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Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

The Islamic jihad against Christendom started before anyone ever heard of a Crusade

Mar 11, 2016 9:25 am By Robert Spencer

A welcome bit of truth amid the enveloping propaganda.

crusades

“Tracing the roots of Islamic jihad,” by James A. Lyons, Washington Times, March 10, 2016 (thanks to Jim):

In an earlier column in these pages, “Reforming Islam,” I documented the need for Islam to experience an internal reformation. This is not just a question of abstract theology but directly relates to how we defeat Islamic terrorism, and how we are viewed in the Muslim world.

For example, ISIS, the foremost terror threat in the world today, in its claim of responsibility for last year’s Paris attack condemned America and its allies as “crusader nations.” Osama bin Laden did likewise. Bin Laden railed against “Crusaders and U.N.” when President Bush used the “C-word” after 9/11. He was widely criticized for it and dropped it.

Use of “Crusades” and “Crusaders” as terms of abuse is clearly meant to stir up Muslim masses that they are under assault, not that we are defending ourselves against jihad. Perhaps more importantly, it is designed to evoke feelings of culpability and defeatism among guilty Western liberals, who are ashamed of Western civilization and indifferent at best to its survival. Not surprisingly, when President Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast last year on the issue of terrorism, he attempted to minimize the Islamic element of the Islamic State’s barbarity: “Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

Let’s set the record straight. The Crusades were a series of wars launched by Western Europeans in the wake of devastating defeats inflicted on the Christian Byzantine Empire by the Seljuk Turks. The First Crusade was launched in 1096. It was the most successful one, capturing Jerusalem.

But the gains were only temporary, requiring the launch of repeated efforts to maintain the small feudal statelets carved out in the Holy Land. The last crusader stronghold, Acre in today’s Israel, fell in 1291.

All told, the Crusades occupied a brief period of just over two and one-half centuries. They were limited in scope and essentially were a counterattack, seeking to retake Christian lands earlier seized by the Muslims.

How do the Crusades compare to Islamic jihad? Following the death of Muhammad in 632, his successors, the caliphs — the same office ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claims to have revived — began their unprovoked war of conquest against the Byzantines. Within a decade, the jihad had claimed then-Christian Egypt, Palestine, and Syria.

Muslim armies swept across North Africa and crossed over into Spain in 711, only to be finally stopped in France by Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, in 732. (At the same time, Muslim forces swept east, subduing Persia and reaching the frontiers of China.) Repeated assaults continued across the Mediterranean, including Arab sieges of Constantinople and conquest of Cyprus, Sicily, and Crete.

Motivated by Islamic jihad and lust for plunder and slaves — identical to today’s ISIS — not one of these assaults was defensive. These were not Muslim lands being liberated from occupation but Christian lands whose inhabitants experienced the horrors we see today in Syria, Iraq and now Libya with Israel waiting in the wings: amputations, beheadings, slavery and sex slavery (all of which are explicitly authorized by Allah in the Koran). When we see horrific videos of ISIS beheadings and the choosing of sex slaves, let’s remember it’s a scene repeated thousands of times before: in Jerusalem in 637, Egypt in 639, Spain in 711, and Constantinople in 1453. The only difference is that today there are cameras and instant worldwide communications.

The Islamic jihad against Christendom started more than four and a half centuries before anyone had even heard of a Crusade. The crusaders forced jihad into remission for a brief period from around 1100 to 1350, after which it resumed its full assault….

To sum up, aggressive Islamic jihad was launched against the Christians and lasted 450 years. For 250 years, Christian crusaders counterattacked. After that counterattack failed, renewed jihad lasted another 350 years….

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Filed Under: anti-dhimmitude, War is deceit Tagged With: Crusades


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Comments

  1. Jay Boo says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 9:39 am

    Defenders of Islam like Ben Affleck point to the Crusades for their false equivalence to minimize and wash away Muslim atrocities.

    • Demsci says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 10:33 am

      yes, they do. It is hard to argue with them. For each argument you give, they give some “moral equivalent” “bad deed”” of us, like Crusades, WorldWar I + II, or the bad treatment of the slaves and indians.

      Once I said to Muslims and their helpers; OK, but at best you can only reach a draw, I can make sure of that at least”. Because I can just as well compare as you can.

      I went on to the Muslim: But look, according to you , Allah himself intervened. And did HE do that only so that Muslims could and would only be AVERAGE? Go never further than a draw with the Kuffars?

