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<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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".</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.
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<DIV>I hope that we Westerners offer a more appealing alternative.
Howard</DIV>
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<DIV>In a message dated 7/30/2005 2:20:49 PM Eastern Standard Time,
christian.rauh@uconn.edu writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>Some
argue that the great achievements of the Arab world were really
<BR>pre-islamic and that islam put a break on innovation which was center to
<BR>middle eastern culture before it. Things still were good for a while but
<BR>that was only some inertia from the old times as it took centuries to
<BR>change things in those days. Islamic religion changed the
<BR>characteristics of that culture (or culture groups) from decentralized
<BR>and autonomous to centralized and controlled. The first seemed to be a
<BR>better option for progress. What is striking to me is that the US seems
<BR>to be going the same way - in a counter-"terrorist" movement with
<BR>islamic roots, this country is absorbing the worst features of its
"enemy".<BR><BR>As a disclaimer, I know little about Islam, the above is from
what I've <BR>heard. Anyone with better knowledge should point erros and
elucidate.<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>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<BR>Recent Visiting
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; Core Faculty
Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>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.<BR>For information on The International
Paleopsychology Project, see: www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from
<BR>The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,
see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The
Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>