War Without End: A Brief History of the Muslim Conquests (Know thy enemy)

Crises Magazine ^ | 11-08-05 | T. David Curp

[emiller]

Crusading ideals in the West were an answer to the greater threat of jihad. They were spurred by fear and necessity in a desperate competition with Islam that, for many centuries, Christians lost—and were aware that they were losing. The extent of Islam’s victories can be seen in the all-but-complete disappearance of the once-thriving Christian communities in North Africa, the Middle East, and Western Asia, as well as the deep roots that Islam still has in the Balkans—a region whose very name was imposed upon it by successful late medieval Turkish imperialism.

Islam is a remarkably successful religion that for most of its existence has inspired its adherents to creatively synthesize the often-conflicting requirements of warfare, imperial politics, and missionary zeal. Projecting Western freedom of action backward in time seriously distorts the more dramatic story of ongoing Western weakness that almost destroyed Christendom. The pathos and peril of much of contemporary radical Islam’s protest against the West is not fueled primarily by aggrieved victimhood; it is nourished by an even stronger memory of how Islam’s final victory over Christendom remained for so long a real possibility. Muslim triumphs in earlier centuries were the crucible that forged both Christendom’s fears and Islam’s confidence

[emiller]

The MSM does it's best to ignore this kind of thing. Might as well learn about our industrious little "friends"

[TalBlack]

"...until all nonbelievers submitted to Muslim rule,...'

There it is right there. Islam couldn't care less about winning hearts or what is in anyone's heart.
It Is A
Satanic Cult

[purpleland]

Submitting to Muslim rule is not the equivalent of obeying the Golden Rule.

[Rollee]

It makes me violently ill think of the legacy our liberal "brothers and sisters" are willing to leave to our children.

[Cicero]

I subscribe to Crisis and just read this a few days ago. Here's an extract that particularly sticks in my mind:

---

Alp Arslan (“the Valiant Lion”), the Turkish prince who unified the Seljuqs in 1063 and was eventually to win the great victory of Mantzikert, carried on raids of such brutality and scope that Christian chroniclers referred to him as “a drinker of blood” and one of the forces of the Antichrist.

He worked hard to earn this reputation. Matthew of Edessa, an Armenian historian, describes Alp Arslan’s sack of Ani (now known as Arpa Cay), the capital of Armenia in 1064 (which Seljuq chronicles describe as a “large flourishing city with 500 churches”):

The army entered the city, massacred its inhabitants, pillaged and burned it leaving it in ruins, making prisoners of all who escaped the massacre, and took possession. [The number dead were such] that they blocked all the streets and one could not make way for himself without crossing over them. The number of prisoners was not less than 30,000 souls.

I wanted to enter the city and see it with my own eyes. I tried to find a street without having to walk over corpses. But that was impossible.

[CheyennePress]

You could really go on and on over this. Very good article. To add a bit, the issue of Jerusalem was particularly contentious for a number of reasons. Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim had ordered the destruction of over 10,000 Christian churches under his territories that he had conquered, including the Holy Sepulchre, the tomb of Christ. All Christian establishments in Jersusalem were destroyed. The rubble of the Holy Sepulchre was turned over not to the former keepers of the tomb in the Latin West, but rather, to the Orthodox Church.

So yeah, Jerusalem got a few people ticked off, particularly considering how popular the pilgrimmage route to the city had become.

Al-Hakim is a particularly interesting guy. He ended up declaring himself God-incarnate and replaced the name of Allah with his own name. Angered by those who doubted him, he attened Friday prayers with a pig in tote.

Needless to say, he went out for a leisurely stroll on his horse and was never heard from again.

There are actually still those who accept his claim to divinity in Syria.

[Publius6961]

The attempt to telescope 6-800 years of history into a couple of pages of necessity hides the brutality, the arrogance and the ugly realitites that muslims gloss over whenever historical topics are discussed.

We must also remember that islam never kept detailed chronicles of their failures, only of their successes; consequently, if we wish to see the complete picture over several hudred years, it must be pieced together from the accounts of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of fragmented Christian communities and leaders who only with great difficulty cooperated just enough to manage to resist the unopposed invasion of Europe itself.

