From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Feb 06 2002 - 04:21:45 MST
<snip>
[Hermit 4] So, from Herodotus, war in Africa, including widespread
multi-tribal war featuring temporary alliances and tributary relationships
between usually feuding tribes dates back to at least 500 BCE - which
precludes Mohammed and his followers from having anything to do with
inventing it - unless you assert reincarnation... while Islam is a very
modern idea - especially in Nigeria.
[Joe Dees 5] I shudder at the suggestion that Islam could be in any manner
construed as modern; for the greater percentage of Muslims that are
extremist than belong to any other extant major faith, the mindset is more
medieval, fundamentalist, literalist, and jihadic than any other extant body
of religious extremists.
[Hermit 5] You are wrong. Islam easily traverses ethnic barriers which
neither Judaism (non proselytizing) or Christian (proselytizing, but
unlikely to be adopted by any rational society except after defeat) appear
capable of. Islam is also a personal and ethically bound religion, rather
than a group religion with an authority determining its meaning. But this
was not what I meant. I meant that Islam is new to Africa, while warfare is
not. Notice the last sentence of this next paragraph.
[Hermit 4] As far as Nigeria
goes,[url]http://africanhistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uiowa.edu%2F%7Eafricart%2Ftoc%2Fcountries%2FNigeria.html[/url]
[quote]Nigeria had an eventful history. More than 2,000 years ago, the Nok
culture in the present plateau state worked iron and produced sophisticated
terracotta sculpture. The history of the northern cities of Kano and Katsina
dates back to approximately 1000 A.D. In the following centuries, Hausa
Kingdoms and the Bornu Empire became important terminals of north-south
trade between North African Berbers and the forest people, exchanging
slaves, ivory, and other products. The Yoruba Kingdom of Oyo was founded in
1400s. It attained a high level of political organization. In the 17th
through 19th centuries, European traders established coastal ports for slave
traffic to the Americas. Commodity trade, especially in palm oil and timber,
replaced slave trade in the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the
Fulani leader Usman dan Fodio launched an Islamic crusade that brought most
of the Hausa states under the loose control of an empire centered in Sokoto.
[/quote]
[Hermit 5] Two hundred years of Islam applied on top of at least 2,500 years
of fighting for ethnic reasons. I call that a modern phenomenon.
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