Quote Originally Posted by Hax View Post
Nonsense. Especially this last part. What did they destroy with no regard to the past? I literally have no idea what the Arabs destroyed. And please, please don't say the Library of Alexandria, because it weren't the Arabs who did that. You should also probably realise that the early Islamic forces constituted largely of non-Muslims as well. Saying that it was an Islamic invasion aimed at spreading Islam is historically incorrect.
True. The initial purpose of their invasion was to rape, loot and pillage.

Although there were some on and off wars between the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphates and the Eastern Roman Empire, with the Arabs even going as far as reaching Constantinople and sieging it several times, relations had more or less stabilised by the 9th century. Roman ambassadors visited Jerusalem and other cities and were regarded as the spokesmen of the Christians living under Muslim rule. The other way around, there were also Arab ambassadors stationed in Constantinople who generally had relatively good relationships with the Roman Emperor.
I wouldn't go as far as calling it "good relations", it was more like a prolonged ceasefire.

What I find really interesting is that you're strongly supporting the idea of Islam as being inherently alien to (ill-defined) European culture; in this, you're actually following the rejectionist Islamic traditionalist line of thought that Islam in its core is hostile to the West and is in this sense unique. Seeing how you're an historian, I think you're widely off the mark here. Islamic theology was heavily influenced by Judaism and Nestoric Christianity while still retaining some traits typical of pre-Islamic Arabian religions.
All it takes is to pick up the Koran.... Sura 5:51 states: "O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily God guideth not a people unjust." There's plenty more, but I think this is enough.

The theological concepts in Islam are borrowed mostly from Eastern Christian Monophysite sects. At this point, we're relatively sure that Muhammad was able to read and write to some degree and was quite aware of Christian and Jewish metaphysical concepts. You wouldn't say that Eastern Christianity is an Alien culture (the word "alien" unexplicably with a capital A)?
can you provide an example of this?