I take your point, but I think in most, if not all of history, the use of religion to justify conquest is mistaken as purely a religious action. It is conquest. Use religion to motivate the followers so as to believe, as you said, that "we" are superior; but the idea of conquering for god is mostly just a motivating rationale for good old conquest.
Hard to find conquests throughout history that weren't justified either to spread god's work or to save democracy or to purify the land etc. even back in the middle ages, the song of roland, has that rhetoric, crusading, jihading, etc etc.
To save the world for democracy, 1918. And so on.
Why did the u.s. go into Iraq? To save the world from saddam Hussein. Never, to steal the oil.
Ghana, mali, songhai, all the same thing—empires spreading their control, and explaining it on spiritual grounds.
In all the history of islam, I don't think it was any different in that regard. Including the foundation of the religion. Christianity the same, especially from the time of the byzantine emperors and Constantine….
My favvorite metaphor for this is the Spanish conquistadores who conquered the Aztecs and then built their churches on top of the temples…
There is something fundamentally human going on here: I not only conquer you, I build my god's temple on top of yours.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Tuesday 20 March 2018 at 15:57
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - NIGERIA'S LITERATE ZOMBIES
Yes. Ken. ancient Ghana was the example of the North - south conquest from which islamic influence radiated eastwards. Given the size and influence of ancient Ghana whose location should not be confused with present day Ghana the desired opening had been made for the type of imperialistic trade and cultural priorities that followed.
Again it became prestigious to be associated with Islam and stories of origins wound their ways back to the Muslim holy lands from new states that rise from the adhes of sncient Ghana
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From: Kenneth Harrow <harrow@msu.edu>
Date: 20/03/2018 17:19 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - NIGERIA'S LITERATE ZOMBIES
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It was not all conquest that led to conversion. It is important to me that folks realize that islam is a religion. Muslims did get involved in the slave trade, but it wasn't only sub-Saharan Africans who were traded. And "arabs" are hardly to be designated as a race.
The conversion of Africans south of the sahara was not effected by force, at least not till the modern period after it had been well enough established to have major kingdoms or states in the sahel. Anyway, the conversions were often made because of economic reasons, where non-muslims—jews or Christians—were taxed. Non "people of the book" were more likely to be enslaved in north Africa. But the questions on the list seem not to indicate awareness of the berbers, the Christians, the non-arab peoples, who were there before the 7th century. They remained there; did not all mix with the arab population. Half of morocco is berber; probably 10% of Algeria and Tunisia are. And any attempts to describe all the people north of Senegal and mali is terms of race are really weak. Berbers and tuaregs, for instance, fit badly into any colorist schemes, as do arabs, for that matter.
A last word: the spread of islam came over 1000 years, was deeply impacted by trade, by status, and by conversions of leaders. There are almost no instances where you will find north African states actually coming south to conquer. I can think of only one example. And furthermore, the way this process worked in west Africa was quite different from east Africa.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Tuesday 20 March 2018 at 07:34
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - NIGERIA'S LITERATE ZOMBIES
Who is in charge? As in Islamic Spain ( As well as Magna Carta Britain and Ptolemaic Egypt) the ruling courts were occupied by the conquerors. They intermarry with locals who feel ennobled and gentrified by marriage into the ruling classes (cemented in real terms by economic gratificatiins and favours. In Britain the Doomsday Book contains such familial transactions).
So there was a deliberate scramble to Arabize the self among conquered people's. For one Arabization and Islamization were antidotes to further enslavement during the early days Islam.
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From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Date: 20/03/2018 11:00 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - NIGERIA'S LITERATE ZOMBIES
So, is it known for a fact that the Islamic dominance in North Africa today is due primarily to conquest?
What race are the current dominant inhabitants? Are they Arabs?
toyin
On 20 March 2018 at 09:22, Windows Live 2018 <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
Simply put :Arabs became dominant in N. Africa by the same process by which Europeans became dominant the world over before the closing decades of the 20th century: religiously motivated imperialism
Religion ( Razia) interpreted literally) as the Prophets command to conquer the infidels and bend them to the will and ways of Allah is mainly responsible.
It was a world wide drive that permeated and infiltrated the Indian cultures and in part modified the largely polytheistic Indian culture particularly from the Sind era. It affected architectural edifices where modifications made to N African architecture by Islam wer spread to India. It also went as far as China where it affected Chinese polytheistic culture. ( these two large continents were too large and too far from the Islamic centres to be fully conquered.
From the Heracles (strait of Gibralter) Islam penetrated Europe and captured Spain by the same method until the mid 15th century and was on its way to Northern Europe until the latter regrouped under 'reconquista' when moslem rule there was ended. Before this encounter Europe had attempted to regain lost ground through the Crusades which lasted for more than 300 yrs particularly to regain the Temple Mount from Islamic domination ( a goal that is still pursued till tiday)
In view of geographical continuity of North Africa to the Arabian peninsula that areas conquest was more thorough. The rump of Egyptian civilization was snatched from the West following the debacle between Queen Cleopatria ( the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt following Alexander's conquest) and the victorious Roman force's. From here the Islamic forces fanned westwards over the whole of north Africa and penetrated sub Saharan Africa by the 10 CE through the sacking of ancient Ghana by the north African forces of the Almoravids citing the paganism (polytheistuc culture) of ancient Ghana. From there Islamic culture spread eastwards attaining its apogee in Timbuktu.
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From: segun ogungbemi <seguno2013@gmail.com>
Date: 20/03/2018 00:27 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - NIGERIA'S LITERATE ZOMBIES
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African historians should tell us more and how the Arabs became dominant in North Africa that was originally and historically populated by Africans?
I have raised this issue because of the ambivalent attitude of Arabs to Africans.
Segun Ogungbemi
On Mar 19, 2018 08:34, "Chidi Anthony Opara" <chidi.opara@gmail.com> wrote:
analogy/əˈnalədʒi/
noun
a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
CAO.
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