Ed Husain, a self-described former Muslim extremist who once headed the Quilliam Foundation, which is ostensibly dedicated to turning Muslims away from Jihadist activities, is ecstatic about the exhibit of artifacts of Islamic civilization at the British Museum that opened last November.
In Britain today, Islam in its original essence is not to be found in mosques or Muslim schools, but on the first floor of the British Museum. There, the Albukhary Islamic gallery, newly opened to the public, dazzles visitors and defies every certainty promoted by today’s hardline Muslim activists. This spectacular exhibition of objects from across continents and centuries shows us a history of continuity of civilisations, coexistence of communities. It offers a compelling corrective to current popular notions of Islam as an idea and a civilisation.
What “certainties” are those “promoted by today’s hardline Muslim activists”? That it is the duty of Muslims to follow the commandments, found in 109 verses in the Qur’an, to wage violent Jihad? That it is a Muslim’s duty to “strike terror” in the hearts of the Unbelievers? That Muslims should not take Christians and Jews as friends “for they are friends only with each other”? That non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings”? How do exhibits of Iznik tiles, Persian miniatures, Qur’anic calligraphy, Islamic coinage, illustrations of epic romances, oriental carpets, astrolabes, do anything to undermine those Qur’anic commands to wage Jihad against Infidels, to strike terror in their hearts, to avoid being friends with Christians and Jews, and to despise the “vile” Unbelievers? None of these Qur’anic verses are the least bit softened by that display of astrolabes, carpets, ceramics, and Arabic calligraphy.
Too often, we assume that Islam’s arrival on the world stage involved some violent break with the past that brought forth a new Muslim civilisation. The artifacts, coins, pottery, and tiles on display here from the British Museum’s own collection from the 7th century onwards reveal a different and more accurate history. The Prophet Mohammed was born in 570 in a world dominated by the Sassanians and Byzantines. He and his followers broadly followed the art and architecture, empire and power structures, of this pre-existing world. The earliest Islamic coins were copies of the gold and silver drachms used by the Sassanians. Even the name of the Muslim gold coin, the dinar, was derived from the Roman denarius.
Did not the earliest Muslims themselves believe that Islam represented a complete break with the past, that pre-Islamic past that Muslims dismissed as the Jahiliyya, or Time of Ignorance? Nothing that came before Islam was of worth. The lightning conquests of the earliest Muslims within the span of a century tore up the political structures of the Middle East and North Africa. The Muslim warriors did not follow the “empire [sic] and power structures” of the pre-Islamic world, but rather smashed those political entities to bits and incorporated the conquered territories into the earliest caliphates. Islam was both a faith and a politics, and in both, it broke with the past.
In what way did Muhammad and his followers “broadly follow the art and architecture” of what came before? As for art, the Muslim prohibition on statuary and paintings of living creatures, which were central to both the art of classical antiquity and to Christian art, led to other forms of artistic expression being emphasized in the Islamic lands. These were chiefly Qur’anic calligraphy, ceramics (also with Arabic calligraphy), carpets with elaborate geometric designs, and mosque architecture. There was little connection with the previous art of the pre-Islamic East or of the West. In other words, far from “broadly following” the art of their predecessors, Muslims were prohibited from engaging in the same kind of sculpture and paintings because the depiction of living creatures was forbidden. In mosque architecture, the Muslims did borrow the architectural element known as the squinch, either from Sassanian Persia or from the Byzantines — scholars still argue over which — in building the domes for their mosques, but there are no other obvious architectural borrowings by mosque architects from pre-Islamic buildings.
Euclid’s Elements taught Muslims the rules for the monumental mosques they built with their domes and perfect proportions. Gilded flasks from Syria from as late as the mid-1200s show designs with an eagle and dancer, popular motifs in the arts of the Mediterranean at the time. The Prophet’s shirt was ‘Made in Rome.’Medieval Muslim philosophers such as Averroes referred to Aristotle as ‘al-Shaikh al-Yunani’, the Greek sheikh. Islam did not kill the Greco-Roman past, but revived it. That spirit radiates through the British Museum’s exhibition.
