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Mkay, one of my governors just got the alcoholic vice, fair play, but I thought Muslims didn't drink?! Surely he'd get executed or something if he was caught downing brews, especially with the hardcore fanatic Alhomads. He should get 'secret drinker' vice, and if it gets revealed -4 piety -10 hapiness or something
Well, I think (I really don't know) you're correct. I just role-play it to being addicted to opium or hashish, things that were allowed in the Caliphate. So when it gives you 'drinker', think of it as 'likes to hit the hookah a little more than is advisable, can't get straight before the battle'.
Hahaha, that'd be well good if they got the 'stoner' vice!
Allah doesn't like drinking, 'tis true. However, as you may have noted, many people throughout history have professed faith but violated the teachings of that faith. And men of sufficient power and usefullness were often allowed to have their vices, if they kept them sufficiently out of the lime-light. Though it seems like the penalties should be stiffer for being an alcohol drinker in a Muslim society.
Why are you complaining about the drinking? AI Almonds seem to get more than their fair share of child shafting nutter butters than even the Early English.
oh the english do annoy me, no matter how much i help them by pummeling the french, leaving rebel provinces next to them, and bailing them out whenever they get beseiged, they still get battered!
Yeah, the Plantaganets are a messed up family...
Its often seems that they couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag...
Sometimes, you've just gotta let them die, and then clean up the mess.
Are you playing 1.0? The French like to take over everything.
I managed to keep the plantagenats in line for about 50 years in my english campaign...
I just sent all the princes and kings into battle in the first decade, losing 3 princes before "natural" selection left me with an über king to rule during the second reign of my campaign. Unfortunately he only had 1 son and he went from inbred to, 8 fingers and missing a chin and it took another 3 generations to return the line to normal. Though after this I did get a few decent princes who restored their family name near the end of the game.
Yeah, what is up with the inbred vices that WORSEN as a general/princes gets older?? I mean, wouldn't you think that would be something fixed at birth??? :dizzy2:
DA
Its hard to tell if someones a retard when their 4 years old. Real stupidity comes out with age, like your wife after a year of marrage.
Mental Retardation, and other genetic and birth defects, are something you are born with, whether anyone can tell or not. Most people don't go from being a perfect specimen of genetic health to damaged goods in a year. And we know if a general is secretly having an affair or the like, so why wouldn't we know the general is a genetic defect? Perhaps the world doesn't yet know but the general's incompetence would be very real.Quote:
Originally Posted by Budwise
The big problem with the inbred traits, IMO, is that they are all negative. Now, that sounds like an odd complaint but there are some positives to inbreeding. The negatives are the increased chance of unwanted gene reinforcements, a gradual homogenization of the line(This can actually be an advantage too, it's just a double edged sword. You get consistent results but little change. The gene material stagnates if you inbreed too much.), and often a loss of fertility and a weak immune system. But it also tends to reinforce good genes. If the defectives are culled(read: killed) some inbreeding can be a positive thing.
Imagine if we had a new aspect to the next Total War game; breeding. You try to match up your sons and daughters with people of the right sort to create a line of uber-children! ~D Well, maybe not.
Actually, Muslims and their rulers did drink alcohol in those days (and even today), they just didn't advertise it too much. Several Arab chroniclers of the middle ages mention drinking in the Caliph's palace and some poets have even written whole poems praising drink.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshwa
One of the Ottoman Sultans in the 16th century (methinks Selim II) was also a famous drunk.
We really need a knowledgable Muslim on the forum, to sort this one out!
You have to distinguish between religious strictures, as set out in the Koran (sp?) and mere 'cultural disapproval' of drinking, perhaps written into Civil Law, which would have been arrived at after generations of observing the deleterious effects of chronic drinking.
I get the impression that Muslims have, historically, been extremely resistant to changes in the wording of the Koran and wouldn't have made 'revisionist' changes to it, even if there was a strong motivation to do so. In other words, if it wasn't in there to start with, I don't think they'll have added it in later.
