A dedication, Khalid Ibn walid One of the greatest Warriors who ever lived.

[S.A.M.]

Is it really all the shocking to find none of the Greek Gods, Godesses and Heros were actual people?

Who "found" this? Most Indian myths are based on real people/incidents with some added embroidery. I would bet that most Greek myths are also likewise based on real people or incidents

As to Khalid Ibn Walid, like I said wotzisname has several details and sources in his works - as for coinage, I don't agree that having the archangel Michael on a coin is evidence that he may have existed. And if that can be said of Archangel Michael it can apply to Aristotle and Caesar and Jesus. So yeah, I reject your assumptions.

I'm not particularly interested in Khalid Ibn Walid, he was only one general out of several hundred, the fact that many people spoke about him may have as much to do with his personality as his actions. There are others who wax poetic about Umar [one Egyptian told me he was a ten feet tall Negro who never lost a battle] - the way I see it, people are identified by their actions and consequences not vice versa.

So yeah, maybe Aristotle existed, maybe not - Jesus has a bigger following and more literature about him and yet we can't say if he was who everyone says he was. So maybe there were no Greek philosophers. Maybe the Romans are a myth. Maybe the Byzantine empire was a small city by today's standards. The point is, all history is maybes. The only reality really is what you consider applicable today. So you reject Khalid or Mohammed and I reject all the Greek Philosophers and the Romans and it makes no difference to what they achieved - even if you decide unilaterally that there was no Mohammed or Khalid, there is still the Arabic conquest from Yemen to Spain. There is still Islam.

 

[Michael]

You're not really making sense. The point about history is to attempt to discover what really happened in the past as best as we can using the evidence that is available.

It may be that Khalid did exist. However, it seems less likely given there is no contemporary evidence. But more to the point, is there ANY evidence of ANY of the major Islamic figures of that period? If the answer is there is ZERO contemporary evidence of ANY major Islamic figure then more than likely, early "Islamic" mythology is just that - mythology.

You may want to remember that "Islam" is nearly indistinguishable from a number of Gnostic Christian sects. One could make the argument "Islam" didn't "conquer" Egypt and Syria or even Iraq - but that it had been there for centuries known as Gnostic Christianity. Or even just as Christianity. Islam IS a form of Christianity.


Anyway, there's some people want to know the real history. We like knowing about Zeus and Hercules, those are very endearing stories. BUT, at the end of the day, we want to know that real history as best as possible.

 

[S.A.M.]

If the answer is there is ZERO contemporary evidence of ANY major Islamic figure then more than likely, early "Islamic" mythology is just that - mythology.

Or its just another example of typical western assumptions about other peoples - i.e. we did this so unless they did this, it did not happen. From what I have read about the Byzantine and Persian empires of the time, they were scarcely interested in the goings on of other people, a very self absorbed race. Even when the Arabs initially invaded, neither the Persians nor the Byzantium regimes took them seriously - which is not surprising since the Persians/Byzantines had huge armies with infantry in the tens of thousands, cavalry, elephants and chariots. And the Arabs had just their horses and their tribal notions of warfare - they did not even have a word for war and adopted jund from the Persian gond. So its hardly surprising that they knew little or nothing about them - just think of Mohammed cartoons in modern Europe with Mohammed in an Afghan turban. And this is with 1400 years of exposure to Muslims and Europeans still cannot tell the difference between a turban and an Arab headdress. What do YOU know about Mohammed? Who were his parents? Where was he born? What was his occupation? You're pretty well read but like most westerners you only focus on specifics which directly concern you and not the factors surrounding them. Could you name any of the Taliban commanders? Any of the generals in the Iraqi insurgency?

Of course only the Arabs wrote about the Arabs, who else would be interested? It was only after the Persians and Byzantine armies realised that they were ill equipped to fight Arabs on their Arabian horses that it became an issue and by then, it was too late for them to rethink how to manoever their large bulky armies around the swift small troops.

Did those contemporaries of the time write about anyone? The Indians? The Africans? The Indonesians? The Chinese? The Malay? I sincerely doubt it. Its how Rome was lost to the barbarians - do you have any contemporaneous accounts of the barbarian wars?

 

[Michael]

Arabian horses SAM? Please tell me how an 'Arabian Horse' is going to be militarily different to repulse in siege combat compared with a standard Warhorse. What? It's not possible to add another 4 inches onto a 15 foot pike (not that another foot would be needed)?

Look, this sounds like more mythology. You have ZERO evidence of ANY of these mythical Islamic Hero Protagonists having existed at all while at the same time you are commenting on their military tactics?!?
That's asinine.


No one has provided one iota of contemporary evidence ANY of these wars happened let alone that ANY of these people even existed.

