It makes them as devoted to peace as other's in similar positions. Sometimes they advocated peace, other times they engaged in war. Trying to paint them as uniquely expansionist is the problem.
> Then why bring up that seemingly incredibly biased comparison you saw?
To compare it to a baseline of something universally regarded as "not peaceful". Assuming you agree that the crusades weren't peaceful then you can't really claim that islamic expansion was peaceful can you?
> Without seeing the details, it seems to be comparing the battles sanctioned by the Pope during a few centuries against any expansion battle by any Islamic state over a period greater than a millennium.
I don't know if this is true or not, but I assume they're referring to the early islamic expansion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests), it's comparing the centuries of the crusade to just ~150 years.
>o compare it to a baseline of something universally regarded as "not peaceful". Assuming you agree that the crusades weren't peaceful then you can't really claim that islamic expansion was peaceful can you?
Though I agree that the Crusades were not peaceful, I disagree that they are universally regarded as such. Many people view them as some righteous expulsion of the terrible Muslims, which is why this comparison is an issue.
>I don't know if this is true or not, but I assume they're referring to the early islamic expansion
Still assuming that the video linked elsewhere is the document, as it matches the description, this is not the case. It may be some other source, but given the difficulty in making anything resembling a fair comparison between the expansions of an empire and pilgrimage invasions, I would guess that source is also pushing a narrative. Why else would you compare all expansion by the Muslims in the 7th century against only a small subset of wars in the 11th?
It's entirely possible that you and the poster are unaware of how loaded that argument is, but it's still used to say Islam is necessarily violent and must be removed.
> Many people view them as some righteous expulsion of the terrible Muslims, which is why this comparison is an issue.
Many people would consider it righteous, but no-one can seriously claim it was peaceful. The allied side of WW2 was/is considered righteous but no one claims it was peaceful.
> It's entirely possible that you and the poster are unaware of how loaded that argument is, but it's still used to say Islam is necessarily violent and must be removed.
It seems more like you're making all sorts of mental contortions to take the polar opposite position, that they were "devoted to peace". At this point you're arguing against a strawman without even having the decency to tell us what the strawman is.
If you don't like the crusades comparison would you prefer the nazi Germany conquests in WW2? Would you say they were "devoted to peace"?
>Many people would consider it righteous, but no-one can seriously claim it was peaceful. The allied side of WW2 was/is considered righteous but no one claims it was peaceful
People often consider a state committing a righteous act peaceful. People say the US was forcibly dragged into both world wars and describe the goal of "spreading peace."
>It seems more like you're making all sorts of mental contortions to take the polar opposite position, that they were "devoted to peace". At this point you're arguing against a strawman without even having the decency to tell us what the strawman is.
I've never stated that the religion is devoted to peace. I called the behavior normal for an empire and then described how I saw the comparison with the Crusades strange and misleading. The "strawman" I'm arguing against is a vague recollection of what seems to be anti-Islamic propaganda that was in the first post I responded to. Speculating that I'm mistaken about the time period used in the comparison doesn't make it less strange or misleading.
>If you don't like the crusades comparison would you prefer the nazi Germany conquests in WW2? Would you say they were "devoted to peace"?
Their wars alone are enough to show they weren't devoted to peace. Comparing it to some other thing is only useful to show how it's better or worse than some other thing. What other reason is there to say "Islam fought maybe ten times more battles to expand than the Crusades fought against Islam. (And much of the Islamic expansion was against civilizations that were already christian - all of north Africa, for example.)"
They may not have been "uniquely" expansionist, but they were easily one of the most expansionist civilizations/empires to ever exist.
I take big issue with calling them "devoted to peace". The same as I'd take issue with calling Mongols, Romans, or Alexander's Greeks/Macedonians being called "devoted to peace". They very obviously were not. For selfish reasons, they provoked a staggering level of warfare, on a totally different scale as the typical kingdoms that existed throughout the world.
