The rise of Islam in its spiritual context

[dzheremi]

Sure, I can leave the thread for you both to resume. But please, don't fight each others, I believe the spirit of Christ is prevailed in wise dialogue and not in hostility All the love to you both.

@mindlight @dzheremi

Thank you. I agree and will cease participation in this thread. I am simply trying to contend for the faith, and not see it be blamed once again on the basis of another's reading of history which is fraught with its own inherent 'anti-OO' bias. But you are right, this is not the best way to do that. Thank you.

 

[dzheremi]

This thread seems to have generated some bad feelings and I apologise for my own contribution to that. I also can bow prostrate at the name of the Holy Trinity, the Great God, one in divinity and three in Person.

But I do have unanswered questions which really boil down to one. How could a country that was a majority Christian state allow itself to be dominated by a false religion and a bunch of various assorted Islamic thugs for more than a millennia to the point that its very existence is now threatened?

In accordance with what I just wrote, I'm going to bow out of this thread, with apologies to you for getting heated and not remaining irenic, as I should have been. I'm sorry. And I rejoice that we can say the same prayer, just as we do share many prayers with the Chalcedonians more generally, from both before and after (e.g., O Monogenes Yios) the schism.

With regard to your second question: There was no country that 'allowed itself' to be taken over by the Muslims, save perhpas those of the Arabian peninsula proper where Christianity had not as strongly penetrated as it did into Egypt and the Levant (e.g., Bahrain, the birthplace of St. Isaac of Nineveh, and still retaining a tiny native Christian population). There are many reasons for that lack of strong roots in those places, were that the topic. But with regard to Egypt, Nubia, etc. -- places more central to the theological conflict that you've brought up -- we know they fought the Muslims for centuries. If you have the chance, look up the Bashmurian revolts, and read what you can of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, which record in real time events from the tenth century forward, which is important because that is hypothesized to be around the time when Egypt would've lost its Christian majority (certainly by start of the crusades). What you'll find in that history (and I'm limited in my own knowledge of it, because when I bought the three-volume set in translation some years ago I was accidentally sent a set with two copies of volume II and no volume III, if I recall correctly; this was never corrected, due to the bookseller's incompetance) is much the same as what you find in similar histories written by churchmen of Chalcedonian-majority countries like Lebanon: the Christians were, after a certain point (sometimes quite earlier on, sometimes a bit later), unable to advance in or even for that matter hold certain jobs, and their restriction combined with the heavy tax burden placed on their communities in the form of the jizya tax made it economically imperative to convert to Islam. And many more also saw the social advantages (as they do today, sadly) and converted based on those: Islam allows you more wives, more this, more that, with less fasting, less theological subtleties, etc. (A point I believe you brought up in your OP, which was apt.)

This is why the OP struck me the wrong way: regardless of who you blame, the communities experienced the same type of treatment by virtue of being non-Muslim...until that couldn't be said anymore about most of them, after a certain point, as Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian alike were broken or otherwise enticed into Islam. It's a sad story, but because it is so constant across different times and places and with different populations (the Afghans used to be Buddhists, you know, and there were functioning Syriac Orthodox dicoeses in what is now Afghanistan up until about the 14th century, with isolated groups of Armenian Christians there up until ~17fh century, if I recall correctly), it seems strange and quite frankly incorrect to split things up in this way when the Muslims themselves didn't. The Turks didn't invent the Millat system until much later, and the Arab Muslim historiographers almost never mentioned different Christian sects, because they didn't care. "Disbelief is one nation", as the Islamic saying goes. The only source that I know of from Islamic history before the modern era that goes into the different groups in a given country is al-Maqrizi (15th century), though maybe there are more I am not aware of. Mostly they didn't care, though, which makes it seem like a strangely Christian preoccupation to find which of their brothers they can blame for what to the Muslm must be "God's" providence. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think that's a good note to end on. I am truly sorry again if I have offended you. I will not retract my positions regarding my own faith, but I also do not want to denigrate or minimize yours, nor those things we hold in common. May God be with you.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Deleted comment by me.

