Byker
2017-04-11 17:37:36 UTC
FYI
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.culture.british/5CyBO-O8JO0/4FOmuFyLBgAJ
What separates Sunnis from Shi'as is a succession dispute that erupted afterhttps://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.culture.british/5CyBO-O8JO0/4FOmuFyLBgAJ
the death of Mohammed in 632 AD. Those who accepted Abu Bakr, Mohammed's
father-in-law, as the rightful successor became known as Sunnis. Those who
believed that Ali, Mohammed's son-in-law, was the proper successor became
known as Shi'ites. They've been at each other's throats ever since.
Conflict between Shi'a and Sunni in one country induces conflict between the
same two groups in other countries. It happens easily, almost
spontaneously, because the differences between the two traditions are not
details, like sprinkle- vs. full-immersion baptism in Christianity. The
differences are absolutes. In the last 1,400 years no one has been able to
reconcile them. Should a would-be ecumenical appear, he wouldn't be alive
very long.
Archbishop of Canterbury: "'Although we owe much to Islam handing on to the
West many of the treasures of Greek thought, the beginnings of calculus,
Aristotelian thought during the period known in the West as the dark ages,
it is sad to relate that no great invention has come for many hundred years
from Muslim countries.' He attacked the 'glaring absence' of democracy in
Muslim countries, suggested that they had contributed little of major
significance to world culture for centuries and criticized the Islamic
faith.": http://tinyurl.com/hbcnwem
And guess what, people? He's RIGHT. The West left Islam in the dust when
religion and science split and took their separate paths. The result was
the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Age of Enlightenment, things that
the Muslim world has yet to experience. Sure, they gave civilization
Samarkand and Damascus and Cordoba, but for Europeans those were just
springboards to better things. The mullahs seemed to be quite content being
forever stuck in a time warp c.700 AD...