reminds me of a quick game of RISK

just remember that oftentimes religion is just an excuse for waging war.

n. ireland long since devolved into criminal gangs setting the agenda under the guise of catholic vs protestant.

I don't know I think that religion is an excuse for war is a misnomer. Secular wars have been far more numerous and bloody than those fought over God.

After all the Bloodiest century is the 20th century
and neither Hitler or Stalin strike me as religious zealots. Combined those 2 cowboys account for some 100 million deaths.

Wars are I believe are fought far more frequently for economic advantage that facilitates a consolidation of power.

What are ya kiddin'? Hitler was extremely religious. Besides, the existence of non-religious wars hardly disproves the original statement; religion IS an excuse for waging war, it's just not the only excuse. Even religious wars are usually started due to political goals and greed, they're just cloaked in religion to make them easier to sell/justify to the people.

I'm sorry Alex I had no idea Hitlers armies were marching to further the word of God. I have always been under the impression it was for economic and socio political power. He may have believed God was on his side but that's not what he went to war about.

Further I did not say that religious wars did not exist what I did say was that religion is far to frequently put forward as the cause when some investigation would put the lie to that statement.

As for cloaking political greed in religion I hadn't even thought of that. Good point though.

I'm not sure that Hitler was all that religious. I believe he was actually more superstitious than religious and gave a nod to Christianity because it was expected.

Kate

That's brilliant.

I have a son who had a hard time learning to read.

In a state of syncronicity I happened to be taking training in something called Auditory Discrimination in Depth.

It was all about discerning the subilities of sound. To do so colored cubic blocks are used to represent a phoneme....a sound.......pppppp is blue.....bbbbb is red....etc.

As trained I would coach him on the sounds and the corresponding colours. He would have to sound out the consonats as he manipulated the colored blocks. I would say a nonsense word and he would have to sound it out.

An example...PPRST. Sound em out.

That was when he was in grade 1, by grade 3 he was reading the Lord of the Rings....all three books.

I hope that the logiocally deficient amongst us can understand the colours , the cubes and the consequences.

Or is that too much to hope for?

Syncro

Ethiopia (Coptic Christian) would be very upset at being shown as assimilated Muslim...

Hitler wasn't religious at all, Alex. He was anti-religious. What he was was an "Aryan" supremacist and imperialist. Nothing to do with any god... just race.

As for "cloaking political greed in religion", that's precisely what Islam is all about... what it's always been about. Islam isn't really a religion- it's a false religion disguising pure greed and pure evil.

As for the 90-sec film, it certainly puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Just compare the tiny, tiny, tiny area encompassed by Judaism in Israel to the massive surrounding area encompassed by Islam. Surely the Islamists don't need to take that tiny little speck of land from the Jews? How on earth could the Jews ever take over the Islamic land? I mean, think about it... Islam wants that tiny piece of land... just because Islam requires this intolerance and imperialism. The Muslims want it for the sake of Islam. They lie to justify it. And that is the truth.

Israel/Judaism is the victim. Islam is the predator.

Don't let anyone lie to you and tell you the opposite.

Sentinel:"it's a false religion disguising pure greed and pure evil."

Islam is a parody of Christianity; thus, it is a false religion, indeed. A parody is not the thing being parodied.

The secular false religion is socialism: its task/work is to replace Heaven-Paradise after death with a utopian paradise on earth before death. In its failed attempts to bring this about, socialism kills the heretics/non-believers by the tens of millions, aka Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, et al. This is a similarity with Islam.

Socialism's preachers, e.g. The late Rev. Tommy Douglas, the Rev. L. Calvert, Trudeau, Castro, et al, believe socialism is the end result/culmination of Christianity. Socialism thus displaces organized religion with its own organization; Socialism is the true religion, the socialists believe. Socialism is a religion.
...-

Quote:

"In this respect our class struggle is different from all previous ones, for by virtue of our materialist science we recognize it to be exactly what it is, namely, a struggle for the economic transformation of society. Although we feel the high importance of this struggle, and often express it in our writings, that it shall bring
freedom and brotherhood to mankind,
realize the Christian ideals of human love,
and emancipate human thought from the oppression of superstition, nevertheless we do not represent this struggle as an ethical one for a moral ideal, as a juristic one for absolute liberty and justice, or as a spiritual one against superstition."

(The above quote is the Big Lie, the evil deception of socialism.)

