Verses from the Qur'an

The Highest Barbarism on Earth

By Erick Stakelbeck for CBN News

The Islamic terror group ISIS is leaving a trail of destruction across large parts of Syria and Iraq with a specific target in their crosshairs.

Hundreds of thousands of Christians have been displaced from their homes and countless others have been murdered or enslaved by the jihadist army, with no end in sight.

Sister Hatune Dogan has been on the ground and witnessed the devastation of these ancient Christian communities. She's listened to survivors tell how Christians and Yazidi women are being sold into sex slavery.

"They choose the most beautiful one, even if they have a small child, and they sell these women, these ladies to each other. They don't sell to another religion -- only Sunni Muslim," Dogan said.

"There have been 12,000 kidnapped at the hands of ISIS - Yazidi alone. What is going on there, what I was hearing, is the highest barbarism on earth in the history until today," she added.

Her foundation helps the poor and persecuted in 35 countries, providing them with food, clothing, medicine and shelter.

She travels constantly with a special focus in the Muslim world.

"I'm not coming here for a holiday. I'm coming here to bring a voice to the voiceless so that the world can hear their voice. They don't have a voice. I am the channel for them. That is my mission," Dogan declared.

Sister Dogan is no stranger to Islamic persecution. As a young girl, threats from local Muslims forced her family to leave their home in Turkey.

They relocated to Germany, where she operates her foundation and sounds the alarm about the gathering Islamic storm.

"The mission of (Abu Bakr) Baghdadi, of ISIS, is to convert the world completely to the Islamic religion and bring them to Dar Al Salaam, as they call it. And Islam is not peace, please. Whoever says ISIS has no connection to Islam or something like this is, he's a liar. ISIS is Islam; Islam is ISIS," Dogan explained.

She's disappointed by what she calls a weak reaction from the West.

Bill Maher & Charlie Rose Compare Christianity to Islam

I do not usually have much in common with Maher, but I agree with him in this article from September 12, 2014:

Bill Maher ABSOLUTELY CRUSHES Charlie Rose For Comparing Islam To Christianity

BILL MAHER: I saw Howard Dean on TV the other day and he said something along the order, he said the people in ISIS -- he said I'm about as Islamic as they are, you know, distancing the vast numbers of Islamic people around the world from them. That's just not true.
CHARLIE ROSE: It is true.
MAHER: It is not true, Charlie. There is a connecting tissue between --
ROSE: Behind every Muslim is a future member of some radical?
MAHER: Let me finish.
ROSE: I was doing that.
MAHER: There are illiberal beliefs that are held by vast numbers of Muslim people that --
ROSE: A vast number of Christians too.
MAHER: No, that's not true. Not true. Vast numbers of Christians do not believe that if you leave the Christian religion you should be killed for it. Vast numbers of Christians do not treat women as second class citizens. Vast numbers of Christians --
ROSE: I agree with that --
MAHER: -- do not believe if you draw a picture of Jesus Christ you should get killed for it. So yes, does ISIS do Khmer Rouge-like activities where they just kill people indiscriminately who aren't just like them? Yes. And would most Muslim people in the world do that or condone that? No.
ROSE: No.
MAHER: But most Muslim people in the world do condone violence just for what you think.
ROSE: How do you know that?
MAHER: They do. First of all they say it. They shout it.
ROSE: Vast majorities of Muslims say that?
MAHER: Absolutely. There was a Pew poll in Egypt done a few years ago -- 82% said, I think, stoning is the appropriate punishment for adultery. Over 80% thought death was the appropriate punishment for leaving the Muslim religion. I'm sure you know these things.
ROSE: Well I do. But I don't believe --
MAHER: So to claim that this religion is like other religions is just naive and plain wrong. It is not like other religious. The New York Times pointed out in an op-ed a couple weeks ago that in Saudi Arabia just since August 4th, they think it was, they have beheaded 19 people. Most for non-violent crimes including homosexuality.
ROSE: I know that they cut the hands off the thief.
MAHER: Right, okay, so we're upset that ISIS is beheading people which we should be upset about but Saudi Arabia does it and they're our good friends because they have oil. Okay. But they do it too. This is the center of the religion. I'm not saying -
ROSE: But they're now fighting against ISIS too. They're joining us in the fight. As is the Emirates. As is Jordan. They are all Muslim countries.
MAHER: Well, they are both fighting ISIS and they are for ISIS.
ROSE: Well, it's not the government. I mean, some of them --
MAHER: Certainly the governments.
ROSE: It's a bit like today about Qatar. The big story today in The New York Times about Qatar. And some guy there is supporting, who is a Muslim --
MAHER: But I mean in Mecca where infidels, non-Muslims, are not even allowed in the holy parts of the city. I mean, right there, we don't have that example in other religions. They do behead people. Now if they were beheading people in Vatican City, which is the equivalent of Mecca, don't you think there would be a bigger outcry about it? So this is the soft bigotry of low expectations with Muslim people. When they do crazy things and believe crazy things, somehow it's not talked about nearly as much.
ROSE: Would you come to the table and debate this with a moderate Muslim?
MAHER: Find one, yes. Find one.
ROSE: I promise you I'll find one.
MAHER: Find a Muslim --
ROSE: I do believe that what we see with ISIS is not representative of --
MAHER: As I said, connecting tissue.
ROSE: -- not representative of the Islamic religion. I don't think the Koran teaches them to do these kinds of things.
MAHER: Well you're wrong about that. The Koran absolutely has on every page stuff that's horrible about how the infidels should be treated. But for example again ISIS says that they should perform genital mutilation on all women 11-46. Would most Muslims agree with that? No. Or carry it out? No.
But as Ayaan Hirsi Ali points out, she says --
ROSE: I wouldn't expect for her to --
MAHER: And she would know better than --
ROSE: Exactly.
MAHER: But can we really say --
ROSE: She's been a victim.
MAHER: -- women are treated equally in the Muslim world? I mean, their testimony in court is very often counted as half. They need permission to leave the house in some places.
ROSE: But a lot of moderate Muslims would say in fact one of the things that we need to modernize is the idea of the way we treat women.
MAHER: But in this country, if you just use the wrong word about women, they go nuts. And all these other countries --
ROSE: As they should.
MAHER: -- they're doing things like making them wear burqas and I hear liberals say things like, 'they want to.' They want to. They've been brainwashed. It's like saying a street walker wants to do that.

Four Myths about the Crusades

No copyright infringement intended. All posts are fully cited for source and author. I have provided links back to the original source whenever possible. This information is for my personal, Faith Formation, Confirmation class, OCIC and homeschool referencing.
I am so very grateful to the authors, website and blog owners for sharing this information, commentary, and knowledge.
In this particular article I have bolded in purple to indicate my own emphasis. Reviewing this information does not, in my opinion, justify killing. But it does remind us of some pretty significant history that seems to have been forgotten. 
What we are often taught about the alleged one-sided wickedness of the Crusades. It simply is not the complete picture, but rather, western distortions of the crusades in the nineteenth century which subsequently were taught to, and taken up by, an "insufficiently critical" Muslim world.

