Word: islamize
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...monasteries, particularly the Cistercian houses, who drained the swamps of Europe and cleared its for ests, thus creating thousands of square miles of arable land - and laying the foundations of Europe's prosperity. Christianity left some less fortunate legacies too. The ferocity of the Crusades, observes Johnson, "fossilized Islam into a fanatic posture" from which it has yet to recover...
...pains to explain satisfactorily. According to one ancient Jewish legend, the Khazar king, Bulan, was in the market for a monotheism to replace his old tribal idolatry. He asked the emissary from Christian Byzantium which faith he would choose if the only option was between Judaism and Islam. The Christian chose Judaism because the Jews -though sinners-at least worshiped the same...
...interesting and perhaps a bit mystifying that most of the religious struggles around the world involve Moslems. Some scholars believe such conflicts may be an expression of a resurgent Islam. Says Duke University Political Scientist Ralph Braibanti: "This may be the moment in history when money, diplomacy and strategy join together in providing a new context for the renaissance of Islamic identity and perhaps of Islam itself." Islam makes no distinction between the secular and the religious. The Moslem doctrine of jihad (holy war) has an immediate, literal significance. As the Vatican's guidelines on Islam observe, "Islam...
Moslem doctrine accounts for much of the intractability of the Middle Eastern situation. The Koran specifically sanctions religious war: "When ye encounter the infidels, strike off their heads until ye have made a great slaughter of them." The Grand Sheik of Al Azhar in Cairo, a leading center of Islamic learning in the Middle East, has flatly said, "The struggle against Israel is jihad, and if all Moslems did their duty and took a weapon, there would be no problem." Moslem theology distinguishes between dar-al-Islam (the region already conquered for Allah) and dar-al-Harb (the region...
...ultimately to a new assertion of man's worth. It rose as a unifying force above countless tribal deities and, therefore, tribal conflicts. But, facing outward, it also encouraged exclusivity and intolerance-the line between the believer and the infidel, the chosen and the unchosen. Christianity and Islam have had the historical habit of descending with a sword on strangers. The world's other great monotheistic faith, Judaism, has traditionally been more defensive...