Marc

One question that pops into my mind is the issue of patterns of expansion of religious, political, commercial, and other theories, ideologies, and systems. the linkages are obviously multi-layered and therefore complex. We talk much about the Judeo-Christian system of values and that alone makes large assumptions about unified views on social mores, structures, and languages.

Islam is inherently self-limiting in some regards because the Koran is only the Koran when it is in classical Arabic. On the other hand as the religion spreads, the new adherents have to learn enough Arabic to at least understand basic tenets.

Christianity especially Catholicism when services had to be delivered in Latin shared some of this. But Christianity allows translation and we would not have a "King James" version of the Bible if that had not been the case.

What brought all this to my mind was a comment made by a reviewer on an article I sent to SWJ for another of my authors here. The author began the article quoting the April NIE which said:
“We assess that the global jihadist movement is decentralized, lacks a coherent global strategy, and is becoming more diffuse,"
The reviewer pointed out the fallacy in that statement: there is a strategy and it is global.

That it is not "coherent" to the authors of the NIE is a statement of their analytical failure.

You know that I see that strategy and method as a global insurgeny based on ideology of a particular distorted sect within the Muslim world. What got me thinking about patterns of expansion is the use of the internet. The article in question centers on that issue and I will not reveal more because it is in the SWJ inbox. But in the interim, Islam has spread through conquest--especially in its early years and through the peak of the Ottoman empire. Parallel to that expansion by the sword, Islam spread via trade and local contacts.

Periodically through the centuries, local Muslim leaders--like the Mahdi in Sudan--emerged and used the sword once again. Since then (19th Century) the spread has been largely through trade and establishment of local mosques to serve the Muslims in that trade.

What seems to me especially relevant in all of this is the emergence of the internet and its applications for global prosletyzing. It has become in many ways the electronic model of the spread of Christianity via disciples early on and the creation of a Church with a priesthood.

Rambling I know but thinking as I type. Any comments?

Tom