Also, by way of a sidebar, the spread of Arabic languages probably means the Koran hasn't suffered the kind of mis-translation alterations that certain parts of the Christian Bible are thought to have suffered from, where actual meanings of sentences have subtly changed where a single word had no precise equivalent in the secondary language. The resultant conflicting interpretations have been the source of arguments ever since. I think what we have now went from Aramaic (ancient Hebrew), through Greek, to Latin and then into various nation's languages in the later middle ages.
I got distracted and forgot to make a vital point.
Alcoholic beverages, in those days, often represented the only potable form of liquid refreshment. Everything else was a disease-ridden passport to dysentery.
The significance of Jesus' water-into-wine miracle was that it provided the feast with something which was safe to drink. Alcohol kills the yeast which made it but also kills off most harmful bacteria. So it's not the same as saying that all piss-ups are granted holy approval. ~;)
The Muslims may have tolerated drinking for a long time but mostly on health grounds and the ban on alcohol now has the appearance of being a statement of high culture as if to say "we are so advanced that all our water is clean enough to drink".
I don't know how far back their drinking laws date to but it certainly bears looking into. A pity that the game developers didn't do this themselves.
I have studied this subject at school and independently, so I will share my knowledge.Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
First of all, IIRC drinking is prohibited in the Koran, making it a point of no debate in Islamic law, since everything in the Koran is perceived to be the absolute truth. The wording of the Koran has remained the same since the days of the prophet and it should be recited in Arabic when used in prayer. However, there are differing interpretations of different passages in the Koran which have resulted in different schools of thought and even different sects, just like in Christendom. In addition to the Koran, Islamic law is based on examples and sayings from the life of the Prophet Muhammad. This has provided a huge collage of laws and precedents for laws, but sometimes the problem with it has been misinterpretation, conflicting laws within the texts themselves and their interpretations and the fact that most of these stories were collected several generations after the prophet had died. This latter fact means several of the texts may have been corrupted and (at the risk of being lynched by a pious Muslim reading this) completely fictitious. I'm no Islamic scholar or theologian, but this is what I have gathered from reading a few books on the subject.
To stay to the topic itself: Alcohol was prohibited after the spread of Islam, and I believe that officially it has been banned ever since. However, the less-pious Muslims and non-Muslim people in the Middle East have drunk alcohol almost all this time. We also tend to forget in our modern polarised world, where extremists make the front pages every day, that many medieval Muslim societies weren't half as strict about Islamic law as the Taliban or the Iranian government nowadays.
You know, as the ultimate earthly enforcer of Allah’s will within your domain you could just execute your little sinner. Personally I think that executing outlaws and gamblers for treason and burning the philosophically inclined for heresy adds flavor to the game. That’s the way I like to play it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshwa
Surah 5(Al-Maeda)verse 90-91.Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
YUSUFALI: O ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination,- of Satan's handwork: eschew such (abomination), that ye may prosper.
PICKTHAL: O ye who believe! Strong drink and games of chance and idols and divining arrows are only an infamy of Satan's handiwork. Leave it aside in order that ye may succeed.
SHAKIR: O you who believe! intoxicants and games of chance and (sacrificing to) stones set up and (dividing by) arrows are only an uncleanness, the Shaitan's work; shun it therefore that you may be successful.
YUSUFALI: Satan's plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer: will ye not then abstain?
PICKTHAL: Satan seeketh only to cast among you enmity and hatred by means of strong drink and games of chance, and to turn you from remembrance of Allah and from (His) worship. Will ye then have done?
SHAKIR: The Shaitan only desires to cause enmity and hatred to spring in your midst by means of intoxicants and games of chance, and to keep you off from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. Will you then desist?
Surah 2(AL-BAQARA)verse 219.
YUSUFALI: They ask thee concerning wine and gambling. Say: "In them is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit." They ask thee how much they are to spend; Say: "What is beyond your needs." Thus doth Allah Make clear to you His Signs: In order that ye may consider-
PICKTHAL: They question thee about strong drink and games of chance. Say: In both is great sin, and (some) utility for men; but the sin of them is greater than their usefulness. And they ask thee what they ought to spend. Say: that which is superfluous. Thus Allah maketh plain to you (His) revelations, that haply ye may reflect.
