How Did The Pashtuns Turn Into the Religiously Evil Taliban ?

Nadene Goldfoot 

Year: 5783/2023                                             

The Taliban are a predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021 after waging a twenty-year insurgency. 

Taliban fighters hold a flag for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in August 2022. Ali Khara/Reuters

Pashtuns (also called Pushtan, Paktun or Pathan) are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Though their exact numbers are uncertain and as with other communities are contested, previous estimates have suggested that they make up around 42 per cent of the population.

Pashtuns are actually the remnant of the Northern Tribes of Israel that were kidnapped by the Assyrians in 721 BCE.  At least 7 of the 10 tribes made up the people taken away. The Assyrian Shalmaneser V's siege of Samaria and its capture by his successor, Sargon annexed the country, and deported 27,290 Israelites to Assyria, Media and replaced them with Syrian and Babylonian prisoners.  

TALIBAN FORCES patrol in front of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 2(photo credit: STRINGER/ REUTERS)

 They have showed Dr. Shalva Weil of Hebrew University of Jerusalem  some of their customs which are Jewish customs.  Pashtun practices include circumcision on the eighth day and refraining from mixing meat and milk — Is there a connection to ancient Hebrews?  Are they our long-lost relatives, descendants of the Israelites who were cast into exile by the Assyrian empire more than 2,700 years ago?

Weil has published extensively on the Ten Lost Tribes historically and in contemporary times. In particular, she has written on the Beta Israel, the Bene Israel, and the Pashtuns, as well as on Judaising groups all over Africa, China and elsewhere. In 1991, she curated an exhibition at Beth Hatefutsoth: the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora on the Ten Lost Tribes entitled "Beyond the Sambatyon: the Myth of the Ten Lost Tribes". She is on the international board of ISSAJ [International Society for the Study of African Jewry], and presented a paper at their latest conference in Nairobi on the Jews of Africa. She also held an important meeting for all in Jerusalem on the Pashtuns several years ago.  

A group has visited Jerusalem already.  Assyrian cuneiform states that 27,290 captives were taken from Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, by the hand of Sargon II.

      Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSRxeXV0T8Y

The American movie, Lone Survivor, tells of  a riveting story chronicling Operation Red Wings, where four highly trained Navy SEALs are sent on a mission to kill a dangerous “Al Qaeda” leader in a remote mountain village of Afghanistan, but they are discovered and overrun by enemy fighters.   Mohammad Gulab, follows the ancient Pashtun code of honor called, Pashtunwali.  The main principals of Pashtunwali are hospitality, protection for all guests, justice against wrong doers, bravery, loyalty to family, righteousness, belief in Allah, courage, and protection of women. Gulab is the Afghan village leader who risks his own life, his family’s life and perhaps his village’s future security to give this stranger, the 4th Seal, Marcus Lattrell, refuge from his enemies.   

This unwritten code of conduct among traditional Pashtun tribes serves as a system of law and governance in parts of Afghanistan.  It has its origin in the teachings of Moses, I'm sure.  

The Taliban is a Sunni Islamist nationalist and pro-Pashtun movement founded in the early 1990s that ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until October 2001.

The Taliban have imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law despite pledges to respect the rights of women and religious and ethnic minority communities. Meanwhile, as they have transitioned from an insurgent group to a functional government, the Taliban have struggled to provide Afghans with adequate food supplies and economic opportunities.                           

                        Pashtuns visiting in Jerusalem

Some anthropologists lend credence to the oral traditions of the Pashtun tribes themselves. For example, according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the Theory of Pashtun descent from Israelites is traced to Maghzan-e-Afghani who compiled a history for Khan-e-Jehan Lodhi in the reign of Mughal Emperor Jehangir in the 16th century CE. Another book, that corresponds with most Pashtun historical records, Taaqati-Nasiri, states that in the 7th century a people called the Bani Israel settled in Ghor, southeast of Herat, Afghanistan and then migrated south and east. These Bani Israel references are in line with the commonly held view by Pashtuns that when the twelve tribes of Israel were dispersed (see Israel and Judah and Lost Ten Tribes), the tribe of Joseph, among other Hebrew tribes, settled in the region. Hence the term ' Yusef Zai' in Pashto translates to the 'sons of Joseph'. A similar story is told by Ferishta.