 

Four Myths about the Crusades

This article appears in the Spring 2011 edition of the Intercollegiate Review. See the issue’s Table of Contents here.  
In 2001, former president Bill Clinton delivered a speech at Georgetown University in which he discussed the West’s response to the recent terrorist attacks of September 11. The speech contained a short but significant reference to the crusades. Mr. Clinton observed that “when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem [in 1099], they . . . proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the Temple Mount.” He cited the “contemporaneous descriptions of the event” as describing “soldiers walking on the Temple Mount . . . with blood running up to their knees.” This story, Mr. Clinton said emphatically, was “still being told today in the Middle East and we are still paying for it.”

This view of the crusades is not unusual. It pervades textbooks as well as popular literature. One otherwise generally reliable Western civilization textbook claims that “the Crusades fused three characteristic medieval impulses: piety, pugnacity, and greed. All three were essential.”¹

The film Kingdom of Heaven (2005) depicts crusaders as boorish bigots, the best of whom were torn between remorse for their excesses and lust to continue them. Even the historical supplements for role-playing games—drawing on supposedly more reliable sources—contain statements such as:
•  “The soldiers of the First Crusade appeared basically without warning, storming into the Holy Land with the avowed—literally—task of slaughtering unbelievers”;²
•  “The Crusades were an early sort of imperialism”;³ and
•  “Confrontation with Islam gave birth to a period of religious fanaticism that spawned the terrible Inquisition and the religious wars that ravaged Europe during the Elizabethan era.”⁴

The most famous semi-popular historian of the crusades, Sir Steven Runciman, ended his three volumes of magnificent prose with the judgment that the crusades were “nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost.”⁵

The verdict seems unanimous. From presidential speeches to role-playing games, the crusades are depicted as a deplorably violent episode in which thuggish Westerners trundled off, unprovoked, to murder and pillage peace-loving, sophisticated Muslims, laying down patterns of outrageous oppression that would be repeated throughout subsequent history. In many corners of the Western world today, this view is too commonplace and apparently obvious even to be challenged.
But unanimity is not a guarantee of accuracy. What everyone “knows” about the crusades may not, in fact, be true. From the many popular notions about the crusades, let us pick four and see if they bear close examination.

Myth #1: The crusades represented an unprovoked attack by Western Christians on the Muslim world.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and even a cursory chronological review makes that clear. In a.d. 632, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, North Africa, Spain, France, Italy, and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were all Christian territories. Inside the boundaries of the Roman Empire, which was still fully functional in the eastern Mediterranean, orthodox Christianity was the official, and overwhelmingly majority, religion. Outside those boundaries were other large Christian communities—not necessarily orthodox and Catholic, but still Christian. Most of the Christian population of Persia, for example, was Nestorian. Certainly there were many Christian communities in Arabia.

By a.d. 732, a century later, Christians had lost Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa, Spain, most of Asia Minor, and southern France. Italy and her associated islands were under threat, and the islands would come under Muslim rule in the next century. The Christian communities of Arabia were entirely destroyed in or shortly after 633, when Jews and Christians alike were expelled from the peninsula.⁶ Those in Persia were under severe pressure. Two-thirds of the formerly Roman Christian world was now ruled by Muslims.

What had happened? Most people actually know the answer, if pressed—though for some reason they do not usually connect the answer with the crusades. The answer is the rise of Islam. Every one of the listed regions was taken, within the space of a hundred years, from Christian control by violence, in the course of military campaigns deliberately designed to expand Muslim territory at the expense of Islam’s neighbors. Nor did this conclude Islam’s program of conquest. The attacks continued, punctuated from time to time by Christian attempts to push back. Charlemagne blocked the Muslim advance in far western Europe in about a.d. 800, but Islamic forces simply shifted their focus and began to island-hop across from North Africa toward Italy and the French coast, attacking the Italian mainland by 837. A confused struggle for control of southern and central Italy continued for the rest of the ninth century and into the tenth. In the hundred years between 850 and 950, Benedictine monks were driven out of ancient monasteries, the Papal States were overrun, and Muslim pirate bases were established along the coast of northern Italy and southern France, from which attacks on the deep inland were launched. Desperate to protect victimized Christians, popes became involved in the tenth and early eleventh centuries in directing the defense of the territory around them.

The surviving central secular authority in the Christian world at this time was the East Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. Having lost so much territory in the seventh and eighth centuries to sudden amputation by the Muslims, the Byzantines took a long time to gain the strength to fight back. By the mid-ninth century, they mounted a counterattack on Egypt, the first time since 645 that they had dared to come so far south. Between the 940s and the 970s, the Byzantines made great progress in recovering lost territories. Emperor John Tzimiskes retook much of Syria and part of Palestine, getting as far as Nazareth, but his armies became overextended and he had to end his campaigns by 975 without managing to retake Jerusalem itself. Sharp Muslim counterattacks followed, and the Byzantines barely managed to retain Aleppo and Antioch.

The struggle continued unabated into the eleventh century. In 1009, a mentally deranged Muslim ruler destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and mounted major persecutions of Christians and Jews. He was soon deposed, and by 1038 the Byzantines had negotiated the right to try to rebuild the structure, but other events were also making life difficult for Christians in the area, especially the displacement of Arab Muslim rulers by Seljuk Turks, who from 1055 on began to take control in the Middle East. This destabilized the territory and introduced new rulers (the Turks) who were not familiar even with the patchwork modus vivendi that had existed between most Arab Muslim rulers and their Christian subjects. Pilgrimages became increasingly difficult and dangerous, and western pilgrims began banding together and carrying weapons to protect themselves as they tried to make their way to Christianity’s holiest sites in Palestine: notable armed pilgrimages occurred in 1064–65 and 1087–91.

In the western and central Mediterranean, the balance of power was tipping toward the Christians and away from the Muslims. In 1034, the Pisans sacked a Muslim base in North Africa, finally extending their counterattacks across the Mediterranean. They also mounted counterattacks against Sicily in 1062–63. In 1087, a large-scale allied Italian force sacked Mahdia, in present-day Tunisia, in a campaign jointly sponsored by Pope Victor III and the countess of Tuscany. Clearly the Italian Christians were gaining the upper hand.

But while Christian power in the western and central Mediterranean was growing, it was in trouble in the east. The rise of the Muslim Turks had shifted the weight of military power against the Byzantines, who lost considerable ground again in the 1060s. Attempting to head off further incursions in far-eastern Asia Minor in 1071, the Byzantines suffered a devastating defeat at Turkish hands in the battle of Manzikert. As a result of the battle, the Christians lost control of almost all of Asia Minor, with its agricultural resources and military recruiting grounds, and a Muslim sultan set up a capital in Nicaea, site of the creation of the Nicene Creed in a.d. 325 and a scant 125 miles from Constantinople.

