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

Hugh Fitzgerald: Prester John in the Forbidden City?

Apr 11, 2017 7:23 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

In the century after Muhammad’s death, Muslim armies of the Umayyad caliphate seized the Middle East and North Africa, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, conquered most of the Iberian peninsula, and pushed deep into central France, where their forces were finally defeated, between Poitiers and Tours, by Charles Martel’s Frankish troops in 732; this marked the high-water mark of Islamic conquest in Western Europe. The Muslims were not then driven back out of France; in fact, they remained in Narbonne and Septimania for another 27 years, but eventually they pulled back across the Pyrenees, solidifying their control of the Iberian Peninsula. And as we all know, the Christians of Spain did not quietly acquiesce in that Muslim conquest, but spent 770 years slowly liberating themselves from the Muslims, in what entered history as the Reconquista. The final victory over the Muslims came with the conquest of Grenada in 1492.

The Christians of Europe in the medieval period were keenly aware of the loss of all that vast territory, peopled by Christians, which Muslims had seized in Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East, and knew, too, that Arab armies were elsewhere on the move, pushing eastward against the Persians of the Sasanian Empire and threatening Byzantium. The Christians of Europe were constantly reminded of an ever-present threat of Islam, as reports would reach them of new Muslim victories. And Muslim slavers raided Christian shipping in the Mediterranean, and attacked villages along the coasts not only of that inland sea, but also in the Atlantic, along the east coast of France and as far north as the Netherlands. Those raiders even reached Ireland and, in 1627, on one occasion, a Muslim raiding party even got as far north as Iceland. (To be precise, there were actually two simultaneous raiding parties in Iceland, one from Algiers, and one from Sale, in Morocco). Those North African raiders came to be known as the Barbary Pirates; they became a real menace to Christian ships and seamen in the Mediterranean, and growing Western naval power, including especially that of the young American Republic, finally put paid to these Barbary Pirates in the early 19th century .

During all those years of an ascendant Islam, the Europeans consoled themselves with stories of a fabulous kingdom of Nestorian Christians that existed on the other side of the Muslim domains. The powerful Christian king who ruled over this mysterious domain was known as Prester John. The legend of Prester John lasted, in the collective European imagination, from the 12th to the 17th centuries. His mythical realm was first placed in India, both because that fabulous land had already established itself in European minds as full of wonders, and because of the reports, often exaggerated, of the evangelical successes of Nestorian Christians in that distant country. Later, when the Mongols arrived in the West, and under Hulegu Khan conquered Baghdad in 1258, where they destroyed not just the city but the Abbasid Caliphate, Europeans imagined that Prester John’s kingdom was not in India, but to be found somewhere in Central Asia, among those same Mongols who, because they were known not to be Muslims, were assumed to be Christians (the Europeans in this period had hardly heard of Buddhists), and therefore as potential allies of Europe’s Christians against the ever-threatening Muslims. And finally, after the Europeans discovered that the Mongols had converted to Islam, Prester John was moved yet again, in the fertile imaginations of Europeans, now to Africa, where it was reported by Portuguese explorers that his Nestorian Kingdom was established in Ethiopia, for that land, too, was famous as a Christian kingdom that, amidst so many lands to which Islam had spread and where Islam now dominated, had managed to hold out.

The legend of Prester John, in all of its versions, was created and sustained by fearful Christians, worried about the constant threat of aggressive Muslims, and seeking solace in this mythical king’s existence in the same way that a child might seek solace in an Imaginary Friend. All kinds of legends and pseudo-histories were built up around the figure of Prester John and his Nestorian Kingdom. He was said, for example, to be marching on Jerusalem to free the Holy Land of Muslim rulers, but was prevented from doing so by the flooding of the Tigris. And others, too, in his kingdom – his son, and grandson – were said to have the same intention to help Europeans against their common enemy, the Muslims. There were even attempts by the Crusaders to create a Franco-Mongol alliance against the Islamic caliphates, an obvious choice given that there were many influential Nestorians in the Mongol court, and the Mongols were generally sympathetic to Christianity before their own conversion to Islam. It should be emphasized that the Franks (Western Europeans and those in the Crusader States of the Levant) were open to the idea of support from the East in large part because of the legend of the mythical Prester John. However, that proposed alliance never led to any coordinated attack on the Muslims.

Over the centuries, as the Western Europeans became militarily stronger and Muslims weaker, there was less need, and finally no need at all, for the myth of Prester John to console and hold out hope for Europeans. They no longer required either consolation or hope, for by the 19th century Islam was everywhere on the run, as the European powers, militarily now more powerful than Muslims, began in earnest their building of colonial empires, in many places doing so at the expense of Islam. The British in India (where they defeated Muslim rulers), the French in Muslim North Africa, the Dutch in the Muslim East Indies, even the Russians in the Muslim Caucasus, signaled this clear reversal of religio-political fortunes between Western Christendom and Islam. Everywhere the Muslims were losing to more powerful Christian powers.

And now we are living through the reverse: a resurgent and self-confident Islam steadily encroaches on a retreating and intimidated West. First, there was the end of colonialism. Formerly British India became two independent states, India and Pakistan, and then Pakistan itself became two Muslim states, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and India, though still mainly Hindu, sees its Muslims steadily rising as a percentage of the total population. The British pulled out of Muslim Malaya in 1957. What had been the Dutch East Indies (and where the great Dutch Islamologue Snouck Hurgronje helped run the colony’s religious affairs for sixteen years) is now an independent Muslim country, Indonesia, finally recognized as such by the Dutch in 1949 after four years of a nationalist insurrection. Muslims dominate everywhere in Indonesia, save in Bali, the last redoubt of Hinduism. In Egypt, the English who under Lord Cromer had arrived, beginning in 1882, to reform the Egyptian civil service, ended their self-declared “protectorate” in 1922, when Egypt declared its independence. In Libya, the former Italian overlords were pushed out by the British and French in 1943; from then until 1951 the French held Fezzan, while Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were under British administration; by the end of 1951 Libya became independent. The French granted Morocco independence in 1955, and Tunisia attained its independence in 1956. Algeria was a more complicated matter, given the comparatively large size of its French population and the ferocious determination of some French to keep Algeria French. Finally, after a long and bloody war, Algeria attained its independence in 1962. Thus did the West retreat from so many Muslim lands in North Africa that had once been controlled by European powers.