 

[martymonster]

As a Christian I have often wondered why Islam has grown so much and at the reasons for its initial success. The contention of this thread is that God allowed Mohammed (whom most Christians consider to be a false prophet) because more good came out of his rising than bad. Basically by raising up an enemy of Christianity God has encouraged Christians to trust Him more , destroyed some insidious and deeply rooted heresies and got people talking about the Trinitarian and incarnational nature of God more than they would have done otherwise. Also he challenged the ways in which the state had encroached on personal freedom by raising up an oppressive opponent that would make people realise where a theocracy without free choice would ultimately lead. Also he destroyed a bunch of pagan idolatries in favour of worship of the One God.

1) FAT, complacent Christians needed the challenge of the desert warriors to wake them up

In context much of the Byzantine empire(Or Roman empire as it knew itself) still prospered within boundaries that had remained broadly secure for many of its inhabitants since before the days of Jesus. The Muslim invasions made many who were rich poor and removed many who were influential from power. They learnt once more what it meant to trust God and not in their own resources. For many that feeling of security and experience of prosperity and status that they had attached to Rome rather than God was gone forever.

2) Doctrines were settled and formalised in a way that people were no longer challenged by the mystery and questions they posed. Or in a way that many people in the areas that were later conquered disagreed with but for false reasons.

Some people were blindly repeating the creeds without wrestling with the mysteries and challenging questions they posed for our view of God. Some people like the Monophysites in the areas Islam conquered in the Byzantine world or the Nestorians of the Sassinid empire needed a wake up call.

Interestingly the empires and nations that survived Islams golden age of expansion or ultimately triumphed over Islam and took back its conquered Christian territories were Trinitarian and incarnational in outlook. The nations or areas that fell entertained more heretical Christian positions by contrast. God spared the faithful and allowed the heretics to be subjugated being the basic lesson here.

3) The Christian empire of Byzantium had encroached on the private realm of faith to a considerable extent in order to mobilise forces and motivation for its war against the Sassinid empire.

In the name of God it fought its wars and encroached increasingly on individual freedoms on order to win a desperate struggle for survival. n doing so it forgot or neglected the freewill at the heart of the Christians walk with God. The Christian state had become itself quite Islamic in its approach and needed the wake up call of an oppressive theocracy to bring it back to its early years.

4) Islam was the force that ultimately destroyed the Nestorian heretics of Persia and much of central Asia.

The areas of the Byzantine empire that fell had strong monophysistic tendencies. The Sassanid empire had a more Nestorian outlook

5) The pagan idolaters of Mecca and the wider area were utterly wiped out by Islam in favour of worship of the One God

One could argue that no Christian would seriously miss the idolatry that Islam exposed and destroyed.

So my question to Muslims is:

Given the real reasons for your rise and the real fruit of that rise why would you think of your faith as anything more than a challenge for Christians , who should know better, to think a little harder about their faith and to trust God a lot more?

Dear OP, God doesn't "allow" anything,
He is....


Eph 1:10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

 

[mindlight]

Dear OP, God doesn't "allow" anything,
He is....


Eph 1:10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

Muhammed does not preach Gods will, he was permitted and enabled by the Sovereignty of God but his message contradicts the Christian on the important doctrines of Trinity, Incarnation and Redemption. His Gabriel told him that Jesus was not the Son of God and our Gabriel told us that he was. One is a lie and one is a truth.

So it is a matter of why did God allow Muhammed to rise when he is so clearly not of God? Only the sins of the church and Gods plans for its purification on a global scale give any kind of real answer to this question.

 

[mindlight]

Deleted post

God allowed the subjugation of whole nations of Christians by allowing the rise of Muhammed. More than a billion people are held in oppressive servitude to this false religion today and many have been for more than a millennia now. Millions of Christians are persecuted by Muslims in the Muslim homelands. The Mormons are a complete irrelevance compared to that. Just cause the Muslims have no answers and dare not show up round here to get trounced in a debate does not mean you should stop thinking and asking why on earth can such an obvious lie hold the minds of so many people in darkness.