Desperate, the Byzantines sent appeals for help westward, directing these appeals primarily at the person they saw as the chief western authority: the pope, who, as we have seen, had already been directing Christian resistance to Muslim attacks. In the early 1070s, the pope was Gregory VII, and he immediately began plans to lead an expedition to the Byzantines’ aid. He became enmeshed in conflict with the German emperors, however (what historians call “the Investiture Controversy”), and was ultimately unable to offer meaningful help. Still, the Byzantines persisted in their appeals, and finally, in 1095, Pope Urban II realized Gregory VII’s desire, in what turned into the First Crusade. Whether a crusade was what either Urban or the Byzantines had in mind is a matter of some controversy. But the seamless progression of events which lead to that crusade is not.

Far from being unprovoked, then, the crusades actually represent the first great western Christian counterattack against Muslim attacks which had taken place continually from the inception of Islam until the eleventh century, and which continued on thereafter, mostly unabated. Three of Christianity’s five primary episcopal sees (Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria) had been captured in the seventh century; both of the others (Rome and Constantinople) had been attacked in the centuries before the crusades. The latter would be captured in 1453, leaving only one of the five (Rome) in Christian hands by 1500. Rome was again threatened in the sixteenth century. This is not the absence of provocation; rather, it is a deadly and persistent threat, and one which had to be answered by forceful defense if Christendom were to survive. The crusades were simply one tool in the defensive options exercised by Christians.

To put the question in perspective, one need only consider how many times Christian forces have attacked either Mecca or Medina. The answer, of course, is never.⁷

Myth #2: Western Christians went on crusade because their greed led them to plunder Muslims in order to get rich.

Again, not true. One version of Pope Urban II’s speech at Clermont in 1095 urging French warriors to embark on what would become known as the First Crusade does note that they might “make spoil of [the enemy’s] treasures,”⁸ but this was no more than an observation on the usual way of financing war in ancient and medieval society. And Fulcher of Chartres did write in the early twelfth century that those who had been poor in the West had become rich in the East as a result of their efforts on the First Crusade, obviously suggesting that others might do likewise.⁹ But Fulcher’s statement has to be read in its context, which was a chronic and eventually fatal shortage of manpower for the defense of the crusader states. Fulcher was not being entirely deceitful when he pointed out that one might become rich as a result of crusading. But he was not being entirely straightforward either, because for most participants, crusading was ruinously expensive.

As Fred Cazel has noted, “Few crusaders had sufficient cash both to pay their obligations at home and to support themselves decently on a crusade.”¹⁰ From the very beginning, financial considerations played a major role in crusade planning. The early crusaders sold off so many of their possessions to finance their expeditions that they caused widespread inflation. Although later crusaders took this into account and began saving money long before they set out, the expense was still nearly prohibitive. Despite the fact that money did not yet play a major role in western European economies in the eleventh century, there was “a heavy and persistent flow of money” from west to east as a result of the crusades, and the financial demands of crusading caused “profound economic and monetary changes in both western Europe and the Levant.”¹¹

One of the chief reasons for the foundering of the Fourth Crusade, and its diversion to Constantinople, was the fact that it ran out of money before it had gotten properly started, and was so indebted to the Venetians that it found itself unable to keep control of its own destiny. Louis IX’s Seventh Crusade in the mid-thirteenth century cost more than six times the annual revenue of the crown.

The popes resorted to ever more desperate ploys to raise money to finance crusades, from instituting the first income tax in the early thirteenth century to making a series of adjustments in the way that indulgences were handled that eventually led to the abuses condemned by Martin Luther. Even by the thirteenth century, most crusade planners assumed that it would be impossible to attract enough volunteers to make a crusade possible, and crusading became the province of kings and popes, losing its original popular character. When the Hospitaller Master Fulk of Villaret wrote a crusade memo to Pope Clement V in about 1305, he noted that “it would be a good idea if the lord pope took steps enabling him to assemble a great treasure, without which such a passage [crusade] would be impossible.”¹² A few years later, Marino Sanudo estimated that it would cost five million florins over two years to effect the conquest of Egypt. Although he did not say so, and may not have realized it, the sums necessary simply made the goal impossible to achieve. By this time, most responsible officials in the West had come to the same conclusion, which explains why fewer and fewer crusades were launched from the fourteenth century on.

In short: very few people became rich by crusading, and their numbers were dwarfed by those who were bankrupted. Most medieval people were quite well aware of this, and did not consider crusading a way to improve their financial situations.¹³

Myth #3: Crusaders were a cynical lot who did not really believe their own religious propaganda; rather, they had ulterior, materialistic motives.

This has been a very popular argument, at least from Voltaire on. It seems credible and even compelling to modern people, steeped as they are in materialist worldviews. And certainly there were cynics and hypocrites in the Middle Ages—beneath the obvious differences of technology and material culture, medieval people were just as human as we are, and subject to the same failings.
However, like the first two myths, this statement is generally untrue, and demonstrably so. For one thing, the casualty rates on the crusades were usually very high, and many if not most crusaders left expecting not to return. At least one military historian has estimated the casualty rate for the First Crusade at an appalling 75 percent, for example.¹⁴ The statement of the thirteenth-century crusader Robert of Crésèques, that he had “come from across the sea in order to die for God in the Holy Land”¹⁵—which was quickly followed by his death in battle against overwhelming odds—may have been unusual in its force and swift fulfillment, but it was not an atypical attitude. It is hard to imagine a more conclusive way of proving one’s dedication to a cause than sacrificing one’s life for it, and very large numbers of crusaders did just that.

But this assertion is also revealed to be false when we consider the way in which the crusades were preached. Crusaders were not drafted. Participation was voluntary, and participants had to be persuaded to go. The primary means of persuasion was the crusade sermon, and one might expect to find these sermons representing crusading as profoundly appealing.

This is, generally speaking, not the case. In fact, the opposite is true: crusade sermons were replete with warnings that crusading brought deprivation, suffering, and often death. That this was the reality of crusading was well known anyway. As Jonathan Riley-Smith has noted, crusade preachers “had to persuade their listeners to commit themselves to enterprises that would disrupt their lives, possibly impoverish and even kill or maim them, and inconvenience their families, the support of which they would . . . need if they were to fulfill their promises.”¹⁶

So why did the preaching work? It worked because crusading was appealing precisely because it was a known and significant hardship, and because undertaking a crusade with the right motives was understood as an acceptable penance for sin. Far from being a materialistic enterprise, crusading was impractical in worldly terms, but valuable for one’s soul. There is no space here to explore the doctrine of penance as it developed in the late antique and medieval worlds, but suffice it to say that the willing acceptance of difficulty and suffering was viewed as a useful way to purify one’s soul (and still is, in Catholic doctrine today). Crusading was the near-supreme example of such difficult suffering, and so was an ideal and very thorough-going penance.

Related to the concept of penance is the concept of crusading as an act of selfless love, of “laying down one’s life for one’s friends.”¹⁷ From the very beginning, Christian charity was advanced as a reason for crusading, and this did not change throughout the period. Jonathan Riley-Smith discussed this aspect of crusading in a seminal article well-known to crusade historians but inadequately recognized in the wider scholarly world, let alone by the general public. “For Christians . . . sacred violence,” noted Riley-Smith,

cannot be proposed on any grounds save that of love, . . . [and] in an age dominated by the theology of merit this explains why participation in crusades was believed to be meritorious, why the expeditions were seen as penitential acts that could gain indulgences, and why death in battle was regarded as martyrdom. . . . As manifestations of Christian love, the crusades were as much the products of the renewed spirituality of the central Middle Ages, with its concern for living the vita apostolica and expressing Christian ideals in active works of charity, as were the new hospitals, the pastoral work of the Augustinians and Premonstratensians and the service of the friars. The charity of St. Francis may now appeal to us more than that of the crusaders, but both sprang from the same roots.¹⁸

As difficult as it may be for modern people to believe, the evidence strongly suggests that most crusaders were motivated by a desire to please God, expiate their sins, and put their lives at the service of their “neighbors,” understood in the Christian sense.

