What If the Arabian Empire Reunited Today?

[EgyptianAmerican]

By which you, BHarwana, mean: I must quickly digress and divert from the thread topic before Solomon2 embarrasses the "Muslims" here any further.

So you making up facts is somehow embarrassing for us? On the contrary, it's embarrassing for you.

 

[BHarwana]

By which you, BHarwana, mean: I must quickly digress and divert from the thread topic before Solomon2 embarrasses the "Muslims" here any further.

Just wanted to know how Israeli plan to defend them selves against any such thing.

 

[Solomon2]

So you making up facts is somehow embarrassing for us? On the contrary, it's embarrassing for you.

As at least @HannibalBarca has discovered, I haven't been "making up facts" at all. Indeed, most of it is there in the Wikipedia article on the Ummayad Empire - including the part about Muslims being a minority. (The bit about the Jews as traders is not; that's from my reading of the contemporary European history: Christian rulers preserved and protected Jews in part because they served as go-between traders with the Ummayads.)

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

I like the small misunderstanding escalates into pure jealousy.

 

[EgyptianAmerican]

As at least @HannibalBarca has discovered, I haven't been "making up facts" at all. Indeed, most of it is there in the Wikipedia article on the Ummayad Empire - including the part about Muslims being a minority. (The bit about the Jews as traders is not; that's from my reading of the contemporary European history: Christian rulers preserved and protected Jews in part because they served as go-between traders with the Ummayads.)

???

"These territorial acquisitions brought the Arabs into contact with previously unknown ethnic groups who embraced Islam and would later influence the course of Islamic history. The Berbers of North Africa, for example, who resisted Arab rule but willingly embraced Islam, later joined Musa ibn Nusayr and his general, Tariq ibn Ziyad, when they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain. The Berbers later also launched reform movements in North Africa which greatly influenced the Islamic civilization. In the East, Umayyad rule in Transoxania brought the Arabs into contact with the Turks who, like the Berbers, embraced Islam and, in the course of time, became its staunch defenders. Umayyad expansion also reached the ancient civilization of India, whose literature and science greatly enriched Islamic culture."

"However, the Umayyad caliphs do seem to have understood themselves as the representatives of God on earth, and to have been responsible for the “definition and elaboration of God’s ordinances, or in other words the definition or elaboration of Islamic law.”


t"hat Muslims formed the majority of the population in the Middle East heartland of the caliphate."


Christians did not form the backbone of civil administration in the Caliphate at all and neither did Jews make up the economic one either. Such lies that are continuing to be peddled is not true at all.


Wiki can be edited by anyone, It isn't a good source sometimes.


Stop making things up, also this is about modern day countries forming the Arab caliphate with their CURRENT POPULATIONS. Not the population of the old caliphate, maybe you should watch the video before embarrassing yourself further.

 

[KediKesenFare3]

Modern Western scholars don't consider the Umayyad Caliphate as "Arabian" anymore. According to them, this empire was more based on religion than on being Arabian. Opinions? I tend to agree with this view.

 

[Saif al-Arab]

Modern Western scholars don't consider the Umayyad Caliphate as "Arabian" anymore. According to them, this empire was more based on religion than on being Arabian. Opinions? I tend to agree with this view.

It was an Arab empire/caliphate just like the Rashidun, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates and empires. Every historian consider those empires as Arab Caliphates. Using that logic the Ottomans (Arabs were actually the majority in the Ottoman empire) were not an Turkish Empire/Caliphate as Turks were in the minority (unlike Arabs in the Arab caliphates who were a majority) and Persian empires would not be Persian either as Persians were minorities.

If empires/caliphates where Arab culture, language, lands, people etc. were a majority/ruled supreme are not Arab then no empires belonged to any people. Not only where Arabs the majority but the rulers and entire elite were Arabs.

 

[HannibalBarca]

@Solomon2 A good read for you during that Time of the Calipahte.

