Reflections on Dr Pipe's review of recent book on Islam
Reader comment on item: Preface

Submitted by Sheldon Kalmutz (United States), Nov 26, 2007 at 13:15

Thanks for your, as usual, interesting article.

I believe that you erred in a very important, critical, mis-statement. I refer to your statement that Islam has NOT been historically aggressive.

My understanding of the pertinent history is that, when dominant in a region, has been consistently aggressive, persecutory, murderous and demeaning to all non-Moslems under their control.

There are two exceptions, one is specific and the other is general. The specific deviation was the relatively brief "Golden Age" in Spain- which was supplanted by a virulent fundamentalist Islam.

The general exception refers to periods where the Moslem polities were controlled or ruled by non-Moslem powers. The example of this the approximate one hundred years from 1850 t01950 when European powers controlled North Africa and the Near East. And here relief was accorded to Christians, but Jews and others still suffered from the many outrages derived from their dhimmi status. Another, qualified, exception could be modern Turkey , where the government was vigorously secular; but present trends arouse concerns here.

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Daniel Pipes replies:

Read again what I wrote: that "Muslims [have] not always been as aggressive as today." Not at all the same as your paraphrase.