      That does not make sense, when God intervenes, HE must be aiming and seen to be WINNING, making a huge meaningful positive difference.

      But by God, whenever Muslims and helpers endeavour to show that through Islam God has given mankind a WINNING ideology and movement, our experts will make sure that that will be thoroughly dismissed too, in any honest discussion.

      If we cán’t win the argument, they can’t either. And so; What was Allah up to, anyway?

      • Myrtle Linder says

        Mar 11, 2016 at 11:47 am

        This also represents Satan, he too, has an answer for every evil that he continuously tries to force on GOD’S people. It all originated with Satan, it’s founder.

      • Peter Charles says

        Mar 11, 2016 at 5:43 pm

        Allah is the creation of Mohammad, therefore is not a god. The creation was for Mohammad’s personal aggrandizement , wealth and women to own. It should have died with him.

        • Champ says

          Mar 11, 2016 at 5:49 pm

          Hear, hear! …indeed islam should have died when muhammad’s career ended.

        • Donovan Nuera says

          Mar 12, 2016 at 1:02 am

          For all we know, he only had the vision of “Gabriel” telling him about allah after he conked his noggin on a stalactite in that little cave of his.

          The only other plausible explanation was that he liked to go to his lil’ cave and hotbox some ganja in secret. His “peaceful” phase in Mecca could be from him being mellow after getting high and his “warlike” phase in Medina could be from the paranoia weed induces.

        • خَليفة says

          Mar 12, 2016 at 2:08 am

          So true. The punishment for insulting Allah – you have 3 days to repent. The punishment for insulting Mohammed – death. That tells any sensible person who the “god” of Islam really is.

      • TruthWFree says

        Mar 12, 2016 at 8:20 pm

        Islam’s allah god is Satan…I cannot come to any other conclusion after much study including reading the Quran and over 30 books on the subject…many by apostates.

      • gravenimage says

        Mar 13, 2016 at 12:33 am

        Demsci, the idea that the West has as violent a history as does Islam and that you cannot argue otherwise is simply not the case. Islam is horrifically bloody and has a long history of conquest, oppression, and murder.

        • Demsci says

          Mar 13, 2016 at 7:32 am

          Oh, I hasten to say I agree with you, Gravenimage, but thanks to moral relativists all around me, I for one can so far not win this argument when in conversation with Muslims

          In the sense that some kind of independent jury around me says that the facts are on my side and I am right.

          But not for lack of trying!

    • Gerald Wright says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 3:23 pm

      from my research Islam came from Roman Catholicism and is now merging again with Rome/Babylon as CHRISLAM ,99.99% of charismatic leadership has joined it plus other whole denominations , and independent’s …Chrislam is the one world false religion of the antichrist I’m a Christian 45 years left the organized apostasy of Christianity 26 years ago …a large % of what’s taught in churches today came from Rome/Babylon .including replacement theology ,we are not now or will ever be spiritual Israel ,this is heresy !!! the book of Jeremiah and other places tell us that the house Judah & Israel are to be given the new covenant and the Kingdom of God at the millennium

      • Western Canadian says

        Mar 12, 2016 at 7:38 pm

        Your so-called research is rubbish and drivel, and so is your utterly pathetic post. Put your tinfoil hat back on, and go back down to your mothers basement and play your circa 1984 video games, you pathetic loser.

      • TruthWFree says

        Mar 12, 2016 at 8:23 pm

        I agree with Western Canadian. You are misled. Muhammad may have had exposure to Nestorian so called Christians but I do think he was possessed by Satan.

      • gravenimage says

        Mar 13, 2016 at 12:39 am

        Your conflation of Islam with Catholicism is absurd. Robert Spencer is a devout Catholic–pretending he supports Jihad because of foolish modern Catholic dhimmitude is absurd.

        And many Protestant denominations are just as clueless in this regard.

        Moreover, brave Catholics in Europe defended against Islam for hundreds of years. Were it not for their devotion and courage, the whole of the West would have fallen to Islam centuries ago.

        • Mark Swan says

          Mar 14, 2016 at 5:16 am

          Absolutely Correct gravenimage

      • Angemon says

        Mar 13, 2016 at 12:06 pm

        Gerald Wright posted:

        “from my research Islam came from Roman Catholicism”

        Let me guess the source: Alberto Rivera, the con artist.

