Arabs before islam....

[R1Geezer]

Been reading about this lately and as far as I can tell Arabs where pretty well indifferent to religion pre islam. So how on Earth did islam catch on? I mean they ticked along for centuries reasonably happy and suddenly so upstart comes along and says naa, Allah is not happy with you guys enjoying yourself all fund is banned, produces a list of new rules to be followed and bans any kind of enjoyment. Now I know Arabs are not known for instantly doing what they are told so I'm pretty sure yer average Arab would not have found the new way very attractive so what happenned to the Arabs? How did this new religion get it's foot in the door?

[sandyRoe]

I don't know how it started but I'd guess the Crusades helped cement it in place

[R1Geezer]

I'd have thought Crusaders would have been greeted as Liberators.

[sandyRoe]

Foreign armies in other peoples lands are rarely seen as liberators. Then or now.

[jake-the-peg]

Islam had spread from spain to Pakistahn by 750

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests

Hundreds of years prior to the crusades

[boxtops]

If you scroll down to section 3 on here, you will see that Arabs before 600AD-ish were already religious people but they were not monotheistic, they believed in many gods. (As I mentioned last night, it also states here that the Ka'aba in Mecca used to house a number of idols before Mohammed's time.) They were therefore far from ungodly - but the new faith introduced them to the concept of monotheism rather than lots of gods for different purposes.
There's a parallel with the advent of Christianity - people happily doing their own thing, then a new religion comes along and they give that a go instead.

[boxtops]

ooppp - here's the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad

[R1Geezer]

Fair enough Boxtops, so how come some new boy strolls into town and says "your doing it all wrong" and suddenly we're off they all taking him at his word and islam is born? I can't see how it ever caught on.

[Zeuhl]

Hard to imagine how any religion catches on

But I suppose Islam (like Christianity) ticks several motivational boxes that certain people might find helpful and which form an accepted model in behavioural psychology:

connection with others - community with others who have bought into the same rubbish
self esteem - feeling special, one of god's chosen etc
certainty - don't be afraid, do this, do that and you will definitely live forever
variety - (maybe nothing in that category)
personal growth - memorise all this twoddle from this book and become even better
external contribution - go out and convert (or kill) heathens and thus make the world a better place.

In a theraputic context, scoring in 5 out of 6 would constitute a compulsion in most cases.
.

[naomi24]

This gives a reasonable account of the history of Islam.

http://www.evolutiona...history_of_islam.html

To help his cause along Mohammed also made concessions to the idol worshippers he was trying to conquer by allowing the intercession of three pagan goddesses - hence the very interesting Satanic Verses. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_Verses

[DTCwordfan]

Parallels to Christianity indeed; the success being to absorb pagan rites and Arabian tribe customs into Islam - Mohammed was, evidently, politically astute. Just as one of the successes of Christianity was absorbing pagan rites into its religion.............

[keyplus90]

Why don't you ask the same question to anyone you see in your home town who used to have "FUN" and now has given up and became Muslim. You may never meet an Arab from a time before Islam to give you first hand knowledge but why not try it now in your life time.

[beso]

Much of the success of religion was through a perception that it was the power of the conqueror's god that led t them prevailing in battle. The vanquished would adopt the obviously more powerful god.

It was also a wise move when the the conquering regime would not tolerate anyone worshiping another god.

The Church of England didn't change gods but they certainly made it impractical to remain Catholic. Initially this was by threats of death for engaging in Catholic practices. Priests were simply murdered so it became increasingly more difficult to find someone to hold a service

Elizabeth was seen as much more liberal as she did not kill the Catholics. She simply imposed massive fines for not attending church (CofE churches of course). This effectively diluted any home schooling in the ways of the Church of Rome.

[R1Geezer]

steve as jake points out the crusades were much later, Islam was well established by then.