 

[Grip Docility]

This thread is so full of arrogance and bad assumptions, I don't think it can be salvaged. Maybe don't tell people in other countries and churches what to do when you can't keep straight whether you want to blame them for Islam or not based on hoary old lies about what they believe and do.

I am happy in my Orthodox Church that we say
نسجد لاسم الثالوث الرب الاله العظيم الواحد فى اللاهوت المثلث الاقانيم and that the Muslims martyr us for it. If they are going to kill you anyway, you should die for that, and if you can't understand it (and I don't mean the language; you can use Google and see where I found it and what it means, I mean the faith behind it), then don't comment on the Middle Eastern 'monophysites' in the first place.

As for leaving Egypt, we said in my parish we praise God for those who come (immigrate) and for those who do not. Everyone is where God places them, and if the Coptic Orthodox Church is today the church of more martyrs than most, then good. It is not a competition, but as HH Pope Tawadros II said in his interview on 60 Minutes to the U.S. reporter, of course the Church must produce martyrs. We are proud to be that Church. You don't understand it and call us heretics and blame us for Islam, fine. Go ahead and do that. We faced 200 years of oppression under the Byzantines after Chalcedon before the Arabs came anyway, so it is "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". Only the Arabs didn't come professing Christianity to begin with, so it just makes the Byzantines look worse by comparison. They tortured fellow Christians like St. Samuel of Qalamun, and took many of our churches, and the Byzantine emperor even gave a Coptic girl as a gift to Muhammad (she bore him an illegitimate son through his rape of her). Why don't you people ever answer for that, instead of both putting us on historical trial for made-up heresies and pitying us and acting like we're going to vanish if we don't come to your countries that are themselves capitulating to Islam right now much more willingly than we ever did?

The Copts and our fellow OO brothers (together with some Chalcedonians in some places, actually) fought Islam for centuries, but you won't highlight the places where we won, like Axum and Armenia (Armenians actually first won their right to worship from the Zoroastrian Persians via the Battle of Avarayr in 451, centuries before Islam even existed; though they lost that particular battle militarily, they forced the Persians to make the treaty which guaranteed the Armenians freedom to practice Christianity), because that doesn't fit your ideas as you've expressed them in this thread.

I hope the Copts stay in Egypt forever, no matter what their number. And they will. It is their homeland and their country. They built it themselves. The Muslims are just occupiers, and in the end Islam will be torn out at its roots, just like everything that was not planted by God (Matthew 15:13). I have seen it myself as serious Muslims have turned to Coptic priests to learn their common ancestors' language, recognizing that the Arab identity of Egypt is a sham, and with it so too falls the entire structure introduced by the Arabs' religion which places Copts and other non-Muslims in a secondary or worse status.

They can even jail the Muslims who recognize this (as they have with the brave writer Fatima Naoot in the video below; her last name is obviously Coptic ), but they cannot stop it from being recognized. And it will be recognized, as even the Muslims' Qur'an says that truth stands clear from error. Amen.

So no need to worry. We will continue to pray and fast, as we always have (NB: I am not myself an ethnic Coptic person; I am talking about "we" as in our Church). The West, however, is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, as its faith is weak, and it cannot handle martyrdom...I just wonder how in the future that will somehow be the fault of others, too...

Amen!

“We worship the name of the Trinity, the Lord, the One Great God in the Trinity, the Trinity
Amen!”

Indeed... those words boil the blood of Islam!

 

[martymonster]

Muhammed does not preach Gods will, he was permitted and enabled by the Sovereignty of God but his message contradicts the Christian on the important doctrines of Trinity, Incarnation and Redemption. His Gabriel told him that Jesus was not the Son of God and our Gabriel told us that he was. One is a lie and one is a truth.

So it is a matter of why did God allow Muhammed to rise when he is so clearly not of God? Only the sins of the church and Gods plans for its purification on a global scale give any kind of real answer to this question.

