I am gratified the GOP still controls the Senate and
displeased the Marxist oriented Dems is the majority political party in the
House – all be it slim majority. The jury is out on how a divided Congress
manages the rule of law in this nation, but if the proven Dem/media
lies against President Trump the emerging proof of a lying smear campaign (HERE,
HERE,
HERE
& HERE)
against Justice Brett Kavanaugh is any indication – government gridlock is in
the future for at least two-years.
But moving on … It is time to refresh our memory on just how
dangerous Islam is to Western Culture. I’ve been reading Robert Spencer’s new
book “The
History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS” – Book Review HERE.
And now another book exposing Islam’s history and true
nature is out by Raymond Ibrahim: “Sword
and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West”. After
reading the book review on Ibrahim’s blog, I’ll picking that book up as well.
JRH 11/7/18
In this current state of media censorship & defunding, consider
chipping in a few bucks for enjoying this Blog.
*************************
Fr. James V. Schall: Sword and Scimitar Is
“a Detailed, Well-Researched” and “Most Welcome” Book
11/07/2018
James V.
Schall, S.J. — a longtime professor of political philosophy at
Georgetown University and author of On Islam — recently
reviewed my book, Sword
and Scimitar. First published in the Catholic World Report,
and titled, “On
the Purpose of Islam: A Review of Raymond Ibrahim’s Sword and Scimitar,”
it follows:
“Unlike most military
histories—which no matter how fascinating are ultimately academic—this [book]
offers correctives; it sets the much discussed historical record between these
two civilizations straight and, in so doing, demonstrates once and for all that
a Muslim hostility for the West is not an aberration but a continuation of
Islamic history.” — Raymond Ibrahim, Sword
and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (New
York: De Capo Press, 2018), xvi
“For unlike Manzikert (1071), which
was more a Turkic victory, the conquest of Constantinople (1453) had greater
significance for all Muslims. Even in Egypt, where the Ottoman’s chief rivals
the Mamluks reigned, the ‘good tidings were proclaimed and Cairo decorated’ to
celebrate ‘this greatest of conquests.’ The Sharif of Mecca wrote to Muhammed
(II), calling him ‘the one who has aided Islam and the Muslims, the Sultan of
all kings and sultans,’ and—further underscoring the idea that conquest over
infidels is the epitome of Islamic piety—‘the resuscitator of the Prophet’s
sharia.’” — Raymond Ibrahim, Sword and Scimitar, 247.
I.
Some things we prefer not to know. Among these, it often
seems, is an accurate account of the origins, extent, and the means of
expansion of Islam over its now 1200 year history. During this time period, the
armies of Islam managed to conquer a good fifth of the world’s geography and
population. This growth and expansion show few signs of abating, in spite of
Islam’s expulsion from Spain in the fifteenth century and from the Balkans in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The main reason that Islam is not
larger is because—and only because—it was defeated in some major historic
battles. In recent years, with its high birth-rate and its immigration, Islam
has a new lease on life in the West, particularly in Europe, from which it had
been turned back in the eighth century at the battle of Tours and in the
fifteenth at Vienna. Both Europe and America are now dotted with mosques in
hundreds of places, the construction of which is usually financed by Saudi
Arabia.
In this riveting account of the history of Islam’s military
accomplishments, Raymond Ibrahim shows that Islam has followed a consistent
policy that has combined politics, war, terror, and religion. Its purpose was,
and remains, essentially religious, however unwilling we might be, because of
our own presuppositions, to grant that fact. This purpose follows a reading of
the Koran as Islam’s central guide and ultimate justification as the message of
Allah to mankind. It also manifests the core reason why Islam, throughout its
history, has sought to expand. Other motives—economic, ethnic, and
political—were also present, but this religious motive was at its core. Until
that core is rejected by enough individual Muslims, it will continue to
inspire, , by ever varying means—sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent—this
drive to conquer what is not yet under Islamic control.
