Comment
“This blog has been great up to this point. It has been a remarkable display of scholarship and hard work. It is now wandering into a conceptually much more difficult area. Defense of the Crusades may reflect deeply felt personal opinions, but it demands support beyond assertions.
“Likewise, the identification of what took place in the Indus Valley so long ago with what is going on in the world today needs more than assigning “bad guy” to one party or the other and neglecting the details of two encounters so far apart in time. In particular the role of oil and the struggle to get it in the present is ignored. Secondly, to say the Islamic religion is united against Western Civilization, or in fact, is united in any way capable of a single effort is a generalization beyond rational acceptance. Most of your readers will recognize this.”
S. Thomas Bond
Dear Mr. Bond,
Thank you for commenting, for your kind words about the Raising Up Pharaoh blog, and for your raising an issue that may, indeed, have occurred to other readers.
(1) I am devoting this week’s post to presenting facts and analyses supporting my conviction that the Christian Crusades against the Islamic Jihad were fully justified.
(2) Moreover, I will respond to your challenge of the relevancy of my comparison of the Indo-Aryan invasion of the Indus Valley 4,000 years ago to the Muslim invasion of Europe today.
(3) Lastly, you create a straw man when you say a viable Islamic threat requires an unattainable Islamic unity. Asymmetric warfare does not require a nation or alliance to openly say, “Let’s destroy the West and Christianity along with the Jews.” Considering the Sunni/Shiite schism and the killing of Sunnis by Sunnis and Shiites by Shiites, there is no monolithic Islamic unity. However, someone is bankrolling the terrorism. Asymmetric Warfare is efficient: it took (i) only a small Shiite cell to kill 241 American marines, sailors, and soldiers in Beirut in 1983, (ii) 19 Sunnis to destroy the twin towers, damage the Pentagon, and kill 3,000 people on 9/11/2001, and (iii) 30,000 ISIS Sunnis to create havoc in Syria and Iraq and international angst in 2014. These killers followed a straightforward (not contrived) reading of the Qur’an, which I’ve studied at length, and to which all Muslims claim fidelity. Are we fantasizing about MINOS—Muslims in Name Only?
I see no good guys or “bad guys” in my view of history or today’s world. As a Christian, I believe it is given to a man once to die and then comes judgment. I’m convinced God unconditionally loves every person He created, despite that person’s moral corruption. Rather than obey God (specifically nothing more or less than Jesus’ words: “Love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself,” with “neighbor” defined as everyone else), man hopes God will not notice what he’s done, fantasizes that God is a doting father, tries to offset his sin with good deeds (which are often more horrible than the sin), denies the validity of God’s scripture in whole or in part—or hates God. I recognize that nothing a man can do could substitute for the death penalty due a rebel. God chooses to show compassion and mercy, but the individual and corporate debt must be paid to satisfy God’s righteousness. Thus, God entered our world as a sinless man, Jesus Christ, and died on a Roman cross to pay that death penalty on man’s behalf. But, each man must accept God’s gift of Jesus to enjoy the forgiveness He so dreadfully purchased. Many reject Christ, and their penalty is not removed, for there is no other way than God’s. But those who accept the redemption Christ bought as God’s free gift enter into an eternal love relationship with their Creator. It is written, “It is by grace I have been saved, that is through faith. And that faith comes not from within me, it is a gift of God–not by works, so that no man can boast.”
So, although Islam sees all of non-Islam as an enemy who must conform to its will or perish, I feel only compassion for those who are so deluded—and for their victims, and future victims.
Christianity encourages me to challenge falsehood with truth, and expects me to protect my family and nation. The United States of America is a constitutional republican form of government in which I, as a voting citizen, am master and not a subject of the civil servants who are paid to perform individually minor roles in administering–not managing–the constitutionally restrained government apparatus. I won’t trade that for Dhimmitude.
As the malice of Islam has been unmasked since September 11, 2001, I feel an urgency to counter Islamic and American fifth column propaganda about the strategic war—the continuation of that waged against the West by Islam for the past 1400 years—in accordance with the Qur’an.
My responses to points (1) and (2) follow.
Thanks again, S. Thomas Bond, and best regards,
R. E. J. Burke
Islamic State releases map of 5-year plan to spread from Spain to China Credit
Islam has waged Jihad against the West for 1,400 years.
There has been a long-standing, inexplicable campaign in America to whitewash the 1400 year worldwide campaign of conquest and tyranny by the military forces of Islam, the concomitant destruction of cultural artifacts which challenge the Islamic interpretation of history in the conquered lands, the slaughter of mostly Christians who refused to deny their faith and convert to Islam, and the imposition of a theocratic form of Islamic government called Sharia.
I’m not going to investigate the structure of that long-standing campaign of disinformation. Instead, I’m going to demonstrate The Historical Reality of the Muslim Conquests, that Islam began to expand geographically shortly after its invention in Arabia, and that the expansion was violent, destroyed every form of culture and knowledge that it found inconsistent with the Koran, then replaced each government with the Koranic template of Sharia.
My most persuasive and unassailable argument is a factual recounting of the expansion of Islam from Arabia west into the Levant, Anatolia, and Egypt, murdering inhabitants who would not deny the Christian faith and submit to Islam, even under threat of death. In the same manner, Islam destroyed the Christian civilization of North Africa and at Morocco crossed into Spain from which it made forays into France and Italy. Islam went on to eventually conquer Constantinople, then thrust up the Danube to Vienna, Austria. (It also went east through India to Indonesia, but I’ll leave that story to someone else.)