Oh, and SAM, the Mongolians on their small pony-like horses were able to wipe the floor with Arabs on their great big magical 'Arab Horses'. My Little Mongolian Ponies wiped the Arabs across the floor You must be shocked! I mean, those were 'Arab' horses verses small ponies.




Look, all of this is Red Herring.

We have contemporary evidence of:
- The First Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi,
- The Military General Alexander of Macedonia,
- The Military General Genghis Khan,
- The Military General Julius Caesar,
- The Great Persian Emperor Khosrau


We have NO evidence ANY of these early Islamic Heros existing.


The way SAM is clinging to this mythology one can see how there would have been a strong impedance for making up these protagonists. Which is exactly what the the evidence is pointing towards. I mean, which is better for your early delusional Gnostic Christian soon to be newly labeled as a 'Muslim' in the new Empire: Khalid Ibn walid! One of the greatest Warriors Who Ever LIVED!!! LIVED!! LIVED! ..... OR following a massive pandemic common Arab raiders moved into the depopulated cities and just STAYED!!! STAYED!! STAYED!





Maybe Scientific inquiry isn't your cup or tea?

 

[S.A.M.]

Please tell me how an 'Arabian Horse' is going to be militarily different to combat than a standard Warhorse

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

OR following a massive pandemic common Arab raiders moved into the depopulated cities and just STAYED!!! STAYED!! STAYED!

Except for the small detail that most of the Middle East is Arabised, not Arab

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

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

 

[Michael]

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



Except for the small detail that most of the Middle East is Arabised, not Arab

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

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

Your link says 'Arabian' horse was used in Egypt in 1700BC and was given the name 'Arabian' by Persians in 500BC. That's besides the point. You're attempting to make the argument Khalid existed because Arabs (as well as Egyptians and Persians and who knows who else) used a horse that has good temperament when used in light cavalry.


We're still waiting for some contemporary evidence of ANY of these early mythical characters.

 

[S.A.M.]

You're attempting to make the argument Khalid existed because Arabs (as well as Egyptians and Persians and who knows who else) used a horse that has good temperament when used in light cavalry.

Nope, I'm saying that Persians and Byzantiniums were ill-equipped to fight with Arabs whose horses were bonded to their riders rather than workers who were merely tools of a trade. Note that while Persians and Egyptians may have imported the horses the animals did not share the same relationships with their buyers as they did with their trainers. You have to see these horses to understand my point. The horses were family, they lived in the tents with their owners.

Anyway, all that is beside the point. The point you made of a plague wiping out enough of the Middle East so that the population was replaced by Arabs is not correct. Even if the genetic evidence did not show this to be outright fantasy, you'd think someone would have noticed that an entire subcontinent was wiped off people simply for not being Arabs - who I presume were biblically saved from the plagues and locusts by belonging to fringe desert states, unlike native Americans whose isolation made them prime candidates for a lowered immunity.

The point is that there is plenty of Arab history which describes the invasions and even where the originals do not survive, they are cited by later historians who had access to them at the time.

 

[Michael]

Persian didn't 'import' Arabian horses. They had been breeding them since 500BC. This is really all conjecture. You don't know how 'bonded' people were to their horses. You don't know if people bonded to their horses fight better than people not bonded. Mongolians ATE their horses!

Again, we have contemporary evidence of:
- The First Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi,
- The Military General Alexander of Macedonia,
- The Military General Genghis Khan,
- The Military General Julius Caesar,
- The Great Persian Emperor Khosrau


We have NO contemporary evidence of Khalid.
We have NO contemporary evidence of Mohammad (other than of course as a word).

Do we have ANY contemporary evidence of ANY other contemporary 'Arab'. We can't really say 'Muslim' as Islam didn't exist at that time.


What really surprises me is how loath religious people are to come to terms with history.

 

[S.A.M.]

Persian didn't 'import' Arabian horses. They had been breeding them since 500BC

I think we are talking about entirely different things here. Anyway, this discussion has become redundant. Its like trying to discuss Roman history after dismissing all Roman and western historians/

 

[Michael]

Nope, I'm saying that Persians and Byzantiniums were ill-equipped to fight with Arabs whose horses were bonded to their riders rather than workers who were merely tools of a trade. Note that while Persians and Egyptians may have imported the horses the animals did not share the same relationships with their buyers as they did with their trainers. You have to see these horses to understand my point. The horses were family, they lived in the tents with their owners.

Anyway, all that is beside the point. The point you made of a plague wiping out enough of the Middle East so that the population was replaced by Arabs is not correct. Even if the genetic evidence did not show this to be outright fantasy, you'd think someone would have noticed that an entire subcontinent was wiped off people simply for not being Arabs - who I presume were biblically saved from the plagues and locusts by belonging to fringe desert states, unlike native Americans whose isolation made them prime candidates for a lowered immunity.