Here is the acknowledgement: Socialism is a religion of materialism; an anti-spiritual religion.

"For we know, that it is waged in reality for the revolution of the mode of production, for the requirements of production, and all other things are but results flowing from this basis."

Anton Pannekoek 1907
Socialism and Religion

Tribal factions, religious zealotry engulfs the Middle East and has spread it's tentacles through immigration to Western democracies.
The madness in the Muslim world, Middle East in general, is religion, racism gone amok, nothing to do with God.

They have been fighting religious/tribal wars for centuries, the difference today lies in the fact they have taken their sick way of life Global through terrorism with the help of wacko led countries like Iran and Syria.

Very interesting. Nice link Kate.

Alex's views are typical, alas. The Nazi's were pagan, period.

If Hitler was a Christian, pray tell: what church did he go to on Sunday? I mean: give me the exact name and address of the building. Can you name his pastor? Did he have a favourite parable or Bible verse?

You can't answer these questions, can you?

Here, an atheist explains it all for you.

www.colbycosh.com/#rlcc

Northern Ireland: this was a tribal/land rights fight. As the other poster admits himself, it took on the guise of religion, but that's not how it started out. The IRA wasn't fighting the Protestants over transubstantiation or the Queenship of Mary.

"The secular false religion is socialism: its task/work is to replace Heaven-Paradise after death with a utopian paradise on earth before death."
Good one, maz2.
Yes, and to replace God with a demigod, as per your examples. So far none of the socialist heroes have quite lived up to the task.

facinating, I wish there was one that showed the distribution of literacy and freedom.

Yeah, keep it up socialists, abort more babies, allow more muslims to immigrate...

"So far none of the socialist heroes have quite lived up to the task"
dmorris
Agreed, but that's only because Steven Lewis, has'nt been given a "real" audition yet.

How apt that the time-dimensional map looks like the spread of contagions. Speaking as an anti-idealist toward all idealisms, there is not much difference between communism/socialism/fascism and more traditional religions: apodictic belief in absolute ideals, community mental indoctrination rituals performed regularly, etc. It is the rigid certainty in ideals that is the fulcrum that levers the killing instincts. It takes a lot more to get a pragmatist enthused about engaging in mortqal combat. Where religions do best is keeping the reproductive and killing instincts in check within a society. Communism killed far more of its own citizens than it did its foreign enemies.

The Muslim areas should have been coloured blood red.

Jacques Ellul from The Influence of Islam

I believe that in every respect the spirit of Islam is contrary to that of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. It is so in the basic fact that the God of Islam cannot be incarnate. This God can only be the sovereign judge who ordains all things as he wills. Another point of antithesis lies in the absolute integration of religious and political law. The expression of God's will inevitably translate itself into law. No law is not religious, inspired by God. Reciprocally, all God's will must translate itself into legal terms. Islam pushed to an extreme a tendency that is virtual in the Hebrew Bible, but there it is symbolic of the spiritual and is then transcended by Jesus Christ; with Islam we come back to legal formulation as such.

I have shown elsewhere that the twofold formulation of “having a law” and the “objective law” is contrary to revelation. This can naturally be contested only by champions of natural law and classical theology. My conviction is that this revelation of love, seeking to set up a relationship of love (alone) amongst us, and thus basing everything on grace and giving us a model of exclusively gracious relationships, is in fact the exact opposite of law, in which everything is measured by debits and credits (the opposite of grace) and duties (the opposite of love).

Just some glaring inaccuracies on the eastern front. Islam did come into India in the form of the Mughal empire, but the regime wasnt driven by religion- they never tried to spread Islam- in fact Akbar the Great (one of only two Indian Rulers given the title "the Great", the other was Ashoka of the Mauryan Empire that existed in the BC time period) propagated his own religion - a synthesis of South Asian religions. This map seems to suggest that the invasion of India was driven by religion. History tells a different story. That said there were periodic raids by Islamic rulers but they rarely ventured in further than parts of the Indian west- much of which is modern day Pakistan.

Just some random facts that have been ignored by the map.

The debate about Hitler and religion is an interesting one. We all know he used an inverted HIndu swastika as an Aryan symbol(Hindus are believed to be Aryans-85% of the Indian population is classified as Indo-Aryan, the other significant group are the dravids of the south).

