The Mongol Empire may of been one of the deadliest empires in history, but I respect that they killed everyone equally then treated them equally afterwards which is a lot more then most empires can say. They basically just showed up, took over most of the known world, helped caused the black death killing most of Europe, then just died. What does this have to do with the post? Nothing, I just like talking about the Mongol Empire.
Genghis Khan killed so many people that he reversed climate change, entire cities were reclaimed by forests and he was probably the deadliest killer in human history.
I think about that too sometimes. When people are like "The Mongol Empire was good because it facilitated trade, the silk road! A woman could walk from one end of the silk road to the other, alone, carrying a chest of gold and not be bothered once!"
The British Empire was also good for trade. They also abolished slavery in the Empire, despite the fact it put a MASSIVE drain on the state budget to compensate the former slave owners.
I don't think that matters too much for the indian guy british soldiers tied to a canon and turned into a red mist. Just like how the religious tolerance of the Mongol Empire didn't matter to all the women they raped in front of their husbands.
I think every empire is cool, but at the end of the day they were all extremely brutal at some point (or several).
but every time you talk about the Muslim conquests its suddenly "oh but but but convivencia, they were allowed to live as dhimmies and pay jizzya,so sophisticated "
Idk about treating everybody the same after slaughtering them tbh.
Mongolians are the elites in the empire, only Mongolian are allowed to be government officials;
‘The colored-eyes’ is the term they used for basically people who have different eye colors than them, usually it’s either people from Middle Eastern or East Europe. They get to be artisans and serve the empire
Han Chinese, these people lived in Mongol’s territory before they conquered China so they were considered loyal but still being treated like shit. They are basically considered peasants.
Southerners, these are also Han Chinese but they were the citizens of the Song Dynasty. They resisted Mongolian’s invasion so when these Chinese were conquered they were being treated as slave and are expendable assets.
The Mongolian definitely uses different strategies to manage all the people they have conquered. It’s a well-accepted fact in East Asia that the Mongolian enslaved every other Asian nation they conquered
There wasn't religious freedom either e.g. they banned Kosher/Halal and other rites; that's part of why Jews/Muslims joined the Chinese overthrow of the Yuan and how both escaped the ban on foreign religions under the Ming (unlike Christianity which got banned). There was probably more religious freedom than many European states at the time but a lot of countries were far more tolerant than the Mongol Empire.
My ass would have been a mongol vassal so fast, submit and pay tribute and give us some soldiers for our campaigns, or we will burn and destroy every single town in your kingdom, and we will put your entire dynasty under a rug and stomp it with horses (this happened after the siege of baghdad) The choice seems clear.
>we will put your entire dynasty under a rug and stomp it with horses
I thought that was reserved for killing other Mongols as it was taboo (I dunno if that's the right word) to spill Mongol blood
Well, it's not like they completely disappeared at the collapse of the empire, the Timurids were still extremely cruel to a lot of people, and the Mughals held power for a very long time. Not the Mongol empire of course, but remnants of it
Mostly muslim north african, yes. But also several arabs, sirians... and from a couple of places more. To be fair, while its midly interesting... saying "Africans ruled spains" is a huge and stupid reductionism XD.
The fun thing, though (and its something that everyone that tends to romantizice Al-andalus always forgets or never cares enough to mention) is that they "ruled" until they were more focused on back-stabbing , which was quite often.
When it comes to the Emirate, and later on caliphate of Al-Andalus, its fairly amusing to read about the huge amount of rebellions and civil wars that basically took place in barely the 3 centuries it lasted.
But Africans did rule Spain? Both North African Berbers and West African Moors both controlled Spain what does the Abbasid and Umayyad caliphates as awhole have to do with anything?
There are actually people, some of them academics who argue, no joke, it's not settler colonialism if it doesn't involve boats. So for example, the Han Dynasty showing up, conquering you, relocating half your population closer to the Imperial center (so you don't get uppity) and then moving people in, to *settle* what was formerly someone else's land, is *not* "settler colonialism", cuz they just walked/rode to do it.
For more context…
like u/new_ymi said, [第五](https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%94%E5%A7%93) is a real surname.
第 = “ranked”
五 = “fifth”
第五 = “ranked fifth” or “fifth in order” or “No. 5”
I mean, I think the unstated goal is to try and find a framework of settler colonialism such that it's only something Europeans did (maybe the Japanese can do it some times, as a treat). But it's bonkers. Ever since man first left the cave and met someone with a different language and way of looking at things, the human race has had but one dream: to kill him, so we don't need to learn his language or his way of looking at things.
We really have no other choice in the matter if you think about it, they’re forcing our hand and although we are good and peace loving we must use violence when it comes to it
I think this is maybe a little stretch for comedic effect, right? You're just touching on the nuanced differences between imperialism and colonialism. "It's colonialism when you do it on boats" is like a running joke among my political/history nerd friends
Well I think it's a joke but some academica seem to advance it soberly. I have no idea how mainstream the argument is, but seems to boil down to the claim that boats allow for a much more sudden and rapid transformation to the indigenous people. You might hear from a neighboring tribe or even your next nearest neighboring tribe about a bunch of men with funny banners approaching and causing a ruckus, but it could still be years or even your lifetime before they get to you. With boats, you're minding your business on Monday, Tuesday you're seeing strange white things in the distance and by Wednesday there's these weirdos with boom sticks.
Of course this completely ignores counter examples like Mohammed or Ghenghis Khan or Alexander the Great, who in the space of a matter of years or a single lifetime completely remade the world around them.
Exactly, like what is this supposed to prove? Yeah I think the grass is blue and the sky is green.
Redditor above “can you believe people can’t even agree on the color of the sky and grass nowadays? What is the world coming to?”
Neither have I - not a single serious academic that I know or know of would ever make such a flimsy distinction because they would be unable to get that nonsense past peer review.
"some academics" - the fuckin UN uses that definition - just look at [this list](https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en/history/former-trust-and-nsgts) - UN couldn't be more of a joke.
The Arab empire wasn’t settler colonial, it was just imperial. They didn’t kill or ethnically cleanse the people they conquered and replace them with Arabs, they instituted a small Arab ruling class on top of them. The same as Rome (most of the time) or the Normans or han China. Seriously, we can say that empires are bad even if they aren’t settler colonial, I don’t understand why people insist on this.
