Friday, August 31, 2007

Ol' G.: Tamerlane

Tamerlane, or Timur the Lame, describes his par-tay at Delhi (just one of many):

""""""In a short space of time all the people in the [New Delhi] fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and the fort to the ground....All these infidel Hindus were slain, their women and children, and their property and goods became the spoil of the victors. I proclaimed throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners should put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death.

One hundred thousand infidels, impious idolators, were on that day slain. Maulana Nasiruddin Umar, a counselor and man of learning, who, in all his life, had never killed a sparrow, now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives....on the great day of battle these 100,000 prisoners could not be left with the baggage, and that it would be entirely opposed to the rules of war to set these idolaters and enemies of Islam at liberty...no other course remained but that of making them all food for the sword. [18]""""

Ah those whacky Mohammedans.

1 comment:

J said...

You should kick up the Dawkins discussion again, methinks. Scares your fundie pals as well. But keep it equal-opportunity skepticism........and atheism.

The God Delusion, however obvious, should be read in Baghdad as well as Berkeley. Even if we disagree with RD, he provides a springboard in a sense (say in terms of the "pragmatic" question: one might agree there are no compelling arguments which would establish the existence of "God"
(even gents such as Hobbes said much the same in 1600s), yet still believe that religion does result in some good, some of the time (not much)). RD also keeps the Darwinian issues on the table: that's to the advantage of progressive politics of some sort, one would like to think.

DawkinsSpeak also sort of points to the problems of defining values--and indeed Justice--sans a God.

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