    • Panmelia says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 3:31 pm

      Please see the short video a number of comments below because it brings home how relentless jihad was for hundreds of years and how insignificant the Crusades were in comparison.

      It’s frightening.

    • SpiritOf1683 says

      Mar 12, 2016 at 5:29 am

      And without the Crusades and their delaying tactics as regards the Jihad, the whole of Europe would have been conquered by Islamic armies, with Western civilization reduced to ruins. Would Vienna have survived being besieged by Islamic armies had it been besieged two or more centuries earlier, as it would have been without the Crusades. Would the culture of cities like Rome and Vienna be around today? They would have been destroyed, and the inhabitants of hundreds of European cities would have suffered the same fate as the luckless citizens of Constantinople in 1453.

  2. Sam says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 9:45 am

    This is how Islam spread to Egyptians – Copts by force and persecution by Arab Muslim army since the seventh century.

  3. bask says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 9:45 am

    Islam had conquered 2/3 of Christianity when the reaction called Crusades started . 200 years of attempts to reconquer , cross- over, the jihad NO.Razzias, Jihad …,

  4. Jay Boo says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 9:48 am

    Obama said
    “Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

    Obama could have said terrible deeds In the name of Muhammad.
    if anything he says in the name of Islam so as not to specifically refer to Muhammad in a negative connotation. But with the name of Jesus he is very flippant and cavalier.
    Obama grovels at the mention of Muhammad’s name but refuses to show any respect for Christ.

    • Lynn says

      Mar 12, 2016 at 4:03 am

      There’s not a snowball’s chance he’ll slander islam by telling the truth about it!
      It’s a hoot though a sad one…to watch BHO respond to a yes or no question with 20 minutes of circuitous rambling BS in order not to slander islam.

  5. Wakup says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 9:54 am

    We should not appologise for fighting evil.

  6. Truty says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 9:55 am

    Thank you Robert Spencer for the history lesson. I think Islam has met a force it cannot silence by force and lies…the internet and the truth.

  7. M.Kavanaugh says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 9:57 am

    At the time of the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632, Muslims ruled only in Arabia. But within ten years the Arab Muslims had achieved one of the most spectacular conquests in history. They conquered Palestine (635-636), Syria (638-640), and Egypt (639-642) from the Byzantines and first Iraq (635-637) and then Persia itself (637-642) from the Persians. Arab invasion of Egypt that had started in 639 had crossed Libya by 642 and by 643, the Arabs hordes started ravaging Berber lands, the Jihadis mercilessly killed the gentle pre-Islamic Berbers of North Africa – Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and transformed them eventually into bloodthirsty aggressors who vandalized Spain (640-711)
    The Jihad against Arabs (622 to 634)
    The Jihad against Zoroastrian Persians of Iran, Baluchistan and Afghanistan (634 to 651)
    The Jihad against the Byzantine Christians (634 to 1453)
    The Jihad against Christian Coptic Egyptians (640 to 655)
    The Jihad against Christian Coptic Nubians – modern Sudanese (650)
    The Jihad against pagan Berbers – North Africans (650 to 700)
    The Jihad against Spaniards (711 to 730)
    The Reconquista against Jihad in Spain (730 to 1492)
    The Jihad against Franks – modern French (720 to 732)
    The Jihad against Sicilians in Italy (812 to 940)
    The Jihad against Chinese (751)
    The Jihad against Turks (651 to 751)
    The Jihad against Armenians and Georgians (1071 to 1920)
    The Crusade against Jihad (1096 – 1291 ongoing)
    The Jihad against Mongols (1260 to 1300)
    The Jihad against Hindus of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (638 to 1857)
    The Jihad against Indonesians and Malays (1450 to 1500)
    The Jihad against Poland (1444 to 1699)
    The Jihad against Germany (1945 onwards)
    The Jihad against Rumania (1350 to 1699)
    The Jihad against Russia (1500 to 1853)
    The Jihad against Bulgaria (1350 to 1843)
    The Jihad against Serbs, Croats and Albanians (1334 to 1920)
    The Jihad against Greeks (1450 to 1853)
    The Jihad against Albania (1332 – 1853)
    The Jihad against Croatia (1389 to 1843)
    The Jihad against Hungarians (1500 to 1683)
    The Jihad against Austrians (1683)
    Jihad in the Modern Age (20th and 21st Centuries)
    The Jihad against Israelis (1948 – 2004 ongoing)
    The Jihad against Americans (9/11/2001)
    The Jihad against the British (1947 onwards)
    The Jihad against Denmark (2005 Cartoon Controversy onwards)
    The Jihad against Netherlands (2006 onwards)
    The Jihad against the Filipinos in Mindanao(1970 onwards)
    The Jihad against Indonesian Christians in Malaku and East Timor (1970 onwards)
    The Jihad against Russians (1995 onwards)
    The Jihad against Dutch and Belgians (2003 onwards)
    The Jihad against Norwegians and Swedes (2003 onwards)
    The Jihad against Thais (2003 onwards)
    The Jihad against Nigerians (1965 onwards)
    The Jihad against Canadians (2001 onwards)
    The Jihad against Latin America (2003 onwards)
    The Jihad against Australia (2002 onwards)
    The Global Jihad today (2001 – ongoing)
    The War on Terror against Jihad today (2001– ongoing)