Of course they were settler colonial. Sicily, Malta, Southern Spain and the Levant didn't start speaking Arab and being majority Muslim for no reason. Arabs enslaved and send away a good portion of the natives in the lands they conquered and settled them with Arabs from their core empire. The only reason a lot of these places aren't still Arab today is because they got reconquered and the Arabs there endured the same fate.
Muslim conquest and expansion was by no means more peaceful than the creation of Israel, but Arabs love to portray the later as he most vile country in history while being ignorant of their own history it seems.
The people in the areas you mentioned and places like North Africa are not genetically the same Arabs as the ones who conquered them. They adopted the language because people adopt the language of their rulers and slowly adopted the religion because you could avoid paying the extra tax and rise higher in society.
These places began speaking Arab because the native population gradually assumed the culture and language of the elite. This happens all over the place. For instance, once upon a time most of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But after being invaded by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes this language gradually disappeared. This wasn’t because these groups wiped out the native population, it’s because old English became the language of the elite and status and so filtered down to the average people. Same with the Normans and French culture.
The places the Arabs conquered were largely left alone with the exception of an Arab ruling class being instituted: but traditional elites and power structures were generally kept in place as were the populous. Over the centuries of Arab rule Arabic became the language of status and was slowly adopted by the population, as was their culture. Same with Islam, people slowly converted mostly for economic or social reasons over centuries. Now, this isn’t good and it’s still cultural erasure but it’s not settler colonialism. Most Arabs today are the same people who lived in these places prior to Arab conquests.
This subreddit is embarrassingly ignorant about history. It's all "le based epic military chad" bits of trivia and very ideological dumb platitudes like the comment you were responding to.
On another note, I came across an intriguing sentence in Chris Wickham's Medieval Europe that was something like "the norman conquest brought about the most complete destruction of any European aristocracy til 1917". Sadly he didnt elaborate on this. As far as I'm aware, 7th century arab conquerors generally kept on pre-existing ruling classes on as administrators, they just made them subordinate to a new paramount arab ruling class. But regional and local level elites largely stayed the same.
Ikr, I really hate being here sometimes. I constantly think about leaving but I actually like making memes about new stuff I learn and there’s no where else to post them :/
That’s really neat I didn’t know that, assuming it’s true anyway. If you find out where he got that information from def link it
The two books cited by Wickham for that part are Unification and Conquest by Strafford and The World Before Domesday by Ann Williams. I'm not familiar with either but I trust Wickham. He's consistently thorough, nuanced, and not at all hesitant to admit when the avaliable evidence is insufficient to make any definite conclusions. Probably the best living scholar of the early middle ages imo.
They are practicing slavery to this day. But just disguise it. Look at the movie goat life. If they do such horrible things to fellow muslims imagine what they do to folks of other religion.
Yeah Colonialism isn't just conquest with a different name. Colonialism is unique in the fact that the Colonial territories are uniquely different legally than core territories. Britain ruled India differently than it ruled England the Ummayads did not. Whilst Islamic Caliphates were expansionist to conflate them as a colonial empire is really expanding the definition of colonialism to any form of conquest. This is not to deny the idea that the Caliphate oppressing local populations they did that but this was hardly unique to the Caliphates and using this as the barrier to colonialism makes the term useless.
I suspect the reason that this was made is a sort of see the Arabs did bad too. This isn't productive because for one the growth of Arab communities in the middle east happened over centuries and was a slow process. This is also to bring up that the idea of a Arab that extends over the entire Middle East is a relatively new idea which emerged from Arab speaking societies building up a national image.
This is in comparison to many colonial projects that displaced local communities over a short period then settled this regions with local populations. Other forms may entirely extractive with colonial elite ensuring that local economies were suppressed inorder to extract local resources. Muslim leaders on the other hand didn't do this sure they replaced local elites but this was common among all forms of conquest.
The main comparison is likely the Dhimmi system in which non-Muslims have different rights to Muslims. Whilst this has aspects of colonial rule is not the same thing instead is better compared to the many similar religious systems that existed during the period.
Ultimately this comparison is pointless and I suspect is a attempt to rewrite history to a acquit European colonial empires of their crimes by going everyone did it.
TLDR Comparing something with a thousand year difference is pointless and stupid.
Fun fact: The racial hierarchy system that was practiced by the Spanish, French and even others like the British but again mostly Spain. Took inspiration and elements from the Arab Empires of Spain, the Al-Andalus introduced this modern concept of racial hierarchy.
Edit: To everyone reading I definitely should have worded this better. I did not mean to make it sound as Europeans leaned racism from the Al-Andalus empire. As we all know that racism existed well before in the continent and everywhere else in the world and the Europeans just like every other group of people in history had their own hierarchy system. And the only reason I originally commented this is because when I learned about the Spain racial hierarchy system, we were taught and showed that it took inspiration from the Al-Andalus system. With all the mixed race names, subgroups and how to categorize them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus
Read under the Culture section and there you’ll parts of what you’re looking for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_and_cultural_exchange_in_al-Andalus
Some more information on the hierarchy system.
I tired looking up other options but all they talked about was the US and it’s Racial Discrimination.
I know it’s not the best because it’s Wikipedia. But here’s this..
The society of al-Andalus was made up of three main religious groups: Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The Muslims, although united on the religious level, had several ethnic divisions, the main being the distinction between the Arabs and the Berbers. The Arab elite regarded non-Arab Muslims as second-class citizens; and they were particularly scornful of the Berbers.
The ethnic structure of al-Andalus consisted of Arabs at the top of the social scale followed by, in descending order, Berbers, Muladies, Mozarabes, and Jews.
Yeah just read that exact passage lol. Thanks a lot, didn't know this
Though I must say, this doesn't seem too out of place. I thought Jews were generally at the bottom of the tree in Europe at the time as well?
Jews in Europe like the Jews in the Arab world. Depended on the ruler and the current event that is happening at the time.
Jews in both Muslims and Christian Spain had it much better than their North African and Central European counterparts. But after then were kicked out they fled to Morocco, Ottoman Empire, England the Netherlands and Poland. They also went to the Balkans and the Levant in smaller numbers.
That is not as the same as the racial caste system in the new world. Most civilizations had views about ethnic and religious groups being inferior to themselves, I mean Ancient Greece looked down on the “barbarians” for this exact same reason. The reason the system in the new world is so heinous is that 1). It was based on innate traits rather than culture/religion, which obviously one can change and 2). It created a permanent racial underclass in these societies that we still deal with today. There wasn’t some Andalusian slave class of Jews or Berbers or something. They had slaves but they weren’t all one single ethnic group nor did their kids become slaves (usually).