Myth #4: The crusades taught Muslims to hate and attack Christians.

Part of the answer to this myth may be found above, under Myth #1. Muslims had been attacking Christians for more than 450 years before Pope Urban declared the First Crusade. They needed no incentive to continue doing so. But there is a more complicated answer here, as well.

Up until quite recently, Muslims remembered the crusades as an instance in which they had beaten back a puny western Christian attack. An illuminating vignette is found in one of Lawrence of Arabia’s letters, describing a confrontation during post–World War I negotiations between the Frenchman Stéphen Pichon and Faisal al-Hashemi (later Faisal I of Iraq). Pichon presented a case for French interest in Syria going back to the crusades, which Faisal dismissed with a cutting remark: “But, pardon me, which of us won the crusades?”¹⁹

This was generally representative of the Muslim attitude toward the crusades before about World War I—that is, when Muslims bothered to remember them at all, which was not often. Most of the Arabic-language historical writing on the crusades before the mid-nineteenth century was produced by Arab Christians, not Muslims, and most of that was positive.²⁰ There was no Arabic word for “crusades” until that period, either, and even then the coiners of the term were, again, Arab Christians. It had not seemed important to Muslims to distinguish the crusades from other conflicts between Christianity and Islam.²¹

Nor had there been an immediate reaction to the crusades among Muslims. As Carole Hillenbrand has noted, “The Muslim response to the coming of the Crusades was initially one of apathy, compromise and preoccupation with internal problems.”²² By the 1130s, a Muslim counter-crusade did begin, under the leadership of the ferocious Zengi of Mosul. But it had taken some decades for the Muslim world to become concerned about Jerusalem, which is usually held in higher esteem by Muslims when it is not held by them than when it is. Action against the crusaders was often subsequently pursued as a means of uniting the Muslim world behind various aspiring conquerors, until 1291, when the Christians were expelled from the Syrian mainland. And—surprisingly to Westerners—it was not Saladin who was revered by Muslims as the great anti-Christian leader. That place of honor usually went to the more bloodthirsty, and more successful, Zengi and Baibars, or to the more public-spirited Nur al-Din.

The first Muslim crusade history did not appear until 1899. By that time, the Muslim world was rediscovering the crusades—but it was rediscovering them with a twist learned from Westerners. In the modern period, there were two main European schools of thought about the crusades.
• One school, epitomized by people like Voltaire, Gibbon, and Sir Walter Scott, and in the twentieth century Sir Steven Runciman, saw the crusaders as crude, greedy, aggressive barbarians who attacked civilized, peace-loving Muslims to improve their own lot. 
(The following bullet points are my emphasis - for my ease of differentiation)
• The other school, more romantic and epitomized by lesser-known figures such as the French writer Joseph-François Michaud, saw the crusades as a glorious episode in a long-standing struggle in which Christian chivalry had driven back Muslim hordes.
• In addition, Western imperialists began to view the crusaders as predecessors, adapting their activities in a secularized way that the original crusaders would not have recognized or found very congenial.

At the same time, nationalism began to take root in the Muslim world. Arab nationalists borrowed the idea of a long-standing European campaign against them from the former European school of thought—missing the fact that this was a serious mischaracterization of the crusades—and using this distorted understanding as a way to generate support for their own agendas. This remained the case until the mid-twentieth century, when, in Riley-Smith’s words, “a renewed and militant Pan-Islamism” applied the more narrow goals of the Arab nationalists to a worldwide revival of what was then called Islamic fundamentalism and is now sometimes referred to, a bit clumsily, as jihadism.²³ This led rather seamlessly to the rise of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, offering a view of the crusades so bizarre as to allow bin Laden to consider all Jews to be crusaders and the crusades to be a permanent and continuous feature of the West’s response to Islam.

Bin Laden’s conception of history is a feverish fantasy. He is no more accurate in his view about the crusades than he is about the supposed perfect Islamic unity which he thinks Islam enjoyed before the baleful influence of Christianity intruded. But the irony is that he, and those millions of Muslims who accept his message, received that message originally from their perceived enemies: the West.

So it was not the crusades that taught Islam to attack and hate Christians. Far from it. Those activities had preceded the crusades by a very long time, and stretch back to the inception of Islam. Rather, it was the West which taught Islam to hate the crusades. The irony is rich.

Back to the Present

Let us return to President Clinton’s Georgetown speech. How much of his reference to the First Crusade was accurate?

It is true that many Muslims who had surrendered and taken refuge under the banners of several of the crusader lords—an act which should have granted them quarter—were massacred by out-of-control troops. This was apparently an act of indiscipline, and the crusader lords in question are generally reported as having been extremely angry about it, since they knew it reflected badly on them.²⁴ To imply—or plainly state—that this was an act desired by the entire crusader force, or that it was integral to crusading, is misleading at best. In any case, John France has put it well: “This notorious event should not be exaggerated. . . . However horrible the massacre . . . it was not far beyond what common practice of the day meted out to any place which resisted.”²⁵ And given space, one could append a long and bloody list, stretching back to the seventh century, of similar actions where Muslims were the aggressors and Christians the victims. Such a list would not, however, have served Mr. Clinton’s purposes.

Mr. Clinton was probably using Raymond of Aguilers when he referred to “blood running up to [the] knees” of crusaders.²⁶ But the physics of such a claim are impossible, as should be apparent. Raymond was plainly both bragging and also invoking the imagery of the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation.²⁷ He was not offering a factual account, and probably did not intend the statement to be taken as such.

As for whether or not we are “still paying for it,” see Myth #4, above. This is the most serious misstatement of the whole passage.

What we are paying for is not the First Crusade, but western distortions of the crusades in the nineteenth century which were taught to, and taken up by, an insufficiently critical Muslim world.

The problems with Mr. Clinton’s remarks indicate the pitfalls that await those who would attempt to explicate ancient or medieval texts without adequate historical awareness, and they illustrate very well what happens when one sets out to pick through the historical record for bits—distorted or merely selectively presented—which support one’s current political agenda. This sort of abuse of history has been distressingly familiar where the crusades are concerned.

But nothing is served by distorting the past for our own purposes. Or rather: a great many things may be served . . . but not the truth. Distortions and misrepresentations of the crusades will not help us understand the challenge posed to the West by a militant and resurgent Islam, and failure to understand that challenge could prove deadly. Indeed, it already has. It may take a very long time to set the record straight about the crusades. It is long past time to begin the task.

