[Paleopsych] Re: on islam

[Steve Hovland]

Don't forget that there were vast reserves of gold
in Africa that fueled their growth for a long time.
They traded a lot of it to India via Madagascar.

Steve Hovland
www.stevehovland.net


-----Original Message-----
From:	Val Geist [SMTP:kendulf at shaw.ca]
Sent:	Saturday, July 30, 2005 9:43 PM
To:	The new improved paleopsych list
Subject:	Re: [Paleopsych] Re: on islam

Dear Howard,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention! This and other matters 
pertaining to the history of Islam needs to become a matter of public 
gossip! Sincerely, Val Geist
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: HowlBloom at aol.com
  To: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
  Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2005 7:38 PM
  Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: on islam


  Christian--You have a point.  Islam was conceived as a global, 
boundariless religion.  That conception was first born in 624 AD when Allah 
granted Mohammed the right to Jihad.  It expanded in 629, when Mohammed 
sent letters to the six rulers of the empires of the world that he knew 
inviting these emperors to Islam and implying that if they didn't accept 
the invitation, Allah and his forces on earth, the Moslems, would be forced 
to destroy them.  Its message was emphasized in 632 AD when Mohammed, on 
his deathbed, ordered an attack on the Byzantine Empire.

  This attack, by the way, was just one of many.  In ten years Mohammed 
commanded 65 military campaigns, campaigns of conquest that brought the 
entire Arab Peninsula to Islam.  Mohammed fought in 27 of those campaigns 
himself, slicing and killing other humans.  Which is why he is called a 
prophet of the sword.  And why it is said in the Koran that paradise can 
only be achieved "in the shadow of swords".

  But the fact remains that this is a rapidly globalizing world, a world 
that cries out both for and against a central order.  Mohammed invented the 
creed for such an order, and the world of Islam has refined it during 1,290 
years of operation under a central caliphate.  Now men like Osama want to 
revive that "new world order", that global caliphate.  As many of Osama's 
supporters and predecessors have said, the time is ripe for such a thing.

  I hope that we Westerners offer a more appealing alternative.  Howard


  In a message dated 7/30/2005 2:20:49 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
christian.rauh at uconn.edu writes:
    Some argue that the great achievements of the Arab world were really
    pre-islamic and that islam put a break on innovation which was center 
to
    middle eastern culture before it. Things still were good for a while 
but
    that was only some inertia from the old times as it took centuries to
    change things in those days. Islamic religion changed the
    characteristics of that culture (or culture groups) from decentralized
    and autonomous to centralized and controlled. The first seemed to be a
    better option for progress. What is striking to me is that the US seems 
    to be going the same way - in a counter-"terrorist" movement with
    islamic roots, this country is absorbing the worst features of its 
"enemy".

    As a disclaimer, I know little about Islam, the above is from what I've 
    heard. Anyone with better knowledge should point erros and elucidate.


  ----------
  Howard Bloom
  Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces 
of History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang 
to the 21st Century
  Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York 
University; Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute
  www.howardbloom.net
  www.bigbangtango.net
  Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: 
Epic of Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; 
founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of 
Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American 
Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and 
Evolution Society, International Society for Human Ethology; advisory board 
member: Institute for Accelerating Change ; executive editor -- New 
Paradigm book series.
  For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see: 
www.paleopsych.org
  for two chapters from
  The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of 
History, see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
  For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big 
Bang to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net



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