The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement Blog

Project Rebuttal – Islam: What the West Needs to Know

Issue 52 [@54:30]: Serge Trifkovic – “If we look at the tectonic plates between Islamic world and non-Islamic world today, we notice something very interesting. That very diverse Muslim societies which cannot be branded under one civilization label is something very common and it is their tendency to be in conflict with their neighbors. If we look at the extreme South-Eastern outreach of Islam,we see East Timor where Indonesian Muslims slaughtered a third of the population of its former Portuguese colony, who by the way are Roman Catholics. In Southern Philippines we see an extremely violent Islamic rebellion which has been simmering and has been more or less violent for years. In Indonesia itself we had religious conflict in Spice Islands where beleaguered Christian minorities are in danger of extinction. We have very active Islamic movements both in Thailand and in China in Xingchiang. In the Indian sub-continent the history is tragic indeed where Hindu Holocaust took place in medieval times, a little known episode in the history of Islam in the Western world, but the one that left deep traumatic mark on the people of the region and the conflict is still left latent in the province of Kashmir. In Africa there is constant war in Sudan which is finally gained some prominence in the Western decision making circles, but has been going on for twenty years and it is impossible to estimate the number of lives it claimed but it certainly goes into many hundreds and thousands. There is constant instability in Nigeria between resurgent central-northern states which are increasingly pressurizing the government in Lagos into accepting Sharia Law as the law of the land in those provinces. And of course there is Mauritania where Muslims constantly battle non-Muslim Southerners. Then there is of course the Caucuses, Chechnya. In Europe itself, we have the conflict in former Yugoslavia between Bosnian Muslims and Serbs and Croats respectively. And the conflict between Albanians and Serb Albanians in Macedonia and quite possibly before too long Albanians and Greeks. So, if we eliminate these conflicts, if we eliminate from the equation Chechnya, the Balkans, Sudan, the world is pretty peaceful place. If we eliminate from the terrorist equation, terrorist acts carried out by Muslim over the past five years, we come to realize that war on terror is unnecessary because terror is not a very big problem.
 
Rebuttal 52: The above senseless allegations and broad statements of Trifkovic need the breakdown below:
 

 
Issue 52a: If we look at the tectonic plates between Islamic world and non-Islamic world today, we notice something very interesting. That very diverse Muslim societies which cannot be branded under one civilization label is something very common and it is their tendency to be in conflict with their neighbors.
 
Rebuttal 52a: There is a fundamental myopia of the documentary script writers and their out of context conclusions from history, a vision tainted by hate and prejudice. They are quick to see ‘something very common’ among the Muslim world, but what they are blind to is that big ‘something very common’ elephant in the room is their being former colonies of the West, the non-Muslim world. The experts of the documentary assume that they represent the ‘West’. They further assume that ‘West’ was always right in its colonization and exploitation of the world. They assume that once the ‘West’ withdrew from its colonies, then by some hidden mantra they left behind a legacy of peace and it should had been all hunky-dory for the their former subjects, while it was not. The confusion that they left behind is at times beyond the grasp and reach of a couple of generations of the ‘freed’ former subjects. All over the world, they drew political boundaries and created countries that were never before. They carved out artificial borders that cut across geography, languages, cultures, religions, races and economic lines. Take for example, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Balkans, Central Asia, South East Asia, Middle East, Sudan, Nigeria, most of Africa whether western or central. They left behind poor governance that did not take long to deteriorate into personal fiefdoms of tyrants that are supported, financed and armed by the West. And, out of this confusion when their former colonies develop internal strife, again it is the West that arms and supports one party over the other. If those ‘tectonic plates’ that Trifkovic mentions were not created by colonization, then the modern Western powers did make sure that they happen in our times. Why go farther than Palestine that Mr. Trifkovic does not bring into his enlightened opinion above. What about Iraq, the Kurd population, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Koreas that saw the ‘boots and bombs on the ground’ of none but West on their soil.

As we dissect the allegations of Trifkovic, it becomes obvious that he will speak against Muslims globally without even flinching for a moment that they are as humans as their opponents in their regions and they have equal moral rights as anyone else. Historical and political facts pointed to below are not to demean any peoples of any religion or to deny them their rights in any region of the world, but only to bring out a Muslim perspective that Trifkovic does not bother even to mention and the documentary suppresses throughout.

Issue 52b: If we look at the extreme South-Eastern outreach of Islam,we see East Timor where Indonesian Muslims slaughtered a third of the population of its former Portuguese colony, who by the way are Roman Catholics.

Rebuttal 52b: The Indonesian Muslims DID NOT slaughter a third of the population of its former Portuguese colony. On the reverse, the ‘West’ picked and split amongst themselves the Indo/Poly/Micro/Mela-nesias in a manner no different than the all too familiar Easter Egg hunt. They divided without any qualms up 25,000 islands of Malay Archipelago and about 30,000 islands of Oceania.

East Timor [BBC] was exploited for centuries starting from 1600s when Portuguese invaded Timor, set up trading post and used island as source of sandalwood. In1749 Timor split following a battle between Portuguese and Dutch, Portuguese took the eastern half. Later in 1942 Japanese invade, fought battles with Australian troops and 40,000–70,000 East Timorese were killed. Japan controlled it until 1945 when it reverted back to Portugal after WWII. Between 28 November 1975 and 30 August 1999 it was occupied by Indonesia and resulted in approximately 18,600 killings. Indonesian occupation ended after UN sponsored referendum and supported by Indonesian parliament, East Timor became an independent country. Thereafter the local East-Timorese anti-independence militia killed approximately 1,400 Timorese and forcibly pushed 300,000 people into West Timor (Indonesia) as refugees. [Wikipedia]; In January 2002, Indonesia inaugurated human rights court to hold military accountable for atrocities in East Timor after the 1999 independence vote. In August 2005 Truth commission was set up by East Timor and Indonesia. [BBC]

Issue 52c: In Southern Philippines we see an extremely violent Islamic rebellion which has been simmering and has been more or less violent for years.

Rebuttal 52c: While making an implicit case for East Timor, Trifkovic makes sure to slip in the comment about East Timorese “who by the way are Roman Catholics” and brands their victimization at the hands of Indonesia. He deliberately avoids a similar statement when he knows that the instigators are Christians – “Southern Philippines we see an extremely violent Islamic rebellion.” The name Bangsangmoro, the Muslim part of southern Philippine, has originally evolved from the Spanish colonialist as early as 1570 when they saw the Muslims in the Philippines practiced Islam much in the same way their arch enemies – Moors of Spain and called the local Muslims as Moro. The use of Bangsamoro was a combination of Moro and Nation (Bangsa) [Wikipedia]. Besides falsely smearing, Trifkovic does not cite the cause of the “Islamic rebellion” which is:

 
On July 4, 1946, the United States of America restored political independence to the Filipino people, conveniently overlooking the statehood of the two Bangsamoro (Muslim) sultanates. The incorporation of the two sultanates in southern Philippines into the Philippine Republic was done without the benefit of democratic consultation on whether or not the majority of the Bangsamoro people would want to join the new republic as individual citizens or as sultanates. This was arbitrarily imposed upon them despite the repeated calls of some Bangsamoro leaders to oppose the incorporation of their homeland into the Philippine territory and sovereignty.

A case in point was the incident on March 18, 1935. One hundred twenty Bangsamoro datus of Lanao came up with the historical document popularly known as the “Dansalan Declaration”. This statement expressed to the U.S. colonial government their desire to be excluded from the proposed “independence” to be granted to the Filipinos in the North of the archipelago. This declaration is perhaps unmatched in its clarity:

“…we do not want to be included in the Philippines for once an independent Philippines is launched, there would be trouble between us and the Filipinos because from time immemorial these two peoples have not lived harmoniously together. Our public land must not be given to people other than the Moros…” (Philippine Muslim News (Manila),Vol.2, No.2, July 1968, pp.7-12).

 
Furthermore, the declaration warned to wit: “We foresee what conditions we and our children will be in”. These conditions, the declaration predicted, will have been characterized by unrest, suffering and misery. Desperate , or whatever their reasons were, the Bangsamoro leaders expressed preference for continued U.S. colonial rule in Mindanao if they could not be granted their separate independence simultaneously. (Philippine Muslim News, July 1968, p, 11).
 
One Bangsamoro datu said in a meeting in Zamboanga that when it comes to union with Filipino people, although he is already old, he would still fight to oppose such a plan (Gowing, 1977,pp.151-152). These protests were however, ignored by the U.S. colonial government.

The U.S. colonial government was, in short, principally responsible for the Bangsamoro and the Muslim sultanates’ becoming part of the present day Republic of the Philippines.

The restoration of the Philippine independence did not improve the socio-economic conditions of the Bangsamoro. The Philippine government continued to pursue the same socio-economic colonial policies in Mindanao.

One can mention, for instance, the multinational corporations’ extensive control and monopoly of Mindanao economy, particularly in the export of pineapple, banana, rubber, sugar cane, and others (Tadem, 1980). The banana industry in Mindanao alone covered 27,000 hectares of land wholly controlled by foreign U.S. multinationals engaged in agribusiness. As of 1975, 20,000 hectares were in the hands of three U.S. corporations. Dole had 9,000 hectares; Del Monte owned 6,588; and Tadeco had 4,500. At present , Del Monte owns the world’s biggest pineapple plantation with a total of 36,000 acres of land in Mindanao (Ahmad,1980, p.21).

I addition to this , in the 1950s and 1960s, the Philippine government promoted migration to southern Philippines because of its fertile land and its tremendous abundance of other natural resources in the region. This policy was encouraged in order to solve the agrarian problem in Luzon and the Visayan areas. Specifically, under the famous Magsaysay administration, several resettlement programs like the National Authority for Reforestation and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA), Land Settlement and Development Corporation (LASEDECO), Economic Development Corporation (EDCOR) and others gave way to massive migration from the northern Philippines to Mindanao. As a result of the steady influx of the new migrant settlers, the Filipino Christian migrant settlers finally outnumbered the original Bangsamoro and the Lumad indigenous inhabitants of southern Philippines. In the succeeding years, other Christian migrant settlers followed in massive and uncontrolled migration until they dominated the socio-economic and political life in Mindanao (Lomongo, 1988, pp.10-11).This eventually resulted to the increasing marginalization and underdevelopment of the Bansgsamoro and the Lumads. [Read further: Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Southern Philippines: A Discourse on Self-Determination, Political Autonomy and Conflict Resolution – pdf]
 

Just as a reminder to Trifkovic using his own words, the occupiers of the Bangsamoro land of Muslims, the Philippine population, “who by the way are Roman Catholics” as well [Wikipedia].

Issue 52d: In Indonesia itself we had religious conflict in Spice Islands where beleaguered Christian minorities are in danger of extinction.

Rebuttal 52d: Spice Islands mainly refers to Maluku Islands (formerly Moluccas) with its main Island of Ambon, that are part of Indonesia [BBC]. These are the same Islands that Columbus originally set sail for, when he instead landed in Americas. Once again the historical chaos in Maluku Islands is summarized in BBC report:
 

Control of the islands was fiercely contested between Dutch, Portuguese and English traders. As a result of this international interest, the Moluccas were left with a diverse mixture of religions – Muslim, Catholic and Protestant, all blended with powerful local customs.

The Dutch exerted a strong influence over the islands right up to Indonesia’s war of independence in the late 1940s. They recruited Ambonese Christians as soldiers to pacify the rest of Indonesia, and they offered them education.

In return, the Ambonese supported the Dutch against the mainly Java-based independence movement.

 
Now the chicken have come home to roost for the ‘Ambonese Christians soldiers’ who were used by the West, Dutch in this case to ‘to pacify the rest of Indonesia’ and suppress the ‘Java-based independence movement’. Because of this backlash now the pitiful rant of Trifkovic carries no moral ground when he exaggerates as usual by stating for the Ambonese ‘beleaguered Christian minorities are in danger of extinction’, which they are not. These fault lines between different racial and religious segments in Spice Islands were sowed, nurtured and spiced up by none but West to begin with by their divide and rule of local populations, the modus operandi of the West in their colonization and exploitation of the globe.

Issue 52e: We have very active Islamic movements both in Thailand and in China in Xinjiang.

Rebuttal 52e: If Trifkovic had soft corner for Catholic East Timorese, then it begets him and his readers to apply the same moral standards to Moros in Phillipines and Patani in Thailand, whose natives are majority Muslims. Unlike Spice Islands and East Timor who saw Christianity only after recent colonization, Patani and Xinjiang are Muslims regions for over thousand years:
 

Thailand has faced secessionist movements since it annexed the independent sultanate of Patani [Note: Thailand’s annexed sultanate is spelled “Patani”; the country’s southern province is spelled “Pattani”] in 1902, making the area the southernmost tip of the country. A policy of forced assimilation enraged the ethnically Malay Muslims, who represent the majority in the region. Many of the region’s Muslims adopted Thai names and the national language. But local traditions were secretly cultivated, and between the 1940s and the 1980s separatists staged a series of opposition uprisings. The insurgency is largely confined to the three provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat and five districts of Songkhla province—Chana, Thepa, Na Thawi, Saba Yoi, and Sadao. An August 2008 report by the International Crisis Group says the religious, racial, and linguistic differences between the minority Malay Muslims and the Buddhist majority in Thailand have led to a deep sense of alienation (PDF). Malay Muslims also harbor resentment against the country’s security forces for past and continuing human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances, the report says. Poor socio-economic conditions add to regional discontentment with the Thai government… [Excerpt – ‘The Muslim Insurgency in Southern Thailand‘– a report by Council on Foreign Relations]

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), a territory in western China, accounts for one-sixth of China’s land and is home to about 20 million people from thirteen major ethnic groups. The largest of these groups is the Uighurs [PRON: WEE-gurs], a predominantly Muslim community with ties to Central Asia. Some Uighurs call China’s presence in Xinjiang a form of imperialism, and they stepped up calls for independence—sometimes violently—in the 1990s through separatist groups like the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). The Chinese government has reacted by promoting the migration of China’s ethnic majority, the Han, to Xinjiang. Beijing has also strengthened economic ties with the area and tried to cut off potential sources of separatist support from neighboring states that are linguistically and ethnically linked with the Uighurs. Since the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, Xinjiang has enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy. Turkic rebels in Xinjiang declared independence in October 1933 and created the Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (also known as the Republic of Uighuristan or the First East Turkistan Republic). The following year, the Republic of China reabsorbed the region. In 1944, factions within Xinjiang again declared independence, this time under the auspices of the Soviet Union, and created the Second East Turkistan Republic. But in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party took over the territory and declared it a Chinese province. In October 1955, Xinjiang became classified as an “autonomous region” of the People’s Republic of China… [Excerpt – ‘Uighurs and China’s Xinjiang Region‘– a report by Council on Foreign Relations]

 
Issue 52f: In the Indian sub-continent the history is tragic indeed where Hindu Holocaust took place in medieval times, a little known episode in the history of Islam in the Western world, but the one that left deep traumatic mark on the people of the region and the conflict is still left latent in the province of Kashmir.

Rebuttal 52f: Once again, Trikovic is inventing history by alleging ‘Hindu Holocaust’. Simple question for him as to which, when, where and by whom was this ‘Hindu Holocaust’? There is no sliver of evidence of such an event in history at the hands of Muslims in India.

If we turn the pages of history and dig for any signs of Holocaust in India then it is none but at the hands of Aryans. Actually, case of India is even worse than Jewish Holocaust at the hands of the same European Aryans. Unlike the European Holocaust which lasted a decade at the most, the ‘Indian Holocaust’ at the hands of Europeans was a life of servitude for natives of India for thousand of years. India lost its potential in history under this very servitude that Greece, Rome, Egypt, Persia, China, Americas and Babylon have to their credit. These civilizations imported slaves but in India they created slaves from among themselves. Indian history is bracketed by its Western invasion and occupations. Aryans who invaded India about 1000 B.C. created the stratification of the society into caste system to their advantage in the following order, superior to inferior i.e.
 

– ‘Book’ handlers – priests, teachers, judges – The Brahmins;
 
– government maintainers – the rulers, soldiers and bureaucracy – The Kashatryas;
 
– commerce and ‘surplus’ handlers – currency traders, businessmen, craftsmen, land owners – The Vaishya;
 
– work handlers – the labor class – The Shudras;
 
– pollution handlers – the ‘untouchable’ professions of janitors, undertakers, scavengers – The Untouchables by higher classes, even to the extent that they were to be Unseeable in daylight by the Brahmins. These were so low that they had no caste and were factually ‘outcast’ from the society altogether.

Of course, the Aryans allotted higher castes to their white skin and the local Dravidians were relegated to lower castes. They kept a stranglehold on the society for preservation of their ‘racial purity’. The higher castes were the de facto perpetual masters of the native Indians who were forced into lower classes and who bore the brunt of servitude of being intrepidly enslaved, depraved and exploited, even till now. Factually, the word ‘Hindu’ literally means slave or a thief. Even though the origin of the word is wrongly attributed to Persians, but one has to take pause and think as to why is it mentioned in Vishnu Purana, the latest version of which was probably written in 320 C.E., much before Islam:
 

Aaasindo sindhu paryantham yasyabharatha bhoomikah
 
Mathrubhuh pithrubhoochaiva sah vai hindurithismrithaah

It can be quite safely concluded that the Aryans depraved the locals of India to the extent that the land of great prophets, Rama and Krishna, to any visitor or invader was no more than Hindustan – The Land of Slaves. No wonder we find the following curses towards the Aryans in Indian holy scriptures:
 

“O brave Indra! kill both the enemies Dasa and Arya, as the wood is chopped with the sharp axe.” (Mandal 6, Sukt 33, Mantra 3).

“O You who are praised by many! may the Arya or Dasa who dares us to war be thoroughly crushed by us, may we kill these enemies in war with Your help.” (Mandal 10, Sukt 38, Mantra 3).
 
“O Lord of the brave! may we kill these enemies, Aryas and Dasa.” (Mandal 6, Sukt 6, Mantra 6). [Names of World Religions by Abdul Haq Vidyarthi]

The Aryans even infused a sense of self-serving immorality among the natives. They stamped into religious doctrines and duped the masses that any hope out of the never ending genealogical servitude was migration into a higher form of life, but only after death. Finally, came the Portuguese and British who turned India into a colony till as recently as only 65 years ago. India lucked out because of its skin color, else it too was ready to be enslaved and deported to some other continent by the same European Aryans. It was this rigid classification of the society by the Aryans that sapped the soul of a society that it could not stand up to external threats. Ironically, the ‘foreigners’ to a certain extent in the ‘medieval times’ onwards were the only hope for the lower end of the caste system, the mega majority of India, to break free from physical and spiritual bondage of Aryan dogma by converting to whatever was offered, be it the Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and even Bahaism in recent times.

If Muslims were the cause of ‘Holocaust’ in India, then why do the Hindus flock in droves to the numerous shrines of Muslim saints in India [see the list at bottom of this link]. A question to Trifkovic – how many victims of Nazi Holocaust pay homages and seek blessings from the mausoleums of the perpetrators? Do textbooks in Indian schools teach the ‘Holocaust’ that Trifkovic wants to teach? Why? Because there is no such thing as ‘Holocaust’ in India.

Jalaluddin Khilji (1290 AD – 1296 AD) was the first ruler to put forward the view that the state should be based on the willing support of the governed and that since the majority of Indians were Hindus, the state cannot be truly Islamic [India: Past and Present, by Prakash Chander, p. 22-23].

Despite the efforts of Muslim rulers in India, nonetheless, during the six centuries of Islamic domination (c. 1150-1750), the caste system evolved considerably. For example, Brahmins began to rely on farming for their income, since the Muslim kings did not give rich gifts to Hindu temples. This practice was considered justified so long as Shudras did the actual physical labor. [http://asianhistory.about.com/od/india/p/indiancastesystem.htm]

One wonders as to what was Trifkovic smoking when he invents the term ‘Hindu Holocaust’ in medieval history that even Hindus themselves cannot point to, while he has his ‘eyes wide shut’ to what is happening in Palestine today, yes today. How low can this documentary stoop to misinform its audience. When Bollywood makes the movies with all-praise for Mughal Emperors [Jodha Akbar, Mughal-e-Azam], one does not find a ‘foreigner’ king as its main character, but an Indian king who happens to be a Muslim.

Since Trifkovic mentioned Kashmir which is source of contention between India and Pakistan right from their inception in August 1947, it begets to look at the relevant legalese first.
 

The Indian Independence Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo 6 c. 30) was as an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan. The Act received the royal assent on 18 July 1947, and the two new countries came into being on 15 and 14 August respectively. [Wikipedia] Thus under this act, “the suzerainty of His Majesty over the Indian States lapses, and with it, all treaties and agreements in force at the date of the passing of this Act between His Majesty and the rulers of Indian States”, so the states were left to choose whether to join India or Pakistan or to remain independent.

 
Within the above framework, lets look at the situation of Kashmir next:
 

Jammu and Kashmir, the largest of the princely states, had a predominantly Muslim population, while having a Hindu ruler (Maharaja Hari Singh.) On partition Pakistan expected Kashmir to be annexed to it.

The Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession to India on 25 October 1947 that was accepted by the government of India on 27 October 1947. [Wikpedia]

At present 99% of Azad Kashmir, 99% of Gilgit Baltistan, 95% of Kashmir Valley, 46% of Ladakh and 30% of Jammu is Muslim. [BBC]

 
On the reverse, we have the example of princely state of Junagadh whose ruler acceded to Pakistan. Following is the time-line of what happened then:
 

15 Aug 1947 Accedes to Pakistan.
 
15 Sep 1947 Accession to Pakistan accepted.
 
9 Nov 1947 Occupied by India.
 
10 Nov 1947 Rescinds accession to Pakistan, accedes to India
 
24 Feb 1948 Referendum approves accession to India.
 
25 Feb 1948 Accession to India in effect. [Wikipedia]

 
With the suzerainty of British ending at the time of partition, subsequently India cannot have it both ways. Basis on which India annexed Junagadh i.e. a state with a Muslim ruler and Hindu majority, then on the same very basis it cannot annex Kashmir because Kashmir is/was Muslim majority with a Hindu ruler, or vice versa, irrespective of whether the ruler chose Pakistan or India to join.

Issue 52g: In Africa there is constant war in Sudan which is finally gained some prominence in the Western decision making circles, but has been going on for twenty years and it is impossible to estimate the number of lives it claimed but it certainly goes into many hundreds and thousands.

Rebuttal 52g: Sudan is one more left over example of a colonial legacy and its consequent perpetual turmoil. Sudan was under joint British-Egyptian rule during1899-1955. In 1956 Sudan became independent. In 1958 General Abboud led military coup against the civilian government elected earlier in the year. Since 1962, Civil war began in the south, led by the Anya Nya movement, named after a poisonous herb. Finally in July 2011 with independence of South Sudan, the north-south divide is not only a division along religious lines but also ethnic one i.e. Sudan (in north) is mostly Arab and Muslim, whereas South Sudan is non-Arab and Christian. This divide also cuts through economic interests of oil fields, which will be once again playing fields, if not killing fields, for the West and possibly for China in the East. We pray for mutual peace and harmony of Sudans. The Aljazeera documentary of January 5, 2011, titled “ Sudan: History of a Broken Land ” presents a good historical insight into the persistent chaos in Sudan:
 

It was under British colonial rule that the seeds of the North-South divide were sown in the Sudan. “It is the British to blame” says Abdul Al-Mubarak of the University of Khartoum, because they wanted the south to be a separate entity. The time bomb for ethnic and religious conflict in Sudan was created in 1922 when the British colonial administration restricted the movement of Northerners beyond the 10th parallel of latitude and Southerners beyond the 8th. This was the role of British colonialism in the partition of Sudan. Frantz Fanon, the anti-colonial activist and writer could not be further from the truth in decrying colonialism as “separatist.”

British colonialism successfully created all the conditions necessary for conflict in Sudan. It exploited the religious divide between the North and the South, transforming the South into a paradise for Christian missionaries while the North remained predominantly Muslim. “They should have allowed a natural intercourse to take place,” says the former President, Sadiq Al Madi, “but they didn’t.”

Economic and political neglect of the South, which was a major feature of British colonialism throughout Africa – as seen for example in British Southern Cameroons, was another recipe for conflict in Sudan. The marginalization of the South led to the creation of the “anyanya” rebellion by Joseph Lagu, a struggle that was later taken up by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) formed in 1983. [A Brief History of Sudan’s Conflicts

Issue 52h: There is constant instability in Nigeria between resurgent central-northern states which are increasingly pressurizing the government in Lagos into accepting Sharia Law as the law of the land in those provinces.

Rebuttal 52h: Nigeria is one more example of colonial legacy of the West. Strife in Nigeria is mirror image of Sudan, but more complex. North is mostly Muslim and poor whereas South is Christian and richer from oil.
 

In Pre-colonialism, the country called Nigeria did not exist. In its place was a hugely diverse scattering of tribes and communities, some of whom had territory which overlaps the borders of present day Nigeria. These varied groups with different languages, cultures and political practices were all brought together under British rule to form an entirely artificial nation. The arbitrary drawing of borders which was so common to Africa in colonial times paid little attention to the natural ethnic lines of the tribes. Whilst the Western world regarded them all as Nigerians, they considered themselves as primarily members of whichever tribe from which they originated.

In addition to this, Britain also imposed on Nigeria a Westminster style government system which was entirely different to the way the different tribes had previously governed themselves. This included the introduction of political parties. Whilst under British rule, the various parties, which were usually primarily made up of members of specific tribes, shared a common goal: autonomy from Britain. This became their sole national interest and for a while the tribes were united under a common cause. Once independence was gained, however, it became clear that Nigeria was not a natural nation. The system in place was not equipped to deal with so many different sized ethnic groups. The natural order of the region; division along tribal lines, and the Western style system soon came into conflict.

The capitalist economic system also caused difficulties. Capitalism inevitably creates high levels of competition, and with individuals’ natural loyalty being attached to the tribes, division became further drawn along ethnic lines.

The domination by the sizeable North and dissatisfaction of the predominantly Ibo Eastern regions eventually culminated in the Biafran War [1967-70]. Here again, Western interference served to complicate matters further, as Western powers with vested economic interests in the region picked sides. This prolonged the violence.

Throughout Nigeria’s short history, misinterpretation of the political, cultural and social nature of the region by the West has served to set Nigerians against each other. This comes all too naturally to them as they lack a national identity to hold them together. In addition, Western domination has prevented autonomous development in the area. Instead, they have been given models of governance which are unsuited to their way of life. A nation cannot be created by the simple drawing of lines on a map. It must be to some extent a natural product of the unity of its population. It is to be hoped that one day Nigerians will have enough in common with one another to become a real nation. [Causes for Conflict in Nigeria: The Damage Caused by British Colonialism and Western Interference]

 
Issue 52i: And of course there is Mauritania where Muslims constantly battle non-Muslim Southerners.
 
Rebuttal 52i: Mauritania is a former French Colony, which gained independence in 1960. The conflict that Trifkovic refers to is as follows:
 

In April 1989, the dispute over grazing rights led Mauritanian Moorish border guards to fire at and kill two Senegalese peasants. As a result, people on the Senegalese southern bank rioted. In Senegal, where many shopkeepers were Mauritanian, shops were looted and most Mauritanians were expelled to Mauritania. In Mauritania, lynch mobs and police brutality ended in the forced exile of about 70,000 southerners to Senegal, despite most of them having no links to the country. About 250,000 people fled their homes as both sides engaged in cross-border raids. Hundreds of people died in both countries. The Organisation of African Unity tried to negotiate a settlement to reopen the border, but it was ultimately an initiative of Senegalese President Abdou Diouf which led to a treaty being signed on July 18, 1991.
 
Mauritanian refugees would slowly trickle back into the country during the following years, but some 20,000–30,000 remain in the border areas of northern Senegal today, and this is were the armed black nationalist Mauritanian movement FLAM is based.

In June 2007, the Mauritanian government under President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to help it repatriate black Mauritanians who had been forced out in the war and were living in refugee camps in Mali and Senegal. According to UNHRC estimates, there were 20,000 refugees in Senegal and 6,000 in Mali as of July 2007. [Wikipedia]

 
Issue 52j: Then there is of course the Caucuses, Chechnya.

Rebuttal 52j: Chechnya is a land of, from and by Muslims. It suffered civil war which has close parallels to Britain and Irish Republic, both of which are Christians. It seems that Chechens borrowed their script from IRA. The state of normalcy in Chechnya can be glanced at in this youtube video where the artifact i.e. cup of Prophet Muhammad is returned to Chechnya.

Issue 52k: In Europe itself, we have the conflict in former Yugoslavia between Bosnian Muslims and Serbs and Croats respectively. And the conflict between Albanians and Serb Albanians in Macedonia and quite possibly before too long Albanians and Greeks.

Rebuttal 52k: Who could be better placed to answer this Bosnian question than Trifkovic himself. But, the truth only emerges when the perpetrators of the conflict and the criminals against the humanity [1, 2] have to stand in the dock of the International Criminal Court. That’s where the people whom Trifkovic served ended up. Trifkovic was defense witness for Milomir Staki and Ljubisa Beara, who were sentenced to life [Wikipedia]. Even more, Trifkovic was not only an advisor to genocidal Radovan Karadzic, one of the ‘Butchers of Bosnia‘, but he himself was in Bosnia when genocide of Muslims was actually happening:
 

In July of 1995, Trifkovic traveled to the Bosnian Serb capital of Pale in his capacity as an advisor to Radovan Karadzic and a public relations consultant for the Republika Srpska. With him were group of Serbian-American supporters of the RS. To arrive in Pale, the group had to travel by land from Belgrade, across the international border with Bosnia. Trifkovic arrived in Pale on July 11. On July 12 he met with leaders of RS, including Karadzic, and the following day he met with Karadzic for a one-on-one. On July 14th, he traveled back to Belgrade. At the time of Trifkovic’s sessions in Pale, Karadzic was busy not only planning public relations but also directing RS actions in Srebrenica. On July 11, Serb forces let by RS General Ratko Mladic overrun the U.N.-declared Safe Area of Srebrenica, disarmed the Dutch contingent of the United Nations Protection Force, and, in front of the Dutch soldiers, divided the captive Bosnian Muslims into two groups. The women and children were taken to buses, abused and robbed, and transported to the Safe Area of Tuzla. From July 12-17, between 7000 and 8000 adult males between the ages of 14 and 65 were taken to various detention centers, tortured, shot, and buried in mass graves throughout eastern Bosnia. On his way back to Belgrade, Trifkovic traveled through areas where the RS army was conducting these operations. [Srdje Trifkovic as Spokesman and Public Relations Advisor for the Republic Srpska – p 7 – pdf]

 
While mentioning Bosnia, Albania and Macedonia, Trifkovic singularly does not mention Kosovo unrest where about 10,000 Kosovar Albanians (Muslims) were killed by Serbs in 1999 in an ethnic cleansing. They employed every atrocity against the Muslims namely – forcible displacement of 1.5 million Kosovar Albanian civilians; looting of homes and businesses; widespread burning of homes and 500 villages; use of human shields to escort Serbian convoys; summary executions in over 500 sites; systematic rape of women; exhumation of mass graves to destroy evidence; identity cleansing. [Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting – Executive Summary]

Issue 52l: So, if we eliminate these conflicts, if we eliminate from the equation Chechnya, the Balkans, Sudan, the world is pretty peaceful place. If we eliminate from the terrorist equation, terrorist acts carried out by Muslim over the past five years, we come to realize that war on terror is unnecessary because terror is not a very big problem.

Rebuttal 52l: If Trifkovic wants to ‘ eliminate from the equation Chechnya, the Balkans, Sudan’ so that ‘the world is pretty peaceful place’ then he as to add to the list – Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan which are under occupation of deployed non-Muslim military forces.

Trifkovic wants to “eliminate these conflicts” with none other but force of hatred and the movie in its Islamophobia does not solve these conflicts either by reason and dialogue, rather seeks to inject into the audience the venom of doubts, dismay, hate and anger. One has to wonder that in his anti-Muslim rant, Trifkovic has counted every street fight in Muslim lands, but fails to mention the en-mass invasions and occupations of Muslim lands by the ‘West’ i.e. Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine. Why? Maybe West has something to do with it?

The answer to these conflicts is in equitable ‘solution’ rather than hateful ‘elimination’ as advocated by Trifkovic:

Violence breeds violence and more violence. So, somehow someone needs to start changing the course of events by breaking the chain of violence. This ‘someone’ is more likely to be those who possess more knowledge, more wisdom and more ability to take independent decisions.

In a war that has the most ridiculous imbalance of force between the belligerents, it’s more logical that those who have the upper hand militarily and logistically should be the ones to take the decision to stop or change the course of events.

In more practical terms: occupation of small and weak nations should end, supporting despotic regimes should stop, and international law should take its course with regard to pending problems between peoples and nations. Peoples’ dignity and their religious and cultural beliefs should be respected. Once this approach is taken the problem of terrorism will automatically disappear…and it will become very clear that we have not been going through a war between good and evil or between Islam and the West, but rather a war of absurd confusion and pure lack of understanding between nations and cultures. [Al-Jazeera.net]

 
References:
 
Malay Archipelago – Wikipedia
 
Oceania – Wikipedia
 
East Timor profile – BBC
 
History of East Timor – Wikipedia
 
East Timor Timeline – BBC
 
Bangsamoro – Wikipedia
 
Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Southern Philippines: A Discourse on Self-Determination, Political Autonomy and Conflict Resolution – Jamail A. Kamlian, Law School, Emory University
 
Religion in the Philippines – Wikipedia
 
Maluku Islands – Wikipedia
 
Troubled history of the Moluccas – BBC
 
The Muslim Insurgency in Southern Thailand – Council on Foreign Relation
 
Uighurs and China’s Xinjiang Region – Council on Foreign Relation
 
Hindu – Krishna Maheswari, Hindu Encyclopedia
 
Vishnu Purana – Wikipedia
 
Names of World Religions – Abdul Haq Vidyarthi
 
List of Sufi Saints of South Asia – Wikipedia
 
India: Past and Present – Prakash Chander
 
History of Indian Caste System – Kallie Szczepanski, About.com
 
Jodha Akbar – Wikipedia
 
Mughal-e-Azam – Wikipedia
 
Indian Independence Act 1947 – Wikipedia
 
Kashmir conflict – Wikipedia
 
Future of Kashmir – BBC
 
Junagadh – Wikipedia
 
Sudan: History of a Broken Land – Al-Jazeera.net
 
A Brief History of Sudan’s Conflicts – Tongkeh Joseph Fowale, African History @ Suite 101
 
Causes for Conflict in Nigeria: The Damage Caused by British Colonialism and Western Interference – Katy Hughes, African History @ Suite 101
 
Mauritania–Senegal Border War – Wikipedia
 
Irish Republic – Wikipedia
 
Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) Bowl delivered to Chechnya – Youtube.com
 
Radovan Karadžić – Wikipedia
 
Ratko Mladić – Wikipedia
 
Ljubisa Beara – Wikipedia
 
Srđa Trifković – Wikipedia
 
Radovan Karadzic Accused Serbian War Criminal Captured – Yahoo.com
 
Srdje Trifkovic as Spokesman and Public Relations Advisor for the Republic Srpska – Michael Sells, University of Chicago
 
Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting – Executive Summary – Dept of State, USA
 
Conflict solutions in Mauritania – Mohamed Vall, Al-Jazeera.net

Issue 51 [@53:48]: Robert Spencer – “On September 11, 1683 the siege of Vienna was broken. That was high point of Islamic Jihad in Europe. After that Islam went into decline and the Islamic world was colonized and in a drastically weakened state. It seems very likely, almost certain as far as I am concerned that Osama bin Laden chose September 11 in 2001 to signal that decline of Islamic world is over. And the Jihadist were back and we are going to pick up where they left in Vienna in 1683.

Rebuttal 51: This is clearly a broadsided wide swoop by Spencer. Before, Shoebat was rhyming in punch lines, now this gentleman is rhyming the history into the present, and that too quite distorted.

For the record the dates by Spencer are wrong. The Battle of Vienna (as distinct from the Siege of Vienna in 1529) took place on September 11 and September 12 1683 after Vienna had been besieged by Turks for two months. It was the first large-scale battle of the Habsburg-Ottoman Wars, yet with the most far-reaching consequences. The siege itself began on 14 July 1683, by the Ottoman army commanded by Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha. The decisive battle took place on 12 September [Time line Index] and NOT on September 11th as cleverly and maliciously manipulated by Robert Spencer.

Never will the movie producers tell the audience that The Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, or simply the Holy Name of Mary, is a feast day in the Roman Catholic Church celebrated on 12 September to honor the name of Mary the mother of Jesus. It has been a universal Roman Rite feast since 1684, when Pope Innocent XI included it in the General Roman Calendar to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. [Wikipedia]

Neither will the makers of this movie ever tell the audience as to what Ottomans were doing at the gates of Vienna in 1683. It all started when Protestantism was pitted against Catholicism of Holy Roman Emperors in The Thirty Year War. Factually, Ottomans had responded to a call for support by Imre Thököly (April 25, 1657 – September 13, 1705), who was a Hungarian statesman, leader of an anti-Habsburg uprising, Prince of Transylvania, and (briefly) vassal king of Upper Hungary. Vienna was put under siege by joint forces of Transylvania and Ottomans, but the tide was turned against this alliance on September 12, 1683, significantly by the Polish cavalry consisting of Lipka Tatar who were Muslims. The Lipka Tatars who fought on the Polish side at the Battle of Vienna, on 12 September 1683, wore a sprig of straw in their helmets to distinguish themselves from the Tatars fighting under Kara Mustafa on the Turkish side. Lipkas visiting Vienna traditionally wear straw hats to commemorate their ancestors’ participation in the breaking of the Siege of Vienna. Readers might be familiar with Hollywood actor Charles Bronson, but they might not know that he too was a Lipka Tatar.

The movie makers do not let go of any battle of Muslims in history from labeling it as “Jihad”. Ottomans knocking at the doors of Vienna was anything but Jihad. The entanglement of Ottomans for another allied king was no different than that of United States responding to a similar call by French in Vietnam and then we all know of the subsequent imbroglio in South East Asia.

The current documentary is actually a continuation of anti-Muslim hate tactics by its producers and its experts including Robert Spencer, Bat Ye’or and Serge Trifkovic who have a much larger agenda to embed in the minds of the West that Muslims are a foreign element in the West and that Muslims are incompatible with the West. This fully comes to light in the manifesto of the Norwegian terrorist who mentioned Robert Spencer 64 times [New York Times], Bet Ye’or dozen times [Foreign Policy], Serge Trifkovic, Abdullah Al Araby and Walid Shoebat as recommended authors [Alternet.org].

It is quite interesting to note the commonalities between Osama-bin-Laden and Robert Spencer. We cannot say for Osama that he flew the planes into World Trade Centers, but by common knowledge, he inspired those terrorists to kill the innocent in thousands. Similarly, Robert Spencer did not press the buttons or pull the triggers in Norway attacks in which scores were killed, injured and buildings destroyed, but Anders Behring Breivik‘s manifesto clearly points towards Robert Spencer for his inspiration. If Navy Seals can take out Osama, it begets the question, should Norway contemplate similar action against these documentary characters who inspire and infuse hate and venom, by Judicial due process?

“European are not Muslims” is a myth that only dwells in the minds of xenophobes of the documentary who want to revive crusades or fear of crusades in the minds of the West. Fact is that Muslims have been part of European fabric for over thirteen centuries. In modern times, United States of America has set the standards for citizenship rights. The first European settlement in North America was James Town which was established in May 14, 1607, that was much before the Battle of Vienna. It took only 167 years for the settlers to fight the American War of Independence (1774-1783), fully claimed a new country for themselves and wrote its venerated Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Thereafter, The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787. Thus from its first settlement to its constitution it took merely 180 years. What American experience tells us is that if a “foreigner” finds him/herself in a new land, descendents of such persons have a full right to claim ownership of that land, its institutions and its citizenship forever in less than 200 years.

Using the American standards, Muslims in history should had been conferred the same rights of citizenship in Spain where they were living as citizens for about 8 centuries (711-1492) and then eliminated by Reconquista in 1492 and the Inquisition made the peninsula completely Catholic. Sicily was a Muslim majority island (827-1091). Muslims in Sicily were wiped off by Norman invasion in late eleventh century and the remaining were interned in a colony in Lucera, southern Italy, by Frederick II in 1224, and then exterminated soon thereafter his death. Muslims populations in France along with others (Jews, Huguenots, Cathars) were expelled repeatedly in 1010, 1182, 1306, and finally in 1394. After the Battle of Poitiers and Tours in 732, fought between Muslims of Spain and Charles Martel’s armies, the Muslims established their settlement in Fraxinet (modern day La Garde-Freinet, near Saint-Tropez, in Provence) in southeast France. Fraxinet was destroyed between 975 and 983 by the Christian armies. The Tatar Muslims of the neighboring Golden Hoard had settled in Lithuania in fifteen and seventeenth century when their population is estimated to be between 25,000 and 100,000. They settled mainly in Podlachia, where in 1679 they were granted land by the King John III Sobieski, under whom they fought the Ottomans as contingent of Polish cavalry. Tartars continue to be part of current Polish populace. The “population exchange” of Turkey and Greece in 1923 saw the arrival of 400,000 Muslim into Turkey, a tenth of Greek population. History tells us that Muslims are as European as any non-Muslim, except that as peoples they repeatedly faced expulsions, forced conversions and ethnic cleansing which in modern times is commonly known as Genocide. Alas! Europe only remembers its last genocide, only of the last century.