    The Shoe Bomber was a Muslim
    The Beltway Snipers were Muslims
    The Fort Hood Shooter was a Muslim
    The underwear Bomber was a Muslim
    The U-S.S. Cole Bombers were Muslims
    The Madrid Train Bombers were Muslims
    The Bafi Nightclub Bombers were Muslims
    The London Subway Bombers were Muslims
    The Moscow Theatre Attackers were Muslims
    The Boston Marathon Bombers were Muslims
    The Pan-Am flight #93 Bombers were Muslims
    The Air France Entebbe Hijackers were Muslims
    The Iranian Embassy Takeover, was by Muslims
    The Beirut U.S. Embassy bombers were Muslims
    The Libyan U.S. Embassy Attack was by Musiims
    The Buenos Aires Suicide Bombers were Muslims
    The Israeli Olympic Team Attackers were Muslims
    The Kenyan U.S, Embassy Bombers were Muslims
    The Saudi, Khobar Towers Bombers were Muslims
    The Beirut Marine Barracks bombers were Muslims
    The Besian Russian School Attackers were Muslims
    The first World Trade Center Bombers were Muslims
    The Bombay & Mumbai India Attackers were Muslims
    The Achille Lauro Cruise Ship Hijackers were Muslims
    The September 11th 2001 Airline Hijackers were Muslims’
    Islamic Jihad: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    ISIS: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Al-Qaeda: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Taliban: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Hamas: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Hezbollah: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Boko Haram: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Al-Nusra: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Abu Sayyaf: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Al-Badr: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Muslim Brotherhood: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Lashkar-e-Taiba: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Palestine Liberation Front: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Ansaru: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Jemaah Islamiyah: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
    Abdullah Azzam Brigades: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION

    • Vivienne Havalant (Leijonhufvud) says

      Mar 12, 2016 at 5:30 am

      Sir, thank you for this, it is a pity the MEDIA do not pick up the facts. The world has gone mad for JIHAD, if we don’t fight back Jihad will win and we will all be forced to pay homage to the mad prophet Muhammet.

    • SpiritOf1683 says

      Mar 12, 2016 at 5:33 am

      The Jihad against the British – try 1625 onwards, when the Barbary Pirates kidnapped the inhabitants of Cornish villages, and fishermen, and sold thenm on the slave markets of North Africa.

      The Jihad against Ireland – 1631 onwards, when the inhabitants of Baltimore, Ireland were kidnapped by these same Barbary Pirates – and repeat and rinse.

    • SpiritOf1683 says

      Mar 12, 2016 at 5:37 am

      Even Iceland didn’t escape the Jihad – it had citizens kidnapped by the Barbary Pirates and sold as slaves.

    • Bukkdem Jizheads says

      Mar 12, 2016 at 8:54 pm

      M.Kavanaugh, Thank you very much for this summary. I’ve copied and saved, but you left out the Jihad of East Africa… the Congo, for slaves to sell in the 1800’s.

      I have to applaud Mo for inventing the most hideously successful war machine and imperialist juggernaut in recorded history. IMHO the fuel is polygamy which creates a steady stream of extra sex-starved bachelors who are instructed in the texts to kill, enslave women and plunder treasure in the most barbarian manner imaginable.

      Our #1 strategy to reform Islam is to attack polygamy from every vantage point. It’s an inexorable fact that mankind needs sex and has an innate desire to procreate. Mohammed was pressured by his followers over a lack of wives, so he designed the most heinous gonadal pressure release imaginable; Raping boys, taking women as sex slaves, using domesticated animals and establishing a mercenary military.