Sorry, but we had no tribe of Joseph.  Joseph was Jacob's 11th son by Rachel who had been sold by his brothers to a camel caravan and taken to Egypt where he became the pharaoh's right hand man.  Joseph's rights of ownership of land in Israel were given to Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Their mother was Asenath.  (Gen.41:50.) They could have come from them, as they were taken by the Assyrians.   

Maghzan-e-Afghani's Bani-Israel theory has largely been debunked due to historical and linguistic inconsistencies. The oral tradition is believed to be a myth that grew out of a political and cultural struggle between Pashtuns and Mughals, which explains the historical backdrop for the creation of the myth, the inconsistencies of the mythology, and the linguistic research that refutes any Semitic origins.

Other Pashtun tribes claim descent from Arabs including some even claiming to be descendants of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad (popularly referred to as sayyids). Some groups from Peshawar, and Kandahar, such as the Afridis, Khattaks, and Sadozais, also claim to be descended from Alexander the Great's Greeks. The Khakwani tribe found in an area from Khogyani district in Nangarhar province to as far east as Bahawalpur city in the south of Punjab claims to be Sayyid descendants of Muhammad.

Genetics                                 

  Genetic study sets out to uncover if there is a 2,700-year-old link to Afghanistan and Pakistan, decided on 13 years ago in 2010.  

 Paradoxically it is from the Pashtuns that the ultra-conservative Islamic Taliban movement in Afghanistan emerged. Pashtuns themselves sometimes talk of their Israelite connection, but show few signs of sympathy with, or any wish to migrate to, the modern Israeli state.

Now an Indian researcher has collected blood samples from members of the Afridi tribe of Pashtuns who today live in Malihabad, near Lucknow, in northern India. Shahnaz Ali, from the National Institute of Immuno­haematology in Mumbai, is to spend several months studying her findings at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa. A previous genetic study in the same area did not provide proof one way or the other.

Some have claimed to have found traces of them in modern day China, Burma, Nigeria, Central Asia, Ethiopia and even in the West. But it is believed that the tribes were dispersed in an area around modern-day northern Iraq and Afghanistan, which makes the Pashtun connection the strongest.

"Of all the groups, there is more convincing evidence about the Pathans than anybody else, but the Pathans are the ones who would reject Israel most ferociously. That is the sweet irony," said Shalva Weil, an anthropologist and senior researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Pashtuns have a proud oral history that talks of descending from the Israelites.

Their tribal groupings have similar names, including Yusufzai, which means sons of Joseph; and Afridi, thought by some to come from Ephraim. Some customs and practices are said to be similar to Jewish traditions: lighting candles on the sabbath, refraining from eating certain foods, using a canopy during a wedding ceremony and some similarities in garments.

Weil cautioned, however, that this is not proof of any genetic connection. DNA might be able to determine which area of the world the Pashtuns originated from, but it is not at all certain that it could identify a specific genetic link to the Jewish people.

Some are more certain, among them Navras Aafreedi, an academic at Luck­now University, himself a Pashtun from the Afridi tribe. His family trace their roots back to Pathans from the Khyber Agency of what is today north-west Pakistan, but he believes they stretch back further to the tribe of Ephraim.

"Pathans, or Pashtuns, are the only people in the world whose probable descent from the lost tribes of Israel finds mention in a number of texts from the 10th century to the present day, written by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as secularists," Aafreedi said.

But Weil said the work was absorbing, well beyond questions of immigration. "I find a myth that has been so persistent for so long, for 2,000 years, really fascinating," she said.