If the world were to use the moral standards of this movie makers who consider the Muslim presence in Europe as ‘foreign’ then they have to answer the same question with regards to Europeans Christians, who in 1652 founded the Cape Colony at Table Bay (before the Battle of Vienna), enacted apartheid in 1948, which then was dissolved in 1994 when African National Congress came to power with Nelson Mandela as President [BBC]. The ANC, unlike the Spanish Inquisition, fully assimilated and forgave the “foreign” elements, living in their midst since 1652, instead of instituting Nuremberg Trials. Obviously, no European settler in South Africa is a “foreigner,” neither in the minds of White minority, neither in the minds of the their European ancestors, nor in the mind of current majority and nor in its constitution. South Africa secured its place in history and for the future by following in the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad when he, about 13 centuries before, overcame his oppressors of Makkah and forgave them even without a formal Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

…the Holy Prophet delivered a sermon urging the unity of God and universal brotherhood of man. Thereafter he addressed a special gathering of the Quraish. They were before him in a position of offender. What tortures had they not inflicted on the Muslims! What horrible pains the Muslims had been put to, in utter disregard of all moral and traditional laws! The recollection of the fantastic forms of persecutions sends a shudder into one’s heart. Again, their tyranny had not been confined to the soil of Makkah; they had pursued the Muslims wherever they fled to take shelter. Repeated attacks had been led against Madinah to crush them. So heinous was the guilt of the Makkans now standing for justice before the Holy Prophet! Malicious, vindictive, destroyers of fundamental rights of man, oppressors of the innocent, the Makkans deserved the most exemplary punishment under the most humane laws. If the ringleaders had been put to the sword, and others thrown into jails to serve as a warning and a lesson for the future, no one could have questioned he justice of the verdict. The most civilized way of dealing with offenses of this nature is to mete out exemplary punishment to some of the offending party, whether really guilty or not. And the rest are reduced to a state of abject servility. This had been the treatment ever accorded to the vanquished foe by the victors, and the same is the method of dealing with a subject people today, under the most civilized Governments. Strong is the instinct of revenge in the nature of man, and it is apt to run riot particularly when the foe lies at one’s sole mercy.

But the Quraish had an implicit faith in the noble and merciful nature of the Holy Prophet. They never expected harsh treatment at his hands. So, when the Holy Prophet asked them what treatment they expected, they replied: “Thou art a noble brother, and the son of a noble brother”. They were not unfamiliar with the generosity of the Holy Prophet. They were persuaded that magnanimity which had distinguished his character during a period of forty years before his claim to prophethood was not in the least changed. But the treatment he accorded them exceeded even their own expectations. “This day,” he said, “[I speak to you in the same words as Yūsuf spoke to his brothers,] there is no reproof against you [.Go your way, for you are free – Related by Ibn Kathir, recorded by Ibn al-Hajjaj Muslim].” What a generosity! To say nothing of punishment, they were exempted even from reproach for their black crimes. Not even a pledge as to their future behavior was demanded from them. The refugees were asked to forgo all their previous rights [including the rights to their vacated property, before exile to Ethiopia and Madina]. Even the worst offenders were not punished. Ikraimah, Abu Jahl’s son, who had attacked Khalids’s detachment at the time of the entry into Makkah fled for his life elsewhere. In a state of great distress, his wife came to the Holy Prophet and asked forgiveness on behalf of her husband. He was granted pardon. To Wahshi, murderer of Hamzah, the Holy Prophet’s uncle, and to Hindah, who had chewed his liver, was also extended this generous clemency. Habbar, who had stoned the Holy Prophet’s while on her way from Makkah to Madinah so badly that the injuries led to ultimately her death, was also forgiven. World history fails to produce the like of the Holy Prophet’s generous forgiveness of such arch-enemies. No example of such magnanimous forgiveness is met with in the life of any other prophet. Christ indeed preach forgiveness to enemies, but he had no occasion to exercise the quality of forgiveness, for he never acquired power to deal with his persecutors. [Muhammad The Prophet – Muhammad Ali, p. 131-132]

Just as a reminder to Spencer, following in footsteps of Muhammad is commonly known as “Sunnah”, which is not too bad after all.

References:

Roman Emperors – Wikipedia

Battle of Vienna – Time Index

Holy Name of Mary – Wikipedia

The Thirty Year War – Wikipedia

House of Habsburg – Wikipedia

Lipka Tatars – Wikipedia

Siege of Vienna – Wikipedia

James Town – Wikipedia

American War of Independence – Wikipedia

Declaration of Independence – Wikipedia

United States Constitution – Wikipedia

Vietnam War – Exit of French – Wikipedia

Lucera – Islamic Period – Wikipedia

Muslim Fraxinet – Wikipedia

Population exchange between Greece and Turkey – Wikipedia

September 11, 1683: Myth of a Christian Europe and the Massacre in Norway – Aktürk, Sener

Muslim Women in Poland and Lithuania – Agata S. Nalborczyk

South Africa Profile – BBC

Nuremberg Trials – Wikipedia

Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa) – Wikipedia

Muhammad The Prophet – Muhammad Ali

Issue 50[@52:41]: Slide with voice – from the British historian Hilaire Belloc’s The Great Heresies – 1938, “…It has always seemed to me possible, and even probable, that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent.” “The suggestion that Islam may re-arise sounds fantastic – but this only because men are always powerfully affected by the immediate past; – one might say that they are blinded by it. …” “But not so very long ago, less than a hundred years before the Declaration of Independence … Vienna was almost taken and saved only by the Christian army under the command of the King of Poland … on a date that ought to be among the most famous in history – September 11, 1683.

Rebuttal 50: Hilaire Belloc‘s The Great Heresies (1938) is a must read from both sides of the aisle. For the producers of this documentary conclusions of the author are a touching stone on which they base their paranoia and spread the phobia against Islam. On the other hand, for Muslims, it gives them an understanding of how Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular views Islam and how the author rationalizes the permanency and success of Islam, though wishing it to go away. The author is forced to squint his jaded view in the rays of daylight sun of Islam.

The issue at hand is excerpted above from chapter 4 – “The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed.” Before we proceed on a reading and commentary of the said chapter, it necessitates to fully understand the contextual meaning of Heresy. Reader can read the authors detailed discussion about heresy in chapter 1 “Introduction: What is a Heresy” of the same book or refer to Merriam Webster definition below:

Heresy – definition:

1. a : adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma; b : denial of a revealed truth by a baptized member of the Roman Catholic Church; c : an opinion or doctrine contrary to church dogma

2. a : dissent or deviation from a dominant theory, opinion, or practice; b : an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth or to generally accepted beliefs or standards

Even though the author defines at length the catechism of heresy, in summary he uses the 2a definition above i.e. dissent or deviation from a dominant theory, opinion, or practice. Using this lens of definition of heresy within the Catholic frame of reference, he makes the case that Islam is heresy of Catholicism i.e. Islam emanates from Christian teachings and has dissented and deviated from the dominant theory, opinion, and practice of Catholicism.

Heresy is an accusation levied against members of another group which has beliefs which conflict with those of the accusers. It is usually used to discuss violations of religious or traditional laws or codes…It carries the connotation of behaviors or beliefs likely to undermine accepted morality and cause tangible evils, damnation, or other punishment. In some religions, it also implies that the heretic is in alliance with the religion’s symbol of evil, such as Satan or chaos. [Wikipedia]

According to Quran, Islam is the religion of mankind since eternity revealed via various prophets, some of them are all too familiar in Judeo-Christian history:

10:47.And for every nation there is a messenger. 42:13 He has made plain to you the religion which He enjoined upon Noah and which We have revealed to you, and which We enjoined on Abraham and Moses and Jesus. 40:78. And certainly We sent messengers before you — among them are those We have mentioned to you and among them are those We have not mentioned to you [— Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Tao, Confucius, Zoroaster, Socrates etc.]. 2:285. They all believe in Allah and His angels and His Books and His messengers. We make no distinction between any of His messengers. 22:78. …He has chosen you and has not laid upon you any hardship in religion — the faith of your father Abraham. He named you Muslims before and in this…[Muhammad Ali] 21:92. (Mankind!) surely, this your religion is the one single religion (of all the Prophets), and I am your Lord, so worship Me.[Nooruddin]

At least Quran nips in the bud any possibility of Heresy attributed to it. Whereas, on the reverse, Catholicism is the Heresy of Abrahamic creed and has branched off from the its core stem, while Islam (via Muhammad) is the final growth end of this tree of religion that started with Adam.

23:53. But the people, (rather than preserve their unity) split up their affair among themselves (forming themselves into factions) considering (each portion thus split up) as (the real) Scripture, every faction rejoicing in that which was with them.[Nooruddin]

A religion as code of life must address the shortcoming that we starkly see in history. These shortcomings happened either because the religion did not foresee it coming, or lacked the ethics to stop it when they emerged, or it did not have the capacity to handle it, or was it the neglect of the peoples despite the cure and prevention of these shortcomings already prescribed in a religion? If Islam is a distortion of Catholicism, then it begets to compare and contrast both religions from simple and proven experiences of history that can be objectified on secular platform. We make the claim that Catholicism is heresy of Islam (of Adam-Noah-Abraham-Moses-Jesus-Muhammad etc.), lets take the following examples of religion as a code of life:

Christianity was for Israelites only – I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel” (Matthew 15:24), whereas Islam is international – 34:28. And We have not sent you but as a bearer of good news and as a warner to all mankind, but most people do not know. [Muhammad Ali]

Christianity itself admits its incompleteness as a religion – I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth (John 16:12-13), whereas, Islam declares itself as perfection of faith at the hands of “Spirit of Truth” i.e. Muhammad: 5:3. This day have I perfected for you your religion and completed My favour to you and chosen for you Islam as a religion. [Muhammad Ali]

The incompleteness of Christianity as a religion was further aggravated by St. Paul who depraved half of the humanity from any progress – Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor (1 Timothy 2: 11-14), whereas, 2:228…And women have rights similar to those against them in a just manner…[Muhammad Ali], 4:1. O YOU people! Take as a shield your Lord Who created you from a single being. And from the same stock (from which He created the man) He created his spouse…[Nooruddin]

Christianity stood for and abetted the slavery – Servants (that is, slaves), be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to the kind and gentle but also to the overbearing. For one is approved if, mindful of God, he endures pain while suffering unjustly (1 Peter, 2:18), whereas, Islam dissipates the very institution of slavery under immorality – 24:33…your slaves who ask for a contract (to buy their freedom), give them the contract, if you know any good in them, and give them something out of the wealth of Allah which He has given you. And do not compel your slave-girls to prostitution when they desire to keep chaste, in order to seek the frail goods of this world’s life. And whoever compels them, then surely after their compulsion Allah is Forgiving, Merciful, 2:177 It is not righteousness that you turn your faces towards the East and the West, but righteous is the one who believes in Allah, and the Last Day, and the angels and the Book and the prophets, and gives away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the traveller and to those who ask and to set slaves free and keeps up prayer and gives the due charity; and the performers of their promise when they make a promise, and the patient in distress and affliction and in the time of conflict. These are they who are truthful; and these are they who keep their duty. [Muhammad Ali]

Christianity by its moral code supports monarchy and oligarchy – Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Matthew 22:21), whereas, Quran ordains consensus, charity, forgiveness and fairness, for the government and the individual – 42:36-43. So whatever you are given is but a provision of this world’s life, and what Allah has is better and more lasting for those who believe and rely on their Lord; and those who shun the great sins and indecencies, and whenever they are angry they forgive; and those who respond to their Lord and keep up prayer, and whose affairs are (decided) by counsel among themselves, and who spend (on good works) out of what We have given them; and those who, when great wrong afflicts them, defend themselves. And the recompense of evil is punishment like it; but whoever forgives and brings about reform, his reward is with Allah. Surely He does not love the wrongdoers. And whoever defends himself after his being oppressed, these it is against whom there is no way (of blame). The way (of blame) is only against those who oppress people and revolt in the earth unjustly. For such there is a painful punishment. And whoever is patient and forgives — that surely is an affair of great resolution. [Muhammad Ali]

While human exploitation under Colonialism, Communism, Fascism, Nazism and even Capitalism originated and flourished in Christendom without ethical checks or guidance from Bible, we find a simple and stark contrast in Quran which clearly rejects such isms: 53:38-39. …that no bearer of burden bears another’s burden, and that man can have nothing but what he strives for…, 3:130. O you who believe, do not devour usury, doubling and redoubling, and keep your duty to Allah, that you may be successful. 2:275. Those who swallow usury cannot arise except as he arises whom the devil prostrates by (his) touch [-of miserliness, obsessed by love of wealth and selfishness]. 30:39. And whatever you lay out at usury, so that it may increase through the property of (other) people, it does not increase with Allah; and whatever you give in charity, desiring Allah’s pleasure — these will get manifold. [Muhammad Ali]

Catholic doctrine was the fundamental obstacle to growth in the West, with example of Galileo as one of the many, whereas Islam encourages discovery of nature and science as an article of faith – 2:164 In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, and the ships that run in the sea with that which benefits mankind, and the water that Allah sends down from the sky, then gives life with it to the earth after its death and spreads in it all (kinds of) animals, and the changing of the winds and the clouds made subservient between heaven and earth, there are surely signs for a people who understand. 16:12. And He has made subservient to you the night and the day and the sun and the moon. And the stars are made subservient by His command. Surely there are signs in this for a people who understand.[Muhammad Ali]

While colonialism, slavery and racism were state institutions in modern Western history with Catholicism at its center, Quran had laid out equality and brotherhood of man centuries before that – 49:13. O mankind, surely We have created you from a male and a female, and made you tribes and families that you may know each other. Surely the noblest of you with Allah is the most dutiful of you [-of the best in conduct]. Surely Allah is Knowing, Aware. [Muhammad Ali]

The passages from chapter 4 – “The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed” below have been excerpted for limited nature of this discussion. In order to reduce the length, only verses of Quran and their foot notes, relevant to topic at hand are inserted without any explanatory notes and it is left up to the reader to draw their own conclusion about the pertinence of message of the Quran. Quran advocates for itself quite well. It seems Quran is writing the moral history and Hilaire Belloc, the author is only a note taker.

Author opines that before Islam, Catholicism fought off Arianism (– from Egypt, not to be confused with Nazism) and its derivatives and felt secure. But it was constantly vulnerable at the hands of pagans attacks by – Scandinavians, Germans, Slavs and Mongols; and the heretical views of Eastern Orthodox – The Byzantines. By 630 A.D. even the Gaul (– a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine) had converted to Catholicism. By then, Catholicism had thought that it had stabilized itself, but out of nowhere came Islam:

It was just at this moment, a moment of apparently universal and permanent Catholicism, that there fell an unexpected blow of overwhelming magnitude and force. Islam arose quite suddenly. It came out of the desert and overwhelmed half our civilization.

Islam, the teaching of Mohammed conquered immediately in arms. Mohammed’s Arabian converts charged into Syria and won there two great battles, the first upon the Yarmuk to the east of Palestine in the highlands above the Jordan, the second in Mesopotamia [Qadisiyyah]. They went on to overrun Egypt; they pushed further and further into the heart of our Christian civilization with all its grandeur of Rome. They established themselves all over Northern Africa; they raided into Asia Minor [– western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey], though they did not establish themselves there as yet. They could even occasionally threaten Constantinople itself. At last, a long lifetime after their first victories in Syria, they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar into Western Europe and began to flood Spain. They even got as far as the very heart of Northern France, between Poitiers and Tours, less than a hundred years after their first victories in Syria in A.D. 732.

They were ultimately thrust back to the Pyrenees, but they continued to hold all Spain except the mountainous north-western corner. They held all Roman Africa[– North Africa], including Egypt, and all Syria. They dominated the whole Mediterranean west and east: held its islands, raided and left armed settlements even on the shores of Gaul and Italy. They spread mightily throughout Hither Asia [– India and South East Asia] , overwhelming the Persian realm. They were an increasing menace to Constantinople. Within a hundred years, a main part of the Roman world had fallen under the power of this new and strange force from the Desert.

[Comment: The above events and their antecedent causes were touched upon in Issue 47, 48 and 49 before]

Such a revolution had never been. No earlier attack had been so sudden, so violent or so permanently successful. Within a score of years from the first assault in 634 the Christian Levant [– Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and parts of Cyprus, Turkey and Iraq] had gone: Syria, the cradle of the Faith, and Egypt with Alexandria, the mighty Christian See. Within a lifetime half the wealth and nearly half the territory of the Christian Roman Empire was in the hands of Mohammedan masters and officials, and the mass of the population was becoming affected more and more by this new thing.

[Comment: 41:53. We will soon show them Our signs in farthest regions and among their own people [Footnote], until it is quite clear to them that it is the Truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is a Witness over all things?

Footnote: The word afaq means borders or extremeties of the earth, or its remote sides, and the great message conveyed here is that Islam will spread to the most distant regions of the earth, the words their own people denoting the Arabs. What is stated here is that Islam will quickly spread, not only in Arabia but in the remote regions of the earth, and this prophecy is contained in a chapter revealed early at Makkah, when Muslims were being severely persecuted and the message of Islam had apparently little hope of finding acceptance anywhere. If the prophecy is so clear, its fulfilment is clearer still. Within twenty years of its birth, Islam spread through the whole of Arabia, and within a hundred years, it reached the farthest regions of the earth, both in the East and the West. Both the prophecy and its fulfilment are thus two of the most amazing facts of history. – Muhammad Ali]

As to what this new thing was:

…this extraordinary thing which still calls itself Islam, that is, “The Acceptation” of the morals and simple doctrines which Mohammed had preached.

[Comment: 7:157. those who follow the Messenger-Prophet, the Ummi [– Arab], whom they find mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel [Footnote]. He enjoins them good and forbids them evil, and makes lawful to them the good things and prohibits for them impure things, and removes from them their burden and the shackles which were on them. So those who believe in him and honour him and help him, and follow the light [ – Quran, guidance] which has been sent down with him — these are the successful.

Footnote: There are many prophecies regarding the advent of the Holy Prophet in the Bible. The Torah and the Gospel are specially mentioned here because Moses and Jesus were respectively the first and the last of the Israelite prophets. Deuteronomy 18:15–18 speaks very clearly of the raising of a prophet, who shall be the like of Moses, from among the brethren of the Israelites, i.e. the Ishmaelites or the Arabs, while Deuteronomy 33:2 speaks of the shining forth of the manifestation of the Lord, i.e. his coming in full glory “from Mount Paran”. The Gospel is full of prophecies of the advent of the Holy Prophet; Matthew 21:33–44, Mark 12:1–11, Luke 20:9–18, where the Lord of the vineyard comes after the son (i.e. Jesus) is maltreated, and Matthew 13:31–32, John 1:21, John 14:16, John 14:26 all contain such prophecies.– Muhammad Ali]

As to the morals and simple doctrines which Mohammed had preached, author states:

Mohammedanism was a heresy: that is the essential point to grasp before going any further. It began as a heresy, not as a new religion. It was not a pagan contrast with the Church; it was not an alien enemy. It was a perversion of Christian doctrine. It vitality and endurance soon gave it the appearance of a new religion, but those who were contemporary with its rise saw it for what it was not a denial, but an adaptation and a misuse, of the Christian thing. It differed from most (not from all) heresies in this, that it did not arise within the bounds of the Christian Church. The chief heresiarch, Mohammed himself, was not, like most heresiarchs, a man of Catholic birth and doctrine to begin with. He sprang from pagans. But that which he taught was in the main Catholic doctrine, oversimplified. It was the great Catholic world on the frontiers of which he lived, whose influence was all around him and whose territories he had known by travel which inspired his convictions. He came of, and mixed with, the degraded idolaters of the Arabian wilderness, the conquest of which had never seemed worth the Romans’ while.

[Comment: 16:101-105. And when We change a message [– old Scriptures] for a message [– Quran] — and Allah knows best what He reveals — they say: You are only a forger. Rather, most of them do not know. Say: The Holy Spirit [– Gabriel, similar to Torah] has revealed it from your Lord with truth, that it may establish those who believe, and as a guidance and good news for those who submit. And indeed We know that they say: Only a mortal [– Christian slave(s) who were of the early convert(s) to Islam] teaches him. The tongue of him [– the alleged Christian(s) who were victims of persecution for adopting Islam] whom they hint at is foreign, and this is clear Arabic language. Those who do not believe in Allah’s messages, Allah does not guide them, and for them is a painful punishment. Only they forge lies who do not believe in Allah’s messages, and they are the liars [– i.e. a persecuted convertee cannot forge for the converter?].– Muhammad Ali]

He took over very few of those old pagan ideas which might have been native to him from his descent. On the contrary, he preached and insisted upon a whole group of ideas which were peculiar to the Catholic Church and distinguished it from the paganism which it had conquered in the Greek and Roman civilization. Thus the very foundation of his teaching was that prime Catholic doctrine, the unity and omnipotence of God. The attributes of God he also took over in the main from Catholic doctrine: the personal nature, the all-goodness, the timelessness, the providence of God, His creative power as the origin of all things, and His sustenance of all things by His power alone. The world of good spirits and angels and of evil spirits in rebellion against God was a part of the teaching, with a chief evil spirit, such as Christendom had recognized. Mohammed preached with insistence that prime Catholic doctrine, on the human side the immortality of the soul and its responsibility for actions in this life, coupled with the consequent doctrine of punishment and reward after death.

[Comment: 2:135. And they say: Be Jews or Christians, you will be on the right course. Say: Rather, (we follow) the religion of Abraham,the upright one [– Hanif], and he was not of those who set up partners (with Allah).

Footnote: The word Hanif or “upright” is often mentioned in connection with the name of Abraham and the Holy Prophet, and his followers are also enjoined to be Hanif. Muslims are enjoined to remain firm in the right state, and thus to be the true representatives of the Abrahamic faith in the world. It is for this reason that the word Hanif is used here in opposition to the attitude of both the Jews and the Christians.

2:136. Say: We believe in Allah and (in) what has been revealed to us, and (in) what was revealed to Abraham, and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, and (in) what was given to Moses and Jesus, and (in) what was given to the prophets from their Lord, we make no distinction between any of them and to Him we submit.

