The Ethiopian disease

Reader's post: L. Kavakos

Some things in history are just amazing to me, among them is the survival of a Christian Ethiopia that was completly cut off from the rest of Christianity for over a milennium and was compleetly surrounded by muslims (who had a special religious interest in Ethiopia, because Muhammad himself ordered the king of Axum to submit and because a rouge Ethiopian general suposedly dared to ATTACK THE BLACK STONE (pbui) ITSELF!!!!! (and even draged an elephant through the sands of half Arabia (and fed and drank it on the whole way). But this small people on the fringe of (at that time broad) Christian world did not only refused to submitt, it also withstood one muslim invasion after the other. Sadly the complete hostility of the surrounding world has taken a toll on this once very civilized people (who took much from the greek colonys on the cost of whats now Eritrea, who were subjects to the Axumite king). Despite keeping their Christianity, European travelers who came to Ethiopia in the 18th century saw the large difference between the old Ethiopian civilisation they read about in books and the much harsher reality. Constant struggle for survival as well as little trade and contact with Christians outside of Ethiopia (while a lot of "contact" with Muslims and pagans) has barbarized the Ethiopians. It is sad to see how the Islamic ounslaught that mostly reduced Christianity to Europe crippled and hurt even thous who were able to survive it. What was crippled ruined and closed minded Byzantion compared with Justinians splendid, multiethnical Roman empire, what was the Kilikian rump state created by a rag tag bunch of imigrants, compared to the splendid Armenia that as the first country in the world compleetly embraced Christianity, what was Ethiopia of the 1500s or even the 1800s compared to the great Axumite kingdom.....

I look at it and get such a feeling of overwhelming sorrow, how much has Asia and Africa (and Europe too) lost because a tribal warlord from Asias most barbaric region unleashed Islam on the world and while truly great even the achievments of thous few Christians who survived Jihad seem so small compared to what they COULD have been if the unity of the Mediteranian world, if the great Christian and Hellenistic Euro-Asian-African unity would not have been destroyed by Islam. As great as european civilisation has become this united hellenistic civilisation that would have spread deeper into Asia and Africa had the potential to become even greater (I can bring just such names as Alexandria and Antiochia were so many inventions and great Christian ideas came from before Islam obliterated them and what about the old Roman frase (more or less) "From Africa allways comes good" showing the wealth and the high culture of Roman north Africa and Egypt)......the advance of Islam and the inability of Christians (especialy us, Orthodox Christians) to stop it is one of the greatest tragedys in the history of mankind. I pray for the Ethiopians but I fear the wound inflicted on them by Islam will never heal, it is sad that an act of kindness (An Axumite king allowed most of Islams core comunity to take refuge in his country) had such tragic consequences.