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Commemorating the anniversary of the battle of Tours. We have just passed the anniversary of an epic event that is not widely known in America except among history buffs, but which nonetheless dramatically shaped the future of the Western world, and which may still hold inspiration for us in the West today.After the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in 632, Islam spread like a bloody tide throughout the Arabian peninsula, north to the Caspian Sea and east through Persia and beyond, westward through Egypt and across North Africa all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. From there it crossed...

Reflections on the anniversary of a historical turning point... Within fifty years of the death of Mohamed in A.D. 632, his successors had engineered military conquests all across the Middle East and North Africa. While their pace slowed after that, as they worked to consolidate their gains and establish bureaucratic management over the extensive lands they had won, the Muslims continued to expand, crossing Gibraltar and conquering much of the Iberian peninsula, in preparation for their eternal goal: the conquest of Europe. Now, Europe in those days was hardly the organized collection of developed, defined, modern states we know today....

On this date, in AD732, Charles Martel led the Franks against Muslim invaders near the city of Tours and turned back the tide of Islamic advance at the Battle of Tours (sometimes called the Battle of Poitiers).

Today, October 10, supporters of Christian Civilization celebrate the great victory attained by the Frenchman, Charles Martel, over a Muslim army that tried to conquer Christian France. The battle of Tours was concluded on October 10, 732, and Martel and the French people won a stunning military victory. But, today, I want to focus on an equally great military hero, who made Charles Martel's victory possible. He is the Christian Emperor Tervel of the Bulgarian Empire, who inflicted the first major defeat on Muslim armies in Islamic history in the year 718, fourteen years before Charles Martel's victory in 732....

Archaeological and genetic analysis may indicate that three skeletons buried in medieval graves in France may have been Muslim, according to a study published February 24, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Yves Gleize from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) and University of Bordeaux, France, Fanny Mendisco from University of Bordeaux, France, and colleagues. The rapid Arab-Islamic conquest during the early Middle Ages led to major political and cultural changes in the Mediterranean. Although the early medieval Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula is well documented, scientists have less evidence of the Muslim expansion...

This article was published on The Occidental ObserverBy Enza Ferreri One “thought experiment” in the recent – but not yet concluded - debate on freedom of speech surrounding the Charlie Hebdo massacre particularly impressed me: Here is a thought experiment: Suppose that while the demonstrators stood solemnly at Place de la Republique the other night,… a man stepped out in front… carrying a placard with a cartoon depicting the editor of the magazine lying in a pool of blood, saying, “Well I’ll be a son of a gun!” or “You’ve really blown me away!” or some such witticism. How...

Fantastic video that you can see by clicking on the "Enza Ferreri Blog" link above, from ramzpaul. It has been the Christian cross and Christian Church that has defeated the invading Islamic armies again and again, throughout the history of Europe, let's never forget that. Now Europe is losing Christianity, and is losing to Islam: can that be only a coincidence? Wake up, people! The attacks on Christianity have come from various sources, but none of these sources have had European interests at heart. Sometimes these attacks are repeated by naïve, unaware, possibly well-meaning "useful idiots", but mostly they are...

Diane Feinstein's recently released report on controversial CIA interrogation practices indicts, not only the Bush administration, but also all previous administrations going back to the controversial leader of the Franks, Charles Martel, and his victory over the moderate Muslim community at Tours in 732 AD, which can only be described as a gross law enforcement misconduct and hate crime. Citing inside information from medieval Latin and Arabic sources, the report prepared by Feinstein's staffers details a shocking degree of intolerance and Islamophobia on the part of Charles Martel's administration and the army of Franks, who countered the peaceful expansion of...

In 1565, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent dominated the Mediterranean, with intentions of not only taking Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, and southern Spain, but Rome itself. The only thing standing in his way was the small rocky island of Malta just south of Sicily, defended by the Knights of Malta. In March of 1565, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent sent Algerian Admiral Dragut to Malta with 200 ships and 40,000 Muslim soldiers, including 6,500 elite Janissary troops. .... Queen Elizabeth I of England is said to have remarked: "If the Turks should prevail against the Isle of Malta, it is uncertain what further...

October 10, 732 AD marks the conclusion of the Battle of Tours, arguably one of the most decisive battles in all of history. A Moslem army, in a crusading search for land and the end of Christianity, after the conquest of Syria, Egypt, and North Africa, began to invade Western Europe under the leadership of Abd-er Rahman, governor of Spain. Abd-er Rahman led an infantry of 60,000 to 400,000 soldiers across the Western Pyrenees and toward the Loire River, but they were met just outside the city of Tours by Charles Martel, known as the Hammer, and the Frankish Army.