Footnote: This shows the cosmopolitan nature of a Muslim’s belief. Not only is belief in the great prophets of Israel an article of faith with a Muslim, but the words what was given to the prophets from their Lord make the Muslim conception of belief in prophets as wide as the world. And it should be noted that this broad conception was promulgated at a time when the Jews and the Christians were exerting themselves to the utmost against the new faith.

2:138. (We take) Allah’s colour, and who is better than Allah at colouring, and we are His worshippers.

Footnote: The religion of Islam is called Allah’s colour because God is uppermost in a Muslim’s ideas, and because his views are as broad as humanity. This particular word has also been adopted here as a hint to Christians that baptism of water does not effect any change in a person. It is the baptism of the broad principle of faith, accepting the prophets of all nations, that brings about change in the mentality of man. It is through this baptism that the new birth is received, because it opens the mind for the reception of all truth, and inspires it with love and reverence for all good people.

2:139. Say: Do you dispute with us about Allah, and He is our Lord and your Lord, and for us are our deeds and for you your deeds; and we are sincere to Him?

Footnote: A Muslim’s conception of Allah is very broad. It includes all that is best in all other religions, but is free from the limitations they put. Therefore no one who is true to his religion can dispute the Muslim conception of the Divine Being. Moreover, every religion of the world limits the spiritual sustenance of God to one nation or one country. Not so Islam, which says that the truth was revealed to every nation. Every nation thus accepts partial truth, only that part of the truth which was revealed to it, but Islam accepts the whole truth.– Muhammad Ali]

The preachings of Muhammad were not by itself a cause of quarrel with Christianity:

Mohammed would almost seem in this aspect to be a sort of missionary, preaching and spreading by the energy of his character the chief and fundamental doctrines of the Catholic Church among those who had hitherto been degraded pagans of the Desert.

[Comment: 9:128. Certainly a Messenger has come to you from among yourselves; very painful for him is your falling into distress, most concerned (he is) for you, to the believers (he is) compassionate, merciful.

Footnote: This is the true picture of the heart which grieved, not for his followers alone, not for one nation or country, but for all humanity. He grieves for the burdens of all, and he is most concerned for the welfare of all. The whole of humanity is meant here because the concluding words refer additionally to the believers. There is a special relation he bears to those who follow him; to them he is, in addition, compassionate and merciful.– Muhammad Ali]

He gave to Our Lord the highest reverence, and to Our Lady also, for that matter. On the day of judgment (another Catholic idea which he taught) it was Our Lord, according to Mohammed, who would be the judge of mankind, not he, Mohammed.

[Comment: 39:43-44. Or, do they take intercessors besides Allah? Say: What! Even though they control nothing, nor do they understand. Say: Allah’s is the intercession altogether. His is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth. Then to Him you will be returned.– Muhammad Ali]

The Mother of Christ, Our Lady, “the Lady Miriam” was ever for him the first of womankind.

[Comment: 3:42-43. And when the angels said: O Mary, surely Allah has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of the world. O Mary, be obedient to your Lord and humble yourself and bow down with those who bow.

His followers even got from the early fathers some vague hint of her Immaculate Conception.

[Comment: 21:91. And she who guarded her chastity, so We breathed into her of Our inspiration, and made her and her son a sign for the nations. Footnote: Mary, the mother of Jesus, is meant here. Nothing is said about immaculate conception here. The guarding of chastity does not preclude the lawful union of husband and wife. – Muhammad Ali]

However, the death blows to Christianity at hands of Muhammad are based upon refutation of Trinity:

But the central point where this new heresy struck home with a mortal blow against Catholic tradition was a full denial of the Incarnation.

[Comment: 4:155-159. Then for their [– Jews] breaking their covenant and their disbelief in the messages of Allah and their killing the prophets unjustly and their saying, Our hearts are securely covered; no, Allah has sealed them on account of their disbelief, so they do not believe but a little; and for their disbelief and for their uttering against Mary a grievous slander [that Mary was guilty of fornication]; and for their saying: We have killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of Allah, and they did not kill him, nor did they cause his death on the cross [Footnote 1], but he was made to appear to them as such. And certainly those who differ concerning it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge about it, but only follow a conjecture, and they did not kill him for certain; rather, Allah exalted him in His presence [Footnote 2]. And Allah is ever Mighty, Wise. And there is none of the People of the Book but will believe in this before his death; and on the day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them [Footnote 3].

Footnote 1: The words used here do not negative that Jesus was nailed to the cross; they negative his having expired on the cross as a result of being nailed to it. That Jesus died a natural death is plainly stated in 5:117 [– I [i.e. Jesus] said to them nothing but what You commanded me: Serve Allah, my Lord and your Lord; and I was a witness of them so long as I was among them, but when You caused me to die You were the Watcher over them. And You are Witness of all things.]. The Gospels contain clear testimony showing that Jesus Christ escaped death on the cross. For example, Jesus remained on the cross for a few hours only (Mark 15:25, John 19:14) but death by crucifixion was always slow. When the side of Jesus was pierced, blood rushed out and this was a certain sign of life (John 19:34). Jesus was not buried but was given into the charge of a wealthy disciple of his, who lavished care on him and put him in a spacious tomb hewn in the side of a rock (Mark 15:46). When the tomb was seen on the third day, the stone was found to have been removed from its mouth (Mark 16:4), which would not have been the case if there had been a supernatural rising. Jesus Christ prayed the whole night before his arrest to be saved from the accursed death on the cross, and he also asked his disciples to pray for him. He seems to have even received a promise from God to be saved, and it was to this promise that he referred when he cried out on the cross: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” The statements made in the Quran corroborate the testimony found in the Gospels. Jesus did not die on the cross, nor was he killed as were the two thieves who were crucified with him, but to people he appeared as if he were dead.

Footnote 2: For “exaltation” see 3:55 [When Allah said: O Jesus, I will cause you to die and exalt you in My presence and clear you of those who disbelieve and make those who follow you above those who disbelieve to the day of Resurrection.] footnote 2. Being exalted in the Divine presence was opposed to being killed on the cross. Deuteronomy 21:23 explains this, for there we have, he who is hanged is accursed of God. If Jesus had died on the cross he would have been accursed; hence the statement made here — he was not killed on the cross and accursed but he was exalted in the Divine presence.

Footnote 3: Both Jews and Christians necessarily believe in the death of Jesus on the cross, while according to the Quran they have really no sure knowledge of it. The belief of the Jews is that since Jesus died on the cross he was accursed of God, and hence he cannot be a prophet. Following quite a different line of argument, Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross and was accursed, but that unless Jesus were accursed he could not take away the sins of those that believe in him. Hence the belief of both Jews and Christians is that Jesus died on the cross, and the meaning of the verse is clear, i.e., every Jew and Christian, despite having no sure knowledge at all, must believe before his death that Jesus died on the cross. – Muhammad Ali]

Mohammed did not merely take the first steps toward that denial, as the Arians and their followers had done; he advanced a clear affirmation, full and complete, against the whole doctrine of an incarnate God. He taught that Our Lord was the greatest of all the prophets, but still only a prophet: a man like other men. He eliminated the Trinity altogether.

[Comment: 4:171. O People of the Book, do not exaggerate in the matter of your religion nor speak anything about Allah but the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, is only a messenger of Allah and His word which He communicated to Mary and a mercy from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers. And do not say, Three. Refrain (from it), it is better for you. Allah is only one God. Far be it from His glory to have a son. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth. And sufficient is Allah as having charge of affairs. – Muhammad Ali]

With that denial of the Incarnation went the whole sacramental structure. He refused to know anything of the Eucharist, with its Real Presence; he stopped the sacrifice of the Mass, and therefore the institution of a special priesthood. In other words, he, like so many other lesser heresiarchs, founded his heresy on simplification.

Catholic doctrine was true (he seemed to say), but it had become encumbered with false accretions; it had become complicated by needless man-made additions, including the idea that its founder was Divine, and the growth of a parasitical caste of priests who battened on a late, imagined, system of Sacraments which they alone could administer. All those corrupt accretions must be swept away.

[Comment: 9:34. O you who believe, surely many of the doctors of law and monks eat away people’s property falsely, and hinder (them) from Allah’s way. And those who hoard up gold and silver and do not spend it in Allah’s way — announce to them a painful punishment,. – Muhammad Ali]

…the new teaching relaxed the marriage laws but in practice this did not affect the mass of his followers who still remained monogamous.

[Comment: 2:228…And women have rights similar to those against them in a just manner… – Muhammad Ali]

It made divorce as easy as possible, for the sacramental idea of marriage disappeared.

[Comment: 2:227. And if they [husband and wife] resolve on a divorce, Allah is surely Hearing, Knowing.

Footnote: The Islamic law of divorce is elastic and does not strictly limit the causes of divorce. Divorce is allowed if sufficient reason exists, but the right is to be exercised under exceptional circumstances. A wife can claim a divorce according to the Islamic law, which was not a right conferred on her by Jewish and Christian laws on divorce as formulated in Deuteronomy and Matthew. – Muhammad Ali]

It insisted upon the equality of men…Mohammed’s teaching never developed among the mass of his followers, or in his own mind, a detailed theology.

[Comment: 6:50. Say: I do not say to you, I have with me the treasures of Allah, nor do I know the unseen, nor do I say to you that I am an angel; I follow only what is revealed to me. Say: Are the blind and the seeing alike? Do you not then reflect?

Footnote: Appearing among a superstitious and ignorant people, the Holy Prophet could have claimed any supernatural powers for himself. But he told them plainly that he was a man who had no treasures, nor did he lay claim as a man to know the secrets of the future, nor did he profess to be any more than a mortal. Allah had revealed His will to him, and he faithfully followed and translated into practice everything that he received from on High. And as he himself was, so he wanted others to be. The unique greatness of the Prophet lies in the fact that he never tried to put himself before people as superhuman. – Muhammad Ali]

..Mohammedanism drew its strength from the true Catholic doctrines which it retained: the equality of all men before God “All true believers are brothers.

[Comment: 10:19. And (all) people are but a single nation, then they disagree... – Muhammad Ali]

It zealously preached and throve on the paramount claims of justice, social and economic.

[Comment: 4:135. O you who believe, be maintainers of justice, bearers of witness for Allah, even if it is against your own selves or (your) parents or near relatives — whether he is rich or poor, Allah has a better right over them both. So do not follow (your) low desires, that you deviate. And if you distort (the truth) or turn away (from it), surely Allah is ever Aware of what you do. – Muhammad Ali]

The documentary makers must pay full attention to the following which led to success of Muhammad’s message:

Now, why did this new, simple, energetic heresy have its sudden overwhelming success?

One answer is that it won battles. It won them at once, as we shall see when we come to the history of the thing. But winning battles could not have made Islam permanent or even strong had there not been a state of affairs awaiting some such message and ready to accept it.

Both in the world of Hither Asia and in the Graeco-Roman world of the Mediterranean, but especially in the latter, society had fallen, much as our society has today, into a tangle wherein the bulk of men were disappointed and angry and seeking for a solution to the whole group of social strains. There was indebtedness everywhere; the power of money and consequent usury. There was slavery everywhere. Society reposed upon it, as ours reposes upon wage slavery today. There was weariness and discontent with theological debate, which, for all its intensity, had grown out of touch with the masses. There lay upon the freemen, already tortured with debt, a heavy burden of imperial taxation; and there was the irritant of existing central government interfering with men’s lives; there was the tyranny of the lawyers and their charges.

[Comment: 30:41. Corruption has appeared in the land and the sea on account of what man’s hands have earned, that He may make them taste (the consequences of) some of what they have done, so that they may turn back.

Footnote: History bears evidence to the truth of these words. Before the advent of the Holy Prophet corruption and darkness prevailed in all countries of the world, affecting the beliefs of people as well as their deeds. Religions had long ceased to have any healthy effect on the lives of their votaries, and their followers had not only ceased to practice virtue, but, worst of all, they had begun to look upon vice as virtue, and many of them attributed indecent and immoral practices to their sages and their gods. Such widespread corruption had never previously existed in the world’s history. J.H. Denison writes in Emotion as the Basis of Civilization: “In the fifth and sixth centuries, the civilized world stood on the verge of chaos. The old emotional cultures that had made civilization possible … had broken down, and nothing had been found adequate to take their place.… It seemed then that the great civilization which it had taken four thousand years to construct was on the verge of disintegration, and that mankind was likely to return to that condition of barbarism where every tribe and sect was against the next and law and order were unknown.… Civilization like a gigantic tree whose foliage had over-reached the world … stood tottering … rotting to the core” (pp. 265–268). And then adds, speaking of Arabia: “It was among these people that the man was born who was to unite the whole known world of the east and south” (p. 269).

With the light of Islam, and through the torch of knowledge and civilization lit in Arabia, a new era dawned not only over Arabia, but also over other countries. Europe remained the longest in darkness, and it was only after the torch of knowledge had been lighted in Spain by Muslims that both the Renaissance and the Reformation came. – Muhammad Ali]

To all this Islam came as a vast relief and a solution of strain. The slave who admitted that Mohammed was the prophet of God and that the new teaching had, therefore, divine authority, ceased to be a slave. The slave who adopted Islam was henceforward free. The debtor who “accepted” was rid of his debts. Usury was forbidden. The small farmer was relieved not only of his debts but of his crushing taxation. Above all, justice could be had without buying it from lawyers. . . . All this in theory. The practice was not nearly so complete. Many a convert remained a debtor, many were still slaves. But wherever Islam conquered there was a new spirit of freedom and relaxation.

[editorial comment: acceptance of Islam was never a pre-condition for absolving the burden of slavery, debt etc. The issues raised above refer to good governance and were brought to light from Quran in Issue 16]

It was the combination of all these things, the attractive simplicity of the doctrine, the sweeping away of clerical and imperial discipline, the huge immediate practical advantage of freedom for the slave and riddance of anxiety for the debtor, the crowning advantage of free justice under few and simple new laws easily understood that formed the driving force behind the astonishing Mohammedan social victory. The courts were everywhere accessible to all without payment and giving verdicts which all could understand. The Mohammedan movement was essentially a “Reformation,” …

[Comment: 110:1-3. When Allah’s help and victory comes [Footnote 1], and you see people entering the religion of Allah in companies, celebrate the praise of your Lord and ask His protection [Footnote 2]. Surely He is ever Returning (to mercy).

Footnote 1: The great victory which had come was the triumph of the religion of Islam in the whole of Arabia. Deputation after deputation from all parts of Arabia came to Madinah and accepted Islam. History does not present another example of the wonderful transformation wrought by the Holy Prophet within the short space of twenty years.

Footnote 2: On witnessing the greatest triumph known to history, the Holy Prophet is told to celebrate the praise of his Lord, and to ask protection. For whom was protection to be asked? If it was for himself, it was a protection against elation at an unprecedented victory, because elation ill befitted a Teacher of righteousness. But more likely, he was required to ask protection for the masses which were now accepting Islam in companies. In fact he was required to ask Divine forgiveness or protection for his erstwhile oppressors, forgiveness for his deadly enemies, who were guilty of the gravest crimes. – Muhammad Ali]

While Christendom was dwelling in Dark Ages (A.D. 450 to A.D. 1030), Islam with its center at Baghdad was flourishing in culture, science and advancement:

Islam stood up against us in dominating splendour and wealth and power, and, what was even more important, with superior knowledge in the practical and applied sciences.

Islam preserved the Greek philosophers, the Greek mathematicians and their works, the physical science of the Greek and Roman earlier writers. Islam was also far more lettered than was Christendom. In the mass of the West most men had become illiterate. Even in Constantinople [then under Byzantines] reading and writing were not as common as they were in the world governed by the Caliph.

One might sum up and say that the contrast between the Mohammedan world of those early centuries and the Christian world which it threatened to overwhelm was like the contrast between a modern industrialized state and a backward, half-developed state next door to it: the contrast between modern Germany, for instance, and its Russian neighbor. The contrast was not as great as that, but the modern parallel helps one to understand it. For centuries to come Islam was to remain a menace, even though Spain was re-conquered. In the East it became more than a menace, and spread continually for seven hundred years, until it had mastered the Balkans and the Hungarian plain, and all but occupied Western Europe itself. Islam was the one heresy that nearly destroyed Christendom through its early material and intellectual superiority.

…when the second dynasty which presided for so long over Islam, the Abbasides, with their capital further east at Bagdad, on the Euphrates, restored the old Mesopotamian domination over Syria, ruling also Egypt and all the Mohammedan world, that splendour and science, material power and wealth of which I spoke, arose and dazzled all contemporaries, and we must ask the question again: why was this?

The answer lies in the very nature of the Mohammedan conquest. It did not, as has been so frequently repeated, destroy at once what it came across; it did not exterminate all those who would not accept Islam. It was just the other way…

Slowly the influence of Islam spread through these, but during the first centuries the great majority in Syria, and even in Mesopotamia and Egypt, were Christian, keeping the Christian Mass, the Christian Gospels, and all the Christian tradition. It was they who preserved the Graeco-Roman civilization from which they descended, and it was that civilization, surviving under the surface of Mohammedan government, which gave their learning and material power to the wide territories which we must call, even so early, “the Mohammedan world,” though the bulk of it was not yet Mohammedan in creed.

But there was another and it is the most important cause. The fiscal cause: the overwhelming wealth of the early Mohammedan Caliphate. The merchant and the tiller of the land, the owner of property and the negotiator, were everywhere relieved by the Mohammedan conquest; for a mass of usury was swept away, as was an intricate system of taxation which had become clogged, ruining the taxpayer without corresponding results for the government. What the Arabian conquerors and their successors in Mesopotamia did was to replace all that by a simple, straight system of tribute.

What ever was not Mohammedan in the immense Mohammedan Empire that is, much the most of its population was subject to a special tribute; and it was this tribute which furnished directly, without loss from the intricacies of bureaucracy, the wealth of the central power: the revenue of the Caliph. That revenue remained enormous during all the first generations. The result was that which always follows upon a high concentration of wealth in one governing centre; the whole of the society governed from that centre reflects the opulence of its directors.

There we have the explanation of that strange, that unique phenomenon in history a revolt against civilization which did not destroy civilization; a consuming heresy which did not destroy the Christian religion against which it was directed.

The world of Islam became and long remained, the heir of the old Graeco-Roman culture and the preserver thereof. Thence was it that, alone of all the great heresies, Mohammedanism not only survived, and is, after nearly fourteen centuries, as strong as ever spiritually. In time it struck roots and established a civilization of its own over against ours, and a permanent rival to us.

The author then identifies the three stages of evolution and devolution of Heresies with the example of Arianism and Calvinism:

First they rise with great violence and become fashionable…when they are in their initial vigour and spread like a flame from man to man…

…second phase of decline, lasting, apparently (according to some obscure law), through about five or six generations: say a couple of hundred years or a little more. The adherents of the heresy grow less numerous and less convinced until at last only quite a small number can be called full and faithful followers of the original movement.

…the third phase, when each heresy wholly disappears as a bit of doctrine: no one believes the doctrine any more or only such a tiny fraction remain believers that they no longer count. But the social and moral factors of the heresy remain and may be of powerful effect for generations more.

Despite, making a generic case of Islam as heresy of Christianity, the author is constrained to note its exception. This exception itself makes the case for Islam as a separate religion:

Now in the case of Islam none of all this happened except the first phase. There was no second phase of gradual decline in the numbers and conviction of its followers. On the contrary Islam grew from strength to strength acquiring more and more territory, converting more and more followers, until it had established itself as a quite separate civilization and seemed so like a new religion that most people came to forget its origin as a heresy.

Islam increased not only in numbers and in the conviction of its followers but in territory and in actual political and armed power until close on the eighteenth century. Less than 100 years before the American War of Independence a Mohammedan army was threatening to overrun and destroy Christian civilization, and would have done so if the Catholic King of Poland had not destroyed that army outside Vienna.

Author notes, that despite the loss of temporal power, Islam still continues to thrive:

Since then the armed power of Mohammedanism has declined; but neither its numbers nor the conviction of its followers have appreciably declined; and as to the territory annexed by it, though it has lost places in which it ruled over subject Christian majorities, it has gained new adherents to some extent in Asia, and largely in Africa. Indeed in Africa it is still expanding among the negroid populations, and that expansion provides an important future problem for the European Governments who have divided Africa between them.

In spite of the Christian missionary efforts of centuries and world wide colonization of Muslim lands, Islam remains impenetrable:

And there is another point in connection with this power of Islam. Islam is apparently unconvertible.

The missionary efforts made by great Catholic orders which have been occupied in trying to turn Mohammedans into Christians for nearly 400 years have everywhere wholly failed. We have in some places driven the Mohammedan master out and freed his Christian subjects from Mohammedan control, but we have had hardly any effect in converting individual Mohammedans save perhaps to some small amount in Southern Spain 500 years ago; and even so that was rather an example of political than of religious change.

Note the perplexity of the author about the permanent and expanding nature of Islam, a skewed view which emanates from none but the author wearing the lens of Catholicism:

Now what is the explanation of all this? Why should Islam alone of all the great heresies show such continued vitality?

Those who are sympathetic with Mohammedanism and still more those who are actually Mohammedans explain it by proclaiming it the best and most human of religions, the best suited to mankind, and the most attractive.