      Why do you think these young men are streaming into Europe? They are the same sex-starved bachelors from 632 A.D. Islam is the Religion of Gonads.

    • Ray Jarman says

      Mar 12, 2016 at 10:00 pm

      It seems that no one talks about the Islamic hoards of both East and West Africa. The fools in Kano, Nigeria celebrate their own slaughter in a festival. From Mozambique in southern Africa and Nigeria in southwestern Africa the Moslems slaughtered hundreds of thousands.

      As for their non-violent and peaceful ways ask the people of Jos, Nigeria where the Muslims slaughtered many of the Christians in the city because a tourist who happened to be a lady accidently wondered onto the grounds of a mosque. The lady was wearing short pants and had no idea that the wooded area was part of the grounds as there were no markings. Even today there are problems throughout the southern African countries.

      Ethiopian Christians have also been attacked by their peace loving neighborly Muslims. The Central African Republic is another place where the Muslims began to kill their Christian and Animas neighbors but in this case the Christians have stood up and have had the UN Secretariat criticize the Christians for defending themselves.

  8. bask says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 10:00 am

    Today Byzantium would be the largest European city, probably the shining capital without religious fanaticism. Lebanon , Syria, Jordania..todos its inhabitants would live in peace, free and rich over by the power of oil. Look at the shit that made ​​him the Muslims ..

    • Dan says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 12:00 pm

      If Muslims had kept power all those centuries ago, oil wouldn’t be worth spit because they would never have come up with the combustion engine.

      We’d still be running camel caravans across the desert for salt.

  9. mortimer says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 10:06 am

    From 650 until the First Crusade in 1096, Muslims attacked Europe over 500 times, reaching central France and Poland before being repelled. Muslim attacks intensified on the two capitals of the Roman Empire, Byzantium and Rome. The Byzantine emperor begged the pope for help and the pope asked European kings to defend Constantinople, thus being the Crusades.

    The Crusades were counterjihads mounted after Christendom was raped and pillaged by Muslim savages.

    • Charli Main says

      Mar 12, 2016 at 2:31 am

      There is the all pervading myth, much loved by Muslim arse kissers and apologists, that the Crusades were a war of aggression by Christians to drive Muslims from ” THEIR LANDS”
      In fact, the diametric opposite is true. The Crusades were a war of liberation to try and free Christian lands invaded and occupied by Muslims.
      IN AN ABSOLUTELY UNFORGIVABLE ACT OF IGNORANCE, THE POPE EVEN APOLIGISED FOR THE CRUSADES.

  10. Randy says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 10:07 am

    The native Americans should start a crusade against the Christians who stole and occupy their lands to this day!!

    The Christians brought the false jesus to the americas

    • Tom says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 10:13 am

      The same in Australia the natives hate Christianity and whites as a tourist from my experience.

      • Tom says

        Mar 11, 2016 at 10:17 am

        All because there land got stolen by white Christians. http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/a-guide-to-australias-stolen-generations#axzz42bkGVSSC

      • The Vilest of Creatures says

        Mar 11, 2016 at 1:02 pm

        So WHO is white washing any of that like the jihads that proceeded the Crusades have been?

        The ‘stole the land from the natives’ narrative is pushed in an overwhelming manner.

    • Buster Hymen says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 11:13 am

      Did you need a tissue? Its over. Your people were taken down by booze and disease. You are small in numbers. Better not start any shit as a real battle would decimate the natives. And for what? Because you say so? You’re not even Indian. Islam is at the door and is everyone’s problem. We need to come together or everyone goes down this time. Pull your head out of your tail feathers.

    • Guido says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 12:25 pm

      Idiot!

    • Georgina says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 1:36 pm

      I’m of European origin and a status First Nation. While Aboriginal Rights must be affirmed, it is important for Natives to realize that they are a part of the west, too, which is under seige. Natives experienced genocide from the Christians…the second wave is coming…Islam against the west. Natives will not be witness to it but actors in it.

    • Kepha says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 10:09 pm

      So, Randy, are you going to pack up and move back to Europe or somewhere?

      • Charli Main says

        Mar 12, 2016 at 2:38 am

        Randy is a Muslim troll. I believe the clue is in this sentence.

        “The Christians brought the false jesus to the Americas”
        Isa being the ” true” Jesus, of course.

