabia, which they did. Their effect on the eastern Mediterranean was never in question.

I mean they even brought a form of civilization to southern Spain.

The Arabs were already in Arabia, so they couldn't import anything there by definition. Every other area they conquered, they trashed, Spain having already been a major Phoenician and Roman province a millennium before.

[Zottistan]

The point was that they imported civilization to north Africa and Arabia, which they did. Their effect on the eastern Mediterranean was never in question.

I mean they even brought a form of civilization to southern Spain.

The Arabs were already in Arabia, so they couldn't import anything there by definition. Every other area they conquered, they trashed, Spain having already been a major Phoenician and Roman province a millennium before.

Turks aren't Arabs, and neither are Moroccans or Egyptians, and considering the Ottomans, Mamluks and Moors were probably the largest influences on Islamic cultures at the time, they absolutely could import civilization to Arabia.

Again, most of North Africa was pissant and backwards before Islamic expansion, and in the course of that millennium southern Spain became probably the most backward region in western continental Europe.

[Alinghi Federal-Democratic Republic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38415287

http://video.repubblica.it/edizione/mil ... 481/263849


Looks like Amri has been killed by the Italian police in Sesto San Giovanni, a municipality bordering Milan.
Which leads me to think that the reason why Italy hasn't seen a major Islamist attack is also because they want to keep a low profile here to cover the logistic bases of their organisations.

Too bad we didn't get him alive. Now we can't interrogate him, and discovering his accomplices becomes way more difficult.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN14C0JP

I think what we will ot discover more info's by him.

In Italy we had since the 1970 a terrorim activiteis, from the dissolved "Brigate Rosse" and the Mafia, Italy is more advanded than other european countries in the security agaist the terrorism (I DON'T SAY THAT WE ARE IMMUNE, OR TAHT IN ITALY WILL BE NEVER A TERRORIST ATTACK)

[HMS Vanguard]

The Arabs were already in Arabia, so they couldn't import anything there by definition. Every other area they conquered, they trashed, Spain having already been a major Phoenician and Roman province a millennium before.

Turks aren't Arabs, and neither are Moroccans or Egyptians, and considering the Ottomans, Mamluks and Moors were probably the largest influences on Islamic cultures at the time, they absolutely could import civilization to Arabia.

Again, most of North Africa was pissant and backwards before Islamic expansion, and in the course of that millennium southern Spain became probably the most backward region in western continental Europe.

IDK what you are even arguing at this point - that Islamic conquest benefited the Arabs by slightly rubbing off the previous high civilisation level of the areas they destroyed on the Arabs? Great, I guess. Maybe Pakistan invading Europe will improve Pakistan somehow. But I don't really care about that.

[Risottia]

http://video.repubblica.it/edizione/mil ... 481/263849


Looks like Amri has been killed by the Italian police in Sesto San Giovanni, a municipality bordering Milan.
Which leads me to think that the reason why Italy hasn't seen a major Islamist attack is also because they want to keep a low profile here to cover the logistic bases of their organisations.

Too bad we didn't get him alive. Now we can't interrogate him, and discovering his accomplices becomes way more difficult.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN14C0JP

I think what we will ot discover more info's by him.

In Italy we had since the 1970 a terrorim activiteis, from the dissolved "Brigate Rosse" and the Mafia, Italy is more advanded than other european countries in the security agaist the terrorism (I DON'T SAY THAT WE ARE IMMUNE, OR TAHT IN ITALY WILL BE NEVER A TERRORIST ATTACK)

Idk. Sure the Years of Lead gave our police and intelligence forces a lot of experience, but confronting organisations that, for one, speak and write a language so uncommon among security officers poses further challenges.

[Vassenor]

To be fair, historically Muslims and Arab expansion did make a lot of things better for a lot of people in North Africa, the Middle East and western Asia.

They're just not doing it right now.

What a lot of rubbish. Before the Muslim conquest those places were universally considered the seat of civilisation, and far more civilised than Northern Europe. Now they are dumps and the people are exporting their failure north.

Let's see your sources.

[Dahon]

So much revisionism in this thread.

First off, while pre-Islamic Spain was a major Phoenician and Roman province (and the birthplace of a few renowned Roman emperors and men of letters [and not one Phoenician of note among them]), it was not a seedbed of intellectual excellence, at least not compared to the literary, philosophical, and architectural glories of al-Andalus.

Lastly, while the Middle East and western Asia were already culturally resplendent before the Muslim conquest, thanks to Mesopotamia being Mesopotamia and the west taking in as much Greek as it had to... well, arithmetic and the Thousand and One Nights are the literal tip of the iceberg.

