soalbundy

5 minutes ago, candide said:

Arabs were rather smart at that time (and later the Ottomans). They were governing very large territories, but actually they were very few people. So they had to find ways to be accepted by the local people. Hence the special status granted to  Christians and Jews. For the same reason, they initially had very few scientists, writers, artists and administrators.

 

They also were often smart about conversions. Non-Muslim were tolerated, but had some economic drawbacks, such as paying more tax or being barred from lucrative occupations, so there was a strong economic motive to convert to Islam.

Rather like the Jews in Europe, the only occupation left to them was as money lenders to the powerful which on the one side made them wealthy but made them vulnerabel (a pogrom could get rid of ones debt). The Templers found that out when the French king decided his debt was too large and they had a lot of land and cash. The Arabs certainly had astronomers, how else do you navigate through the desert if not by the stars. Their doctors, unlike the Europeans, had no qualms about dissecting dead bodies which increased their knowledge of the human body, many European doctors traveled there to learn from them. They also had good craftsmen and even traded with the Vikings (who they found to be dirty and violent). They had philosophers and writers, a famous one would be a Persian tent maker Omar Kyem who wrote the Rubaiyat of Omar Kyem, most people know the first line of one of his verses even today :-

'The moving hand doth write

and having writ moves on

nor all your piety nor wit shall cancel half a line

nor all your tears wash out one word of it'

He rebutted regret or the use of repentance, what's done is done, in fact he was rather scathing of religion in general, a wonder he survived.

2 minutes ago, IAMHERE said:

I thought the violence went way further back in time. At least as far back as the Jews with the Ark of the Covenant destroyed (genocide?) entire groups of people at God's suggestion( was he that gave them the power of the Ark).

Yes but that flavour of violence was world wide, man is a very violent animal, one would have to go back as far as the era of the hunter gatherers, before land possession, to find relative peace among humans. peaceful coexistence as exhibited in some Arab nations at that time was quite rare and didn't last long, the one overarching similarity among human beings is greed, it is even apparent in small children, it isn't taught, unlike religion or racism which isn't inherent in children.

Strange girl, takes her Vibrator to the beach.....as one does.

7 hours ago, Lacessit said:

In a country where 50% of the population still believes in angels, laws can't be expected to be rational.

Are you talking about America?

3 hours ago, JonnyF said:

 

How about a bit of sympathy for a man clearly suffering from mental health issues?

 

Are you that far down the rabbit hole that you find this stuff amusing?

555555555555555 let the maga moron fill his boots, one less idiot at the polling booth.

Kidnapping a small child is a horrendous crime,, just imagine the terror that the child must suffer let alone the parents, so yes if she is found guilty it should be a very long incarceration.

23 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

How do you know the payment arrangements for these employees of whom you have no idea at all whether they are criminals working with the scammers?

While working in Germany I applied for A British passport at the then Embassy in Düsseldorf (many years ago) on the form I gave my office number in case I needed to be reached. I got my passport but a week later I received 4 phone calls from the UK trying to sell me insurance, stocks and shares etc. Obviously someone at the embassy had sold my details. I rang up the embassy to complain but that was a case of "we don't do that sort of thing" so I told them I was giving the matter over to BMW security (a big department) which I did, they took it seriously, after that the calls stopped.

14 minutes ago, transam said:

Yes, his mum's family.....🤗

Yes, a bit of Scottish genetics must have crept in somewhere.

3 hours ago, paul1804 said:

Whilst Xi's B&R initiative and helping Thailand with its railway project has its benefits China only ever does what benefits China. You may call that good governance but those developing countries often fund chinas gain and can ill afford to do so. If the lovely Xi was a responsible world leader he would not be assisting Putin in his murdering of Ukrainians, he would be encouraging North Korea to focus on peace & development for the people instead of warfare. If he were a responsible leader he wouldn't be supporting the illegal junta in Myanmar and so it goes on. But its suits his cause to have these rebel nations as allies in case of conflict whilst he is trying to land grab wherever he sees a weakness or an opening. The world has become a <deleted>ty place full of <deleted>ty people!

Good governance....come now, we aren't in kindergarten. All world governments are pragmatic, China is no different from the USA. Take NK for instance, if it ever rejoined with the South that would mean American troops on China's border, so fat boy can do what he wants, the US would never threaten a country with nukes anyway, especially not one close to China. Every power now uses proxies to fight wars that stops a WW3 scenario.

500 billion Baht !  If the system aint broken don't fix it.

4 minutes ago, transam said:

His mother's family had many members with red hair..........

 

https://www.quora.com/Which-red-haired-family-member-in-Dianas-family-did-Harry-get-his-red-hair-from#:~:text=Red hair is a Spencer,Beatrice also has red hair.

He had to get it from somewhere, it wasn't through eating porridge.

2 hours ago, bradiston said:

Cue the parrot sketch. I watched the whole video of this insane event. The clerk really was extremely mild in her reaction, commenting he doesn't look well. I really was hoping the niece would  come out with no, no, he's just resting. Ghoulish humour.

"He's alright, he'll perk up when you give him the money"

6 hours ago, JonnyF said:

 

Nobody hates him for leaving. His choice. No problem.

 

It's the lies, the whingeing, the hypocrisy and the backstabbing of his own flesh and blood that most of us dislike.

 

Good riddance to the toerag. The fact that Meghan left with him is like killing 2 birds with 1 stone. I only hope that the US do not revoke his visa for lieing about his extensive class A drug use on the application. 

And the ginger hair.

10 hours ago, Woof999 said:

 

You'll need a ladder to get out of that hole if you keep digging.

You saw what I did there

18 minutes ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

AN = Asean Now. Most people know that.... dear oh dear.

 

AN shouldn't be read as a word, instead as A - N, so it's still an A - N comedian

42 minutes ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

Today's Moronic Post of the Day. A policeman is seriously injured, close to death, and along comes an AN 'comedian' to make a joke of it. And if it was a member of your family, or you laying unconscious in hospital, how funny would that be? Hmm?

A comedian not an.....dear oh dear.

13 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Nothing like being prepared...

There is always a silver lining, how often do you hear of a cop's brain swelling.

It was his own fault.....he was standing in her way.