 

Notes

1. Warren Hollister, J. Sears McGee, and Gale Stokes, The West Transformed: A History of Western Civilization, vol. 1 (New York: Cengage/Wadsworth, 2000), 311.
2. R. Scott Peoples, Crusade of Kings (Rockville, MD: Wildside, 2009), 7.
3. Ibid.
4. The Crusades: Campaign Sourcebook, ed. Allen Varney (Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1994), 2.
5. Sir Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades: Vol. III, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 480.
6. Francesco Gabrieli, The Arabs: A Compact History, trans. Salvator Attanasio (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1963), 47.
7. Reynald of Châtillon’s abortive expedition into the Red Sea, in 1182–83, cannot be counted, as it was plainly a geopolitical move designed to threaten Saladin’s claim to be the protector of all Islam, and just as plainly had no hope of reaching either city.
8. “The Version of Baldric of Dol,” in The First Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and other source materials, 2nd ed., ed. Edward Peters (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 32.
9. Ibid., 220–21.
10. Fred Cazel, “Financing the Crusades,” in A History of the Crusades, ed. Kenneth Setton, vol. 6 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 117.
11. John Porteous, “Crusade Coinage with Greek or Latin Inscriptions,” in A History of the Crusades, 354.
12. “A memorandum by Fulk of Villaret, master of the Hospitallers, on the crusade to regain the Holy Land, c. 1305,” in Documents on the Later Crusades, 1274–1580, ed. and trans. Norman Housley (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 42.
13. Norman Housley, “Costing the Crusade: Budgeting for Crusading Activity in the Fourteenth Century,” in The Experience of Crusading, ed. Marcus Bull and Norman Housley, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 59.
14. John France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 142. Not all historians agree; Jonathan Riley-Smith thinks it was probably lower, though he does not indicate just how much lower. See Riley-Smith, “Casualties and Knights on the First Crusade,” Crusades 1 (2002), 17–19, suggesting casualties of perhaps 34 percent, higher than those of the Wehrmacht in World War II, which were themselves very high at about 30 percent. By comparison, American losses in World War II in the three major service branches ranged between about 1.5 percent and 3.66 percent.
15. The ‘Templar of Tyre’: Part III of the ‘Deeds of the Cypriots,’ trans. Paul F. Crawford (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), §351, 54.
16. Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 36.
17. John 15:13.
18. Jonathan Riley-Smith, “Crusading as an Act of Love,” History 65 (1980), 191–92.
19. Letter from T. E. Lawrence to Robert Graves, 28 June 1927, in Robert Graves and B. H. Liddell-Hart, T. E. Lawrence to His Biographers (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1938), 52, note.
20. Riley-Smith, The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam, 71.
21. Jonathan Riley-Smith, “Islam and the Crusades in History,” Crusades 2 (2003), 161.
22. Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, (New York: Routledge, 2000), 20.
23. Riley-Smith, Crusading, Christianity, and Islam, 73.
24. There is some disagreement in the primary sources on the question of who was responsible for the deaths of these refugees; the crusaders knew that a large Egyptian army was on its way to attack them, and there does seem to have been a military decision a day or two later that they simply could not risk leaving potential enemies alive. On the question of the massacre, see Benjamin Kedar, “The Jerusalem Massacre of July 1099 in the Western Historiography of the Crusades,” Crusades 3 (2004), 15–75.
25. France, Victory in the East, 355–56.
26. Raymond of Aguilers, in August C. Krey, The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eye-witnesses and Participants (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1921), 262.
27. Revelation 14:20.

Four Myths about the Crusades
Paul F. Crawford (from IR 46:1) - 03/16/11

http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/journal/issue.aspx?id=c24c7d91-6bf6-4eb2-a3cc-f5086dec7db6 

Cross posted at C.A.N. (Tuesday, April 12, 2011 )

Culture Shock - Muslim Demographics

Islam will overwhelm Christendom unless Christians recognize the demographic realities, begin reproducing again, and share the gospel with Muslims.

Even if you are not a Christian - this is very interesting information. I believe it is imperative to know.

Some quotes from the video (which has a slow beginning - hang with it!):

Historically, no culture has reversed itself from a 1.9% fertility rate. A rate of 1.3% -- impossible o reverse because it would take 80 to 100 years to correct itself.

And, there is no economic model that can sustain a culture during that time.

As a population shrinks - so does its culture.

In 2007 in France, the fertility rate was 1.8%

In England - 1.6%

In Greece - 1.3%

In Germany - 1.3%

In Italy - 1.2%

In Spani - 1.1%

Across the entire European Union of 31 countries the fertility is a mere 1.38%

In order for a culture to maintain itself for more than 25 years, the required fertility rate must be 2.11 children. With anything less, the culture will decline. With anything less, the culture will decline.

Historical research tells us that these numbers are impossible to reverse. In a matter of years Europe, as we know it, will cease to exist.

(on the video @ 2.35)  

Yet the population of Europe is not declining. Why? Immigration, specifically Islamic immigration. Of all population growth in Europe since 1990,  90% has been Islamic immigration.

(on the video @ 2.44)  

In southern France, traditionally one of the most populated church regions in the world, there are now more mosques than churches.

By 2027  1 in 5 Frenchmen will be  Muslim

In 39 years - France will be an Islamic Republic

(on the video @ 3.27) 

In the last 30 years the Muslim population of Great Britain rose from 82,000 to 2.5 million. A 30 fold increase. There are over 1000 mosques, many of them, former churches.

In the Netherlands  50% of all newborns are Muslim.

In Belgium 50% of all newborns are Muslim

(on the video @ 4.27)

The Germany government, the first to talk about this publicly, recently released a statement saying, 

"The fall in the [German] population can no longer be stopped. Its downward spiral is no longer reversible. It will be a Muslim state by the year 2050."

(on the video @ 5.22)

Closer to home?

In Canada the fertility rate is 1.6% -- nearly a full point below what is required to sustain a culture

Islam is the fastest growing religion.
From 2001 - 2006 the population increased 1.6 million
1.2 millon = immigration

(on the video @ 5.50)
In the USA? 1.6%

With the influx of the Latino Nations that fertility rate is at 2.11% which is the bare minimum needed to sustain a culture.

Side note -- a friend of a friend on FB recently complained about how the Latino population is growing here in America (to her great dismay).

I thought two things in quick succession:

1) Well, if America didn't contracept and abort so many babies perhaps the Caucasian population would not be dwindling so fast.

AND 2) Thank God for the Latino population! 

Now, in light of these statistics, in terms of Muslim growth I say again, "Thank God for that Latino Culture influx and may they please bring a strong Catholicism with them."  

Yes, yes, I know the stats on that . . . let's save it for another post AND let us remind ourselves that this CULTURE SHOCK - MUSLIM DEMOGRAPHICS information should serve to ignite our passion to spread the Good Word, to share our Christian faith, to evangelize and to pray, pray pray.

There is SO much more. 

(on the video @ 4.44)   A very telling quote by  Muammar al-Gaddafe

(on the video @ 6.20)
Three years ago a meeting of 24 Islamic organizations was held in Chicago.
The transcripts of that meeting showed, in detail, their plans to evangelize America through journalism, politics, education and more. They said, "We must prepare ourselves for the reality that in 30 years there will be 50 million Muslims living in America. The world that we live in is not the world in which our children and grandchildren will live."

