New Articles

History of Jihad against the Byzantine Christians of Syria, Jordan and Turkey (634-1453)

archimedez — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 11:08:00 GMT

15 Jan, 2007

How the Jihad ravaged Christian Byzantium for 800 years, and how valiantly the Byzantine Christians held back the Arab and Turkish hordes, saving Europe from Islam.

While the Zoroastrian Persians were defeated and were being subjugated, the Muslim hordes turned on their other neighbor the Christian Byzantines and two armies met at the battlefield of Heiromyak.

Lessons from the Battle of Heiromyak (Al Yarmuk)

At the Battle of the Yarmuk (river), between the Muslim Arabs and the Byzantines, the Muslim Arabs were losing the battle in the initial stages. When the victory seemed certain for the Byzantines, the Muslims took recourse to subterfuge, when they realized that victory could not come to them through straight warfare, they used a contingent of women to attack the Byzantine troops who charged at the Byzantine army shrieking and hollering. Not used to facing ladies as an adversary, the Byzantines were at a loss to respond and the confused Byzantine generals ordered their troops not to molest the women and to withdraw.

__________________________________

The Muslims have used subterfuge and ruthless cruelty to win wars against all adversaries. At the battle of Yarmuk (Heiromyak) when the warriors of the Holy Cross began prevailing over those of the Crescent, the Muslims resorted to subterfuge. One of the Arab-Muslim generals Khalid-ibn-Walid disguised himself as a woman in a hijab, embraced the Byzantine General Harbees and crushed his ribs, thus murdering him using deceit. With their General dead, the Byzantine army became leaderless, and the fortunes of the battle started going in favor of the Muslim Arabs. So much for allah giving the Muslims victory in war!

__________________________

When the Arab Muslims saw that this tactic using women as a deceptive front was working, they sent in the main contingent of Arab men dressed as women in hijabs (the black tent like gown worn by Muslim women) to charge at the Byzantines, and in the process one of the Arab generals Khalid-ibn-Walid disguised as a woman in a hijab, embraced the Byzantine General Harbees and crushed his ribs, thus killing him. With their general dead, the Byzantine army became leaderless, and the fortunes of the battle started going in favor of the Muslim Arabs. This is how the tricky and insidious Muslims won the battle of Yarmuk. Another example of Allah intervening to give the Muslims victory in war (sic)!

__________________________________

The Byzantine Christian city of Caesarea had walls that were sixteen feet high with many turrets and had withstood the Arab Muslim siege of more than eight months, so the Muslims used this devious way to infiltrate the city and once inside they ruthlessly slaughtered its determined inhabitants to the last man, except for a few who managed to reach the port and board the ships and flee to safety. So much for allah giving them victory. This proves that Arab Muslims can stoop to any depth to gain a victory which they allege some allah helps them.

__________________________

With their guileful victory at Heiromyak, the Muslim wasted no time in fanning out in to the now defenseless Syria, and started storming one town after another making their way first to Jerusalem and then onwards to Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tiberias, Cana, Tyre, Sidon Damascus to the Byzantine mercantile capital in the Levant – the metropolis of Caesarea. In those days Caesarea was a strongly fortified by twins tier of walls with innumerable turrets. These had been built to stave of the repeated Persian (Sassanid) assaults that were launched at it. Because of the strong battlements, the Sassanids failed to take Caesarea, but that could not prevent the lustful eyes of the Muslims from falling on this prosperous city.

Lessons from the Battles of Caesarea, Babylon (a city in Byzantine Egypt), and Alexandria

When the Muslims reached Caesarea, they tried to take the city by storm, but were repulsed. They set down to a lengthy siege, but that too proved ineffective. Caesarea, which was then a bustling city of more than 300 busy streets. It was a port city and so the siege could not be complete on the sea facing side of the city, which continued to receive supplies and reinforcements from Constantinople. Here the Arab Muslims who had besieged the city had observed that some men furtively made their way from the city walls during some nights. The Muslims waylaid these men and to their delight they turned out to be Bedouins who although non-Muslims were of the same ethnic stock as the Muslim Arabs.

These Bedouins were in the employ of the Byzantines had as sweepers at Caesarea. Now as captives in the hands of their Arab compatriots, they did not take long to crack and fall prey to the threats and bribes of their Arab compatriots. These sweepers decided to betray their Byzantine masters and showed the Arab Muslim besiegers the way to infiltrate into Caesarea through its sewers.

The Byzantine Christian city of Caesarea had walls that were sixteen feet high with many turrets and had withstood the Arab Muslim siege for more than eight months, so the Muslims used this devious way to infiltrate the city and once inside they ruthlessly slaughtered its determined inhabitants to the last man, except for a few who managed to reach the port and board the ships and flee to safety. So much for allah giving them victory. This proves that Arab Muslims can stoop to any depth to gain a victory which they allege some allah helps them.

__________________________________

The Muslim hordes stormed the city of Caesarea, they not just slaughtered all soldiers on whom they could lay their hands, but decapitated all the males and to instill terror in the minds of the womenfolk, the Muslims tore open the abdomens of the Byzantine soldiers and ripped out their hearts, and other victuals and paraded them through the streets that had been a few days before being so brutalized had been a panorama of wealth and prosperity.

This savagery so horrified the Byzantine Christians that it came to haunt Christendom for many centuries and was ossified in our memory that ultimately led to the Crusades to repay the Muslims in their own coin and to regain the Holy Land that was lost to the first and unprovoked Muslim aggression against Christendom in 637.

__________________________

And once the Muslim hordes stormed the city of Caesarea, they not just slaughtered all soldiers on whom they could lay their hands, but decapitated all the males and to instill terror in the minds of the womenfolk, the Muslims tore open the abdomens of the Byzantine soldiers and ripped out their hearts, and other victuals and paraded them through the streets that had been a few days before being so brutalized had been a panorama of wealth and prosperity.

This savagery so horrified the Byzantine Christians that it came to haunt Christendom for many centuries and was ossified in our memory. When the Crusader counterattack rolled back the Muslim invaders from the eleventh century (1096- 1291 C.E.), the crusaders paid back the Muslims in their own coin and perhaps more so when they roasted the captured Muslims and devoured them whenever the crusader army ran short of food supplies.

__________________________________

Horrendous cruelty and deceit is what got the Muslim their victories. To win against the Jihadis, one should never forget what the Jihadis have done, neither should one forgive them for what they have done as they will do precisely this even today in the 21st century, whenever they get an opportunity (as they did on 9/11, and 7/7).

Whether one is a statesman, or a private citizen, one needs to remember always while interacting with the Muslims (all of whom are Jihadis at heart, as their Quran asks them to be so), never open your mind to them, never discuss controversial issues with them, never enter into an argument with them and reveal what you have in mind. Nurse a grudge against them, get to know their minds, let them do the talking, you do the listening and gauge the kind of beasts they are. And above all let this recognition of the true nature and intentions of the Jihadis, build in ourselves an urge and will to destroy the Jihadis utterly and lead us to take preemptive military action to act on our deepest desires against the beastlike Muslims. It is either them or us - the choice is ours!

