| Author | Message | ||
     M2me |
Ask Europe Did you read any of the comments? Here is a great quote from one by johnpitcher:
Hear! Hear! Am I wrong because you lot are in a panic and are determined to have America go tits up just to prove some stupid ideological point? Is that the idea girlies? That's spot on and hilarious to boot! And by the way, a week from today I'll be in London! I can't wait! | ||
| M2me |
The question that may not be asked, is what is wrong with this faith that it breeds so much murder? Oh, so everyone who is not a Muslim is pure as the driven snow? No one besides Muslims have ever murdered? Yeah, right! More Americans are murdered in a single year by other Americans (the majority of whom are not Muslims) than have ever been murdered by Islamic extremists since the beginning of time. That is a fact. Sorry, if it doesn't fit within your religious bigotry. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Oh, so everyone who is not a Muslim is pure as the driven snow? No one besides Muslims have ever murdered? Yeah, right! More Americans are murdered in a single year by other Americans (the majority of whom are not Muslims) than have ever been murdered by Islamic extremists since the beginning of time. That is a fact. Sorry, if it doesn't fit within your religious bigotry.  http://cafejohn.com/wp-content/uploads//2009/10/Deathtoll_thumb.png (Message edited by Blake on December 18, 2023) | ||
| Moxnix |
Oh, so every muslim is pure as the driven snow? Muslims have never murdered? One of us has actually been to a number of muslim countries over a 25 year period. My well-thumbed dictionary includes a definition of "bigot" as "one intolerantly devoted to his own church." Guilty as charged, sir. And guilty of continuing to practice my religious freedom in an increasingly unfree world. Good luck with your theological buffet. | ||
| Johnnymceldoo |
Good grief. Reminds me of the southpark episode where the town buries their heads in the sand. | ||
| M2me |
I saw that chart earlier in this thread and it's obvious that whoever put it together has zero knowledge of world history and zero knowledge of math. The very first part about the African slave trade is a load of garbage. Muslims ran all the wholesale slave trade in Africa. That is completely false. Muslims had nothing to do with the Atlantic slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade was run first by the Portuguese and later Spanish, English, Dutch and French. Muslims had nothing to do with it. Muslims did have an African slave trade, but they had nothing to do with the Atlantic slave trade. Thomas Sowell estimates that eleven million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic and fourteen million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East. This is somewhat accurate although it's possible the numbers could be reversed and somewhat smaller. But the total death toll of 120 million is total rubbish. In the first place, Muslims didn't have anything to do with the Atlantic slave trade and in the second place, Africa didn't even have 120 million people until nearly 1900. The math doesn't make any sense. That's why I'm very skeptical about the entire chart. The numbers look very cooked to me. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
That then brings me to the question of slavery. Muslims say it is only a Christian phenomenon. Yet while the British Empire was abolishing slavery under pressure from British Christians like David Livingstone and William Wilberforce, Arab Muslims were enslaving Africans (i.e. following the promise by Allah concerning the (captives) that your right hand possesses from Sura Nisaa, 4:3). Have you not read about the islands of Zanzibar and Pembe in East Africa, during the nineteenth century? Or have you not questioned why Muslim countries have never been involved in the movement for the abolition of slavery? Let me set the record straight. While Europeans were involved with the slave trade for a few hundred years, the existence of the traffic of African slaves had been well established one-thousand years before. The Muslim position which places the entire blame for the invention and practice of black slavery at the door of Christian Europe, is simply not historically tenable. Both the Grecian and Roman societies were slave states, yet most of their slaves were Caucasian. In fact, the word slave meant a person who was of Slavic origin. Robert Hughes, in his essay on The Fraying of America in the February 3, 1992 issue of Time magazine corrects this false impression when he says: "The African slave trade as such, the black traffic, was an Arab invention, developed by traders with the enthusiastic collaboration of black African