Yes, many historians make the argument that the Islamic focus on pagans is polemic. Mohammed's supposed home was surrounded by different Christians and many Arabs were Christians. Yet it makes it seem like it was mainly a struggle with pagans.
I'm not so revisionist that I'm sold that Mohammed's followers were all Christians though. I think one reading is that the Qur'anic author saw the Christianity was already winning and, like Paul, saw a chance to both convert pagans (who already accepted Allah as a high god ) and assimilate the "god-fearers" who were interested but for whom the lack of an Arabic Bible was a problem with the rest of the monotheistic faiths. The Qur'an explicitly backs the old religions (until it doesn't) and outright states that the point of it being sent down was to give Arabs their own book in "clear Arabic", the Bible not being translated at this time.
One reason I don't believe that they were all out and out Christians is the ignorance of a lot of Christian material. The author of the Qur'an is not only very ignorant about Jesus (his polemics against the divinity of Christ are amateur hour) they can't quite tell what's apocryphal or not. There are other mistakes that are stunningly ignorant for either Jews or Christians.
It would also explain the absolute arrogance of trying to weld together Christianity and Judaism without accounting for all of the reasons Paul had issues with the law or the wide divergence over centuries: they just didn't know what they didn't know.
(Now that I think about it: if it was just the path of least resistance why not abandon the strict monotheism? It would only piss off the Jews but it would bring in far more Christians as allies, it wasn't like most of them at this time were Ebionites)
Incidentally, the five Christian Pentarchs were the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. Rome is Catholic, Constantinople was Orthodox up until the 1400's but is now Muslim (and called Istanbul), while Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem fell to the rising Arabs. In other words, 4 of the 5 original Christian holy cities are currently under Muslim control.
Huh. In Paradox's games set when paganism was still a thing one of the ways to get your religion reformed and recognized as a stable equal of the organized monotheistic faiths is to capture - iirc - 80% of the existing holy sites. I wonder if someone was influenced by this.
While I do think that at its core masculinity implies a responsibility to be willing to use force to defend the good if necessary - and thus all men have a certain responsibility to embrace the capacity for violence - it's a big world and it's okay if some guys are skinny nerds who read a lot.
I mean, it's a big world and fat chicks get laid all the time too. I don't know that it's irrational for them to want to improve their status despite that fact.
It's also okay to be a skinny nerd iff the situation isn't so bad as to justify the deployment of force at scale and the entire point of the meme is that the growth in the number of such men will make it necessary. He has reason to strike back.
Tanista
3d ago
That would fit the the "empires win except for RNG" claim.
The most likely outcome was the Arabs converting to one of the other existing monotheisms. Most likely of the two being Christianity. It was incredibly lucky (or it was providence) that Mohammed existed and he could draw on the Biblical description of Arabs. And even then they benefited from both nearby empires having dragged each other to death's door.
Without this, they continue as they were with groups like the Ghassanids being aligned with the Christian Romans and being mercenaries for them.
My naive take was that it's almost impossible for the game of partisan tit for tat to not end with the filibuster gone.
But the Senate has been resistant to going all the way despite Trump suggesting it. I suppose their desire to matter outweighs their desire to stick it to the other team.
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