__________________________

Only with the crusades, did the pigeons of Muslim barbarity come home to roost, as they would once again when the Mongols sacked and slaughtered the entire city of Baghdad, and as it would once again as today’s war on terror reaches its predictable zenith when we will see the wholesale vaporization of the Muslim population across the Middle East and the Muslim world. A scenario too horrendous to contemplate today, but which will soon come to pass, within one generation as our final response, after the Jihadis launch their first (and hopefully their last) nuclear terror attack against us in the West.

Why and how Christian Byzantine survived for eight centuries, while Zoroastrian Persia fell to the Muslims in seventeen years

These initial Muslim attacks against Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tiberias, Cana, Tyre, Sidon Damascus and Caesarea were fierce and bloodied, but even they could not overwhelm Constantinople, although the city was besieged by the Muslims twice in the 7th century. But the empire held its own by locking the Muslims at the Cilician gates in South Eastern Turkey.

__________________________________

The Arabs twice besieged Constantinople in 674 and 717, but the city was relived of the Arab Muslim siege by the skillful use of a new weapon called Greek Fire which the Byzantines used in both naval and land warfare. The Arabs lacked a navy and these two factors – their naval strength and the new weapon Greek Fire gave the Byzantines a series of victories over the infidel Saracens for the next four centuries from 640 till 1071.

__________________________

After their initial successful attacks in the 7th century against Bethlehem, Nazareth, Damascus up to the Byzantine mercantile capital in the Levant – the metropolis of Caesarea, the Muslim Arabs could advance no further on land against Byzantium as the Byzantines held off the Muslims at the Cilician gates in South Eastern Turkey. So the Muslims took the sea route using which they overwhelmed the island of Rhodes and demolished the colossus of Rhodes (the huge statue that the Greeks had erected there in ancient times. In doing this the Jihadis of the 7th century were laying down a precedent for their modern-day counterparts, the Taliban, who in a similar vandalizing frenzy destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas).

The Muslim Arabs twice besieged Constantinople in 674 and 717, but the city was relived of the Arab siege by the skillful use of a new weapon called Greek Fire which the Byzantines used in both naval and land warfare. The Arabs lacked a strong navy and these two factors – their naval strength and the new weapon Greek Fire gave the Byzantines a series of victories over the infidel Saracens for the next four centuries from 640 till 1071.

Turks the new threat to Christendom

But after holding off the Muslim Arab hordes at the Cilician Gates for four hundred years, the Empire received an unexpected shock when the Seljuk Turks who were then recent converts to Islam, under their chieftain Alp Arslan thrust into Byzantine through its backdoor in Armenia when they defeated the Byzantines at the battle of Manzikert.

These newly converted Turkish Muslims could have overwhelmed Constantinople in 1071 itself, had it not been for the Crusaders who marched through Constantinople into the Middle East at the end of the eleventh century to temporarily roll back the Turkish threat and liberate the Holy Land from the Saracens (infidel Muslims). But the battle of Manzikert held a new fearsome reality. After four centuries of Muslim-Christian warfare, the Arabs had been stemmed, but in the Turks, Christendom faced a new existential threat. A threat that was to work its way through the next nine centuries from 1071 up to 1918 and bedevil Eastern Europe.

We shall treat the Crusades – the valiant counter-attack by the Christians of Europe against the Muslims in a separate chapter. Suffice it to note here that the Crusades that started in 1096 and went on till 1291, gave a last breath of life to the failing Byzantine Empire. Thus while the Zoroastrian Sassanian empire fell within a mere seventeen years from 634 to 651, the Christian Byzantine Empire that had been attacked at the same time, fought back for the next eight centuries till this last Christian Empire in Asia finally succumbed to the Muslims when the Uthman (Ottoman) Turks stormed its capital Constantinople in 1453.

Lessons from the two Arab Sieges of Constantinople (674-678 and 717-718 C.E.)

After their initial victories at the Battle of the Yarmuk river, the Arabs diverted their focus on attacking Sassanid Persia for a brief period from 634 to 651. When the Arabs subjugated PersiaTo circumvent this stalemate, the Arabs built a makeshift fleet and attacked Constantinople, the Byzantine capital from the sea and besieged it. The Arabs laid the first siege in 674. This siege lasted for four years till 678. But this siege was unsuccessful and the Arabs had to withdraw with many fatalities. They laid a second siege in 717 which lasted for one year till 718 but this time too they were unsuccessful.

__________________________________

After the Arabs had failed to break the Cilician Gates, or to take Constantinople by storm, the baton of the Jihadi aggression passed to the Seljuk Turks, who steadily and successfully began to corrode at the north eastern fringes of the Byzantine Empire at Armenia. By the beginning of the 10th century the Seljuk Turks had begun harassing the Christian population of Armenia with their Ghazawat and Razzias (preparatory Muslim raids against non-Muslims to provoke a backlash leading to a pretext to a full-fledged Muslim invasion).

The tyranny of the Turks on the Armenians took many bloody turns in the next millennium, and whenever possible, the Turks indulged in the wholesale slaughter of the Armenian Christian male population while the womenfolk were made captives and marched off to be held as concubines in the Turkish seraglios and harems.

__________________________

During the second Muslim Arab siege of Constantinople, too the Arabs could not make any headway. And the Byzantines again defeated the besieging Arabs with the use of a superior weapon named Greek Fire. This was a highly combustible liquid that caused painful burning to those that it struck. This was comparable to modern-day napalm. The Byzantines used this weapon in large quantity on the besieging Arabs in both the sieges of 674-678 and 717-718. The Arabs tried hard to learn the secret of making of the Greek Fire, but they did not succeed and had to succumb in large numbers to this new weapon used skillfully by the Byzantines.

The effect of the Greek Fire can be gauged by the fact that out of the more than three hundred thousand Arabs who attacked Constantinople, only about twenty thousand returned. All the others had been consigned to hell by Greek Fire.

This is a lesson for the Americans today, who have superior fire power over the Jihadis. It is futile to engage the ferocious and madly motivated Jihadis in hand-to-hand combat. We need to wipe out the Jihadis in millions, using neutron and nuclear weapons. Only this can secure the civilized world a victory by decimating the beastly Jihadis, in the same way as the Byzantines decimated the attacking Arab Muslims in their thousands and saved not just Constantinople, but Europe itself from the first attack of Islam in the seventh and eight centuries.

__________________________________

At the battle of Manzikert, the Muslim Seljuk Turks attacked the Byzantines at noon and then feigned a retreat by retreating to higher ground to catch the Byzantine army in the valley from where the Turkish Archers picked off the Byzantine troops at will. But the Byzantines kept up the attack, and by sunset the Battle was still undecided. Romanus, the Byzantine emperor, decided to retire to his camps, after the Turks sounded the bugle, heralding the end of the day’s hostilities, as was the Turkish custom to do so to announce the beginning and end of a day’s battle. But the Turks had decided on subterfuge to ensnare the Byzantines who trusted the age old Turkish custom. Once the Byzantine army began disengaging and withdrawing to its camp, the Turks attacked from the rear after an encircling cavalry advance. The Byzantine army was caught between two pincers of attack and by midnight, their fate was sealed with the capture of the Byzantine emperor Romanus by Alp Arslan the chieftain of the Seljuk Turks.