ones, institutionalized with the most unrelenting brutality, centuries before the white man appeared on the African continent, and continuing long after the slave market in North America was finally crushed... Nothing in the writings of the Prophet [Muhammad] forbids slavery, which is why it became such an Arab-dominated business. And the slave traffic could not have existed without the wholehearted cooperation of African tribal states, built on the supply of captives generated by their relentless wars. The image promulgated by pop-history fictions like Roots - of white slavers bursting with cutlass and musket into the settled lives of peaceful African villages - is very far from the historical truth. A marketing system had been in place for centuries, and its supply was controlled by Africans. Nor did it simply vanish with Abolition. Slave markets, supplying the Arab Emirates, were still operating in Djibouti in the 1950's; and since 1960, the slave trade has flourished in Mauritania and the Sudan. There are still reports of chattel slavery in northern Nigeria, Rwanda and Niger." The argument by some Muslims that slavery was God's way of converting Africans to Islam, is much the same argument suggested by certain misguided Christians in the 19th century who said that, bringing Africans to America gave them the opportunity to hear the Gospel; an argument which holds no credibility in the Bible, and dishonours the character of God. Unfortunately Islam still hasn't learned, as today the slavery of foreign nationals still exists in the heartland of Islam: Saudi Arabia. (UN Report on Slavery, 1994) | ||
| Sifo |
M2me, You are disputing figures that are well sourced, but you provide nothing to back your position. Frankly, speaking only for myself, you lack credibility. On the related issue of Cordoba Mosque in Spain you cherry picked information to argue that Muslims in Spain were not on a mission of conquest. The parts of the paragraph that you omitted clearly showed over 500 years of oppressive Muslim rule over the "non-believers". Muslims have a pattern, which is laid out in the Koran, of "peacefully" overtaking populations until they have enough mass to forcefully take over and implement Sharia law. The same thing is being attempted right now in many European countries as well as the US and Canada. There is a real effort to not assimilate into the culture of the countries in which they move into. Back to the current subject... If you have any real data that shows Muslims were not involved in the slave trades, please present it. Otherwise your tarnished reputation of presenting "facts" on this subject isn't worth anything to me. Pointing out the countries that were involved in the shipping of slaves does nothing to address who in Africa was actually capturing and selling the slaves as a wholesale business. You completely missed addressing the point that was made. I'm guessing that's because, as with the Cordoba Mosque issue the point made was 100% correct. | ||
| Chopped_burban |
I love how everyone is talking about the slave trade as if it's dead. It's not dead, it was re-named... it's now called Trafficking in Persons.... Present in almost every country in the world today. The biggest example I've seen of it... The UAE. Dubai makes Las Vegas look like the Vatican. | ||
| M2me |
If you have any real data that shows Muslims were not involved in the slave trades, please present it. I never said that Muslims were not involved in the slave trades. Here is a quote from my post, "Muslims did have an African slave trade, but they had nothing to do with the Atlantic slave trade." who in Africa was actually capturing and selling the slaves as a wholesale business. In the case of the Kongo Kingdom and elsewhere along the west coast, non-Muslim Africans were capturing and selling the slaves as a wholesale business. Here is a good overview: Atlantic Slave Trade The statement that, "Muslims ran all the wholesale slave trade in Africa." is completely false. This statement was in the first part of the explanation of the chart showing 270 million killed by Islam. If the very first part is false that makes me skeptical about the entire chart. Slavery is bad, I think we can all agree on that. But to place the entire blame for the African slave trade on Muslims is simply false. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
(See excerpt from 1994 UN Report on Slavery) | ||
| Sifo |
M2me, Your link while not necessarily inaccurate, does ignore certain important aspects of the Atlantic slave trade. Sure the Portuguese were among the first to be shipping slaves. That was only one part of the slave trade. So who did the Portuguese, who were nothing but shipping merchants, get the slaves from?
