Quote:
Originally posted by desi-soul
star,
i agree with this writter, Mohammad indeed changed the way Arabs saw themselves. He was the greatest arab nationist leader ever. He did unite the arabs into one formidable force, that could stand victorious against romans and persians. May be, when he said, patriotism is haraam, he had arab's loyaly to their tribes in mind, not indians and pakistanis and bangladeshis. One has to keep in mind, the state in which arabia was during his time. It was too backward for contempory times, and marred by hundreds of fractions, infighting, and loyaly to their individual tribal gods/godesses that kept them divided.
a call to pan arabism, patriotism to the arab nation as u see in todays world would have complemented his removal of tribal loyalties.
and yet this is absent. the prophet (saw) did not try to unite the arab people under the "arab" cause but rather the cause of "islam" which negates the concept of the prophet (saw) being an arab nationalist.
While Romans in Byzatine and Persians were way ahead and civilised. I remember reading, how persians used to taunt arabs as 'ajaams' [retards]...it was this, that mohammad took over as a challenge, to change the way world saw arabs. It was his blind love for arabs and arabism, that feuled him to creat a religion for them like others had. And enpower them as superior race, blessed by God himself. This myth,indeed worked wonders on their psyche. They felt so confident, that they could muzzel the whole world under their feet.
ridiculous. u should do ur research a little better. firstly the arabs referred to the persians as ajami and not vice versa, showing that the whole point u made there is amiss. since it was the ARABS who referred to PERSIANS as ajami - uneloquent, it shows that they did not have quite the inferiority crisis u imply.
empowering who as the superior race? blind love for the arabs? have u ever read any islamic texts? perhaps one of the most important, the prophets last sermon, said in front of 100,000 peoplke the prophet CLEARLY stated:
All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black, nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action
note how this all revolves around faith and NOT race/arabism as u wrongly portray.
the concept of the superior race is only utilised in judaism with the disastrous consequences that one sees in palestine today.
Appointment of kaaba, too has a political and economical significance.If you are aware of pre-islamic history, this Kaaba was anyway establised as one of the holy places...But more restricted to arabs only...
wrong, it was open to anyone who wanted to display their idols, even traditions suggesting some jews n christians visited it. incidently, doesnt that statement conflict with ur theory of the ka3ba being one of the only oppurtunities for trade? if ur looking for business, why restrict it to one race only? not very business minded ur imaginary qureish eh?
Besides, arabia was mainly barren land. So their was very limited oppurtunity of the natives...
if YOU were aware of pre islamic history, ud realise that their main source of income were the trade caravans to yemen n syria in the winter n summer. This was one of the reasons makkah became such an influential city in arabia, being rite on the caravan routes.
He saw Kaaba as a source of tourism industry, that would not only get non-arabs to pay respect arabia, hisbeloved land, but will also get wealth and trade to the natives. And true to his foresight, even if you take away oil, arabia can survive comfortably solely on kaaba myth.
lets look at islamic history again. after the prophet (saw) did makkah rank as one of the trading/richest cities of the muslim/arab world? NO
in fact, places like damascus n baghdad provided the wealth for the arabs.
Nobody even questions, why would creator make one land holier than other?
the creator made many lands holy/blessed. every place a prophet was is blessed. a place that has a special significance attached to it pretty much automatically becomes blessed. look at karbala in iraq. the quran does not mention it as a holy land, but the martyrdom of imam hussain has automatically turned this into one of the holiest sites for the shia particularly. look at jerusalem for xtians n jews, the ganges for hindus. its all abt the significance.
Why is one race blessed and not rest?
u and ur fellow story tellers can believe that the arabs are blessed over the non arabs. muslims do not. the only blessings the arabs have received over us is that they were allowed to have the prophet (saw) to come from their ranks. just as the jews were given many other prophets and indeed EVERY nation was given a prophet.