Moreover, we linked the unexplored genetic 

connection between Ashkenazi Jews and 

Pashtun. The presence of specific haplotypes J1b (4%) and K1a1b1a (5%) pointed to a genetic connection of Jewish conglomeration in the  Khattak tribe. Khattak or Khatak (Pashto: خټک, Urdu خٹک), is the name of an Afghan tribe belonging to the Karlan branch of the Afghans. The tribe's history is quite ancient. One of the earliest references about them are found in the 4th century BCE in Median Empire (Media And Arachosia). "The Medes were the sons of Japheth (son of Noah)  and mentioned in the Bible.  They cooperated with the Babylonians.   in the 6th century BCE.  Then they were defeated by Cyrus, the Jews' hero.  It's highly possible that some of our northern Israelite tribes were sold to the Medes, and that's my opinion.    

This was a result of an ancient genetic influx in the early Neolithic period that led to the formation of a diverse genetic substratum in present day Pashtun.

I checked Family Tree DNA and they have over 300 in a group testing the haplotypes of people from Afghanistan and Pakistan.  https://www.familytreedna.com/public/dna_afghan_pak?iframe=yresults  They tested with haplogroups that Jews also are found to have, with a lot of R, J1, J2, then they had L, O, C,H, and G.  There were men with Q, and my father was a Q. (QBZ67) to be exact.    I saw Q-M242 and that's ours at the beginning of our testing.  

Pashtun

As Chabad tells us:  In the year 3154, one hundred and ninety years after the two kingdoms had split, 

Menahem ben Gadi (743-736 BCE) seized the throne by assassinating Shallum (743) —who had ruled for a mere month—and became the sixteenth king of Israel. His brutal treatment of the citizens of Tiphsah, who refused to open the gates  of the city, is recorded in II Kings, 15:16.  When Tiglath-Pilser III invaded Syria and Israel, King Menahem was forced to pay him a heavy tribute.  

It was during his reign that the Assyrians invaded the land of Israel. King Menahem, a brutal monarch who at the slightest hint of rebellion would destroy entire cities, had to contend both with his rapidly decreasing popularity and with the Assyrian invasion. 

As such, rather than resist the invaders, he preferred to levy a heavy tax on his subjects in order to pay tribute to the Assyrians in exchange for a promise to support his rule.

The weight of Assyria’s dominion over the land of Israel began to bear down more heavily. King Pekah (735-730 BCE) seized the throne after assassinating King Pekahiah (736-735 BCE), Menahem’s son. Seeing that there was no escape from complete subjugation by Assyria, he joined the revolt which King Rezin of Syria had organized against Assyria, in the hope of enlisting Egypt in an effort to stem the tide of the Assyrian conquest.

That's what the northern tribes were left with when the Assyrians marched them away, brutality in their own land.  It's a wonder they had learned about candles on a Friday night that they still practiced, not knowing why.  They would have met up with brutality practiced by the Assyrians as well.  Considering the environment they had lived under, it's amazing they held onto Pashtunwali, the creed of creating a kinder society.  

Following the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the original regime in 2001, the Taliban regrouped across the border in Pakistan and began taking back territory less than ten years after their ouster. By August 2021, the Taliban had swept back into power. Their swift offensive came as the United States withdrew its remaining troops from Afghanistan as outlined in a 2020 peace agreement with the group.

The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, twenty years after their ouster by U.S. troops. Under their harsh rule, they have cracked down on women’s rights and neglected basic services.

Reference:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalva_Weil

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/17/israel-lost-tribes-pashtun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_captivity

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/losttribes.html

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan

https://muslimbaniisrael.wordpress.com/khattak-the-tribe-of-manasseh/#:~:text=Khattak%20or%20Khatak%20(Pashto%3A%20%D8%AE%D9%BC%DA%A9,Empire%20(Media%20And%20Arachosia).

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/are-the-taliban-descendants-of-israel-678995

Will Afghani Women Ever Have Equal Rights Like the World's Women?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

Women of the USA have only had the right to vote for the past 100 years.  It was on August 20, 1920, that they won this right after a lot of leg-work.  It meant that the 19th amendment was ratified to the Constitution giving women citizenship and the right to vote!  The first conference addressing the US women's suffrage movement was the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.  It took 72 years to bring it to fruition.  