http://africanhistory.about.com/od/slavery/ss/Orig ins_Of_Slave_Trade.htm | ||
| Blake |
Despicable deluded idiot. Educate yourself into reality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_corsairs The Barbary Corsairs, sometimes called Ottoman Corsairs or Barbary Pirates, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a term derived from the name of its Berber inhabitants. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard and even South America,[1] and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing ships, they engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, but also France, Britain, the Netherlands, Ireland, and as far away as Iceland. The main purpose of their attacks was to capture Christian slaves for the Islamic market in North Africa and the Middle East.[2] More... http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/slavetra.html http://africanhistory.about.com/od/slavery/a/Islam RoleSlavery01.htm | ||
| Sifo |
I fail to understand when a person chooses to ignore reality and instead choose to base their beliefs on fantasy. They then claim to be enlightened.  | ||
| Moxnix |
Gee. Unbelievable. Where does one start on muslim involvement in slavery? And continued involvement? I guess you'd show up at a Saudi palace harem and ask the guards if their fathers were eunichs, too. Next you'll be telling us North Africans don't buy slaves in southern Sudan. Or, African juju men don't buy albino parts for their mojos and modern African cannibals don't eat pygmies for their perceived magical powers. Get a passport, take a tour of the muslim world. Then tell us it's better, or even on par with the West. | ||
| M2me |
Your link while not necessarily inaccurate, does ignore certain important aspects of the Atlantic slave trade. And your link is not inaccurate either but you failed to go to the next page. At the top is a heading: By-Passing the Muslims.
Muslims had nothing to with the Atlantic slave trade. Look at the Congo area today. It's 90% Christian. It's Christian because the countries that were building trade there hundreds of years ago in slaves, gold, etc. were Christian, not Muslim. My position is not that Muslims were not and are not involved in slavery. My position is that the statement, "Muslims ran all the wholesale slave trade in Africa." is false. That is not fantasy, that is fact. (Message edited by m2me on September 11, 2010) | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Muslims were involved in slave trade in Africa 800 years before the Europeans became involved. That's a hell of a head start. | ||
| Sifo |
What part of "Muslims ran all the wholesale slave trade in Africa." is inaccurate? How do you support that it's inaccurate? Do you know what wholesale means? A more complete quote you are pulling...
So Muslims were selling slaves (wholesale business) as far south as Benin. The Portuguese eventually took them as far south as the Kongo outside of Muslim reach at that point in time as a shipping/resale trade. The wholesale purchase of the slaves still originated in the Muslim territories to the north. I think I see how you are trying to parse this one statement to be false, but you are providing nothing to back that. Beyond that it's a pretty minor point in the broad discussion. Perhaps if you explained exactly what you issue is, it could be addressed directly. I don't think that's what you are trying to do though, is it? | ||
| Madduck |
The more interesting point is how many of our current presidents relatives were engaged in the slave trade. I believe, with no proof, that his grandfather had significant ties into the arab slave traders. One of many reasons we know nothing about his lineage. Only positive things get reported in this day and age. My source was in the peace corps serving outside Mombasa for about 12 years. The Obama story is much more interesting from a local perspective. | ||
| Blake |
John (M2me), I think an interesting question to ask Muslims in this country would be: "If a radical Islamic force were to occupy this nation, and the probability of a successful defeat was 50%, which side would you choose? What if it was 10%? What if it was 90%?" A question is a definition? Only to someone who prefers rhetoric and delusional nonsense over fact and solid analytical respectful debate. A religiously bigoted question would be "are Jews descended from pigs or apes or both?". As outrageous as that sounds, that very idea is taught in islamist schools all over the world as it was proclaimed repeatedly by islam's "blessed prophet", muhammed. All American citizens, including Muslims, are presumed innocent until proven guilty. No American citizen is required to prove their innocence. Asking someone a "what if" question is not accusing them of any guilt of anything other than having an opinion. Asking someone a question may or may not indicate bias or bigotry. Given the state of islamism today, the question is as valid as if it were asked of Germans concerning naziism, say around 