Capture of Persia (Iran) led to Islam War

Last month in explaining the cataleptic state of mainstream Islam over the past three centuries, I wrote on the internecine conflicts that bloodied the Muslim world in the 1500s.

I have discovered since that many readers were unfamiliar with the subject, and because the forces loosed then are still forging the destiny of the Middle East — far more than the current U.S. intervention in Iraq — I'll do the subject in greater depth.

For starters, a quote from William H. McNeill's "The Rise of the West," which won a National Book Award in 1961:

"The two and seventy sects which Moslem learning discerned within the community of the faithful were divided on the ancient issue of the legitimacy of the succession to the Prophet into two main groupings: the Shia, who held that the succession rightfully descended only through Mohammed's son-in-law, Ali, and the Sunni, who recognized the legitimacy of Abu Bakr, Omar, and Othman, and their successors in the caliphate. With the rise of numerous Sufi orders, brotherhoods, and other religious congregations, this basic divergence was vastly complicated. The sharpness of its lines tended to blur with the proliferation of heterodox religious groups that drew elements from Shia piety while remaining Sunni in admitting the first three caliphs. Confusion was compounded by the fact that although the Shia remained a minority, their practice of simulating Sunni orthodoxy while revealing hidden truths only to trusted initiates made possible the spread of a wide variety of Shia groups throughout Moslem lands. An uneasy balance among the sects of Islam had long prevailed, subject to recurrent local disturbance whenever a particularly holy man or some fanatical leader arose to preach the damnation of all who differed from his theological principles."

If you find this confusing, it is. But in the Islamic world of the 1400s, you might say the Shia tended to be pietistic, fervent — and underground — while the Sunni overlords tended to be more practical-minded and tolerant of multiple Muslim doctrines, of which "two and seventy" is only a "traditional" guess. Historians believe many Sunni rulers tolerated Shia to keep the peace.

This world exploded in C.E. 1499 when a fanatical Shia sect that lived on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea seized power in Iran. Its young leader, Ismail Safavi, began with a handful of warriors, but they were as fanatical as those of the Prophet nearly nine centuries earlier, a fervor regularly reborn within Islam.

Ismail won fantastic victories. Each victory brought more followers, and in 1500 he captured Tabriz and crowned himself shah. In five more years, he controlled the whole Iranian plateau; by 1508 he held Baghdad and most of Iraq, and in 1510 he utterly smashed the Uzbeks to the north, creating a vast, new Iranian empire.

All historic sources agree that the secret of this stunning success was the religious fanaticism of the Shia soldiery, fed by centuries of Shia preaching.

The trouble with True Believers, whatever the faith, is rabid intolerance. Ismail persecuted all Sunnis in his lands and spread Shia doctrines both by force and propaganda. Persia, or Iran, became overwhelmingly Shia and the Shia the largest religious community in adjacent Iraq.

Now, a huge revolutionary, aggressive and dissident Islamic empire emerged at the center of the Muslim world. Ismail's successes and his incessant propaganda directed beyond Iran's borders began to bring Shia sympathizers out in the open, from India to the Atlantic. Large numbers of these Shia lived in eastern Anatolia, or Turkey. These revolted against the Ottoman sultan in 1514, on religious grounds; the Ottomans had adopted Sunnism (rather unenthusiastically) in the previous century.

Also, Ismail sought to make alliance with the Mamelukes in Egypt, which would give him control of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and far to the west the now-Shia Sa'di Sharifs of Morocco were forging an African empire hostile to the nominal Ottoman rule over this part of the world.

Those wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants (not only in Britain, but across Europe) were not to forcibly turn one side to the other, especially for the Protestants (who were fighting--at least ostensibly; a lot of the warring was for German states to assert more independence--merely to be able to practice their version of Christianity). The Roman Catholics did fight to return Protestants to their (the Roman Catholics') fold, but the bulk of their religious warfare was cultural, through the counter Reformation. Again, their wars were heavily political, with German states vying for more autonomy, and in at least on of the wars, Roman Catholic majority France allied with Protestants against fellow Roman Catholics because having that side win would help France.

As for the Conquistadores and the Inquisition, that those took place in or were related to Iberia should be taken into consideration.

Iberia was for around half a millennium under Muslim (Moorish) rule. Maybe some Islamic culture rubbed off on them?

In the Americas, (this is an actual question) were the natives forcibly 'converted*' to Christianity, or were they forcibly forced to renounce their pagan religions? The two are not the same. Many of the natives practices human sacrifice and bodily mutilation (which some Spaniards apparently still do in Iberia today). Forcing them to end their religion, or at least the violent practices of their religion, was a smart move. Few pagans were killed for being pagans. (Getting on topic: killing dissidents, not encouraging, pressuring, or forcing them to change their views). Their priests were, but the average layman was not.

The United States should have banned Ashura in Iraq, and should promote an Islamic reformation to make Islam less violent and oppressive.

And, this is not an attempt to smear Roman Catholicism, much of the violence you mention was at the hands of Roman Catholics, and particularly southern European Roman Catholics--particularly Iberians who had their--at that time--recent Islamic history. English colonists in the Americas did not engage in wide-scale forceful 'conversion' of the natives. Nor did the Roman Catholic French (take them as being northern, or not Southern, Europeans). Nor did the British forcefully (for this paragraph, 'convert' or be killed) 'convert' the people in their colonies. Even when Hindus in India uprose in part due to British missionaries proselytizing in India with support of the British government, the British government withdrew that support.

Many try to argue that Christianity has a violent history, and Christianity does.

But that violence is usually aimed at the Christians, and not the other way around.

For the very large part, Christianity--through fallible Christians--has had a peaceful history with the many non-Christians across the globe.

*a human creature is not able to convert another human creature. Such conversion is between the individual and God.

P.S. The post was broken up by a bunch of ellipses and probably has a few typos, though the message should still get across.

A little more (as if the previous post wasn't long enough....):

Although Christians are fallible, they (including Roman Catholics) should look to the Bible as being their highest authority short of God--for when Christ returns to Earth. Higher than the words of any creature human.

The closest thing you might find approaching forcibly converting others (as in convert or be killed) was the call to kill the Canaanites, who were the only people for whom genocide was called.

Besides that case, which was more expansive than just religious--the genocide was to remove Canaanite religion, culture, property, and the people themselves, to give Israel the land--the Bible does not advocate the murder of non-Christians at all.

Christians can do bad things, because they--as with humanity except for Christ--are bad people, but that badness is not because of Christianity. The flaw is with the people, not with the belief system.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.