The use by Muslim artists of an eagle-and-dancer motif found throughout the Mediterranean does not amount to a significant borrowing by them from non-Muslims. Given that both the “dancer” and the “eagle” were living creatures whose images would be forbidden in Islam, it is possible — unless both figures were not real images of either an eagle or a dancer but stylized abstractions — that the “gilded flask” on display was the product of a Christian, not a Muslim, artisan in Syria. The Prophet’s shirt was “Made in Rome” — does that mean Muslims imported their clothes from the Christian West? And if it were true, so what? No one has claimed that there was no trade between the Islamic world and the West.
Averroes wrote a lengthy commentary on Aristotle, but that does not amount to “reviving…the Greco-Roman past.” Jewish and Christian translators, in Cordoba and Baghdad, did almost all of the translations of Greek and Latin works into Arabic. Should those translations be considered an achievement of Islam? Were they not, rather, the achievements of non-Muslim translators?
It was the Humanists of Europe who revived interest in the civilization of classical antiquity which, in turn, gave rise to the Renaissance. And that revival of European interest in classical antiquity does owe something to the Muslims, but not in the way Ed Husain thinks. The conquest of the Byzantine Empire by the Turks — first the Seljuks, and then the Osmanlis — led many Greek scholars to flee to Italy, bringing with them many Greek (and Latin) manuscripts. In this purely negative way, the Muslims contributed to the West’s Revival of Learning, and thus to the Renaissance.
lebel says
“These were chiefly Qur’anic calligraphy, ceramics (also with Arabic calligraphy), carpets with elaborate geometric designs, and mosque architecture. There was little connection with the previous art of the pre-Islamic East or of the West. In other words, far from “broadly following” the art of their predecessors, Muslims were prohibited from engaging in the same kind of sculpture and paintings because the depiction of living creatures was forbidden”
Registan in Samarkand Uzbekistan
https://www.123rf.com/photo_76877307_mosaic-art-with-tigers-and-animals-on-sher-dor-madrasah-samarkand-registan-uzbekistan.html
gravenimage says
Muslims have occasionally engaged in image-making–largely in places they conquered that had a strong tradition of same, such as Anatolia, Persia, and India. Note that little of this art was public–far more common were things like the Mughal miniatures.
There was a reason for this, as little public art would be likely to survive.
Note that lebel had to find something very obscure–there is little Islamic public art. Here is one of the few other pieces, also from former Soviet Asia:
http://fscomps.fotosearch.com/compc/UNS/UNS005/u23562296.jpg
But these traditions seldom lasted long–soon, the more orthodox teachings reemerged, and picture-making was suppressed, sometimes violently.
lebel just hopes that we don’t know this.
Wellington says
Fine rebuttal to lebel, gravenimage, who is regularly looking for some way to denigrate the West and elevate the religion which poses more restrictions on the human mind and on human endeavor than any other major religion has.
For confirmation of this verity one only has to look at how dismal the Islamic world has been for centuries once it parasitically ran out of using the achievements of others.
Have Islam in your midst? Deadness in many varieties will invariably follow.
gravenimage says
Thank you, Wellington. Agree with you about the dismal state of Dar-al-Islam.
lebel says
“Averroes wrote a lengthy commentary on Aristotle, but that does not amount to “reviving…the Greco-Roman past.” Jewish and Christian translators, in Cordoba and Baghdad, did almost all of the translations of Greek and Latin works into Arabic. Should those translations be considered an achievement of Islam? Were they not, rather, the achievements of non-Muslim translators?”
Who paid these translators? who build the house of wisdom? who is Al-Kindi? and do you not know that Muslim translators existed as well and that they worked alongside Christians and and Jews ? why minimise or negate their role? is it so bad that history does not always conform to your view of what Islam must always be? have you ever thought that perhaps you could be wrong and that Islam is not what you say since it had every opportunity to destroy this knowledge and instead cherished and preserved it?
Naildriver says
‘why minimize or negate their role?’ Because his point, is in fact, that the lies of historical revisionists and this Muslim, put in charge with presenting Islamic history today at the British Museum are propagandists and the evidence of that is available. The emphasis by such shows is via propaganda, half truths, and twisted exposition that Islam is ok, and Islam isn’t ok.
You confuse history with liars that do not ‘conform’ to the truth for often venal, treasonous, or ignorant reasons.
mortimer says
Facts are inconvenient things to propagandists like you, lebel. You whitewash Islam and then complain it is unfair when a serious historian brings out the dirt.