SHAKIR: They ask you about intoxicants and games of chance. Say: In both of them there is a great sin and means of profit for men, and their sin is greater than their profit. And they ask you as to what they should spend. Say: What you can spare. Thus does Allah make clear to you the communications, that you may ponder
Thanks to Marquis and Feanaro for taking the time and trouble to type that up (I'm hoping it was more a case of cut'n'paste, actually).
Certainly makes the position unambiguous, though I'm sufficiently ignorant about it to be foxed by everything being written in triplicate. Yusufali/Pickthal and Shakir are, presumably, Islamic scholars, giving their interpretations or translations of the original text, or are they the Muslim equivalent of the apostles and this is the original text?
Curiosity aside, all this goes to show just how truly random the process of dishing out V&V's to generals is, which explains how some of them get apparently contradictory ones.
In this case, the drinking/gambler vices are deeply out-of-character for the Muslim generals in the game and something of an embarrassing gaffe on the part of the CA developers. Only a small amount of additional thought and coding would have been required to prevent it.
Provided that Muslim customers don't percieve wargames as 'games of chance' and thus don't buy a copy, there is even a risk that someone may be genuinely and deeply offended when they encounter this and take it just a bit too seriously.
For myself, I think I'll take WIngman's stance and role-play it next time I see it.
Much like the Bible's various translations(King James, New King James, etc) the Qur'an has been translated into English a number of times. These translations are usually referred to by the name of the translator, and those are the three most popular. To avoid any sticky points, I often use all three translations(I got those from this page, since I lack a Qur'an of my own to type from and I would be too lazy regardless.) The translations of the Qur'an tend to be more consistent than the Bible, often without much change in the wording and not often in the meaning. I thought of adding all that after I posted that but I cannot find an edit button. :embarassed: Sorry for any confusion.
I suppose one could defend the Alcoholic vice in Muslims as being accepted by some societies, doctrine is often ignored in some religions. It should probably have been a "secret alcoholic" trait though. It would carry the regular penalty of being a bad commander and such but with the added problem of say, -8 piety or some such if discovered.
Yeah, that seems to be the big problem with todays culture, no cousin fucking. I stopped reading what you wrote after this because thats just too much to laugh about at one time, I can't wait to finish reading what you wrote. What possible thing could come from having sex with your mom; I guess you can make sure your children would look like your mom's side of the forkless family tree. Family reunions would be a whole lot more fun too huh, Aunt Sarah is a little hot in that dress, better slip her a rufie.Quote:
Originally Posted by Feanaro
Plus, have you hugged your son today would mean a whole lot more. But in all regards, Americans have already tried all of this before, they live in Arkansas.
Lets face it, with family inbreding - the only castle you will have is http://www.constructionlounge.com/im...tor%20home.jpg
Now, if you can excuse me, I got to go knock up my sister.
Or like that one episode of the X-Files with the family of inbred people.
Strangely enough the English, Spanish, and French built rather large castles, despite well documented inbreeding. Ferdinand and Isabella were second cousins but, due to the constant inter-marriages of the houses of Aragon and Castile they were closer, genetically, than most second or first cousins. Inbreeding produces some nasty side effects but it also reinforces "good" genes.Quote:
Lets face it, with family inbreding - the only castle you will have is
I don’t think any of the factions religions would approve of many of the vices issued. Adultery, perversions, gambling, pride (that’s one of the 7 deadly right in the name!) are all bad and would probably lower you in the churches eye, regardless of what church.
However it does seem that Muslims are a bit stricter about their religion and wouldn’t often have much to do with a drunk general. I would just roll play it out as them being an addict to a more acceptable vice (like glue sniffing or whipits). ~D
This forum is set up so that newcomers aren't able to edit their posts. After you've been here a while (about twenty posts, IIRC), the "EDIT" button will start appearing for you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Feanaro
The bible states that drinking should be done in moderation. It even says that wine makes the heart of man rejoice. Just don't get slammed like Noah did that one time.
That time he slept with his daughter in Genesis?
Yeah, -8 piety ya dirty patriarch...
With both of them, actually, if I recall correctly.