Mohammad was not only brave, courageous and convincing, but was gifted with impeccable forsight and wisdom to read into the minds of his target audience. No marketing guru has or will ever surpass his visions and unique way to understand our mind.
target audience - the world. he was a mercy for all mankind sent to mankind and jinn. ur theory that he was for the arabs only is unsubstantiated.
As for Arabs he was indeed their God.
v little research here i see. the arabs categorically deny he was a God. he was only a god sent messenger to ALL mankind.
Every MBA according to me, should study Mohammad and his mastery over marketing skills that sold arabism to this world.
never know u might be able to convert everyone to islam that way...insha'allah 
Even today, arabs talk about forming a united front to face threats from american imperialism....Well Mohammad had seen this 1500 years ago....He was a revolutionary,in his own right.
everyone forms fronts and groups to combat what they perceive as a threat, whether on a national/racial/religious level down to individuals in petty office quarrels.
what the arabs should realise is that true success will only come when they unite on the basis of islam.
But to say, that arabs brought civilization to rest of the world, is quite far fetched.
Most what we find in Islamic civilization is derivative rather than original. Arabs Muslims invaded territories which had been civilized for centuries. They did not need to invent anything. Everything was already there.
lets look at the title of this thread and article in question. "us" is more specifically in reference to the WEST. on that basis what did they do for them? or us if u may?
like u say further down, civilisation does not come out of the blue. most of its elements, in regards to knowledge, is there but the important bit is that it is DEVELOPED.
yes the arabs did take ALOT of knowledge from the greeks, the persians and to an extent the hindus. but what did they do it? they COMBINED it and DEVELOPED it to a higher level. yes the concept of the zero comes from india originally, hence the numerals in arabic are called the "hindi" numerals, but like with other scientific discoveries etc, they took a raw (or rawer) product and they developed it to a further point. algebra - it worked on the principle of zero and perhaps the decimal system taken from the indians, but al khwarizmi combined this knowledge with other knowledge, and his OWN intellect to help formulate algebra. just because the ingredients are there, it does not mean the final product is there.we cannot give the credit to the indians for developing algebra because they did not. they contributed, as did many other people.
but again go back to the title: what did the arabs ever do for us? the arabs introduced their modified discoveries to the west. the indians did not. nor did the greeks or the persians. and it was not jus a copy n paste job either as even western historians will agree to.
the same principle occurs here in the west especially during the renaissance. they have come up with many scientific "discoveries" but many of these would not be possible had it not been for the arabs introducing the raw products/basics for these discoveries. i do not see u throwing a tantrum at the west for nicking arab theories, which came from the greeks, alot of which came from the egyptians!
Civilization does not come out of the blue. Nor did it come for Islam. The Koran itself contains no unusual knowledge. There is nothing in its which would call unique. If anything, it is written in a very incomprehensible way. The invading Arabs were predominantly illiterate nomads - thus incapable of building any civilization without the help of peoples who were already civilized.
no civilisation rises out of the blue so the same standard has to be applied to everyone. so the aryans were incapable of creating the hindu civilisation without the help of the dravidian ppl present as they were horse riding nomads too. the romans relied on greek civilisation in the near east to create the byzantine empire.
"Islamic" civilization was in many ways the continuation of the civilizations which had existed before the Arab-Muslim invasions.
but this is where u r wrong. umayyad syria or abbasid iraq was so very different to the byzantine empire or the persian empire. that is plain to see for anyone. yes they fused arab culture/building with persian/roman culture but this gave rise to the UNIQUE islamic/arab civilisation. if it was merely a continuation, u would expect everything to be the same.
[Edited by desi-soul on 28th January 2004 at 15:50] [/b]
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u have come with a preformed idea that muhammad (saw) promoted arabism and was only interested in arabs. now the question is whether ur prepared to actually question this theory of urs, or whether ull stick to it blindly.
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"Those in whose hearts is no mercy for others will not attain the mercy of Allah" (Sahihayn)
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29th January 2004, 19:53
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