I didn't say that Muhammad preached God's will, I said God is working all things after the council of his own will. The scriptures never use the word "allow

 

[dcalling]

As a Christian I have often wondered why Islam has grown so much and at the reasons for its initial success. The contention of this thread is that God allowed Mohammed (whom most Christians consider to be a false prophet) because more good came out of his rising than bad. Basically by raising up an enemy of Christianity God has encouraged Christians to trust Him more , destroyed some insidious and deeply rooted heresies and got people talking about the Trinitarian and incarnational nature of God more than they would have done otherwise. Also he challenged the ways in which the state had encroached on personal freedom by raising up an oppressive opponent that would make people realise where a theocracy without free choice would ultimately lead. Also he destroyed a bunch of pagan idolatries in favour of worship of the One God.

1) FAT, complacent Christians needed the challenge of the desert warriors to wake them up

In context much of the Byzantine empire(Or Roman empire as it knew itself) still prospered within boundaries that had remained broadly secure for many of its inhabitants since before the days of Jesus. The Muslim invasions made many who were rich poor and removed many who were influential from power. They learnt once more what it meant to trust God and not in their own resources. For many that feeling of security and experience of prosperity and status that they had attached to Rome rather than God was gone forever.

2) Doctrines were settled and formalised in a way that people were no longer challenged by the mystery and questions they posed. Or in a way that many people in the areas that were later conquered disagreed with but for false reasons.

Some people were blindly repeating the creeds without wrestling with the mysteries and challenging questions they posed for our view of God. Some people like the Monophysites in the areas Islam conquered in the Byzantine world or the Nestorians of the Sassinid empire needed a wake up call.

Interestingly the empires and nations that survived Islams golden age of expansion or ultimately triumphed over Islam and took back its conquered Christian territories were Trinitarian and incarnational in outlook. The nations or areas that fell entertained more heretical Christian positions by contrast. God spared the faithful and allowed the heretics to be subjugated being the basic lesson here.

3) The Christian empire of Byzantium had encroached on the private realm of faith to a considerable extent in order to mobilise forces and motivation for its war against the Sassinid empire.

In the name of God it fought its wars and encroached increasingly on individual freedoms on order to win a desperate struggle for survival. n doing so it forgot or neglected the freewill at the heart of the Christians walk with God. The Christian state had become itself quite Islamic in its approach and needed the wake up call of an oppressive theocracy to bring it back to its early years.

4) Islam was the force that ultimately destroyed the Nestorian heretics of Persia and much of central Asia.

The areas of the Byzantine empire that fell had strong monophysistic tendencies. The Sassanid empire had a more Nestorian outlook

5) The pagan idolaters of Mecca and the wider area were utterly wiped out by Islam in favour of worship of the One God

One could argue that no Christian would seriously miss the idolatry that Islam exposed and destroyed.

So my question to Muslims is:

Given the real reasons for your rise and the real fruit of that rise why would you think of your faith as anything more than a challenge for Christians , who should know better, to think a little harder about their faith and to trust God a lot more?

I think maybe a closer context is the book of Job. Or John 9:2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

 

[mindlight]

I think maybe a closer context is the book of Job. Or John 9:2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

Fair enough and I know I have annoyed some very devout , persecuted believers who actually live in these countries by suggesting their forebears might have brought it upon themselves.

But the Arian heresy and the whole monophysite discussion, coupled with a recent war against the Persian Empire in which they had been occupied by the enemy, left Syria and Egypt quite rebellious against the Byzantine empire at the time, explaining many of the Muslims easy victories against local troops, so there is a clear connection between the compliance of these people with their new masters and the theological situation of the time. Once this compliance to Muslim masters was stabilised it was almost impossible to shake off even though there were revolts later.

But as Jesus went on to say

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Jesus response was simply to heal the guy, the Pharisees then berated him for that. He then told them he was in the world to make the blind see and those who claim they can see blind.

The heretics in these captured Christian lands mainly became Muslims and were plunged into a darkness that has lasted more than a thousand years. The real believers are still there, in Egypt at any rate, but continue to suffer under Islamic persecution and mismanagement.

