Up and down the coasts of Europe one can find ruins, the remnants of ancient watchtowers and fortifications. One is seldom provided with any explanation; when something is written very occasionally in a guidebook, there is mention of "invaders." Who were these “invaders”? The history of Muslim raiders, up and down those European coasts, the pillaging and razing of villages and towns, the murders, the vandalism, the seizure and enslavement of, over time, at least a million people from Western Europe, with the raiders even getting as far as Ireland and, in one celebrated case, Iceland, is hardly known to the Western world.
Giles Milton's book White Gold focuses on one Cornishman, Thomas Pellow, who was seized and brought back to Morocco in the mid-18th century. There the vast palace complex of Moulay Ismail, which Western tourists come to admire, was built on the sites of, and making use of the stone taken from, the prior non-Muslim structures. So many of the so-called "wonders of Muslim architecture" were built in this way, including the celebrated Omayyad Mosque in Damascus, which is on the site of, and makes use of, the St. John the Baptist Church that was previously on the same site. And who do you think built the Taj Mahal? Muslim soldiers, or enslaved Hindus?
When you begin, as many Infidels have, to study Islam, and then extend your study beyond the texts, and then add the behavior of Muslims today, and then go still further and begin to study the history of Islamic conquest, and the Islamic exaggerated claims to achievement, and the Islamic treatment of all non-Muslims subjugated by Muslims and Muslim rule, all sorts of the dark past become necessarily illuminated. How many of us, a few years ago, had any idea about when the Turks arrived in Byzantium, or why Constantinople fell, or when? Who knew about the Seljuk Turks, or the Ottomans? Who was aware of where Aramaic was spoken, or that the Maronites were a non-Arab people living in present-day Lebanon long before the Arab Muslims arrived? Who knew, even -- why Tom Friedman has just in the last week or two discovered -- that there are Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, and that the difference is not a minor one, and did not originate with the Americans clumsily undoing all that splendid harmony that naturally reigned in Iraq just a few pre-Saddam years ago? This is all nonsense, of course, but it is predictable nonsense.
It is wonderful, isn't it, to begin to study the history of the Middle East, and the history of Byzantium, and the history of Europe, all because it now has an immediacy and a significance that we who were not history-haunted did not previously ascribe to it all. But now that we are menaced by those who are haunted not so much by history as their own crazed version of history, we are forced to study -- and we are forced to be quick studies.
It's going to school, setting yourself to school, all over again.
Despite the boredom that Islam itself creates, studying that history is now essential. It is necessary to learn what taqiyya is, and what constitutes an acceptable isnad-chain, and the details of Muhammad's life (as Muslims accept it). It is essential to find out that Muslims do not accept the principle of Pacta sunt servanda, but follow instead the model of the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya. All this is all the more essential seeing how even the most reasonable westernized semi-truth-telling Muslim will continue to skitter around the central question, if he has not made the Ibn-Warraq break with Islam -- see Kanan Makkiya, see Fouad Ajami, see the smiling Fareed Zakariya (with, for god's sake, his wine column -- yet for careerist considerations, he thinks it is far better to keep letting himself be thought of as a "good Muslim" rather than as no Muslim at all, for then his usefulness would be much diminished).
You didn't expect, ten or five years ago, that the acquisition of a CD-Rom of the Encyclopedia of Islam would thrill you. You had no idea you would read, with pleasure, Joseph Schacht or Antoine Fattal or William St. Clair Tisdall.
Did you?
But it's fun, isn't it? Fun, and indispensable.
Establishing "WORLD PEACE" is not unlike making an Omlet. It takes time, you don't always succeed the first few attempts and you absolutely have to break a few eggs in the process.
Also, Majid Khadduri's War and Peace in the Law of Islam recommended by Hugh in an earlier post. Excellent read.
How right you are, Hugh.
Never thought I'd be back in school and yes, it's fun although it was easier to be an ignorant fool.
Thanks for all you do.
Hugh,
Someone ought to gather all of your essays and comments, and publish them in book (or e-book) form. That would be a splendid intellectual treat for all inquisitive infidels.