In reality, our modern conception of race evolved gradually in the new world as Europeans required a new justification for slavery other than religion and it was a useful way to keep the mostly white indentured servants from allying with the mostly black slaves, which happened several times before race was codified. It also meant you could tell which caste someone belonged to at a glance, whereas it’s pretty hard to tell the difference between a Berber, an Arab, a Sephardic Jew, and a Spaniard with just a look.
All I'm seeing this source say is that the hierarchy existed, not an argument that Westerners picked it up here.
Also, the idea that this stratification somehow put Jews below Christians is something I've never encountered before. This whole claim of stratification comes from someone who is [not a scholar.](https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001JSBY9S/about) I've also checked the citation in the book, and she provides no citation for her claim.
So, how did you come to this conclusion, given that a) it's not what your source says, and b) your source is spurious?
Oh, and last but not least, the colorism between Arabs and Berbers is greatly exaggerated because people assume North Africans are black, which, given the cosmopolitan nature of the North African coast throughout antiquity, is simply not the case. The dichotomy of darker and lighter was extremely blurry. You could make an argument that the people from further down the Moroccan coast or in Mauritania would have been darker skinned and what we think of today as "black," but a) there are competing theories claiming indigenous Moroccans initially came from Europe, but even excepting this, b) the influxes of these people into Iberia came during the invasions of the Almohads and Almoravids, which were *Berber* dynasties, so their arrival would have *curtailed* any supposed colorism the elitism of Arab aristocrats may have entailed.
"Racism existed at some level in al-Andalus therefore Europeans learned racism from Muslims."
This can't be your actual argument right? I am surprised that you're even upvoted.
Not that surprising, if you want to see a 2024 example of Nazi tier racism just go on Instagram and find any Arab political account and click “see translation” in posts about Jews, Africans, Indians, and Europeans.
The spanish-american casta system? https://cowlatinamerica.voices.wooster.edu/2020/05/04/the-casta-system/#:~:text=The%20Casta%20System%20was%20created,racial%20groups%20in%20the%20colonies.
The society of al-Andalus was made up of three main religious groups: Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The Muslims, although united on the religious level, had several ethnic divisions, the main being the distinction between the Arabs and the Berbers. The Arab elite regarded non-Arab Muslims as second-class citizens; and they were particularly scornful of the Berbers.
The ethnic structure of al-Andalus consisted of Arabs at the top of the social scale followed by, in descending order, Berbers, Muladies, Mozarabes, and Jews.
Conversely, far right fascists in France be like "It's a shame the Arabs went up to Poitiers, glory to God for the Reconquista. We should never have left Algeria" leaves me like wtf
And remember, they get to claim it is actually THEM who are oppressed when other people don’t want to live under their domination.
Edit: This is the go to religious move everywhere by the way. US Christians claim not being able to foist their religious beliefs as laws everyone has to obey is an example of how they are oppressed.
It’s still frightening for Europeans to hear Muslims openly talk about how they will conquer all of Europe and rule it under sharia law.
In America we don’t have Muslims who think that way so it’s easy to stick your head in the sand and pretend like fascists only exist when they’re white Christians (I am not a white Christian btw)
"Although details of the siege were not recorded, it appeared to be bloodless."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege\_of\_Jerusalem\_(636%E2%80%93637)#Aftermath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(636%E2%80%93637)#Aftermath)
Then they proceed to say that "Muslim conquerors didn't kill or torture anyone to spread their ideology. They peacefully offered them to convert, and their character was so pure that the native people got super impressed and converted peacefully."
In countries like Egypt they didn’t become Muslim majority until around the 12th century that’s 500 years after Egypt was conquered. It’s pretty unlikely that the Muslims lopped off everyone’s heads that didn’t want to convert for half a millennia. There are some places where people were forced but it’s really not known that Muslims did that it was a very gradual growth. On the other hand when the Spanish entered the Americas and conquered it it is undisputed that they forced basically the entire population to convert or die. I’m quite sure they made it illegal to not be Christian. So if we do proceed to say that they didn’t go torture and kill everyone it’s because it’s true.
I'm french and every teachers I ever got all fell for the "al Andalus was all cosmopolitan and tolerant and kumbaya up until the evil white supremacists ended it"
I don't know where you live but muslims always say that. In Turkey, they say that Turks converted because of other muslims' hospitality and because of old Turkic religion and Islam were similar(they are not, lol). I learned this at school in Turkey. They not only say this, but the state teaches this to kids. You are wrong.
Literaly every Muslim I've met and spoken to? They demonize the west but as soon as you mention who Muhammad was and how he achieved what he did they go ballistic.
Imperialism/Colonialism and Expansionism are both "bad" in the sense that they cause harm and exploitation, but they also are very different in a lot of ways. Colonialism is much more exploitative and abusive than other forms of transnational governance and relations. Muslim (and also Roman, Persian, etc) Expansionism was also violent but the relationship between the conquered and the conquerors was much more equitable than the relationships between European empires and their client states during the height of Colonialism.
Ahhh white people... always moving the goal post further down to the outright celebration of death, murder and oppression learning nothing from the horrors of war and history so they can celebrate the brutality of their ancestors while simultaneously being so ignorant and without realizing that most of the Arab world hates each other specifically for all of the conflicts enforced through successive caliphates and colonizations and pretend like there's only 1 kind of Arab and not literally tens of thousands of tribes and identities? Often times with outright hostile relations on the basis of ideologies pushed by 1 king or another.
Technically only the West practised colonialism - they invaded and occupied nations to ensure they had a captive market from where their companies could extract raw materials at rock bottom prices. Arabs wholesale destroyed and replaced the entire culture of a region wherever they could do so successfully - they and most other Ancient Empires were imperialist and expansionist rather than colonialist.
Just checking here, do you qualify Russia as the West? Because the colonization of transuralic Russia is very similar to what western Europe did to Africa and the Americas.
Yeah, absolutely, but that is more classic imperialism than colonial resource extraction. They wanted that area to control, to keep the eastern side of the Black Sea safe (same reason the Ottomans wanted it).
But yup, Russia stomped about there as well.
Because western is often geopolitical and Russia isn't part of that grouping.
However if you said eastern referencing culture Russia wouldn't count there as they have a European culture base.
By landmass east predominantly
By population west.
And so on. Russia is an odd entity when dealing with that sort of statement.
Russia is Western because it is dominated by the Russian people who are Western. The West doesn’t want to accept it because the Russians typically are at odds with the dominant Western powers.