 It took a Civil War to give Black men and women the right to vote which happened April 12, 1861 – April 9, 1865. Most black men in the United States did not gain the right to vote until after the American Civil War. In 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified to prohibit states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on “race, color or previous condition of servitude."  Even that wasn't enough to encourage every State to allow them to vote; depending on whether or not they could read, and what books, etc, stipulations that could keep them from voting rights. it wasn't till the 1960s and President Kennedy and his brother, Robert, that Blacks started to be given rights.             

Voting rights activist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa) of the Yankton Sioux Nation was prominent in the women's suffrage community.ETTMANN ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES

In 1920, Native Americans weren’t allowed to be United States citizens, so the federal amendment did not give them the right to vote. Yet, the first generation of white suffragists had studied Native communities to learn from a model of government that included women as equal democratic actors. Many of their own native society gave women strong governmental rights, especially some tribes of the East Coast.   

                                               

Asian American immigrant women were  excluded from voting until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 allowed them to gain citizenship more than three decades after the 19th Amendment. Despite being barred from citizenship and from voting, Asian American suffragists such as Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee worked alongside white Native-born women in the years leading up to 1920;

The British colonies in North America were among the historical settings in which many Jews could not vote because they were Jews.  Yet elders of Eretz Yisrael, in days before Israel was created, had Judges, and women had the opportunity to be just that.  Such women as Deborah was a judge and a prophet as well.  Mirium, the sister of Moses, was one of the leaders during the Exodus.  Huldah was a prophetess during the time of King Josiah.  Esther, Jewish,  was a queen in Persia who was married to King Ahasueros. She was able to stop a holocaust of all Jews in the realm, almost all the known world then, caused by Haman.   Jewish women were not in the background, They were able to speak out.                                                                            

Before 1776, each American colony had its own, uniquely phrased law about voter qualifications. Typically, white men over the age of  21 who owned 50 acres of land might vote, but the details varied by colony and were often a bit murky. The property requirement might be higher or lower; ownership of a certain amount of personal property, or the payment of a certain amount in taxes, might suffice. Expectations about voters’ race and gender were not necessarily made explicit, and teenagers often voted in militia elections. Perhaps 10 to 20 percent of American colonists had the right of suffrage: a remarkable achievement in the 18th-century world, but pitifully low in comparison with the 21st century ideal of universal suffrage for adults.                                          

Jewish women in Palestine also pushed for women's rights in the same era. Founders and leaders of the Union of Hebrew Women for Equal Rights in Erez Israel, which was established in 1919 to campaign for women's suffrage in Palestine and battled for equal rights for women until the establishment of the State in 1948, when it merged with the WIZO organization. (L to R, seated): Zipporah Klausner, Dr. Hannah Berachyahu, Rosa Welt-Straus, Sarah Azaryahu, Hasya Sukenik-Feinsod, (standing):Masha Skivin, Nehamah Pukhachewsky, Rahel Golomb, Fania Metman-Cohen, Adah Twersky, Adah Geller.
Courtesy of Ha-Keren le-Ezrat ha-Isha .  

Golda Meir became Prime Minister on March 17, 1969 till June 3, 1974.   

Germany's law enabling female suffrage came into effect on November 30, 1918. A look at the activists who contributed to this achievement and why there's still much to be done in the country to claim equal rights. Men are too emotional to vote, feminist US author Alice Duer Miller wrote back in 1915.      

In 1791, French playwright and women's rights activist Olympe de Gouges wrote the “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen” — and her demands and ideas led to her arrest and beheading at the guillotine two years later.  In France, women became enfranchised through legislation passed in 1944. French women were able to vote the following year in the nation's first general election held after German occupation.

                                                  

  Working together gives equality, often shown in paychecks, not always, but come with its own set of problems, too.  

Western civilization enjoys picnics, when the family gets together. This happens because we live in the Western Civilization. 

                                                   

Afghanistani women before Taliban.  What happened?  Did men suddenly fear their freedom?  The Taliban was born in September 1994 in Kandahar, Afghanistan.  The 1964 Constitution of Afghanistan granted women equal rights including universal suffrage and the right to run for office.  It wasn't luck that gave us women the right to vote, but a lot of hard work and women organizing to pool their strength.  Obviously, Afghanis women, worked hard, too.  

ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban are ganging up and taking over Afghanistan.  These people are from a very different culture, as different from the West as if they were on the moon.   Taliban says one thing but does the other.  Females had rights, but since the Taliban takeover, have lost them all.  No one dares to help them.  ISIS believes in keeping women covered as if in a tent completely, and out of sight, out of mind.  It must be that they are so easily sexually stimulated, that they cannot function upon seeing a woman.  So they have learned to go to such extreme lengths.  Socially, their society has never mixed in with women; no dances, being in schools together, working together, nothing. 

                                                 

Women wait in line to receive food in Kabul in 2001.

 Photographer: Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

 There’s not a single woman in the new cabinet and officials have announced that women will only be allowed to study at universities in gender-segregated classrooms. Islamic dress is compulsory.  After the Soviets retreated in 1989, the Taliban, which formed in the early 1990s as a movement among pious youth, eventually gained the upper hand. They marched through the country promising peace and modern government, but the reality was different under their rule from 1996 to 2001, especially for women. They were banned from school, work, speaking in public and even from leaving their homes unless escorted by a male, and they were forced to cover themselves in the burqa, a one-piece garment that covers the entire head and body. Penalties for violations included public lashings and death by stoning.  Yet, are women protected from such things as rape in this society where they are covered up?  While there have been reports in Nangarhar, the eastern province where Islamic State first appeared in 2014 and in Zabul in the south, deep taboos that can make it impossible for women to report sexual abuse make it hard to know its scale.  Reports I've read show that they are definitely being taken advantage of, and their husbands had better take up a sub-machine gun to protect them.  

                                                   

Expecting people of the East to follow suit immediately, especially now, is like trying to reach pie in the sky. They will have to re-group and end up with a modern society which means getting rid of the present one if they expect a difference in their world and be happy with the changes.  Though women must follow the Sharia law today, women are not better off then their Western sisters when it comes to such things as rapes.  It hasn't been that long that Western Society has given women the vote. Under the Taliban, will women be able to use their right to vote?  Probably only if they vote the Taliban choice.  

                 After all, they will want to show the West how fair they are.  

Women everywhere had a hard time finding their voice.  Their role was that of a 2nd class citizen.  As the world looks on, the Taliban are not the norm of the Muslim religion, yet they are taking over a whole country or countries, a religion of extremism.  Half of Afghanistan has been hijacked.    

Resource:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdnfNKNK4wo, Gravitas from India

https://www.heritagesociety.org/virtualtoursuffrage?gclid=Cj0KCQjw8eOLBhC1ARIsAOzx5cFxXrTaKgLOPYzvEwO-vndCgNq2XdB2a4LoQh-XE-0O0avysd2iIskaAijqEALw_wcB

https://www.alumniportal-deutschland.org/en/germany/country-people/how-german-women-obtained-the-right-to-vote-100-years-ago/#:~:text=Germany's%20law%20enabling%20female%20suffrage,Miller%20wrote%20back%20in%201915.

https://momentmag.com/could-jews-vote-in-early-america/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-islamic-state-rape/horrors-that-cant-be-told-afghan-women-report-islamic-state-rapes-idUSKBN1KK0WG

Earth: Divided Between East and West--Two Different Worlds

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

The earth's population is divided between the East and the West.  It's like night and day.  Approximately 300,000 years ago, the first Homo sapiens — anatomically modern humans — arose alongside our other hominid relatives.  Somewhere along the way, we are able to read about Abraham, who lived much later, in the 2nd millenniium BCE, born in about 1948 BCE in Ur of the Chaldees.  It was a highly developed civilization in what we call Mesopotamia and it was south of Babylon on the Euphrates River.  That area is in today's Iraq.  