Yes to think and learn about the barbarism and suffering and misery brought upon non Muslims by Islam is depressing. Islam is contrary to much of what the west and other non Muslim countries believe and value and respect. Creativity, Entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, scientific reasoning, exploration and arts for the uplifting of humanity, and the joy and wonder of life. But Islam is fixated on control, death, looting and robbing.
It brings death, misery and poverty of mind, spirit and creativity. It hates life and the wonders of being human. It is a paranoid religion that has fear and knows it is a weak and cannot stand on itself once examined under a microscope. It has to lash out and blame others for its failures. However, it has succeeded in bringing about suffering and victim mentality and being able to survive in the 21st century, because it does not have the weapons to defeat and subjugate the superior technologies of the west and other democratic countries.
Perhaps Fareed Zakariya has better reasons than usefulness to want to be known as a "good Muslim". What was the penalty for "betraying" that faith again? I forget.
As best I can tell, the only thing that truly recommends the purchase of the Encyclopedia of Islam (CD-Rom) is that it was written and produced by non-muslims. Naturally, THAT is the major complaint of muslims who have any familiarity with the work. As has been noted on this website, muslims don't like it when the infidel learn about islam from non-muslims.
Big problem with the Encyclopedia of Islam: few individuals can afford to purshase it. It's very costly for the ordinary guy to own on an individual basis.
Suggestion: petition your local county/city library to ante up for the purschase. Then get in line to borrow it. But don't wait too long. Once word gets out to the local muslim community that the CD exists the CD will be stolen or damaged beyond repair.
As best I can tell, the only thing that truly recommends the purchase of the Encyclopedia of Islam (CD-Rom) is that it was written and produced by non-muslims. Naturally, THAT is the major complaint of muslims who have any familiarity with the work. As has been noted on this website, muslims don't like it when the infidel learn about islam from non-muslims.
Big problem with the Encyclopedia of Islam: few individuals can afford to purshase it. It's very costly for the ordinary guy to own on an individual basis.
Suggestion: petition your local county/city library to ante up for the purschase. Then get in line to borrow it. But don't wait too long. Once word gets out to the local muslim community that the CD exists the CD will be stolen or damaged beyond repair.
Omvi, Prophet of Doom has made a Concordance of the Koran, Hadith and Sunnah....very thorough job of it, too, and it is free at his website.
http://www.prophetofdoom.net/
No, Hugh, it is not fun, but it is indispensble.
It is overwhelming.
I feel, having begun after the 9/11 attacks to try and get a grip on the tenets and history of Islam, that I am back in an undergraduate course for which I am totally unprepared and without the energy to study that I possessed in my undergraduate days.
It is overwhelming.
I've read Robert's Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, The Truth About Muhammad, Davis' Islam 101, I've begun The Myth of Islamic Tolerance, I read West's The Death of the Grownup, I'm now reading Bat Ye'or's Eurabia, I read this web-site daily, I always read your works herein posted - and I know I have not yet scratched the surface.
It is overwhelming.
I can now speak somewhat intelligently about Muhammad's life, I know what the Hadith(s) are and how one cannot really understand the Koran without also studying the Hadith(s) - and yes, I understand the Treaty of al Hudaibiyya and what it means in today's Muslim world (what a clever, slippery fellow that Muhammad was, indeed).
It is overwhelming.
And you keep piling on the material, the volumes of which I shall never be able in my lifetime to read.
Tonight, for the first time, I read that the Hindus of India were slain by the tens of millions by their Muslim conquerors. I did know that the Hindus have a long history of hating Muslims - and this would certainly explain that hatred.
But I do thank you and Robert for what you have given me, a humble Infidel to the death. And I slowly plod through what I can find time to read.
'Infidelatlarge'
Yes, it is overwhelming. You are in good company. Even someone as formidable as Bat Yeor has said that when she really started getting into the original accounts of dhimmitude, it gave her nightmares. Somewhere she describes it as 'plunging into the abyss of oppression'.