Slowly, more and more of us are learning more about the mortal enemy we face. For them there is no compromise possible. They have repeatedly told us what their goal is.

We had best listen.

[TexasTransplant]

I suggest a Free Hunting License, no bag limit and a Bounty on the first 180 days of a 365 day season.

(yeah I'm kiddn but not much)

[muawiyah]

When it comes to the Seljuq you are really speaking of the people known as "Turkmen".

Writers differ on whether these people are just another gang of Scythian raiders or Mongol warriors. If Scythian, the names of most of their principal leaders are all clearly of a Tocharian form. If Mongol, their names mean all kinds of crazy things a top guy probably wouldn't like if he knew what they meant.

The Seljuq principle of subdividing the kingdom among the heirs meant that eventually no Seljuq principality would be strong enough to avoid conquest by an outsider, which, of course, happened.

[purpleland]

"Mortal enemy" describes best Muslim terrorism, and what American politicians and activist fronts will patronize them? There is always the enemy within too.

[GBA]

Sounds like the religion of peace will kill and kill until we are all peacefully dead. It's amazing how far they've come since WWII or even since the early 1960s. But this has to end at some point as Islam and Christianity or Islam and secular western society are not compatible. They know this and we ignore it. What a gift to our children this future conflict will be. How will God judge us if we nuke the black rock now?

[beebuster2000]

wow. great post. thanks

[Cicero]

As I recall, John Keegan in A History of Warfare says that the Turks were a nomadic herdsman people who lived on the steppes before they migrated west and conquered present-day Turkey.

As Keegan points out, herdsmen tend to be particularly proficient and bloodthirsty warriors. The Turks have been settled for a long time, but they are still tough fighters.

[SoCal_Republican]

Fantastic read! I particularly liked the part at the end that pointed out that the muslim jihadists today are left only with terror/fear to further their cause. As bad as things may seem nowadays, this is a valuable indicator of the comparative weakness that jihadis have been reduced to. They are not a great army in maturing-modern times like they were 1000 years ago. They never will be thanks to the power of free information (and also thanks to a fleet of SSBNs floating around somewhere out there!).

[muawiyah]

The term "Turk" is unfortunately applied to every group speaking an Uralic-Altaic language. It's pretty obvious that there are many different ethnic groups involved, and not all of them were wandering tribes of primitive herdsmen.

These languages are fairly well related to the Dravidian languages of Southern India, and those people are among the very first civilized folk on Earth.

[Cicero]

Most civilized people started out as nomads, so the linguistic connections could have gone back to that. I confess that my linguistic knowledge is pretty much limited to Indo-European.

[muawiyah]

That's why I mentioned that the early Seljuq rulers/et al in Anatolia had what must be Indo-European names ~ Tocharian being an Indo-European language.

Alternatively, they had Galician names ~ which can all find cognate forms in modern Breton and Welsh.

All of which makes their names a big mystery since the folks they were "leading" were definitely from the Steppes and not Anatolia or the Silk Road.

It's possible the leadership elite "won" the followers in some sort of competitive event about which we know nothing, but it is known all these guys were really heavy into horseracing and would put their women and children on the line to cover a bet.

[Appalled but Not Surprised]

Crusading ideals in the West were an answer to the greater threat of jihad.>>

Oh, horsespit. The whole "Crusader" ideal arose from the fact that a growing Europe (this was pre-plague, remember) had far more knights than it knew what to do with. This surplus of knights led to endless internecine and private warfare. The Crusaders were directed to go after the Muslims because if they were doing that they were not around to beat up the peasants.

Going after the Holy Land was, yes, a brilliant geostrategic move by the Christian lands, but it really wasn't intended that way: think of it as either a happy accident or divine design. It was sort of a middle-ages equivalent of the US Government's Black Budget--welfare for white men--intended to get them the hell out of here and go beating up strangers and leaving "us" alone.

[Becki]

Islam is a remarkably successful religion cult that for most of its existence has inspired terrorize its adherents to creatively synthesize endure the often-conflicting requirements of warfare, imperial politics, and missionary zeal.

There. Truth in advertising.

Becki