[Comment: 30:30. So set yourself for religion, being upright, the nature made by Allah in which He has created mankind. There is no altering Allah’s creation. That is the right religion — but most people do not know.

Footnote: Islam according to this verse is the natural religion of mankind, or a religion to the truth of which human nature bears testimony. Its fundamental principles, the Unity and all-comprehensive providence of Allah, the universality of Divine revelation, and the accountability for all actions in a life after death, are recognized by all religions and all nations, and their universal acceptance is a clear evidence that it is the very nature of man that bears testimony to their truth. Islam removes all limitations upon these three fundamental doctrines of the religion of humanity, and gives them as wide a significance as humanity itself. The other fundamental principle of the natural religion of man is mentioned in v. 38. – Muhammad Ali]

It is quite obvious that the author equates certain races with certain religions only and gets perplexed if the lines cross. Ancestry seems more important in a religion to the author than the free will of the adherent:

Strange as it may seem, there are a certain number of highly educated men, European gentlemen, who have actually joined Islam, that is, who are personal converts to Mohammedanism. I myself have known and talked to some half-dozen of them in various parts of the world, and there are a very much larger number of similar men, well instructed Europeans, who, having lost their faith in Catholicism or in some form of Protestantism in which they were brought up, feel sympathy with the Mohammedan social scheme although they do not actually join it or profess belief in its religion. We constantly meet men of this kind today among those who have travelled in the East.

These men always give the same answer Islam is indestructible because it is founded on simplicity and justice. It has kept those Christian doctrines which are evidently true and which appeal to the common sense of millions, while getting rid of priestcraft, mysteries, sacraments, and all the rest of it. It proclaims and practices human equality. It loves justice and forbids usury. It produces a society in which men are happier and feel their own dignity more than in any other. That is its strength and that is why it still converts people and endures and will perhaps return to power in the near future.

From here, the author starts theorizing about success of Islam with the following questions first:

Now I do not think that explanation to be the true one. All heresy talks in those terms. Every heresy will tell you that it has purified the corruptions of Christian doctrines and in general done nothing but good to mankind, satisfied the human soul, and so on. Yet every one of them except Mohammedanism has faded out. Why?

In order to get the answer to the problem we must remark in what the fortunes of Islam have differed from those of all the other great heresies, and when we remark that I think we shall have the clue to the truth.

Reader: please read the chapter from this point onwards yourself [click this link and search for “Islam has differed” to reach the location within the document]

The only arguments for success of Islam that the author can conjure up are that Islam had stronger warriors who were mostly Arabian, Berbers and Mongols/Turks, essentially pagans, hence with passage of time like all other adherents of Catholic heresy, had no Catholicism to return back to, hence remained Muslims. But he fails in this argument by his own example of Attila and Mongols deeply penetrating Europe, who left no lasting legacy, despite being ruthlessly powerful. He is fundamentally on wrong thread of logic when he equates religion with temporal power and conquest. But he can’t help this line of thinking because he is speaking from his own experience as a Colonist where Christianity was able to convert the pagans under its rule by displacing the local mythologies with those of European Catholic with its relatively lesser number of Gods, three=one.

The author also laments the failure of crusades. Later he summarizes the weakening of temporal power of Islam and the corresponding European expansion. At his core, the author remains worried about Islamic resurgence:

…It has always seemed to me possible, and even probable, that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent.

Why this conviction should have arisen in the minds of certain observers and travellers, such as myself, I will now consider. It is indeed a vital question, “May not Islam arise again?”

In a sense the question is already answered because Islam has never departed. It still commands the fixed loyalty and unquestioning adhesion of all the millions between the Atlantic and the Indus and further afield throughout scattered communities of further Asia. But I ask the question in the sense “Will not perhaps the temporal power of Islam return and with it the menace of an armed Mohammedan world which will shake off the domination of Europeans still nominally Christian and reappear again as the prime enemy of our civilization?” The future always comes as a surprise but political wisdom consists in attempting at least some partial judgment of what that surprise may be. And for my part I cannot but believe that a main unexpected thing of the future is the return of Islam. Since religion is at the root of all political movements and changes and since we have here a very great religion physically paralysed but morally intensely alive, we are in the presence of an unstable equilibrium which cannot remain permanently unstable. Let us then examine the position.

I have said throughout these pages that the particular quality of Mohammedanism, regarded as a heresy, was its vitality. Alone of all the great heresies Mohammedanism struck permanent roots, developing a life of its own, and became at last something like a new religion. So true is this that today very few men, even among those who are highly instructed in history, recall the truth that Mohammedanism was essentially in its origins not a new religion, but a heresy.

Where the author is basically mistaken is that it is the Catholicism that has corrupted the doctrine of Jesus and despite efforts of many heresies, e.g. Araianism, Calvinsim etc. Catholicism is too far on the limb to be cleansed, corrected, simplified and untangled from within itself. It needed an out-of-the-box system reset, essentially a cold re-boot, which the world saw at the hands of Muhammad, a prophet like Jesus himself. The author will never be able to arrive at a correct answer for ongoing success of Islam as a faith as long he dwells on the hypothesis that Islam is a heresy of Catholicism. He incorrectly equates Islam with non-Whites only. Islam has nothing to do with Christianity, while it has everything to with Jesus, who himself was a prophet of Islam, just like Moses and Abraham before him.

5:111. And when I inspired the disciples [of Jesus], (saying): Believe in Me and in My messenger [– Jesus], they said: We believe. Bear witness that we have surrendered (unto Thee) “we are Muslims [– the submitting ones]“. – Pickthall.

Catholicism taking credit for Islam and declaring it as its heresy is akin to a rooster taking credit for sunrise.

Hillaire Belloc – Wikipedia

The Great Heresies – Hilaire Belloc (via University of Pennsylvania, Online Books)

Islam – The Universal Religion – Ulfat Aziz Samad

The Holy Quran – Nooruddin

The Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr Zahid Aziz

Issue 49 [@50:05]: Serge Trifkovic – The Crusades 1095 – 1270 AD. The crusades are not understood in Muslim world today very differently than they are understood by the western academia and in the discourse of the western elite class. Both talk of Crusades as aggressive war of conquest by Western Europe against the peaceful innocent Muslims. One may ask however what were those Muslims doing in the holy land in the first place. Well happened that Muhammad and his successors waged a series of wars of conquest and one such onslaught in the fourth decade of the seventh century, the holy land, Palestine, Israel was conquered by Muslims and so when Seljuk Turks started interfering with the activities of the Christian pilgrims to go to the holy land, to go to Jerusalem, and when their physical safety was no longer guaranteed, the Western Christians acted only as re-conquerors of land that has been once theirs, they also acted quite rightly one must say the protectors of their holy places [map – Route of the First Crusade 1096-1099 AD]. Now the defensive war in the case of the Muslims is even a war of conquest. Because they are obligated to spread Islam. The land which had once been Muslim, particularly must be re-conquered and Jihad is the rightful name of that war of re-conquest. So they could never accept the Crusader states in Antioch and Jerusalem, because they were Dar-ul-Harb reinstated in Dar-ul-Islam. And this is the contemporary aspect of Palestinian-Israeli conflict of which many Westerners are not fully aware. Exactly the same psychology that prompted Saladin and others to fight the Crusaders is now motivating Hamas. In both cases it is not only the matter of nationalistic desire to expel the European and Jewish settlers, it is also the Quranic obligation of all good Muslims that the land once ruled by Muslims will be reverted to their rule.

Rebuttal 49: Any student of history will declare the above statements by Trifkovic as pack of formulations and distortions. It needs a breakdown as follows:

Issue 49a: Serge Trifkovic – The Crusades 1095 – 1270 AD. The crusades are not understood in Muslim world today very differently than they are understood by the western academia and in the discourse of the western elite class. Both talk of Crusades as aggressive war of conquest by Western Europe against the peaceful innocent Muslims…

Rebuttal 49a: Trifkovic is taking this documentary a notch further in its concoctions of – what history should have been, rather than what it is. In the issues before, others were inventing history, now this gentleman is bent upon redefining morality for the whole world. Go no farther than the highest Christian-European office that was the root cause of crusades to begin with, the Pope. This is what Pope Paul II had to say about the crusades:

Saving one of his most audacious initiatives for the twilight of his papacy, John Paul II yesterday attempted to purify the soul of the Roman Catholic church by making a sweeping apology for 2,000 years of violence, persecution and blunders…The Pope did not identify guilty individuals or name the crusades, the Inquisition or the Holocaust, but the references were clear…Pope Urban II, anxious to assert Rome’s authority in the east, sent a military expedition in 1095 to reconquer the holy land. The crusaders ravaged the countries they passed through and massacred the Muslim, Jewish and even Christian population of Jerusalem after capturing it in 1099. After 200 years of conflict Muslim armies drove them out for good, but the crusaders’ symbol of the red cross remains provocative. [Pope says sorry for sins of church – Sweeping apology for attacks on Jews, women and minorities defies theologians’ warnings – Rory Carroll in Rome, The Guardian, Monday 13 March 2000 06.37 EST]

The Pope’s “Day of Pardon” mass was designed, in the Vatican’s words, to ask forgiveness for the past and present sins of the Church. Pope John Paul wants Catholics to reexamine their consciences in the new millennium. His homily did not single out specific periods or groups in history but a plea to forgive the use of violence in the service of truth was a subtle reference to the brutal excesses of the Crusades and the Inquisition…

RABBI MARVIN HIER, Simon Wiesenthal Center, comments: I think it was an extraordinary event, something that none of his predecessors have ever done before — in the heart of St. Peter’s Basilica to stand up and say that we take responsibility for the sins committed by Christians. It’s true that it refers mainly to events that occurred during the Crusades, for example, during the Inquisition, when people were forced against their will to adopt another religion…

REV. THOMAS REESE, editor of America magazine, a national Catholic weekly, comments: Well, there was a lot of reluctance within the Vatican to talk about past sins at all. But this pope has a real sense of history, a sense… I mean, he’s the one who apologized for how the Church treated Galileo. He’s done it about how the Church treated the Jews. He’s mentioned the Muslims…

[Panel Discussion: A Papal Apology, Online News Hour, PBS, March 13, 2000]

Clearly, the office which sanctioned and perpetrated Crusades to begin with is apologizing for the wrongs it committed, but in this case, Trifkovic obviously is more loyal than the king. History did not turn out the way he wanted and possibly hopes to rectify it by ‘back to the future’ in another crusade.

Issue 49b: Serge Trifkovic – …One may ask however what were those Muslims doing in the holy land in the first place…

Rebuttal 49b: The answer to this is in the history that itself asks as to what were blond haired and blued eyed Franks doing in the Middle East in the first place by establishing Crusader States [see map]?

As to “what were those Muslims doing in the holy land in the first place,” Muhammad Ali in his book Early Caliphate p. 67 writes:

A necessity of war

There is yet another consideration that can rightly be in justification of justification of subjugating Persia and Syria. When one nation makes an unprovoked attack on another, it at once becomes the latter’s duty not merely to repulse the attack, but also to carry the fight to the finish till one of the combatants should surrender. The Persians, as already shown, struck the first blow. They violated the independence of Arabia by encroaching upon its soil. They made common cause with the rebels and sent troops for the destruction of the power of Islam. Likewise, towards the north, the Romans stirred up Christian tribes against Islam. Consequently, when hostilities formally started and troops met on the battlefield, no canons of warfare bound the Arabs to restrict their operations only to their own territory and content themselves with merely expelling the enemy. Had they been guilty of this blunder, the enemy would certainly have reappeared soon after in greater force. It would have been sheer stupidity to have stopped at that. In all civilized warfare, when once the dye is cast, it is open to either party to continue the fight to a finish. Either one of the contending parties must surrender or it must thoroughly be crushed. Such are the rules of the game and if the Muslims played that game to an issue where lay the harm? In prosecuting war till Persia and Syria were completely broken down, Muslims had behind them all the sanction of civilized warfare, ancient as well as modern.

If one turns the pages of history, it is starkly clear that it were the European Christians which made the land and city of Prophets anything but “holy.” They raped, massacred, pillaged and burnt city upon city till the holiest of cities, Jerusalem was put to sword after Siege of Jerusalem (1099) in the First Crusade. Their victims:

Muslims – Many Muslims sought shelter in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, and the Temple Mount area generally. According to the Gesta Francorum, speaking only of the Temple Mount area, “…[our men] were killing and slaying even to the Temple of Solomon, where the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles…” According to Raymond of Aguilers, also writing solely of the Temple Mount area, ” in the Temple and porch of Solomon men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins.” However, this imagery should not be taken literally; it was taken directly from biblical passage Apocalypse 14:20. Writing about the Temple Mount area alone Fulcher of Chartres, who was not an eyewitness to the Jerusalem siege because he had stayed with Baldwin in Edessa at the time, says: “In this temple 10,000 were killed. Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared”. [Massacre, Wikipedia]

Jews – The chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi states the Jewish defenders sought refuge in their synagogue, but the “Franks burned it over their heads”, killing everyone inside. One account alleges that the Crusaders circled the flaming building while singing “Christ, We Adore Thee!, Thee are our light, our direction, our love”. [Massacre, Wikipedia]

Compare the above Christian desecration of the Jerusalem, its institutions, its people, its soul and its spirit, with the preservation of the same after Muslim siege of Jerusalem in 637 and 1187:

Umar – In early April 637, Umar arrived in Palestine and went first to Jabiya, where he was received by Abu Ubaidah, Khalid and Yazid, who had traveled with an escort to receive him. Amr was left as commander of the besieging Muslim army.

Upon Umar’s arrival in Jerusalem, a pact known as The Umariyya Covenant was drawn up. It surrendered the city and gave guarantees of civil and religious liberty to Christians in exchange for jizya. It was signed by caliph Umar on behalf of the Muslims, and witnessed by Khalid, Amr, Abdur Rahman bin Awf and Muawiyah. In late April 637, Jerusalem was officially surrendered to the caliph. For the first time, after almost 500 years of oppressive Roman rule, Jews were once again allowed to live and worship inside Jerusalem.

It has been recorded in the annals of Muslim chronicles, that at the time of the Zuhr prayers, Sophronius invited Umar to pray in the rebuilt Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Umar declined, fearing that accepting the invitation might endanger the church’s status as a Christian temple, and that Muslims might break the treaty and turn the temple into a mosque. After staying for ten days in Jerusalem, the caliph returned to Medina. [Surrender, Wikipedia]

Saladin – (On October 2, 1187) Balian handed over the keys to the Tower of David, the citadel, on October 2. It was announced that every inhabitant had about a month to pay their ransom, if they could (the length of time was perhaps 30 to 50 days, depending on the source). Saladin was generous and freed some of those who were forced into slavery; his brother Saphadin did the same, and both Balian and Heraclius freed many others with their own money. They offered themselves as hostages for the remaining citizens (at least several thousand) whose ransoms had not been paid, but Saladin refused.

Saladin allowed for an orderly march away from Jerusalem. The ransomed inhabitants marched away in three columns; the Templars and Hospitallers led the first two, with Balian and the Patriarch leading the third. Balian was permitted to join his wife and family in Tripoli. Heraclius was allowed to evacuate a number of church treasures and reliquaries, which scandalised the Muslim chronicler Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani – although he had already contributed to the ransoms.

Saladin permitted Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and allowed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to remain in Christian hands. [Surrender, Wikipedia]

Issue 49c: Serge Trifkovic – …Well happened that Muhammad and his successors waged a series of wars of conquest and one such onslaught in the fourth decade of the seventh century, the holy land, Palestine, Israel was conquered by Muslims and so when Seljuk Turks started interfering with the activities of the Christian pilgrims to go to the holy land, to go to Jerusalem, and when their physical safety was no longer guaranteed, the Western Christians acted only as re-conquerors of land that has been once theirs, they also acted quite rightly one must say the protectors of their holy places [map – Route of the First Crusade 1096-1099 AD]…

Rebuttal 49c: Serge Trifkovic’s view of the world is to blame the victim. He never accepted the self-defense of Muhammad and or the one’s who came after him. In his logic of morality, even if a Muslim fights in a defensive war, there should be NO overcoming of the aggressor. He blames Seljuk Turks for interfering with Christian pilgrims as the basis of crusades. He takes the same line by which the U.S. congress was duped for first Iraq war when a Kuwaiti woman, unknown to the world that she was the daughter of Kuwaiti ambassador, falsely and tearfully testified for witnessing Iraqi soldiers taking the babies out the incubators in the hospitals and let the children die [see video]. This resulted in setting the tone for U.S. invasion of Iraq. Whereas, fact of the matter is that crusades were started as a diversion by the Roman Church that emanated from Investiture Controversy coupled with defeat of Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert after which most of the central and eastern Turkey was lost to Seljuk Turks:

I) A sure sign of Byzantine desperation was the appeal of Alexios I to his enemy, the Pope [Gegory VII], for aid. But Gregory was occupied with the Investiture Controversy and could not call on the German emperor, so a crusade never took shape. For Gregory’s more moderate successor, Pope Urban II, a crusade would serve to reunite Christendom, bolster the Papacy, and perhaps bring the East under his control. The disaffected Germans and the Normans were not to be counted on, but the heart and backbone of a crusade could be found in Urban’s own homeland among the northern French. [Wikipedia]

II) The immediate cause of the First Crusade was the Byzantine emperor Alexios I’s appeal to Pope Urban II for mercenaries to help him resist Muslim advances into territory of the Byzantine Empire. In 1071, at the Battle of Manzikert, the Byzantine Empire was defeated, which led to the loss of all of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) save the coastlands. Although attempts at reconciliation after the East–West Schism between the Catholic Church in western Europe and the Eastern Orthodox Church had failed, Alexius I hoped for a positive response from Urban II.

Pope Urban II defined and launched the crusades at the Council of Clermont in 1095. He was a reformer worried about the evils which had hindered the spiritual success of the church and its clergy and the need for a revival of religiosity. He was moved by the urgent appeal for help from Byzantine Emperor Alexius I. Urban’s solution was announced on the last day of the council when the pope suddenly proclaimed the Crusade against the infidel Muslims. He called for Christian princes across Europe to launch a holy war in the Holy Land. He contrasted the sanctity of Jerusalem and the holy places with the plunder and desecration by the infidel Turks. He caused outrage by vividly describing attacks upon the Christian pilgrims. He also noted the military threat to the fellow Christians of Byzantium. He charged Christians to take up the holy cause, promising to all those who went remission of sins and to all who died in the expedition immediate entry into heaven.

Then Urban raised secular motives, talking of the feudal love of tournaments and warfare. He urged the barons to give up their fratricidal and unrighteous wars in the West for the holy war in the East. He also suggested material rewards, regarding feudal fiefdoms, land ownership, wealth, power, and prestige, all at the expense of the Arabs and Turks. He said they could be defeated very easily by the Christian forces. When he finished, his listeners shouted “Deus volt” (God wills it). This became the battle cry of the crusaders. Urban put the bishop of Le Puy in charge of encouraging prelates and priests to join the cause. Word spread rapidly that war against unbelief would be fused with the practice of pilgrimage to holy sites, and the pilgrims’ reward would be great on earth, as in heaven. Immediately thousands pledged themselves to go on the first crusade. Pope Urban’s speech ranks as one of the most influential speeches ever made: it launched the holy wars which occupied the minds and forces of western Europe for two hundred years.[Wikipedia]

Long after the Battle of Manzikert (August 26, 1071), Byzantines still were in possession of Constantinople and wide coastal areas of Turkey when in year 1095, at the Council of Clermont Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade [see time line]. Implying that all the pilgrim routes, both land and sea, from Europe to Jerusalem were under Byzantine control till at least the third crusade in 1192 [see map on right side of the page with its comment, and the map showing boundaries of Seljuks]. With this simple fact of history and geography it defies logic as to how can Trifkovic make the claim that – “so when Seljuk Turks started interfering with the activities of the Christian pilgrims to go to the holy land, to go to Jerusalem, and when their physical safety was no longer guaranteed.” Seljuks could not have had interfered with Christian pilgrims route, that Trifkovic wished and believes in that they did so. Even if it is assumed, no matter how false, that Seljuks interfered with Christian pilgrims, it was not possible for them to do so till the Third Crusade (1187–1192).

How can then Trifkovic account for the first and second crusades? If the crusades were to restore safety to European Christian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, then after the victory of Saladin at Hattin (July 4, 1187), why the (Christian) Byzantines who had common border with (Muslim) Seljuks, fearful of the crusaders themselves, made an alliance with Saladin? Why Richard returned from the gates of Jerusalem without attacking it in the Third Crusade that he was leading? Richard left the following year after negotiating a treaty with Saladin. The treaty allowed trade for merchants and unarmed Christian pilgrims to make pilgrimages to the Holy Land (Jerusalem), while it remained under Muslim control – this is merely reiteration of the fact that Christians were always safe in Jerusalem under Muslim control from before. Richard left Middle East with only Acre and Jaffa in Christian hands and none of the territory under Seljuks was secured, the same Seljuks that Trifkovic alleges were interfering with Christian pilgrims. How absurd.

At least historically and geographically, the causes for crusades are none but Christians themselves, their personal failures at home and on the battlefields and their power struggles in the papacy. Crusades were only a diversion from these intrigues of European Christendom.