However, I think the alcohol ban, as quite a lot of religious food laws, goes back to hygienic concerns and health preservation. In hot climates, for example, pig meat is highly likely to inhabit tracheae, which are quite lethal, especially if you don´t know about them, therefore the ban on hog meat both in islamic and jewish law. It´s similar to the ban of cow meat in hinduism.
And as alcohol acts dehydrating, it´s lethal in the desert.
No, that was Lot, Abraham's not horribly bright nephew. His daughters got him because they thought they were the last three people left on earth. After living through God turning the District of the Jordan(I can't recall with 100% where Sodom and Gomorrah) into a giant parking lot*, you can't really blame them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roark
Drinking was never banned under Mosaic law, only after the fall of the Levite priesthood would it have been banned by the Jewish Courts that replaced them. This is when alot of arab influences crept in.
Anyways...
*It should be noted that the area that is throught to have been home to Sodom and Gomorrah is covered in asphalt and submerged under the sea.
I just read the passage. :dizzy2:
My Sunday School teachers seem to have kept me in the dark about a few things...
There's lots of things Sunday schools don't cover, like the passage before the Lord's Prayer where Jesus says to not say the same thing over and over again.
Have you ever noticed that the family was the Peacocks? IIRC, there had been a dust-up between Chris Carter and someone at NBC, and this was the creative outlet that Mr. Carter turned to.Quote:
Originally Posted by antisocialmunky
More on topic, I changed the incest and inbreeding vices to alternatives in the update I just posted for the Medmod 4 beta. I also had some comments at the end which fit into this thread somewhat.
The overall V&V system needed a lot more care than it received. A lot of the effects are buggy, and no one at CA apparently ever looked at them once the game was released. If you have ever noticed that your general's stats increase when his secret pride is revealed, you know of two of the buggy vices (their effects are switched). There are a number of others which are wrong, too, and unfortunately we can't correct them.
An interesting and controversial topic, comrades.Quote:
Originally Posted by yesdachi
You have to realise that at this time (as now) Islam was not a religion with a single ruling body, and local interpretations and customs would apply. Local ulama issued dictates against wine, hashish, even coffee as forbidden "intoxicants," but might also take a more tolerant attitude, particularly if influenced by a strong leader or local customs. :crowngrin: :medievalcheers:
The Almohads (from Al-muwahidin - the one who professes the One-ness of God) rose to power on the back of a popular, religious movement against the Almoravid dysnasty (from Al-murabitin - the person who is on the road spreading Islam) on the basis of the latter's departure from strict muslim teaching and behaviour. But they themselves became "corrupted," possibly as a result of their success in Spain. Many Spanish people converted to Islam but retained elements of Spanish culture such as wine-growing and pig-farming. :barrel:
If you travel in non-Arabic muslim countries today you will tend to find alcohol is tolerated to a greater degree (e.g. Malaysia's excellent Tiger beer, Turkish and Tunisian wine). ~:cheers:
Btw, the Mongols were also forbidden from excessive drinking by a dictate of Ghenghis Khan, but their leaders were notorious for alcoholism.
Didn't the great man himself drink himself to death? Or was he the one who ate too much rice and his stomach blew up?
Several different versions: Drunk and died in his sleep, alchohol poisoning,Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshwa
drunk and fell off horse, vomitted in his sleep and strangled, woman got
him while drunk...... so drinking might have had something to do with it. ~:confused:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bregil the Bowman
I could've sworn in a book I read about secret societies said that the original Hashishin/Assassin Cult would take Hashish before doing one of thir hit/assassination jobs (The origin of the word Hashishin/Assassin was supposed to have been have come from a mispronunciation of the word Hashish.). :rifle:~:smoking:
What is 'Bakshish' then? (Not sure of the spelling but that's phonetically what it sounds like). I'm sure that this is what they call the substance you have in mind here.
Hashish translates as 'grass' and, technically, the cannabis plant is a herb.
This harks back to their supposed ability to hide in plain sight, much as modern day snipers would do, using whatever vegetation they can attach to themselves.
