Effects of Islamic conquests on the conquered land

Being, i suppose what you might call an 'Arabist' (lol), it is my opinion that the Arabs' cultural impact on the empires/countries/peoples they conquered was profound. My opinion is based really on the culture of the Orient and North Africa after the conquests of Islam and really of today; everywhere from Morocco in the West to Iran in the East have the same language (in the case of the Arab Nations) and the Persian Language (or at least Farsi) seems to borrow heavily from the Arabic Language. In addition to this there is the distinctive architecture shared by almost all Islamic Countries (with regards to Mosques and other symbolic structures) and quite a consistent culture. Of course i believe that the Arabs did borrow ideas from those they conquered but like al-Jassas i think they gave more than they took.

Originally posted by Sparten The population of the mideast was mostly non-muslim until at least the end of the crusades, as attested by such scholors of Islam as Bernard Lewis, who incidentally is no Islamophile.

Edited by Reginmund - 04-Feb-2008 at 13:22

Hello to you all

Originally posted by DhulFaqar everywhere from Morocco in the West to Iran in the East have the same language (in the case of the Arab Nations)

It is said that the difference between dialects of Arabic is greater than the difference between languages in Europe. As all of the Arabic speaking countries today spoke a semetic language before the conquest, and those contries that didn't speak a semetic language, don't speak Arabic, what we have seen is a gradual blurring of distinction between semetic languages over the last 1000 years lead by Arabic rather than an Arabic language take over.

In addition to this there is the distinctive architecture shared by almost all Islamic Countries (with regards to Mosques and other symbolic structures) and quite a consistent culture.

Other than what is practically necessary, I fail to see what a mosque in Mali, Turkey, and China have in common. Architecturally, the Xi'an mosque in China shares nothing with my local mosque, neither of which share anything with a mosque in a place with an indoor climate (say Toronto or Kazan)

As religion is an important part of culture, there is a high degree of cultural similarity. On the other hand, food is also a very important part of culture, and there is no similarity there.

I'm not sure if this will be a divisive issue or not but i also believe that as well as having a vast cultural impact on their conquered lands, the Arabs had an almost complete ethnic/demographic impact as well

I think it wasn't until Ottoman times that 'Arab' was used to mean more than the people from the Arabian peninsular (including Jordanian, Syrian & Iraqi deserts). In the middle ages I am fairly certain Egyptians called themselves Egyptian & Syrian syrian.

In my opinion the majority of the people of North Africa and the Middle East (in the Arab Countries) are all ethnically Arab.

In my opinion the majority of people in Lebanon are majority European. (well, not quite, but so many lebanese could pass for Franks there has to be a lot of intermarriage in the past)

Egyptians who believe themselves to be decended from the pre-Islamic Egyptians

Have you compared the population of Egypt in 600AD with the peninsular in 600AD? It would be physically imposible for the Arabs to outnumber the Egyptians.

but i base my opinion on the cultural consistencies and inconsistencies of the regions concerned

If a greek was muslim and spoke arabic how can you tell the difference between him & a syrian?

For example in Egypt, the overall culture and really everything on a social level completely changed almost immediatley with the invasion of the Arabs

Totally wrong. The immediate invasion only lowered the tax rate and brought an end to the persecution of the Koptic church.

In my opinion the only reason that Egyptian culture, religion and language could have evaporated so quickly and so completely is because they were no longer around to continue their culture (if you get what i'm alluding to)

Egyptian religion (Koptic christianity) still exists today. Egyptian language (Koptic) died out in the 18th century.
The pagan egyptian religions were pushed out by christianity during the first 4 centuries of this calender.

If this were not the case then i don't believe that archaeologists would have to be 're-learning' or deciphering the Ancient Egyptian Language.

They are neither deciphering Koptic, Greek or Latin. For that matter neither Aramaic, or Assyrian. What language do you think was spoken in Egypt?

Even though the official language under Islam was Arabic

Ummayids used Greek.

I think I have already destroyed the remained of your post. No need to do it twice