                                                                              

As we already know, Abraham and his family migrated Westward to Canaan, a far more primitive area and set up their tents-used for camping as they had come from sturdy homes.  Abraham was spoken to by G-d and told that there was but one G-d, not a whole pantheon of gods as other people were believing, and that set in motion his descendants who followed his beliefs.  Abraham was quite a modern man as far as time goes.  

 Egypt had also been a civilized land.  Their pre-dynastic period of existence started in 5,000 BCE to 3100 BCE.  For almost 30 centuries—from its unification around 3100 B.C.E to its conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.—ancient Egypt was the preeminent civilization in the Mediterranean world.                                         

Next came Moses born in 1391 BCE  with a set of laws pertaining towards justice and the explanation of the beginnings of science, explaining their origins and where they were. He, an Israelite, was brought up by an Egyptian princess and received the same education as the royal family.  He introduced on the Exodus from Egypt to Canaan a set of moral values that pertained to justice for their society.   They were taught that there was only one G-d, the same god that Abraham had believed in. They were from Abraham's family.  

Rome invaded Jerusalem at the end of the 2nd century BCE, and in this act, tried to force the people away from their Jewish beliefs and accept polytheistic gods as theirs.  By then end of the 1st century BCE, some Jews in Bethlehem and Jerusalem became followers of a Jew, Jesus,  who they felt was the Messiah hoped for,, especially during troubling times like they were in at that time.  He would come and bring peace.  However, it was Rome who brought nothing but trouble by burning down the Temple and the city of Jerusalem.  People were starved to death, killed and then taken as slaves to be sold in Rome for the games-a fate ending in horrid death.                                                        

As for the city, the Romans  used the Temple as a center of military activity and was destroyed by these conquering Romans.  After 70 CE when they destroyed the Jewish Temple,, they later built a Roman temple on the site, and since the Moslem Period, a mosque was built over the Roman temple, and that is the Mosque of Omar.                                                        

The Arch of Titus; Rome' s own recording of Jewish slaves from Jerusalem entering Rome bearing the goods from the Temple of gold and silver shortly after 70 CE.  

With the affects of 70 CE, Jews were slaves taken to Rome, where free Jews had settled earlier being part of trading and selling and living in many ports as they became part of the West.  They became the Ashkenazim Jews.  Their history remains in the West as those that survived  later spread out.  Others, fleeing from Jerusalem and the Roman restrictions, went to Iberia (Spain and closer cities in Mesopotamia where they felt safe from the Romans.)  They became the Sephardim and Mizrachim Jews.    

It took till Mohammad was born  (570-632) and taught that their was but one G-d that other descendants of Abraham came to accept the realization of one God with Mohammad's death.  Then his followers spread his knowledge, but with the sword. 

                                                                 

The Blue Mosque in Afghanistan, Islam in Afghanistan began to be practiced after the Arab Islamic conquest of Afghanistan from the 7th to the 10th centuries, with the last holdouts to conversion submitting in the late 19th century. Islam is the official state religion of Afghanistan, with approximately 99.7% of the Afghan population being Muslim. Roughly 90% practice Sunni Islam, while around 10% are Shias. Most Shians belong to the Twelver branch and only a smaller number follow Ismailism.

 They went into Europe forcing their religion upon others. Islam gained its first genuine foothold in continental Europe from 711 onward, with the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The Arabs renamed the land Al-Andalus, which expanded to include the larger parts of what is now Portugal and Spain, excluding the northern highlands. Muhammad brought a different set of values and his own idea of justice, said to have come to him by the angel, Gabriel, that was part of the Jewish history.  Sharia Law was the Islamic version, not the Mosaic Law of the Jews, though a few ideas match each other; and the main one is that of the belief in one G-d only, and the need for justice in both groups.                                                                                           

       Spain under Muslim Rule in 711, Muslim forces invaded Spain. In seven years they conquered much of the Iberian peninsula. Under Muslim rule, Spain became one of the great Muslim civilizations. It reached its peak under the 10th-century, Cordoba-based Umayyad caliphate. Muslim rule declined after that and ended in 1492 when Christian Spaniards completed their Reconquista and claimed Granada, the last Muslim territory in Spain. The heartland of Muslim rule was in Andulusia in southern and southeastern Spain. [Source: BBC |::|]  Notice that it was in 1492 that Columbus sailed the ocean blue-meaning that the Spanish Inquisition  was in full bloom and Jews had been told that they had to convert to Christianity or leave the land.                                                 

