Alex > Recent Status Updates

"It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the higher leadership of the empire did not seriously concern itself with military matters and that this inattention made it possible for Afghan tribal forces without siege weapons to defeat what had been a great power."

"Modern scholars, such as Fazlur Rahman and S. H. Nasr, consider Mulla Sadra’s School of Shiraz one of the last truly creative intellectual enterprises of the Islamic world before the encounter with the modern West began."

"Abbas took drastic measures against his own family to secure his position. His eldest son, Muhammad Baqir Mirza, known as Safi, may or may not have been guilty of the plot for which his father executed him in 1615. Two other sons were blinded in 1621 and 1626 because he interpreted their efforts to secure succession as disloyalty to him."

"In a series of raids into the Caucasus, Tahmasp took large numbers of Georgian, Armenian, and Circassian prisoners, who became military slaves."
His son Ismail ruled for fourteen months, I think, then died either of poisoning or an opium overdose, but not before murdering most male members of his family.

"“I can’t say that torturing them was the best of all possible methods …” Hondō tried to dispel the bitter aftertaste, “but in this case they left us no choice.” Tonight at Maruyama with his lover Oyō, he would have to drink himself into a stupor."

He mistook "deliberate killing" and "murder", two distinct crimes in German law. Only 20% of all killings are murders. His point stands but this error is so severe that I now have trouble believing the rest of what he said.

So much cringe. Boasting about IQ, discussing grammar, bringing up football,... Definitely not the best libertarian treatise I have read.

It was the individual actions of a man named Sano that may have defeated the rebels.

Also, hard for me to get into the Japanese mindset. Both sides were intolerant, but I only really understand the intolerance of the heathens. Did the Christians seek vengeance against the heathens, or were those just more compliant with the oppressive taxation? I doubt the latter however.

"The women travelled by ship, but the menfolk were made to travel back to Kuchinotsu on horseback, in a procession that elicited a disturbing amount of roadside prayer and support from local villagers. Mutilations, brandings, burnings and crushings then ensued, which the martyrs ‘endured with so much Patience that the very Executioners were tired with torturing them.’"

"Two of his [Matsukuras] own pageboys turned out to be Christians, and when a samurai inquisitor threatened to cut off their fingers and toes, they cheerfully extended their arms to him. Irritated but also a trifle spooked, the official ordered them out of his sight."

Surprisingly (not), the extra income the government got from forfeiture of ecclesiastical property did not go to the relief of the poor. Typical government.

"Where the earlier Injunctions had required the removal of ‘abused’ images, the 1547 set demanded their destruction, extending the definition of ‘abuse’ to include the use of incense. The visitors charged with enforcing the Injunctions were evangelical enthusiasts who interpreted their brief in a maximalist way, provoking arguments across the country as to whether particular images could be retained."

"The Shōgun’s men even tore down the monuments in Nagasaki’s Christian graveyard, and planned on exhuming the bodies and casting the bones into the sea. However, in this last aim they were largely thwarted, as the Christians had sneaked into the cemetery themselves the previous night and stolen the bones of their deceased relatives for safekeeping."

"The image was taken from her by a lay preacher, who demanded that she be punished for her lack of Christian faith. Despite protests from foreign priests in the area, local law enforcers decided to burn down the woman’s house as an example to her fellow villagers, ‘owing to which, they were all terrified and from then onwards, very obedient to the Church.’"

Father Francisco Passio:
"As Hideyoshi believes that there is no other life, he cannot understand that such is their desire for the salvation of souls that the Jesuits come to Japan... He has it firmly in his head that it is not salvation that is being sought, but the desire to make many Christians who would unite like brothers and could then easily rise up against him.c

"There were other incidents – simple misunderstandings that were blown out of all proportion by the mood of the times. A Franciscan friar, lacking the linguistic ability of the rival Jesuits, had mistaken an innkeeper’s welcoming smile for hospitality – well, it was, but the innkeeper still expected to be paid, and the Franciscan was accused of being a thief."

"The first anti-Christian edict was issued by the great samurai unifier, the regent Hideyoshi, as early as 1587, and cited the Christians’ attacks on native shrines and temples as intolerable acts of hubris. Ironically, such desecrations were nothing to do with the Jesuits, but largely the work of overzealous Japanese converts[...]"