The monstrous events today in Norway—as of this writing, word is that a gunman slaughtered at least 30 kids at a youth camp who had gathered to hear about the earlier bombing of government offices in Oslo—have stirred in me a kind of rage I haven’t felt this viscerally since the days after 9/11, when my apartment in Brooklyn Heights looked out directly on the violent purple gash in the sky that hovered over the wreckage like a demonic counterimage of the holy cloud that followed the Jews through the desert in the aftermath of the Exodus. Perhaps it is...

The internet discussion appeared as Spanish security forces warned that both Spain and France were targets of al-Qaeda terror plots. A post that appeared on the al-Firdaws jihadi forum, submitted by a user named Faisal al-Baghdadi, contained a lengthy historical account of "the second stop of the Islamic conquest of Europe, France, after Andalusia, Spain." The post took a nostalgic look at the battle of Tours in 732, in which Muslim forces, commanded by Rahman al-Ghafiqi, who invaded a portion of France, were repelled by the Frankish general Charles Martel ("the hammer"), and forced to retreat. The battle stemmed the...

The Battle of Tours Charles de Steuben's Battaile de Poitiers en Octobre 732 depicts a triumphant Charles Martel (mounted) facing Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi (right) at the Battle of Tours. Date: October 10, 732 Location: near Tours, France Result: Decisive Frankish victory CombatantsCarolingian Franks v. Umayyad Caliphate Commanders Charles Martel v.Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd er Rahman Strength 15,000-75,000 v. 60,000-400,000 Casualtiesabout 1500 reported in western history, but probably far heavier unknown, but reported massive, notably Emir Abd er Rahman. The Battle of Tours (October 10, 732), often called Battle of Poitiers and also called in Arabic بلاط الشهداء...

Thousand cars torched in latest French riots Sun Nov 6, 2005 12:17 PM GMT By Elisabeth Pineau PARIS (Reuters) - Gangs of youths torched 1,300 vehicles overnight in the 10th consecutive night of violence in Paris's poor suburbs and major French towns, despite the deployment of thousands of extra police. Cars were burnt out in the historic centre of Paris for the first time on Saturday night. In the normally quiet Normandy town of Evreux, a shopping mall, 50 vehicles, a post office and two schools went up in flames. Authorities have so far found no way beyond appeals and...

Medieval Sourcebook: Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts [Davis Introduction] The following opinion was expressed about the Franks by the emir who conquered Spain, and who---had he not been recalled---might have commanded at Tours. It shows what the Arab leaders thought of the men of the North up to the moment of their great disillusionment by "The Hammer."From an Arabian Chronicler Musa being returned to Damascus, the Caliph Abd-el Melek asked of him about his conquests, saying "Now tell me about these Franks---what is their nature?" "They," replied Musa, "are a folk right numerous, and full...

Charles Martel Born about 688; died at Quierzy on the Oise, 21 October, 741. He was the natural son of Pepin of Herstal and a woman named Alpaïde or Chalpaïde. Pepin, who died in 714, had outlived his two legitimate sons, Drogon and Grimoald, and to Theodoald, a son of the latter and then only six years old, fell the burdensome inheritance of the French monarchy. Charles, who was then twenty-six, was not excluded from the succession on account of his birth, Theodoald himself being the son of a concubine, but through the influence of Plectrude, Theodoald's grandmother, who wished...

N A SUSTAINED, century-long rampage that would have wowed Rommel, the Prophet Mohammed and his successors beginning in A.D. 629 conquered not only Arabia, Persia, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa, but also branded the crescent of Islam on lands formerly within the fold of a Christian Roman Empire then in ruins. In 709, Arab horsemen and their allies crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. Four short years later, Spain belonged to the Empire of the Prophet. In the summer of 732, the centennial of Mohammed's death, this veteran Islamic juggernaut, at least 80,000 strong with the skilled and popular general Abd...

1,273 years ago today.

In honor of Bastille Day, I have decided to dedicate this column to that proverbial fly in the world's ointment, France. I suppose "honor" is the wrong word to use. Bastille Day signified the birth of le republique and the beginning of the end of le ancien regime, which wasn't necessarily a good thing for France or the rest of Europe. While this commentary is going to seem harsh, I would like to say that I am quite proud of my French heritage. France was the home of my paternal ancestors, though it was a very different place when Jean-Baptiste...