     Islamic architecture in Europe:  An Initiative Recommendation 1162 on “The Contribution of the Islamic Civilization to the European Culture”, issued by the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council in September 19^th, 1991. This initiative was promoted by FUNCI, in collaboration with the European Council, the Commission of the European Communities (today the European Union), and UNESCO, and counted with the support of the Spanish socialist group. The project took form through an international colloquium under the same name, previously launched in Paris, in the UNESCO and Institut du Monde Arabe’s headquarters, with the goal of informing the European Members of Parliament of the contribution of the Islamic civilization to the shaping of the European culture, certainly showing up in architecture.  

Islam entered Southern Europe through the expansion after Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 8th–10th centuries; Muslim political entities existed firmly in what is today Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and Malta for several centuries. The Muslim community in these territories was converted or expelled by the end of the 15th century by Christian polities (see Reconquista). Islam expanded into the Caucasus through the Muslim conquest of Persia in the 7th century. The Ottoman Empire expanded into southeastern Europe, invading and conquering huge portions of the Serbian Empire, Bulgarian Empire, and all the remaining Byzantine Empire in the 14th and 15th centuries.   

Over the centuries, the Ottoman Empire gradually lost almost all of its European territories, until it was defeated and eventually collapsed in 1922. Islam spread in Eastern Europe via the conversion of the Volga Bulgars, Cuman-Kipchaks, and later the Golden Horde and its successor khanates, with its various Muslim peoples called "Tatars" by the Russians.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, large numbers of Muslims immigrated to Western Europe. By 2010, an estimated 44 million Muslims were living in Europe (6%), including an estimated 19 million in the EU (3.8%). They are projected to comprise 8% or 58 million by 2030. They are often the subject of intense discussion and political controversy created by events such as Islamic terrorist attacks in European countries, the cartoons affair in Denmark, debates over Islamic dress, and ongoing support for right-wing populist parties that view Muslims as a threat to European culture.  Such events have also fueled growing debate regarding the topic of Islamophobia, attitudes toward Muslims, and the populist right.

                                                

The Moors were a part of the division of East and West.  The term Moor is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. The Moors initially were the indigenous Maghrebine Berbers. The name was later also applied to Arabs and Arabized Iberians.  Moorish architecture, like all Islamic architecture, has distinctive motifs: rounded arches, Arabic calligraphy, vegetative design, and decorative tiles. There are many motifs, or repeated patterns, in Moorish architecture. The Moors were Muslim and influenced by the Islamic architecture that developed in the Middle East. 

                                            

  Although mosques are the most common examples of Moorish architecture, motifs spread to the design of homes and places of businesses. One of the most famous examples of Moorish architecture, the Mezquita or Grand Mosque of Cordoba, Spain, is today the region's Catholic cathedral.

The difference that matters in the East and West is that Israel sticks out like a sore thumb among their counterparts who also believe in one G-d only.  They stick out because they had been forced to lived in Europe where they were exposed to a new way of life and a lot of education for their active minds.  They brought back to their ancient land of Israel, now under the name the Romans had given it as Palestine and in the 1880s returned and started using the science they had gained.  Their religion had remained the same, but now was being monitored by Rabbis and not the Temple that had been destroyed.  Instead of the Temple, centers had been built called synagogues.  They were not accepted by the population; a  population of descendants of Abraham, their 1st cousins many many many times removed.    

British soldiers-Europe holding anti-Semitism, keeping Jews out of the country from 1290 to 1655. 

                                                               

                           Fighters against Jews in Middle East
 

The Jews had returned hoping for a chance to observe their religion in peace, but instead were greeted by war.  The enigma is that they were picked on and hated in Europe  for their religion that did not elevate Jesus, a Jew, in the manner that his followers had wanted and expected.  If these Jews would not accept him, they were  to be hated and killed, as many were told to believe.  Then they were hated and killed in Palestine by Muslim leaders such as the Sherif of Jerusalem for being different, bringing Western ways, they said, into their Eastern-believing land.  