It was the same story in the Middle East. The French had ended their Syria/Lebanon mandate in 1943, and the two independent nations of Syria and Lebanon emerged. The British held their mandate in Iraq beginning in 1921 and ending it in 1932. The British did hold on elsewhere, with military garrisons on the westerm littoral of the Persian Gulf, but then, to save money, the British government withdrew the last of its troops in 1971 from Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, now independent states. The Colony of Aden, too, had been given up, and eventually became part of Yemen, after British troops left in 1967. Everywhere in the Middle East, there was the long low receding roar of retreat by the European powers.

But having left so many Muslim lands, the West then discovered that Muslims were not satisfied, their geopolitical appetites whetted rather than sated. Muslims are on the march against Infidels again, this time not with a clash of armies, but through the movement of millions of Muslims into the West, where they have been conducting a Stealth Jihad, both insidious and effective, to steadily undermine our societies. We begin to be unsure of ourselves, begin to question the superiority of our values. Many are ready to accept changes in our laws and customs, including curtailments of the freedom of speech and of religion, in favor of Islam. We are even ready, in parts of the West, as has happened in Canada. to ban criticism of Islam as “Islamophobia,” which has become for some Westerners practically a crime against humanity. And at the same time violent jihad, mainly in the form of terrorist attacks, keeps the West off balance, and damages, in sensational fashion, the morale of Infidels. Given the blend of confusion, misunderstanding, fear, and despair that an ever-greater Muslim presence, now amounting to more than 25 million in Europe, has caused, it may be time to revive our spirits, and our will to resist, by interpreting events in China as a new version of Prester John.

I was struck recently by the latest developments in the anti-Islam campaign by the Communist government. Two years ago, imams in Xinjiang were “forced to dance in the streets” — a way of humiliating them publicly, by stripping them of their dignity (the way, during the Cultural Revolution, professors were made to wear dunce caps) and, the government clearly hoped, to permanently damage their authority in the eyes of the local Muslims. They were made to carry signs that read “our income comes from the CKP” (the Chinese Communist Party), not from Allah.” This mocking of the imams as wage-slave mercenaries, forced to recognize and declare publicly that their salaries were coming not from Allah but from the Chinese Communist Party, that could remove its support at any time, was even more humiliating. For it was a way to remind the Uighur people that these clerics were merely government employees, and to remind the clerics themselves that he who pays the piper gets to call the tune. Finally, these imams had to swear that they would not teach religion to children, for the Communists, being themselves past masters of brainwashing, knew that if they could prevent Muslim children from being indoctrinated when they are young and most impressionable, that would make it easier to prevent them from embracing Allah later on.

Last year, the Chinese leaders warned the Chinese people to shun the practice of Islam and to stick to the official policy of “Marxist Atheism.” This year, in Xinjiang, where ten million of China’s Muslims, the Uighurs, live, burqas and “abnormal” (i.e., of a certain length in accordance with Islamic strictures) beards were banned. The naming of children “to exaggerate religious fervor” was forbidden: presumably, that means no more little “Jihads” or “Aishas” or “Osamas” (given what that name now conjures up), though one doubts that even the Chinese would dare to ban “Mohammed” itself.

The Chinese are determined to stamp out as many outward and visible signs of Islam as they can; to make its practice harder, to make its transmission to the young more difficult, to make attacks on it more public and frequent. Children cannot refuse to attend public school (as some Muslim students have been doing, attending their own madrasas instead). They must be taught to revere “science.” Finally, the Communist Chinese now require Muslims to listen only to state radio and watch state television, on which anti-Islam programs are broadcast. From now on, it will be forbidden to “reject or refuse radio, television and other public facilities and services” (that may include propaganda against Islam). In Communist China, in many public spaces, there are round-the-clock radio or television broadcasts that can’t be shut off. Schools, of course, would be limited to such broadcasts, as would waiting rooms everywhere – bus and train stations, airports, and communal meeting rooms in apartment complexes.

Other measures announced include banning marriage “using religious rather than legal procedures.” Forbidden, too, is “using the name of Halal to meddle in the secular life” of others. This means that labelling meat as Halal will be banned, thus making it very difficult, if not impossible, for Muslims to follow their dietary laws. Muslims must obey the rules on family size (it’s unclear to me if that means that the former exemption for Uighurs from the “one child policy” – Uighur families had been allowed to have two children, and three if living in the countryside – is now being revoked, or if they are simply being reminded not to have more children than they are currently allowed to have).

These are measures which, though instituted by a ruthless dictatorship, left me with mixed feelings. I found myself envious of the Chinese assault on Islam, its ruthlessness and relentlessness. The Chinese readiness to ban things outright (“abnormal” beards, burqas, names smacking too much of Islam), to publicly undermine the authority and dignity of the imams by having them dance in public, and also having them hold up signs (while assuming the kowtow position), about who their real paymasters are, all in order to humiliate them, smacked, I realized, of the Cultural Revolution’s punishments, and ought not to be something I should endorse. Yet I also recognized that the ban on labelling foodstuffs “Halal” will make it more difficult for Muslims to observe their dietary restrictions. And I was glad to learn that imams in China are banned from teaching religion to the very young, and that Muslims will now have to listen to state radio and state television, where anti-Islam information and propaganda will be broadcast. Clearly, when it comes to constraining Islam, the Chinese mean business.

The menace of Islam, and the failure of the West to properly defend itself, have hardened my views on what are acceptable measures of self-protection by the world’s Infidels. And after moving from India to Central Asia, and thence to Ethiopia, Prester John seems finally to have come to rest in Beijing. He’s still what he always was, a mythical foreign potentate, on the other side of the Muslim lands, who stands ready to take our side in the titanic struggle between the Camp of Islam and the Camp of Unbelievers.

This latest iteration of the Kingdom of Prester John is, however, no fantasy: it is Communist China. That’s right — it shares our recognition that Islam constitutes a permanent menace to all non-Muslims. Just as it was comforting for the Christians of Medieval Europe to believe in the myth of Prester John, it is comforting to think of the CKP succeeding in its campaign to subject Muslims, and Islam, to every conceivable pressure and constraint, and not just in Xinjiang. We might even imagine the Chinese military, aware that it had now made the Camp of Islam its mortal enemy, and that there was no going back, deciding to make the long march into Thailand and Burma to smash any remaining opposition by local Muslims to the dominant Buddhists, and to turn north, into Bangladesh, to rescue the Buddhists in the Chittagong Hills tract, and then plunge into Central Asia, into Afghanistan, and Pakistan, bringing the preemptive fight right into Muslim lands.