1930 or so. To you the question would apparently indicate anti-German bigotry, an idiotic and despicable point of view. What is the probability of a radical Islamic force occupying this nation? Zero. Zip. Nada. You might ask the pro-secular government folks still living in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Sudan, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and all the other current islamist states that were conquered through violent jihad if they agree with your analysis. Your analysis lacks time frame, something vital to an actual statistical analysis. Your conclusion is purely based on emotion. Fifty years ago, what was the emotion-based estimation (you falsely presume to call it "probability") that lower Manhattan would be destroyed by islamists and Iran would be on the verge of possessing long range ballistic nuclear weaponry? If you don't answer this question and demonstrate respect for thoughtful debate. You'll be banned from the board. My rule especially for you John. You've earned it. I have absolutely no doubt about that. I have never understood why people want to give so much power to a handful of very weak thugs. Again, you could have said the same about the nazis in Germany before they took power. But your premise of "just a handful of very weak thugs" is unsupportable and in fact moronically false. Facts and history clearly show that what you view as a "handful of very weak thugs" have conquered nations and brutally oppressed people the world over. Iran may soon gain nuclear weapons capability. Hezbollah is Iranian and Syrian supported. They now control Lebanon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah Hezbollah, which started with only a small militia in 1982, has grown to a massive organization with seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite television-station, and programs for social development. A national unity government was formed in 2008, giving Hezbollah and its opposition allies control of eleven of thirty cabinets seats; effectively veto power. Can radical Islamics hijack planes or plant IEDs and kill people? Sure, but we are vastly more powerful than that. You are arguing a straw man, which in debate besides being ignorant, is inconsiderate and disrespectful. No one claimed that islamists posess greater military power than America. The radical Islamics have no political, social, economic, or military power. That is pure fantasy nonsense. Afghanistan? Lebanon? Iran? The radicals have conquered entire nations and are ruling them and developing nuclear weapons. Their only source of power is our fear and hatred of them. I agree with that somewhat, but I disagree that the free world fears the islamists and I disagree that said power is only fed by fear or hatred. History proves otherwise. I don't fear them any more than I fear nazis. I simply recognize them for what they are and what they declare; I refuse to turn a blind eye to their stated agenda or to allow them to freely, without strong opposition gain power or influence in my country. I don't fear a cockroach or a handful of cockroaches, but I won't sure won't allow them to infest my home. Best solution is extermination. Geckos are great roach killers by the way. Our power comes from our Constitution, our democratic system, our system of law. Without warfighters to protect and defend our freedom, our Constitution, our system of law, it all disappears in a virtual instant in an historical time frame. Fear and hatred only serves to make us weaker and the terrorists stronger. Delusion, naivety, ignorance, fear of confrontation and inaction only serve to hasten the defeat of freedom. History proves it over and over and over again. Only a complete idiot unwilling to face reality and unwilling to confront/oppose evil wherever it is found could imagine otherwise. Am I wrong because you lot are in a panic and are determined to have America go tits up just to prove some stupid ideological point? Is that the idea girlies? It figures that you admire those eschewing thoughtful, respectful factual debate in favor of personal attack, proving that you are indeed a despicable idiot. Those who recognize the threat of islamism and its endless jihad are not in a "panic" or determined to have America go "tits-up", whatever that may mean. We simply recognize the reality of history and current events. The question that may not be asked, is what is wrong with this faith that it breeds so much murder? Oh, so everyone who is not a Muslim is pure as the driven snow? No one besides Muslims have ever murdered? Yet another inanely concocted straw man. More Americans are murdered in a single year by other Americans (the majority of whom are not Muslims) than have ever been murdered by Islamic extremists since the beginning of time. Firstly, your information is blatantly false. Far more have been slain by islamists than are murdered in America in one year. That is a fact; though it doesn't fit within your ludicrously ignorant state of delusion, it is indeed fact. Jihad has killed millions. Fact. Secondly, there is no one common factor instigating murders in America other than they are committed by murderers. The murder is not driven by one common ideology or cultish mandate as it is in islamism. (Message edited by blake on September 12, 2010) | ||