Bakshish is an Arabic term. It means tip as in to give someone a tip (monetary or material) often for services performed. However you can also give Bakshish as a grant without any services having being performed for you.
Edit: Sorry, I forgot something else. Bakshish can also be a bribe. In this case you would be (for example) bribing (again monetary or material, land etc)an official to act in your favor.
Also I must say I'm truly impressed by the knowledge and tolerance of foreign culture expressed in this thread.
Salute !
Thanks Sinan :bow:
Welcome Sir.
In an earlier thread I did a little research (quick google) on hashishin. Here is the thread (can't figure out how to link a single post...)Quote:
Originally Posted by Varangian Beserker
As you might guess, there are many different stories about them...
DE
Hi. I'm a Muslim Turk and I registered just to be able to post in this thread. As a believer of Islam, I believe I have fairly good idea about most of the things discussed in this thread, so I thought I'd express my views on these matters, which I believe are the shared views of other Muslims.
Feanaro :
pasted the verses in Koran that prohibit alcohol drinking already, so it's no more a subject of doubt that drinking is prohibited in Islam. In Koran it is stated that (not the actual quote, I'm writing out of my memory) "sitting at the same table where people drink makes you one of them (the drinkers)." Prophet Mohammed is known to have said "not only drinking, but selling, buying (for someone else), carrying (again for someone else) etc. are also damned actions." It is recorded that Ali (who became Prophet Mohammed's son in law by marrying his daughter and the 4th caliph later) said after the verses prohibiting alcohol came* : "From now on, if a drop of alcohol touched my finger, I'd cut that finger off !" Also it is recorded that after the arrival* of the mentioned verses, "rivers of wine (general word for alcohol; Koran always uses the word "Wine" for every sort of alcohol, which may very well be because wine was the only type of alcoholic drink at the time and place) flooded the streets of Madina". An Ulama (I don't remember his name; might be Abdelkadir Geylani) was asked "which one is worse ; 1. Adultery 2. Murder 3. Drinking Alcohol". He answered "The third one, because committing the first two is very possible when you are drunk."
* According to Islam, . Prophet Mohammed was 40 when the first verse was "brought" to him by Gabriel. The 6300 (approximation) verses were all revealed to him one by one and Koran was completed in 23 years. No word in it was made up by Mohammed or any other person (there was no apostles in Islam); all are Allah's own words. Mohammed was only the messenger and the practicianer of the law. So the building up of Koran is not like Bible's which was written by the apostles (correct me if I'm wrong). Mohammed assigned 40 of his friends/believers to note down the verses right after a verse "arrived" (or at the moment of it's "arrival"); to make sure the verses are recorded perfectly. There were also many people who memorized the whole Koran. These people are called "Hafiz" and they exist today too; if the papers were to be damaged or destroyed by the unbeliever masters of Mecca who were matchless in providing pain to them, the many "Hafizan" were ready to put it back all together at once... Allah promises in Koran (again from memory) "to keep every word of it safe (unchanged) till the end of the world".
In a Muslim country/society, even today, even working at an alcohol factory is frowned upon. It is really surprising to see in ,MTW so many drunk generals lead the Muslim armies, not only Almohad armies but the Turkish armies too. Yes, there have been believers of Islam who disobeyed the laws, but you cannot estimate them to be many, let alone picture the whole army marching drunk. Each Sultan in the Ottoman (and in the Turkish states before Ottoman) had Ulama advising them about each of their actions. I know for sure that there have been many leaders overthrown by the public because they did not listen to the Ulama. Take today's Iran; there is the democratic parliament and there is the Ulama council; the latter supervising the first... So it is very unlikely that a general of a Muslim state to be a drunkard.
Incest... the word "rare" would be an exageration of it's place in a Muslim society! Koran certainly doesn't approve the Jewish version of the Noah's biography by the way... But let me not get carried away.
Marquis de Said said
drinking in Caliph's palace was recorded by some chroniclers. There have been several disliked and/or corrupted Caliphs of course especially during the time when caliphate was turned to a dynasty; you cannot expect every son and grandson in a family to be eligible to become the caliph. Yezid is one of the most disliked: after his time, no man gave his son the name Yezid; in Turkey it is synonymous with evildoer even today! Anyway, I believe the rareness or the outrageousness of the action (drinking in the Caliph's palace) is the very reason it was recorded! A chronicler wouldn't record something that was so common, right? Especially when it's only drinking alcohol, nothing too serious like ruling the people or waging war against some state etc..