>Arabs wholesale destroyed and replaced the entire culture of a region wherever they could do so successfully
Unlike Christians who converted Pagan Europe,the Americas and Australia with peace and love
Actually the pagans in Europe such as the Norse vikings and the Slavic pagans willingly and naturally converted to Christianity overtime.
The Americas varied with both natural and force conversion. Or in some cases left alone or the creation of synthetic religions that mixed both Christianity, native and African pagans beliefs.
The same is true for Islam tho, though they didn’t just conquer and force people into their religion or culture. But it is the combination of both natural and forced conversation.
Isn't imperialism the one that is supposed to only be used for capitalist nations while colonialism has to do with the erasure of cultures and peoples?
This post is obviously incorrect and rooted in falsehood.
What the Arabs did wasn’t colonialism neither what the Mongols did.
Colonialism, Arab conquests, and Mongol expansions all involved conquests and control over territories, but they differ significantly in their motivations, methods, and impacts.
Colonialism was primarily driven by economic motives, focusing on exploiting resources and labor to benefit the colonizer's home country. It often involved significant settlement, direct administrative control, and cultural imposition on indigenous populations. Many colonists attempted to erase the culture of the natives they colonized and called it “assimilation”. Not to mention the numerous amounts of genocide and mass killings that they’ve committed in order to maintain their colonial machine.
Arab conquests were largely motivated by religious aims to spread Islam and incorporated more integration of local governance and cultural exchange. While Arabs established control, they also allowed for a degree of local autonomy and embraced various cultural elements from conquered regions and mixed with locals. Not to mention allowed minorities to practice their faith without impediments generally speaking.
Mongol Expansions were focused on broad conquests for empire building, with less initial economic or religious motivation. Mongols were known for their tolerance of various cultures and religions, utilizing local administrative practices and significantly enhancing trade and cultural exchanges across their vast empire.
In essence, colonialism is characterized by economic exploitation and cultural imposition, while Arab and Mongol conquests are noted for religious motivations and cultural integration and mixing, respectively.
It’s a real shame to see one of my favorite subreddits is infected with so much ignorance. Y’all are dumb if you’re comparing the Arab conquests to colonialism. Neither were good, one was a lot worse. This topic is too widely covered for me to go into detail as to why. Literally fukkin google it. If you want some book recommendations then hmu
The Mongol Empire may of been one of the deadliest empires in history, but I respect that they killed everyone equally then treated them equally afterwards which is a lot more then most empires can say. They basically just showed up, took over most of the known world, helped caused the black death killing most of Europe, then just died. What does this have to do with the post? Nothing, I just like talking about the Mongol Empire.
It’s a good idea, trust your instincts on this one.
Genghis Khan killed so many people that he reversed climate change, entire cities were reclaimed by forests and he was probably the deadliest killer in human history.
Eco-activists: write that down, write that down!!!
It would be more interesting than throwing soup at paintings.
You're damn right. Bring back proper eco-terrorists. More burning down refineries, less gluing yourself to racetracks.
And that’s how we get Rainbow finally made.
> It would be more interesting than throwing soup at **the transparent coverings on top of** paintings. Fixed it for you ;)
Waiting for the Russian Green Party to come to power, they will be the true succesors of the Khan
Yeah stop blocking traffic and role some heads indiscriminately!
We need more people like Genghis khan who will reverse climate change #/S
I wonder how many people would live today if Genghis Khan wouldn't be born.
Too many !
I think about that too sometimes. When people are like "The Mongol Empire was good because it facilitated trade, the silk road! A woman could walk from one end of the silk road to the other, alone, carrying a chest of gold and not be bothered once!" The British Empire was also good for trade. They also abolished slavery in the Empire, despite the fact it put a MASSIVE drain on the state budget to compensate the former slave owners. I don't think that matters too much for the indian guy british soldiers tied to a canon and turned into a red mist. Just like how the religious tolerance of the Mongol Empire didn't matter to all the women they raped in front of their husbands. I think every empire is cool, but at the end of the day they were all extremely brutal at some point (or several).
As I always say in classes. You cannot create an empire with flowers, kisses and rainbows. Applies to every single empire in all of human history.
Entire cities willingly surrendered to Cyrus the Great cuz he was so dang nice
Well… thats what his scribes wrote down anyway…
"Cyrus The Great Bro", as written by his most objective scribes.
History mfs when they find out its not good guys vs bad guys but instead fucked up guys vs fucked up guys but in another way
but every time you talk about the Muslim conquests its suddenly "oh but but but convivencia, they were allowed to live as dhimmies and pay jizzya,so sophisticated "
Idk about treating everybody the same after slaughtering them tbh. Mongolians are the elites in the empire, only Mongolian are allowed to be government officials; ‘The colored-eyes’ is the term they used for basically people who have different eye colors than them, usually it’s either people from Middle Eastern or East Europe. They get to be artisans and serve the empire Han Chinese, these people lived in Mongol’s territory before they conquered China so they were considered loyal but still being treated like shit. They are basically considered peasants. Southerners, these are also Han Chinese but they were the citizens of the Song Dynasty. They resisted Mongolian’s invasion so when these Chinese were conquered they were being treated as slave and are expendable assets. The Mongolian definitely uses different strategies to manage all the people they have conquered. It’s a well-accepted fact in East Asia that the Mongolian enslaved every other Asian nation they conquered
I mean, domination and cruelty is a gift you can give to all in equal proportion
Non-Mongols were excluded from positions of power within the empire. Although religious freedom was allowed it was far from an egalitarian system
No, non-Mongols were absolutely allowed and, if talented, recruited to hold positions of power.
There wasn't religious freedom either e.g. they banned Kosher/Halal and other rites; that's part of why Jews/Muslims joined the Chinese overthrow of the Yuan and how both escaped the ban on foreign religions under the Ming (unlike Christianity which got banned). There was probably more religious freedom than many European states at the time but a lot of countries were far more tolerant than the Mongol Empire.
My ass would have been a mongol vassal so fast, submit and pay tribute and give us some soldiers for our campaigns, or we will burn and destroy every single town in your kingdom, and we will put your entire dynasty under a rug and stomp it with horses (this happened after the siege of baghdad) The choice seems clear.
Same here. Can’t spell **vassal** without **ass** 🥳🥳🥳
>we will put your entire dynasty under a rug and stomp it with horses I thought that was reserved for killing other Mongols as it was taboo (I dunno if that's the right word) to spill Mongol blood
yes they did it to the abbasids out of respect for their nobility, but I'm not sure they saw it the same way :(
"may of"
[удалено]
I think he was pointing out that it should be "may have"
*The HU intensifies*
For some reason the internet is a simp for the Mongol Empire and Vikings.
