Were Conquered Christians Really Liberated Muslims?

netWMD ^ | April 24, 2011 | Raymond Ibrahim

[forty_years]

... [Fadel Soliman's] new Arabic book, Copts: Muslims Before Muhammad, which he has been promoting all over the media, including al-Jazeera, asserts that, at the time of the Muslim conquest of Egypt (c. 640), the vast majority of Egyptians were not, as history has long taught, Christians, but rather prototypical Muslims, or muwahidin, who were actually being oppressed by Christians: hence, the Muslim conquest of Egypt was really about "liberating" fellow Muslims. Soliman's evidence is that the Arian sect, which rejected the claim that Jesus was coequal with God, was present in 4th century Egypt. Therefore, according to Soliman, the indigenous Egyptians were practicing "proto-Islam" hundreds of years before it was founded in the 7th century. ...

[forty_years]

You can say whatever you want in the Muslim World as long as it is imperialistic, making you "better" than anyone else.

[hinckley buzzard]

Gibberish. IDK if the Copts are Arian or not, but fail to see the point. Arians were everywhere, including the Goths as they immigrated into the northern Roman empire such as it was. Had nothing to do with "protomoslems." What drivel.

[kittymyrib]

Drop dead, you wife-beheaders and daughter-killers. Your death cult is cursed by God.

[tophat9000]

So Islam roots, (IE “proto-Islam”) is pagan

[muawiyah]

There were even Mithrists all over the place, and plain old fashioned pagans ~ (who no doubt kept that secret by the time the 7th century came around).

I don't think it's quite rational for someone to claim for Islam all the non-Christians in the region BUT the business of claiming Jews as merely unreformed Moslems has been around since the 600s.

Moslems argue that Mohammad started out thinking he'd just reform Judaism (give it a Lutheran order of worship, a little group singing, standardize the prayers, and order up a nice walnut lecturn ~ I can only suppose).

This guy is just stretching that idea to everybody else.

He will have to watch it though. Plenty of Moslems out there don't like hearing that their ancestors were Christians of any kind.

[xkaydet65]

Arians, Gnostics, Nestorians etc were everywhere in the 4th and 5th centuries. Even as far as China. None saw Jesus as a prophet. All accepted the Crucifixion and Resurrection. They argued over the nature of Christ, the level of Divinity, but none saw Him in the manner of Mohammed.

[SeeSharp]

The historical record is somewhat different. According to Bernard Lewis, Egypt remained predominantly Christian for centuries after the Muslim conquest. Christians were forbidden from converting to Islam by the local rulers because that would exempt them from paying taxes.

[Broker]

Got your angle. In simple terms, history is written by the winners, not the losers. Islam is a way of life with no tolerance for non-believers. Christians are Easter people who worship the one true living God. His powerful and mighty all-conquering name is Jesus Christ.

[PENANCE]

Well, the Arabic word for "liberation" is "tahrir". As in "Tahrir Square" in Cairo. OR, as in Hizb ut Tahrir:

Hizb ut-Tahrir (Arabic: حِزْبُ التَحْرِير‎ Ḥizb at-Taḥrīr; English: Party of Liberation) is an international pan-Islamic political organisation whose goal is for all Muslim countries to unify as an Islamic state or caliphate ruled by Islamic law and with a caliph head of state elected by Muslims.[1]

... The party promotes a detailed program for institution of an Islamic state that would establish Shariah and carry "the Da'wah of Islam" to the world.

In other words, to Muslims, "liberation" (tahrir) means the liberation of infidels from their infidel-hood, and their introduction into the glorious "freedom" of Islam, Sharia, and the Caliphate.

{It should be noted that Barack Obama specifically mentioned this "liberation" (tahrir) in a speech he made during the "protests" in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Code to the "secular" and "non-violent" Muslim Brotherhood?}

[Texas Fossil]

Bernard Lewis

Muslim apologist who wrote, "Clash of Civilizations"

[Bryanw92]

How do you practice “proto-islam” when it is, supposedly, a revelation from God? Or are they just admitting that islam is a pagan religion loosely based on Judaism and Christianity, and the proto-islam worshippers were just full pagans just as modern muslims are closet pagans?

[SunkenCiv]

http://yomnaelsaeed.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/muslim-copts-before-muhammad/

[snip] Muslim Copts Before Mohammad unveils the history of Christian Unitarians — those who believed in the true Message of Prophet Jesus (Peace be upon him) that there is no god but Allah.

[SeeSharp]

Bernard Lewis
Muslim apologist who wrote, "Clash of Civilizations"

Perhaps you are thinking of Samuel P. Huntington.

[Texas Fossil]

I stand corrected. You are right.

[terycarl]

but none saw Him in the manner of Mohammed.

for good reason...Jesus was God, mohammed was a mere mortal and a flawed one at thatJesus was not a prophet, Jesus is what all prophets were about. They call Mohammed a prophet...what did he prophicy and did any of it come true???the answer is nothing and no

[The_Reader_David]

It's absolute humbug. First, while Arius may have been a Copt (being from Alexandria, he could have been virtually any ethnicity found in the Empire), by the seventh century, the Copts were vehemently anti-Arian, and were separated from the rest of the Church over whether one could say Christ is in two Natures, Divine and Human (the common position of Orthodox and Latin alike) or only from two Natures, and the phrase "the One Incarnate Nature of the Divine Logos" which St. Cyril of Alexandria unknowingly took from the heretic Apollonius (whose errors are condemned alike by Orthodox, Latin and Copt) was the best way to speak of His Divinity and Humanity. By the time of Mohammed, Arianism was confined to various Germanic tribes, the Goths you mention and the Lombards (who finally accepted Orthodox christology when they fully reconciled with the Latin church in the 11th century).

Second, the bizarre claim advanced by Soliman fails to understand Arianism. Arius regarded the Divine Logos as the first creature, created even before time. While Orthodox Christians critique all "Christians" who deny the Divinity of Christ as "Arians", this is simply short-hand for that denial. In fact, even Arius had a more exalted view of Christ than Mohammed did.

[The_Reader_David]

Actually, the custom of translating the Arabic word نبي‎ as "prophet" is probably a mistake. It's meaning is closer to "apostle".

[ApplegateRanch]

It's meaning is closer to "apostle".

"Apostle" = "one sent forth [as a messenger]"...the question is, sent by whom, to spread which message, for what purpose?

Answer that, and much falls into place, both pragmatically and prophetically.

I'm hoping and praying that I'm well enough stocked on .223 & .308 'locust spray'.

Thanks for your link, SunkenCiv.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure.

[Biggirl]

The “original” Egyptians, that are who the Coptic Christians, be they Catholic or Orthodox Christians.