When it comes to the poets in the Caliph's palace praising "drink" is a whole other matter. The wine that is praised in traditional Turkish, Arabic and Persian poetry is the metaphor for "the wine of love" which stands for "the drunklike state love puts the lover in" . The lover in these poems is not the lover of a woman, but the lover of Allah. This is nothing like the love between men and women of course. It's a dedication of onself to Allah; a dedication of oneself to exploring the mind, the universe, others and oneself, and religion : all to be able to become a better person and through that, a better subject of Allah. It's a much more complicated matter than my knowledge can grasp, but it's simply known as Sufism, if that rings a bell. Just like politics, art, architecture etc. of the times, poetry was also wholly religious. The wine that's praised in almost every poem, was the symbol of dedication of the sufi poet who wrote it. Most certainly they were not praising any sort of alcoholic drink.
EatYerGreens mentioned
the state of the water and alcohol being the safer thing to drink. I've never heard of such a thing. It might be true that in some areas the water may not have been clean, but I don't think it's true for many places. I know that Anatolia is crammed full with natural springs; it's like water will rush from under your feet at each step! Anyway, the sewer system was invented by the Arabs at the beginning times of Islam; being clean is one of the most important things in Islam. You have to pray 5 times a day (morning, noon etc...) and that means you have to wash up 5 times a day. Muslims were more advanced in medicine than the Europeans at the time. The same about astronomy, biology, maths etc. (mainly because Islam encourages it's believers to explore and study the world. An Islamic attitude: "The ink of the ulama is more worthy than the blood of the martyres." The word Ulama is the plural of Alim which simply means one who studies and it applies both to religious studies and sciences.) The word "Algebra" that's used in modern English comes from the word "Al Gebir" in Arabic which is a word used to describe "hard stuff". ~:) . All these I'm telling because I believe preferring alcohol over water because of reasons of health seems unlikely; they should be living in healthier conditions than other parts of the world because they were advanced in sciences...
Marquis de Said said :
"The wording of the Koran has remained the same since the days of the prophet and it should be recited in Arabic when used in prayer. However, there are differing interpretations of different passages in the Koran which have resulted in different schools of thought and even different sects, just like in Christendom. In addition to the Koran, Islamic law is based on examples and sayings from the life of the Prophet Muhammad. This has provided a huge collage of laws and precedents for laws, but sometimes the problem with it has been misinterpretation, conflicting laws within the texts themselves and their interpretations and the fact that most of these stories were collected several generations after the prophet had died. This latter fact means several of the texts may have been corrupted and (at the risk of being lynched by a pious Muslim reading this) completely fictitious. I'm no Islamic scholar or theologian, but this is what I have gathered from reading a few books on the subject."
The collecting of the sayings and examples from the life of the Prophet Mohammed have started to be carried out about 200 years after his death, but it has been done very systematically. Let's say I tell you the Prophet said X. You as the dedicated collector don't consider it to be true if it clearly contradicts Koran. The first system of elimination is easier; comparison with Koran's laws. The next step is testing my credibility. The next step, which is very important, is that I have to be able to give you the full list of names of people who have told each other this saying. Let me try to make it clear; in a Hadith book (the collection book) you cannot find one anecdote or saying without the full list of people involved in the transmitting of X starting from the prophet to the last person who happens to be myself in this example. I know it's not clear ~:confused: but it's something like;
The Prophet told A, A told B, B told C, C told D.... I told You...
