George:

I am thoroughly amazed by the response I keep getting, from my fellow Democrats, regarding my very brief synopsis about the centuries old history of conflict between Islam and Western Civilization. Obviously it sparks a fire in them and they all feel that they have to "straighten" me out. They take it as a crusade, (pardon the pun.)

Unfortunately, they play fast and loose with a few tidbits of history, while being --how can I say this politely-- ignorant about the big picture. I am not going to try to straighten them out, since I have nothing to "prove." If they are interested, they have to do it themselves. There is plenty of material available written by first rate academic scholars. I made reference to a few of them in a previous writing. And, if they want to get a better understanding of Islam as a religion --which is also a political philosophy-- I encourage them to read the Koran and biographies of Mohamed, so that they may better understand what the basis of Islam is. It has a very narrow basis, namely the Koran --a relatively short book-- and the doings and sayings of the Prophet, called the hadith.

There is not much room for interpretation regarding the fundamentals, unless you are a member of an heretic splinter group like the Sufis and Bahais, that are much maligned by mainstream Islam because they happen to be --of all things-- pacifists... The split between the Sunnis and the Shias, is based on an historical development, that occurred about 1,300 year ago; otherwise their religion and view of the world is not much different, other than some difference in their rituals and plenty of animosity towards each other.

I must confess that prior to 9/11 I was similarly self-deluded. I knew that some people in the Middle East were strangely aggressive and bellicose, but I thought it was so despite their religion. I believed that the religion had to be better than their actions. After the horrific attacks on New York and Washington I decided that it was time for me to understand Islam better and began a several month long, self study, on everything Islamic.

It did not take too long before I understood that their actions were strongly inspired on their religion. It was a revelation to me. You don't have to believe me, just do your own homework (or keep deluding yourself if it makes you feel better). If you do, you will learn that Moslems refer to non-Moslem countries as "land of war" (dar al-harb). And yes, not all Moslems are terrorists or bad people... and it would be nice if they could take care of stopping jihad around the world, from Bali to Buenos Aires, from Madrid to Mumbai, all by themselves, without us having to worry about it.

Now just for the record, I need to correct a few statements that have been made that are absolutely incorrect or totally out of context, such as:

Christianity had been a tool of Roman imperialism. In fact it is not unreasonable to see the rise of militant Islam as a reaction against a Greco-Roman hegemony that imposed Christianity by military force.

What? Please! Greco-Roman hegemony had peaked long before Islam originated. Mohamed fought the the idol-worshiping Arabs in Mecca and not Rome or Byzantium. That came later under Moslem expansionism.

[T]he Umayyad caliphate in Spain, [was] famously more tolerant of Christian and Jewish minorities.

True, but who put an end to it? Not Christians from the north of Spain, but orthodox Moslems from the north of Africa. They considered this break-away caliphate heretic and put a barbaric end to it.

In the current century, including 9/11/2001 far more Muslims have been killed by Christians than the reverse.

Tell this to the Armenians!

To summarize; yes, Christians have committed atrocities, but in contravention of the basis of their religion; essentially the "don't kill" and the "treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself." They could not claim that they were following in the steps of Christ. While the Islamic extremist can claim --and do-- that they follow in the steps of Mohamed. Believe me, what I am sharing with you does not mean that I am demonizing them, after all I have spent more time than most average people trying to just understand them. As I said before, do your own homework, don't just hit me with dribble.

If you do your home work, you will understand a lot better why democracy and human rights rarely flourished in majority Moslem countries and why there is continuous friction between Moslems and non-Moslems in such disparate places as, Bosnia, Cyprus, Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, Chechnya, Kashmir, Pakistan/India, Western China, the southern Philippines and Nigeria. Again, I have no inherent animosity against Islam, I just believe I understand a little better where they are coming from and that's all.

Henry F. Weinschenk (Electronic mail, January 25, 2010)