Hitler also used a very famous Christian symbol - the cross that had been used by the Teutonic knights during the crusades. It showed up in the Nazi regime in various forms - all aircraft in teh air force for example. The medals were also crosses-Iron Cross 1st and Second class being amongst the most famous.

That said, the Teutonic Cross appears to have predated the Nazi regime. It appears to have been inherited from the Holy Roman Empire.

"Islam is a parody of Christianity; thus, it is a false religion, indeed."

Judaism says the same thing about Christianity. Does that make Christianity a false religion too?

This one would have theology and history majors laughing till it hurt. Too much historic nuance lost in 90 second replays of 5000 year epochs. I wonder why that short visual format was chosen? Is 90 seconds the average attention span of secular progressives? ;)

I don't expect too much out of condensing 5000 years in 90 seconds (particularly the amount of time spent on the last 1000 years), but is it accurate to lable Russia as Christian (officially atheistic for about 70 years) or China as Bhuddist (officially atheistic since the 50's)? Throw all of the other communist regimes in that pot.

Other than that, and other points raised, this did show a fairly good trend on the dominant influence of religion in specific areas.

New to the thread here, but Jeff Cosford is right. Even with the Cathar crusade, the Inquisition, Reformation, Counter-Reformation, Thirty Years' War, history also shows that the secular (fascist, communist) dictatorships, starting with Bastille Day, have murdered in the hundreds of millions. Not bad (tonque in cheek, here) considering Christianity had a 1800 year head start.

aagh, sorry that's TONGUE in cheek, in case you were wondering. :)

Liberal & secular democracies do not start wars, all others do.

Conservative Christians (e.g. WWI): Germany, Austria, Russia, England.

Religious Communists (WW2, war in their people): China, Soviet

Religious/Christian Nazis/Fascists (WW2): Germany, Italy

Actually one of the root causes for WW1 was Social Darwinism. The Idea taken up by the European Political elites emphasized the violent struggle for existence between the races or nations in which the weak would inevitably be destroyed by the stronger.

Ahh it's good to be lefty huh.

But you van't deny that all major powers in WW1 were conservative Christian powers?

Btw, all these countries fought with God on their side and had the clergy bless their weapons. I wonder how God decides who should win?

Social engineering is another thing all statists have in common, be they socialists or conservatives.

Ever heard the saying there are no atheists in foxholes. Don't know what your point is regarding motivations but anyway.

huh?

The Christian Socialist Movement
"Our values"

"We believe that Christian teaching should be reflected in laws and institutions and that the Kingdom of God finds its political expression in democratic socialist policies."

Objects includes:"A classless society based on equal worth and without discrimination."
...-

Say, Amen, comrades.

old hack: If Islamic rulers 'rarely ventured in further than parts of the Indian west', how do we account for the approximately 125 million Muslims in Bangladesh, (formerly East Pakistan)?

"old hack: If Islamic rulers 'rarely ventured in further than parts of the Indian west', how do we account for the approximately 125 million Muslims in Bangladesh, (formerly East Pakistan)?"

I m going to assume that you actually want an answer to that question, and that it wasnt meant as a deliberate slight...

The zealous Islamic invaders I talk of - Taimur the Lame, Ghauri and Ghaznavi - they rarely got past Saurashtra, which is western India. They came, they looted, they raped, and most importantly, they left. They didnt stick around to forcefully convert anymore - most certainly not the muslims of Bengal.

The Mughals came to India in the 1500s. It was under Babur and his successors that Islamic influence spread in India - eastward and southward as shown in the map. Babur was a brilliant ruler in many ways - and interestingly enough, he was a direct descendent of Taimur the lame and Genghis Khan - quite a bloodline, eh?

He fled to India after losing Kabul and Samarkhand to his cousins, and even while in India, did not wish to stay there. He pulled off some spectacular military successes, and while he did belittle Hindus to a great degree, very few efforts were made to convert Hindus, or indeed, even destroy Hindu temples. There certainly were incidents where they did, such as Ayodhya, which causes problems in present day India, but historians generally believe that when these incidents occured they were primarily to serve political purposes - ie whos the boss. Hindus were allowed to continue to do as they wished. Temples and rituals were allowed unhindered. Hindus were also allowed to take up positions in the administration of the nation. It wasnt systematic. And there was no targetting.

However, there was no limit on conversion, and many engaged in it just to gain political advantage (many Hindus and Muslims would convert to Christianity while the British ruled for precisely the same reason).