Well, it's not like they completely disappeared at the collapse of the empire, the Timurids were still extremely cruel to a lot of people, and the Mughals held power for a very long time. Not the Mongol empire of course, but remnants of it
Literal slay.
Ah so that makes it ok then /s
They never treated people equally. Where do people hear this nonsense, TikTok?
I mean I'd argue that black death was caused by the black death more than anything. Too much credit
So nice and progressive. Full equality.
The Mongols are indeed the exception
The one thing that pisses me off is how people claim Africans ruled Spain while forgetting to mention the larger Arab empire.
The one thing that pisses me off is people that exclude some parts of history to make their point. Dozens of cultures ruled over spain.
*the larger Arab empire ...and*
Before the Romans And before the Celtic Iberians, the Iberians, the tartessos, the Greeks, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians.
And the suevi and the visigoths
Mostly muslim north african, yes. But also several arabs, sirians... and from a couple of places more. To be fair, while its midly interesting... saying "Africans ruled spains" is a huge and stupid reductionism XD. The fun thing, though (and its something that everyone that tends to romantizice Al-andalus always forgets or never cares enough to mention) is that they "ruled" until they were more focused on back-stabbing , which was quite often. When it comes to the Emirate, and later on caliphate of Al-Andalus, its fairly amusing to read about the huge amount of rebellions and civil wars that basically took place in barely the 3 centuries it lasted.
But Africans did rule Spain? Both North African Berbers and West African Moors both controlled Spain what does the Abbasid and Umayyad caliphates as awhole have to do with anything?
it was north africans aka Amazighs , there were some arabs and blacks though
Africans in fact ruled spain. Not only as a part of the arab umayyad empire , but also through various Moroccan empires like moravids and almovads.
Inb4 thread locked
Surely the kindly mods and the great community won't cause *any* drama at all... will they...?
Surprised it isn't lock yet lol
Peak ; "Your imperialism : genocidal and retarded (you went through the sea) My imperialism : Based and Justified (no sea involved)"
Settler Colonialism since 622.
There are actually people, some of them academics who argue, no joke, it's not settler colonialism if it doesn't involve boats. So for example, the Han Dynasty showing up, conquering you, relocating half your population closer to the Imperial center (so you don't get uppity) and then moving people in, to *settle* what was formerly someone else's land, is *not* "settler colonialism", cuz they just walked/rode to do it.
For Han settler colonialism, there are some funny side effects such as a family name literally meaning “No.5”
That's hilarious because I always get the "number 5" when I get takeout from my favorite Chinese place.
>such as a family name literally meaning “No.5” Which character is that?
五
That literally means 5, but usually Wu as a surname is 武 or 吴 or 吾.
hes correct, it's actually 第五
吾 and 巫 are extremely rare. 武 is uncommon. 吳 is common.
Which surname is that?
第五
For more context… like u/new_ymi said, [第五](https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%94%E5%A7%93) is a real surname. 第 = “ranked” 五 = “fifth” 第五 = “ranked fifth” or “fifth in order” or “No. 5”
That’s the most blatant game of semantics I’ve ever heard of, what’s nexts it’s not manslaughter if the victims a woman
I mean, I think the unstated goal is to try and find a framework of settler colonialism such that it's only something Europeans did (maybe the Japanese can do it some times, as a treat). But it's bonkers. Ever since man first left the cave and met someone with a different language and way of looking at things, the human race has had but one dream: to kill him, so we don't need to learn his language or his way of looking at things.
Learning a language is tricky, much easier to bash them in the head make them learn yours and take their stuff while your at it, it’s fun too lol
Plus if *you're* planning to bash his head in, you just know he's thinking of doing the same thing. It's self defense really.
We really have no other choice in the matter if you think about it, they’re forcing our hand and although we are good and peace loving we must use violence when it comes to it
That wouldn't happen to be a Zapp Brannigan quote at the end, would it...?
They are really dancing around what they actually mean, which is that "it's only settler colonialism when it's done by white skinned people "
Ah yes, the great Row v. Wade case. If you wade over the river, it's fine but rowing is a no-go.
I think this is maybe a little stretch for comedic effect, right? You're just touching on the nuanced differences between imperialism and colonialism. "It's colonialism when you do it on boats" is like a running joke among my political/history nerd friends
Well I think it's a joke but some academica seem to advance it soberly. I have no idea how mainstream the argument is, but seems to boil down to the claim that boats allow for a much more sudden and rapid transformation to the indigenous people. You might hear from a neighboring tribe or even your next nearest neighboring tribe about a bunch of men with funny banners approaching and causing a ruckus, but it could still be years or even your lifetime before they get to you. With boats, you're minding your business on Monday, Tuesday you're seeing strange white things in the distance and by Wednesday there's these weirdos with boom sticks. Of course this completely ignores counter examples like Mohammed or Ghenghis Khan or Alexander the Great, who in the space of a matter of years or a single lifetime completely remade the world around them.
Or Haestinn going to India… shit, wait, let me turn off CK3.
Nah there are some people who genuinely pretend that it’s not the same without boats. It’s as silly as it sounds
I have never seen an academic claim this
I just mean people online. I can’t imagine anyone who’s a professional would say that
Every claim has been made by people online
Exactly, like what is this supposed to prove? Yeah I think the grass is blue and the sky is green. Redditor above “can you believe people can’t even agree on the color of the sky and grass nowadays? What is the world coming to?”
Well, and then to refer to them as “academics” to boot lol. Self-proclaimed, I take it?
How did you know! I also call myself an art teacher if you want some lessons
Neither have I - not a single serious academic that I know or know of would ever make such a flimsy distinction because they would be unable to get that nonsense past peer review.
[удалено]
Basically. Boats is settler colonialism, but if you sack a city on horseback and make a giant pile of skulls it's just the cost of doing business.
>There are actually people, some of them academics who argue Who?
"some academics" - the fuckin UN uses that definition - just look at [this list](https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en/history/former-trust-and-nsgts) - UN couldn't be more of a joke.
Historical academics typically hate white people.
The Arab empire wasn’t settler colonial, it was just imperial. They didn’t kill or ethnically cleanse the people they conquered and replace them with Arabs, they instituted a small Arab ruling class on top of them. The same as Rome (most of the time) or the Normans or han China. Seriously, we can say that empires are bad even if they aren’t settler colonial, I don’t understand why people insist on this.