__________________________

The baton of Jihad passes to the Seljuk Turks

The Arab Jihad had earlier lost its steam when it met another serious defeat a thousand miles away at Poiters in 732 at the hands of the Franks. Arab attacks on Europe ended by the middle of the eight century, when the internecine quarrels between different parts of the Caliphate broke out, some of which were along Shia-Sunni lines. The next impetus for the Jihad was in the eleventh century, when the baton of Jihad passed to the Seljuk Turks.

The misfortune of the victims of Islam, victimizing other non-Muslims after their conversion

The Seljuk Turks who were following a religion based on nature worship, with Zoroastrian overtones, had been subjected to Islamization by the Islamized Persians between 651 and 751. The attacks on them were led by many Persian- Zoroastrian converts to Islam. The notable among these attackers was one who had assumed the name Abu Muslim. He was born to Zoroastrian parents, but had discarded his ancestral faith and embraced Islam. His conversion apparently was not whole-hearted and he nursed a desire for revenge against the Muslim occupiers of Persia.

He plotted his way to overthrow the Muslim rulers by pretending to embrace Islam, attacking the non-Muslim Turks and then when he had become powerful enough he plotted to overthrow the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad. He succeeded in his first objective of defeating the pagan Turks and converting them forcibly to Islam, but he was betrayed by his confidants and his hidden motives were found out by the Caliph, who tricked him into captivity and tortured him to death.

The point here is that the converted Zoroastrians, forced Islam on the pagan Turks, who in turn attacked Byzantine after embracing Islam. So the bloodied mentality of Islam kept on the aggressive march of Islam although its leaders changed from the Arabs, who originally had been converted by force, to the Zoroastrian Persians, to the pagan Turks.

The Battle of Manzikert between the Byzantines and the Seljuk Turks led to the Islamization of South Armenia and its incorporation into Turkey

These new converts to Islam, merged their natural tribal ferocity, with the fanaticism of Islam. This was a potent and fearsome combination. After the Arabs had failed to break the Cilician Gates, or to take Constantinople by storm, the baton of the Jihadi aggression passed to the Seljuk Turks, who steadily and successfully began to corrode at the north eastern fringes of the Byzantine Empire in Armenia.

The Seljuk Turks began harassing the Christian population of Armenia. The tyranny of the Turks on the Armenians took many bloody turns in the next millennium, and whenever possible, the Turks indulged in the wholesale slaughter of the Armenian Christian male population while the womenfolk were made captives and marched off to be held as concubines in the Turkish seraglios and harems.

This area of the Caucasus (or Kavkaz) has been the frontier of a clash of civilizations since those days till today. Beslan in Russian Ossetia where the school kids were massacred is not far from Manzikert, which was the first major site of the Muslim-Christian clash in 1071.

__________________________________

After their victory at Manzikert, the Seljuk Turks faced no more resistance from the Byzantines to infiltration into the hitherto Christian Anatolia, and in a few decades they could wrest control of Anatolia from the Byzantines, and approach Constantinople from the Asian side of the Bosporus. They were now also in charge of the routes of the Christian pilgrims through Anatolia to the Holy Land whose pilgrimages they began harassing. As this harassment increased the stories of their depredations began reaching European courts along with the continuous pleas of the Byzantine emperors which became more shrill after Manzikert for succor from Western Europe to battle the Muslim infidels, the seeds for a re-conquest of the Holy Land and the relief of the beleaguered Byzantine empire were sown. The Crusades that began in 1096 (and continued till 1291) were indirectly a fallout of the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.

__________________________

At the battle of Manzikert, the Byzantine emperor who presided over the fortunes (rather misfortunes) of the Empire was Romanus IV Diogenes. He ascended the throne in 1068. As usual, there were many power cliques at the Byzantine court. This was accentuated by the fact that over the four hundred years from 640 to 1068, the Byzantines had reinforced their army by inducting mercenaries from the Franks, the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Bulgars, Avars and other Christianized tribal communities in addition to the Greeks and Latins who were always a strong lobby at Constantinople.

These mercenaries served to stave off Arab attacks, but in times of relative peace they also acted as powerful lobbies in the internal politics of Byzantine. To counter balance them, some Byzantine emperors had included contingents from the Seljuk Turks, (who had then recently embraced Islam) to serve as auxiliaries to the Byzantine army. This decision was to prove disastrous at Manzikert.

The betrayal of the Turkish contingents led to the defeat at Manzikert

Romulus split his army into two parts to catch the Seljuks in a pincer move. He led one pincer and the other was led by Joseph Tarchaniotes who was a person of Turkish extraction, and had secretly converted to Islam, the faith embraced by most of his people - the Seljuk Turks. Tarchaniotes commanded the largest contingent of mercenaries, the Turkish Cumans.

While Romanus proceed to subdue one border town after another, that had been occupied by the Seljuk Turks, culminating with the fortress of Manzikert. The Seljuk Turkish chieftain Alp Arslan camped near Manzikert. Romanus awaited his Turkish General to arrive from behind the Turkish camp to overwhelm Alp Arslan. But the traitor Turkish general of the Byzantine army Joseph Tarchaniotes secretly opened parleys with the enemy and defected to the Turkish adversary along with his contingent, and stabbed Romanus in the back.

The battle of Manzikert saw the history of defection of a Muslim contingent and had once again proved that a Muslim soldier can never be loyal to a non-Muslim commander. Something which we Americans and other Westerners should learn from.

The battle of Manzikert saw a repeat of the history of defection of a Muslim contingent, an act that was seen at the Battle of Qadissiyah between the Sassanids and the Arab Muslims, this had once again proved that a Muslim soldier can never be loyal to a non-Muslim commander. Thus the history of defection of a Muslim contingent that was seen at the Battle of Qadissiyah between the Sassanids and the Arab Muslims had once again proved that a Muslim soldier can never be loyal to a non-Muslim master.

We hope that our generals at the Pantagon are reading this when they keep Muslim troops in as Marines and Muslim Clerics (like that traitor James Yee) to fulfill the spiritual (sic) needs of the treasonable Muslim marines. Many such clerics and the marines have betrayed Americans when on duty at Guantanamo and in Kuwait. It is not too late for us to learn and relieve our fighting forces of these treasonable Muslim marines.

__________________________________

After innumerable sacrifices, the Crusades rolled back the Muslim aggressors back to its pre-Muslim limit and liberated occupied Antioch, Damascus, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth. Which technically passed again into the hands of the Byzantines (although they had little more than formal suzerainty over these areas which were under the tumultuous rule of the truculent Crusaders). But unfortunately, the tide of the Crusades began to be rolled back in 1184 by Saleh-ud-din (Saladin the Accursed) who was an ally of the Turks. But the Crusaders clung on to the coastal towns till 1291, till the Turks under a new Turkish dynasty named Uthman (or Ottoman) gradually pushed their frontiers back to the walls of Constantinople by the middle of the 14th century.

__________________________

In spite of this defection by an important general of his army to the enemy camp, Romanus continued to march to battle against heavy odds and joined battle at the fortress of Manzikert. Turkish double-cross leads to defeat at the battle of Manzikert

At the battle of Manzikert, the Muslim Seljuk Turks attacked the Byzantines at noon and then feigned a retreat and withdrew to higher ground to catch the Byzantine army in the valley by surprise. From higher ground the Turkish Archers picked off the Byzantine troops at will. But the Byzantines kept up the attack, and by sunset the Battle was still undecided. But when this ruse failed, the Turks tried another one.