Baburs descendants were all remarkably secular. Akbar the great went out of his way to marry Hindu princesses. He also created his own religion earning him the ire of the clerics. The muslim mughals also had alliances with hindu princes in Rajasthan to stave off the marathas from the south.

Incidents of forced conversion were rare if ever, and many seem to be recent creations by agenda driven Brits (who rewrote a lot Indian history to suit divide and rule policies). The complexities are too many to explain but it is hard to fault the Mughals or even suggest that they were driven by Islam. They were largely driven by political needs.

Even the most Ideological of them, Aurangzeb, burnt a few temples and targetted a few thousand hindus (not mass murder, but destruction of idols/temples in certain place) to appease clerics, but its worth noting that most of his trusted generals were Hindus.

That said, again people were free to convert and many of them did for political reasons, just as their descendants would convert to Christianity to gain His Majesty's favor.

And that in a nutshell is how muslims ended up in eastern parts of India too. The Mughal empire had very significant cultural centers in places such as Lucknow which influenced eastern parts of India. The Mughals knew they couldnt convert Hindus by force - they realised it a long time ago when they realised that Muslim converts wouldnt give up their hindu beliefs. Even the Portugese had to launch an inquisition in Goa to sort out Indian christians in the 1600s.

A bit of a history lesson I know. SOrry bout the length.

Oh, I forgot to add that Lord Curzon's divide and rule policy - and the subsequent division of Bengal into East and West Bengal resulted in the relocation of millions of Indian muslims into what would become East Pakistan. Prior to that they had been spread over across much of that area and were never really concentrated just in the East, as it might appear with the case of East Pakistan/Bangladesh. The huge amount never existed there - they moved there in recent history - at the turn of this century. The muslim presence there was not always as exaggerated as it became in the 20th century.

old hack: Thanks for the input. The question I asked was genuine.

Maps like this make me wonder what the colors will look like 50 years from now.

Joseph Campbell was the only guy I personally have read who discussed the challenges facing the religious world, because the great success of capitalism and technology has put everyone in everyone else's pocket.

Once upon a time, people might have had an interest in some religion in another part of the world, but they were secure in the religious identity of their own country. No more.

Although Catholics and Protestants get along pretty well these days, and Catholics acknowledge Protestantism's validity, still the apostates do not seem to be part of the Christian tradition when seen from the point of view of Catholic apologetics.

One of the laments of specialists in Catholic apologetics is that today, unlike centuries past, a kid driving down the street seeing a Presbyterian church on one corner, and a Catholic church on another corner, and a Baptist church on another, just automatically grows up as seeing all these churches having co-equal validity. Naturally, Catholic apologists feel that their churches should be seen as the actual church that Jesus set up, and these other denominations merely acknowledged.

Well, 50 years from now, a little further up the street will be a Buddhist temple (they already got in trouble channeling illegal funds to the Gore campaign in 2000). Up from them, a Hinud temple, and Sikh temple, and of course, a mosque.

In the US, Islam is building mosques all over the place with empty parking lots. They plan to fill them in the future as Islam gradually stamps out other religions, and we infidels are converted one way or another. (I'll go down shooting, but then that's just me.)

So the fact is, like the red and blue states, 50 years from now the yellow pages will be filled with many different foreign religions in North America. How will people theologically and intellectually deal with every world religion (let's not forget Wicca, which will be a major religion by that time), each Insisting that that they have the ontological truth in the matter?

And how will science deal with all this? Scientists have had an uneasy relationship with religion since Copernicus, and who can blame them? But they are accustomed to discussions on the basis of Christian theological points of view. How will scientists cope with intellectual arguments from dozens of historically developed, completely differing theological constructs?

It boggles the mind.

A nitpick, Spain was ruled by Muslims for centuries but it was always predominately Christian throughout that time.

Most wars (even the crusades) are about money pure and simple but religion has always served as a useful moral justification to lend moral authority to some pretty base activities.

As to comparing the warlike nature of nonreligious and religous countries we don't have much history to compare them too. Marxism is a religion basicaly (complete with a utopia and a priesthood) which is why it's intolerant of any other religions. The only truly athiest countries has been contemporary western Europe. That transformation from religious to athiesm also coincides with the continent swinging from arguably the most violent on the planet to the most peaceful.