The world’s Muslims would no longer be dealing with a confused, weakened, demoralized Europe, but with a determined take-no-prisoners enemy like Communist China. And what would or could the world’s Muslims do when confronted by such a determined enemy? Militarily, the world’s Muslim countries would be no match for the Chinese. And no Stealth Jihad is possible within China, where the Muslims, closely monitored, constitute only 2% of the population, and most of them – the Uighurs certainly, if the Hui only sometimes — are easily identifiable, with half the country’s Muslims concentrated in Xinjiang. They have not been allowed to propagandize; you won’t find anywhere in China new mosques being built, or anything smacking of those “Meet-Your-Muslim-Neighbors” sessions of propaganda. The Chinese are determined to regulate every aspect of a Muslim’s life, from the naming of children to what broadcasts Muslims can listen to or view, to the role of the imams, who are deliberately humiliated and stripped of their authority. And finally, the assurance of an immediate, far-reaching, and brutal response to the slightest act of terrorism should make even the most fanatical Muslims hesitate, for they would now be confronting an enemy just as ruthless, and far more cunning and powerful, than themselves.

One part of me whispers that sometimes you need to make pacts with the Devil, or follow the Devil’s example, because there’s another, even greater Devil who needs to be defeated. Roosevelt delivered Lend-Lease aid to Joseph Stalin, and FDR and Churchill did whatever else they could to help Soviet Russia in that colossal struggle against Hitler. And they were right to do so. Communist China is our enemy in almost every way except one: it feels threatened by, and opposed to, Islam. And which is a greater enemy to the liberal West? China lays plausible claim to becoming the world’s greatest economic power within a few decades. It might someday become the world’s greatest military power as well. But Islam lays claim to even more than China ever will: Islam lays claim to the whole world. It demands the ultimate subjugation of all non-Muslims to the Camp of Islam. It purports to regulate every area of life, and is no less totalitarian than the Chinese variety of Communism. And don’t we need all the allies we can get, to defeat the forces of Islam? China provides a useful example of ways to deal with an internal Muslim threat, especially ways to undermine the authority, through public humiliation of, Muslim clerics.

But then another part of me steps back and says no, that in the end the Chinese Communists are more dangerous militarily than the combined armed forces of the world’s Muslim powers, and that while China’s economic power continually increases, the economic power of the Muslim states is almost entirely dependent on the sale of oil, and both the percentage of the world’s oil that comes from Muslim states, and the price of oil, keep going down. With each year that passes, new fields are found outside the Middle East, and new methods of extraction, too, such as, most famously, fracking – are made economic.

But the main reason that the Muslim oil states are now suffering, and will continue to do so, is that gigantic, ever-increasing, and unstoppable advances are being made in solar and wind energy, and in batteries, and in electric vehicles. Solar energy now costs 1/150th of what it did in the 1970s. Just since 2000, the amount of global electricity produced by solar power has increased sixty-four times. Wind power has doubled four times over, or 32 times,during the same period. These are not fuels that can run out, but technologies that are ever improving.

So in the end, the Camp of Islam, unless it could somehow wean itself from its near-total dependence on oil revenues, is doomed to fail economically. Militarily, all the Muslim states together are no match for the American military, and as their revenues decrease, they will have fewer funds with which to outfit their armies and air forces. So there is no need to make a pact with a lesser Devil, or to pin our hopes on a new version of Prester John, this one reigning in the Forbidden City. Put your hopes, instead, on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Robert Spencer, and Ibn Warraq, and Elon Musk, as each in his or her own way deals blows to Islam beyond even what the boys in Beijing, doing their damnedest, have managed to deliver.

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Filed Under: China, Featured, Hugh Fitzgerald Tagged With: Prester John


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Comments

  1. Dwight Hogg says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 8:00 am

    Too bad the grovelling political apologists are incapable of emerging from their politically correct cocoon. The fact that the Rotherham scandal of Muslims sexually abusing 1400 very young girls (some children) has not created a world outcry on the front pages of every news outlet only means things will get much, much worse before people wake the hell up.

    • Cunamarra says

      Apr 14, 2017 at 11:39 am

      I keep hearing phrases like “things will get much, much worse before people wake the hell up.” I’ve been hearing such statements for more than a decade and a half. I think those who are capable of waking up already have. Really now, how bad must it get? For too many there is no depredation or travesty too great. Your daughters and sisters girlfriends and mothers can be raped or molested in plain view by the thousands and still one slumbers? Thousands killed on one day and towers destroyed followed by tens of thousands of attacks across the globe and after each one “Islam is peaceful” and “Muslims feel threatened” is religiously chanted by Western “leaders” and “intelligentsia.” Islam walked up and shot Malala in the head and she and her supporters still can’t see what’s wrong with Islam.

      As much as I’ve hated to conceed it, I bear no illusions that the narcolepts will wake up. It isn’t going to happen.

      • Cunamarra says

        Apr 14, 2017 at 11:39 am

        concede

  2. God's Warrior says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 8:10 am

    Good idea: fight jihad with alternative energy development. Let the desert remain a desert of backwards idiots who can never leave.

  3. Monty says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 8:22 am

    It is a great irony that Christianity flourishes in China in spite of persecution. Some would say because of it as it sorts out the fakes from the real. Christianity in most countries is a shadow of what it used to be. It has lost influence, secular morality is pretty much “anything goes” and anyone who stands against the moral decline is abused and insulted. So Islam takes advantage of the church’s decline and the moral decay of the West. I am no fan of communism but China’s approach to Islam is eminently sensible. What is worse, a strong, even dictatorial regime or a vast collection of religious lunatics trying to take over the world? What happens when France or the UK becomes a Muslim republic? Islam gets its greatest wish, nuclear weapons and the means to use them. China will not risk self destruction for a purely ideological or religious objective. Muslims in general have a death wish and any amount of destruction is acceptable – look at Syria!

    • t. says

      Apr 11, 2017 at 10:27 pm

      “What is worse, a strong, even dictatorial regime or a vast collection of religious lunatics trying to take over the world?”

      Wisdom and common sense, Monty!

  4. Kay says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 8:25 am

    Thanks for this history.

  5. Andrea says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 8:25 am

    It is called Granada, GrEnada is in the Carribean Sea.

  6. Michael says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 8:55 am

    A few years ago I calculated that, if one tenth of the population of China migrate into Central Asia and the Middle East, they would swamp the Muslims out of existence. The downside is, that Islam is about to get a new lease of life from its conquest of western Europe. The religious zeal of westerners newly converted to Islam, together with the industrial and military infrastructure of the Caliphate in Europe, will turn the tables on the Chinese.

    • DFD says

      Apr 11, 2017 at 11:23 am

      My worries too.