| M2me |
What part of "Muslims ran all the wholesale slave trade in Africa." is inaccurate? How do you support that it's inaccurate? Your own link supports that it's inaccurate. Your link goes to a page titled "Origins of the trans-Atlantic slave trade". The article is titled "Portuguese exploration and trade: 1450-1500". This chart appears at the top:  You're looking at a period of 1450-1500 and concluding that covers the entire slave trade and therefore Muslims were responsible for the entire wholesale trade. But I'm looking at the chart and I see that it covers more than just 1450-1500. What about the years between 1701-1800? Were Muslims responsible for all the wholesale trade of slaves in those years? The answer is no. Many of those slaves came from west central Africa. Muslims were not operating in that area in 1701-1800 and that area is not Muslim to this day. The wholesale trading of those slaves was not run exclusively by Muslims. Therefore, I conclude that the statement, "Muslims ran all the wholesale slave trade in Africa." is false. This conclusion is NOT the same as concluding that Muslims were not involved in the African slave trade. Is that a sufficient explanation or do you need more clarification? | ||
| Sifo |
M2me, You don't seem to be following the discussion very well. You brought up the Kongo as a means of proving the statement "Muslims ran all the wholesale slave trade in Africa." false. My link describes what happened in the Kongo area and shows that it became an area for reselling slaves, not wholesaling them. It really has nothing to do with the statement you are trying to disprove. Now you claim that because the article that I linked to only looks at the Portuguese trading of certain years it disproves your statement. It doesn't. What you need to do is provide evidence that someone other than Muslims participated in wholesale trade of slaves. I'm not even sure what the time frame that statement was meant to cover. If your assertion is true that others were wholesaling slaves it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a reputable source that details who was involved. All you have done to this point is to show that the sources cites so far don't cover each and every slave transaction in the history of mankind. Time to work on your proofs a bit. Just because A<>B and B<>C doesn't mean that A=C or A<>C. | ||
| Sifo |
BTW a quick search shows that Muslims were active it the slave trade through all the periods you have mentioned. I've had some interesting reading on this subject today. Little of it makes me feel any better about Muslim history, or the current state of Islam. In fact I simply find it more and more disturbing. So far you have failed to provide a single source to disprove the statement "Muslims ran all the wholesale slave trade in Africa.". Honestly I have doubts that the statement is 100% accurate. There was bound to be some small portion of the slave trade that was run by non-Muslims. It's just that the Muslims seem to be the far greatest perpetrator of this vile condition by far. A vile condition that the continue to this day. I've learned a lot today. Have you? | ||
| Sifo |
Here's the really funny thing. So what if M2me actually does prove that a small percentage of non-Muslims participated in the slave trade? What does that mean for the above chart? Should it be reduced by 2%? 5%? 25%? Well from what I've read it's not going to be 25%, that's for sure. Even cutting it by 50% still shows Islam to be a world leader in killing around the world. That's the real point here isn't it? Time to stop the mental masturbation and accept the fact that Islam is not a religion of peace. The fact is that those who are making this claim are either woefully misinformed or just plain deceitful. | ||
| Doerman |
The fact is that those who are making this claim are either woefully misinformed or just plain deceitful. Exactly. The other thing I don't get is why socialist countries and socialist minded people admire Islam so much. Norway, the country I originally came from, used to be a peaceful place. Now with 25% of the capital's population immigrant from Islam nations, the crime rate has skyrocketed. Riots in France, Holland and Denmark; ignited from within the Islam immigrant communities. Socialists look away when women are abused in Islam nations and communities Socialists ignore the social inequity with an Imam in charge and a male dominated societal structure. Socialist bait and switch and say how bad Christianity was during the inquisition. I am sick and tired of the rhetoric. I grew up a simple farmer and see things simplistically. History is littered with inequity of all sorts. The difference is the bigotry and inequity continues in the Islam world. No real progress made. Ok, so before you accuse me of classifying 1.6B of the world's population as trash, let me make this clear: Radical Islam leadership is trash! And i can't for the life of me understand why so many of the remaining 1.59B follow these idiots into death and ruin. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