But when it comes down to this people pick their conclusions first for purely ideological reasons and then construct the appropriate rationales to support them.

Old Hack you are absolutely wrong in your assertions about the Muslim conquest of India...all well-documented by the conquerors themselves. Pakistan was pretty much conquered by the 8th or 9th centuries....Turks overan much of modern-day India in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Mughals didn't come until much later...for more info check out "Legacy of Jihad" by Bostom.

Actually hack your assertions about the beneficence of Muslim rule in India are laughable...I think S.K. Lal would take exception!

'..not mass murder...', '...forced conversions were rare...', '...burnt a FEW temples...' My god, man, are you joking? Their own accounts contradict this!

Does anyone here know the Arabic word for campaigns of disinformation or trickery? Is it takfir?

Whatever it is, this jihadi-lover is practising it right now.

SOMAS

hinduunity.org

Some estimates of the Muslim pogram in India put the death total at 80,000,000.

1971-73 East Pak/Bangaladesh, Muslims butchered up to 2 million Hindus.

Disinformation/dissimilitude = taqiyya

Is old hack a Muslim? Regardless, he's full of shit:

The American historian Will Durant summed it up like this: 'The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It's a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex of order and freedom, culture and peace, can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.' The fears of Will Durant are getting confirmed in letter and spirit today.

The Muslim conquests, down to the 16th century, were for the Hindus a pure struggle of life and death. Entire cities were burnt down and the population massacred, with hundreds of thousands of Hindus killed in every campaign and similar numbers exported as slaves. Every new invader made (often literally) his hills of Hindu skulls. Thus the conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000 was followed by the annihilation of the Hindu population. This region is called the 'Hindu Kush' ie 'Hindu Slaughter'. The Bahmani Sultans (1347 - 1480) in Central India made it a rule to kill 100,000 Hindus every year. In 1399, Timur killed 100,000 Hindu captives in a single day and many more on other occasions. The conquest of the Vijayanagar Empire after the battle of Talikota in 1565 left the capital plus large areas of Karnataka depopulated. According to Arjun Singh, Historical Record Destruction (HRD) for Human Resource Destruction (HRD) these facts accepted round the world do not exist. In his book 'Growth of Muslim Population in India' K S Lal has estimated that the Indian population decreased by 80 million between the year of conquest of Afghanistan in 1000 AD and the end of Delhi Sultanate in 1525.

Revisionist history really is quite wonderful.

sonsofswinesandmonkeys

I was pointing out inaccuracies in the map- the expansion it shows came under the mughals- not under the Delhi sultanates or the other scattered warlords who came in from Afghanistan. Tughluq is best remembered for his pogroms against Hindus, though he rarely used religion as a criteria for his pogroms - muslims were killed indiscriminately too.

The Delhi sultanates and other minor kingdoms that followed (such as the Awadhis who dominated more towards the east) lost their religious fervor after the first round of attacks - hinduism generally stayed intact throughout. Important hindu cities lay within the areas that were "over run" by the turks, but they did not disappear, nor were they annilitated. The dearth of any recorded form of history from this period of history forces one to judge from the evidence. Hinduism is alive and well in India, and the area that the Turks overran is now called the "cow belt" - kind of like the Bible belt, because of its strong Hindu influence. If the muslims were as predatory as you make out, then surely they would have wiped out hinduism in the north given that Saurashtra first fell in the 9th century. Yet, there is ample evidence that muslims rulers did not have strong holds on much of the territory - Rajasthans hindu rulers would remain hindu throughout.

Bostom is a historian who publishes at frontpagemag. Horowitz and his crew are known in academic circles as political, not academic group, with a revisionist agenda. I would suggest you trust him as much as you trust the cbc. Too much bias can be a problem - and his book is based more on secondary sources that suit him than on any real research. Check out his bibliography if you want. I can guarantee his book isnt taken seriously by most folk who ve ever studied history - especially the complex history of the subcontinent - for more accurate history, Abraham Eraly, a south Indian christian, has put out the most readable books on the subject.

Havent ever heard of SK Lal, so I wouldnt know what he says, but the vast majority of historians will back up the claims I have made.

"'..not mass murder...', '...forced conversions were rare...', '...burnt a FEW temples...' My god, man, are you joking? Their own accounts contradict this!"