  7. Chris says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 10:02 am

    The elephant in the room you left out is that Muslim states have nuclear weapons and terror groups probably will get them. There are still many decades that these supremacist actors will have to use their nuclear weapons, either in an all-out attack or in an equally destructive, in terms of human death, EMP attacks.

    • JIMJFOX says

      Apr 11, 2017 at 4:29 pm

      Do you know what EMP is, and what it is designed to do?

    • JIMJFOX says

      Apr 11, 2017 at 4:46 pm

      Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan is one of nine states to possess nuclear weapons, and the only Muslim majority country to do so. In May 1998, Pakistan carried out six underground nuclear tests in Chagai Hills and Kharan Desert in Balochistan Province. Even though Pakistan says the test included a thermonuclear weapon, the claim is still unverified.

      Experts consider Pakistan’s nuclear devices are relatively primitive and delivery systems unsophisticated.
      It is likely that Pakistan would be heavily defeated in any nuclear exchange, even with India. Islamic ‘science’ is generally a long way behind the non-Islamic world and long may it remain so.

  8. St Ferdinand says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 10:59 am

    Defeating the Moslem Jihad through government subsidized, bird killing, inefficient solar and wind turbines? You are joking right ?
    How about this. Drill for carbon energy in NA and Western Europe and do not import ME oil. Problem solved.
    How about this. Confront fascist Islam for what it is, and take Moslem immigration to the West down to 0. Problem solved.
    How about this. Close every single mosque that preaches one line of Koranimal hate speech. Deport the welfare eating, MB paid Imams. Problem solved.

    • commonsense says

      Apr 11, 2017 at 12:07 pm

      As much as I respect and admire Hugh, you, St Ferdinand, are absolutely right. Amen.

      • commonsense says

        Apr 11, 2017 at 4:14 pm

        My mind works more slowly than it used to, so I neglected to say in my earlier comment to St Ferdinand that every single mosque, with virtual certainty, preaches “Koranimal hate speech” on a daily basis. To begin with, the first sura of the Koran – the Fatihah – anathematizes Jews, asserting that they have incurred Allah’s wrath, while Christians are effectually mocked, accused of having “lost their way,” straying from the Straight Path. This sura is repeated seventeen (!) times during the course of the daily Muslim five-prayer-per-day regimen. The Fatihah was recited by a Muslim cleric invited to appear at the National Cathedral following Trump’s inauguration. The recitation was in Arabic, but the imam identified what he would be reciting just prior to doing so. Few, if any, non-Muslims present at this event had a clue as to what the imam was actually doing – he was, in effect, cursing all of the nonbelievers present, including the president himself, for their Unbelief. More than fifteen years after the destruction of the Trade Center and the murder of thousands of innocents, our government remains as clueless as ever as to the malevolence of Islam. The Fatihah’s expressions of hate and intolerance is indeed only the beginning; it is the initial chapter of a book seething with hate for Jews, Christians, and everyone else on the planet who is not a Muslim, with attendant calls for war and subjugation of same, and the assurance of certain hellfire for those Muslims who choose not to participate. Why, I wonder, is all of this still so little known?

        • Michael says

          Apr 11, 2017 at 4:38 pm

          Ezekiel 35 is a prophecy against Edom, which is Islam.

        • Monty says

          Apr 11, 2017 at 5:00 pm

          Islam has a simple strategy for Europe as RCH says. I saw a brilliant cartoon that had a pregnant Muslim woman (aren’t they all) with a bomb in her womb instead of a child. Islam has come into Europe and will achieve its aims without a shot being fired. As Christianity declines, Islam fills the void. Mrs Merkel was half right. We need more *real* Christians (not the half hearted, name-only sort that are often Islam apologists). We surely need not one Muslim! There is no place for Islam in a liberal democracy! You do not treat a cancer by removing just a bit of it. Islam is the religious equivalent of cancer. It is slowly killing the west and will not stop unless it is forced to.

        • Monty says

          Apr 11, 2017 at 5:02 pm

          Common sense should be renamed uncommon sense. It is most rare in this day and age.

      • t. says

        Apr 11, 2017 at 10:33 pm

        “Defeating the Moslem Jihad through government subsidized, bird killing, inefficient solar and wind turbines? You are joking right ?”

        “As much as I respect and admire Hugh, you, St Ferdinand, are absolutely right. Amen.”

        I second that , commonsense; St Ferdinand is right!

    • DFD says

      Apr 11, 2017 at 12:18 pm

      Or how about this?

      Coal can be liquefied and gasified. Gasification can be carried out by now in place, that is the coal being underground with the ash remaining there.

      Coal liquefaction has been practically perfected by the Germans in WW2, they had too, fortunately they were a bit late with it…

      Coal liquefaction often yields better crudes than the ones from the ground, Tennessee and Ruhr coal in the 1950s have shown that. The west has enough of that ‘stuff’ to last for centuries. Downside: The oil companies would have to take ‘a hit’. Tax revenue in reference to imported oil and products would suffer a bit. That is if we keep the product price, petrol etc., as it is. It would also create jobs, not as much as it used (German coal mines are practically fully robotized), but still, extra jobs.

      The additional energy requirement can be met EASILY by utilizing the ‘green installations’ of solar and wind. Because these are switched off more often than on !!! That has to do with peak and average demands, plus some other factors. That way round they would actually be fully utilized, lowering the liquefaction and gasification costs. All that is well known. But it requires to overcome the opposition of the oil companies and that of deeply entrenched Arab financial interests… That’s all it takes 🙂

      • JIMJFOX says

        Apr 11, 2017 at 5:05 pm

        https://www.netl.doe.gov/File%20Library/Research/Coal/energy%20systems/gasification/technology-status-coal-liquefaction.pdf

        Disadvantages of the Technology
        • Liquefaction processes typically achieve an energy conversion (% CV of
        the input fuel converted to finished products) of 65-70% (direct
        liquefaction) and 55% (indirect liquefaction).
        • Converting coal to transportation fuels results in ~7-10 times as much
        CO2 being emitted, compared with converting crude oil. This increase
        in CO2 emissions at the processing stage has the effect of raising overall
        CO2 emissions from transport by ~50%, compared with transport based
        on conventional, refined petroleum products

        Coal to oil is NOT a magic bullet. It is unlikely EVER to produce liquid fuels in the quantities demanded by the USA. The answer is MSR’s- Molten Salt Reactors.

        • DFD says

          Apr 12, 2017 at 6:54 am

          JIMFOX,

          Thanks for the link. As far as nuclear is concerned, it’s the only future, unless we find a way of dissociating water and can go hydrogen/ammonia.

