Conquered lands

People periodically make the claim that the land someone else currently occupies was taken from them in the past, and they want it back, or that they have the “right” to try and re-conquer it. Of course, if we accepted that argument as valid it would apply to them as well, and once they had it back they would then promptly have to cede it to the people their own ancestors originally took it from, and so on. For example, if by this argument we had to give land back to a native American tribe, almost of them in turn would have to pass the land on to the tribe they originally took it from, since they too had historical periods of conquest and expansion.

This claim is sometimes made about portions of the Middle East. But in fact the Middle East lands have been ruled by so many groups and empires throughout history that it would be impossible to establish who had the first and original claim. There is a wonderful on-line animated map (http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/EMPIRE17.swf) of the history of the Middle East from 3000 B.C.E. to 2006 C.E. The lesson is clear. This business of the “right” to land because once in the past an ancestor ruled it is a hopeless case of infinite regression.

Of course, in fundamentalist Islamic theology, any lands that were ever once ruled by Muslims should by rights be ruled again by Muslims, and Muslims have a sacred duty to “liberate” that land again to be ruled under a renewed Caliphate. To have lands once under Muslim rule (and hence submitted to Allah) now ruled by infidels is considered a grave offense to Allah. While this may be sound theology from their point of view, it is a completely unworkable approach in today’s world.