The Turks had an ancient custom of sounding a bugle, heralding the beginning and end of a day’s hostilities. After the bugle was sounded, there was to be no fighting. On that day too at sunset, the Turks sounded the bugle and the Byzantine presumed that the Turks would cease battle as they in fact did. In response, Romanus decided to retire his army to his camps, after the Turks stopped hostilities and began withdrawing.

But the Turks had decided on subterfuge to ensnare the Byzantines who trusted the age old Turkish custom. Once the Byzantine army began disengaging and withdrawing to its camp, the Turks did a surreptitious encircling cavalry advance and attacked the astonished Byzantines from the rear. The Byzantine army was caught between two attacks and my midnight, their fate was sealed with the capture of their emperor Romanus by the Turkish chieftain Alp Arslan.

After the deception on the battlefield, Turks indulged in deception in diplomacy too

Having the Byzantine emperor himself as a captive, the Turkish chieftain treated him decorously and entertained him as a royal guest. With this deception, Alp Arslan promised to set Romanus free for only a withdrawal by the Byzanines to the pre-war lines. Arslan did not even ask for the surrender of the Fortress of Manzikert. With the surprisingly lax terms, Romanus was lulled into a false sense of security from his friendly captor.

__________________________________

The Seljuk Turks were now in charge of the routes of the Christian pilgrims through Anatolia to the Holy Land whom the Turks began to harass. As this harassment increased the stories of their depredations began reaching European courts along with the pleas of the Byzantine emperors which became more shrill after Manzikert for succor from Western Europe to battle the Muslim infidels. Thus the seeds for a re-conquest of the Holy Land and the relief of the beleaguered Byzantine empire were sown. The Crusades that began in 1096 (and continued till 1291) were indirectly a fallout of the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.

__________________________

The terms of the treaty which the Turks imposed on the Byzantines included that Romanus order the Byzantine army to withdraw from the whole of Anatolia up to Constantinople, in return for a promise from Alp Arslan that the Seljuk Turks would not harass the Christian population in Armenia who were under Byzantine rule.

For Romanus who was then a captive, there was no option but to accept these terms, as a condition to regain his freedom. Romanus also needed his forces to tackle the internal rivalries at Constantinople while feeling assured that Alp Arslan would not pose a threat to his eastern frontier.

This treaty sealed the fate of the Byzantine presence in Anatolia, which was till then a part of Southern Armenia but henceforth was to become the domain of the Turks to be known as Turkestan (land of the Turks) or Turkey. The Seljuk Turks faced no more resistance to infiltration into the hitherto Christian Anatolia, and in a few decades they could wrest control of Anatolia from the Byzantines, and approach the Constantinople from the Asian side of the Bosporus.

The Crusades were a belated Christian response to Muslim aggression that began in 634 with the battled of Yarmuk

The Seljuk Turks were now in charge of the routes of the Christian pilgrims through Anatolia to the Holy Land. As this harassment increased the stories of their depredations began reaching European courts along with the pleas of the Byzantine emperors which became more shrill after Manzikert for succor from Western Europe to battle the Muslim infidels. The seeds for a re-conquest of the Holy Land and the relief of the beleaguered Byzantine empire were sown. The Crusades that began in 1096 (and continued till 1291) were indirectly a fallout of the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.

Lessons from the battle of Manzikert and the fall of Constantinople (1453)

After innumerable sacrifices, the Crusades rolled back the Muslim frontier back to its pre-Muslim limit with the liberation of Antioch, Damascus, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth from four centuries of Muslim occupation (640 to 1097). Technically the liberated areas passed again into the hands of the Byzantines (although they had little more than formal suzerainty over these areas which were under the tumultuous rule of the truculent Crusaders). The tide of the Crusades began to be rolled back in 1184 by Saleh-ud-din (Saladin the Accursed) who was a Muslim commander allied to the Turks. But the Crusaders clung on to the coastal towns till 1291, till the Turks under a new Turkish dynasty named Uthman (Ottoman) gradually pushed their frontiers back to the walls of Constantinople by the middle of the 14th century.

The final chapter of the Muslim attack on the Byzantine started with the third Muslim siege of Constantinople (which was the first of its two Turkish sieges, the earlier two being those by Arabs in 674 and 717). This first Turkish siege of Constantinople which began in 1350 was repulsed by the besieged but still spirited Byzantines, but the Turks tried again in 1453, when they finally overwhelmed the city by storm and brought about an end to the Byzantine empire.

__________________________________

The final chapter of the Muslim attack on Christendom started with the third Muslim siege of Constantinople (which was the first of its two Turkish sieges, the earlier two being those by Arabs in 674 and 717). This first Turkish siege of Constantinople which began in 1350 was repulsed by the besieged but still spirited Byzantines, but the Turks tried again in 1453, when they finally overwhelmed the city by storm and brought about an end to the Byzantine empire.

__________________________

The point is that from their first attacks on Byzantium in 634 at Yarmuk, the Muslims relentlessly attacked the Byzantine empire for a period of eight hundred years. The Muslims faced many defeats at the hands of the Byzantines in this long period. But they never gave up, they kept attacking till, they finally captured the capital city Constantinople in 1453 and the Byzantine power was no more. This has an important lesson for us Americans today. The Muslims never ever give up, till they are done in for. If we want victory and to secure our way of life, we Americans need to keep attacking the Muslims till the Muslims all cease to exist, if not they will keep attacking the USA. There are no soft options in this death struggle with Islam.

Can the modernization of Muslims make them into liberal citizens of a civilized society?

Many malevolent communist wolves disguised in their sheep’s clothing who pose as liberals, keep parroting that it is the modernization of Muslims that will make them into liberal citizens of a civilized society(sic)! They advocate providing more funds to the Madrassah (the schools where Islam is taught to young Muslims), so that the Madrassash could buy computers, and other electronic gadgets to expose Muslims to modern technology. Seems fair on the face of it. But this leaves the basic grounding in hate (of the non-Muslims) that Muslim children are bombarded with in the madrassahs.

With the brainwashing they receive through the murderous mentality that the Quran inculcates in Muslims, the addition of modern technology can only transform these hate-driven, revenge seeking kids into more dangerous enemies. They would assemble more deadly bombs, use cellular technology to trigger the bomb blasts, or hack in to the web-compliant systems of sensitive defense installations and worse still assemble a dirty bomb or even a proper nuclear devise.

Educating the Muslims, while keeping their murderous Muslim mentality intact is like giving nuclear claws to a man-eater tiger

Technology increases their capacity to destroy while keeping intact the violent and cruel tendencies built to an instinctive level by the Quran that is thrust on Muslim kids five times a day during ibadat/salat (Muslim congregational prayer) in the Mosques and Madrassahs. With access to technology, they become more effective as Jihadis and can commit mass-murder of non-Muslims using advanced WMD technology instead of using sword-play to behead non-Muslims individually. So educating the Muslims, while keeping their murderous Muslim mentality intact is like giving nuclear claws to a man-eater tiger. A.Q.Khan of Pakistan is a classic case of a nuclear powered man-eater tiger. We have to decide if we want more such nuclear man-eaters so that we can easily end up as the dinner for these man-eaters!