          Referring to the DTI report, I knew what was in it the moment I read “DTI”, reading, or rather glancing through it, I found my suspicions confirmed. The DTI is, since Thatcher, utterly hostile to coal. Low quality coal is compared, for liquefaction with high quality crude, and hq crude that is easily (cheaply) obtainable. Colloquial English: The report sucks – badly.

          CTI and coal? We, the British are still **heavy** coal users, as most other industrialized nations are. But what coal? Venezuelan. I was for a while in the oil business/industry, the joke about Venezuelan crude was that before refining it you send it to a metal smelter, get all the non-carbons out, and then send it to a refinery, that filthy. And their coal is even worse.

          We are using it because it’s cheaper than hq British coal, actually it isn’t. Given the low thermal energy available due to the low carbon and high sulphur and metal content, the Venezuelan coal is actually more expensive that the British coal.

          There were plenty of reports, US and Germany, in the 50s confirming the viability of coal liquefaction, the oil lobby destroyed every effort. I came across these reports in the 70s/early 80s. So I can’t give a link, I am sure they still exist and may have been transferred into electronic format.

          Also, coal gasification leaves, by its very nature, most of the filth underground, practically all of it. And we will continue to require carbon, plastics, asphalts etc.

          It’s a complex issue, there is no single solution. But we are certainly far to dependant upon ME oil. We have plenty of reserves.

          I did not anywhere refer to a magic bullet, the energy market is far to complex for that, but coal liquefaction, and gasification in particular, are extremely valuable additions. Of course, if we liquefy brown coal you have a problem, liquefy Ruhr, Tennessee and Newcastle quality type coals and the picture changes dramatically.

    • Terry Gain says

      Apr 11, 2017 at 8:31 pm

      I think Islam is the bigger threat. Posing as a religion, it is nearly immune from criticism. And it is more fanatical. America will not survive Islam unless it restricts Muslim immigration.

      • JIMJFOX says

        Apr 12, 2017 at 6:29 am

        I agree. Islam is here and now, the worst effects of CC is many decades off.

        • dwight hogg says

          Apr 13, 2017 at 9:06 am

          Imams are calling for the killing of Jews in Canada – it seems to the MSM this is not to be reported. In a real country people would be up in arms. And “peaceful” Muslims would be our protesting these Imams and saying “not in our name”. Can you imagine the outrage by the MSM and politicians if Jews were preaching for the killing of Muslims. Orwell is here.

  9. Tjhawk says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 11:26 am

    Thanks for providing historical perspective for islamoresisters. I love learning stuff.

    I have long been a proponent of hitting the Saudis without firing a shot.

    MAKE OIL IRRELEVANT!

    Create an infrastructure for electric vehicles that is as convenient as today’s gas stations. Maybe trade out batteries that can be changed as quick as you can fill a tank.

    Then we have to provide all this electricity. I like the move to alternatives, but there are problems. Intermittency of wind and solar will still require the power system that can supply the guaranteed base load. Right now the utility scale battery technology necessary for the alternatives doesn’t seem to be on the immediate horizon. Still use alternatives because there is no fuel cost for that juice.

    I am a fairly hard core environmentalist, so I dismissed the light water nuclear reactor technology. Too dangerous, too complex, too expensive, too much highly radioactive waste,

    My mistake was that I didn’t investigate other nuclear options. I was frustrated with the lack of the miracle battery so I was researching other non combustion power alternatives and I came across a sensible nuclear option that has already been proven.

    Google up: Alvin Weinberg ; Molten Salt Reactor; Liquid Thorium Reactor

    The MSR:
    Is simpler and cheaper than LWR
    Can use the waste of LWR as a fuel
    Produces wastes that decay to safe levels in about 300 years
    Can be used for caseload power or as a load following power source that can be integrated with the alternative power sources.

    I’m kind of a true believer because I get excited when I learn about things that could really change the world in a good way. I might be missing something here, so check it out yourselves to see if I’m crazy.

    • JIMJFOX says

      Apr 11, 2017 at 4:38 pm

      Correct. MSR operated at Oak Ridge for 4 YEARS before Nixon[?] shut it down.
      Worst decision in US history, meaning dependence on ME oil and the financing of jihad. http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com
      http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org
      http://thorconpower.com

      First modular MSR will be built in Indonesia, within 5-10 years.

    • dwight hogg says

      Apr 13, 2017 at 9:14 am

      we will not be off oil anytime soon – just look at the traffic gridlocks everywhere. But we could be using our own oil and developing cleaner ways of using it until the alternatives are cost effective and possible. Let the Mideast sink into the moral sewer it is and drown. The evil and misery being propagated by Islam is beyond comprehension to people in a tolerant and decent society. When we allow Imams to call for the killing of Jews in our society but take people like Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn to our Human Rights Tribunals simply for exposing the actions of Muslim organizations then we are in real trouble.

  10. Wellington says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 12:06 pm

    Fine summary and analysis by Hugh Fitzgerald. Made me wonder while reading it if free societies, unlike an authoritarian regime such as China, can effectively deal with all the menaces the world’s worst religion poses to mankind. And I conclude that, yes, certainly free societies can thwart Islam at virtually every turn and without diminishing freedom but only if Islam is accurately described for the giant negative which it is. Not there yet. Will never get there as long as people like John McCain, Theresa May, Pope Francis I, Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel, etc. are the ones in power in the West. What harmful dunderheads they are.

    • JIMJFOX says

      Apr 12, 2017 at 6:35 am

      Concise & correct as usual, Wellington. ‘Harmful dunderheads’ – I don’t know; these are highly intelligent people, if wilfully blind in a certain area. Is it not possible they are simply terrified of Islam & seek to appease? That, after all has been a constant thread in the history of human conflict.

  11. Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 2:57 pm

    “Wind power has doubled four times over, or 32 times”

    No. Four doublings is an increase from the original amount to 2*2*2*2 = 16 times the original amount; that is, four doublings is a 16-fold increase. Five doublings is a 32-fold increase.

  12. Jan Aage Jeppesen says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    “So in the end, the Camp of Islam, unless it could somehow wean itself from its near-total dependence on oil revenues, is doomed to fail economically. Militarily, all the Muslim states together are no match for the American military, and as their revenues decrease, they will have fewer funds with which to outfit their armies and air forces. So there is no need to make a pact with a lesser Devil, or to pin our hopes on a new version of Prester John, this one reigning in the Forbidden City.

    Put your hopes, instead, on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Robert Spencer, and Ibn Warraq, and Elon Musk, as each in his or her own way deals blows to Islam beyond even what the boys in Beijing, doing their damnedest, have managed to deliver.” (Hugh Fitzgerald).

