Free Republic

For better and worse, Italy has long been the political and cultural laboratory of the Western world. From the glory days of Rome, through the Renaissance and the various nation-states, into the experiment at nation building that is still very much a work in progress, Italy has tried out the best and the worst in us. ‘snip’ Like the rest of us, the Italians have a jihadi problem, and they have it for the usual reason: For a long time they refused to acknowledge the problem existed, and now they are trapped in a political and cultural web of political...

Robert Spencer has written five books about Islam. His newest book is "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)." The following are excerpts of a telephone interview with Mr. Spencer. Question: Why did you write this book? Answer: I wrote this book in order to counteract a lot of politically correct falsehood about Islam and terrorism that are hindering our response to this problem. Q: You've written several books on Islam before. What's different about this one? A: Obviously, it contains different information in an approach that I haven't taken before. It discusses the Crusades, which I've never...

The slaughter in London is another grisly wake-up call that likely will go as unheeded as earlier ones. Already the standard narrative is being trotted out: evildoers created by what the New York Times predictably called the “root causes of terrorism”: autocracy, or economic stagnation, or Palestinian suffering, or globalization's dislocations, or Western historical sins, or the war in Iraq (the cause will depend on the political prejudices of the pundit) have “hijacked” Islam and distorted its peaceful message. And now they are using Islam to justify murder in order to further their own ambitions or dysfunctional psychic needs. Given...

If there is one thing that everybody knows about the Crusades, it is that they were a Bad Thing. In the eyes even of most Christians, let alone others, the Crusades were a crime against humanity, one for which apologies are due, especially to Muslims. President Bush's early reference to the war on terror as a "crusade" was seen as a catastrophic blunder, justifying the accusations of Osama bin Laden and other Islamists who habitually refer to their enemies as "crusaders," with all the negative connotations the word now possesses. Condemnation of the Crusades is based on the premise that...

School Changing Nickname, Mascot After Islamic Protest POSTED: 9:34 am EDT June 14, 2005 HINESBURG, Vt. -- The Crusaders of Champlain Valley Union High are now history. The School Board in the Vermont community is selecting a new nickname and mascot for the school. The Islamic world has criticized the Crusades. And closer to home, some people object to a knight bearing a crucifix as the symbol for a public school. The image makeover will be implemented in time for the next school year. Redhawks, Bobcats and Red Wolves are all in the running for Union High's new nickname.

Not quite three weeks after the film's release we can say one thing for sure: the First Crusade was much more successful than Ridley Scott's movie. I was stunned to hear Islamic anti-defamation groups condemn Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven." The Muslims appear much nobler than the Christians in the film, and on the Christian side the only remotely sympathetic characters are at best agnostic. Jonathan Riley-Smith, an expert on the Crusades, described the movie as "rubbish" for just this reason - the film, he says, is "not historically accurate at all" in its depiction of "the Muslims as sophisticated and...

The Kingdom of Self-Hate Kingdom of Heaven is spectacular, silly, historically inaccurate, unwittingly funny, badly scripted, and pretentious. So far, so conventional, you may say: just another Hollywood big-budget yarn a la DeMille and Troy. What makes Ridley Scott's epic about the Crusades different is a political message more insidious than the standard leftist-revisionist pap we've been fed by Tinseltown for decades. That message is that, in a conflict between Christians and Muslims, the former attack, the latter react. The true hero of the movie is Saladin, a wise warrior-king sans peur et sans reproche; its villains, the coarse and...

The alleged desecration of a single copy of the Koran sends deadly Muslim mobs into the streets, creates howls from Muslim governments and gathers condemnation mixed with groveling from the U.S. Government and mainstream media. The actual Muslim destruction of Christian churches, this year, in Iraq, Kosovo, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria is met with silence. Apparently, moral equivalency for desecration isn’t moral or equivalent. The same holds true for Jihads and Crusades. Americans are lectured endlessly that ‘Jihad’ means a personal struggle to subject oneself to godliness. Yet, 300 Muslim clerics in Tajikistan outraged with the one Koran tidy bowl...

If straight talk of savagery offends you, if you believe in ethnic and gender diversity but not diversity of thought or if you think there is an acceptable gray area between good and evil, then turn to the funny pages, and take the children, too. This piece is not for you. We published pictures Thursday of burnt American corpses hanging from an Iraqi bridge behind a mob of grinning Muslims. Some readers didn’t like it. Mothers said it frightened their children. A woman who works with Muslim physicians thought it might offend or endanger them. Well, we sure don’t want...

Kingdom of Heaven: Propaganda or History? by James F. Burke New Republican Archive After the anti-Christian Left was blind-sided by the popularity of Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, key influencers in the media complex were eager to promote the release of Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. Indeed, one finds the loudest praise for the film coming from the pages of the most radical left-wing papers and journals here in the U.S. and, of course, in Europe. Why then is turnout so high here in the U.S.? Viewers hoping for a more positive (or at least less anti-Christian) take on...