What is difficult for many to understand is the persistence
of a singular purpose, carried on century after century: the submission of the
world to Allah. Both those who believe in nothing and those who believe in
other gods are tempted to think such a concept to be preposterous or
impossible. Yet this purpose is what motivated and inspired the Muslim caliphs,
beys, emirs, sheiks, merchants, and peasants, whether Sunni or Shiite, to
continue their mission no matter how hopeless it seemed at first.
This expansion involved massive genocides and slaughters in
various parts of the world and in different eras, about which Ibrahim gives a
detailed and often graphic account. But such shocking means, deliberately
undertaken, do not obviate this prior religious purpose. Indeed, this religious
purpose is part of the rationale of the expansion, which used whatever means
that worked. The philosophical voluntarism that finally explained Muslim
actions came into being to justify the use of violence in religion. As
explained by al Ghazelli in the eleventh century, Allah could will the opposite
of what he willed; everything depends on Allah’s will that is bound to no
permanent truth.
II.
To understand Islam, it is necessary to follow its history,
which is inspired by the Koran and its interpretations. Thus we have both what
the Koran teaches and the historic record of what Islam did following upon
those teachings. Noted historian Victor Davis Hanson, in the “Foreword” to
Ibrahim’s book, gives a brief list of its major theses: 1) “Islamic armies saw
themselves as expansionary and messianic, eager to engage the West and to annex
its territory and convert its people”; 2) The wars against the West were not
seen primarily as localized but “as religious rather than national or
ethnic…their warring against the Westerners was so seen as mostly a monolithic
struggle against Christendom rather than against particular European States”;
3) Islamic leaders have seen Christianity as inherently against Islam; 4)
Muslims in Western states had much more freedom than Christians in Muslim
states.
The book is a detailed, well-researched account of the major
battles between Islam and the West. The same methods of warfare, conquest, and
imposition of Muslim law occur again and again. The Crusades were not signs of
Christian aggressiveness but of a final, usually desperate effort to protect themselves
from Muslim incursions. Two things are striking in this presentation. The first
is that the positive use of violence is considered a legitimate way to deal
with those deemed as enemies of Islam. With almost monotonous regularity this
factor is seen in every battle and its aftermath. It can be, from an Islamic
perspective, justified from Koranic verses and from the historical record. The
only time a Muslim doubts his faith is when he is soundly defeated in battle.
But military defeat is only temporary. As long as the Koran is read, Islam will
rise again. Islam, we see again and again, is both patient and unforgiving.
The second striking thing is the extent and prevalence of
slavery, of slave markets, of the need of slaves to make possible the kind of
life that Muslim leaders carved out for themselves. Most Americans are aware
that slavery existed in their own country. What is not so widely known is the
place of Arab middle men who were the slave brokers for both black and white
slaves. Though slavery is found in many cultures throughout history, it was a
constant element in Muslim life. And the slaves were not mostly black, but
white; the choice slaves were acquired by raids along the European coasts or as
the booty of conquest.
Near the end of the book, Ibrahim recounts the experience of
the early American founders with Islam. The first American war, some might be
surprised to learn, was with the Barbary Pirates in North Africa. The United
States paid regular and enormous ransom fees to recover Americans held as
hostages. Ibrahim cites the letter that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson wrote
to Congress on March 28, 1786:
We took the liberty to make some
inquiries concerning the grounds of their (Muslim) pretentions to make war
against nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered
all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any
provocation. The (Muslim) ambassador answered us that it was founded on the
laws of their Prophet, that was written in their Koran, that all nations who
should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their
right and duty to make war on them wherever they could be found and to make
slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman who should
be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise (284).
This analysis of Adams and Jefferson sketches and summarizes
the essential theses of this book, which draws out in detail the record and
working out of the Muslim practice of warfare and governance as seen embodied
in its history.
III.
The book leaves us with several questions. Can one really be
a faithful Muslim and not accept this history and its rationale? Can
non-Muslims rest content that this religious warfare in various forms will not
be unleashed on them whenever the opportunity arises? As Ibrahim points out, a
Muslim is free to say in public that he will not practice violence provided
that he secretly agrees in his heart that he will follow, when he can, the
Koran and what it says about such violence.
