Anabasis (Greek for “a march from the coast to the interior”) is an account of a late 5th century BC military campaign in Persia, in which the Greek Xenophon led a group of 10,000 mercenary soldiers hired by the Persian king Cyrus the Younger. They were continually “marching forth” (in Greek, “exelauno” means to “march forth”) through hostile territory northward to the Black Sea. Thus on March 4, those paronomastically inclined celebrate “Exelauno Day.”
The quotes below are meant to inspire those who, on Exelauno Day – and every day — “march forth. ”
John Quincy Adams on Islam:
In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, [{Editor’s Note: Mohammed] combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion.
He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE [capitals in original].
Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinction of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. It is, indeed, amongst the mysterious dealings of God, that this delusion should have been suffered for so many ages, and during so many generations of human kind, to prevail over the doctrines of the meek and peaceful and benevolent Jesus…
The precept of the koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force. [Capitals in original]
—John Quincy Adams, “Christianity—Islamism.” “Unsigned essays dealing with the Russo-Turkish War, and on Greece,” originally published in The American Annual Register for 1827–1829 (New York, 1830).
John Wesley on Islam:
Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it … have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth; that numberless cities are razed from the foundation, and only their name remaining; that many countries, which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human kind.
— John Wesley, “The Doctrine of Original Sin, Works” (1841), ix 205
Alexis de Tocqueville on Islam:
In the 1840’s. Alexis de Tocqueville traveled twice to Algeria. He wrote to Arthur de Gobineau, October 22, 1843:
“I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Mohammed.
“So far as I can see, it is the principle cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.”
Winston Churchill on Islam:
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. 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.
Geert Wilders on Islam:
Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe. If we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time. One century ago, there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands. Today, there are about 1 million Muslims in this country. Where will it end? We are heading for the end of European and Dutch civilisation as we know it. Where is our Prime Minister in all this? In reply to my questions in the House he said, without batting an eyelid, that there is no question of our country being Islamified. Now, this reply constituted a historical error as soon as it was uttered. Very many Dutch citizens, Madam Speaker, experience the presence of Islam around them. And I can report that they have had enough of burkas, headscarves, the ritual slaughter of animals, so called honour revenge, blaring minarets, female circumcision, hymen restoration operations, abuse of homosexuals, Turkish and Arabic on the buses and trains as well as on town hall leaflets, halal meat at grocery shops and department stores, Sharia exams, the Finance Minister’s Sharia mortgages, and the enormous overrepresentation of Muslims in the area of crime, including Moroccan street terrorists.
Michael Copeland says
A few more, short ones:
https://gatesofvienna.net/2020/04/quiz-who-is-being-referred-to/
Michael Copeland says
“…a state of permanent hostility…”
— Karl Marx
“…morally rancid ideology… that brings nothing good whatsoever.”
— Fahrenheit211 (website)
“…building a future where the living envy the dead.”
— ‘the thought offender’ (commenter, Gates of Vienna)
gravenimage says
Thanks, Michael.
Scott in PA says
Barack Obama: “The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.”
Joe Biden: (Come on, man), “It’s one of the great confessional faiths.”
Oh, how low we have sunk!
mortimer says
Oh for a president who understands Islam as clearly as did John Quincy Adams!
My favorite definition of Islam is this:
Islam is an intolerant, misogynistic, Bronze-Age death cult combined with Arab racism and a totalitarian political system. Militant Islam is not a cancerous deviation from true Islam, but the very contrary. Militant Islam is the purest expression of Islam’s nature as an imperialistic religion which demands unmitigated obedience from its followers and regards all infidels as both inferior and avowed enemies to be crushed.
gravenimage says
Yes, Scott–compare and contrast.
mortimer says
I am amazed how clearly John Quincy Adams understood Islam and Mohammed, based solely on his reading of the Koran and his personal interviews with Muslims. John Quincy Adams used his powerful observation and brilliance to interpret Islam and in spite of not having all the tools, articles, books, and scholarly research that we have today, Adams came up with a fair and correct assessment of what Islam is about.