Your ideological hagiography never admits any flaws in Islam. Your verbal jihad and taqiyya are noted and your intellectual dishonesty is observed. You do a disservice to the cause you promote and only fool yourself by thinking you will convince this sophisticated readership.
Rufolino says
++1 Mortimer. Plain speaking about whitewash.
This man puts one in mind of Nazi cultural apologists, who manipulated all fields of endeavour to suit their political position.
gravenimage says
The House of Wisdom was erected by a very lax Muslim leader. His more orthodox heirs were *not* so forgiving of such “Jahillya”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom
Of course, lebel hopes we don’t know such things.
Ole Pederson says
Besides, Averroes was not a Muslim but had to flee persecution by Muslims later in life. Like most of the other wise men today reverd as “islamic” scholars.
gravenimage says
Averroes was nominally Muslim–but, unsurprisingly he has had *no* legacy of influence in the Muslim world. It is only scholarly Infidels who revere him.
KWJ says
A religion doesn’t invent things or paint things, a person does. It is the mind of that particular person and that goes for Christianity too. Religion might be one inspiration such as the art in churches which they were not forbidden to make but Islam built mosques and not much else but were more parasitical.
According to Bernard Lewis the Muslims and Ottomans had no interest in European culture and traded only things like weapons, medical related things, science type things-weights and measures, clocks. They did not study European history, they did not want to go into infidel countries and used Greek emissaries. That’s why they fell behind and contributed very little since the Abbasids. They go on about this ancient history, fueled by Persians, Greeks, Syriac Christians while long before that there was the Library of Alexander centuries before.
What they are essentially admitting is that Islam and their supremacist and discriminatory attitudes kept them behind. They are desperate to compensate that they haven’t done much and they were lucky to be sitting on oil that they didn’t find.
Islam held people back. The few notable scientists even ran into problems with hardliners. Ferdowsi in Persia who wrote their famous epic poem helped save the Persian (Farsi) language. He called the deadened period “Two hundred years of silence.”
After the Mongols destroyed Baghdad that was the end of the Abbasids’ House of Wisdom-it was Al-Mamoun, not Islam. Saudi Arabia had only one factory, five bakeries, really no business in the 1950s, mainly subsisting on oil.
It’s annoying that they try so hard to promote Islam when the religion itself didn’t do anything but triumphalist mosques. They destroyed more than they created in those times. They wasted the Holy Land.
People would be wiser to look at the reasons why Europeans advanced-it wasn’t because of Christianity which actually persecuted scientists and resistant to ideas. It’s more like why Christians evolved and became more sophisticated, created and learned more complex things from art, architecture to inventions and science. Why don’t Islamic countries not have a NASA and come to our schools?
It’s their own fault.
Stinkhorn says
I’d love to know why muslim invaders, in their efforts at trashing the prevailing culture, always smashed off the noses of statues and mutilated the noses of any portrait images. A common feature from Egypt through to Turkey, Burma, Thailand, India and beyond. Could anyone provide some links that shed light on this practice please.
mortimer says
Dear Stink, the best answer I could find is that facial mutilation declares that the person mutilated is a traitor who should not be allowed to rule or have any power. It is a way of almost killing a person by removing them from public life. It is also a way to WARN OTHERS what may happen to them if they do not comply.
https://blog.wellcome.ac.uk/2012/11/22/losing-face-the-symbolism-of-facial-mutilation/
gravenimage says
Until recently, Muslims could not always destroy the entire statue. Mutilating the face was a quick way of marring the work.
dan christensen says
After islam was kicked out of Spain, because it had demonstrated its complete failure to convert Christians to islam, a growing sense of inferiority was spreading all over the islamic world.
Today, muslims feeling of inadequacy has turned their sense of inferiority into a psychological complex with accompanying narcissism.
Intelligent muslims are well aware of islams backwardness in relation to most aspects of civilised society. Instead of acknowledging the painful fact openly, islam resorts to all kinds of propaganda trick in order to bolster its failing self-confidence.
Ed Husains panegyric is a perfect example of the islamic urge for self-assertion.