    • خَليفة says

      Mar 12, 2016 at 8:55 pm

      Pity the native Americans and aboriginal Australians – if the Muslims had conquered those lands – that would have been the end of those cultures – Islam would have wiped them off the earth and destroyed all evidence of their existence.

      Pity them if Islam succeeds in conquering western countries in the future as all native peoples will be destroyed. That is the way of Islam – IFF ( if and only if ) you are a Jew or Christian you have the option of being a dhimmi, ALL OTHER RELGIONS AND CULTURES either convert or die. In any event, all non Jewish and non Christian cultures will be destroyed by Islam.

  11. Diane Harvey says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 10:12 am

    Another great read on the pre-Crusade jihad is The Crusades in Context, Paul Stenhouse (2007),

    http://answering-islam.org/Authors/Stenhouse/crusades.01.htm

    A sample,

    For the Christian states bordering the Mediterranean, it was a four-hundred and sixty-three year period of regular, disorganized [and occasionally organized] bloody incursions by Muslim mainly Arab and Berber land and sea forces. These came intent on booty – gold, silver, precious stones and slaves – on destroying churches, convents and shrines of the ‘infidels,’ and on the spread of politico-religious Islam throughout Europe from their bases in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic.

    At the time of Muhammad’s death there were flourishing Christian and Jewish communities in Arabia, and throughout the major centres of the Persian Empire. The whole of the Mediterranean world on its European, Asian and African sides, was predominantly Christian.

    It had taken only a few years for Muslim tribesmen from Arabia, inspired by Muhammad’s revelations and example, to invade the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire whose emperors devoted more time to religious disputation than to defending their empire. In 633 Mesopotamia fell. After a few years the entire Persian Empire fell to the marauding Arab tribesmen who drove the young Persian emperor Yazdagird into the farthest reaches of his empire, to Sogdiana [Uzbekistan], where he was eventually murdered by his Tartar bodyguard in a miller’s hut.

    Damascus fell in 635, and Jerusalem capitulated five years after Muhammad died, in February 638.

    The fall of Alexandria in 643 sounded the death knell of more than thousand years of Hellenic civilization that once enriched the whole of the Near East with its scholarship and culture. Henri Daniel-Rops claims that from the point of view of the history of civilization, Alexandria’s fall was as significant as the fall of Constantinople to the Turks eight-hundred years later.[4]

    Cyprus fell in 648-9 and Rhodes in 653. By 698 the whole of North Africa was lost.

    • gravenimage says

      Mar 13, 2016 at 12:51 am

      And don’t forget the incursions Islam had made into the West itself. At one time or another they had conquered Spain, Portugal, southern France, Sicily, southern Italy, Greece, and most of the Balkans.

  12. ECAW says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 10:50 am

    For those who haven’t seen it this 5 minute video by Bill Warner shows all the Jihad and Crusades battles in time lapse:

    • eduardo odraude says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 11:22 am

      Great video. Warner was a professor of physics (University of Tennessee?) until he retired and started studying Islamic texts and criticizing Islamic doctrine..

    • Champ says

      Mar 11, 2016 at 11:05 pm

      Oh, I also posted a similar video from Bill Warner. I didn’t realize that you had already posted his work.

  13. eduardo odraude says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 11:18 am

    Bernard Lewis says Jihad is an unlimited offensive to bring the whole world under Islamic law; Christian crusades a defensive, limited response to, and imitation of, jihad

    From pp.233-234 of The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2000 Years:

    Even the Christian crusade, often compared with the Muslim jihad, was itself a delayed and limited response to the jihad and in part also an imitation. But unlike the jihad it was concerned primarily with the defense or reconquest of threatened or lost Christian territory…The Muslim jihad, in contrast, was perceived [by Muslims] as unlimited, as a religious obligation that would continue until all the world had either adopted the Muslim faith or submitted to Muslim rule.… The object of jihad is to bring the whole world under Islamic law.

  14. Rob says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 12:13 pm

    Two dates:
    732 – defeat of Muslims at Tours (by Charles Martel)
    1096 – First Crusade.
    360+ years to crank up a response to the high point of Muslim incursion into Western Europe.

  15. Kenneth D Stellon says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 12:22 pm

    Thank God for the Polish Hussars at The Battle of Vienna.

  16. rara says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 12:24 pm

    “After that counterattack failed, renewed jihad lasted another 350 years.”

