Quote Originally Posted by Brenus View Post
"Why did people in the Middle East gradually convert from Greek and Coptic Christianity to Islam? It made their lives much easier, they had better legal rights and paid lower taxes." That is a nice point of view, but, unfortunately, quite remote from reality.
If you were not a Muslim you were part of the sub-humans categories if you belonged to the Religions from the Book (Jews and Christians) and none-humans if you were a Pagan.
The second one was promptly executed.
The first category was permanent slave, had to pay for life every year, and no legal right whatsoever, had a status of dhimmis. Their children could be taken as slaves for whatever purpose for sexual use to military use.
So the reason why they convert was to save their lives, get legal rights and pay taxes only in money, having access to proper job, having the right to own properties (and not being one). Roughly.
No, you are conflating Arab Islamic law with later Turkish Law. Under the Arabs Christians and Jews were afforded limited rights and were required to pay additional taxes. The situation was roughly similar to the one Gentiles were in during the early Roman Empire. Christians and Jews were not "sub humans" but nor were they citizens, being outside the Islamic community. Roughly, a Christian man was worth 1/3 of a Muslim in a court of law.

Now, under the Ottoman Turks the situation was very different and, frankly, all non-Turks were abused to a degree up until the late 18th century, I think.

Quote Originally Posted by Gilrandir View Post
I advise you to read Leviticus, in which you will find many do's and dont's. For instance:

Leviticus 20

Punishments for Sin
20 The Lord said to Moses,

2 “Say to the Israelites:

10 “‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.

12 “‘If a man has sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, both of them are to be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.

(Woody Allen and Mia Farrow are still not stoned?)

13 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

27 “‘A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.’”

Generally speaking, both books are supposed to be value models for the adherents. If it is written in a holy book, it is the example to follow. It doesn't really matter what tense or mood of verbs is there.

Yet it was used as an ultimate guidance for many attacks on any unfaithful and heretics which is more or less equal to the desire to turn everyone to Christianity.
Ignorenta Sacerdoti are responsible for most of the ill in the world. If you actually read the Christian Bible then you'll see that Christians are not required to follow Leviticus, so Frag is broadly correct when he says "Bible" and "did this" because the history of the Jews in the Christian Bible is not meant to be a blueprint for society.

Of course, that only applies to Christians.