Another point just learned, the East observes and follows the act of circumcision, but the West barely does.  The % of circumcized males in Europe is very low, but in the East, is almost 100% for both cousins, Jews and Arabs.  Abraham did make an impression on both descendants.  It is the mark of a man who believes in one G-d though many Westerners may not realize it.  

                                              

The Taliban, who bring Sharia law to their people and are most strict about it, are trying to bring justice.  They are made up mostly of Pashtuns, who are most likely from the Lost 10 tribes of Jacob/Israel, taken away from their homeland in 721 BCE.    According to Gravitas, a WION production shown on Youtube, they have set up judges, something that the Israelites had set up after Joshua had died and before the days of King David.  I saw an example of a judging of 3 men who had broken the law.  It was brilliant.  I could imagine that Deborah or Othniel was judging.  If this were a normal example of how they worked, it was brilliant.  The judging was  logical and fair and the 3 men accepted the ruling.  I agreed silently. 

 That may be the only good thing the Taliban is doing as they are interfering with every aspect of the people's lives.  There is no such thing as freedom in their towns.  They are trying to make people into something like robots; obeying every smidgeon of laws coming out their imaginations.  They have laws that they haven't even shared as yet with the Afghanis and had expected them to obey.  

So much of the East is undeveloped, more like it was back in the 1st century CE.  The West is fully developed in every way technically, more like what was dreamed about in the 1940s in science fiction, and we are now living in it, while the east is just being introduced to it with cell phones and ammunition.        

  Nearly half the Afghan children don't go to school, with girls disproportionally affected.  This is the way it has been up to last year.  Will it now improve?   Have the Taliban seen the light?  Conflict, poverty, child marriage and discrimination against girls are reportedly the main reasons of not attending.  

The East, or most of the people, have the equivalent of a 2nd grade education, and this the Taliban seem to realize.  Their education for girls consists of their religion and math. Their math lesson was absolutely foreign to me as well as the symbols, so I hope the children are learning.  What I saw was a method that dodged memorizing the times tables that escapes me.  The girls, sitting on the floor with their tablets and pencils, were quiet and had a man for a teacher that was a brave step for the Taliban.  Of course, this was what was filmed; to make a hit with the West.   Their people have been well-versed, even to the point of memorizing the Koran, but were not educated in reading, writing, or much arithmetic as most of the West has been.  

                                              

The Taliban says it doesn't want any ties with Israel. 

How will the two halves blend in peace?  The Taliban in the numbers of Core strength - 45,000 (2001 est.) 11,000 (2008 est.) 36,000 (2010 est.) 60,000 (2014 est.) 60,000 (2017 est. excluding 90,000 local militia and 50,000 support elements) 75,000 (2021 est.)

Talibans have fought off the Russians and the Americans with some modern weapons and their ancient knowledge of fighting for their beliefs.  They had more self assurance in themselves than their enemies did.  Those they were fighting when the Americans withdrew were their neighbors and relatives who just backed down quickly.  They knew their enemy and could not fight them.  Most on both sides were Pashtuns.  The USA should have taken this into account.  

                                          

It's amazing that the religion, Islam, that once brought beautiful architecture to Europe along with their modern-type religion, so new, but lately all the terrorists have brought is death with their interpretation of  Sharia Law.  They have receded mentally and morally  instead of advancing. 

 

Resource:

https://www.wionews.com/gravitas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEGUFAr-acY  from GRAVITAS, a WION production, I believe out of India.  

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/05/15/what-was-it-like-when-the-first-humans-arose-on-earth/?sh=43810a4f6997

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Europe

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/ancient-egypt

https://funci.org/the-influence-of-the-islamic-civilization-in-europe/?lang=en

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/who-were-moors#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMoor%E2%80%9D%20came%20to%20mean%20anyone,Othello%2C%20the%20Moor%20of%20Venice.