Earlier quoted context omitted.
Islamic conquests - not Arab. It’s worth remembering that the longest-lasting Caliphate was the Ottoman Caliphate. As I’ve noted, Islam transcends race and ethnicity. Scholars have acknowledged that mistakes were made by some during these conquests, but such actions were contrary to the core teachings of Islam and have been openly recognized as such. What is happening in occupied Palestine today—witnessed by the worl…
> Islamic conquests - not Arab. The Arab Empire's conquests are called both Muslim conquests or Arab conquests ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests ). > It’s worth remembering that the longest-lasting Caliphate was the Ottoman Caliphate. As I’ve noted, Islam transcends race and ethnicity. Yes, but I was talking specifically about the Arab conquests that preceded the Ottoman Empire by centuries. The…
If you look at the citation for the latter designation, you will see that it is a non-Muslim/non-Arab source. Never have I heard the term (الفتوحات العربية) in any proper source.
As far as I know "Arab conquests" is a modern phrasing used in English (orientalist historiography). It reflects the ethnic origin of the initial armies (mostly Arab tribes) but is not how pre-modern Muslim sources described them.
> Yes, but I was talking specifically about the Arab conquests that preceded the Ottoman Empire by centuries
If you mean the Rashidun, Umayyad, or Abbasid Caliphates, then those were not simply "Arabian" empires - they were Islamic. Non-Arab peoples were deeply involved at every stage. The unifying goal wasn't to spread Arab nationalism but the spread of Islam.
> Not only is that obviously not even remotely true, but the Arab Empire conquered and colonised the Levant, Maghreb, and Europe's Iberian Peninsula centuries before the crusades
They certainly conquered territory, yes. But the term "colonization" (especially with the European background involved) is very loaded, if not misleading. Unlike European colonialism, which involved stealing natural resources, dispossession, and often depopulation - Islamic conquests generally integrated local populations as I previously pointed out. Andalus was ruled by a combination of Arabs, Berbers, and large numbers of local converts. Likewise, in the Levant and Maghreb, indigenous societies weren't replaced or erased. They remained, adapted, and in many cases thrived under Islamic rule.
> Nothing justifies mass killings, and each of those atrocities stands on its own.
Agreed. But my point was that the Western-backed Israeli regime and WWII Germany share a disturbing structural resemblance: both are rooted in ethno-supremacist, ethnic-cleansing ideologies, and both commit mass killings against civilian populations. At least the nazis tried to hide their crimes; the israeli regime doesn’t even bother, and they boast about it (there are countless video interviews and confessions of israeli soliders that affirm this - several recent ones of israeli soldiers confessing their PTSD symptoms in court because of their crimes are very telling and distrurbing). The so-called "allies" hardly had clean hands either, their own history of indiscriminate mass killings during WWII (firebombing cities, nuclear attacks, colonial massacres) shows the same willingness to treat civilian life as expendable.
On a side note, what happened in Syria was a direct result of French colonial policy when they and Britain colonized the Levant, and israel is trying to follow the exact same play book in post-liberation Syria today. I won't get started on Lebanon either.