With the above facts, the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter, the Pope Urban II and Trifkovic are eerily similar, they all start a war by feeding a false moral pretense. Even more familiar in recent times is this tactic of insinuation where information is not used to understand a scenario but the information fragments are manipulated to develop a plot, as a case in point, see this video of how facts were manipulated for the second Iraq war. Next time, Trifkovic try some other tactic.

Issue 49d: Serge Trikovic – …Now the defensive war in the case of the Muslims is even a war of conquest…

Rebuttal 49d: At least Trifkovic admits that Muslims faced defensive wars. Lets repeat Trifkovic’s logic. He states, “Now the defensive war in the case of the Muslims is even a war of conquest.” Mr. Trikfovic, what do you expect in a defensive war? If Muslims in a defensive bastion are attacked, should they keep themselves locked in their defensive trenches for ever? Okay, may be they repulsed one attack, then what? Should they hope against hopes that next attack will not materialize and that it will not be massive than the previous one? If attacks keep coming, then according to Trifkovic’s moral sense, Muslims should never attack back but keep a defensive posture till the end when they finally capitulate.

But, the human intelligence works the other way. Quite logically, once the aggression is repulsed, there is counter attack till the enemy is overcome. The winners against aggressors obviously are given the title of ‘conqueror’ that Trifkovic uses disparagingly for Muslims. When the enemy is defeated, then it is quite natural that the subdued peoples will be influenced by the behavior of the conquerors. This difference in behavior is starkly visible in the conquest of Crusaders and that of Saladin, though both are called ‘conquerors’. The former’s conquests are known in history for rape, pillage and mayhem whereas, the Saladin’s victory of Jerusalem is known for preservation of safety and dignity of the occupants. A question for Trifkovic – what do you expect the reaction of the locals to the conquerors, if given a choice, will they accept Christianity or Islam, Crusaders as a rulers or Saladin?

Issue 49e: Serge Trifkovic – …Because they [-Muslims] are obligated to spread Islam…

Rebuttal 49e: Yes, Muslims are obligated to spread Islam but not like Crusades and Inquisition, with sword in one hand and Bible in other. Yet, Islam is different from Christianity, and Bush’s Doctrine.

Before we comment any further, lets pause to read the view of the leader of the “free world” about his democratization of the world – “The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom.” Essentially, the most powerful man in the world who apparently was democratically elected by the most advanced material society ever in the history of mankind, put his foot where his mouth was. He attacked Iraq to make it democratic, in the cause of advancement of freedom – “Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.” It took countless lives and injuries on both sides with trillions in debt, and still Iraq is no more better than where it was under a tyrant before. Some would argue that it is even worse. The twice elected leader of a democracy tried not only to preach but shove democracy down the throat of others and made a laughing stock of himself and the nation he represented. Finally, he exited Iraq sheepishly after eating a humble pie. What this living example tells us that one cannot impose one’s view on others by force. Where did Bush’s Doctrine fail and how could it had been successful? The answer is in the principles of Jihad of Quran and not of the jaded interpretation of Jihad by this documentary, the producers of which on the one hand denounce “terrorism,” but fully support the pre-emptive wars as long they are on others, be they Iraqis or Palestinians. It is a well known adage – it takes a thief to catch a thief. Now, this wisdom has been upgraded by the events of recent past decade – it takes a terrorist to catch a terrorist.

The fundamental principle of Jihad is to argue and make a case with a moral force without any double standards of violence directed towards others. If arms have to be picked up, then they have to be in self defense only:

25:52. So do not obey the disbelievers, and strive against them a mighty striving with it [i.e. with Quran].

[Footnote – Muhammad Ali, ed. Zahid Aziz] This verse affords a clear proof of the significance of the word jihad, as used in the Quran. Every exertion to spread the Truth is, according to this verse, a jihad; in fact, it is called the jihad kabir (“mighty striving”) or the great jihad. Fighting in defence of religion received the name of jihad, because under the circumstances it became necessary for the Truth to live and prosper; if fighting had not been permitted, Truth would surely have been uprooted. The commentators all accept this significance of the word here. It should be noted that the greatest jihad which a Muslim can carry on is one by means of the Quran, to which the personal pronoun it at the end of the verse unquestionably refers, because such jihad must be carried on by every Muslim under all circumstances. [Muhammad Ali, ed. Zahid Aziz]

Issue 49f: Serge Trifkovic – …The land which had once been Muslim, particularly must be re-conquered and Jihad is the rightful name of that war of re-conquest. So they could never accept the Crusader states in Antioch and Jerusalem, because they were Dar-ul-Harb reinstated in Dar-ul-Islam…

Rebuttal 49f: Trifkovic, by his own word, just now eliminated the Zionist claim of right of Jews to return to Palestine, when he denies that right to the Muslim natives in history to expel the foreign Crusaders from their Crusader States along the eastern Mediterranean. Thank you. He thought that he will win in history, but he unknowingly lost in the present as well.

By denying this right to natives of Palestine in past and present, Trifkovic only exposes himself as a xenophobe that he is already known to be. He obviously tramples the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). He rubbishes its article 13 which states that “(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” He also rejects article 15 i.e. “(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.”

He denies others the right to reclaim their native homeland, yet were not his own activities of ‘re-conquest’ of Bosnia by genocidal Serbs the same? Obviously, Trifkovic himself was determined to be a proscribed senior official to the Serbs by Canadian government and was the basis for his deportation from Vancouver airport on his arrival on 24 February 2011. Mr. Trifkovic suffers from the ailment of “double standards” one set of morality for himself and his cronies and another set of values for the victims of his scorn.

Dar-ul-Harb and Dar-ul-Islam were addressed in Issue 44 before.

Issue 49g: Trifkovic – …And this is the contemporary aspect of Palestinian-Israeli conflict of which many Westerners are not fully aware. Exactly the same psychology that prompted Saladin and others to fight the Crusaders is now motivating Hamas. In both cases it is not only the matter of nationalistic desire to expel the European and Jewish settlers…

Rebuttal 49g: This documentary has proven itself to be blind to history. It goes even further, it proves that it is blind even to the present. It cannot see Palestinian Refugee Camps for the past 60+ years in Jordan 10, Lebanon 12, Syria 13, West Bank 19, Gaza 10 etc.

Neither can this documentary see the millions of Palestinian Refugees in Jordan 1,983,733; Lebanon 425,640; Syria 472,109; West Bank 778,993; Gaza Strip 1,106,195 etc.

Quran has contempt for such moral blindness:

22:46. Why do they not travel in the land [– in this case the Refugee camps] so that they should have hearts that help them to understand and ears which can help them hear? As a matter of fact (when going astray) it is not the (physical) eyes that are blind but blind are the hearts which lie in the bosoms. [Nooruddin]

“European and Jewish settlers” are his own words. He admits by his own mouth that there are settlers and occupiers in Palestine. It is a morally depraved argument that the displaced have no rights but a settler has full rights of citizenship and a passport in Palestine. Wow!

Issue 49h: Trifkovic …it is also the Quranic obligation of all good Muslims that the land once ruled by Muslims will be reverted to their rule.

Rebuttal 49h: The learned expert, Trifkovic is as usual bellicose on rhetoric and short on facts. We will leave it to him to support his argument from Quran, for which there is none. But, whether Quran or no-Quran, the answer to Trifkovic is – Why Not! when the Muslims (and Christians) are the natives to that land to begin with, be it in Afghanistan, Iraq or Palestine.

References:

The Early Caliphate – Muhammad Ali.
Investiture Controversy – Wikipedia
Battle of Manzikert – Wikipedia
Seljuk Sultanate of Rum – Wikipedia
Crusades – Wikipedia
Siege of Jerusalem (637) – Wikipedia
Siege of Jerusalem (1099) – Wikipedia
Siege of Jerusalem (1187) – Wikipedia
Bush Doctrine – Wikipedia
Palestinian Refugee Camps – Wikipedia
Palestinian Refugee – Wikipedia
Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Wikipedia
The Holy Quran – Nooruddin
The Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz

Issue 48 [@48:00]: Beit Ye’or – There have been in fact two big waves of Jihad, the Ahab wave which started in the seventh century and in the course of one century [on the map – Alexandria conquered 641 AD] only Islam had Islamized huge [on the map – Sicily conquered 666 AD] territory [on the map – Carthage conquered 698 AD], mainly Christian territory [on the map – Southern Spain conquered 711 AD], from Portugal till Armenia [on the map – Narbonne Conquered 720 AD, Battle of Poitiers – Muslim Advance Halted 732 AD], but also Islamized Persia [on the map – Jerusalem conquered 637 AD, Damascus conquered 635 AD] which was not Christian, was mainly Zoroastrian [on the map – Battle of Basra 684 AD] except for Iraq which was mainly Christian [on the map – Ctesiphon conquered 636 AD] in the north and the Jewish and Christian in the south [on the map – Kabul conquered 670 AD].

The second wave of Islamization started in the eleventh century with the Turkish tribes [map – Battle of Manzikert 1071 AD, Armenia conquered 1064 AD] as those region so of Eastern Europe [map – Nicaea conquered 1331 AD] Greece, Anatolia [map – Constantinople conquered 1453 AD] which is now Turkey [map – Bulgaria conquered 1393 AD] was the seat of Christian Byzantine empire [map – Greece conquered 1460 AD], and Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania [map – Battle of Kosovo 1389 AD] were integrated into Dar-il-Islam [map – Belgrade conquered 1521 AD], which is the land of Islam [map – Siege of Vienna, Muslim Advance Halted 1638 AD]. So all the countries around the Mediterranean [map – Christian civilization shown in red in Europe and Mediterranean; Syria, Iraq, Armenia, Central Asia and Persia in Purple], which once had been Christian became the Islamic Empire [map – Muslim empire shown in Green stretching from Spain/Portugal, Northern Africa, Eastern Africa along Red Sea including Somalia, Arabian Peninsula, Turkey, Balkans, Southern Russia, Central Asia, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and parts of India]. This Turkish wave lasted from the eleventh century till the seventeenth century where the Turkish army was stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683.

Rebuttal 48: The documentary cleverly gives a “fly through” of a map and enumerates the modern day countries under the then Islamic rule and maliciously guises all the Muslim expansion under the word Jihad, if nothing else, to create fear and hate in their audience of “Muslims are coming.” Jihad is not aggressive war (see – Muhammad Ali (Issue 27), Pickthall (Issue 27) , Zahid Aziz (Issue 33), Nooruddin (Issue 36) and G.W. Leitner (Issue 37)). The documentary includes every scrap of land to add to the Muslim conquest, but one country it singularly does not mention and that is Indonesia. It is the country with largest Muslim population and it never saw a Muslim invader on its shores. Then how did Islam spread to it? Islam spread to Indonesia and beyond by the Jihad of Arab merchants and personal example of the Arab sea traders. Islamization of Indonesia proves what Jihad means, which is none but striving in the cause of truth and righteousness in daily secular and spiritual endeavors, both within the personal and community life. The movie tries to detract the present for the past where the producers think they can have a free hand. Facts of history if taken literally are exactly the opposite. The number of countries in the current issue diminish when compared to the later Christian colonization. Listed below are the countries and regions (– consisting of many present day countries) under European Christian subjugation:

British colonies: Aden, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Ascension Island, Australia, Bahamas, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, British East Africa, British Guiana, British Honduras, British Somaliland, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, Egypt, Ellice Island, Falkland Islands, Fiji Island, Gambia, Gold Coast, India, Ireland, Malaya, New Zealand, Nigeria, Northern Rhodesia, Oman, Papua, Sarawak, Sierra Leone, South Rhodesia, St. Helena, Swaziland, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Union of South Africa

Dutch colonies: Dutch East Indies, Dutch Guiana

French colonies: Algeria, French Guiana, French Equatorial Africa, French Indochina, French Somaliland, French West Africa, Guadeloupe, La Réunion, Madagascar, Martinique, Morocco, New Caledonia, Tunisia

German Empire colonies: Cameroon, Caroline Islands, Eritrea, German New Guinea, German East Africa, German South West Africa, Gilbert Islands, Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Togo

Portuguese colonies: Angola, Goa, Mozambique, Port Guinea

Before one counts the above colonies, it is important to take into consideration that some of the names have many countries embedded in them e.g. Dutch West Indies = Aruba, Bonaire, Klein Bonaire, Curaçao, Klein Curaçao, Bovenwindse Eilanden Virgin Islands, Sint Maarten, Saba, Sint Eustatius. India = India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.

Trivia – Which is the ONLY country in Africa that was not colonized by Europe? Answer: Liberia. It is shameful for Christian Europe either way – either they failed to colonize all of Africa or their colonization was so complete that only one country escaped its misery. Exception of Liberia prevented an entry in Guiness Book of World Records. It was the one that got away.

Only eleven countries besides Liberia in the world escaped European colonization – Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, North and South Korea. This list also includes Japan, but it was a colonizer itself of countries that includes the Koreas and Thailand.

Lets not forget the fundamental fact of history, that is, the Islamic “Empire” naturally expanded into adjoining areas to their borders which were a source of ongoing skirmishes. Like Europeans, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia was theirs to take, but Muslims did not for the mere fact that they were not occupiers. Compare that with the European Christian Empires which expanded to far flung areas of the globe that were no threat to their homelands, nor shared a common border. The sole driver for Christian expansion was the “In the name of the Father” coupled with their moral deprivations based upon a guaranteed salvation in the “blood of the Christ.” Yes, it was ultimately the same blood that they extracted from humanity in every corner of the world at the altar of their deity, the Father. With a God like that, who needs the Devil. Every conceivable exploitation and plunder of land and human resources was a fair game. 12 million slaves left the African continent between the 15th and 19th century and 10 to 20% died on board the ships i.e. 1.2 – 2.4 millions tossed overboard into the Atlantic en-route to Christian homelands or their colonies [Wikipedia: Atlantic Slave Trade – Human Toll]. African continent is still reverberating to this day from the shock of slavery and colonization.

This fundamental moral deprivation of Christian West persists to this day – “At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, African nations demanded a clear apology for slavery from the former slave-trading countries. Some nations were ready to express an apology, but the opposition, mainly from the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States blocked attempts to do so. A fear of monetary compensation might have been one of the reasons for the opposition. As of 2009, efforts are underway to create a UN Slavery Memorial as a permanent remembrance of the victims of the Atlantic slave trade.”[Wikipedia: Atlantic Slave Trade – Apologies]

In contrast to the slavery, even today the whole of Christian Europe and America carries the guilt of Holocaust in Second World War. They carried this guilt even while in United States the Blacks could not use the same urinals as Whites and they were made to sit at the back of the bus into 1960s. What to talk of schools, even drinking water fountains and restaurants which were “White Only.” Germany and Switzerland have been made to make amends as outlined in Encyclopedia Britannica:

The defeat of Nazi Germany left a bitter legacy for the German leadership and people. Germans had committed crimes in the name of the German people. German culture and the German leadership—political, intellectual, social, and religious—had participated or been complicit in the Nazi crimes or been ineffective in opposing them. In an effort to rehabilitate the good name of the German people, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) firmly established a democracy that protected the human rights of all its citizens and made financial reparations to the Jewish people in an agreement passed by parliament in 1953. West German democratic leaders made special efforts to achieve friendly relations with Israel. In the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the communist leaders attempted to absolve their population of responsibility for the crimes, portraying themselves as the victims of the Nazis, and Nazism as a manifestation of capitalism. The first gesture of the postcommunist parliament of East Germany, however, was an apology to the Jewish people. At one of its first meetings in the newly renovated Reichstag building in 1999, the German parliament voted to erect a Holocaust memorial in Berlin. The first state visitor to Berlin after its reestablishment as capital of a united Germany was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the history of the Holocaust continued to be unsettling. The Swiss government and its bankers had to confront their role as bankers to the Nazis and in recycling gold and valuables taken from the victims. Under the leadership of German prime minister Gerhard Schröder, German corporations and the German government established a fund to compensate Jews and non-Jews who worked in German slave labour and forced labour programs during the war. Insurance companies were negotiating over claims from descendants of policyholders killed during the war—claims that the companies denied immediately after the war by imposing prohibitive conditions, such as the presentation of a death certificate specifying the time and place of death of the insured. In several eastern European countries, negotiations addressed Jewish property that the Nazis had confiscated during the war but that could not be returned under the region’s communist governments. Artworks stolen during the war and later sold on the basis of dubious records were the subject of legal struggles to secure their return to the original owners or to their heirs. The German government continued to pay reparations—first awarded in 1953—to individual Jews and the Jewish people to acknowledge responsibility for the crimes committed in the name of the German people.

If postwar Germany can apologize and rectify for its history of Holocaust, even thought modern Germany has no role in what Hitler did, then why cannot the White Christians apologize to the non-Whites for the atrocities inflicted on the latter? Is it the matter of skin color? Is this Christianity? Answer is yes to both these questions. If the European Jews can be compensated, then why not the descendent of African Black Slaves, who probably now are their own Christian brethren. Lip service of “40 Acres and a Mule” or the sermon from the pulpit does not suffice:

Pope John Paul II today apologized to black Africa for the involvement of white Christians in the slave trade. The Pope’s remarks came in an address to Cameroon intellectuals on their tasks in society and on the importance of integrating the Christian message with African culture. John Paul said the task of Christians involved ”healing and compassion” because ”the man who is in need, on the side of the road, is their brother, their neighbor.” He continued, ”In the course of history, men belonging to Christian nations did not always do this, and we ask pardon from our African brothers who suffered so much because of the trade in blacks.” [New York Times, August 14, 1985, Wednesday]

In the same breath and on the same moral plane, is it not the same White Christianity that aids and abets apartheid in Palestine? Why? Can the makers of this documentary answer this blatant moral dichotomy of both Christianity and Judaism? If this is not the very definition of bigotry as proven by this documentary, then what would be?

Below is a brief list showing the scale of Global Plunder by the Christian Empires of modern ‘enlightened’ times from which the documentary makers draw their moral roots as well. Each line in the list has the link to the map of the empire, era, % of world land mass, % of world population under their occupation. Note the areas under control of these empires are non-overlapping in time and region (with minor exceptions), implying their concurrent and global occupations and plunder:

Europe took the world and its people as heavenly manna that they could gobble any way they chose without any qualms of morality that this documentary instead wants to malign Islam with. White Christianity singularly stands for the practical example of ‘might is right’. For example, in October 1935, Italy with tacit approval of Great Britain and France invaded Ethiopia with mustard gas and occupied and expanded it into Italian East Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia). It is the same Italy on whose soil is the Holy See where the Pope dwells, whose sermons are more ceremonious than sincere. It is the same institution that factually ‘Wholly could not See’ the emergence of Colonization, Slavery, Nazism, Fascism and Communism right under its own nose and nor the Holocaust in its backyard. How could it ‘See’ when it has its own skeletons of Inquisition and Crusades in its closet. It can ‘See’ with 20/20 vision any hat passed around globally for donations but what it cannot ‘See’ is the immorality that it itself swims in the human history. A classical case of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ while selling salvation.

Not to be left behind in the above free for all, i.e. a plunder free from morality and consciousness:

Japanese Empire year 1942, 04.97%, 05.90%

United States came to the Empire game a little late, but it is catching up fast and has the whole world under its military grip by its five regional commands enforcing neocolonialism. Ask the people of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Panama, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine (via its proxy) etc. Each one of them has a story to tell from their living memories and not from the pages of history. While mentioning Afghanistan and Iraq, include NATO and Australia as well to the list of neo-colonists. As to who is the next victim of this power intoxicated Christianity, minus its hollow teachings of “love,” only time will tell. Every square mile of the earth has been scorched or exploited in one form or the another at the hands of hegemonic Christianity. A point came in recent history that they did not even spare each other and the world suffered World Wars I & II. What stops WW-III at their hands? Neither the Bible, neither their Popes who were silent through all this. The four letter word “love” is now only found in the empty homilies from the pulpit with empty pews, or its cousin “lust” in the minds of marriage-less soap operas of the Main Street or its relative, the omnipresent “greed” in the Wall Street. Christianity hood winked the world for too long by selling “love” to enlist parishioners, who in turn did not take long to change into “Perishers” of the humanity, once they realized that guaranteed salvation is only a verbal belief in a five letter word, the myth of “Three.” Thus, Christianity not only erased from the human mind the fundamentals of morality and in doing so it also unfettered it for global exploitation. It even got its math wrong of 3=1 and 1=3. No wonder Galileo had to recant his mathematical challenge to heliocentric Vatican, the Holy UnSee. The cross carrying Christian Jihadists of a White God in recent Christian history are brought to light by the following summation:

Historians have traditionally looked at Christian missionaries in one of two ways. The first church historians to catalogue missionary history provided hagiographic descriptions of their trials, successes, and sometimes even martyrdom. Missionaries were thus visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery. However, by the middle of the twentieth century, an era marked by civil rights movements, anti-colonialism, and growing secularization, missionaries were viewed quite differently. Instead of godly martyrs, historians now described missionaries as arrogant and rapacious imperialists. Christianity became not a saving grace but a monolithic and aggressive force that missionaries imposed upon defiant natives. Indeed, missionaries were now understood as important agents in the ever-expanding nation-state, or “ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them.” British historian Brian Stanley regrets that this symbiotic relationship between “the Bible and the flag” in Western expansion has now become “one of the unquestionable orthodoxies of general historical knowledge.” Although emotionally appealing to many, the imperial approach was not completely intellectually satisfying. As James Axtell noted, the post-1960s interpretation was “little more than the familiar Eurocentric plot turned on its normative head”: missionary heroes became the villains, indigenous victims became the new heroes, and Christianity and indigenous religions were still viewed as mutually incompatible. Native preachers were rarely taken seriously by either group of scholars because they were not orthodox enough for one and not “authentic” enough for the other. Both the missionary-as-saint and missionary-as-imperialist framework therefore left little interpretive space for the hundreds of native preachers who actively participated in British evangelical efforts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [Excerpt: Christian Missions and Colonial Empires Reconsidered: A Black Evangelist in West Africa, 1766–1816, by Edward E. Andrews, Journal of Church and State Volume 51, Issue 4, Pp. 663-691, January 1, 2009. Author is probably a doctoral candidate listed on this link]

Compare the above figures with Muslim ‘Empires’ which overlapped in regions under their control and at different times. Essentially the same area under the last Muslim rule of Ottomans shrunk from that of the first i.e. Ummayads:

There is a fundamental difference between Muslim Empires and the Christian Empires. The former was only a rule and their descendents are still living today among the ruled, whereas the latter was colonialism that sucked the resources of the occupied back to Europe. If by any chance, the European Christian rulers decided to live among the ruled for an extended stay, they made sure to carve out apartheid in Rhodesia and South Africa. But, ultimately it is from the ashes of Prophet Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) at the hands of Christianity that phoenix rises and gives birth to Mandelas and Tutus of our times. Moral clock is ticking in Palestine as well, though taking a little longer, but for how long?