A further issue is whether an accurate knowledge of Islamic
warfare and history is not somehow illiberal, unfair, or, yes, provocative.
Those who maintain, in spite of all evidence, that Islam is a religion of peace
do neither Islam nor themselves any favor. We honor Islam best by judging it
first by its own standards and purposes. In this sense, Ibrahim’s book is most
welcome. It does not pretend that the record of what Islam does and says of
itself is something else other than it is. And no one denies, of course, that
Islam is composed of many internal struggles both of its theology and of its
politics.
In many ways, Islam has been its own worst enemy. Efforts to
democratize Islam have taught many Muslims how to use democratic processes for
their long term goals. While Islam approves of conquest by arms, it does not
disdain any other way to power if it can finally impose its law (Sharia). While
there are no Muslim armies today capable of defeating any major power in the
field, the use of terrorist tactics can, if unchecked, still effectively
disrupt and even weaken any modern society.
IV.
In Belloc’s 1900 book Miniatures of French History we
find a chapter entitled “The Breaking of Islam,” which is about the Battle at
Poitiers and Tours in 732, a seminal battle that Ibrahim likewise covers. It
was a battle that saved France and probably Europe. To explain why Islam was in
France in the first place, Belloc wrote:
Mahomet, acquainted with the Faith,
selected from manifold Christian truth what few points seemed good to him, and
composed a new heresy alive with equality and the reduction of doctrine to the
least compass. He denied the Incarnation and left the Eucharist aside. Mahomet had
vision and heard divine commands. Stones spoke to him and he perceived the
glories of heaven. But more than this…he was filled with a command to teach
what he had seen and known. He must remake men. For this mighty task he found
two mighty levers—brotherhood and simplicity—and to these he joined the delight
of arms.
Belloc, as Ibrahim also notes, was far ahead of his time in
seeing the meaning and scope of Islamic thought and history. Belloc paid the
honor to Islam of taking its religious side, its history, and its messianic
purposes seriously. He could do this because he could understand the call of
its faith. This understanding of Islam’s faith is what is important in Sword
and Scimitar. We cannot read Muslim history as if it is explained by the
liberal mind that cannot (or will not) understand the call of such a faith over
time. Christians have been mostly driven out of Muslim lands. They have
suffered attacks and killings in our day, the same kind of atrocities that
occurred again and again in the past. We pay little or no attention. Those most
eager to dialogue with representatives of Islam usually do not know its
history. They cannot understand why this dialogue results mostly in an effort
to settle more and more of Mohammed’s followers in lands that Islam could not
conquer before by arms.
Belloc, in his book The Crusades—in a section on
the Battle at the Horns of Hattin (1187), after the crushing of the Crusaders’
last hold in the Holy places—said that if Islam ever gains the power again, it
will do exactly as it did before. He wrote this in the 1930s; by the second
decade of the 21st century, it is clear that he was right. Ibrahim’s book
provides the background to verify this thesis.
Islam cannot reform itself by denying its own history and
the methods to achieve its successes. And it cannot be Islam and deny what is
in the Koran. Wherever the Koran is read carefully and seriously, the drive to
world submission to Allah will reappear and continue. Sometimes it will be
defeated; at other times it will succeed. Islam is content to wait, but it
always is prodding. It understands that its immediate enemy is the West—not
China or India or Russia. It has every reason to believe that it is gradually
but definitely making inroads into Europe, often without the need of bloodshed.
It has not repudiated terror, but it has realized the possibility of using
Western political means to bring the Sharia into effect in any given city or
country. If it can expand by democratic means as well as with terror and war,
so much the better. The end remains the same–the conquest of the world for
Allah, the mission assigned to it from the beginning.
Islam today is divided into various factions and dozens of
states, some struggling against others. It has no final authority of
interpretation of its texts; it has no unified army. The recent defeat of ISIS
on the ground made clear that its expansion might now use other means.