    In the end Fitzgerald seems to reach the same conclusions as the young Winston Churchill did in a book published in 1899:

    ” … No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

  13. jewdog says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 3:46 pm

    China also protects North Korea and other radical forces. It is similar to Russia in taking strong steps to protect itself from Islam at home only to appease its most malign forces abroad in a cynical bid for oil, and that includes the propaganda war against Israel in the UN.
    I admire China for its pragmatism, and the Chinese never had an anti-Semitism problem (many Jews got refuge in China during WWII, especially in Shanghai), although lately it has been suppressing Judaism.
    Perhaps the answer is to align with China in selective cases, as in defense against Islamic terrorist groups. Meanwhile, Communism is an anachronism that needs to be gone.

  14. Paul Wheeler says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 5:11 pm

    Bless the Chinese government for being clear-eyed and coldly determined to confront Islam.

    The children of Han have an even longer history and awareness of their place in the world than the Muslims. Even the Serbs, who never forgot Kosovo or the resulting enslavement and dhimmitude, are European pansies compared to the Chinese. In Europe they pass for hard cases.

    China may eventually be a real threat to the West, but historically it has been conservative in its approach to the West and the Other. It is possible that they will become aggressively adventurous and make larger claims. But for now, the article is right in saying that China’s world domination claims are nothing compared to Islam’s. That is very true. Usually if the Chinese haven’t felt threatened by unfriendly powers they have not been highly aggressive / adventurous.

    All of the Chinese forbearance might change, of course. Societies are not stagnant. But it now seems that the West is done as a force able to protect its own culture, values or civilization. The Chinese, if they conquered the west, seem unlikely to promote the “pre-Chinese era of ignorance” as policy — in them, it’s just inbred and a state of nature. I don’t know that they’d actively destroy works of earlier civilizations as the Taliban did with the Buddhas or the Muslims have tried to do with the Pyramids, or ISIS is still doing to its occupied lands. It’s not that they definitely would not, but at least they don’t have a religious mandate to do it.

    Maybe China is there to serve as the defensive bulwark the West needs for the time to re-arm itself politically, morally and intellectually against the deepening night of Islam.

    Or not.

  15. Strangerinastrangeland says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 7:07 pm

    Thanks for the history lesson. I disagree with the conclusion that solar and wind energy is weakening Islamic oil revenue. American fracking technology is weakening OPEC and will continue to do so.

  16. Custos Custodum says

    Apr 11, 2017 at 11:53 pm

    From now on, it will be forbidden to “reject or refuse radio, television and other public facilities and services” (that may include propaganda …

    Let’s hope nobody from PBS is reading this.

    In Communist China, in many public spaces, there are round-the-clock radio or television broadcasts that can’t be shut off. Schools, of course, would be limited to such broadcasts, as would waiting rooms everywhere – bus and train stations, airports, and communal meeting rooms in apartment complexes.

    In America, this kind of 24/7 indoctrination broadcast without OFF switch is known as CNN.

  17. joydbrower says

    Apr 12, 2017 at 5:11 am

    I didn’t know how I didn’t know about Islam until I read this fascinating history and all the comments!! What an incredible lesson and even beyond being “an eye-opener!” Of course, coming from Jihad Watch, I shouldn’t have been surprised…

  18. Benedict says

    Apr 12, 2017 at 7:20 am

    Happy to see that HF at the end of his article forsook the flirtations with the methods of communist China in dealing with Islam – it is though tempting.
    This said, I question that hope in Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Robert Spencer, and Ibn Warraq, and Elon Musk (and Hugh Fitzgerald?) will do the job, although I grant a lot of sympathy for their works and writings. I suggest we should cling on to the hope that “Prester John” will ultimately intervene from his celestial abode in a very personal way in the affairs of men.

  19. Jon Marsh says

    Apr 12, 2017 at 11:15 am

    Nice history.

    Just to clarify, Solar Energy provides Less than 1% of the Global Energy needs. It is a very small % so when there is an increase in use, it is a big % increase for solar. It is still a very expensive cost per KW generated.

    https://cleantechnica.com/2015/06/12/solar-power-passes-1-global-threshold/

  20. Kepha says

    Apr 12, 2017 at 7:46 pm

    I cannot cheer for the Beijing regime. Today they go after Friday’s people; tomorrow (and even today), they go after Sunday’s people, too. Communist China is the world’s last, best hope for 20th century totalitarianism; it’s cult of “science” nothing but the scum out of an early twentieth century commode.

    Keep in mind that it is illegal to baptize anyone under 18 in China, since it is “forcing someone to believe in religion”. As a Presbyterian/Reformed Christian, that does not sit well with me.

    Something tells me that some of their shenanigans, pulled earlier in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, will only make the Uyghur more resentful; possibly more Islamicist and prone to follow leaders of underground, unregistered mosques and Sufi fellowships; and perhaps more ready to hear the call to jihad. A lot of the violence in Eastern Turkistan and dissent in Hui areas probably remembers Mao’s era with a lot of bitterness.

    As for the Syrian bombings during Xi’ss visit, my guess is that the guy will go home, talk more quietly and conspiratorially with his pudgy Pyongyang pal, and make as many pinpricks as he can over Taiwan, the South China Sea, and even Korea. Xi is determined to bring back Maoist “culture” (barbarism), and will only make things worse. If Xi Jinping is Prester John for our era, then Uncle Kepha is Jan Karol Wojtyla, converted to Protestantism and fled from the Vatican to take up a new life in America as a teacher.

    Nay God protect the Christians of China. They’re next.

    • Monty says

      Apr 13, 2017 at 2:26 am

      Christians have been persecuted in China for decades. Watchman Nee was locked up for 20 years and died in prison. Again, international leadership was non-existent. The world bullied South Africa into abandoning apartheid (that’s gone so well, hasn’t it) while pretending that China’s excesses do not exist. The good news is that China’s Christians are strong and growing in spite of Beijing’s attempts to suppress them. I’d still rather live under Chinese rule than Islam.If the international community had a collective spine, that choice would never arise. Perhaps I could write a treatise on this entitled “Government As A Spectator Sport”. That is what it has become in the west. Except that any action that does happen serves to promote “Team Islam” at the expense of “Team Liberal Democracy”.

  21. Mazo says

    Apr 12, 2017 at 11:28 pm

    They have not been allowed to propagandize; you won’t find anywhere in China new mosques being built, or anything smacking of those “Meet-Your-Muslim-Neighbors” sessions of propaganda. The Chinese are determined to regulate every aspect of a Muslim’s life, from the naming of children to what broadcasts Muslims can listen to or view, to the role of the imams, who are deliberately humiliated and stripped of their authority

    Holy shit this article is as stupid as hell.