Like the colonisation of India and Vietnam?
Neither India nor Vietnam were settler colonial projects
Those weren't settler colonialism at all.
Of course they were settler colonial. Sicily, Malta, Southern Spain and the Levant didn't start speaking Arab and being majority Muslim for no reason. Arabs enslaved and send away a good portion of the natives in the lands they conquered and settled them with Arabs from their core empire. The only reason a lot of these places aren't still Arab today is because they got reconquered and the Arabs there endured the same fate. Muslim conquest and expansion was by no means more peaceful than the creation of Israel, but Arabs love to portray the later as he most vile country in history while being ignorant of their own history it seems.
The people in the areas you mentioned and places like North Africa are not genetically the same Arabs as the ones who conquered them. They adopted the language because people adopt the language of their rulers and slowly adopted the religion because you could avoid paying the extra tax and rise higher in society.
These places began speaking Arab because the native population gradually assumed the culture and language of the elite. This happens all over the place. For instance, once upon a time most of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But after being invaded by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes this language gradually disappeared. This wasn’t because these groups wiped out the native population, it’s because old English became the language of the elite and status and so filtered down to the average people. Same with the Normans and French culture. The places the Arabs conquered were largely left alone with the exception of an Arab ruling class being instituted: but traditional elites and power structures were generally kept in place as were the populous. Over the centuries of Arab rule Arabic became the language of status and was slowly adopted by the population, as was their culture. Same with Islam, people slowly converted mostly for economic or social reasons over centuries. Now, this isn’t good and it’s still cultural erasure but it’s not settler colonialism. Most Arabs today are the same people who lived in these places prior to Arab conquests.
This subreddit is embarrassingly ignorant about history. It's all "le based epic military chad" bits of trivia and very ideological dumb platitudes like the comment you were responding to. On another note, I came across an intriguing sentence in Chris Wickham's Medieval Europe that was something like "the norman conquest brought about the most complete destruction of any European aristocracy til 1917". Sadly he didnt elaborate on this. As far as I'm aware, 7th century arab conquerors generally kept on pre-existing ruling classes on as administrators, they just made them subordinate to a new paramount arab ruling class. But regional and local level elites largely stayed the same.
Ikr, I really hate being here sometimes. I constantly think about leaving but I actually like making memes about new stuff I learn and there’s no where else to post them :/ That’s really neat I didn’t know that, assuming it’s true anyway. If you find out where he got that information from def link it
The two books cited by Wickham for that part are Unification and Conquest by Strafford and The World Before Domesday by Ann Williams. I'm not familiar with either but I trust Wickham. He's consistently thorough, nuanced, and not at all hesitant to admit when the avaliable evidence is insufficient to make any definite conclusions. Probably the best living scholar of the early middle ages imo.
It seems like intentional lie when Russia is not included in those maps. Russia is one of last colonial empires that still stands.
I don’t think Russia is really considered Western though, is it?
Yes, kind of and kind of not. But that is why nobody remembers them. They seems to be like in no man land.
Not to mention the Arabs were some of the most prolific slavers in history
Still are...
They are practicing slavery to this day. But just disguise it. Look at the movie goat life. If they do such horrible things to fellow muslims imagine what they do to folks of other religion.
Still are, look up stories about the workers who built the stadiums for the Qatar world cup
double standards sure is a thing to behold
Not saying it was better or worse but its completely overlooked in school and mainstream history
Yeah Colonialism isn't just conquest with a different name. Colonialism is unique in the fact that the Colonial territories are uniquely different legally than core territories. Britain ruled India differently than it ruled England the Ummayads did not. Whilst Islamic Caliphates were expansionist to conflate them as a colonial empire is really expanding the definition of colonialism to any form of conquest. This is not to deny the idea that the Caliphate oppressing local populations they did that but this was hardly unique to the Caliphates and using this as the barrier to colonialism makes the term useless. I suspect the reason that this was made is a sort of see the Arabs did bad too. This isn't productive because for one the growth of Arab communities in the middle east happened over centuries and was a slow process. This is also to bring up that the idea of a Arab that extends over the entire Middle East is a relatively new idea which emerged from Arab speaking societies building up a national image. This is in comparison to many colonial projects that displaced local communities over a short period then settled this regions with local populations. Other forms may entirely extractive with colonial elite ensuring that local economies were suppressed inorder to extract local resources. Muslim leaders on the other hand didn't do this sure they replaced local elites but this was common among all forms of conquest. The main comparison is likely the Dhimmi system in which non-Muslims have different rights to Muslims. Whilst this has aspects of colonial rule is not the same thing instead is better compared to the many similar religious systems that existed during the period. Ultimately this comparison is pointless and I suspect is a attempt to rewrite history to a acquit European colonial empires of their crimes by going everyone did it. TLDR Comparing something with a thousand year difference is pointless and stupid.
Patriotism in a nutshell
I'd say this sub is more of the reverse most of the time.
Fun fact: The racial hierarchy system that was practiced by the Spanish, French and even others like the British but again mostly Spain. Took inspiration and elements from the Arab Empires of Spain, the Al-Andalus introduced this modern concept of racial hierarchy. Edit: To everyone reading I definitely should have worded this better. I did not mean to make it sound as Europeans leaned racism from the Al-Andalus empire. As we all know that racism existed well before in the continent and everywhere else in the world and the Europeans just like every other group of people in history had their own hierarchy system. And the only reason I originally commented this is because when I learned about the Spain racial hierarchy system, we were taught and showed that it took inspiration from the Al-Andalus system. With all the mixed race names, subgroups and how to categorize them.
Could you provide a source for this? I'm not saying you are wrong, but a source would be great to add some credit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus Read under the Culture section and there you’ll parts of what you’re looking for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_and_cultural_exchange_in_al-Andalus Some more information on the hierarchy system. I tired looking up other options but all they talked about was the US and it’s Racial Discrimination.
Thanks
I know it’s not the best because it’s Wikipedia. But here’s this.. The society of al-Andalus was made up of three main religious groups: Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The Muslims, although united on the religious level, had several ethnic divisions, the main being the distinction between the Arabs and the Berbers. The Arab elite regarded non-Arab Muslims as second-class citizens; and they were particularly scornful of the Berbers. The ethnic structure of al-Andalus consisted of Arabs at the top of the social scale followed by, in descending order, Berbers, Muladies, Mozarabes, and Jews.