What Adams could not know 200 years ago is that the STANDARD NARRATIVE of Islam is itself a fabrication invented hundreds of years after the death of Islam’s invented prophet. There is increasingly less certainty that there was one person who was the embodiment of the official biography of ‘the prophet’. ‘Mohammed’ appears to be a purely literary figure like Robin Hood or King Arthur.
The STANDARD NARRATIVE of Islam has holes …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LknbK8fkAkM
SKA says
Written when liberal classical education was the rule and based on solid observation!
Wellington says
John Quincy Adams appears to be the only President who had a higher IQ than Thomas Jefferson. Each had an IQ, at a minimum it is estimated, of 160. I think it more likely that each of these astounding early Americans functioned in the 170 area. Einstein’s IQ was 205.
Just to put this in perspective, only two tenths of 1% of human society has an IQ over 150. To be in the 160-170 range would take you to less than one tenth of 1% of humans. When I taught the gifted many decades ago in a Pennsylvania high school before I began my college teaching, the minimum IQ requirement to be in the gifted program was 130. If you have an IQ of 130, you can effectively be anything you want to be, minus perhaps a theoretical physicist which might require an even higher IQ. Average IQ is 100 (though not in the Islamic world because of so much interbreeding).
John Quincy Adams married an illegitimate woman of American and English descent against his parents’ wishes but he loved her deeply and they produced a most remarkable son in Charles Francis Adams, who was Abraham Lincoln’s Minister to the United Kingdom and is universally credited by historians for helping to prevent the UK from recognizing the Confederacy, which if it had occurred would have been a boon to the CSA economically and in many other ways. Unfortunately, JQA and his wife, Louisa, also had two dissolute sons, George Washington Adams, who was an alcoholic and committed suicide and another son, John Adams II, who was also an alcoholic and died deeply in debt. So, much sadness surrounded this great man’s life, including living to see his own younger brother, Charles, die of alcoholism by 30 and witnessing his beloved sister, Abigail, suffer from breast cancer and which cancer had to be operated on without any anesthesia. JQA actually died in the Capitol in 1848, a Congressman at the time, from some kind of cardiac event. Present at his death was a young Congressman from Illinois by the name of Abraham Lincoln.
For the record I post this about this sterling human being who knew Islam so well, as he knew almost everything well, including having fluency in French and Dutch, semi-fluency in Italian and Russian, and an excellent reading knowledge of Latin and ancient Greek. Aside from being a superb lawyer, he also was one of the best Secretaries of State ever—in the Monroe Administration, this was before he became President in his own right in 1825. And like every Adams, he detested slavery—guess this was just one more reason for him to despise Islam.
A true Renaissance Man. No doubt about it. For the record. Ah, if only he were President right now rather than the dimwit Caesar who is.
gravenimage says
Thank you, Wellington. John Quincy Adams was also am important abolitionist. His career post presidency was also very impressive.
Michael Copeland says
Rather distinguished to have a photograph of someone born in 1767. There are a few others in photographs who are earlier born, but only a few.
Wellington says
Again for the record, Michael Copeland, John Quincy Adams, the 6th President, is the first President photographed, but only well after he was President from 1825-1829 and when he was a Congressman from Massachusetts, a once very great colony, thereafter province from 1691 to the Revolution, and thereafter state, but surely no longer great in any way except in the area of overall destruction—think Harvard as helping to prove this hypothesis of mine as well as Boston University, which gave us that paragon of wisdom and knowledge who goes by the acronym, AOC. Oh, btw, John Kerry is a graduate of another very compromised Massachusetts institution of higher learning, i.e., Boston College Law School. QED, no?
After all, it’s not for nothing, as I have noted before here at JW, that New Hampshire residents regularly refer to Massachusetts residents as “Massholes.”