- An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades; Memoirs of Usāmah ibn-Munqidh

- The travels of ibn battuta

- Al Muqaddima Ibn Khaldoun ( One of the best in my opinion & it's Zuckerberg favorite book )

There is others but read those one and you get a a deep socialogical picture of the Muslims World. It's not only a description of the region, but you will get the honest view of a Traveler of that time. And everything is not beautiful, there is critics and so on. But you will get the pic...

Enjoy,

 

[Solomon2]

Wiki can be edited by anyone, It isn't a good source sometimes.

The Wikipedia article has references, while you didn't even include links to your post.

also this is about modern day countries forming the Arab caliphate with their CURRENT POPULATIONS. Not the population of the old caliphate

O.K., but then you're talking about making up something different from the Ummayad Caliphate. Because the differences in population was crucial to holding the Empire together.

While Muslims were a minority, they had every incentive to stick together and received considerable subsidy from the jizya tax paid by non-Muslims. However, once conversion was encouraged total tax revenues declined and agitation from Muslim have-nots increased as their population swelled, for the fear of revolting non-Muslims declined while the question of why invading Arabs should dominate and be privileged if Muslims were supposed to be equal took hold. So the Ummayad Empire fractured upon the point of same religion/different ethncities and there is no reason to expect that re-establishing it would improve matters - indeed, the video highlights this as a crucial weakness.

@Solomon2 A good read for you during that Time of the Calipahte.

- An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades; Memoirs of Usāmah ibn-Munqidh

- The travels of ibn battuta

- Al Muqaddima Ibn Khaldoun ( One the best in my opinion & it's Zuckerberg favorite book )

There is others but read those one and you get a a deep socialogical picture of the Muslims World. It's not only a description of the region, but you will get the honest view of a Traveler of that time. And everything is not beautiful, there is critics and so on. But you will get the pic...

Enjoy,

Yes indeed, I recently acquired a translation of ibn battuta and expect to read it soon!

 

[EgyptianAmerican]

O.K., but then you're talking about making up something different from the Ummayad Caliphate. Because the differences in population was crucial to holding the Empire together.

What are you talking about? We aren't talking about the Historical empire. We are talking about Current Nation states with their current infrastructure, resources,land and people uniting and creating a modern Caliphate. We don't have to worry about Jizya anymore or who pays how much because we have HUGE populations, all of which pay taxes.

It isn't cities with 10,000 people anymore, it's cities with MILLIONS of people.We have mass production and modern infrastructure with planes,cars,etc. Everything is cheaper, building,outfitting and maintaining a army is a MILLION times cheaper than during the old times.

Who cares about how much non-Muslims pay because Muslims are the majority in the MODERN DAY caliphate. You can't dispute that at all.

 

[KediKesenFare3]

It was an Arab empire/caliphate just like the Rashidun, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates and empires. Every historian consider those empires as Arab Caliphates. Using that logic the Ottomans (Arabs were actually the majority in the Ottoman empire) were not an Turkish Empire/Caliphate as Turks were in the minority (unlike Arabs in the Arab caliphates who were a majority) and Persian empires would not be Persian either as Persians were minorities.

If empires/caliphates where Arab culture, language, lands, people etc. were a majority/ruled supreme are not Arab then no empires belonged to any people. Not only where Arabs the majority but the rulers and entire elite were Arabs.

We have a small nationalistic fraction in our society that denies the Turkish identity and dominance of the Ottoman Empire. Personally, I do think that this opinion is true to some extent. The ruling elite of the Ottoman Empire was of Turkish and Balkanic origin with strong Persian influence in cultural terms.

On topic: But you do accept the fact that the main reason behind the collapse of the Umayyads was rising Arab nationalism and mistreatment of non-Arab Muslims? And how do you define the Arab identity? My (Sunni) Yemeni friend talked about a "Quranic identity". Every person who knows Arabic and is a Muslim has to be accepted as a an Arab in the sense of Quran.

 

[Saif al-Arab]

We have a small nationalistic fraction in our society that denies the Turkish identity and dominance of the Ottoman Empire. Personally, I do think that this opinion is true to some extent. The ruling elite of the Ottoman Empire was of Turkish and Balkanic origin with strong Persian influence in cultural terms.