Stinkhorn says
Also, though the historical record is clear and unambiguous about the destruction of Nalanda university by invading muslims, I’d also be glad to hear views about what part muslim invaders took in the destruction of the great library at Alexandria. I have heard that there was a modest and very short-lived muslim renaissance, but that this was only brought about by books pillaged from this library before it was torched by them. When the fires were extinguished, so was this mini-renaissance, and life went back to normal in muslim lands. This analogy, so I heard, that muslim cultures somehow treasured other cultures’ knowledge and safeguarded it before it got returned to Europe is a bit wonky. More like stolen goods were returned to their rightful owners? What do you reckon?
gravenimage says
Any “Islamic Golden Age” is just the death throes of the civilization they have conquered, before the Infidels all convert to Islam, have their wills crushed under dhimmitude, or are murdered outright.
Want another “Islamic Golden Age”? Just allow Muslims to conquer the West…
mortimer says
The religious LAXITY of Muslims at the time of the so-called Islamic Golden Age is a well-known fact.
This same religious LAXITY of Muslims allowed INTELLECTUAL EXPLORATION during the brief Islamic Golden Age.
HOWEVER, Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali drew attention to this LAXITY and the unorthodox HERESY of certain Muslim writers during the GOLDEN AGE and denounced their writings as un-Islamic. That did it.
What followed was that the caliphs CRACKED DOWN on philosophy and al-Ghazzali pursued Sufism … which was a very JIHADIST ideology. Some of the greatest jihadists have been SUFIS.
The Islamic Golden Age was actually an ABERRATION from the TRUE, AUTHENTIC, CANONICAL Islam of the Islamic ‘CONSENSUS’.
Normative Islam is closed, rigid and claustrophobic.
gravenimage says
+1
thebigW says
It wasn’t a laxity about jihad and hating & fighting/killing the infidels; it was just a laxity about spending time studying other peripheral stuff (philosophy, science, etc). The difference between the hardliners and the “lax” Muslims wasn’t relevant to the imperative of jihad against non-Muslims; both the hardliners and the “lax” Muslims agreed on that. The hardliners just rhought that all your time should be devoted to Islam and not to filthy kufar thoughts.
Michael Copeland says
Husain speaks of “Islam as…. a civilisation”.
Excuse me?
Slavery, amputations, stonings, genital mutilation, no free speech, no equality before the law, no freedom of conscience, apartheid from outsiders, forced marriage at nine years, wife-beating, death penalty for leaving,.. and so on.
No. Not “civilisation”.
St. Croix says
What is particularly irksome for me is the attribution to “Islam” of pre-existing cultural achievements and artistic styles–which became “Islamic” after Muslims conquered other cultures. So what was actually Persian culture is now called “Islamic”… What was Byzantine or Coptic decorative elements and patterns, are now called “Islamic” and part of the wonderful “contributions” of Islam. I’m not sure how much this topic has been researched, but it’d be a good subject for the art historian (which I am not, but have studied art history all the same).
Achievements of “Islam” in mathematics and science, similar. Was it anything more than the conquered cultures carrying on with what they had already made progress on before being conquered and subjected to Islam? It’s not achievements of “Islam” in any way. Any such achievements owe nothing to the religious political system known as Islam. And who knows what progress was retarded or destroyed by their wars, imperialism, colonialism and conquest? They’ve got the nerve to point at colonialism of the West and claim victim status. Ditto slavery, they were the chief slavers, and still are.
As for the destruction of statuary and architecture and art that was against their codes…that was at least in part to destroy evidence that any great culture existed before Islam…the recent historic events in Syria and Iraq, the destruction of the artifacts of the ancient Assyrian Empire being one example. The winged bulls, destroyed as being “idols” and also evidence of a great empire, which, if all the evidence can be erased, in the future, Muslims can claim they never existed. And they want to make that claim because the Qu’ran says such is the case.
Anything they could sop up and call their own–like famous Christian churches which were changed into mosques–they did, and anything they considered an affront–either religiously offensive (idols or pictorials) or evidence of past great empires which were not “Islamic”–they destroyed.
When Islam spreads over the globe in one great blanketing flood of “peace” then eventually all traces of anything that would, by its mere existence, challenge the supreme status of Islamic greatness, will be destroyed. That’s the dream of jihad as I understand it.
