[I Was Naked]
When I Wrote ThisIslam For Dummies- Repost for those who missed it
2007-05-19
Ok, as I read another new story today about another suicide bomber taking out 102 Shiites, I wanted to review in my own mind what I understood about this conflict.What I started reading about the difference in Shiites and Sunnis quickly boggled the mind.
If one was going to compare it to Christianity it would go something like this: We have the Bible – main players God and the Christ family. Joseph Christ, Mary Christ and Jesus Christ and his band of merry men (disciples then Apostles after his death) If you follow the general beliefs, died for our sins, yada yada, rose from the dead, sits on the right hand of god the father almighty. Live a good life, try not to sin, ask forgiveness and accept him as your savior, you have your golden ticket to the angel factory.
For fun, ascribe to the musings of one said Dan Brown and you have Jesus and the Magdalene (hmm, now that would be a name for a Christian rock band) got it on, had a kid, and made for a very interesting movie Dogma and The DaVinci Code. We then break it down amongst Catholics and Protestants, but overall we don't have people driving their Volvos' into Superfresh on a Saturday and killing a hundred people in the canned ham aisle, because they don't believe the same as we do. That's one basic fundamental difference. But since this is a primer for Muslim, I don't need to expand on this further.
Muslims have the Qur'an or Koran and the main players: Allah and the Prophet Mohammed who died 632 AD. Everyone got along in the Islamic world and all was quiet on the Mid Eastern front. Mohammed's father in law became Caliph and united the entire Arabian Peninsula under Islam for all of two years. Then along came Umar and Uthman the next two Caliphs, who started the whole mess by wanting to expand the empire and get some White Castle Burgers.
They succeeded in kicking ass through western Asia, the Mediterranean coast and eastern Iran. Uthman was assassinated and enter our new caliph Ali. This is the guy who really was a 'radical' and the start of a new fundamentalist sect. He continued the spread of Islam through North Africa, Egypt, and then Spain til someone knocked his block off. Those that followed him became known as Shiites which goes something like this: Imamah (not to be confused with Yo Momma or Yoyo Mah the violinist) believes that there's only One Prophet and no others, and Imams are appointed by God (kinda makes me wonder about the Pope and the Catholic belief system, I think they copied). In any event Shiites mean "supporters of Ali." Since they lost political power, then went for religious power and buddied up to anyone who got the cold shoulder from the Sunnis.
When Ali was killed Caliph Mu'awiya and the Sunnis (not a good name for an Islamic Band) came to power. They stayed in power until 750 AD when the Shiites regained control until 950 AD. And you thought Term Limits was a good idea.
From 950 AD on the Sunni's have been in control. Now during this tenure of converting people to Islam the people who were not Arab were known as Mawali. According to the Koran everyone was equal and no one was supposed to pay taxes. The Umayyad's however (mentally I'm singing this to the tune of Kum By Ya) were racist and only Arabs were good people. Shmucks.
So the Mawalis said 'screw that' and went along with the Abbasids who killed all the Umayyads but one male in 750 AD.
From a tactical standpoint, they concentrated their force into Iran and Iraq and moved the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. Coincidentally this is also the same time that Jeanie got placed in her bottle and eventually wound up on the beach with Major Nelson, who I always wondered how major his Nelson was.
Baghdad became the happening place and everyone got along, Arab's, Persians, Jews, Greeks and worshipped many things including Christianity. At one point, there were over a million people living there and it was the second largest city in the world, only surpassed by China. The one surviving Umayyad (remember him?) hightailed it to Spain and became a Caliph for several years.
The Abbasids managed to hold it all together until about 1000 AD as their hold weakened. The Turks left then North Africa broke away in 908AD and formed the Fatimids after Mohammed's daughter Fatima. Now if you have followed along in the think train, these were Shiites as a direct descendent of Mohammed. They took over the Egyptian territories as well as Israel, Lebanon and Syria to name a few.
Then in 1096 AD along came the First Crusade. I'm not pointing fingers here, but essentially there was 'world peace' until the Holy Roman Empire stuck its big fat Popes Nose in it. They wanted to take Jerusalem and the Mediterranean back as any world power likes to do when going for global domination. So Pope Urban gives a great motivational speech at Clermont, and everyone drops what they are doing and rushes off without weapons or money, because…dumbroll please. God would just knock down the walls of Jerusalem as soon as they got there.
That was one hell of a speech.
Proving that people are stupid when things get difficult, some of the Crusaders found that it was just easier to stop in Germany to rob and kill the Jews because they weren't Christians. That's tolerance for ya…Go Pope!
Now the Fatimids weren't really concerned with the band of Crusaders because they were busy with the Seljuks, another band of roaming Sunnis and thought the Crusaders just wanted a scramble with the Syrians (Sharks..Jets..Sharks…Jets). By 1098 the First Crusaders arrived and my, my, weren't they surprised at the civilization around them. Advances in medicine, hot baths and beautiful mosques, as they say in real estate, ,,.
Imagine everyone living in harmony.
Well score one for the First Crusade as they took Jerusalem while the Fatimids weren't looking. This of course set the stage for the Second Crusade and as far as I'm concerned today's situation in Iraq is 69th Crusade cause it just sucks dick and eventually we are going to get it up the ass (that's 69 with two fingers).
We're still fighting Holy Wars and just where is the Vatican in all of this? Oh that's right, the geniuses who elected a Nazi Pope, are calling for World Peace.
Well here's an idea, get that yap flapping to all the Catholics out there, recognize that if you truly believe in God and Jesus, you don't need the real estate. Give it back, and the US needs to pull out of the conflict. Israel isn't blameless in this fight either,and needs to stop playing the victim.We need to clean up our own problems and fix our democracy and lead by example, not just principle.
Now I have one more idea but it would take another generation or two to make it work. Unite the Sunni's and Shiites with an arranged marriage, the male from the Sunni's and a female Shiite and they have two children, a boy and a girl. That unites the Arabs again. Now, find the lost descendent of Mary and Jesus and have Dan Brown turn over his notes. Depending on the sex of the child, we marry that child off to the new Shinunite. Now we have united the Muslims and Christians. They have a child or two and marry them off to the other global powers that are still around in thirty years. Hey, I'm a lover not a fighter ( well, I am when need be) and since killing isn't working lets try sex. I think an orgasm is the answer, and it is universal.
Problem solved. Vote for me.
For further reading and see how Saddam figured in the whole mess, and suckered the US into his problems, check out this article. Saddam Hussein
He started out ok, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. He got what he deserved in the end.
Muslim World dominance
surrogate (2007-05-19)
good post.
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