Perhaps try for some 'lighter relief' on the side. Still on topic - still very informative - but also a fast, enjoyable read.
See, for example, V S Naipaul - 'Among the Believers' and 'Beyond Belief', and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 'Infidel'.
One of the joys in the latter book is Ayaan's paean to...infidel childrens' literature - to Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Enid Blyton and (wait for it) - Nancy Drew. As a pre-teen and teenage schoolgirl, at an English-language-medium school in Kenya, Ayaan learned English and buried herself in the school library. She explains, eagerly, all the things she learned from those storybooks.
I was much struck to find Ayaan also joyfully acknowledging the debt she feels she owes to Harlequin Romances (tattered paperback editions of which were surreptitiously circulated and avidly devoured among her female schoolmates, Hindu, Muslim and pagan as well as Christian). One would not normally regard those fat gold-and-purple paperbacks, with cover illustrations depicting bosomy heroines swooning in the embrace of stormy-eyed lovers, as Revolutionary Literature. But it appears that for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, at least, they were exactly that: they encouraged her to believe that freedom, love, and desire were not evil, but good. O writers of Harlequin romances, O myriad lady authors of Mills & Boon, churning out your bodice-rippers...blessings upon you for the depth charges your steamy imaginings drop into the minds of the unhappy female prisoners of Islam!
In a way, what Ayaan says in those chapters of 'Infidel' are echoed by Ibn Warraq in 'Defending the West'. It is fascinating - and heartening - for those of us who live outside the empire of Islam, in what Naipaul calls 'the universal civilisation', to discover what our familiar world looks like, through the eyes of those who have fallen in love with it.
As practical accounts of 'west-vs-islam' in the battlefield, Winston Churchill's 'The Malakand Field Force' (about Afghanistan) and 'The River War' (British Empire vs. Muslim Jihad in 19C Sudan) are on my own 'must-read' list. I am told the former is available online, thanks to project Gutenberg.
Another thing to do is this: take out your favourite piece of Western art, literature or music and just ...enjoy. Wash the horrid taste of Islam and its works right out of your mind, for a little while.
Another great read: 'Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800' (Early Modern History) by Robert C. Davis
"Muhammed and Charlemagne" by Henri Pirenne (1937) is a short but challenging read that abnticipates much of the speculation here. It's well worth a look at.
whoops! "abnticipates" = ANTICIPATES
Back to school. Damn!
And I was looking forward to mastering string theory in my retirement. Honestly.
There really is a distinct feeling of pleasure abd relief that kicks in, when the seemingly senseless and chaotic facts of the present world are viewed against an historical backdrop, in the context of which they make sense.
The last few historical pieces by Hugh and Fjordman have been a real source of perspective and relief.
I forget which one it was, but one of these cited the contrast between Europe's period of colonial domination of the mohammedan countries -- about 130 years -- with the period of mohammedan domination of at least parts of Europe -- closer to 1000 years -- and it has me completely reevaluating the EU's attitude toward the mohammedans.
The colonial period being a brief respite after a millenium of dhimmi, or barely-escaped-from-dhimmitude inferiority. A brief throwing off of the traditional chains.
There is a HUGE difference however, between today's European gov'ts and those of the old period of mohammedan dominance. Back in the day you actually had to beat the Europeans into submission and kill quite a few to get submission, and that submission was superficial, unreliable and temporary at best. The spirit of resistance stayed hot and vital under the surface. Today it seems that you hardly have to say boo to a eurocrat and you can have anything you want.
Hello Hugh, how's everything?
I used to post a few years ago, and was sidetracked by illness and some travelling, glad to see you're alive and kicking and carrying on the good fight, I've had trouble getting this post to register, hope this works this time.
Thank goodness, it worked at last!
Hello Hugh, how is everything, I hope you're still doing the kundalini, and reading Myles na gCopaleen, I'm really glad to see your posts are even better than before, we certainly live in interesting times don't we?, what do you think about the Lega Nord in Italy bulldozing a mosque and naming the square "Orianna Fallaci Square"?, is there still hope for us old europeans yet?
Hope you pick up on this post, all the best!