The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Issue 46

Issue 46 [46:21]: Beit Ye’or, Author, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam – “Now the infidel population are seeing this war as genocidal war since as it is described in the Muslim historians of Jihad as well as extremely numerous Christian sources. This war…was conducted…in great ferocity, whole cities were given up to massacres…entire populations were deported in slavery or massacred.”

Rebuttal 46: Beit Ye’or has no sense of truthfulness when she selectively reads, rather invents history and that too when she dwell in mere adjectives rather than facts. She mentions Jihad, genocidal war, cities given up to massacres, entire populations being deported into slavery or massacred, without quoting facts. She got her lines crossed when she mistook “others” in history for Christianity of and from Europe.

Once again, the favorite word of the documentary, “Jihad” is misused in an effort to misinform its audience by juxtaposing it with war. The meaning, spirit and purpose of Jihad was fully dealt with from different angles in Issues before – Muhammad Ali (Issue 27), Pickthall (Issue 27) , Zahid Aziz (Issue 33), Nooruddin (Issue 36) and G.W. Leitner (Issue 37).

One does not have to a be historian like Ye’or to notice lack of any “White Slaves” in present day Muslim world. But it does not take long to find “Black Slave” descendants and their ghettos in any setting in Europe and Americas, which are essentially the Christian lands. These daily experiences are enough for any intelligent person to draw conclusion as to who made slaves as part of their religious and national policies. To draw this kind of sensible conclusion from history, one does not need the history inventors of this documentary, all it needs is to walk down any street in the “Christian lands” and notice for oneself. It is obvious that she is inventing stories.

As far as massacres or cities being destroyed, then below is a sampler of facts of mayhem by Christians on Christians in the name of Christianity, in the lands of present day Old Civilized World, a.k.a. Europe alone. These figures do not include Crusades, Inquisition, Colonization and victimization of non-Christians:

– Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987, 30]

– Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [H.Wollschlger: Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zrich 1973, 223]

– Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987, 235]

– 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987,30]

– 16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops “pacified and civilized” Ireland, where only Gaelic “wild Irish”, “unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing.” One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that “the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies… and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie”, which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused “greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde”. Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [D.Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press 1992, 99, 225]

Next, the much coveted word “genocide” used by Ye’or. She tacitly tries to gain mileage from its usage. To begin with, has she ever wondered who started all this genocide phenomenon in living history? It is none but, the spirituality source of her own and her fellow experts, namely the Old Testament. This Scripture not only directs but mandates genocide. No wonder that genocide is very much a European phenomenon, at least for the time period she is referring to. Below are a sample of the “Divinely” sanctioned methods of how to commit a genocide:

Deut 20:16. But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

Deut 20:17. But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:

1 Sam 15:3. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

1 Sam 27:8. And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites: for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt.

1 Sam 27:9. And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel, and returned, and came to Achish.

1 Sam 27:11. And David saved neither man nor woman alive, to bring tidings to Gath, saying, Lest they should tell on us, saying, So did David, and so will be his manner all the while he dwelleth in the country of the Philistines.

Joshua 6:3. So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up against Ai: and Joshua chose out thirty thousand mighty men of valour, and sent them away by night.

Joshua 6:4. And he commanded them, saying, Behold, ye shall lie in wait against the city, even behind the city: go not very far from the city, but be ye all ready:

Joshua 6:5. And I, and all the people that are with me, will approach unto the city: and it shall come to pass, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them,

Joshua 6:6. (For they will come out after us) till we have drawn them from the city; for they will say, They flee before us, as at the first: therefore we will flee before them.

Joshua 6:7. Then ye shall rise up from the ambush, and seize upon the city: for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.

Joshua 6:8. And it shall be, when ye have taken the city, that ye shall set the city on fire: according to the commandment of the LORD shall ye do. See, I have commanded you.

Joshua 6:19. And the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand: and they entered into the city, and took it, and hasted and set the city on fire.

Joshua 6:20. And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way: and the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers.

Joshua 6:21. And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai.

Joshua 6:22. And the other issued out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape.

Joshua 6:23. And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.

Joshua 6:24. And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword.

Joshua 6:25. And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.

Joshua 6:26. For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.

Joshua 6:27. Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the LORD which he commanded Joshua.

Joshua 6:28. And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.

If the believer of the Torah does not carry out the ordained genocide to the fullest i.e. killing all the people but sparing some cattle as booty, his God can be quite punishing, as is the case of Saul, the king of Israel, whose kingdom was taken away for his failing and given instead to David by God:

1 Sam 15:7. And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt.

1 Sam 15:8. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

1 Sam 15:9. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.

1 Sam 15:10. Then came the word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying,

1 Sam 15:11. It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night.

1 Sam 15:12. And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.

1 Sam 15:13. And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD.

1 Sam 15:14. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?

1 Sam 15:15. And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.

1 Sam 15:16. Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.

1 Sam 15:17. And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?

1 Sam 15:18. And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.

1 Sam 15:19. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?

1 Sam 15:20. And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

1 Sam 15:21. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal.

1 Sam 15:22. And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

1 Sam 15:23. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

Reader, please compare the ordained brutality of Old Testament above with the sensibility of Quran:

5:32. …We prescribed for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a person, unless it is for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he had killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the lives of all mankind. And certainly Our messengers came to them with clear arguments, but even after that many of them commit excesses in the land.

It is quite obvious that whenever Christians commit genocide, they carried out the Divine commandment and are thus true adherents of their faith. If they do not then they risk being infidel, ironically a word used by Beit Ye’or in the current issue for the same very people whom she is kissing up to. Whereas, if a Muslim kills an innocent, then he goes against the Divine purpose as outlined in Quran, thus risking his own infidelity. Ye’or, go figure out who is an infidel and who is genocidal, whether in history, present or in the Scriptures. One wonders, how can a Christian remain a Christian, and a Jew remain a Jew, after they have read their own Scripture? As is obvious in verses above from the Old Testament, this Scripture, no matter how much holy, has no room in human sense of morality. No wonder, these old religions need crutches of mythologies to prop up their facade and keep the face of a religion while duping the world under the garb of either being the “Chosen” or “Salvaged.” Isn’t it ironic that to save humanity, they first had to get their own God killed by the followers of their common Scripture?

Before the Bible thumpers offer salvation, it behooves them first to salvage the morality of what they are thumping. With this kind of immorality of a Scripture and its adherents, Beit Ye’or the Author, “The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam,” before long, she might be retitling her book “The Decline of Eastern and Western Christianity Under Quran.” Who knows?

References:
Christian Atrocities – Not a Christian
King James Version – BibleGateway.com
The Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz