Muslims To Christians: Make Peace Or Else

Islam has a long history of imperialism and bloody conquest against non-Islamic cultures. Cases in point include the unprovoked invasion and conquest of the classical Mediterranean cultures (Carthage, Egypt) of North Africa through the sixth and early seventh centuries and the equally unprovoked invasion of Spain in 715. This invasion continued until Charles Martel's victory in 732 at the Battle of Tours halted Islam's attempt to conquer Europe. Other examples include the Mughal conquest of India, the destruction in 1453 of the ancient Christian kingdom of Byzantium (today known as Turkey) despite Byzantium's history of cooperating with Islamic kingdoms and the Ottoman invasion of Europe that ended before the walls of Vienna in 1683. Sandwiched in betweem were many more Muslim invasions of Europe. Compare this with no Christian invasions of native Islamic land (the Crusades did not invade any historically Muslim land- Jerusalem was not historically a Muslim city).

Contrast this bloody march of conquest with Christianity's history- a religion that spread from the slaves through the middle and upper classes and finally came to be the faith of kings. At very few times in Christianity's history can one find examples of conversion by force, and nowhere can Christianity match Islam's bloody record of destroying civilizations and converting entire populations by the sword. Although Christian kings fought viciously against each other, there was never any concerted attempt by the Christian powers to destroy of even invade Islamic heartlands, despite the great provocation given by the repeated Muslim attemtps to conquer Europe. While this was probably due more to the nature of political infighting amongst the Western leaders than anything else, it is significant that no Pope or Emperor ever tried, aside from the Crusades, which wree primarily to aid Byzantium and recapture the holy city of Jerusalem.

With this history, does it not seem strange that 138 leading Islamic scholars have sent a letter pleading for Christians and Muslims to make peace to many leading Christian leaders? According to the United Kingdom's Evening Standard,

Prominent Muslim scholars are warning that the "survival of the world" is at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace with each other.
In an unprecedented open letter signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars from every sect of Islam, the Muslims plead with Christian leaders "to come together with us on the common essentials of our two religions."

...

The Muslim scholars state: "As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes."
The phrasing has similarities to the New Testament passage: "He that is not with me is against me" - a passage used by President George Bush when addressing a joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11.

The hypocrisy in this letter is towering. Firstly, the Muslim scholars claim if Islam and Christianity do not make peace the "survival of the world is at stake". This sounds suspiciously like a threat to me. Secondly, they claim that Islam is not against Christians. Really? Then why are all the atttacks against Christians, Americans and other non-Islamic peoples always clothed in religious motives. bin Laden and the zealots of al-Quaeda and Hezbollah have never been shy at proclaiming their religious motivation. However, the Muslim scholars pass this point with no comment and proceed to say that "as long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion..." Did the Muslim scholars somehow miss the fact that the current war, at least according to American leadership, has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam as a whole? American leaders have been careful to state that they are waging war against the miscreants who bombed the World Trade Center and the states who have aided them. This includes Saddam Hussein's Iraq. At no point has any American leader called this war a fight against Islam. It has been called a war on terror and various other names, but never has it been cast as a war against Islam. Only the Islamics we are fighting have cast it in religious terms.

And that brings up a second point. Certain elements of Islam started this war, not the West. The West, in particular the United States, has actually fought for Muslims, both in Bosnia and in the Middle East. US soldiers were stationed in Saudi Arabia at the request of Saudi leadership to protect them against fellow Muslim Saddam Hussein. US soldiers also liberated Kuwait (a Muslim country) from Iraq (another Muslim country) in the First Gulf War. And the United States supported the (Muslim) mujahadeen who helped drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.

To me this smacks of the classic Islamic idea that when one is being defeated, it is acceptable to call for a truce, which should be used to rearm and refresh oneself before continuing the battle. And this seems more evidence that the United States is currently winning the war against Islamic fundamentalism, if leading Islamic scholars are calling for a truce. I hope and trust that the Christian leaders to whom this letter is addressed treat it with the appropriate solemnity- they drop it in the nearest wastebin. I believe that there are essentially only two kinds of peace- the kind of a resounding victory and the kind of defeat and submission. Detente falls into the 'peace through strength' category, as it is enforced by a willingness to fight for one's beliefs. Which kind do we want?

If Islam truly wants peace with Christians, perhaps they could abandon the anti-Christian rhetoric issuing from so many mosques around the world. Perhaps Saudi Arabia could discontinue its sponsorship of the radical, anti-American Wahhabi sect, which preaches violence against America. Perhaps Muslim nations could eliminate their anti-Bible laws, and no longer execute Muslims who wish to convert from their barbarous religion to one that is kinder and gentler. Perhaps Islam could begin an honest debate about how seriously the Koran should be taken. Perhaps Muslim nations should do a better job preventing Muslim fanatics from executing people memerly for the crime of being non-Muslim. Perhaps Islamic nations should actually offer protection to the non-Muslims who live in their midst, instead of encouraging the medievalist who want them dead. And most of all, perhaps Muslim nations can cease their autocratic leadership practices and give their people some real rights, along with disposing of the medieval notion that women are merely baby factories. if the people were to be granted some enlightened leadership, then perhaps the fundamentalists would be less successful in their proselytizing.

Christian nations are perfectly ready to live in peace with Islam. But we are not willing to live in the kind of peace that Islam too often brings- the peace of submission and dhimmitude. If Islam is willing to renounce its violent and imperialist tendencies towards us, we are perfectly happy to live side-by-side. But we will not tolerate any further attempts to conquer us, and Islam has made too many of these attempts for this poor writer to trust them any further than needs be. I can only hope our leaders are similarly wary, for I do not wish to live under sharia. Not now, and not ever.

Rediscovering Faith In the Face of Evil

Islam has always yearned to own and control the ancient lands of Europe. They have tried many, many times to conquer the West, beginning in 715 with the invasion of Spain and most recently in front of Vienna in 1683. With nuclear weapons, a vast population and a new generation of leaders who see the West as weak, sonner or later they may well succeed. The question is, what should the West, principally the United States, do about these barbarians?

Writing in the American Conservative, James Pinkerton has an audacious answer- revive Christendom and make a Council of the West to defend Christians around the world from the rapacious and bloody grasp of Islam. Channleing JRR Tolkien, Pinkerton suggests that the West take a page from the Council of Elrond, which brought together the races and groups- Men, Elves, Hobbitts- who opposed the evil of Sauron. Pinkerton proposes that the West do something similar to forge a grand council to oppose Islam and secure the West, while leaving the East to do what it will. Pinkerton writes,

Two years ago, the Eurocrats in Brussels drafted a 300-page EU constitution that consciously omitted reference to Europe’s specifically Christian heritage. The voters of France, as well as Holland, rejected that secular document.

Maybe there’s a lesson here. The people of Europe might not be so eager, after all, to declare that they are “united in diversity.” What does that phrase mean, anyway? How about trying to find something that unites Europeans in unity? How about a revival of Christendom as a concept—as a political concept? A revival, or at least a remembrance, of Europe’s cultural heritage could be the healing force that Europe needs.

After all, it worked in the past. In the words of the 19th-century French historian Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, the victory of Christianity marked “the end of ancient society”—and all the petty divisions that went with it. Fustel de Coulanges continues, “Man felt that he had other obligations besides that of living and dying for the city. Christianity distinguished the private from the public virtues. By giving less honor to the latter, it elevated the former; it placed God, the family, the human individual above country, the neighbor above the city.”

As history proves, a larger communion can be built on such sentiments. In the 9th century, Alcuin of York declared that the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Holy Roman Emperor would bring forth a new Imperium Christianum. Ten centuries later, Hilaire Belloc asserted, “The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith.” Indeed, during those many centuries, Europe enjoyed a pretty good run. Only in the last century—the century of atheists, psychiatrists, and National Socialists—has Europe’s survivability come into question. Today, the Christian author Os Guiness puts the issue plainly: “A Europe cut off from its spiritual roots cannot survive.”

Some will smile at the thought that Christianity might be part of the solution to the problems of the Third Millennium. Admittedly, there’s an element of faith in the idea of trying to revive the idea of Christian unity. But Christendom is the Shire Strategy, applied.

But what about the groups who are neither Christian nor Mulsim? What about the Buddhist Chinese, Japanese and Korean? What about the Hindi Indians? These groups also are threatened by resurgent Islam. As the Indians know, Islam has no preferences- India was under the Muslim Mughal emperors for centuries. Pinkerton suggests that as long as Christians do not seek to expand their own lands by conquest, then Christians, Buddhists and Hindus can work together to surround Islam and force it to stay within it's own boundaries. As he says,

No matter what we say or do, the blocs of Hindus, Chinese, and Japanese are all going their separate cultural ways, rediscovering their own unique heritages. And Islam, of course, is at odds with all of its neighbors. In his book a decade ago, Huntington, mindful of the indirect danger posed by American universalism, was even more mindful of the direct danger posed by Muslims: “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards,” he writes. “Muslim bellicosity and violence are late-twentieth century facts which neither Muslims nor non-Muslims can deny.” That’s bad news, but there’s a silver lining: if Westerners, Russians, Africans, Hindus, and Chinese all feel threatened by Islam—and they all do—there’s plenty of opportunity for a larger encircling alliance, with an eye toward feasible strategies of containment, even quarantine. But not conquest, not occupation, not “liberation.”

Not everyone will agree with Pinkerton- for example, I suspect that the West is less reliable than the Anglosphere, but his suggestions are certainly a possibility, if only Europe will raise its collective head from the sands and realize the danger in which it stands. The Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom's greatest church, was turned into a mosque on the Muslim capture of Christian Constantinople in 1453. Today, it is a museum, but Chirstians are not permitted to worship within its hallowed walls. Could we face Muslims worshipping in the halls of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome? Diversity and multiculturalism are a recipe for cultural suicide in the face of an Islam that thinks it is finally in position to destroy the one region that has always resisted it and has surpassed it so badly in ther last few centuries. If the West does nto awake, there won't be a West. Freedom of press, dress, behavior and the ability to worship as one chooses are integral to the West. They are anathem to Islam.

Read the whole thing and make your own decision. One way or another, we will be faced with a murderous and religiously inspired Islamic world against us sooner or alter. How we deal with it will determine whether we survive or not. Hat tip to Jerry Pournelle.

Dhimmitude Creep

I have never understood why Christians should be expected to be submissive to Muslims. It was not Christianity that has spent over a thousand years murdering its way across two continents. It is not Christianity that has tried time and again to conquer ancestral homelands of Muslims. On the contrary, Islam has a bloodier record and a longer history of imperialism than any single other organized group of belief.

However, this appears to be unknown to at least one Christian official. Bishop Tiny Muskins of Breda in the Netherlands has suggested that Christians should call God 'Allah' to "foster understanding".

This has to be the most ridiculous suggestion I have heard yet. Why don't you renounce your diocese, Bishop Muskins, give up your raiment and become a practicing Muslim? This is what you are suggesting, that Christians should basically convert to Islam. I think the response by one of the Bishop's potential parishioners is the best.

"Sure. Lets call God Allah. Lets then call a church a mosque and pray five times a day. Ramadan sounds like fun," Welmoet Koppenhol wrote in a letter to the newspaper."

I couldn't have said it better myself. If you are determined to become a dhimmi, then I would be the last to stop you. But if you, like me, believe that Western culture and history contains far more shining examples of goodness than does Islam, then we need to stand up and defend our own civilization. Islam, save for a short period in the Middle Ages, has always been a barbarous religion, displaying neither mercy nor equality to anyone other than its own. Christianity, on the other hand, has a long history of tolerance, though like most other religions, it also has its dark stains- the Inquisition come to mind relatively quickly.

Islam is determined to conquer the world. It has tried many, many times before and the current popularity of al-Quaeda and other similar organizations indicate that jihad and imperialism once again are popular with many Muslims. Only a strong defense , both verbally and militarily will overcome this jihadist fervor. We have a culture and history to be proud of. Our nations are responsible for many gifts to the world, including the ideas of equality and freedom- something Islam cannot claim. We do not live under Sharia, and the only way to ensure we never do is to promote our own culture- not denigrate it to "reduce tensions". We did not start this- Islam did. It is their responsibility to "reduce tensions", not ours.

Hat tip to SFB.

The Historical Bible

Well, it appears that despite hopes on the left side of the aisle, the Bible does actually qualify as history. According to Matt Drudge, sewer workmen found the biblical Pool of Siloam today in Jerusalem- "exactly where John said it was" according to the Princeton Theological Seminary's James H. Charlesworth. The Pool of Siloam was where Jesus reportedly cured a man who was blind from birth.

This leads me to wonder how many other items in the bible are also historically accurate. Some, such as the Zionist rebellion against the Romans that culminated in the destruction of Herod's Temple (and much of Jerusalem), are known to have occurred. Others remain in the realm of faith. However, with the discovery of the Pool of Siloam, and the excavation of Hezekiah's Tunnel perhaps even committed secularists may give at least some credence to the Biblical authors' accuracy.