    Actually Ottoman Caliphate lasted until 1924, and only a decade before some parts of Europe were still under its control. The Europe had the privilege to be less affected by Islam only during less than last 100 years: Kosovo Albanian Muslims started to make visible problems in 1980-es, in 1990-es Bosnian Muslims fought against their Christian countrymen, receiving the help of internationally organized Mujahideens.

    Turkey had the luck to have secularly oriented rulers, but that also changed in 2002.

  17. Angemon says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    Motivated by Islamic jihad and lust for plunder and slaves — identical to today’s ISIS — not one of these assaults was defensive. These were not Muslim lands being liberated from occupation but Christian lands whose inhabitants experienced the horrors we see today in Syria, Iraq and now Libya with Israel waiting in the wings: amputations, beheadings, slavery and sex slavery (all of which are explicitly authorized by Allah in the Koran). When we see horrific videos of ISIS beheadings and the choosing of sex slaves, let’s remember it’s a scene repeated thousands of times before: in Jerusalem in 637, Egypt in 639, Spain in 711, and Constantinople in 1453. The only difference is that today there are cameras and instant worldwide communications.

    Damn right.

  18. Ginger says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    Whatever lands the Muslims conquered they regard as theirs in perpetuity.They play a long game and Europe’s suicidal weakness is that it has forgotten history. Even in comparatively modern times the Barbary pirates were capturing ships, including some US vessels, and raiding the European coastal areas up to Scandinavia, taking slaves to their terrible fate in north Africa; men brutally worked to death, women as sex slaves in the harem. One million Christians suffered this fate. There’s a book available on Amazon called White Gold, which reveals the horrors. The warning to be drawn from it is that Islam never changes. It is a psychopathic cult.

  19. Charli Main says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    When Christian armies returned to Europe at the end of the First Crusade, the defence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was left to some 300 mounted Knights. Including Sergeants, Squires and a handful of Turcopoles a total of around 2000 men to face off more than 5 million Muslims.
    Despite several further Crusades, loss of the Holy Land, for the second time, to the Muslims was only a matter of time.

  20. Jay Boo says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 1:37 pm

    There is nothing spiritual about Islam.
    72 virgin Islam is based on accumulation of the APPEARANCE of doing pious good deeds.
    Earning Allah brownie points by doing one’s Islamic DUTY and impressing neighbors with a contorted face prayer dance will grant Allah’s carnal lust favors.

    Christianity, in contrast says
    There is only one way,
    — you can’t earn it or get voted in by your neighbor.

  21. Champ says

    Mar 11, 2016 at 10:37 pm

    Great video includes, what Bill Warner calls, a “Dynamic Battle Map”, which gives an impressive *visual* of the battles fought by Islamic Jihad and the Crusades.

    “The Truth About the Crusades – Christian Resistance Against Islamic Jihad”

    https://youtu.be/W4ENPy0mqOE

  22. raghav says

    Mar 12, 2016 at 1:38 am

    The condition was same in India in mugal period as it is in Iraq,syrea etc.just to fight Islamic atrocities Sikhism formed from Hinduism.

    • Charli Main says

      Mar 13, 2016 at 4:04 am

      Every Mogul mosque and building standing in India is a PERMANENT reminder of the shame and humiliation that India suffered at the hands of the Muslim invaders of your country. A PERMANENT reminder of the rape and sexual slavery of millions of Indian women, the murder of millions of Indian men and the desecration of thousands of sacred Indian temples and holy sites.
      What do you think should be done about these symbols of India´s shame, raghav????

  23. Tom Davis says

    Mar 12, 2016 at 8:22 am

    “A welcome bit of truth amid the enveloping propaganda”

    Thank you Robert for a very nice piece of writing. The adjective “enveloping” is so appropriate, conjuring an image of a spectral entity trying to suffocate us all.

  24. isntlam says

    Mar 12, 2016 at 4:42 pm

    Stefan Molyneaux does a very good job with the history and pre-history of the crusades on youtube. See “The Truth About The Crusades”.

  25. TruthWFree says

    Mar 12, 2016 at 8:26 pm

    Robert, I am surprised you would even hint at reformation of Islam to something more benign. You can’t reform something evil to the core and in my opinion…well founded…Satan inspired.

  26. gravenimage says

    Mar 13, 2016 at 12:28 am

    The Islamic jihad against Christendom started before anyone ever heard of a Crusade
    ……………………

    Yes. Islam had been brutalizing Christians and other non-Muslims and had conquered huge swaths of the world for over four hundred years before the first Crusade was launched.

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