__________________________________

The point is that from their first attacks on Byzantium in 634 at Yarmuk, the Muslims relentlessly attacked the Byzantine empire for a period of eight hundred years. The Muslims faced many defeats at the hands of the Byzantines in this long period. But they never gave up, they kept attacking till, they finally captured the capital city Constantinople in 1453 and Byzantine power was no more. This has an important lesson for us Americans today. The Muslims never ever give up, till they are done in for. So we Americans need to keep attacking the Muslims till the Muslims all cease to exist or give up Islam, if not, they will keep attacking the USA. There are no soft options in this death struggle with Islam.

__________________________

This much should be enough for us to realize that providing better technology to Muslims, while keeping the murderous mentality of Islam intact is like educating a cannibal with the use of guns. After we do this, the cannibal will be able to hunt us down far more easily and efficiently. He can now use guns (read electronics, nuclear technology) instead of using his clubs spears or swords to do his ghastly acts. So the point is rather than providing more resources and technology to the madrassahs, or to supply Iran with the technology to build a nuclear plant to generate electricity(sic) we need to change the mentality of the cannibal.(read Muslims). And to do this we need to wield the stick (pre-emptive strikes), and not the carrot (appeasement), so that the ass (read Muslims) can be driven away from the path of murder and destruction and be brought to the path of sanity and peace or be made to rest in peace so that the rest of us can pursue peaceful lives.

______________________________________

Select Bibliography

Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict, by Obadiah Shoher

Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries (Hardcover) by Paul Fregosi

The Sword of the Prophet: History, Theology, Impact on the World by Srdja Trifkovic

Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer

Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam) by David Cook

Why I Am Not a Muslim by Ibn Warraq

Onward Muslim Soldiers by Robert Spencer

Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye'Or

Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeor

What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commentary by Ibn Warraq

Islam and Terrorism: What the Quran Really Teaches About Christianity, Violence and the Goals of the Islamic Jihad by Mark A. Gabriel, Mark A. Gabriel

A Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) by Robert Spencer

The Great Divide: The failure of Islam and the Triumph of the West by Marvin Olasky

The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims by Robert Spencer

Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer, David Pryce-Jones

The Koran (Penguin Classics) by N. J. Dawood

Don't Keep me Silent! One Woman's Escape from the Chains of Islam by Mina Nevisa

Christianity And Islam: The Final Clash by Robert Livingston

Holiest Wars : Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden by Timothy R. Furnish

The Last Trumpet: A Comparative Study in Christian-Islamic Eschatology by Samuel, Ph.D. Shahid

Unleashing the beast: How a fanatical islamic dictator will form a ten-nation coalition and terrorize the world for forty-two months by Perry Stone

Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature (Religion and Politics) by David Cook

Islam and the Jews: The Unfinished Battle by Mark A., Ph.D. Gabriel

The Challenge of Islam to Christians by David Pawson

The Prophetic Fall of the Islamic Regime by Glenn Miller, Roger Loomis

Prophet of Doom : Islam's Terrorist Dogma in Muhammad's Own Words by Craig Winn

The False Prophet by Ellis H. Skolfield

The Approach of Armageddon: An Islamic Perspective by Muhammad Hisham Kabbani

The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God by George Weigel

Infiltration : How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington by Paul Sperry

Unholy Alliance : Radical Islam and the American Left by David Horowitz

Unveiling Islam : An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs by Ergun Mehmet Caner

Perfect Soldiers : The Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It by Terry McDermott

Islam Revealed A Christian Arab's View Of Islam by Anis Shorrosh

Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out by Ibn Warraq

The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam's Holy Book by Ibn Warraq

The History of Jihad site is brought to you by a panel of contributors. This site is co-ordinated by Robin MacArthur with Mahomet Mostapha and Naim al Khoury, New Jersey.

Other contributors to this site include professors and members of the faculty from the Universities of Stanford and Michigan (Ann Arbor), Kansas State University, Ohio State University, and the London School of Economics. We strongly suggest that this site be recommended as additional reading for students of Islamic History.

History of Jihad is against all forms of fanaticism – religious and non-religious. But the emotional appeal of non-religious fanaticism like Nazism, Fascism or Communism is not as pervasive as that of the religious fanaticism. When fanaticism and religion are mixed, we have a very potent and dangerous brew that can sustain itself for centuries unlike non-religious fanaticisms like Nazism and Communism which die out when the ringleaders are defeated.

While all forms of religious fanaticism are negative, Islam is the most vicious and the most pressing danger we face today. This site is dedication to expose the danger of Islam. We support other people taking similar efforts against other religion posing smaller threats.

comments

The Falling Tower and Islam

archimedez — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:23:00 GMT

The Falling Tower and Islam

by Alamgir Hussain

08 Jan, 2007

Since the Islamist al-Qaeda terrorists orchestrated a daring attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York on the September 11^th in 2001, the vocal Muslim community have been in aggressive denial that the crashing WTC towers has nothing to do with Islam. They claim that it was an act of a few deviants who have strayed far from the central ideal of Islam, which is peace. This denial goes on despite al-Qaeda’s much-publicized repeated claims that their actions are meant for saving the pride and integrity of Islam.

Does the falling WTC tower have any relevance to Islam? I will examine this question in the midst of these claims and denials.

The WTC towers of New York, that came down crashing on the 9/11 (2001), were the prime symbol of capitalism which is an innovation of the infidel west and of the US, in particular. WTC symbolizes the trades and commerce, involving usury or interest, which prohibited in Islam.

Those who devour usury will not stand except as stand one whom the Evil one by his touch Hath driven to madness. That is because they say: "Trade is like usury," but Allah hath permitted trade and forbidden usury. Those who after receiving direction from their Lord, desist, shall be pardoned for the past; their case is for Allah (to judge); but those who repeat (The offence) are companions of the Fire: They will abide therein (for ever). [Quran 2:275]

Allah will deprive usury of all blessing, but will give increase for deeds of charity: For He loveth not creatures ungrateful and wicked. [Quran 2:276]

Apart from symbolizing the evil and wicked capitalism, the WTC was also the central symbol of American power and wealth. In Islam, Allah wishes all people and entities of the universe submit to the feet of Islam by hook or crook. The infidel America is not only dominated by the disbelieving worst beasts, the Christians and atheists but also controlled by the Jews, who are the vilest of all creatures in the eyes of Allah.

Surely those who disbelieve from among the followers of the Book (Christians and Jews) and the polytheists shall be in the fire of hell, abiding therein; they are the worst of creatures. [Quran 8:55]

The worst beasts in Allah's sight are the disbelievers. [Quran 98:6]

Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews. [Sahih Muslim, Book 041, Number 6985]

So the Americans are the worst people who have formed alliance with Islam’s worst enemy, the Jews. They have also supported the most unjust occupation and creation of the Jewish state of Israel in the Muslim land. It is only because of America that Muslims cannot destroy the Jewish state. The American CIA, in collusion with the Mossad of Israel, is engaged in all kinds of the conspiracy and plots against the Islamic world; thus, keeping the Muslims poor and with all sorts of problem. The US is keeping a hold on the oil production of the Islamic world and stealing it away, which is Allah’s most precious gift to His sole votaries.

How could the infidel America wield such indomitable power? Where does power of America’s affront to Allah and his community on earth come from? It all comes from the America’s power of capitalism. Thus the towers of WTC, symbolizing the American capitalism, were a peg in Allah’s scheme of establishing the dominance of His power on the face of the earth.

