Claiming that Ishmael founded Islam, even if he had been a local patriarch 2 millennia before Muhammad, makes as much sense as saying that Jesus founded Methodism. It's cockeyed history. At least the Hebrew scripture was about 2000 years closer to Ishmael's lifetime. The demonizing of the West is the contention that the Christian West just up and started attacking the poor innocent Muslim world rather than the reverse which is actually what happened. Demonizing the West is drawing moral equivalence between Western politics and warfare last employed in the Dark Ages, as if currently relative, with the savagery shown by our 21st century enemies. It's misleading, false, untruthful and calculated to aid our adversaries and demoralize our fighting men and allies.
Even the versions of the bible we have today (and there are more than a few English "translations") state that "God" said he would make him a father of 12 princes and would make him into a "great nation". Is Muhammad a descendant and a "prophet" of god? How the heck would I know, in fact how the heck would you know unless you are suggesting you know the mind of "God" as well as the one true faith (man every time I say "one true faith" it it sounds like something out of a JR Tolkien novel).
I don't see how the validity of their claims are any less than the validity of the claims of Judism or the multitude of various "christian based faiths". There are so many different denominations of Christianity I don't think anyone really knows the exact number (some estimates are in the 6 digits).
Islam and Judaism both claim to follow the same "God". We as a "christian nation" have sided with Judaism. While I am sure there are a host of political reasons behind it as well, as far as religion goes that's about it.
In the end it's only going to matter to whoever wins. If England had been successful we would all be reading about how evil those dang terrorist and rebels to the crown were and how fortunate we are that they were defeated. Probably be a lot of stuff thrown in the history book of how uncivilized and savage they were but that England, through the help of "God Almighty" was able to quell their uprising thus proving that "God" loved England more.
As far as it demoralizing our troops, I still don't see how it demoralizes them. Ok so what if Islamics claim that their religion is based on Ishmael?
Well, ok if the whole reason we are fighting the Muslims is because they are evil heathen pagans who have twisted the word of "God" and they must be punished then yes, I can see how acknowledging that they could be a legitimate "religion" could be demoralizing.
BUT if the whole reason we are fighting is because they attacked us "first", without any provocation on our part", what does it matter if their religion "comes from" a son of Abraham and may or may not be just as "valid" as Judaism?
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