    There are plenty of new Mosques being built, not just Hui Mosques all over eastern Chinese cities, but Uyghur Mosques as well. The Communist government build dozens of new Uyghur Mosques in Urumqi within the past twenty years. Xinjiang itself has more Mosques than Middle Eastern countries like Syria.

    Naming of children has only been restricted in one Uyghur populated county in southern Xinjiang. Not even most Uyghurs were affected by that single county. The list of banned names included some incrediblty stupid things like “Saddam Hussein” etc., not traditionally Islamic names, but names some idiots used after watching too much television or radio about news from the Middle East. Some Indian idiots named their kids Saddam Hussein because of what they saw on TV.

    Hui people use one name in public for ID, and an Islamic name for religion. Uyghurs use Islamic names or Turkic names as their first name, they still name their children Muhammad, Abdullah etc.

    Other measures announced include banning marriage “using religious rather than legal procedures.” Forbidden, too, is “using the name of Halal to meddle in the secular life” of others. This means that labelling meat as Halal will be banned, thus making it very difficult, if not impossible, for Muslims to follow their dietary laws.

    Halal labeling is not banned. What happened was that the government struck down the suggestion for a national Halal certification board. Halal butchering and Halal labelling continues to be perfectly legal, there are tons of Halal restaurants and butchers in local villages.

    The national Halal certification idea was for mass producing factory made food and making it easier to mass ship them around the country with a trusted certified Halal label without having to go to the local butcher or Halal restaurant.

    “using the name of Halal to meddle in the secular life” meant banning the labeling of non food items as Halal. People were making non food items like Halal toothpaste, Halal clothing, Halal sheets, Halal everything including non-edibles, and it was getting out of control, just a way to make extra money off Muslims. The government banned all non-food “Halal”, making Halal restricted to food labelling only.

    The banning of marriage by religious procedures in Xinjiang were because some Uyghurs conducted illegal marriages with underage brides, multiple wives, and other things which violated the official law by religious ceremonies. So they banned that. Otherwise anyone outside of Xinjiang can do an unofficial Nikah and have sex and its not banned by the government, sex outside of legal marriages is not banned so Islamic ceremonies can be conducted but its only binding if the parties uphold it.

    to the role of the imams, who are deliberately humiliated and stripped of their authority

    Someone go tell all the Hui, Salar, Dongxiang Sufi Shaykhs and Imams in Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu, Yunnan, that they are being “humiliated and stripped of their authority”. Or even Uyghur Imams from counties not involved in riots or terrorist attacks, like Hami. They would find this laughable.

    Hui Sufi shaykhs run entire networks of religious schools and Mosques throughout Ningxia and built even more schools and Mosques within the past three decades.

    Children cannot refuse to attend public school (as some Muslim students have been doing, attending their own madrasas instead). They must be taught to revere “science.” Finally, the Communist Chinese now require Muslims to listen only to state radio and watch state television, on which anti-Islam programs are broadcast.

    Wrong, only Uyghur children cannot attend religious schooling. Hui, Salar, Dongxiang, Bonan Muslim children can all attend Islamic schools in Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Yunnan. They still are teaching Islam and religious sciences to children there.

    Hui, Salar, Dongxiang, Bonan Muslims are not require to only listen to state radio and state television. Some of them don’t even have TVs, some Dongxiang are living in hovels.

    State television does not talk about religious issues or make programs targeting certain religions. Insulting religions would cause mass riots. The Chinese government banned the book “Sexual Customs” for mocking Islam, and also banned offensive material to Islam like pigs in year of the pig in areas like Qinghai and Ningxia.

    From now on, it will be forbidden to “reject or refuse radio, television and other public facilities and services” (that may include propaganda against Islam). In Communist China, in many public spaces, there are round-the-clock radio or television broadcasts that can’t be shut off. Schools, of course, would be limited to such broadcasts, as would waiting rooms everywhere – bus and train stations, airports, and communal meeting rooms in apartment complexes.

    Someone tell all those Hui and Dongxiang villages in Gansu that they’re missing their non existent public spaces with round the clock radio and television broadcasts that can’t be shut off. They’d be interested in getting a new TV set.

    • Mazo says

      Apr 12, 2017 at 11:34 pm

      More gems that I missed.

      But then another part of me steps back and says no, that in the end the Chinese Communists are more dangerous militarily than the combined armed forces of the world’s Muslim powers, and that while China’s economic power continually increases, the economic power of the Muslim states is almost entirely dependent on the sale of oil, and both the percentage of the world’s oil that comes from Muslim states, and the price of oil, keep going down. With each year that passes, new fields are found outside the Middle East, and new methods of extraction, too, such as, most famously, fracking – are made economic.

      But the main reason that the Muslim oil states are now suffering, and will continue to do so, is that gigantic, ever-increasing, and unstoppable advances are being made in solar and wind energy, and in batteries, and in electric vehicles. Solar energy now costs 1/150th of what it did in the 1970s. Just since 2000, the amount of global electricity produced by solar power has increased sixty-four times. Wind power has doubled four times over, or 32 times,during the same period. These are not fuels that can run out, but technologies that are ever improving.

      The west invaded Asia, Asia did not invade the west. The west exported ideologies like Communism, fascism, capitalism to Asia after engaging in imperialist, greedy aggression against Asian countries.

      Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs don’t depend on the west for oil revenues. The vast majority of Saudi and Arab oil is exported to Asian countries like China, South Korea, and India. America and the west are barely making a dent in Saudi profits with shale oil or renewable energy. Saudi Arabia’s customers are China and India, not America, not Britain.

      China is leading in manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines and exporting them to the rest of the world. America is buying solar panels from China.

      Either way, stick to oil or go renewable this article is still retarded.

  22. Matthieu Baudin says

    Apr 13, 2017 at 2:36 am

    “… Muslims dominate everywhere in Indonesia, save in Bali, the last redoubt of Hinduism…”

    In fact, many of the islands in the eastern half of Indonesia, including Irian Jaya (western New Guinea) have Christian (and localised belief) majority populations. Most of these inhabitants will tell you that they were more secure in pre-democratic Indonesia under the protection of the Indonesian Military which was more forceful and consistent in keeping Muslim Supremacist sentiments in check on these far flung islands. So the picture of religious persecution in Indonesia is focused primarily against Christians though the Hindus of Bali are a permanent source of contempt for many.