 

[mindlight]

I didn't say that Muhammad preached God's will, I said God is working all things after the council of his own will. The scriptures never use the word "allow

This is the question I am struggling with. How can God allow so many people to live in such oppressive darkness? You do not want to use the word allow but what other word fits. You cannot say God is persecuting his own church or condoing the destruction of their property and churches, the marginalisation of Christians in jobs and society is an injustice and God is just and true.

 

[martymonster]

This is the question I am struggling with. How can God allow so many people to live in such oppressive darkness? You do not want to use the word allow but what other word fits. You cannot say God is persecuting his own church or condoing the destruction of their property and churches, the marginalisation of Christians in jobs and society is an injustice and God is just and true.

They are only in darkness for now, but is only temporary. He calls light out of darkness, and so it will be with them, as it is for all of us.

 

[Ronald]

As a Christian I have often wondered why Islam has grown so much and at the reasons for its initial success. The contention of this thread is that God allowed Mohammed (whom most Christians consider to be a false prophet) because more good came out of his rising than bad. Basically by raising up an enemy of Christianity God has encouraged Christians to trust Him more , destroyed some insidious and deeply rooted heresies and got people talking about the Trinitarian and incarnational nature of God more than they would have done otherwise. Also he challenged the ways in which the state had encroached on personal freedom by raising up an oppressive opponent that would make people realise where a theocracy without free choice would ultimately lead. Also he destroyed a bunch of pagan idolatries in favour of worship of the One God.

1) FAT, complacent Christians needed the challenge of the desert warriors to wake them up

In context much of the Byzantine empire(Or Roman empire as it knew itself) still prospered within boundaries that had remained broadly secure for many of its inhabitants since before the days of Jesus. The Muslim invasions made many who were rich poor and removed many who were influential from power. They learnt once more what it meant to trust God and not in their own resources. For many that feeling of security and experience of prosperity and status that they had attached to Rome rather than God was gone forever.

2) Doctrines were settled and formalised in a way that people were no longer challenged by the mystery and questions they posed. Or in a way that many people in the areas that were later conquered disagreed with but for false reasons.

Some people were blindly repeating the creeds without wrestling with the mysteries and challenging questions they posed for our view of God. Some people like the Monophysites in the areas Islam conquered in the Byzantine world or the Nestorians of the Sassinid empire needed a wake up call.

Interestingly the empires and nations that survived Islams golden age of expansion or ultimately triumphed over Islam and took back its conquered Christian territories were Trinitarian and incarnational in outlook. The nations or areas that fell entertained more heretical Christian positions by contrast. God spared the faithful and allowed the heretics to be subjugated being the basic lesson here.

3) The Christian empire of Byzantium had encroached on the private realm of faith to a considerable extent in order to mobilise forces and motivation for its war against the Sassinid empire.

In the name of God it fought its wars and encroached increasingly on individual freedoms on order to win a desperate struggle for survival. n doing so it forgot or neglected the freewill at the heart of the Christians walk with God. The Christian state had become itself quite Islamic in its approach and needed the wake up call of an oppressive theocracy to bring it back to its early years.

4) Islam was the force that ultimately destroyed the Nestorian heretics of Persia and much of central Asia.

The areas of the Byzantine empire that fell had strong monophysistic tendencies. The Sassanid empire had a more Nestorian outlook

5) The pagan idolaters of Mecca and the wider area were utterly wiped out by Islam in favour of worship of the One God

One could argue that no Christian would seriously miss the idolatry that Islam exposed and destroyed.

So my question to Muslims is:

Given the real reasons for your rise and the real fruit of that rise why would you think of your faith as anything more than a challenge for Christians , who should know better, to think a little harder about their faith and to trust God a lot more?

Very simply, we cannot know GOOD, appreciate the attributes of God, His Word, His blessings - unless we know EVIL. So all evil in history was allowed by God (Who is sovereign), for His purpose. Think about it. Would we understand mercy, forgiveness, faith, kindness, peace, love, etc., unless we experienced there opposites and what it is like to live without them? The nature of God is more understood because of evil. The blind, the lepers, the crippled, the adultress was healed by Jesus - they understood clearly who He was. But ultimately His death and resurrection wipes away all sin within us if we believe.
All false religions and philosophies spread throughout the world from Babylon, the harlot everyone fornicates with or so to speak. Satan serves a purpose and he can't do anything unless He has God's permission.
So don't fret, Christianity is right on course with everyone written in the Book of Life accounted for up to this point. Man cannot mess up God's plan. HE IS IN CONTROL OF ALL.
Good and evil are growing towards a precipice and soon will be separated.