Historically, Christians and non-Christians falling under the control of Muslim
majorities have been required to pay a fine and accept second class
citizenship, convert, or die. Peace for Islam means the condition brought about
when everyone is Muslim. Until then, a state of war with non-Muslims de facto
exists. Again, the purpose of Islam is the subjection of all men and nations to
Allah. Without this ultimate goal, Islam is not Islam. One cannot but admire
this religious impetus, while, at the same time, doing one’s best to see that
it never succeeds—both for the good of non-Muslims and Muslims alike. Sword
and Scimitar offers a challenging and direct explanation why these
things make sense.
____________________
RAYMOND IBRAHIM is a widely published author, public speaker, and
Middle East and Islam specialist. His books include Sword
and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (Da Capo, 2018), Crucified
Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (Regnery, 2013), and The Al Qaeda
Reader (Doubleday, 2007).
Ibrahim’s writings,
translations, and observations have appeared in a variety of publications,
including the New York Times Syndicate, CNN, LA Times, Fox News, Financial
Times, Jerusalem Post, United Press International, USA
Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, and Weekly Standard;
scholarly journals, including the Almanac of Islamism, Chronicle of
Higher Education, Hoover Institution’s Strategika, Jane’s Islamic Affairs
Analyst, Middle East Quarterly, and Middle East Review of
International Affairs; and popular websites, including American Thinker,
Bloomberg, Breitbart, Christian Post, Daily Caller, NewsMax, National Review
Online, PJ Media, and World Magazine. He has contributed chapters to
several anthologies and has been translated into dozens of languages.
Ibrahim guest lectures at
universities, including the National Defense Intelligence College, has briefed
governmental agencies, such as U.S. Strategic Command and the Defense
Intelligence Agency, provides expert testimony for Islam-related lawsuits, and
has testified before Congress regarding the conceptual
failures that dominate American
discourse concerning Islam and the worsening
plight of Egypt’s Christian Copts.
Among other media, he has
appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, and NPR; he has
done hundreds of radio interviews and two courses for Prager University, each of which has been viewed over
a million times on YouTube.
Ibrahim’s
dual-background—born and raised in the U.S. by Egyptian parents born and raised
in the Middle East—has provided him with unique advantages, from equal fluency
in English and Arabic, to an equal understanding of the Western and Middle
Eastern mindsets, positioning him to explain the latter to the former. His
interest in Islamic civilization was first piqued when he began visiting the
Middle East as a child in the 1970s. Interacting and conversing with the locals
throughout the decades has provided him with an intimate appreciation for that
part of the world, complementing his academic training.
After a brief athletic
career—including winning the 1993 NPC Los Angeles Bodybuilding Championship as
a teenager—Raymond went on to receive his B.A. and M.A. (both in History,
focusing on the ancient and medieval Near East, with dual-minors in Philosophy
and Literature) from California State University, Fresno. There he studied
closely with noted military-historian Victor
Davis Hanson. He also took graduate
courses at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab
Studies—including classes on the history, politics, and economics of the Arab
world—and studied Medieval Islam and Semitic languages at Catholic University
of America. His M.A.
thesis examined an early military
encounter between Islam and Byzantium based on arcane Arabic and Greek texts.
Ibrahim’s resume includes
serving as an Arabic language and regional specialist at the Near East Section
of the Library of Congress, where he was often contacted by and provided
information to defense and intelligence personnel involved in the fields of
counterterrorism and area studies, as well as the Congressional Research
Service; and serving as associate director of the Middle East Forum, a
Philadelphia think tank.
He also often functions as a
journalist and has been a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a CBN News
analyst. His knowledge of Arabic and familiarity with Middle
Eastern sources have enabled him to offer breaking news. Days before
the Obama administration blamed an anti-Islamic movie for Muslim uprisings
against a U.S. consul and an embassy in Libya and Egypt respectively,
Ibrahim showed that the demonstrations were pre-planned and unrelated to the movie. Similarly, he was first to expose an Arabic-language Saudi
fatwa that called for the destruction of any Christian church found on the
Arabian Peninsula.
Raymond Ibrahim is currently
the Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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