So, for the most valid and pressing cause of Islam, Osama bin Laden orchestrated an incredible attack on the WTC to teach the satanic United States a lesson, which Osama claims, ‘he did for the sake of Islam’. The White House and the Pentagon, which are the other two centers of American power, were also rightly included as the targets. Islam’s greatest enemy, the America’s highest symbol of power and pride, the World Trade Centre, came down crashing on 9/11 with the wailing and cries of those caught in the middle. However, despite the fact that the Islamic Ummah was overly delighted on the day of 9/11 attack, this courageous and selfless adventure of Osama bin Laden in the cause of Islam is vehemently rejected by many deceptive or ignorant Muslims, calling it anti-Islamic.

Let us go back in history to January, 630 CE, the holy month of Ramadan. The greatest symbol of piety and pride of the pagans of the Arabian Peninsula was the Ka’ba located in the city of Mecca. The reverence of Ka’ba reached up to the idolaters of India. A monolith from the Ka’ba was carried to Somnath in India and was revered with great piety by the Hindu idolaters. Such was the piety and pride, which the Ka’ba, the Arab pagans’ sacred house of God, used to command.

The Prophet of Islam discarded a 10-year-long treaty of Hudaybiyah of nonaggression just after two years’ of its signing and marched against Mecca. He stormed into the city and first rushed to the greatest symbol of the Arabian religious piety and pride, the Ka’ba. All power, pride and piety belong to Allah alone. So there came down the pagan’s sacred house of Ka’ba crashing onto the feet of Islam. Standing in the middle, the Prophet pointed to the 360 idols one after another and his henchmen smash them into dust. As the great idol of Hubal came down crashing, the Prophet yelled in the words of the Koran:

“Truth has (now) arrived, and Falsehood perished: for Falsehood is (by its nature) bound to perish. “ [17:81]

The symbol of the Arabian idolaters’ pride and piety came down crashing in the midst of immense grief and suppressed wailing of the citizens who have revered the Ka’ba and the devoted to the idols therein for ages. The greatest symbol of the false piety of the Arabia thus was converted into what remains the greatest symbol of the Islamic piety for all time. All piety and pride is Allah’s alone and the truth has prevailed.

Apart from the Ka’ba, there were three great goddesses, the daughters of God in the Arabia belief, namely al-Uzza, al-Lat and al-Manat. Once the Ka’ba has been restored to the feet of Allah, the Prophet sent forth the barbarian Khalid al-Walid to destroy the icon of al-Uzza at Nakhla. When heard of Khalid’s advance, the guardian of al-Uzza hung a sword on her and said [Ibn Ishaq, p565]:

O Uzza, make an annihilating attack on Khalid,

Throw aside your veil and gird up your train.

O Uzza, if you do not kill this man Khalid

Then bear a swift punishment or become a Christian.

Khalid arrived and brought the temple of al-Uzza down to the ground. The second greatest symbol of the piety, devotion and pride of the Arabian pagans came down crashing at the command of the apostle.

The Prophet then headed towards at-Taif, the home of another great goddess of Arabia, the al-Lat. Hearing of the prophet’s advance, the Taif residents fortified their enclave and shower of arrows from inside repulsed the Muslims. Muhammad laid seize on at-Taif for twenty days and tried every strategy and weapon available to overrun the city but failed. Finally he gave up and ordered to cut down far-famed vineyards surrounding the At-Taif enclave and burn them to their roots.

However, it did not take long for the At-Taif citizens to realize that they could not resist Prophet Muhammad much longer. About ten months later, they sent a deputation for submission to Islam to Medina in order to avoid butchery at the hand of the Prophet. While settling the terms for submission to Islam, they pleaded the Prophet to spare the idol of goddess al-Lat, greatly venerated by their people. But Muhammad firmly refused to accept the plea and sent Abu Sufyan and Al-Moghira to destroy the idol. In the midst of great wailing and cries of the residents, al-Moghira hewed down the goddess of al-Lat. There came down the last great symbol of pride and piety of the Arabian pagans. Praise and piety to Allah alone prevailed with the falsehood annihilated.

The Prophet of Islam had successfully annihilated all signs of idolatry from the Ka’ba on the day of capture of Mecca in 630 AD. However, deceiving the attention and knowledge of Allah and his messenger, a vestige of the Ka’ba idolatry still survived for another five centuries in an Indian Hindu temple in Somnath. The famous goddess of al-Manat (God’s 3^rd daughter) had disappeared from Arabia and found a revered place in Somnath. It came to the knowledge of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. Historian Ibn Asir writes: “When Yamin-ud-Daulah (Sultan Mahmud) heard this, he resolved upon making a campaign to destroy this idol; believing that when the Hindus saw their prayers and imprecations to be false and futile, they would embrace the faith (Islam)” [Jaffar, p76]. Ibn Khaldun confirms the same: “From some sources Mahmud received this information and with a view to extirpate idolatry to prove the helplessness of man-made gods and to belie the claims of the Hindus, he mobilized his forces against Somnath” [Jaffar, p77 ]. Describes Ibn Asir, “Band after band of defenders (Hindus) entered the temple of Somnath, and with their hands clasped round their necks, wept and passionately entreated him. Then again, they issued forth to fight until they were slain but few were left alive... The number of the slain exceeded fifty thousand” [Elliot & Dawson, p470-71].

Once overcame the resistance, Mahmud captured great booty from Somnath and moved onto destroy the sacred idol temple. The people of Somnath proposed that ‘they would pay several crores (crore = 10 millions) of gold coins into his treasury’ if he would spare the mutilation of the idols. Some of his nobles tempted Mahmud to accept the offer but the devoted fighter of Allah thoroughly rejected it: “I know this, but I desire that on the day of resurrection I should be summoned with the words, ‘where is Mahmud who broke the greatest of the heathen idols?’ rather than these: “Where is that Mahmud who sold the greatest of the idols to the infidels for golds” [Elliot & Dawson, p472].

The last vestige of the Arabian idolatry and the greatest symbol of the Somnath Hindus’ pious devotion, pride and power came down crashing and were smashed into pieces, according to the example set by the Allah’s apostle five centuries earlier.

In continuation of this legacy of bringing down the symbols and centers of infidel’s power, pride and piety to the feet of Islam, world’s second greatest power, the Sassanian Persian empire, came down crashing at the feet of Islam in 636 CE. The same year, the greatest power in the world, the Byzantine empire’s pride and glory got a beating when Heraclius lost major part of the Palestine and Syria to the Muslims. Christian Byzantine glory and pride suffered a terrible blow in 637, when their greatest prize, the holy city of Jerusalem, fell to the conquering army of caliph Omar. In 642, the great ancient civilization of Egypt fell on to the feet of Islam. Each of these conquests accompanied with great pillage and looting of wealth, sacking of great palaces and destruction of churches and temples of non-Islamic piety. For an example, Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem (634-638), who surrender Jerusalem to the Muslims, described the Muslim invaders as “godless barbarians” who “burnt churches, destroyed monasteries, profaned the Crosses and blasphemed against Christ and the church.” The following year, thousands died of famine resulting from the destruction and pillage by the Muslim conquerors of Jerusalem. [Ibn Warraq, p. 219]