But more to the point at hand, I believe the first real photograph of anyone was taken in France in 1834. If anyone has further knowledge about the early history of photography, and in particular the first true photograph, I would for one welcome it.
What aa damn shame photography was not invented some half century before it was. If so, then we would have photographs of all of the Founding Fathers of America as well as other great and significant persons like William Pitt the Younger, Lord Nelson and Napoleon.
Damn.
Donovan Nuera says
John Q. Adams was also I believe a professor of oratory and rhetoric at his alma mater, Harvard. I have a syllabus from his lectures ca. 1810. (I have not tried to pry the pages apart yet for fear of damaging them).
Our last great Presidential speaker was Reagan. He had to spend a lot of time practicing …because he wanted his speeches to be perfect.
Too bad our leaders don’t have the mastery of JQA. Lincoln’s Secretary of State (and openling act at Gettysburg dedication), Edward Everett was regarded as one of greatest orators of the 19th Cent. (He was a Harvard president for a few years but hated the job)
Michael Copeland says
Thomas Wedgwood made images using light and silver nitrate in 1809, but he had no method of fixing them, so they faded. One faint image, marked TW, was recently found in an archive.
Nicephore Niepce in France made photographic images in 1829. Daguerre, a scenery painter seeking a substitute for sketching, investigated photography in the 1830s, and launched his kit in 1839.
Youtube has items showing the earliest known photographs.
There is a photograph of the “Jersey Patriarch”, a Jersey man aged 102, which is thought to date from 1848.
James Lincoln says
Agree, Wellington.
It would also have been great to have sound recordings!
By the way…
Your post perked my interest in the great Civil War photographs by Mathew Brady:
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brady-photos
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Thank you, Wellington, for this interesting information about John Quincy Adams.
For the IQ calculations, using the normalcdf function on a scientific calculator, in a population with a means IQ of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, the proportion of the population with an IQ of 160 or more is normalcdf(160,9E99,100,15) = 31.7E-6, or one person in 31,560. How rare is Einstein’s claimed IQ of 205 or more? Only one person in 776 billion. By similar calculation, one person in 44 has an IQ of 130 or more.
John says
HBO series John Adams a must see. The book is a must read.
John says
This year when I make my annual trip to Cape Cod and fly into Boston and always drive by the exit to the John Quincy library I need to stop and spend some time with this amazing Christian predictor of the future.
James Lincoln says
I just put it on my “to-do” list, John.
James Lincoln says
Wellington says,
“If you have an IQ of 130, you can effectively be anything you want to be, minus perhaps a theoretical physicist…”
Sounds about right – an IQ of a “buck 30” will get you a lot of play.
Physician, attorney, engineer, pharmacist, Navy jet pilot, college professor, etc.
But *very* complex research in the hard sciences – not so much…
gravenimage says
Some Quotes to Remember for Exelauno Day
…………….
Excellent and salient quotes, Hugh. John Quincy Adams especially needs to be better known than he is.
John says
I’m Catholic and next time include the writings of Catholic Saint John Bosco on Islam/Mohammedism.
Very objective observation and not complementary at all other than the fact that one barbaric camel herder and caravan raider could create such a cult that people actually believed.
jca reid. says
Quotations here are inspirational & 100% on the money re. Islam. If one visits: www. wikiislam.net & look around for a section called: “Quotations on Islam from famous non – Muslims,” you get the picture of this perverted, degenerate, desert Nazi ideology. They range from the eminent 10th. Century Arab Scientist, Al – Razi, the writer, Omar Khayamm, other former US Presidents, General Patton, Rock Stars, comedians, (being real serious for once), Carl Jung, the psycho-analyst & so on. The only one of the 93 persons quoted to endorse Islam was Hitler!!
In the West it is real strange. I have a very close relative, a highly qualified guy in Philosophy & he regards me as a “nutter” for being against Islam!