This is important information -- take the relatively small amount of time needed to watch this and the next videos in this post.

From a post I submitted last year:


http://www.answeringmuslims.com/
On  June 18th, 2010, David Wood, Nabeel Qureshi, Negeen Mayel, and Paul  Rezkalla were arrested while having a peaceful discussion at the  Dearborn Arab Festival. This is a video of David and Nabeel discussing  their reasons for showing up at the festival.




Acts17.net
http://www.AnsweringMuslims.com/
Chief of Police: 313-943-2235
Mayor's Office: 313-943-2300
Mayor's Email: mayor@ci.dearborn.mi.us
Dearborn  Police and Mayor John C. O'Reilly have accused us of screaming at  Muslims, harassing them, and inciting a riot. What will they say in  response to video proof that they are wrong?

SOURCES:
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6-3X5hIFXYU
http://catholicnotebook.blogspot.com/2010/09/dearborn-michigan.html

A Call to Acton -- Christian Woman Faces Execution in Pakistan

Pakistani Christian woman, Asia Bibi 

Please read this NBC article and forward it to as many people as possible, asking them to send a letter to Pakistan's president and to President Obama, urging their immediate action to save this woman's life. 

There are email addresses and a sample email at the bottom of this post. 

The government of Pakistan, an alleged ally of the U.S. in the War on Terror, has sentenced a mother of 5 to death. Her crime worthy of execution? 

She is accused of speaking poorly about Muhammad, the Founder of Islam.

Aside from the fact that the charge hasn't been proven, this is a grave and glaring violation of basic human rights.

But where is the outrage from worldwide news agencies and human rights groups? Where are the feminists? Where is usual sermon about religious tolerance from our Nobel prize-winning President Obama? We saw a far greater outcry when some backwoods Florida pastor threatened to burn some copies of the Quran!

HERE IS THE ARTICLE - LINK AT END:

In early November, in the dusty city of Sheikhupura in Pakistan’s heartland, Asia Bibi, an illiterate Christian woman and mother of five, was sentenced to death by hanging under the country’s blasphemy laws.

Her crime? She allegedly insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

Almost immediately, the death sentence unleashed international condemnation, and put pressure on Pakistan’s government to overturn the verdict and amend the country’s blasphemy laws – a holdover from a 19th century penal code designed to protect minority religious sects during British colonial times.
The law was radicalized during the 1980’s under the military dictatorship of General Zia ul Haq. He imposed life sentences, even death, for blasphemy to appease the mullahs and legitimize his grip on power.

Pope Benedict XVI appealed for clemency but hard-line Islamic groups have threatened civil war if the government pardons Bibi or attempts to amend the law.

Bibi’s husband, 48-year-old Ashiq Masih, is desperate, convinced radical Islamic groups are aiming to kill the family. He has gone into hiding, along with his children, sheltered inside a Christian colony in an outlying district of Sheikhupura. Masih insists his wife was framed, a victim of old score-settling in their village of Ittan Walli, where his family was just one of two Christian families.

Anjum Naveed / AP

Ashif Masih, right, husband of Christian woman Asia Bibi who had been sentenced to death, and daughters Sidra Shahzadi and Isham Ashiq listen to Pakistani minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, unseen, during a meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan on Nov. 24.

“She was picking berries with other women, when she was sent to get water,” her husband said. “One of the women refused to drink the water after my wife dipped her cup into the bucket. This woman said it was contaminated because it was touched by a Christian.”
According to Masih, all the women then started taunting his wife, and shouting insults against her mother and their children. Bibi just repeated the same insults back at them. “The name of the holy prophet never came up.”

At the time, Masih said he thought that was the end of it. It wasn’t.
“Five days later, the local cleric came to our house, followed by an angry mob, and dragged my wife away,” he said, recalling the incident that took place in June 2009. They beat her, ripped off her clothes and accused her of insulting the prophet. Then they locked her up in a house until the police came to take her away.”

In an interview with NBC News, Qari Muhammed Salem, the local cleric in Ittan Walli, accused Masih of lying. “I talked to everyone who witnessed this incident and she is guilty,” he said. “She confessed to the crime in front of the entire village and then she begged for forgiveness,” he insisted.
“She even told me she said these things in rage during a heated argument and would never think of blasphemy,” he said. Salem said he called the police to lock her up, only to protect her, because the angry mob would have killed her.

Najma Yousaf, a sister of Bibi, still lives in the family home in Ittan Walli, a rural village of approximately 10,000 inhabitants, almost all Muslim. “I’m not afraid to live in our house,” she said. “The villagers are all very nice with me, my husband and our children. They are angry with my sister.”
Bibi, 45, is the first woman condemned to death under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. While no one has ever been executed, most of the accused – all men – languish in prison alone and forgotten.
Human rights groups point out that the law is a convenient way to settle scores, often among the Christian community who total about 2 million of Pakistan’s 175 million people.

In a statement released from New York, Human Rights Watch, called for Pakistan’s government to immediately introduce legislation to repeal the blasphemy laws.

“Asia Bibi has suffered greatly and should never have been put behind bars,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The injustice and fear the blasphemy law spawns will only cease when this heinous law is repealed.”

You can read the rest of the NBC article  HERE.
The article was written by NBC's Carol Grisanti and Fakhar ur Rehman

Please send in your emails and letters TODAY - right now. Call the White House, call your representatives. Do whatever you can.

Pakistan's President: publicmail@president.gov.pk

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: http://www.speaker.gov/contact/

President Obama: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

 In our family, we each sent this email to the White House, Pakistan's President (edited) and to Speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi)

As an American citizen, I have helped to contribute the billions of tax dollars that my country has provided to Pakistan's government and military.

Since Pakistan is supposedly our partner in the War on Terrorism, I am appalled that this ally is carrying out its own act of terrorism against an innocent mother of five children.

I refer to the scheduled execution of 48 year-old Bibi Hasih, a Christian woman who will be killed by Pakistan's government for the alleged crime of blasphemy unless you and others successfully intervene. Pakistan's abysmal human rights record is worsened by its hateful system of apartheid against Christians, other non-Muslim religious minorities, and women.

It is time for democratically elected leaders in the U.S. and Pakistan to get serious about human rights and combating terrorism. This case provides a high-profile opportunity to draw a clear picture of the difference between a free society and a theocratic dictatorship. I thank you for any efforts you will make on the behalf of Bibi and others.

