Carrol,

I think the subject was what Mr. Pearlman called your "objective, balanced,
and totally unbiased reading of history". But I hope nothing I said was
construed as a defense of it. Your comments concerning the tolerance of
Islam toward other religions should have been qualified to make it clear
that this tolerance was extended at times only to  members of the cults of
Abraham. As an example you may want to consider the school of the Asharites
which spawned Ghazali (A.D. 1058-1111). He 'crushed the philosophers', and
was responsible for establishing the Mohammedan orthodoxy which has by the
most part descended down to the present day. Thus by about A.D. 1050 the
hostility of Islam to freedom of thought was well established.
    Or you may want to consider the words of the famous al-Ma'mum, the
Abbasid caliph who was son of Harun ar-Rashid. In A.D. 830 on his way out of
Bagdad on campaign against the Byzantines he asked the people of Harran, who
still clung to their ancient pagan/heathen superstition, "To which of the
peoples protected by law do you belong?" They answered, "We are Harranians".
"Are you Christians?" "No." "Jews?" "No." "Magians?" "No." "Have you a holy
scripture or a prophet?" An evasive answer followed. "You are infidels and
idolaters then" insisted the caliph, "and it is permitted to shed your
blood. If you have not, by the time when I return from my campaign, become
either Moslems or adherents of one of the religions recognized in the Koran,
I will extirpate you to a man." They chose to call themselves Sabians and
thus saved their butts form getting kicked because Sabians had been
mentioned in the Koran. Fatwa this.




Charles

----------
>From: Carrol Cox <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Mr Pearlman
>Date: Fri, Mar 22, 2002, 11:28 AM
>

> charles moyer wrote:
>>
>> This is pathetic.
>>
>
> What is pathetic? I've lost my way between the extensively arrowed and
> broken text and the one-line zingers with vague pronoun references.
>
> Carrol