On topic: But you do accept the fact that the main reason behind the collapse of the Umayyads was rising Arab nationalism and mistreatment of non-Arab Muslims? And how do you define the Arab identity? My (Sunni) Yemeni friend talked about a "Quranic identity". Every person who knows Arabic and is a Muslim has to be accepted as a an Arab in the sense of Quran.

The Ottoman empire was also influenced by Arabic culture to a large extent. Ottoman Turkish for instance was influenced much more by Arabic than Persian. To this very day even after the reforms of Mustafa Kemal, Arabic loanwords make up the largest percentage of foreign-derived words in Turkish. Also post-Islam many Persian cultural elements are in fact Arabic ones.

https://www.ukessays.com/essays/history/arabian-traditions-in-ottoman-empire-history-essay.php

http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9781107033634&ss=exc

It was more about internal rivalry than anything else. The Umayyads, aside from ruling the by far largest empire seen to date (and probably also the most diverse) back then (today here almost 1300 years after it remains as such too) ruled a complex and vast territory and some policies of certain leaders were proven to be detrimental (nepotism). The Abbasids who replaced the Umayyads were more inclusive to non-Arabs but the notion of Umayyad's being Arab-supremacists is incorrect.

The same Umayyads conquered Iberia (Spain, Portugal and parts of modern-day Southern France) and created one of the most legendary Muslim communities (communities overall too) in the Middle Ages. Al-Andalus. A civilization were Arabs, Berbers, Arab-Berber mixtures (otherwise also known as Moors - the majority after a few generations), Jews and local Muslim converts and Christians thrived for centuries and worked together. A civilization that was only rivaled by the Abbasids during the Islamic Golden Age. No Muslim civilization previously or afterwards rivaled those two civilizations/period. Nor do I know of any contemporary civilizations in the Middle Ages who were this advanced. That would have been impossible if the policies were "supremacist". In fact I doubt that what we understand today as ethnic supremacism was even present back then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania

Your Yemeni friend is wrong and it is the first time I hear such a theory.

 

[Solomon2]

@Solomon2 A good read for you during that Time of the Calipahte.

Oh, but it should be pointed out that ibn battuta lived about six hundred years after the Ummayad Empire fell.

Still, it's a really interesting account. Using Dunn's commentary to provide context. The most impressive bit so far is how, despite recently fending off a siege from roving marauders, the governor of Constantine welcomed I.B. and contributed two dinars and fresh clothing to aid his pilgrimage to Mecca. I don't see how the governor could expect to see ibn battuta again, nor expect any favor or gift or advantage or recommendation in return, so that's a very pure form of charity.

 

[Kuwaiti Girl]

Nice video.

I personally prefer a reunited Mongol Empire though.

 

[Saif al-Arab]

Arabs already have an empire.. from Morocco to Levant and Arabian Peninsula - you guys just need to unite.

True.

Which is easier said than done as such visions have not been pursued by the modern-day leaders as it did/does not suit their interests and foreigners have no such interests either as a united Arab world (politically, economically, militarily etc.) would be a world power to be reckoned with. However I am hopeful and quite convinced of the Arab world (mostly due to the wishes and aspirations of the Arab people) moving towards that direction.

We have already seen this occurring. In any case the past few centuries have been a time period were we have been at our worst (overall as there of course have been examples of the opposite) in our ancient history but this won't continue for long given the huge potential and inevitable improvement (ongoing currently) on most crucial fronts such as economy, education etc.

In any case I believe that Pakistan being a country that is geographically located closely to us, in particular the Arabian Peninsula, a country with whom we have had ancient ties with dating back to the times of the IVC (Sumer, Dilmun, Magan etc. connection) and even beyond that, and a country facing similar challenges/having a huge potential as well, should/must cooperate with the Arab world at least the Arabian Peninsula and the Arab Near East for the benefit of both parties.