Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
Asserting a widespread belief in an undefined "G-d" (a "higher power" of some kind) is different from claiming worship of the same God.
Metaphysics was never my strong point but “higher power” would, to me at least, signify a single entity; Monotheism. Three monotheistic faiths all claiming to believe in a single God are bound to come into conflict.



Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
illustrates (your "...but also ... Byzantium") pragmatism at work - a point made by Omar in his comments and by Brown (in later chapters 3-7).
I beg to differ sirrah. There was nothing pragmatic about it. Islam and Muslims were ordered to treat the People of the Book as protected persons under certain conditions. Islamic treatment of these people was wholly within keeping with their doctrine because, as far as Islam and Muslims were concerned, these people were Christians in the proper sense (as People of the Book; i.e., not Trinitarians). Had they failed the criteria of what Christianity was supposed to be according to Islam then I doubt they would have been so well received. I would understand pragmatism to be something along the lines of Churchill’s alliance with Stalin against Hitler.