From the prophet’s iconoclastic actions and their follow-through by his companions and later Muslim conquerors, let us turn attention to the holy Quran, which is the encyclopedia of perfect guidance to all mankind from Allah and is the store-house of all knowledge of the universe. Nothing in the world has been excluded from the Koran and everything has been explained in detail by Allah to make it easily understandable by every human being:

There is not an animal (that lives) on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but (forms part of) communities like you. Nothing have we omitted from the Book, and they (all) shall be gathered to their Lord in the end. [Q 6:38]

In their histories there is certainly a lesson for men of understanding. It is not a narrative which could be forged, but a verification of what is before it and a distinct explanation of all things and a guide and a mercy to a people who believe. [Q 12:111]

Shall I seek a judge other than Allah, when He it is Who has sent down to you the Book fully explained? ... [Q 6:114]

So, when Koran is the mine of all knowledge descended directly from the Lord of the universe, Who knows every detail and every mystery of the world, anything outside the Koran is either false, misleading and unnecessary. So Ali, the fourth Caliph of Islam and the Prophet’s trusted friend and son-in-Law, had said: ‘extra-Islamic documents or books that contain information absent in the Koran are false and misleading, while others that contained knowledge already in the Koran are unnecessary’.

When the 3^rd caliph Omar, also a great companion and a father-in-law of the Prophet, conquered Egypt in 641, he came face to face with the vast library of Alexandria. This library was the symbol of intellectual power and pride of the glorious city founded by the great heathen Alexander the great around 322 BCE. All true knowledge and intellectual glory solely belongs to Allah and Islam, which is all vouchsafed in the Koran. The vainglorious symbol of false and erroneous Jahiliya learning and knowledge must be destroyed in order to preserve the integrity, sanctity and purity of Allah’s true and complete knowledge on earth. And there went the glorious library of Alexandria burned into ashes.

About six centuries later in India, Bakhtiyar Khalji, the general of Alauddin Khalji, headed eastward and came face to face with the famous Nalanda Univerity in modern-day Bihar, world’s first resident uinversity founded in 427 CE, with 10000 students and 2000 teachers. The university was an architectural and environmental masterpiece in itself, and a peerless centre and pride of the paganic Buddhist learning, knowledge and science. Such centers of false and erroneous Jahiliya learning and education must not stand with its usual glory in the domain of Islam. It must fall to the feet of Islam. There went Bakhtiyar killing the teachers of the university. When faced with giant nine-story library of Nalanda, Bakhtiyar asked if there was a Koran inside. The Koran, the ultimate source of all knowledge and guidance for mankind must be saved and prevail. And there went the library’s vast treasures burned into ashes.

A view of the ruins of Nalanda University (Wiki)

In the days of Prophet Muhammad, there were no such sky-touching towers like the WTC of New York, neither were there airplanes to bring them down. But prophet Muhammad brought down every symbol of pride, power and piety of the infidels of his time that came within his power. The legacy of the Prophet was perpetuated by his trusted companions and later Muslim conquerors and rulers. Striking at the heart of the infidels’ great symbols of power, pride and piety has been a ceaseless legacy of Islam, initiated by the Prophet himself and perpetuated through the later centuries. The United States of America is not only a great infidel power, similar to the Persian and the Byzantine empires of the time of Prophet Muhammad, but also, in alliance with the vile Jews and Israel, constitutes the greatest enemy of Islam in today’s world. The attack and destruction of the Word Trade Center, America’s symbol of pride and power, by Osama bin Laden, falls perfectly into the iconoclastic scheme set forth by the Prophet of Islam in the early 7^th century. Hence, the falling WTC towers of New York is not at all alien to Islam but is a part and parcel of Islam’s iconoclastic legacy. And definitely, this is not the last.

References

1. Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah (trs A Guillaume), Oxford, Karachi (2004)

2. Ibn Warraq, Why I am not a Muslim, Prometheus Books, New York (1995)

3. SM Jaffar, The Ghaznawids, Delhi (1972)

4. HM Elliot & John Dawson, The History of India, Vol 1, Kitab Mahal; Lukhnow (1964)

Jefferson's Quran: What the founder really thought about Islam - Christopher Hitchens

archimedez — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:21:00 GMT

Jefferson's Quran: What the founder really thought about Islam

by Christopher Hitchens

11 Jan, 2007

It was quite witty of Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., to short-circuit the hostility of those who criticized him for taking his oath on the Quran and to ask the Library of Congress for the loan of Thomas Jefferson's copy of that holy book. But the irony of this, which certainly made his stupid Christian fundamentalist critics look even stupider, ought to be partly at his own expense as well. In the first place, concern over Ellison's political and religious background has little to do with his formal adherence to Islam. In his student days and subsequently, he was a supporter of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, a racist and crackpot cult organization that is in schism with the Muslim faith and even with the Sunni orthodoxy now preached by the son of the NOI's popularizer Elijah Muhammad. Farrakhan's sect explicitly describes a large part of the human species—the so-called white part—as an invention of the devil and has issued tirades against the Jews that exceed what even the most fanatical Islamists have said. Farrakhan himself has boasted of the "punishment" meted out to Malcolm X by armed gangsters of the NOI (see the brilliant documentary Brother Minister: The Assassination of Malcolm X, which catches him in the act of doing this). If Ellison now wants to use his faith to justify an appeal to pluralism and inclusiveness and diversity, he needs to repudiate the Nation of Islam, and in much more unambivalent terms than any I have yet heard from him.

As to the invocation of Jefferson, we know that when he and James Madison first proposed the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom (the frame and basis of the later First Amendment to the Constitution) in 1779, the preamble began, "Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free." Patrick Henry and other devout Christians attempted to substitute the words "Jesus Christ" for "Almighty God" in this opening passage and were overwhelmingly voted down. This vote was interpreted by Jefferson to mean that Virginia's representatives wanted the law "to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahomedan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination." Quite right, too, and so far so good, even if the term Mahomedan would not be used today, and even if Jefferson's own private sympathies were with the last named in that list.

A few years later, in 1786, the new United States found that it was having to deal very directly with the tenets of the Muslim religion. The Barbary states of North Africa (or, if you prefer, the North African provinces of the Ottoman Empire, plus Morocco) were using the ports of today's Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia to wage a war of piracy and enslavement against all shipping that passed through the Strait of Gibraltar. Thousands of vessels were taken, and more than a million Europeans and Americans sold into slavery. The fledgling United States of America was in an especially difficult position, having forfeited the protection of the British Royal Navy. Under this pressure, Congress gave assent to the Treaty of Tripoli, negotiated by Jefferson's friend Joel Barlow, which stated roundly that "the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen." This has often been taken as a secular affirmation, which it probably was, but the difficulty for secularists is that it also attempted to buy off the Muslim pirates by the payment of tribute. That this might not be so easy was discovered by Jefferson and John Adams when they went to call on Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman. They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves in this way. As Jefferson later reported to Secretary of State John Jay, and to the Congress:

The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

Medieval as it is, this has a modern ring to it. Abdrahaman did not fail to add that a commission paid directly to Tripoli—and another paid to himself—would secure some temporary lenience. I believe on the evidence that it was at this moment that Jefferson decided to make war on the Muslim states of North Africa as soon as the opportunity presented itself. And, even if I am wrong, we can be sure that the dispatch of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to the Barbary shore was the first and most important act of his presidency. It took several years of bombardment before the practice of kidnap and piracy and slavery was put down, but put down it was, Quranic justification or not.