References:

Colonialism – Wikipedia

Atlantic Slave Trade – Wikipedia

List of Largest Empires – Wikipedia

Issue 47 [@47:08]: Slide Projected – Sahih Al-Bukhari, Vol 4, Bk 53, Hadith 386 – “Umar sent the Muslims to the great countries to fight the pagans. … When we reached the land of the enemy, the representatives of Khosrau [voice Persia] came out with forty-thousand warriors, and an interpreter got up saying, “Let one of you talk to me!” Al-Mughira replied … ‘Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, has ordered to fight you till you worship Allah alone or give Jizya (tribute) and our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says: Whoever amongst us is killed (martyred), shall go to luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever amongst us remains alive, shall become your master.’”

Rebuttal 47: As usual, the editorial staff of the documentary come up with punch lines and out of context excerpts to impute aggressive wars on early Islamic history, rather than the actuality of unavoidable state of war that was thrust upon early Muslims by the super powers of the time, namely the Byzantine and Persian Empires. It necessitates to read some background as to what led to the war of Arabia with Persia during reigns of Caliphs Abu-Bakr and Umar.

Firstly, after the death of Prophet, when Abu-Bakr was the Caliph in Medina, the tribe of Banu-Bakr (no relation to Abu-Bakr) in Bahrain revolted against the Medina government. In their revolt, they were aided and abetted by Persia, then under the rule of Yazdegerd-III. Subsequently, Persian army landed in Bahrain. Both the said tribe and Persians were defeated by a detachment from Medina. [The Early Caliphate by Muhammad Ali, p. 29]

Secondly, the revolt of pseudo-prophetess woman Sajah, who belonged to an insignificant tribe at border between north-eastern Arabia and Persia, actually raised an army by Persian help and set forth to attack Medina. She only turned back after reaching Yamamah in central Arabia. [Sajah, The impostress of Bani Taghlib]

Thirdly, the Persian frontier was a constant source of incursion and instigation by Persians. Umar, the second caliph is on the record for his famous words, refusing the permission sought by his generals for incursion deeper into Persia after defeating them at Hulwan – “I wish that between the Suwad [area between the Euphrates and the Tigris] and the Persian hills there were walls which would prevent them from getting to us, and prevent us from getting to them. The fertile Suwad is sufficient for us; and I prefer the safety of the Muslims to the spoils of war.” [as quoted in Wikipedia: Al Farooq, Umar By Muhammad Husayn Haykal. chapter no:5 page no:130]

Muhammad Ali in his book “The Early Caliphate, p 38-9” refutes the allegation against Caliphs Abu-Bakr and Umar from many angles. In one of the places he summarizes:

Trouble in Arabia was fomented by Persia and Rome

History has not preserved details of the origin of’ these wars, but there are on record events which throw light on the question. When Bahrain rose in revolt against the central authority of Islam. Persia openly sent reinforcements to help the insurgents. A Christian woman, Sajah, at the head of Christian tribes, marched from her home on the frontier of Persia against Madinah, the capital of Islam, and traversed the country right up to the central part. Towards the north, in the territory under the influence of the Christian empire of Rome. Tulaihah raised his standard of revolt. These are some clear indications that the insurrection in the several parts of the peninsula was inspired and fanned by both Persia and Rome. These parts were either immediately on the borders adjoining these two powers or under their direct influence, Again. Persia exercised a very wide influence over the Province of’ Yaman, another area affected by the general revolt. It is thus likely that over and above the open assistance which Persia and the Roman Empire rendered to the insurgents, the insurrection itself was due to their secret machinations. The Roman Empire, like some modern states, was particularly a past-master in the art of wire-pulling front behind the scenes. It seems. therefore, that these two neighbours did all they could to foment trouble in the various provinces of Arabia that were any way in contact with hem. To safeguard against a repetition of the mischief, the Muslim Government was constrained to resort to military operations on the frontiers. And when it did this, the Persian and Roman empires committed open acts of hostility under the impression that they would thus inspire awe in the hearts of the Arabs. But Islam had brought about a change over Arabia. and the two empires had to answer for the aggression.

It is from such stray events met with in the pages of history that we can trace the causes of these wars. Early historians were not particular about going into the why and wherefore of things. They were just chroniclers of events, beyond which they worried little to go. To ascertain the underlying causes, we must piece together those various events and draw our own conclusions. This is exactly how we are able to tell the causes of the various wars during the Prophet’s lifetime, the only advantage in the latter case being that these events have been recorded and handed down to us in greater detail. The period of the early Caliphate, considered comparatively far less important, is not characterised by the same profusion of narration, and most important episodes have often received but a brief reference, a fact admitted by recent historians. Nevertheless, the guiding rule as to the root causes of things is the same, viz., reading between the apparently scattered events and discovering the common thread running through all. The accuracy or otherwise of the conclusion in must obviously depend on that of the events selected as data for investigation. And with this rule in view, we can safely vouch for the accuracy of the conclusions drawn above as regards the causes of the Persian and Syrian campaigns of the Muslims. The events that we have drawn upon are all events of unimpeachable historic authenticity.

Before we address the maliciously excerpted punch lines in the current issue, lets review the background context of what the documentary is hiding from the audience but brought to light in “The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt” By Ṭabarī, G. H. A. Juynboll, p. 140-1:

According to al-Sari—Shu’ayb—Sayf—Mubammad, Talhah and Amr—a1-Shatbi…and Sayf) [footnote: The text reads as if al-Shabi, as well as a certain Sufyan (whom Dc Goeje identified in the index as al-Thawrij, had both been pupils of al-Hasan. But that solution results in a chronological anomaly. This is clearly a case of an isnad ending in two different strains, one with al-Sha’bi and one with al-Hasan al-Basri as oldest authority.] —Sufyan (b. Husayn b. al-Hasan al-Wasiti)—al-Hasan (al-Basri): ‘Umar said to the delegation (from al-Basrah), “Have the Muslims perhaps done harm to the people living under their protection? Or have they perhaps done things to them that caused them to commence hostilities against you?” “No,” they answered, “we only know that we acted in good faith and with decency.” ‘Umar asked, “Then how did their revolt come about?” But after questioning them, he did not receive any answer from anyone that took away his doubt or through which he gained insight into the situation they described. Only what al-Ahnaf (told him helped ‘Umar to form a clear picture, for he) said:

“Commander of the Faithful, I shall enlighten you. You forbade us to spread out farther into Persian territory, and you ordered us to stay within the borders of the region that we have under our control. However, the king of the Persians is still alive among them, and they will therefore not cease to contend with us for control of the region, as long as their king is among them. Two kings can never govern simultaneously and agree; the one will inevitably oust the other. I have come to realize that we made one conquest after another solely because of their continuous revolts. It is their king who incites them, and this will always be his line of action until you give us permission to venture out into their land so that we separate him from his subjects and expel him from his kingdom by divesting him of his might and authority [footnote: For the way in which religious and secular authority were combined in Sasanian kingship, see Morony, Iraq, 28-31. ]. Only then will the hope of the Persians be crushed and will they capitulate.”

“By God, you have given me a believable picture, and you have explained the situation to me as it is in reality,” ‘Umar said. Then he looked into what they were in need of and sent them forth. Next a letter came to ‘Umar informing him of the assembling of the Persians at Nihawand and of how the people of Mihrijàn Qadhaq and those of the districts of al-Ahwaz gravitated toward the point of view and the erstwhile ambitions of al-Hurmuzan. That was what prompted Umar to give the Muslims permission to venture out into Persian territory.

In the above passage it is quite obvious that Persians were constantly stirring revolts along their border with Arabia and the persistent reluctance of Caliph Umar to attack Persia despite the recommendations of his commanders. The only course left for Muslims to avoid an inevitable war was if Persia assured peace by paying taxes or if they accepted the faith, else the war was the only choice left. Without these conditions there was no guarantee that Persians will stop their years of constant instigation and revolts. Finally, the events crossed a threshold that a full scale war broke out with Persia in which none but Persians are to be blamed.

It becomes pertinent to know al-Hurmuzan. He was the Persian general who finally faced Muslims in the battle of Tustar. While under his command, the city was besieged by the Muslim army and there were eighty sorties by Persians to break the siege. After the numerous skirmishes, the Muslims were able to penetrate the city via its water outlet, threw open the city gates and al-Hurmuzan sought refuge in the citadel. Below is what happened thereafter – “The conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt” By Ṭabarī, G. H. A. Juynboll, p. 135-6:

Those who had entered the city through the water outlet encircled him in the citadel and when they spotted him and advanced upon him, he said to them, “What do you want? Perhaps you realize that you and I cannot escape one another [footnote:Literally, the text reads “perhaps you see the straits I and you are in.”]. But I still have a quiver with one hundred arrows and, by God, you will not lay a hand on me as long as I have still one arrow left. No arrow of mine will fail to find its target. What benefit is there in taking me prisoner, when I kill or wound one hundred of you first?” “What is it you want then?” they asked. He replied,”I would like to place my hand in yours [footnote:That is, “I want to surrender.”], leaving the decision with ‘Umar to do with me as he wants.” “We agree,” they answered, whereupon he threw down his bow and surrendered to them. Next they bound him securely…During the night, may people of Muslims forces were killed. Among those whom al-Hurmazan killed personally were Majzah’ah b. Thawr and al-Bara b. Malik.

Once al-Hurmuzan is brought before Caliph Umar as prisoner in Medina, the following transpires – “The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt” By Ṭabarī, G. H. A. Juynboll, p. 139-40:

“You only succeeded in defeating us in the days before Islam because you were united, whereas we were divided. But,” ‘Umar continued, “what is your excuse or what arguments can you adduce in your defense for going to war against us time after time?”

“I fear that you will kill me before I have told you,” al-Hurmuzãn answered. “No, do not be afraid,” ‘Umar assured him. Then, when al-Hurmuzan had asked for something to drink, he was brought water in a primitive cup. “Even if I were to die of thirst, I could not possibly drink from a cup like this,” he cried. So he was brought some water in a vessel he approved of. But then his hand began to tremble and he said, “I am afraid that I will be killed while I am drinking.” “No harm will come to you,” Umar said, “until you have drunk it.” Hereupon al-Hurmuzan spilled the water by turning the vessel upside down. “Give him some more,” ‘Umar ordered, “so that he will not be bothered by thirst when the time of his execution has come” [footnote: Literally, this sentence reads “Give him some more and do not heap death and thirst upon him together.”].

Then al-Hurmuzãn spoke, “I do not need water; what I want is to ask that you grant me immunity.” “I shall certainly kill you,” shouted ‘Umar, but al-Hurmuzãn cut him short and said, “But you have already granted me immunity.” “You lie,” roared ‘Umar, but Anas (b. Mãlik) intervened and said, “He is right, Commander of the Faithful, you have indeed granted him safety.” “Woe unto you, Anas,” said ‘Umar to him, “should I grant immunity to the killer of Majza’ah and al-Bara’? By God, think of a subterfuge or I shall surely chastise you!”

But Anas maintained, “You did tell him that no harm would come to him before he had told you what you asked him and you also told him that no harm would come to him until he had drunk the water.” Then all those who were standing around ‘Umar joined in, telling him the same thing. ‘Umar approached al-Hurmuzàn and said, “You have made a fool of me and, by God, I shall not be hoodwinked by anyone who is not a Muslim.” [footnote: Contrary to the general rule, we find here a verb VII with the passive meaning “to be cheated,” followed by what seems to be the agent introduced by the preposition Ii. This phenomenon is attested also in W. Fischer, Grammatik des klassischen arabisch, Wiesbaden, 1972, 98, 138] So al-Hurmuzán embraced Islam and ‘Umar assigned him a stipend of two thousand (dirhams) and permitted him to settle in Medina.

With this environment of war in mind where Persian empire was a constant source of revolts and attacks on Arabia, now read the following full text that was excerpted out of context in the current issue. In it Caliph Umar is advised by the same al-Hurmuzan, the Persian general for the war strategy. Reader must keep in mind that even though subsequently Persia was conquered, there were no forced conversions therein. The only control from Medina was appointment of its governor and treasurer, else every office of Persia was held by a local.

Sahih-Bukhari – Volume 4, Book 53, Number 386:

Narrated Jubair bin Haiya:

‘Umar sent the Muslims to the great countries to fight the pagans. When Al-Hurmuzan embraced Islam, ‘Umar said to him. “I would like to consult you regarding these countries which I intend to invade.” Al-Hurmuzan said, “Yes, the example of these countries and their inhabitants who are the enemies of the Muslims, is like a bird with a head, two wings and two legs; If one of its wings got broken, it would get up over its two legs, with one wing and the head; and if the other wing got broken, it would get up with two legs and a head, but if its head got destroyed, then the two legs, two wings and the head would become useless. The head stands for Khosrau, and one wing stands for Caesar and the other wing stands for Faris. So, order the Muslims to go towards Khosrau.” So, ‘Umar sent us (to Khosrau) appointing An-Numan bin Muqrin as our commander. When we reached the land of the enemy, the representative of Khosrau came out with forty-thousand warriors, and an interpreter got up saying, “Let one of you talk to me!” Al-Mughira replied, “Ask whatever you wish.” The other asked, “Who are you?” Al-Mughira replied, “We are some people from the Arabs; we led a hard, miserable, disastrous life: we used to suck the hides and the date stones from hunger; we used to wear clothes made up of fur of camels and hair of goats, and to worship trees and stones. While we were in this state, the Lord of the Heavens and the Earths, Elevated is His Remembrance and Majestic is His Highness, sent to us from among ourselves a Prophet whose father and mother are known to us. Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, has ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah Alone or give Jizya (i.e. tribute); and our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says:– “Whoever amongst us is killed (i.e. martyred), shall go to Paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever amongst us remain alive, shall become your master.” (Al-Mughira, then blamed An-Numan for delaying the attack and) An-Nu’ man said to Al-Mughira, “If you had participated in a similar battle, in the company of Allah’s Apostle he would not have blamed you for waiting, nor would he have disgraced you. But I accompanied Allah’s Apostle in many battles and it was his custom that if he did not fight early by daytime, he would wait till the wind had started blowing and the time for the prayer was due (i.e. after midday).”

References:

The Early Caliphate – Muhammad Ali.

The History of al-Tabari – Vol. VIII, The Conquest of Iraq,southwestern Persia and Egypt – Translated by Gauthier H. A. Juynboll.

Sahih-Bukhari – Volume 4, Book 53 – Translator – M. Muhsin Khan.

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

Issue 45 [@ 44:11]: Video clip is shown of an unknown panel discussion with audience conversing in Arabic and a ticker tape at the bottom of the screen stating – [Person A, dressed in a suit] I have a son. I am already preparing him for martyrdom either mine or his. I tell him that Allah made a vast paradise and that in it are all things that the eyes has not seen and the ear has not heard, things that a man could not even imagine He ask me if I carry out an operation and blow myself up will Allah give me car, a rifle to shoot with, toys? I answer him You will get everything you ask for. [Question asked of Person A] This really happened between you and your son? [Person A answers] This really happened. [Panelist dressed in traditional Arab dress] Hold the microphone together and we will ask what is the right answer to give a child who asks ‘Where is my father or where is my mother after one or both of them has carried out a martyrdom operation?’ [Another person] The answer in brief is that when Sa’d died a martyr’s death we said he is martyr. Do not consider those who died for the sake of Allah dead but alive and sustained by their God and we calmed the children. When they came from the television channel, the Abu Dhabi channel I think or another channel we told them ‘We are willing to sacrifice our four children.’ then the smallest (fifth) child said ‘Why can’t I?’ [Child] I wish to be a martyr for the sake of Allah and to kill some of the Jews and infidels who worshiped other gods next to Allah and his Prophet and followed a religion that Allah did not permit and which is not mentioned in the Koran. I am 12 years old and I memorize the Koran. [Panelist] May Allah protect you and make you a Jihad fighter for the sake of Allah.

Rebuttal 45: This is a video clip of unknown people, location and purpose. One can only guess that these are the personal opinions of some who reek of hopelessness and exhibit generational deprivation of their past, present or future. This reaction of theirs seems to be have been transformed into a religious cause under the garb of Jihad to gain independence if not on the map, at least in their minds. They seem oblivious of loss, either of self or others. If these people belong to Palestine, then let the Israelis make the apology on their behalf for its over six decades of occupation, apartheid, deprivation and displacement. If they are Iraqi, then America has to justify their hopelessness which emerged from an unwarranted occupation and destruction of a country that never attacked it. If these people belong to some Arab land, then let the West share the responsibility of such kind of Jihad which is equated with violence, because it is the West in general and America in particular that roused, raked, indoctrinated and paid for such a Jihad from all over Arab world. Then this twisted Jihad was fully exploited for a decade to make a Vietnam out of the Soviet “infidels” occupying Afghanistan in 1980s. West never complained when this Jihad was to their favor against the communists, but now they cry foul when it turned against themselves. Wisdom tells us that if you find yourself in a hole, first stop digging. The solution for this Jihad in Middle East is in the Clintonian phraseology – It is the occupation stupid! Stop occupying other peoples and lands. Start with Palestine first then move eastward.

This video clip brings to fore the issues of Jihad, Suicide, Martyrdom, Terrorism, Inter-faith relationship in Islam, Heaven and memorizing Quran which are addressed below:

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).

Suicide has no support in Quran. On the reverse, self-preservation is a duty. See Rebuttal 33.

Martyrdom is not equivalent to suicide. See Rebuttal 34.

Precedence setting terrorism in Palestine by founders and Prime Ministers of Israel based upon Torah, is addressed in Rebuttal 39b.

Unlike Christianity (Issue 28), Islam respects other faiths and validates their Divine origins and emphasizes peaceful coexistence with their followers, see Issue 29a.

Heaven in Quran is an allegorical construct. In Quran there is no physical or geographical heaven, which is factually supported by astronomical truths as known to us by secular science. Its allegorical dimensions of time and space are limitless:

3:133. And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and a Garden, as wide as the heavens and the earth; it is prepared for those who keep their duty:

…we have a reliable tradition on record that a messenger of Heracleus (Byzantine Emperor, born c. 575 – died February 11, 641) asked the Prophet, “If the paradise were as extensive as the heavens and the earth, where would be hell?” “He replied, “Glory be to Allah, where is the night when the day comes?” The verse and the incident recorded clearly show that heaven and hell are not the names of two places, but actually two conditions, because if paradise were the name of a particular place, hell could not exist, as paradise would then extend over the whole of the space. This conclusively gives us a rational view of “heaven,” and is confirmed fully by the trend of modern thought which rejects the conception of the “geographical heaven” as primitive and irrational. Is not Modernism then indebted to the Qur’ân?

– Dean Inge’s Homage to Muhammad, by S. Hamid Raza B.A. (Alig), p. 322, Sept & Dec, 1934, The Muslim Revival, Ahmadiyya Buildings Lahore (India)

The very next verse possibly excludes any suicide bombers as candidates for heaven who neither restrain their anger nor pardon people, nor are the doers of good to others:

3:134. Those who spend in ease as well as in adversity and those who restrain (their) anger and pardon people. And Allah loves the doers of good (to others).

As to whatever that Heaven, heavenly state or heavenly award is, according to Quran it is assuredly sampled in this life:

2:25. And give good news to those who believe and do good deeds, that for them are Gardens in which rivers flow. Whenever they are given a portion of the fruit of these (Gardens), they will say: This is what was given to us before; and they are given the like of it…

[Footnote: Whenever the faithful are made to taste of a portion of the fruits of their good deeds in the life to come, they will find those fruits much resembling the fruits which they tasted spiritually in this life. The like of it may signify that the fruits of their deeds will be similar to those deeds…All the blessings of heavenly life are, according to a saying of the Holy Prophet, “things which no eye has seen and no ear has heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive of them” (Bukhari, 59:8). The words in which these blessings are depicted in the Holy Quran, therefore, should not be taken literally.]