What I find more interesting is how quickly avowed atheists are willing to jump in to defend Islam over Christianity (always citing "the Crusades" as their foil). From their standpoint, it's like picking their favorite between the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. | ||
| Moxnix |
How one pastor of a tiny church in Florida can garner world headlines and bring out the flag burners half way around the world is, eh, interesting. I got home this evening, ran up Drudge, and see we've had a few torched books around. | ||
| M2me |
Here's the really funny thing. So what if M2me actually does prove that a small percentage of non-Muslims participated in the slave trade? I would roughly estimate the 120 million figure could be cut to 40 million. And about half of the African wholesale slave trade was conducted by non-Muslims so that would mean the Muslim count would be reduced to 20 million, 1/6 of the original claim. The Christian count, which is now zero, would have to be increased to 20 million. But let's forget about Africa and move on to Christians. That number is supposedly 60 million. 9 million from one source, plus "A rough estimate by Raphael Moore in History of Asia Minor is that another 50 million died in wars by jihad.", plus another 1 million African Christians (the source of this is unknown). Well, guess what? I found the article by Raphael Moore. The 50 million figure is correct but laying this number exclusively on Muslims is false. Raphael Moore himself does not do that. In Memory Of The 50 Million Victims Of The Orthodox Christian Holocaust The largest number is between 7 and 12 million killed by Stalin. Do you think Stalin was a Muslim? I sure don't. Plus, the Nazis also killed a bunch, and yes, the Turks played a big role too. But it is not accurate to blame Muslims for the entire 50 million. That 270 million figure is shrinking rapidly and I've only looked at Africans and Christians so far. I also found the link for the origin of the chart. The numbers are just crazy. They don't fit reality at all. It's obvious that the numbers were seriously cooked to make Muslims look really, really bad and the jihad bar on the chart really, really tall. Tears of Jihad | ||
| Sifo |
So reading the accounts on Drudge... Six people tore some pages from a Koran and had the police take their names. A single person burned a Koran near ground zero and was lead away by police. I'm not a real big fan of destroying any books as a protest, but it is their constitutional right. I'm even less of a fan of having the police taking names and leading people out of the area. That's getting into government sanctioned intimidation of peoples freedom of speech. | ||
| Aesquire |
Don't know where M2me gets his data... who does he think the Portuguese etc. bought the slaves from? Does he really think they ran around like in "Roots" and captured them? They bought them from the Arab slavers. The Arab slavers bought them from the tribes. ( usually it was enemy tribesmen they sold.. ) Fact. Still fact, still happening.( though the Portuguese are not big in the trade anymore ) Go to North Africa, got money? you can buy a slave. ( which towns? I'll let you look up. Hint. Where U.N. troops "keep the peace" is a good place to start. ) Yeah, the Arabs were muslim. If slavery is not forbidden as long as the slaves are not of the faith, why not? Just as money lenders were Jewish when the Pope forbade Christians to lend money. A point from long ago used today to condemn jews. By evil people. Some jews still work in banking. Some muslims still sell slaves. I see the difference, do you? Of course, if you want a blond female slave, I'd suggest the Balkans. Chechan slavers (muslim) will happily sell you as many as you can afford. Try Eagle Market. Today, to be fair, you can by a slave from other than Arabs & Chechans, even from people claiming to be Christian. ( Thailand, Burma, etc. ) On a small scale, try your local red light district, early in the A.M.. But more interesting is WHY the "media", that can pick and chose the stories they tell for maximum effect to advance their agendas, is so gung ho on a HD t-shirt wearing preacher from Jerkwater Florida???? They don't have to lie, ( though they do ) they simply have to decide which of the thousands of stories that come across their screens is worthy of being shouted by their talking heads. U.S. troops building schools in hell for children... not so interesting, skip that one. A staged riot in Lebanon by Hamas to protest the threat to burn a holy book by a jerkwater preacher thousands of miles away? Front page, heavy rotation. Why is this so big? |