The credibilities of all these people in the chain are questioned and investigated. No phrase is accepted with a broken link. I know it may sound ridiculous but this is the simplest way I can explain. There's a story about Buhari, who is one of the most well-known Hadith collectors... Buhari, lived in Buhara, that's where his name comes from, is told by a man a Hadith. The man told him that he heard this Hadith from someone who lives in Egypt. Buhara is near Khazar. Buhari makes all the way from Buhara to Egypt to find this man. He searches and finally finds this man's land. Right when he sees him working in his farm, he witnesses the man beating his cow unfairly. He decides to go back home without even talking to the guy... Yes, there has been many fictitious anecdotes told all around Islamdom about the prophet but there are thousands of trusted/trustable ones also. When distinguishing it's truth is doubtful, you don't have to believe them, because theye are not Allah's words. Islamic law does not heavily depend upon the Prophet's life or sayings. These are usually about everyday life that you are "advised" to follow, but not usually about laws. The different sects in Islam are not so distant from each other like Orthodox and Catholics and Protestants of Christianity. The only differences are in the practices and not in the Koranic law. There are differences emerging from different interpretations of some passages in Koran but they are minor differences. Even the differences between Sunnah and Shiath are very neglegible in my view. So alcohol is and was forbidden to every Muslim no matter what sect they follow.
Don Corleone said :
"Well, I think (I really don't know) you're correct. I just role-play it to being addicted to opium or hashish, things that were allowed in the Caliphate. So when it gives you 'drinker', think of it as 'likes to hit the hookah a little more than is advisable, can't get straight before the battle'."
I guess, after all this talk, I'm not going to go deep into the state of taking drugs in Islam; it's absolutely prohibited. Hasan Sabbah, the leader of Hashashin's lived in a castle called Alamut, and they were outlaws. In MTW Hasan Sabbah is a Turkish hero :furious3: in the early period. They were frowned upon and wanted by the government, especially because of their drug taking. Drugs are considered to be worse than alcohol in Islamic states. Of course there must have been some people who did take drugs of some sort, but it was not so common. So you better find something more logical in your role-playing ~:) ...
Bregil the Bowman Said :
"If you travel in non-Arabic muslim countries today you will tend to find alcohol is tolerated to a greater degree (e.g. Malaysia's excellent Tiger beer, Turkish and Tunisian wine). "
I can tell you that alcohol was not at all tolerated or could be sold in the Ottoman. Turkish Republic which defines itself to be a secular state has tolerated alcohol seeing it part of modernisation and westernisation. But the majority of the people have not yet been successfully converted to modern Westerners!!! So alcohol is still frowned upon by most people, though it is not prohibited by the laws of the Turkish Republic. So I don't see any relevance to being Arabic or not; it's only a matter of recent differences in experiences. The English, French, Italians, Russians and Greeks invaded Turkey in 1918 and the Ottoman collapsed. After a long war for sweeping the invaders out :duel: , the new state that was born between 1920-1923 turned out to be a modernist one. Truly an INBRED infant it was!
I hope I have cleared out some of your questions. I don't want to sound like an arrogant scholar; I just wanted to share my knowledge... Any other questions, I'm open to discuss....
Regards to all.
Wow. That clears things up for us pretty thoroughly for us Corkies.
Thanks for taking the time, mate.
Welcome and thanks for the great post! ~:wave:
salam meurglys0
i'm muslim and was wondering how to put in my two cents but i see u have coverd everything quite nicely. i wouldn't have manged anything close to that well donr mate.
well getting back to MTW i play the turks mostly and any drunkard, pedophile get stripped of all titles and gets his but shipped off the the front :furious3:
I don't mind the drunkards, but every pedohile gets executed or sent on anQuote:
Originally Posted by crpcarrot
suicide mission! :beadyeyes2: .
Merhaba meurglys0
Impressive first post. Keep it up !
I might try to add some opinion to that later, but it's brilliantly written, and highly informative. Thank you.
Welcome to the Org, meurglys0 ~:wave:
The others beat me to it but I have to say that's outstanding for a first post. Informative and very well thought out.
I have to admit that, until playing MTW, I knew next to nothing about what the Turkish and other Muslim armies consisted of and what their unit types were called and so on. My level of ignorance about other aspects of their history and lifestyle was probably on a par with that, I regret to say, so any contribution you can make here will be more than welcome.