Yeah just read that exact passage lol. Thanks a lot, didn't know this Though I must say, this doesn't seem too out of place. I thought Jews were generally at the bottom of the tree in Europe at the time as well?
Jews in Europe like the Jews in the Arab world. Depended on the ruler and the current event that is happening at the time. Jews in both Muslims and Christian Spain had it much better than their North African and Central European counterparts. But after then were kicked out they fled to Morocco, Ottoman Empire, England the Netherlands and Poland. They also went to the Balkans and the Levant in smaller numbers.
How does this in any way whatsoever justify your original claim lmao?
That is not as the same as the racial caste system in the new world. Most civilizations had views about ethnic and religious groups being inferior to themselves, I mean Ancient Greece looked down on the “barbarians” for this exact same reason. The reason the system in the new world is so heinous is that 1). It was based on innate traits rather than culture/religion, which obviously one can change and 2). It created a permanent racial underclass in these societies that we still deal with today. There wasn’t some Andalusian slave class of Jews or Berbers or something. They had slaves but they weren’t all one single ethnic group nor did their kids become slaves (usually). In reality, our modern conception of race evolved gradually in the new world as Europeans required a new justification for slavery other than religion and it was a useful way to keep the mostly white indentured servants from allying with the mostly black slaves, which happened several times before race was codified. It also meant you could tell which caste someone belonged to at a glance, whereas it’s pretty hard to tell the difference between a Berber, an Arab, a Sephardic Jew, and a Spaniard with just a look.
All I'm seeing this source say is that the hierarchy existed, not an argument that Westerners picked it up here. Also, the idea that this stratification somehow put Jews below Christians is something I've never encountered before. This whole claim of stratification comes from someone who is [not a scholar.](https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001JSBY9S/about) I've also checked the citation in the book, and she provides no citation for her claim. So, how did you come to this conclusion, given that a) it's not what your source says, and b) your source is spurious? Oh, and last but not least, the colorism between Arabs and Berbers is greatly exaggerated because people assume North Africans are black, which, given the cosmopolitan nature of the North African coast throughout antiquity, is simply not the case. The dichotomy of darker and lighter was extremely blurry. You could make an argument that the people from further down the Moroccan coast or in Mauritania would have been darker skinned and what we think of today as "black," but a) there are competing theories claiming indigenous Moroccans initially came from Europe, but even excepting this, b) the influxes of these people into Iberia came during the invasions of the Almohads and Almoravids, which were *Berber* dynasties, so their arrival would have *curtailed* any supposed colorism the elitism of Arab aristocrats may have entailed.
"Racism existed at some level in al-Andalus therefore Europeans learned racism from Muslims." This can't be your actual argument right? I am surprised that you're even upvoted.
Not that surprising, if you want to see a 2024 example of Nazi tier racism just go on Instagram and find any Arab political account and click “see translation” in posts about Jews, Africans, Indians, and Europeans.
Do you have a source on that by any chance? I've never heard of a Spanish racial hierarchy really.
The spanish-american casta system? https://cowlatinamerica.voices.wooster.edu/2020/05/04/the-casta-system/#:~:text=The%20Casta%20System%20was%20created,racial%20groups%20in%20the%20colonies.
The society of al-Andalus was made up of three main religious groups: Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The Muslims, although united on the religious level, had several ethnic divisions, the main being the distinction between the Arabs and the Berbers. The Arab elite regarded non-Arab Muslims as second-class citizens; and they were particularly scornful of the Berbers. The ethnic structure of al-Andalus consisted of Arabs at the top of the social scale followed by, in descending order, Berbers, Muladies, Mozarabes, and Jews.
Conversely, far right fascists in France be like "It's a shame the Arabs went up to Poitiers, glory to God for the Reconquista. We should never have left Algeria" leaves me like wtf
Redditor suprised that both sides have bad actors
And remember, they get to claim it is actually THEM who are oppressed when other people don’t want to live under their domination. Edit: This is the go to religious move everywhere by the way. US Christians claim not being able to foist their religious beliefs as laws everyone has to obey is an example of how they are oppressed.
You don't live under a fucking medieval caliphate, Bob
It’s still frightening for Europeans to hear Muslims openly talk about how they will conquer all of Europe and rule it under sharia law. In America we don’t have Muslims who think that way so it’s easy to stick your head in the sand and pretend like fascists only exist when they’re white Christians (I am not a white Christian btw)
I’ve never heard any Muslim say that. We just wanna exist lol.
Both are horrible, fight me.
Why should I?You are right
Fatwa incoming
Gotta love my daily dose of rAgendaPostingMemes
Dude will be shocked when he learns what Muslims did first time they entered Jerusalem Vs what Crusaders did.
"Although details of the siege were not recorded, it appeared to be bloodless." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege\_of\_Jerusalem\_(636%E2%80%93637)#Aftermath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(636%E2%80%93637)#Aftermath)
Bloodless? more like they were literally welcomed, considering how badly treated the Jews were before that.
This sub should be renamed proIsraelAndAntiIslamMemes
Honestly the stuff I been seeing.
Another controversial post? Yep im gonna mark my foot on this one, Here before mod throw down the tear bomb (Locked thread)
Repost.
Then they proceed to say that "Muslim conquerors didn't kill or torture anyone to spread their ideology. They peacefully offered them to convert, and their character was so pure that the native people got super impressed and converted peacefully."
I thought the caliphate was against conversions because Muslims didn't get the arse taxed out of them but everyone else did
Muslims had to pay a pretty high amount of Zakat.
In countries like Egypt they didn’t become Muslim majority until around the 12th century that’s 500 years after Egypt was conquered. It’s pretty unlikely that the Muslims lopped off everyone’s heads that didn’t want to convert for half a millennia. There are some places where people were forced but it’s really not known that Muslims did that it was a very gradual growth. On the other hand when the Spanish entered the Americas and conquered it it is undisputed that they forced basically the entire population to convert or die. I’m quite sure they made it illegal to not be Christian. So if we do proceed to say that they didn’t go torture and kill everyone it’s because it’s true.
I'm french and every teachers I ever got all fell for the "al Andalus was all cosmopolitan and tolerant and kumbaya up until the evil white supremacists ended it"
Nobody is saying that besides you.
I don't know where you live but muslims always say that. In Turkey, they say that Turks converted because of other muslims' hospitality and because of old Turkic religion and Islam were similar(they are not, lol). I learned this at school in Turkey. They not only say this, but the state teaches this to kids. You are wrong.