The point is that there is plenty of Arab history which describes the invasions and even where the originals do not survive, they are cited by later historians who had access to them at the time.

Reduced population in cities is AN explanation, not necessarily THE explanation. I said, depopulated. That's a sharp reduction in the population. As we have contemporary evidence of a series of plagues, the worse plagues humanity had suffered in all previous recorded history. That's a reasonable explanation.

Given we have NO contemporary evidence of Khalid.

Recall an 'Arab' was Roman Emperor. 'Arabs' fought in England, lived in Italy, Greece, Egypt, Syria, etc...

 

[Michael]

I think we are talking about entirely different things here. Anyway, this discussion has become redundant. Its like trying to discuss Roman history after dismissing all Roman and western historians/

No, it's like asking those historians to provide contemporary evidence - which is the way research is done. This is standard practice. Islamic scholars are not being asked anything more or less than Christian historians, Chinese historians, Japanese historians, etc...ask themselves when doing research. It seems more a case of Islamic Historians not wanted to deal with the data - which indicated (A) there was no Khalid/Mohammad and (B) probably all of the early history is suspect.




Now, I'm asking for ANY contemporary evidence for ANY of the major 'Islamic' protagonists existing. Is there evidence of ANYONE having lived?

 

[S.A.M.]

Since you dismiss the Arab accounts, none that would satisfy you, I think. We know almost all of Khalids history from the time Mohammed and his companions fought the Quraysh which was also Mohammed's tribe - for some reason [probably his brother's sake] he did not fight with the Prophet at the battle of Badr. We know very little after he was dismissed by Umar - who felt he was being glorified too much and demoted him to a junior post after Abu Bakr's death, finally dismissing him from military service altogether. But he was still the "actual" commander until the battle of Syria because he had a fan club going with whoever he was stationed under.

Btw, do you believe Umar existed? He is the one who built the Masjid al Aqsa and codified the Quran

 

[Michael]

Since you dismiss the Arab accounts, none that would satisfy you, I think. We know almost all of Khalids history from the time Mohammed and his companions fought the Quraysh which was also Mohammed's tribe - for some reason [probably his brother's sake] he did not fight with the Prophet at the battle of Badr. We know very little after he was dismissed by Umar - who felt he was being glorified too much and demoted him to a junior post after Abu Bakr's death, finally dismissing him from military service altogether. But he was still the "actual" commander until the battle of Syria because he had a fan club going with whoever he was stationed under.

Btw, do you believe Umar existed? He is the one who built the Masjid al Aqsa and codified the Quran

The 'Arab' account you provided was over 100 years from the time of Khalid and was reportedly considered full of lies by another Historian (the father of Islamic jurisprudence).

If Khalid existed, there should be contemporary evidence.








Think about it logically, most historians now consider Abraham, Mosses and Jesus as purely fictional characters - as well as events such as the world being covered in water, etc... It's VERY obvious that the people who made up these stories 2000+ years ago were very literary creative. i.e. they made it up. These are the same people who made up YOUR belief, the Christian tenants that evolved into Islam. Why should anyone be surprised to learn they continued to be literary creative? It's no different than myths found ALL OVER the world. Which is why we ask for contemporary evidence.

In order to understand real Christian history, Historians (mainly German) had to dismiss over a thousand years of 'accepted' history. The same was done to understand Greek mythology. Egyptian mythology. etc.... Islam is NOT be singled out for special treatment, it's just you don't want to come to terms with what the data is saying.

 

[S.A.M.]

The 'Arab' account you provided was over 100 years from the time of Khalid and was reportedly considered full of lies by another Historian (the father of Islamic jurisprudence).

Eh? I think now you are off the bat. Al Waqidi wrote many details in his work - he is one of the most scrupulous historians which is why his work has been cited and quoted ad nauseum -and he sourced his information. What some father of religious jurisprudence thought - several hundred years later - of his war memorials is irrelevant

I think you should at the very least read about his work and what the arguments of the religious critics were before jumping to your own conclusions about the merit of his work. Or is that how science works? By basing it on opinions that endorse your bias?

 

[Michael]

I'm not sure if you're getting it.

ALL historians require contemporary evidence AND if it's religious history require a secular contemporary source as well. This is because people want to know the truth, not the propaganda. Religious people generally have no desire to know the true history. What they really want is any evidence that backs up their preconceived religious beliefs.

Al Waqidi may have scrupulously recorded everything he had access to and it was all completely wrong and so he made perfect copies of a bunch of made up history. Or he may have been a liar. It doesn't matter, he is over a century after the death of Khalid so his opinion is not contemporary AND worse than that he would be biased due to his belief that Mohammad and Khalid did exist. Of which there is no evidence for.