In the grand scheme of things, the numbers may have gone into the thousands, but not much higher. Their (muslim) accounts were sanctioned by the rulers to exxagerate (a number of primary documents available in the national archives in Delhi make it apparent) the extent of the damage they inflicted to appease the clerics. none of the rulers were keen on disrupting daily life, alienating Hindu generals and subjects, as well as harming their economy at a time when the Marathas were harrasing them on their southern front. Aurangzeb's behaviour does suggest that he was personally religious, but his use of religion at the state level shows that his actions were driven by political agenda.

irwindaisy

There are many in India who are trying to revise Indian history to recreate a Hindu India. They have come up with such gems as the alleged truth that the Taj Mahal was actually a hindu temple.

The VHP, who run this website, famously killed an Australian missionary and his son (Graham STaines). They re a far rightwing communal group who hate everyone and everything thats not hindu. PAt Robertsons hindu version I suppose. They, and their website, have an agenda. Did you see their "blacklist":

The Pope - Crime: One of the biggest enemies of Hinduism. He has vowed to harvest India into Christianity.

SID HARTH - Crime: Hundred of article published against Hindutva. This man is a walking encyclopedia of propaganda against anything Hindu.(on the site, they ve published his Philadelphia address)

Also on the list, Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn.

They arent just anti-Islamic, they re anti christian as well. Search for christian alongside the website.

Like sonsof..., I think you should be wary of your sources.

old hack,

Thanks for pointing that out about hinduunity.org

However, you did not respond to the more important and thorougly researched account brought forward by the American historian, Will Durant.

irwindaisy

Didnt see your Will Durant post. I ve been in transit for the last 3 days and havent been paying attention.

Durant's history of India is, to put it mildly, written using British secondary sources. That, unfortunately is much of the problem with the history written about this nation. I would recommend Dalrymple above him because he is one of the few historians I know whos actually bothered to go to India's National archives and have a look through it. Durant, scholar or not, has relied on sources more readily available to him.

"Hills of hindu skulls" make for exciting reading but have very little grounds in reality. These invaders were out to make a name for themselves, but the ones who stayed also wanted a functioning economy. Taimur the lame, Mahmud Ghauri - they slaughtered on genoicidal scales because they never wanted to stay - the Delhi sultanates often made wild claims regarding their attacks on infidels to gain favor with the caliph in Baghdad (they succeeded in getting recognition on one occassion) but they were also fairly keen on keeping the economy functioning. This is a minor factoid that scholars seem keen to ignore.

The term Hindu Kush has been a source of some controversy lately. There are many contending sources for the name, the first one being Caucaus Indicus - the name given to the mountain range by Alexander the Great. Ibn Battuta attributes the name to the deterrential effect of the mountain on hindu rulers who never tried to cross it because of the severe cold and its impact on the army. Theres a long history.

Timur has to be distinguished from the Mughal rulers because he was a glorified raider who happened to be muslim and knew the fervour he could whip up using religion.

The rest are generally myths- the 100,000 a year thing is a bit of a joke becuase the Bahmanis in particular could not afford it economically, nor were they keen on the unrest it created. The political advantage of being known for it, however, was significant. These were rulers whos authority was always under threat and they usually wanted Arab or Persian recognition if only for security's sake.

And finally on Vijayanagar, it would be rather nonsensical to call that particular war or campaign a religious one. It was driven by the desire to capture Viajayanagar's immense wealth and while the battles were bloody, to attribute a religious angle to it is fairly misleading. If you look into that particular battle, you will note that several minor kingdoms aided the Islamic armies because of political reasons.

Durant's historiography with regard to the east is suspect. He is not a South Asian scholar. And he wore, perhaps inadvertantly, the tainted eyepieces of colonialism. I can also state as a fact that even if he ever did try to do primary research, and I seriously doubt he did, he did not have access to the very many archives that have only started becoming available in the 1970s. Indian history is startlingly complex. Will Durant read what the Britishers provided, and the Britishers provided that which suited their needs - an India divided on religious lines was a good idea at one point.

Like english rule, Muslim rule in India is a mixed bag - There were many evils under them, but it is hard to say that the system that existed before them was any better. Muslim rule to India contibuted much to India in terms of culture - Taj Mahal et al. Frankly, most of the Indian food you get at North Indian restos in the US and Canada is Mughal/Islamic inspired food. Its a mixed bag - the only fact is that it happened and that it transformed India greatly. To assume that India would be better off without it is speculation.