Mohammad: Quotes from the the prophet

Qur’an:9:88 “The Messenger and those who believe with him, strive hard and fight with their wealth and lives in Allah’s Cause.”
Qur’an:9:5 “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”
Qur’an:9:112 “The Believers fight in Allah’s Cause, they slay and are slain, kill and are killed.”
Qur’an:9:29 “Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax in submission.”
Ishaq:325 “Muslims, fight in Allah’s Cause. Stand firm and you will prosper. Help the Prophet, obey him, give him your allegiance, and your religion will be victorious.”
Qur’an:8:39 “Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.”
Qur’an:8:39 “So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world).”
Ishaq:324 “He said, ‘Fight them so that there is no more rebellion, and religion, all of it, is for Allah only. Allah must have no rivals.’”
Qur’an:9:14 “Fight them and Allah will punish them by your hands, lay them low, and cover them with shame. He will help you over them.”
Ishaq:300 “I am fighting in Allah’s service. This is piety and a good deed. In Allah’s war I do not fear as others should. For this fighting is righteous, true, and good.”
Ishaq:587 “Our onslaught will not be a weak faltering affair. We shall fight as long as we live. We will fight until you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge. We will fight not caring whom we meet. We will fight whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains. We have mutilated every opponent. We have driven them violently before us at the command of Allah and Islam. We will fight until our religion is established. And we will plunder them, for they must suffer disgrace.”
Qur’an:8:65 “O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding.”
Ishaq:326 “Prophet exhort the believers to fight. If there are twenty good fighters they will defeat two hundred for they are a senseless people. They do not fight with good intentions nor for truth.”
Bukhari:V4B52N63 “A man whose face was covered with an iron mask came to the Prophet and said, ‘Allah’s Apostle! Shall I fight or embrace Islam first?’ The Prophet said, ‘Embrace Islam first and then fight.’ So he embraced Islam, and was martyred. Allah’s Apostle said, ‘A Little work, but a great reward.’”
Bukhari:V4B53N386 “Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah alone or pay us the Jizyah tribute tax in submission. Our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says: ‘Whoever amongst us is killed as a martyr shall go to Paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever survives shall become your master.’”
Muslim:C34B20N4668 “The Messenger said: ‘Anybody who equips a warrior going to fight in the Way of Allah is like one who actually fights. And anybody who looks after his family in his absence is also like one who actually fights.”
Qur’an:9:38 “Believers, what is the matter with you, that when you are asked to go forth and fight in Allah’s Cause you cling to the earth? Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? Unless you go forth, He will afflict and punish you with a painful doom, and put others in your place.”
Qur’an:9:123 “Fight the unbelievers around you, and let them find harshness in you.”
Qur’an:8:72 “Those who accepted Islam and left their homes to fight in Allah’s Cause with their possessions and persons, and those who gave (them) asylum, aid, and shelter, those who harbored them—these are allies of one another. You are not responsible for protecting those who embraced Islam but did not leave their homes [to fight] until they do so.” [Another translation reads:] “You are only called to protect Muslims who fight.”
Muslim:C9B1N31 “I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and believe in me (that) I am the Messenger and in all that I have brought.”
Bukhari:V9B84N59 “Whoever says this will save his property and life from me.’”
Qur’an:8:73 “The unbelieving infidels are allies. Unless you (Muslims) aid each other (fighting as one united block to make Allah’s religion victorious), there will be confusion and mischief. Those who accepted Islam, left their homes to fight in Allah’s Cause (al-Jihad), as well as those who give them asylum, shelter, and aid—these are (all) Believers: for them is pardon and bountiful provision (in Paradise).”
Tabari IX:69 “Arabs are the most noble people in lineage, the most prominent, and the best in deeds. We were the first to respond to the call of the Prophet. We are Allah’s helpers and the viziers of His Messenger. We fight people until they believe in Allah. He who believes in Allah and His Messenger has protected his life and possessions from us. As for one who disbelieves, we will fight him forever in the Cause of Allah. Killing him is a small matter to us.”
Qur’an:48:16 “Say (Muhammad) to the wandering desert Arabs who lagged behind: ‘You shall be invited to fight against a people given to war with mighty prowess. You shall fight them until they surrender and submit. If you obey, Allah will grant you a reward, but if you turn back, as you did before, He will punish you with a grievous torture.”
Qur’an:48:22 “If the unbelieving infidels fight against you, they will retreat. (Such has been) the practice (approved) of Allah in the past: no change will you find in the ways of Allah.”
Qur’an:47:4 “When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle (fighting Jihad in Allah’s Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives. Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam.”
Qur’an:47:31 “And We shall try you until We know those among you who are the fighters.”
Tabari VI:138 “Those present at the oath of Aqabah had sworn an allegiance to Muhammad. It was a pledge of war against all men. Allah had permitted fighting.”
Tabari VI:139 “Allah had given his Messenger permission to fight by revealing the verse ‘And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah.’”
Qur’an:9:19 “Do you make the giving of drink to pilgrims, or the maintenance of the Mosque, equal to those who fight in the Cause of Allah? They are not comparable in the sight of Allah. Those who believe, and left their homes, striving with might, fighting in Allah’s Cause with their goods and their lives, have the highest rank in the sight of Allah.”
Ishaq:550 “The Muslims met them with their swords. They cut through many arms and skulls. Only confused cries and groans could be heard over our battle roars and snarling.”
Qur’an:5:94 “Believers, Allah will make a test for you in the form of a little game in which you reach out for your lances. Any who fails this test will have a grievous punishment.”
Ishaq:578 “Crushing the heads of the infidels and splitting their skulls with sharp swords, we continually thrust and cut at the enemy. Blood gushed from their deep wounds as the battle wore them down. We conquered bearing the Prophet’s fluttering war banner. Our cavalry was submerged in rising dust, and our spears quivered, but by us the Prophet gained victory.”
Tabari IX:22 “The Prophet continued to besiege the town, fighting them bitterly.”
Tabari IX:25 “By Allah, I did not come to fight for nothing. I wanted a victory over Ta’if so that I might obtain a slave girl from them and make her pregnant.”
Tabari IX:82 “The Messenger sent Khalid with an army of 400 to Harith [a South Arabian tribe] and ordered him to invite them to Islam for three days before he fought them. If they were to respond and submit, he was to teach them the Book of Allah, the Sunnah of His Prophet, and the requirements of Islam. If they should decline, then he was to fight them.”
Tabari IX:88 “Abdallah Azdi came to the Messenger, embraced Islam, and became a good Muslim. Allah’s Apostle invested Azdi with the authority over those who had surrendered and ordered him to fight the infidels from the tribes of Yemen. Azdi left with an army by the Messenger’s command. The Muslims besieged them for a month. Then they withdrew, setting a trap. When the Yemenites went in pursuit, Azdi was able to inflict a heavy loss on them.”
Ishaq:530 “Get out of his way, you infidel unbelievers. Every good thing goes with the Apostle. Lord, I believe in his word. We will fight you about its interpretations as we have fought you about its revelation with strokes that will remove heads from shoulders and make enemies of friends.”
Muslim:C9B1N29 “Command For Fighting Against People So Long As They Do Not Profess That There Is No Ilah (God) But Allah And Muhammad Is His Messenger: When the Messenger breathed his last and Bakr was appointed Caliph, many Arabs chose to become apostates [rejected Islam]. Abu Bakr said: ‘I will definitely fight against anyone who stops paying the Zakat tax, for it is an obligation. I will fight against them even to secure the cord used for hobbling the feet of a camel which they used to pay if they withhold it now.’ Allah had justified fighting against those who refused to pay Zakat.”
Muslim:C9B1N33 “The Prophet said: ‘I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and they establish prostration prayer, and pay Zakat. If they do it, their blood and property are protected.’”
Muslim:C10B1N176 “Muhammad (may peace be upon him) sent us in a raiding party. We raided Huraqat in the morning. I caught hold of a man and he said: ‘There is no god but Allah,’ but I attacked him with a spear anyway. It once occurred to me that I should ask the Apostle about this. The Messenger said: ‘Did he profess “There is no god but Allah,” and even then you killed him?’ I said: ‘He made a profession out of the fear of the weapon I was threatening him with.’ The Prophet said: ‘Did you tear out his heart in order to find out whether it had professed truly or not?’”
Muslim:C20B1N4597 “The Prophet said at the conquest of Mecca: ‘There is no migration now, but only Jihad, fighting for the Cause of Islam. When you are asked to set out on a Jihad expedition, you should readily do so.’”
Muslim:C28B20N4628 “Allah has undertaken to provide for one who leaves his home to fight for His Cause and to affirm the truth of His word; Allah will either admit him to Paradise or will bring him back home with his reward and booty.”
Muslim:C28B20N4629 “The Messenger said: ‘One who is wounded in the Way of Allah—and Allah knows best who is wounded in His Way—will appear on the Day of Judgment with his wound still bleeding. The color (of its discharge) will be blood, (but) its smell will be musk.’”
Muslim:C34B20N4652-3 “The Merit Of Jihad And Of Keeping Vigilance Over The Enemy: A man came to the Holy Prophet and said: ‘Who is the best of men?’ He replied: ‘A man who fights staking his life and spending his wealth in Allah’s Cause.’”
Muslim:C42B20N4684 “A desert Arab came to the Prophet and said: ‘Messenger, one man fights for the spoils of war; another fights that he may be remembered, and one fights that he may see his (high) position (achieved as a result of his valor in fighting). Which of these is fighting in the Cause of Allah?’ The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Who fights so that the word of Allah is exalted is fighting in the Way of Allah.’”
Muslim:C53B20N4717 “The Prophet said: ‘This religion will continue to exist, and a group of people from the Muslims will continue to fight for its protection until the Hour is established.’”
Bukhari:V5B59N288 “I witnessed a scene that was dearer to me than anything I had ever seen. Aswad came to the Prophet while Muhammad was urging the Muslims to fight the pagans. He said, ‘We shall fight on your right and on your left and in front of you and behind you.’ I saw the face of the Prophet getting bright with happiness, for that saying delighted him.”
Bukhari:V5B59N290 “The believers who did not join the Ghazwa [Islamic raid or invasion] and those who fought are not equal in reward.”
Qur’an:2:193 “Fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief) and religion is only for Allah. But if they cease/desist, let there be no hostility except against infidel disbelievers.”
Qur’an:2:217 “They question you concerning fighting in the sacred month. Say: ‘Fighting therein is a grave (matter); but to prevent access to Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, to expel its members, and polytheism are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they make you renegades from your religion. If any of you turn back and die in unbelief, your works will be lost and you will go to Hell. Surely those who believe and leave their homes to fight in Allah’s Cause have the hope of Allah’s mercy.”
Qur’an:2:244 “Fight in Allah’s Cause, and know that Allah hears and knows all.”

