Was the Middle-East and North Africa better off with the establishment of the Islamic|Arabic Empire? Not. Absolutely Not
Posted on: August 24, 2021
Note: this is a wide brush of the essential ideas that can settle my belief in the nasty turn of events in this ruthless timeline of History.
History is such a stupid happening. The Middle-East in the 7th century was dominated by 2 far civilized empires of Byzantium and the Sassanian|Persian empires.
The Western Roman empire with the Catholic pope in Rome had vanished under the various German tribes onslaught and only Orthodox Byzantium that dominated the lands west of the Euphrates River and Egypt and North Africa represented whatever western culture remained.
The Persian empire extended from the east of the Euphrates river all the way to Afghanistan and current Pakistan.
These two empires had well grounded and oiled institutions in education and administration of the society, and whatever difficulties they had in their monarchic system, they still were Not politically subordinated to their religious institutions. and their languages were well developed and widespread for trade and education in vast lands.
These two vast empire and strongly entrenched in this region had desisted a century ago from persecuted the “heretic sects” in their kingdom, according to their respective monarchic religion.
As the Islamic|Arabic invasion of Syria and the defeat of the Byzantium army in the battle of Yarmuk, the Ummaya dynasty had to start from scratch when they settled in Damascus as their Capital: the learned Christians had to
The Syrian scholars who mastered at least 3 languages of (Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Arabic, Persia…) translated all the Greek, Roman and Aramaic work into Arabic, and even had to develop this backward language with no punctuation into a readable language.
It took the Ummayad dynasty an entire century to collect and gather original and translated knowledge before the successive dynasties made good use of this knowledge.
The same process of beginning from scratch had to be undertaken in the vast Iranian empire, rich in civilization and administration.
Meanwhile another round of persecutions against the Islamic heretic sects and other religions went on for centuries
Books mention a dozen of well-known famous Islamic physicians and scientists, most of them where of Syria, Persia and North Africa origin.
Fact is, the Middle-East would have generated hundreds upon hundreds of physicians and scientists without this Islamic expansion and the world would have been far better of and Not wait 10 centuries for the European Renaissance to emerge and spread its rational mind and artistic glory.
In the 50’s and for the next 2 decades, the dictatorship of Abdul Nasser and the Baath parties in Syria and Iraq controlled the publication of books relative to the History of the Arabic empire and emphasized the benefits and good side of this Islamic empire. The thousands horror stories against infidels and Islamic “heretical sects” and against other leaders and their clans were self censured at best, in order to retain the good Face of the “Arabic Nation” that these parties claimed to institute or re-establish in the Arab World.
Lately, the horror stories are coming out.
It has been revealed that the so-called Arabic military Hero Khaled Iben Al Walid was a violent assassin: He killed thousands of civilian people In Damascus for 3 days and nights after his army forced the Bizantine army to retreat after 3 days of undecided victory. This same Islamic hero was the military right hand of the first Calif Abu Baker and savagely engaged many tribes who reneged on the message of Mohammad after his death: He went on a rampage of sweeping killing, raping and razzias. The first Calif resisted the wrath of the next Calif Omar Iben Khattab on the ground that he badly needed such a ruthless military commander to re-establish Islam in the Arabic peninsula.
Another well-known “hero” is Salah El Din who defeated the Crusaders in the battle of Hettine in Palestine. It turned out that this Sultan who settled in Damascus as Capital conducted genocides on many Islamic sects that were Not Sunni, especially in northern Syria.
The Abbasid dynasty went on a rampage against all the Ummayad heirs and killed every single member of the extended family: One one escaped to Andalusia and established another kind of Caliphate.
As I noted, this is a rough brush and will Not mention all the successive horrors of Calif successions till the Ottoman empire.
Needless to say that the current “formal Arabic” is fraught with religious expressions and innuendo and Not fit to be an international language.
Only the slang in the various States in the Middle-East and Egypt represent the culture and customs of the people, since the terms are mainly from the Aramaic language which was the language of the land for many
millennia.
Note 2: When I mentioned the 50-70’s decades of books relevant to the “positive” achievement of the “Arabic empire” I had in mind the lessons one of the most humane and charismatic leaders of the Syria National Social party. In many instances, this leader/commander comrade got excited recounting the Arabic empire achievements, though he mentioned the achievement of Akkad, Babylon, Assyrian, Canaan, Phoenicia, Carthage empires as the origin of our Syrian root civilization and unity as a Nation.
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