    • Monty says

      Apr 13, 2017 at 3:58 am

      It was the same in Iraq prior to the downfall of Saddam Hussein. People really do not get Islam. Muslims do not want democracy. They do not want liberty. They despise the west. Minorities were comparatively safe under Hussein. When “majority rule” means minorities are persecuted relentlessly, then the majority is wrong! The US experiment to bring democracy to the ME is not just a failure, it is a disaster than threatens the rest of the free world. It is compounded by Europe’s determination to bury its head even deeper in the sand (I don’t know much deeper it can get – about ankle level now) and the Islamic crowd must be rolling about laughing at the West.

  23. Mazo says

    Apr 13, 2017 at 3:16 pm

    The British in India (where they defeated Muslim rulers),

    The British invaded and stole India from Hindus and Sikhs. The Hindu Maratha Empire controlled central India, they are the ones who Britain fought in the Anglo Maratha Wars. Britain aimed to destroy and conquer the Hindu Maratha lands.

    The Sikh Empire ruled over modern day Pakistan, the Sikhs were the first non-Muslims in 1,000 years to rule the area of Pakistan, ever since it was first converted to Islam by Mahmud of Ghazni.

    Britain then fought against the Sikh Empire and destroyed it, destroying the Sikh rule over the area of Pakistan.

    the Dutch in the Muslim East Indies,

    The Dutch forced the Hindu Osing people to convert to Islam on Java in order to wipe out Hinduism there. The Dutch initiated the transmigration program of shipping Javanese and Madurese settlers to Papua, Borneo, and Sumatra. The Dutch attacked the Hindu Balinese kingdoms on Bali in a war of conquest.

    even the Russians in the Muslim Caucasus, signaled this clear reversal of religio-political fortunes between Western Christendom and Islam.

    Chechens and Ingush did not fully become Muslims until they were conquered by Russia. Before the Russians came, Chechens had a large pagan population and Ingush even had large Christian component. The war with the Russians caused Islam to spread among the Chechens and Ingush as Sufi Shaykhs preached Islam to them and rallied them to Islam as a symbol of resistance.

    Dagestanis in the North Caucasus, were Muslims for 1,300 years since the first Arab conquerors arrived under the Umayyads. That is why Dagestani ethnicities like Avars have little to no recollections of their pre-Islamic past. The Arabs conquered Dagestan, but not Chechnya.

    Chechens and Ingush lived right next to Arab conquered Dagestan, but remained independent and remained pagan, the Chechens were never conquered by the Arabs even though they bordered Arab conquered Dagestan. The Chechens and Ingush stayed pagan for 1,000 years after their Dagestani neighbors accepted Islam. But then the Russians came around 300 years ago and started entering Chechen and Ingush areas. Chechens and Ingush then abandoned their pagan religion and became 100% Muslims as a symbol of resistance against Russia. However pre-Islamic Chechen and Ingush pagan religion and mythology is known and still remembered by Chechens because they converted relatively recently in historical terms. Chechen historians still remember the names of their gods and goddesses and mythological beliefs since they worshiped them just over 200 years ago.

    Now, Chechens and Ingush are devout and religious Muslims.

    • gravenimage says

      Apr 13, 2017 at 3:23 pm

      What a load of tripe from Mazo, claiming that it is Infidels who force Infidels to convert to Islam.

      • Mazo says

        Apr 14, 2017 at 2:50 pm

        The Dutch forced the Hindu Osing people to convert to Islam in order to wipe Hinduism out from Java, and sent Javanese and Madurese Muslims to settle on other islands in the transmigration program. That’s a fact unlike your straw man off topic post.

        Britain destroyed the non-Muslim Sikh Empire, which was the first non-Muslim state to rule over the area of Pakistan ever since Mahmud of Ghazni converted the area to Islam. Mahmud of Ghazni stormed into the Indus River valley and made it Muslim, and it was under continous Muslim rule until the Sikhs broke it and conquered the area in the 18th century. Another fact unlike your straw man.

        Chechens were pagans and Ingush were pagans and Christian until Russia annexed them. Another fact.

        While the first Arab Muslims under the first Rashidun Caliphs over 1,300 years ago, under Umar bin Al Khattab reached Dagestan, and converted the Dagestanis to Islam and ruled them, right next to Dagestan, Chechens remained fierce pagans for 1,000 years and so did their Ingush brothers. The Dagestanis turned to Islam 1,300 years ago and absorbed Arab migrants and Arab culture while Chechens did not.

        When the Russians started incursions into Chechnya and Ingushetia, Dagestani Imams and Dagestani Sufi shaykhs began implementing Daw’ah to the Chechens and Ingush to convert them to Islam, eliminate their pagan practices and convince them to rally to Islam against the Russians. The leaders of the jihad of the Caucasus Imamate against the Russians in the 19th century were Dagestanis like Ghazi Muhammad, Gamzat, and Imam Shamil. These Dagestanis tried to stamp out paganism and un-Islamic practices among the Chechens. Chechens were still conducting pagan rituals in the 19th century. Chechens were even practicing elements of pagan rituals up to the 1944 Soviet mass deportation.

        Chechens and Ingush then fully adopted Islam as a symbol of resistance to Russia, while before that they were fierce pagans who did not convert when living next to a stronghold of Islam for 1,000 years, a stronghold conquered and ruled by the first generation of Muslim Arabs. Now they are full believers and religious Muslims.

        Chechen historians still remember their pagan deities and mythology even though they have no surviving written records from that time since it was recent.

        • Mazo says

          Apr 14, 2017 at 2:52 pm

          Chechnya and Ingushetia were never conquered by a foreign Muslim power. Dagestan was conquered by the first generation of Arab Muslims, and Dagestan was later ruled by Ottoman Muslims and by Iranian Muslims, while unconquered Chechnya and Ingushetia were pagan until the Russian arrival.

  24. Cunamarra says

    Apr 14, 2017 at 11:09 am

    Though all of Islam’s armies of today aren’t much to speak of, I think the great danger is in Europe. Europe is a productive and industrial society. Islam is not a productive culture. Historically, it has conquered productive cultures and then marshaled that cultures resources to wage Jihad warfare on the next non-Islamic territory. When compared to the resistance European ancestry put forth in the past, the contemporary murmurs of protest against Islam are feeble indeed. Muslims do not need to be majorities in Europe to be in control. They were not the majority in Egypt or Mesopotamia or the Levant when they first conquered those ancient civilizations. Europe must only ratify dhimma contracts in their nations to grant Islam its earthly desires. Too many modern Europeans seem too willing to do such an abomination.

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