Pray for Arshed Masih and His Family - a Martyr in Our Time

After reading the story I have copied below,  I began following the comments over at Patrick Madrid's blog and FB page. There was a recommendation to read Belloc's book on heresies. The commenter, Alicia Huntley, said, "his chapter on the heresy of Mohammed is so eerily familiar . . . . . I recommend this book to those who would like a historical perspective."  I think I will take her advice.

I had just read this:

Saturday, March 20, 2010 (12:06 pm)

By BosNewsLife Asia Service reporting from Pakistan

RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)-- A Christian man was fighting for his life in Pakistan's Punjab province Saturday, March 20, after Muslim leaders backed by police burned him alive for refusing to convert to Islam, while his wife was raped by police officers, Christian and hospital sources familiar with the case told BosNewsLife.

Arshed Masih was burned Friday, March 19, in front of a police station in the city of Rawalpindi near Pakistan's capital Islamabad, following apparent death threats from his Muslim employer Sheikh Mohammad Sultan, an influential businessman, and religious leaders, said the Rawalpindi Holy Family Hospital.

His wife, Martha Arshed, was allegedly raped by police officers. Their three children -- ranging in age from 7 to 12--  were reportedly forced to witness the attacks against their parents.

"Both [Masih] and wife were rushed to the Holy Family Hospital and are under treatment," the hospital said.

He was listed in serious condition with about 80 percent of his body burned. (A later article states that he is not expected to live)

POLICE INVESTIGATION

Local police officials said they were "aware" of the attacks carried out by Muslim leaders and apparently at least some officers and added that an investigation was underway. No arrests were reported yet late Saturday, March 19.

Sheikh Mohammad Sultan could not immediately be reached for comment and it was not clear whether he had been in contact with police Saturday, March 20.

Before tensions emerged about their Christian faith, Masih worked as a driver and his wife as a maid for the Muslim businessman since 2005, Christians said.

The couple apparently lived with their children in the servant quarters of Sultan's estate in Rawalpindi, a key trade and tourist destination. In January, religious leaders and Sultan allegedly asked Arshed to convert to Islam with his whole family.  After he refused, the group reportedly threatened him with "dire consequences".

DEATH THREAT
Arshed offered to quit his job, but the businessman allegedly said he would "kill" him if he were to leave.
He apparently also told Christian mediators that he would never allow the Christian family to live somewhere else.

Whole article here.

SOURCES:
http://patrickmadrid.blogspot.com/2010/03/heroic-christians-pay-terrible-price.html
BosNewsLife

Do You Know What Textbooks Your Children Are Really Reading?

H/T to Thoughts from a Conservative Mom 

Diversification Training Seminar

Last month I attended my annual training session that's required for my job. During the training session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Muslim faiths, who explained each of their beliefs.

I was particularly interested in what the Islamic Imam had to say. The Imam gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with video.

After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers.

When it was my turn, I directed my questions to the Imam and asked: "Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad (Holy War) against the infidel (which is a command to all Muslims) they are assured of a place in Heaven. If that's the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?'

There was no disagreement with my statements and, without hesitation, he replied, 'Non-believers!'

I responded, 'So, let us make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can have a place in heaven. Is that correct?'

The expression on his face changed. He replied, 'yes.'

I then stated, 'Well sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine Pope Benedict XVI commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or the Archbishop of Canterbury ordering all Anglicans to do the same in order to guarantee them a place in heaven!'

The Imam was speechless!

I continued, 'I also have a problem with being your 'friend' when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me! Let me ask you a question. Would you rather have your Allah, who tells you to kill me in order for you to go to heaven, or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to heaven and He wants you to be there with me?'

You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head in shame. Needless to say, the organizers and/or promoters of the 'diversification' training seminar were not happy with this way of dealing with the Islamic Imam and exposing the truth about Muslim beliefs.

Written by Anon.
H/T to View From the Pews

Interesting fact: The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion in Australia.