Jefferson did not demand regime change of the Barbary states, only policy change. And as far as I can find, he avoided any comment on the religious dimension of the war. But then, he avoided public comment on faith whenever possible. It was not until long after his death that we became able to read most of his scornful writings on revelation and redemption (recently cited with great clarity by Brooke Allen in her book Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers). And it was not until long after his death that The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth was publishable. Sometimes known as "the Jefferson Bible" for short, this consists of the four gospels of the New Testament as redacted by our third president with (literally) a razor blade in his hand. With this blade, he excised every verse dealing with virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and other puerile superstition, thus leaving him (and us) with a very much shorter book. In 1904 (those were the days), the Jefferson Bible was printed by order of Congress, and for many years was presented to all newly elected members of that body. Here's a tradition worth reviving: Why not ask all new members of Congress to swear on that?

And here's a tradition worth inaugurating: The Quran repeats and plagiarizes many passages of the New Testament, including some of the most fantastic and mythical ones. Is it not time to apply the razor and produce a reasonable Quran as well? What could be more inclusive? What could be a better application of Jeffersonian original intent?

http://www.slate.com/id/2157314/

Christopher Hitchens is a leftist UK columnist. His most recent book is Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. His most recent collection of essays is titled Love, Poverty, and War.

Contradicting Muslim Revisionism - by CS Karlson

Islamwatch — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:05:00 GMT

Did Muslims invent Algebra? No!

Algebra existed in ancient Egypt, thousands of years before Muhammad, and was improved upon by the ancient Babylonians. The Greeks contributed quadratics. Hindus gave the concept of zero and irrational numbers. While the word “algebra” derives from Arabic, Arab Muslims only absorbed Persian and Hindu state of the art and made a few contributions. Europeans created advanced algebraic symbolism and formulation during the enlightenment and renaissance periods that succeeded the removal of Islam from Europe.

Continue Reading: Contradicting Muslim Revisionism

Can Democracy Be Imposed? Not in Muslim countries.

Islamwatch — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 21:00:00 GMT

By Alamgir Hussain

In the post-9/11 era, the Bush administration's new project of spreading freedom and democracy in the dictators-ruled countries became one of the most discussed and closely followed topics in the media and at all levels of the society. As the world gets increasing plagued by violence, unleashed by the Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist groups, a way to turn the tide of violence towards peace was indeed a desirable idea to the peace and freedom-loving people in the world. Although many doubted the means Bush administration undertook to spread democracy around the world, yet there was hardly any disagreement to the fact that freedom and democracy can usher in peace and prosperity. Believing in this fundamental premise, many in the US and around the world supported the Bush administration's aggressive policy of instituting democracy by overthrowing the authoritarian Governments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Continue reading: http://www.islam-watch.org/AlamgirHussain/ImposingDemocracy.htm

Dear Muslims: Which "House" is America to you? - by Amil Imani

Islamwatch — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 20:56:00 GMT

People are familiar with Islam's classification of the world into the Dar-ul-Solh, the house of peace, meaning the house of Islam-and the Dar-ul-Harb-the house of war, meaning the house of non-Islam. Ironically, the self-proclaimed house of peace, from its early years, has waged war against the house of war.

Also there is a little-known third "house" according to Islam-Dar-ul-Aman, the non-Islam house of safety where Muslims find refuge. We already know which of the three houses America is to Al Qaeda, the Iranian mullahs, the Taliban, the Muslims Brotherhood and their ilk. We are posing this question to the rank and file Muslims, particularly to the arrivals of recent years who are finding refuge in the non-Islamic world, including the United States of America:

Which house America is to you?

America and other welcoming and generous non-Islam Dar-ul-Aman have given you refuge with opportunities for a decent life denied to you in your own Dar-ul-Solh by the ruthless and deceptive holy men of Allah who rule it.

Continue reading: http://www.islam-watch.org/AmilImani/AmericaDarulHarb.htm

My Experience With Islam – An apostate’s testimony - by Jahed Ahmed

Islamwatch — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 20:53:00 GMT

"I am not a citizen of Greece or Athens; I am a citizen of the world". About twenty-five hundred years have passed since a Greek philosopher said so, and in the meantime, human civilizations have made magnificent progress. Our knowledge about the world and universe has increased by many folds; yet in our modern world, there are not many people who take pride in their first identity as a member of the mankind. Even to date, mankind is divided into so many factions under identities defined by race, religion, nationality, etc. Not so long ago, I myself also took pride in my first identity as a Muslim. It was Islam that defined my personal identity of who I am, my daily activities and my morals. It went as far as regulating from what kind of food I should eat to what kind people I should make friends with. How sad it is to realize- I've spent so many years of my life under an ideology which is authoritarian, gender-biased, dogmatic and highly provincial in its outlook toward humanity. I will provide solid basis for saying so about my ex-religion. But before that, let me give my personal background.

Continue reading: http://www.islam-watch.org/LeavingIslam/JahedAhmed.htm

War Without End: A Brief History of the Muslim Conquests

Islamwatch — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 03:09:00 GMT

by T. David Curp

Crusading ideals in the West were an answer to the greater threat of jihad. They were spurred by fear and necessity in a desperate competition with Islam that, for many centuries, Christians lost—and were aware that they were losing. The extent of Islam’s victories can be seen in the all-but-complete disappearance of the once-thriving Christian communities in North Africa, the Middle East, and Western Asia, as well as the deep roots that Islam still has in the Balkans—a region whose very name was imposed upon it by successful late medieval Turkish imperialism.

Islam is a remarkably successful religion that for most of its existence has inspired its adherents to creatively synthesize the often-conflicting requirements of warfare, imperial politics, and missionary zeal. Projecting Western freedom of action backward in time seriously distorts the more dramatic story of ongoing Western weakness that almost destroyed Christendom. The pathos and peril of much of contemporary radical Islam’s protest against the West is not fueled primarily by aggrieved victimhood; it is nourished by an even stronger memory of how Islam’s final victory over Christendom remained for so long a real possibility. Muslim triumphs in earlier centuries were the crucible that forged both Christendom’s fears and Islam’s confidence.

Continue Reading: War Without End: A Brief History of the Muslim Conquests

Is CAIR's Bedier Calling for the Return of the Caliphate?

Islamwatch — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 03:06:00 GMT

by Charles Martel

CAIR's position on the notion of returning to the caliphate is a bit nebulous. Quotes by many CAIR leaders have been used to try and show that these CAIR members in fact want to turn the US into a caliphate, though this is more accurately a goal of theocracy. Many Muslim nations remain theocracies yet sovereign nations subject to no empire or caliphate. There is no caliph, no "unified voice", as Bedier puts it, for Muslims to speak out with. Perhaps it just slipped his mind that most Muslims at this point won't speak out against the Wahhabists, but I'll leave that to the discretion of the viewers. CAIR higher-ups recently responded rather as they do at the mention of the name "Daniel Pipes" over President Bush's use of the word caliphate, and I'm still trying to figure out their "official" stance, which is always hard with CAIR since their representatives are always running their mouths off in different directions nationwide.

Continue reading: Is CAIR's Bedier Calling for the Return of the Caliphate?