I'm glad that CA did their research into the various units but it's a pity they didn't extend this to protecting the Muslim factions from receiving randomly-dished out vices which are just plain inappropriate for their culture. My only hope is that this lapse is recognised for what it is and that people who buy the game who are Muslims aren't offended as a result. If they did, it would be entirely understandable.
Here's a thread which may be of interest to you EYG:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=24174
If you scan through all of it you will find some useful information about Turkish units I posted two years ago. Don't worry, although drinking is considered a really bad vice in most Muslim countries, on par wiht adultery perhaps, people still know of it and some still do it. I don't think that anyone would take offence at these small imperfections in the game research. Hope you enjoy the link it should help you to understand Turkish armies of that time period better.
Again I must emphasize that I am very very impressed by the cultural tolerance shown by the participants of this thread. If only there were more people like you.
:bow:
Thanks a lot friends for your good opinions. Religion and MTW are among my interests; their coincision under one headline might have made my contribution seem valuable.
...
Another inaccuracy of history in the game that would be great if corrected is the Heir's situation in the Turkish states. Each son of the sultan was put in command of a state so he could get to know what it is to rule some land. This way, when it was their time to rule they would have had valuable experience in ruling a land. It would be nice if in the game one could assign the Prince to become the amir of a desired province. During his teenagehood Mehmed II was the amir of Manisa; that could be a good reason how successfully the Turkish army he led conqueured Istanbul when it was only his second year on the throne and when he was only 21.
A nice anecdote about it...
Mehmed was the Amir of Manisa when he was 12! He was not only ruling the lands; simultaneously he was being educated in religion, science and philology by the best scholars and ulama of the time. Murad II, with his own will, left the throne to Mehmed in 1443; that is when he was only 13! A CRUSADE was prepared to take advantage of this situation in 1444. Mehmed wrote a letter to his father to call him immediately back to the throne. Murad II refused and encouraged him. Then Mehmed, being the sultan, "ordered" his father to take the throne back! Murad II bet the crusader army in Varna (Varna in Turkish is some place in Bulgaria) and ruled until his death in 1451. During the time in between Mehmed II returned to Manisa to continue his education both academically and in means of experience. When he became the sultan once more he was 19 and he could speak 7 different languages fluently! (It should give you an idea about the quality of his education). In 1953 he launched the final attack on the Byzantium but the sea of Golden Horne (the part of the Bosphorus that is the gate to the Byzantium walls) was blocked out by massive chains! Yes, gigantic, steel chains attached to each side of the sea! When Mehmed realized it would not be possible for his ships to pass over the chains he ordered his men to build a few kilometers long sledges. Yes, he ordered his men to slide the ships over the land into the sea of Golden Horde. Not long after the siege began, the Byzantines were surprised to see the ships at their feet...
So Mehmed became Fatih Sultan Mehmet, in other words, Sultan Mehmed the Conquerer...
Regards to all.
This has been one the most interesting threads I have read on this forum (and I dipped in for quite a while before joining up).
I still hold to my point that during this period of cultural cross-fertilisation many leaders in the Muslim world would have been drinkers, in contravention of Muslim teaching. Moreover, since MTW deals in a "fictional" version of history, it is reasonable to assume this might have been more common had the Almohad culture penetrated further and recruited more of its generals from Spanish and French stock. Also, the historical Muslim factions were known to be largely tolerant of religious minorities living under their rule, meaning that wine and beer would have been easily obtained.
Basically, powerful men get away with doing what they want, then as now.
BTW, on the point about the Hashishin taking their name from the drug hashish, there does seem to be dispute about how literally this should be taken. Hashishin was a term of abuse applied to the Ismaili sect by their enemies, and may have implied drug-taking or merely that they were "pipe-dreamers." (similar to what meurglsy0 has said about the "wine" of the Sufis). Some Westerners have picked up the idea that hashish and opium are acceptable within Islam because of the Hashishin, this is a misunderstanding.
Back to MTW or move this to Monastery?
Can't say I've ever stopped to look at the Monastery section myself. If others do likewise, it would only get ignored there.
Then again, it's packed with useful info and, if the alternative is for it to scroll into the depths of Main Hall and ultmately get vapourised at pruning time, then maybe a place where it'll last longer is a good idea?