Kingdom of Heaven is spectacular, silly, historically inaccurate, unwittingly funny, badly scripted, and pretentious. So far, so conventional, you may say: just another Hollywood big-budget yarn a la DeMille and Troy. What makes Ridley Scott’s epic about the Crusades different is a political message more insidious than the standard leftist-revisionist pap we’ve been fed by Tinseltown for decades. That message is that, in a conflict between Christians and Muslims, the former attack, the latter react. The true hero of the movie is Saladin, a wise warrior-king sans peur et sans reproche; its villains, the coarse and bloodthirsty Knights Templar. The...

History and Big ScreenFawaz Turki, disinherited@yahoo.comWhen they go to the movies to see a feature dealing with their part of the world, Arabs are predisposed to think the worst: Here we go again, some wretched Hollywood filmmaker is out to besmirch our name, distort our history and degrade our identity. Well, folks, when you stand in line to buy a ticket to “Kingdom of Heaven,” the much anticipated big budget epic about the clash of Islam and Christendom, set between the second and third Crusades in the 12th century, directed by the legendary Ridley Scott (“Gladiator”), don’t be. The film...

If you want to learn something about the Crusades, stay as far away from Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven as you can. There's more historical accuracy in The Lord of the Rings, which took place in a world that never existed. On the other hand, if you just want to see some big medieval battle scenes and eat popcorn while absorbing Scott's obvious message, then this one's for you. Kingdom of Heaven is the story of Christian zealots inciting a war against the innocent Muslims because their bloodthirsty God wants them to kill infidels. Sound like a familiar lament from...

Despite initial controversy surrounding "The Kingdom of Heaven," Ridley Scott's new film about the Crusades, it is getting generally positive reviews from Muslims in the United States and in Arab countries. "It was really nice to go into a movie and feel so dignified, not feeling that you have to be ashamed or anything and feel proud of your history and your heritage," said Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Council of American-Islamic Relations, after seeing the film, which opened May 7. Laila al-Qatami of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Center in Washington also walked away happy. "He provided a...

Main April 28, 2005 WHITEWASH: THE CAIR SEAL OF APPROVAL Via LGF, we learn that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has given its seal of approval to Ridley Scott's new Crusader epic, Kingdom of Heaven. Unindicted spokesman for CAIR: "Muslims are shown as dignified & proud people whose lives are based on ethics & morality." Who is CAIR? Founded 1994 by former officials of Islamic Association for Palestine,  Hamas front group. Exec. Director Nihad Awad declared himself Hamas supporter in 1994. Cofounder Omas Ahmad praised suicide bombers & said "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any...

Christianity Today, Week of May 2 The Real History of the Crusades A series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics? Think again. by Thomas F. Madden | posted 05/06/2005 09:00 a.m. With the possible exception of Umberto Eco, medieval scholars are not used to getting much media attention. We tend to be a quiet lot (except during the annual bacchanalia we call the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of all places), poring over musty chronicles and writing dull yet meticulous studies that few will read. Imagine, then, my surprise...

These days it seems that whenever Hollywood meets history, history gets the squeeze. Last year "King Arthur," "Troy" and "Alexander" were put through the revisionist wringer. Today it's the factually challenged movie "Kingdom of Heaven" whose historical content appears to have been schmushed. "Kingdom of Heaven"'s director Ridley Scott recently took a cue from Cecil B. DeMille and chose the Crusades as the subject of his latest epic. This is the same fellow who brought us "Gladiator" and "Blade Runner," which makes me wonder: How did a talented filmmaker like Scott get stuck with an incoherent script like this? It's...

Within several centuries of Muhammad’s death in 632 C.E., based upon the “proto-jihad” campaigns he waged in Arabia, Muslim jurists and theologians formulated the institution of permanent jihad war against non-Muslims for the submission of the known world to Islam. The essential pattern of the jihad war is captured in the great Muslim historian al-Tabari’s recording of the recommendation given by Umar b. al-Khattab to the commander of the troops he sent to al-Basrah (636 C.E.), during the conquest of Iraq. Umar (the second “Rightly Guided Caliph”) reportedly said: [7] Summon the people to God; those who respond to your...

The Crusades: The truth makes a difference Christians obligated to keep alive the real facts of real history Nearly 250 people showed up at the John Paul II Center last week — double the number we expected — for a history lesson. They filled the seats, lined the walls and then spilled out of Rooms 123-125 and jammed the corridor outside. Why did they show up? They came to hear a talk about the Crusades. But why did they really show up? I think they wanted to recover something they sensed had been stolen from them: their memory. Anyone who...

“Kingdom of Heaven”: Bin Laden’s Slanted Crusade Movie May 5, 2005 By Debbie Schlussel Mark Twain said, “History tells us that the truth is not hard to kill, but a lie told well is immortal.” “Kingdom of Heaven,” Ridley Scott’s extremely boring movie version of the Crusades, is Twain’s words in action. Scott is serial killer of truth—giving immortality to 1,000 lies—in this propaganda film. The wannabe-epic is being panned for its lack of accuracy by a host of Islam experts, like Robert Spencer. Crusades expert Jonathan Riley-Smith says it’s basically “Osama bin Laden’s version of History.” But the folks...