Lol take a closer look at some of the comments here
an average day for r/IslamicHistoryMeme users
A stawman on r slash history memes? I can't believe it. Show me one person who holds this actual belief
My buddy Samir
Samir come on you're not helping buddy
okay wtaf I just met my buddy's friend last night and his name was Samir, now I see this today, ong I'm not lying
https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/s/Gstruzu2B9 Right above your comment
Well I stand corrected. Didn't want to believe that people were this dumb
Look at the comments
lol how’d you escape from sea world Mr. Sea Lion?
Well maybe not these same exact opinions but ive seen people on reddit who put some colonialist empires as better than others
Literaly every Muslim I've met and spoken to? They demonize the west but as soon as you mention who Muhammad was and how he achieved what he did they go ballistic.
Many pro-hamas folk out there believe this
can you guys get some new material, this is literally a daily post since last october and it's getting pretty tiresome
That would be the current affairs subreddit then.
....I don't think anyone (apart from weirdos) say both were "good".
Both were good. Oh fuck, I just became a weirdo. I didn’t even believe what I said.
Me
That’s funny… I don’t see anyone looking upon Arab conquests fondly.
Imperialism/Colonialism and Expansionism are both "bad" in the sense that they cause harm and exploitation, but they also are very different in a lot of ways. Colonialism is much more exploitative and abusive than other forms of transnational governance and relations. Muslim (and also Roman, Persian, etc) Expansionism was also violent but the relationship between the conquered and the conquerors was much more equitable than the relationships between European empires and their client states during the height of Colonialism.
Ahhh white people... always moving the goal post further down to the outright celebration of death, murder and oppression learning nothing from the horrors of war and history so they can celebrate the brutality of their ancestors while simultaneously being so ignorant and without realizing that most of the Arab world hates each other specifically for all of the conflicts enforced through successive caliphates and colonizations and pretend like there's only 1 kind of Arab and not literally tens of thousands of tribes and identities? Often times with outright hostile relations on the basis of ideologies pushed by 1 king or another.
Technically only the West practised colonialism - they invaded and occupied nations to ensure they had a captive market from where their companies could extract raw materials at rock bottom prices. Arabs wholesale destroyed and replaced the entire culture of a region wherever they could do so successfully - they and most other Ancient Empires were imperialist and expansionist rather than colonialist.
Just checking here, do you qualify Russia as the West? Because the colonization of transuralic Russia is very similar to what western Europe did to Africa and the Americas.
And the caucasus region of russian. They literally commited several genocides against the circassians.
Yeah, absolutely, but that is more classic imperialism than colonial resource extraction. They wanted that area to control, to keep the eastern side of the Black Sea safe (same reason the Ottomans wanted it). But yup, Russia stomped about there as well.
Why wouldn’t Russia be Western?
Because western is often geopolitical and Russia isn't part of that grouping. However if you said eastern referencing culture Russia wouldn't count there as they have a European culture base. By landmass east predominantly By population west. And so on. Russia is an odd entity when dealing with that sort of statement.
Yeah, this. Which is why I asked. Russia is kinda its own thing.
Russia is Western because it is dominated by the Russian people who are Western. The West doesn’t want to accept it because the Russians typically are at odds with the dominant Western powers.
Culturally western, geopolitical not. It's right there in my comment.
Not even most Russians agree Russians are western though.
>Arabs wholesale destroyed and replaced the entire culture of a region wherever they could do so successfully Unlike Christians who converted Pagan Europe,the Americas and Australia with peace and love
Actually the pagans in Europe such as the Norse vikings and the Slavic pagans willingly and naturally converted to Christianity overtime. The Americas varied with both natural and force conversion. Or in some cases left alone or the creation of synthetic religions that mixed both Christianity, native and African pagans beliefs.
Yeah the Roman Empire neeevverrrr cracked down on paganism violently /s
The same is true for Islam tho, though they didn’t just conquer and force people into their religion or culture. But it is the combination of both natural and forced conversation.
Did I say they didn’t use violence and force? I didn’t even bring up Europe here. Classic example of whataboutism.
Isn't imperialism the one that is supposed to only be used for capitalist nations while colonialism has to do with the erasure of cultures and peoples?
No it’s the opposite - colonialism was more economic in nature. Imperialism was cultural displacement and erasure.
Imperialism has nothing to do with capitalism
Imperialism has literally nothing to do with capitalism. The Soviet Union was imperialistic.
Looking at OPs history, it’s obvious that he’s perpetually butthurt.
Local man discovers empires are bad, more at 11.
Welcome to Modern History
this one is spicy
This post is obviously incorrect and rooted in falsehood. What the Arabs did wasn’t colonialism neither what the Mongols did. Colonialism, Arab conquests, and Mongol expansions all involved conquests and control over territories, but they differ significantly in their motivations, methods, and impacts. Colonialism was primarily driven by economic motives, focusing on exploiting resources and labor to benefit the colonizer's home country. It often involved significant settlement, direct administrative control, and cultural imposition on indigenous populations. Many colonists attempted to erase the culture of the natives they colonized and called it “assimilation”. Not to mention the numerous amounts of genocide and mass killings that they’ve committed in order to maintain their colonial machine. Arab conquests were largely motivated by religious aims to spread Islam and incorporated more integration of local governance and cultural exchange. While Arabs established control, they also allowed for a degree of local autonomy and embraced various cultural elements from conquered regions and mixed with locals. Not to mention allowed minorities to practice their faith without impediments generally speaking. Mongol Expansions were focused on broad conquests for empire building, with less initial economic or religious motivation. Mongols were known for their tolerance of various cultures and religions, utilizing local administrative practices and significantly enhancing trade and cultural exchanges across their vast empire. In essence, colonialism is characterized by economic exploitation and cultural imposition, while Arab and Mongol conquests are noted for religious motivations and cultural integration and mixing, respectively.
But but Khosrow Parviz tore the letter of our Prophet (according to my very accurate sources) so thats why we had to invade and destroy Eransahr.
Yeah but Allah uniting the Ummah…and so on…ugh nevermind
It’s a real shame to see one of my favorite subreddits is infected with so much ignorance. Y’all are dumb if you’re comparing the Arab conquests to colonialism. Neither were good, one was a lot worse. This topic is too widely covered for me to go into detail as to why. Literally fukkin google it. If you want some book recommendations then hmu
Hard pill to swallow: nobody has ever spread their beliefs or politics across cultures peacefully