If Khalid really existed then there would be some evidence of his existence given his 'Glorious' conquests. How do you conquer both the Persian and Byzantium empires without leaving a single piece of evidence? Answer = You don't.




Let's make this easy: Is there ANY contemporary evidence for ANY of the Islamic protagonists? Anything? You probably heard how the Saudi's were destroying evidence counter to Islam?






- Knowing that the word Mohammad was minted on contemporary Syrian coins as a Title for Christ (which we have)
- Knowing that many contemporary Christian secs strongly resemble Islam,
- Knowing there is NO contemporary evidence for either Mohammad or Khalid or ANY of the major characters,
- Knowing that the Qur'an was codified a century later and given the fact it is a Bible (80% identicel a contemporary Bible),

What sort of conclusions do you draw and why?

 

[Michael]

I have to say, at first I was somewhat surprised in there NOT being ANY contemporary evidence of Khalid. But, upon reflection it makes perfect sense.

We got caught up into the paradigm that Islam is not a form of Christianity - mainly IMO due to a couple things - the notion of what IS Christianity NOW, which was NOT what the contemporary ideology in many parts of the middle east thought of what Christian was, not by a long shot and the Bible of today was not the Bible of then, there were all sorts of "Testaments" and two, we bought into the propaganda, that there were Islamic Crusades - glorious, insidious or otherwise.

It's patently obvious to anyone with 2 cents to rub together that the Qur'an is a Bible. It's 80% Biblical in nature. Christians of that day made up all sorts of things to believe in - Jesus being a prime example. But, also noteworthy is the fact that Mohammad was a TITLE for Jesus. Not a person. We have the Syrian coin. It's damning evidence of Mohammad being a Word and later and literary Character. Add to that many Christian sects were almost identical to modern Islam. Ritualistically, almost every aspect of Islam predates Islam.

That Khalid is more improvisation shouldn't really come as a surprise. If there was no Mohammad, then there were no Companions, and there was no great General of that time. There does seem to be a huge consolidation of many many MANY of the various Christian sects into one religion with a Pope-like leader. That bit of history is very interesting. It's something ALL the various Christian sects tried to do, like Catholicism for example. It's common in all sorts of cultures. Religion is power. People with power seek to consolidate it - hence "The Qur'an" is "Perfect" (insert Bible for Christians).

So, unlike ALL the other great generals from the Chinese Emperor to Julius Caesar, it seems Khalid was only fictional.

 

[Pandaemoni]

That is an excellent pick. Not to gainsay your preferred guy, but...

Well...wars not make one great, or, as the guy I'd pick said, "[T]o win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the pinnacle of skill."

I would go with Sun Tzu, who invaded Chu with an army 1/10th the size of Chu's and thereby won a war necessary to the survival of the country of Wu. Nothing wrong with your pick at all, but Sun Tzu's goal was to save Wu with a minimum of casualties on both sides. As he wrote:

"Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. Hence the enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution. This is the way to keep a country at peace and an army intact."

I am also biased in his favor because not only did he save Wu against overwhelming odds, but he developed his famous philosophy of war which is still studied 2,500 years later.

 

[Michael]

That is an excellent pick. Not to gainsay your preferred guy, but...

Well...wars not make one great, or, as the guy I'd pick said, "[T]o win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the pinnacle of skill."

I would go with Sun Tzu, who invaded Chu with an army 1/10th the size of Chu's and thereby won a war necessary to the survival of the country of Wu. Nothing wrong with your pick at all, but Sun Tzu's goal was to save Wu with a minimum of casualties on both sides. As he wrote:

"Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. Hence the enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution. This is the way to keep a country at peace and an army intact."

I am also biased in his favor because not only did he save Wu against overwhelming odds, but he developed his famous philosophy of war which is still studied 2,500 years later.

Historicity

If he existed (and I seriously doubt the concubine story), it is possible he was a woman, as women were Generals at that time in Chinese history

 

[Believe]

Hold up, hold up. I'm gonna let you finish but Genghis Khan was the greatest warrior of all time!

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

 

[CptBork]

There were lots and lots of great warriors and generals throughout history. For me it doesn't even matter whether Ibn Walid really existed, or if his military campaigns were as successful as his proponents are claiming. The point I made about Rommel was serious- whatever Ibn Walid might have achieved in his time, by the late 19th century it was all irrelevant, many of the countries he allegedly conquered rolled over with practically no resistance when the Afrika Korps started its advance, and have been subjected to the whims of many other powers since.

All that really matters is that this thread was started by a radicalist East Londonite troll to celebrate a man who, if what's said of him is true, was almost certainly an imperial mass-murderer.