[Zottistan]

Turks aren't Arabs, and neither are Moroccans or Egyptians, and considering the Ottomans, Mamluks and Moors were probably the largest influences on Islamic cultures at the time, they absolutely could import civilization to Arabia.

Again, most of North Africa was pissant and backwards before Islamic expansion, and in the course of that millennium southern Spain became probably the most backward region in western continental Europe.

IDK what you are even arguing at this point - that Islamic conquest benefited the Arabs by slightly rubbing off the previous high civilisation level of the areas they destroyed on the Arabs? Great, I guess. Maybe Pakistan invading Europe will improve Pakistan somehow. But I don't really care about that.

I'm arguing the same thing I was arguing at the start.

To be fair, historically Muslims and Arab expansion did make a lot of things better for a lot of people in North Africa, the Middle East and western Asia.

They're just not doing it right now.

That Islamic expansion did benefit a lot of the areas they expanded into.

[HMS Vanguard]

IDK what you are even arguing at this point - that Islamic conquest benefited the Arabs by slightly rubbing off the previous high civilisation level of the areas they destroyed on the Arabs? Great, I guess. Maybe Pakistan invading Europe will improve Pakistan somehow. But I don't really care about that.

I'm arguing the same thing I was arguing at the start.

To be fair, historically Muslims and Arab expansion did make a lot of things better for a lot of people in North Africa, the Middle East and western Asia.

They're just not doing it right now.

That Islamic expansion did benefit a lot of the areas they expanded into.

I agree that Arab conquest made things better for the Arabs, who were never civilised, but by the Arab conquest became rich and powerful. It didn't make things better for anyone else; Islam redefined the borders of civilisation to exclude, or at least place on a clearly and permanently lower level, those areas it encompassed.

[Zottistan]

What a lot of rubbish. Before the Muslim conquest those places were universally considered the seat of civilisation, and far more civilised than Northern Europe. Now they are dumps and the people are exporting their failure north.

Let's see your sources.

No, that's a fair enough assessment tbh. I mean it ignores about a thousand years of very important stuff that happened in the meanwhile, where Islam back in its heyday brought them out of decline, but those areas were at one stage great, and are currently not.

[Zottistan]

I'm arguing the same thing I was arguing at the start.


That Islamic expansion did benefit a lot of the areas they expanded into.

I agree that Arab conquest made things better for the Arabs, who were never civilised, but by the Arab conquest became rich and powerful. It didn't make things better for anyone else; Islam redefined the borders of civilisation to exclude, or at least place on a clearly and permanently lower level, those areas it encompassed.

It didn't improve things for (all of) the eastern Mediterranean and the southern Balkans.

It did for North Africa, western Asia and southern Spain.

[HMS Vanguard]

I agree that Arab conquest made things better for the Arabs, who were never civilised, but by the Arab conquest became rich and powerful. It didn't make things better for anyone else; Islam redefined the borders of civilisation to exclude, or at least place on a clearly and permanently lower level, those areas it encompassed.

It didn't improve things for (all of) the eastern Mediterranean and the southern Balkans.

It did for North Africa, western Asia and southern Spain.

What is the difference between what you're defining as western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean?

The civilisational level of Egypt, Palestine/Phoenicia/Israel, Anatolia, Greece/the Balkans, suffered. You might be right that "North Africa minus Egypt" didn't suffer all that much but surely only because that area was and remained largely uninhabited. Spain has the advantage of having been reconquered from Islam.

[Vassenor]

It didn't improve things for (all of) the eastern Mediterranean and the southern Balkans.

It did for North Africa, western Asia and southern Spain.

What is the difference between what you're defining as western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean?

The civilisational level of Egypt, Palestine/Phoenicia/Israel, Anatolia, Greece/the Balkans, suffered. You might be right that "North Africa minus Egypt" didn't suffer all that much but surely only because that area was and remained largely uninhabited. Spain has the advantage of having been reconquered from Islam.

Can you demonstrate how the "civilisational level" suffered?

Especially since as far as I can tell that's not even a term historians use.

[Zottistan]

It didn't improve things for (all of) the eastern Mediterranean and the southern Balkans.

It did for North Africa, western Asia and southern Spain.

What is the difference between what you're defining as western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean?

The civilisational level of Egypt, Palestine/Phoenicia/Israel, Anatolia, Greece/the Balkans, suffered. You might be right that "North Africa minus Egypt" didn't suffer all that much but surely only because that area was and remained largely uninhabited. Spain has the advantage of having been reconquered from Islam.

Western Mediterranean: Anatolia, the southern Balkans, Greece, etc. Eastern Asia: Caucuses, Persia etc.