The video clip makes a reference to memorizing Quran, but in doing so apparently without following its meaning, purpose and spirit. Quran mocks such meaningless efforts:

2:78. And (some) among them are illiterate, who do not know the Scripture except cramming it up, and are doing nothing but making conjectures. [Nooruddin]

Similar to Jews cramming up their sacred books without deriving any moral purpose, Quran further mocks such peoples who are merely cramming the Quran and making conjectures from it:

62:5. The case of those who were charged to observe (the law of) Torah but did not carry out (its commandments in its true spirit), is like the case of a donkey that carries (a load of) volumes (of Books; he neither understands them nor gathers any advantage from them). Wretched is the case of the people who cry lies to the Message of Allâh. And Allâh guides no unjust people to success. [Nooruddin]

Quran thus addresses both Muslims and Islam haters alike who misuse Quran for its Message: Wretched is the case of the people who cry lies to the Message of Allâh.
 

 
Note: [comments in square brackets above are the footnotes from the Translation and Commentary of Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz]

Unless indicated otherwise, all verses above are from the translation and commentary of Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz.

References:

The Muslim Revival – Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam, Lahore
The Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz
Holy Quran – Nooruddin

Issue 44 [43:26]: Walid Shoebat, Former member, PLO Fatah Brigade – “In the Muslim thinking, in the Muslim Sharia, the way the world is depicted is in two house. It is called Dar-ul-Islam or Dar-ul-Harb, the house of Islam or the house of war. So the whole world is under these two houses. If you are not a Muslim you are under the house of war. In the West Islamic apologists will say no it is not accurate. It is the house of peace and the house of Islam. In fact that is not accurate. If you look at the Hadith and what comes from the highest Jurisprudence in the Middle East that is what being taught.”

Rebuttal 44: This issue is broken down as follows:

Issue 44a: “In the Muslim thinking, in the Muslim Sharia, the way the world is depicted is in two house. It is called Dar-ul-Islam or Dar-ul-Harb, the house of Islam or the house of war. So the whole world is under these two houses. If you are not a Muslim you are under the house of war…”

Rebuttal 44a: Muhammad Ali in his book Religion of Islam [p. 426, pub. 1951] clarifies, rebuts and expunges the notions of Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Harb as follows:

Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam

With the new notion introduced into the word jihad, the jurists artificially divided the whole word into dar al-harb and dar al-Islam. Dar al-harb literally means the abode or seat of war, and dar al-Islam, the abode of Islam. These words are not used in the Holy Qur’an, nor are they traceable in any Hadith. Bukhari uses the word dar al-harb in the heading of one of his chapters: “When a people embrace Islam in dar al-harb” (Bu. 56:180). Two Hadith are mentioned under this heading, in neither of which do the words dar al-harb occur. The first speaks of Makkah, and its subject matter is that when, after the conquest of Makkah, the unbelieving Quraish accepted Islam; they were recognized as owners of property of which they had become masters, though it originally belonged to those Muslims who had fled to Madinah. The second speaks of Rabdhah, a place at a distance of about three day’s journey from Madinah, the lands near which were turned into pasture by ‘Umar and, on the owners’ protest, made over to them. Both Makkah and Rabdhah were at one time at war with the Muslims and on this account Bukhari speaks of them as dar al-harb. Dar al-Islam is evidently a place where the laws of Islam prevail and which is under a Muslim ruler. The use of dar al-harb in the sense of a place actually at war with the Muslims, is unobjectionable. But the jurists apply the word to all states and countries which are not dar al-Islam or under the Muslim rule, though they may not be at war with the Muslims, and thus look upon a Muslim state as being always in a state of war with the whole of the non-Muslim world. This position is not only inconsistent with the very basic principles of Islam but actually it has never been accepted by any Muslim state that has ever existed in the world. The difficulty has been met by some jurists by bringing a third class, called dar al-sulh or dar al-‘ahd, or a country which has an agreement with the Muslims. But even this does not exhaust the whole world. Many of the laws relating to war are based on this fictitious division of the world, for which there is not the least authority either in the Holy Qur’an or in Hadith.

Issue 44b: “…In the West Islamic apologists will say no it is not accurate. It is the house of peace and the house of Islam. In fact that is not accurate. If you look at the Hadith and what comes from the highest Jurisprudence in the Middle East that is what being taught.”

Issue 44b: Mr. Shoebat, this is one more instance of your being wrong. You equate “ highest Jurisprudence in the Middle East” as being what Islam is. Whether it is Far East, Middle East or Near East, Islam comes out of none of these Easts, but out of Quran. Following is what Quran has to say about the issue that you raised:

Firstly, for all intents and purposes the word “Islam” means peace, both in letter and in spirit, within the person and within the society:

10:25 And Allah invites to the abode of peace, and guides whom He pleases to the right path… [This is another description of the Muslim paradise, which is called dar al-salam, or the abode of peace. The word salam in dar al-salam is from the same root as Islam. Islam, in fact, makes even this world an abode of peace for a true Muslim; he makes his peace with his Lord, and he lives at peace with his fellow beings. The peace of the next life is, in fact, a continuation of the peace of mind which a Muslim finds in this very life.]

Secondly, in this abode of peace, there is freedom of faiths for all:

2:256 There is no compulsion in religion…[To all the allegations that the Holy Prophet preached Islam by the sword, this verse is a sufficient answer. Being assured of success, Muslims are told that when they hold power in their hands their guiding principle should be that there should be no compulsion in the matter of religion. The claim that this passage was directed only to the early converts and that it was abrogated later on is utterly baseless.]

Thirdly, this freedom of religion has to be preserved for all:

22:40. …if Allah did not repel some people by others, surely cloisters and churches and synagogues, and mosques in which Allah’s name is much remembered, would have been pulled down. And surely Allah will help him who helps Him. Surely Allah is Strong, Mighty. [The religious freedom established by Islam has not yet been surpassed by the most civilized and tolerant of nations. It deserves to be noted that the lives of Muslims are to be sacrificed not only to stop their own persecution by their opponents and to save their own mosques, but to save churches, synagogues and cloisters as well — in fact, to establish perfect religious freedom. Mosques, though they are the places where the name of Allah is remembered most of all, are mentioned after churches and synagogues. Early Muslims closely followed these directions, and every commander of an army had express orders to respect all houses of worship, and even the cloisters of monks, along with their inmates.]

Of note is that one of His cause is, protection of cloisters and churches and synagogues besides mosques. While living among a multi-faith community, Muslims are deemed to follow the norms of fairness, which the spirit of the Quran:

5:3. … And do not let hatred of a people — because they hindered you from the Sacred Mosque — incite you to transgress [The principle laid down here requires from Muslims equal treatment for all nations, for those whom we hate as well as for those whom we love. Only this principle of Islam can serve as the basis for an international code for the modern world and an international law.]. And help one another in righteousness and piety, and do not help one another in sin and aggression, and keep your duty to Allah [Editor’s note: Muslims ought only to cooperate with one another in matters of goodness, and are forbidden to help each other in wrongdoing against others. This injunction prohibits the evils of blind patriotism and unconditional support for one’s own people even when they commit injustices against others.]. Surely Allah is Severe in retribution.

Note: [comments in square brackets above are the footnotes from the Translation and Commentary of Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz]

References:

Religion of Islam – Muhammad Ali
The Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz

Issue 43 [43:04]: Slide projected with voice – The Noble Koran 8:67. It is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war (and free them with ransom) until he had made a great slaughter (among his enemies) in the land. You desire the good of this world (i.e. the money of ransom for freeing the captive), but Allah desires (for you) the Hereafter. And Allah is All-Mighty, All-Wise.

Comment 43: The documentary under review cleverly interjects a scary sounding translation of verse 8:67 with the intention to leave the word “slaughter” and pillage associated with Prophet Muhammad. Firstly, this verse has nothing to do with slaughter, it only draws attention of Muslims that they cannot take captives of peaceful civilians and non-combatants. Secondly, captives can only and only be taken after a defensive war. There is a historical connotation to the said verse, but if taken in full context, the message of Quran has everlasting moral fairness to it.

The above verse refers to moral principles that came out of the practical example of battle of Badr. Before we read the above verse lets take a look at the introductory note and the verses of Chapter 8 titled Al-Anfal by Muhammad Ali in his translation and commentary of Quran (edited by Zahid Aziz):

Al-Anfal – Voluntary Gifts [Chapter 8]

This chapter deals with the battle of Badr, the first battle which the Muslims had to fight, and it goes under the name of Anfal, literally voluntary gifts, because the Muslim State had at the time no treasury, nor any arsenal, nor an army and voluntary gifts were therefore called for. It was not only this battle but all the succeeding battles which Muslims had to fight were carried on only by voluntary gifts. Success in this battle, against all odds, provided proof of the truth of the Holy Prophet’s mission and thus this chapter occurs after a discussion of prophethood in the last chapter. Most of this chapter was revealed in 2 A.H. [including Section 10 to which the above verse belongs], while the concluding verses of sections 7 and 8 were revealed around the time of the conquest of Makkah in 8 A.H.

The above verse can be fully contextualized if whole of Chapter 8 is read, which is a quick read as the chapter is only 75 sentences (verses) long. For brevity sake, but without doing full justice, the following excerpted verses give the historical background and moral principles of the verse in reference above:

8:5. Even as your Lord caused you to go forth from your house with truth, though some of the believers were surely averse,

[Commentary] The circumstances of the battle of Badr have been misunderstood. It is alleged that the Holy Prophet had made preparations for attacking an unarmed caravan of the Quraish on its way back from Syria to Makkah, when Abu Sufyan, the caravan leader, sent word to Makkah and obtained an escort of nearly a thousand men. If the Holy Prophet had desired to plunder the caravan when it approached Madinah, he would have done so long before Abu Sufyan could obtain assistance from Makkah, as Madinah was thirteen days’ journey from Makkah. Badr lies at a distance of three days’ journey from Madinah. The enemy had marched forth for ten days and the Muslims only for three days when the two forces encountered each other at Badr, which shows clearly that the Muslims had turned out to take the defensive against an invading force. It is clearly stated here that some of the believers were averse to fighting. They could not have been averse if they had to encounter only an unarmed caravan. It is said in the next verse that they went forth as if they were being driven to death.They knew that they were going to meet an enemy treble in numbers and much more powerful and efficient.

8:6. disputing with you about the truth after it had become clear — as if they were being driven to death while they saw (it).

8:7. And when Allah promised you one of the two parties that it should be yours, and you loved that the one not armed [-the caravan of Abu Sufyan] should be yours,

[Commentary] The two parties referred to were the unarmed caravan of the Quraish going to Makkah and the armed force of the Quraish that was on its way to Madinah. Naturally, some of the Muslims desired that their encounter should take place with the unarmed Quraish caravan.

and Allah desired to establish the Truth by His words,

[Commentary] By His words is meant here the fulfilment of His words, because the Holy Prophet had declared at Makkah long before that an encounter would take place between the Muslims and the Quraish, in which the former would be victorious. The Holy Prophet himself repeated one of these prophecies aloud in the field when he prayed on the day of Badr: “Soon shall the armies be routed, and they will show their backs” (54:45).

and to cut off the root of the disbelievers —

8:8. that He might cause the Truth to triumph and bring falsehood to failure, though the guilty disliked.

The following verses from the same chapter outline the moral principles governing the Muslim conduct in the battles that were thrust upon the them in Medina:

8:38. Say to those who disbelieve, if they [-the enemies of Islam] cease (fighting), what is past will be forgiven them; and if they return (to it), then the example of those of old has already gone.

[Commentary] They [i.e. the Makkans] had gone away from Badr quite discomfited, and they were told that, if they ceased fighting, they would be forgiven. Otherwise, they could read their own doom in the doom of those with whom Allah had dealt previously in similar circumstances.

8:39. And fight with them until there is no more persecution, and all religions are for Allah. But if they cease, then surely Allah is Seer of what they do.

[Commentary] That is, if they cease fighting and put an end to their mischief, God’s decree of punishment will not be executed. The state of religious liberty which Islam aimed at is put tersely in the two opening statements — there is no more persecution and all religions are for Allah, everyone being at liberty to hold any belief he likes.

8:40. And if they turn back, then know that Allah is your Patron. Most excellent the Patron and most excellent the Helper!

The actual layout and outcome of battle of Badr is thus outlined:

8:42. When you were on the nearer side (of the valley) and they were on the farther side, while the caravan was in a lower place than you.

[Commentary] The Muslims were on the side nearer to Madinah, the main army of the Quraish [i.e. Makkan invaders] was on the side which was farther from Madinah, while the caravan [of Abu Sufyan of Makkah] was in a lower place, i.e. towards the sea-coast, and farther away from Madinah, on its way to Makkah.

And if you had tried to make a mutual appointment, you would certainly have broken away from the appointment,

[Commentary] There is a break here, the meaning being but an encounter was brought about without an appointment. The Muslims were so weak that they could not think of making an appointment with the enemy — they would have broken away from the appointment.

but — in order that Allah might bring about a matter which had to be done;

[Commentary] The matter referred to is the defeat of the opponents of Islam.

that he who perished by clear argument might perish, and he who lived by clear argument might live.

[Commentary] The disbelievers had seen clear arguments of the Holy Prophet’s truth, yet they rejected him and had thus perished in a spiritual sense; they were now vanquished in the battle and thus perished temporally.

And surely Allah is Hearing, Knowing:

The battle order for Muslims is thus:

8:45. O you who believe, when you meet an army, be firm, and remember Allah much, that you may be successful.

8:46. And obey Allah and His Messenger and do not dispute with one another so that you get weak-hearted and your power departs; and be steadfast. Surely Allah is with the steadfast.

The state of mind of invaders i.e. Makkans is spoken of as:

8:47. And do not be like those who came forth from their homes exultingly and to be seen by people, and they hinder (people) from the way of Allah.

[Commentary] This clearly refers to the army of the Quraish which had marched forth in great exultation to destroy Madinah.

And Allah encompasses what they do.

8:48. And when the devil made their works seem good to them, and said: No man can overcome you this day, and I am your protector. But when the two armies came in sight of one another, he turned upon his heels, and said: Surely I am clear of you, I see what you do not see; surely I fear Allah.

[Commentary] The person referred to here as the devil is said to have been Suraqa ibn Malik who gave the Quraish promise of help. However, what is stated here may only be the devil’s suggestion to the Quraish leaders.

And Allah is Severe in retribution.

In the state of war Quran gives guidelines for Muslims to handle the treacheries by the offenders:

8:55. Surely the vilest of beasts in Allah’s sight are those who disbelieve, then they would not believe —

8:56. those with whom you make an agreement, then they break their agreement every time, and they do not keep their duty.

[Commentary] It shows how the opponents of Islam disregarded their responsibility and violated their agreements. The use of the words every time shows clearly that the Muslims never hesitated in making a new agreement when one was violated, but the disbelievers did not even then respect their agreements; hence, as a last resort, Muslims were allowed to repudiate unrespected agreements (v. 58).

8:57. So if you overtake them in war, scatter by them those who are behind them, that they may be mindful.

[Commentary] That is, an exemplary punishment should be inflicted on them, so that a stop might be put to further fighting and bloodshed.

8:58. And if you fear treachery on the part of a people, throw back to them (their treaty) on terms of equality. Surely Allah does not love the treacherous.

[Commentary] If the other party does not remain faithful to the agreement of peace, Muslims may also repudiate it. The word fear does not indicate that a mere apprehension, unsupported by any action on the other side’s part, is sufficient for repudiation. Read it along with v. 62, and the meaning is clear.

Since offensive war is not part of Islamic doctrine, Quran gives guidelines to prevent a war by securing peace. Of note is that no where in Quran there is preventive war, which is frequent in recent world history. Preventive war is distinct from preemptive strike in a state of war:

8:59. And those who disbelieve should not think that they can outstrip (Us). Surely they cannot escape.

8:60. And make ready for them whatever force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to frighten thereby the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them, whom you do not know — Allah knows them.

[Commentary] Muslims had won a victory at Badr, though they were not even well equipped and had made no preparation for the war. But they are told that they must in future keep themselves well prepared and avail themselves of all sources of strength, so that the enemy should by their very preparedness assume a peaceful attitude. It was evident that the weakness of the Muslims was a temptation for their opponents to attack them.

And whatever you spend in Allah’s way, it will be paid back to you fully and you will not be wronged.

In Islamic doctrine, peace is to be preferred over war. War may be undertaken, but only in self-defense as the last resort:

8:61. And if they incline to peace, you (must) incline to it also, and trust in Allah. Surely He is the Hearer, the Knower.

8:62. And if they intend to deceive you, then surely Allah is sufficient for you.

[Commentary] The deceit is in relation to what has been said in the previous verse, the meaning being that if they intend to deceive you under the cloak of peace, even in such a case peace is to be accepted.

He it is Who strengthened you with His help and with the believers,

Once due diligence is done by remaining united, steadfast and firm, securing peace, avoiding war, respecting the treaties, Muslims are assured Divine help in any aggression against them:

8:63. and He has united their hearts [of Muslims]. If you had spent all that is in the earth, you could not have united their hearts, but Allah united them. Surely He is Mighty, Wise.

8:64. O Prophet, Allah is sufficient for you and those who follow you from the believers.

8:65. O Prophet, urge the believers to fight [in self-defense as a last resort, after all the above conditions for peace and avoiding a fight have been met].

[Commentary] It should be noted that the war to which Muslims were to be urged was the defensive war which they had to fight to save themselves and to protect the religion of Islam. The sword had been taken up against them; see 2:190, 2:217,22:39, etc.

If there are of you twenty steadfast, they shall overcome two hundred; and if there are of you a hundred, they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they are a people who do not understand.

[Commentary] There is a clear prophecy here that, despite their fewer numbers, Muslims shall be victorious. After the battle of Badr came the battle of Uhud, in which Muslims were less than 1 to 4 against the enemy; this was followed by the battle of the Ahzab [a.k.a. Battle of Trench], in which they were 1 to 10, yet the enemy was routed.

8:66. Now Allah has lightened your burden and He knows that there is weakness in you. So if there are of you a hundred steadfast, they shall overcome two hundred; and if there are of you a thousand, they shall overcome two thousand by Allah’s permission. And Allah is with the steadfast.

[Commentary] The statements in verses 65 and 66 relate to two different states of the Muslims. At the time of the battle of Badr there was no Muslim army in existence. They had very few arms, and they had never been trained. This is referred to in the words: He knows that there is weakness in you [both of men and material]. So the Muslim forces as then constituted could at most be a match for double their numbers. But a time did come when they were a match for ten times their numbers. So both the statements in the Quran proved true.

With the above ground rules and background of wars in general and Badr in particular, now lets read the verse which is topic of the current Issue:

8:67. It is not fit for a prophet to take captives unless he has fought [in defensive battles] and triumphed in the land. [If you take captives [other than a defensive] warfare,*]You desire the frail goods of this world, while Allah desires (for you) the Hereafter.

[Commentary] The commentators are of opinion that this verse and the next refer to releasing the prisoners of war taken at Badr after taking ransom from them, which act, it is said, is here disapproved. But various considerations show that these verses refer to some other incidents. The reference is to the desire — not to an action already completed — of a party of the Muslims referred to in v. 7, and you loved that the one not armed should be yours. Some Muslims desired to attack and capture the unarmed caravan, but depredations like these, though committed by disbelievers upon Muslims, were not fit for a prophet. He must fight a hard fight in his defence first and then, if he overcomes the enemy, he may take prisoners. Thus this injunction also declares slavery to be illegal, and allows only the retaining of those who are taken prisoners in war. The frail goods of this world appropriately refer to the caravan and its merchandise, while the addition of the concluding words in v. 69, eat then of the lawful and good things which you have acquired in war, shows that the ransom received on account of the prisoners is among the lawful and good things.

And Allah is Mighty, Wise.

8:68. If an ordinance from Allah had not gone before,

[Commentary] That ordinance from Allah was to bring about an encounter with the main army of the Quraish at Badr. It is referred to in v. 7 and v. 42.

surely a great punishment would have befallen you for what you were going to do [by attacking the caravan of Quraish from Syria*].

8:69. Eat then of the lawful and good (things) which you have acquired in war, and keep your duty to Allah. Surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

As for the prisoners of war, Quran states the following:

8:70. O Prophet, say to those of the captives who are in your hands [i.e. Prisoners of War]: If Allah knows anything good in your hearts, He will give you better than what has been taken from you, and will forgive you. And Allah is Forgiving, Merciful [i.e. if Allah is forgiving and merciful, so too a Muslim captor has to be towards the captive, examples of which abound in Prophet Muhammad’s example].

8:71. And if they [i.e. the POWs] intend to be treacherous to you, so indeed they have been treacherous to Allah before, but He gave (you) mastery over them. And Allah is Knowing, Wise.

History is witness that whenever Muslims were faced with aggression and they followed the principles of defensive war as outlined above, they triumphed over the super-powers of their times. As a case in point, Muhammad over came the Makkans and his successors over came the Roman and Persian Empires. Ultimately, it is the Quran that came out true for its moral laws.

Note:

[comments in square brackets above are not part of the original quoted text]
[comments in square brackets with asterisk * above are inserted from Holy Quran translation by Nooruddin]

References:

The Holy Quran – Muhammad Ali, edited by Dr. Zahid Aziz