It’s not going to happen. But they will keep trying. And it’s looking ugly, and bound to get uglier in the short term at least.
gravenimage says
Fine post.
rbla says
Wherever the various Muslim vanguards invaded, the vast majority of the population was non-Muslim. It would take many years for this population to be converted and assimilated. These non-Muslims or recent converts are the ones who carried on the work which many historians are prone to attribute to “Islamic” civilization. Thus, a distinction must be drawn between the so-called high Islamic civilization and the religion of Islam. Eventually as the process of Islamization proceeds the non-Islamic component of the population becomes a small minority and stagnation sets in. This process is evident in the first centuries of the Arab conquests where the process of Arabization and conversion to Islam took a few centuries to complete; this was the “Arab” golden age, a product of unconverted or recently converted Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians. In Spain the golden age lasted longer, perhaps because the process of Islamization was never as complete in Moorish Spain as in the Arab East.
gravenimage says
+1
Crusades Were Right says
When one group of Mohammedans is waging war on us, and another group of “non-violent” ones tell us there’s no really reason for us to worry about Islam, then the efforts of BOTH groups hasten our downfall.
The ONLY Mohammedans we should pay any attention to on the subject of Islam…
…ARE EX-MOHAMMEDANS!
Crusades Were Right says
*”…there’s really no reason…”
A_M_Swallow says
People who cover up the mass killing of Jews by the Nazis are called holocaust deniers. What should the evils of Islam be called? What should the people who deny these evils be called?
rubiconcrest says
Islamonazi’s?
Walter Sieruk says
One of the main goals of many jihad –minded Muslims is the Islamic conquest of the nations of Europe.
One of the methods of achieving Muslin object by not necessary by the means of the violent and deadly “militant” jihad but by the subtle, sly, subversive and insidious way of engaging in that which is known as the stealth jihad. This type of jihad for the advancement and control of Islam in the European countries is to infiltrate into, as in gain, access to, the governmental institutions of the nations of Europe.
This is a large and great part of the grand scheme of stealth jihadist agenda to enhance and gain strong and then stronger influence and then supreme control of Islam over the whole continent of Europe. As on scholar on Islam and the Muslim zeal -filled intentions for Islam had revealed that “Of all the continents of the World, Europe is probably the number one target by Muslim strategists who are seeking world dominance…” [1] of course ,this author means “world dominance. , Not for those specific Muslim themselves but “world dominance for Islam.” Likewise, another scholar r and expert on this subject wrote exposed that “Since the stealth jihad is more advance in Europe then in the United States, the situation there is more dire….Muslims are accomplishing today what they have tried but failed to do for over a millennium : conquer Europe.” [2] Most intelligent people will well understand that “As Europe goes so will in time, go North America.
Further, about this Muslim scheme of the stealth jihad otherwise called the Muslim method of Islamic Gradualism to enact Sharia law in many different countries of Europe is in contrast to the way of the violent jihad or also called the militant jihad .This non-violent form of the jihad for Islam is a very sly, insidious, subtle and deceptive way of working for the advancement of Islam.
This Muslim scheme for achieving the goal of the Islamic agenda is as, many times, as subtly effective as it is demonically clever. Furthermore, this Islamic gradualism, in some ways, is very similar to the instruction printed in the book entitled THE ART OF WAR by Sun Tzu. Which reads “At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden, until the enemy gives you an opening; afterwards emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to opposes you”
In addition, those scheming stealth jihadist /Muslims who attempt to have Sharia law set up in the countries of Europe do also engage in the doctrine of the Islamic doctrine of Taqiyya which is very insidious. Taqyyia is the jihad dogma that deception is a good thing to do as long as it’s done for the advancement of Islam. Nevertheless, the God of the Bible “condemns those who devise wicked schemes…” Proverbs 12:11. [N.I.V.] Likewise, Proverbs 12:20 teaches “Deceit is in the hearts of those who plot evil.”
[1] How Islam Plans to Change the World by William Wagner , page 195.
[2] STEALTH JIHAD by Robert Spencer , page 270.
thebigW says
Walk me through how Muslims are going to “gradually” start beheading blasphemers and apostates and start stoning adulterers and flogging rapists in France or Germany, lol
Walter Sieruk says
To the bigW ,You made a good point, with much violent murderous jihadist actions which are blatantly brutal and cruel. This outright violent jihad has nothing “gradual”or “subtle” about that about it . To further explain there is the old phrase which is “By hook of by crook we will.”
This blatant violently ruthless and vicious jihad just described may be termed the “crook” part which in very violent brutal ,cruel and deadly
The other means of the striving for the advancement of power for Islam is the “hook” part which in the non-bloody gradual stealth jihad of insidious infiltration by many Muslims of stealth jihad entities as CAIR of the different Western governments, as for example the USA with ISNA and Muslim politicians in congress and the UK as Muslim mayor of London
Just as many Marxists did to advance Communism in the last century withe philosophy of “By every available means” So now in this century by the jihad -minded Muslims to advance Islam “By every available means “
thebigW says
“The other means of the striving for the advancement of power for Islam is the “hook” part which in the non-bloody gradual stealth jihad of insidious infiltration by many Muslims of stealth jihad entities as CAIR ”
Yeah, but where you and me disagree it seems is I agree there’s this “crook” stealth advancement going on, but it’s not trying to make sharia part of the West (because that would be impossible to do only by “crook”, since true sharia requires behedings, amputations, floggings and executions for stuff we don’t execute for and we think is horrible), it’s trying to make Muslims stronger and deeper (including more accepted) in our society so that in the future they can use the “hook” of outright violence more effectively than they can now.
Geoffrey de Brito says
Leopards do not change their spots… but the human variety may change their tactics. Ed Husain, “self-described former Muslim extremist who now heads the Quilliam Foundation, dedicated to turning Muslims away from Jihadist activities”, has to KNOW of Islam’s inherent nature. So he’s switched from violent jihad to ‘soft jihad’ with the goal of facilitating “hijrah” i.e. migratory jihad. He’s as much an extremist as ever, he’s just got on board with the Saudi approach.
gravenimage says
The Quilliam Foundation is mostly about whitewashing Islam.
Wellington says
Indeed.
Beneath the Veil of Consciousness says
Chew on this: 99% of the time, Jeffrey Dahmer behaved as a perfect gentleman.
gravenimage says
Hugh Fitzgerald: Ed Husain on the British Museum and “The True Face of Islam” (Part One)
……………………..
Ed Husain is just engaging in more whitewash of Islam.
Manny says
For all the billions of people and the hundreds of centuries of Islam, there is very little that one can call art or literature or music. Frankly they are devoid of any beauty. It’s as if their whole cultural efforts were in the realm of conquest and submission of others. Their claim to fame is that they perfected the art of cutting people’s heads off.
thebigW says
“Ed Husain, a self-described former Muslim extremist who now heads the Quilliam Foundation, dedicated to turning Muslims away from Jihadist activities”
I think you mean “Ed Husain, a self-described former Muslim extremist who now heads the Quilliam Foundation, dedicated to SUCCESSFULLY PRETENDING to be turning Muslims away from Jihadist activities”
KWJ says
They didn’t preserve anything, not Greek works, they moved it around the caliphate. This idea people say that they saved such works is not the case because they weren’t in danger of being lost. They only wanted science and some philosophy stuff, not Greek plays and other writings, definitely not art as they plundered the churches and turned them into mosques…hundreds of them. They had no cultural sensitivity or wonder. They refused Mozart, they refused great literature and history…infidel this infidel that.
The Chinese invented chess, the Persians revised it with rules more like it is today, the Muslim invaders took chess to Spain. Chess and backgammon moved through the caliphate which was vast. The Persians invented backgammon and it was very popular in Iraq at least until a decade or two ago. They used to play outside. Maybe clerics complained. Europe latched onto these ancient games yet they go on talking about the same things over and over, and they leave out great feats of ore-Islamic Times such as by the Nabateans in Jordan because they’re so concerned about bolstering Islam even though it’s about the people and where they were from. Six of their Hadiths are by Persian Empire territory people. Bukhari’s father was a Zoroastrian magi. They were from places that had “learning centers”
There may have been an Arabian who could have been a great oil painter of battles or portraits, but they were suppressed. Creative people tended to move to the West.
By the way, are Muslims in Europe enjoying all the great Museums? Germany has the smaller gate of Babylon which they excavated, London has a beautiful Syrian frieze, a Persian capital (top of column that have the double-sided animals) etc. but these were all pre-Islam, many later destroyed by the marauding Arabs.
gravenimage says
True–Muslims have little interest in what they dismiss as worthless “Jahillya”.