At the end of the day it comes down to how someone interpretes a prophets message
There are so many schisms within both christianity and Islam that it is clear that people will always interprete things differently
Armies have marched under a christian banner and under an islamic banner
I think what Mohammed was trying to do was to bring peace among the 12 warring tribes of Arabia. He did this by bringing a unifying message. Once he had united the 12 tribes however all that martial energy then exploded outwards.
The same thing happened in Europe. There were many warring fiefdoms and kingdoms and the pope decided to try and unite them all under a common cause and all that martial energy then exploded outwards onto the 'Holy Land' in the crusades. The christians were never fully united however and the Vienese took the opportunity to sack christian Constantinople which was a major trading rival of theirs. This was one more nail in the coffin for the city which led to it being conquered by an Islamic army
The point i am trying to make is that people use things to justify their actions and they will manipulate words and their meaning to do this regardless of the intentions of the original prophet.
What a person does with a message will vary. You will get peaceful people and you will get aggressive people. The other factor is cultures themselves. The wearing of the burkha for instance is not found throughout the Islamic world....it is more of a cultural thing for certain areas....you can't therefore really pin that one on Islam. By all accounts islam was pretty respectful to women in the context of its day
Perhaps instead of making generalisations about religions it is better to judge each individual you met as they come as individuals and not as labels. If you visit muslim lands you will find the majority of people law abiding and respectful, the same as anywhere else.
What really messes people up is the culture that exists in a place. For example a culture of violence or a culture of dominance of women. I think these will often exist independantly of religion and be related to other factors such as politics, harshness of life, conditions or environment.
In the west we have it pretty easy and it is easy for us to sit back and judge, but lets face it there are countless problems with the west and maybe we should spend more energy looking at how we are exporting our own poisonous pseudo-culture around the world
There are so many schisms within both christianity and Islam that it is clear that people will always interprete things differently
Armies have marched under a christian banner and under an islamic banner
I think what Mohammed was trying to do was to bring peace among the 12 warring tribes of Arabia. He did this by bringing a unifying message. Once he had united the 12 tribes however all that martial energy then exploded outwards.
The same thing happened in Europe. There were many warring fiefdoms and kingdoms and the pope decided to try and unite them all under a common cause and all that martial energy then exploded outwards onto the 'Holy Land' in the crusades. The christians were never fully united however and the Vienese took the opportunity to sack christian Constantinople which was a major trading rival of theirs. This was one more nail in the coffin for the city which led to it being conquered by an Islamic army
The point i am trying to make is that people use things to justify their actions and they will manipulate words and their meaning to do this regardless of the intentions of the original prophet.
What a person does with a message will vary. You will get peaceful people and you will get aggressive people. The other factor is cultures themselves. The wearing of the burkha for instance is not found throughout the Islamic world....it is more of a cultural thing for certain areas....you can't therefore really pin that one on Islam. By all accounts islam was pretty respectful to women in the context of its day
Perhaps instead of making generalisations about religions it is better to judge each individual you met as they come as individuals and not as labels. If you visit muslim lands you will find the majority of people law abiding and respectful, the same as anywhere else.
What really messes people up is the culture that exists in a place. For example a culture of violence or a culture of dominance of women. I think these will often exist independantly of religion and be related to other factors such as politics, harshness of life, conditions or environment.
In the west we have it pretty easy and it is easy for us to sit back and judge, but lets face it there are countless problems with the west and maybe we should spend more energy looking at how we are exporting our own poisonous pseudo-culture around the world