Civilization in eastern Anatolia thrived under the Ottomans. Western Anatolia, Palestine and the Balkans less so, but that's largely because they were practically warzones for much of the period.

Tbh I'm not sure what state Egypt was in immediately before Islam so I'm in no position to judge. Moroccan culture, however, thrived, and Morocco was hardly underpopulated.

Spain was reconcquered after seven or eight hundred years...

[Seraven]

What's that got to do with anything? Both whites and Muslims are around because of conquest and population displacement. The difference is that whites made things better.

How so?

Whites' inventions, medicines, you know, knowledge from Far East and Muslim that adapted to theirs...

[FelrikTheDeleted]

How so?

Whites' inventions, medicines, you know, knowledge from Far East and Muslim that adapted to theirs...

What?

[Gauthier]

To be fair, historically Muslims and Arab expansion did make a lot of things better for a lot of people in North Africa, the Middle East and western Asia.

They're just not doing it right now.

What a lot of rubbish. Before the Muslim conquest those places were universally considered the seat of civilisation, and far more civilised than Northern Europe. Now they are dumps and the people are exporting their failure north.

I like how some people can't resist using threads on terror attacks as a soapbox to rant about how all Muslims are backwards, savage Durka Durkas.

[Imperializt Russia]

Those two things you suggested in those two posts are not the same thing.

It is what it boils down to for me. I think I've made that clear. You can be German and Muslim, yes, but they can't be on an equal footing. If their values come into conflict, you must decide which one is more important to you.

I am not in the mood to roll through semantics any more than that just for your benefit.

I think your argument is just bullshit.

Thinking that being Muslim defines you more than being German does not mean that German law can suck a fat one because koran-bae will always be there.

In my daily life, my being English, even my being British, is irrelevant. It doesn't matter.
My being an atheist doesn't mean I declare marriage laws and inheritance laws forfeit because they're based on religious ritual.

[HMS Vanguard]

What a lot of rubbish. Before the Muslim conquest those places were universally considered the seat of civilisation, and far more civilised than Northern Europe. Now they are dumps and the people are exporting their failure north.

I like how some people can't resist using threads on terror attacks as a soapbox to rant about how all Muslims are backwards, savage Durka Durkas.

I did not begin this discussion about the quality of Muslim civilisation.

[HMS Vanguard]

What is the difference between what you're defining as western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean?

The civilisational level of Egypt, Palestine/Phoenicia/Israel, Anatolia, Greece/the Balkans, suffered. You might be right that "North Africa minus Egypt" didn't suffer all that much but surely only because that area was and remained largely uninhabited. Spain has the advantage of having been reconquered from Islam.

Western Mediterranean: Anatolia, the southern Balkans, Greece, etc. Eastern Asia: Caucuses, Persia etc.

East Asia is China, Japan, etc. I said eastern Mediterranean. Neither the Caucuses nor Persia are on the Mediterranean.

Civilization in eastern Anatolia thrived under the Ottomans. Western Anatolia, Palestine and the Balkans less so, but that's largely because they were practically warzones for much of the period.

Tbh I'm not sure what state Egypt was in immediately before Islam so I'm in no position to judge. Moroccan culture, however, thrived, and Morocco was hardly underpopulated.

Spain was reconcquered after seven or eight hundred years...

The Ottomans were at least some kind of civilisation, but hard to escape the conclusion that the capital of the Roman Empire became Turkey.

[Zottistan]

Western Mediterranean: Anatolia, the southern Balkans, Greece, etc. Eastern Asia: Caucuses, Persia etc.

East Asia is China, Japan, etc. I said eastern Mediterranean. Neither the Caucuses nor Persia are on the Mediterranean.

East Asia was clearly a typo. You asked what I was referring to by Eastern mediterranean. I figured since the regions mentioned experienced similar conditions and actually strengthened your case I'd throw them in with it.

Civilization in eastern Anatolia thrived under the Ottomans. Western Anatolia, Palestine and the Balkans less so, but that's largely because they were practically warzones for much of the period.

Tbh I'm not sure what state Egypt was in immediately before Islam so I'm in no position to judge. Moroccan culture, however, thrived, and Morocco was hardly underpopulated.

Spain was reconcquered after seven or eight hundred years...

The Ottomans were at least some kind of civilisation, but hard to escape the conclusion that the capital of the Roman Empire became Turkey.

Constantinople is only one city, and on top of that one city in a region I have said I completely agree with you on.

[Jumalariik]

Ho, I know too much about Islam for this accusation to be anything but "fair" or for me to pretend that there is no problem with it.

Yeah I don't think I can take your word for it when you think one religious belief is better than another.

By any logic one religious belief must be better than others. There is only one truth.