I have found no one who can tell this story as well as Doctor Bill Warner in his video presentation “Why We Are Afraid, a 1400-year Secret.” I ask you to pay particular attention to Doctor Warner’s marked map of the battles of Islam during this expansion over intervals of time. Complementing Dr. Warner’s video presentation is his detailed listing of events in The Jihad That Led To the Crusades. After watching his presentation and timeline, the reader should have no question as to why Europe found it necessary to counterattack Islam near its source. Should more on this subject be necessary, I offer the Islam and Europe Timeline 355-1291 AD which covers the Crusades and independently supports Dr. Warner’s timeline and thesis.
To add color and depth to the above accounts, I offer a short overview of the religion and its traditions: What is Islam? And The Trilogy Project explains the relationship of the three books: Koran, Sira, and Hadith. A series of Political Islam blogs going from April 26, 2015 to November 2007 deals with many germane facets about the Muslim religion and related politics. A brief bio of Dr. Warner. And an interview with a Muslim woman and author who seeks Islamic reform and, consequently, has had a Fatwa for assassination pronounced upon her: Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
After starting the war with the West, I think it absurd that the Islamists speak out about the Crusades as an aggression on them, citing their version of how events transpired, but never talking about what Islamic armies had previously done to Christendom in the East, North Africa, and Europe.
Appeasement was unsuccessful strategy for millennia.
Having survived bulbar polio as a skinny kid, I was a bully-magnet in grammar school. I noticed that most kids kowtowed to bullies, while I would not and got routinely slaughtered in fights. I never did understand nor try to justify the other kids’ cowardice. Most of those cowards are still alive today, as they say, “To fight another day,” having avoided all moral dilemmas. These are the ones who lack the guts to speak out and defend their values. But I found my soul-brothers in the U.S. Marines, and now realize there are many brave men—with weak or strong bodies—but bold-hearted and strong-minded. And they understand you can’t stop a bully with words and legalese. You don’t sign a contract with a maniac and feel safe. And you can never pay off an extortionist, nor will a Nazi (or kindred spirit) honor a deal. Mr. Chamberlain found that out.
But that’s only my “deeply felt personal opinion.” However, I learn from history, not just carefully chosen snippets that support my worldview, but most importantly from those that don’t fit my worldview. That’s how real science works. If data doesn’t fit my theory, I change the theory. But, of course, the data must be independently vetted (reproduced by retesting) before I’ll accept it.
Let’s look a 4th time at that situation in the Indus Valley in the critical period of 2500-1800 BC. We saw the first tracks of a new religion (a sacrificial fire altar religion) at Kalibangan around 2500 BC. Fire altars were new in Harappa, but not new to the Indo-Aryans.The tracks spread in the Indus Valley alongside the “old time religion” of the Mother Goddess. By 1750 BC, the Vedic Period of Indo-Aryans was established in earnest, as chronicled in the Rig and other Vedas and in the steady decline in maintenance of the Harappan cities. Indo Aryans and fire worship were the new normal. The apparently pacific Harappans were no longer distinguishable in the excavations. Wars between cities had become the new normal. This complete replacement of a huge peaceful civilization by a warlike tribal system happened over 750 years, without any signs that the peaceful Harappan civilization did (or could do) anything but fade into the background.
That fading into the background is exactly what’s now beginning in Europe. Christianity was hollowed out by the mid-twentieth century. Some might say that spiritual decline started with the Enlightenment, began in earnest with the French Revolution, and accelerated with deconstruction of the Bible. By the 1960’s, the great cathedrals were mostly visited by tourists. While numbers of retiring pensioners continue growing, birthrates (1.6 live births per couple) are currently less than the replacement rate of 2.1, and must be supplemented by immigration to pay the pensioners. Muslims represent 6% of the European Union’s population and have triple the birth rate (4.8 per couple). It won’t take Muslims in Europe 750 years to be transformed into the majority.
Let’s estimate the projected time it will take the Muslims to become the majority in Europe, ceteris paribus. The following calculations assume that immigration stopped for Indo-Aryans in 2500 BC, and for Muslims now, and that all subsequent growth in numbers is organic i.e. among the original immigrant cohorts and not from further immigration. The 4.8 child birth rate per Muslim couple will increase the Muslim population in Europe (now 44 million) to match the present (declining, but assumed flat ) total EU population (743 million) in less than 60 years (around the year 2075), about 10% of the time it took the Indo-Aryans to become the majority among the culture in the Indus Valley. For all races, I assumed an 80 year lifespan and assumed higher infant mortality 4,000 years ago would have been offset by higher birth rates. Yeah, it’s just an estimate, but short of hiring an actuary it’s good enough for our purposes.
It’s interesting that both immigrant cohorts, separated by 4,000 years, possessed two of the most powerful language groups (Arabic and Indo-European) in the history of languages. The power of Indo-European, and its general utility to the conquered, caused the new language to continue spreading. It’s unknowable at this time, but I wonder whether Arabic will dominate Europe.
I could provide similar examples of indigenous people accepting radically different foreigners into their midst, and then finding they had sealed the doom of their own cultures. One example would be local tribes helping the Pilgrims to winter and later farm at Plymouth Rock. But, I’m sure many of you already have abundant examples in mind. This validates the comparative observation of cultural trends as a timeless principle.
Thanks again, S. Thomas Bond, for making us exercise our “little gray cells” a bit harder (a la Hercule Poirot).
Thanks for visiting.