 

[DamianWarS]

So my question to Muslims is:

Given the real reasons for your rise and the real fruit of that rise why would you think of your faith as anything more than a challenge for Christians , who should know better, to think a little harder about their faith and to trust God a lot more?

if there are any Muslims in the audience please stand up... isn't this who the OP is addressing? This thread just seems like bantering among Christians at semantics and who knows more things.

 

[tampasteve]

MOD HAT ON

Please note that this thread has been moved to a more appropriate forum.

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[cloudyday2]

As a Christian I have often wondered why Islam has grown so much and at the reasons for its initial success. The contention of this thread is that God allowed Mohammed (whom most Christians consider to be a false prophet) because more good came out of his rising than bad. Basically by raising up an enemy of Christianity God has encouraged Christians to trust Him more , destroyed some insidious and deeply rooted heresies and got people talking about the Trinitarian and incarnational nature of God more than they would have done otherwise. Also he challenged the ways in which the state had encroached on personal freedom by raising up an oppressive opponent that would make people realise where a theocracy without free choice would ultimately lead. Also he destroyed a bunch of pagan idolatries in favour of worship of the One God.

Rather than imagining God as the grand designer, how about imagining God as the grand troubleshooter? Muhammad was not being led by God, but God tried to take the lemons and make some lemonade. That seems to be a better way of looking at it.

 

[mindlight]

Rather than imagining God as the grand designer, how about imagining God as the grand troubleshooter? Muhammad was not being led by God, but God tried to take the lemons and make some lemonade. That seems to be a better way of looking at it.

God is the Creator and Sustainer of all life and He is the Sovereign Lord, He has perfect foreknowledge and the power and authority to intervene as He wills. Even allowing for the random factor of human freewill and sin I think God knew this would happen, allowed it and to some extent provided the common grace gifts to enable it.

 

[FireDragon76]

So an extreme group of gay atheist feminists routinely kidnap and rape Christians for being Christians in the West? I hadn't heard of this, and I live in the West.

No. Not the same. Not even close. Not "just as oppressive". Talk to some of the people you have slandered in your OP and hear what they go through, and you will hopefully change your tune.

Indeed, it's intellectually and morally bankrupt to equate the two. What Christians go through in the ME isn't even comparable. Copts have not been living in "Christendom" for centuries and don't have the delusion of privelege to blind them. Not having society affirm your religion's beliefs or practices isn't the same as religious persecution and oppression.






I don't believe you respect the Copts at all, or any of the OO, from how you have just written about us earlier in this same reply. You are yet another ignorant CHalcedonian telling us our business when you don't understand thing one of what you are talking about. Enough of that. You don't rule Egypt anymore, either. Deal with it rather than playing the blame game.[/QUOTE]

 

[FireDragon76]

God is the Creator and Sustainer of all life and He is the Sovereign Lord, He has perfect foreknowledge and the power and authority to intervene as He wills. Even allowing for the random factor of human freewill and sin I think God knew this would happen, allowed it and to some extent provided the common grace gifts to enable it.

You could learn something from those Oriental and Eastern Orthodox about idolatry. You've just got a Calvinist God made by human hands, imagined as a cosmic potentate. So of course you look at all of history and expect to see God controlling things like an absolute monarch with maximal power.

 

[mindlight]

You could learn something from those Oriental and Eastern Orthodox about idolatry. You've just got a Calvinist God made by human hands, imagined as a cosmic potentate. So of course you look at all of history and expect to see God controlling things like an absolute monarch with maximal power.

The sovereignty of God is pretty clear from scripture. He blesses or He curses. His thoughts are higher than our own. He allowed Islam to rise even though it offers no hope of salvation.