Posted on 12/29/2017 3:40:53 AM PST by SJackson
Reprinted from PJ Media.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
To understand any phenomenon, its roots must first be understood. Unfortunately, not only do all discussions on the conflict between Islam and the West tend to be limited to the modern era, but when the past, the origins, are alluded to, the antithesis of reality is proffered: we hear that the West—itself an anachronism for Europe, or better yet, Christendom—began the conflict by intentionally demonizing otherwise peaceful and tolerant Muslims and their prophet in order to justify their “colonial” aspirations in the East, which supposedly began with the Crusades.
Bestselling author on Islam and Christianity Karen Armstrong summarizes the standard view:
Ever since the Crusades, people in the west have seen the prophet Muhammad as a sinister figure…. The scholar monks of Europe stigmatised Muhammad as a cruel warlord who established the false religion of Islam by the sword. They also, with ill-concealed envy, berated him as a lecher and sexual pervert at a time when the popes were attempting to impose celibacy on the reluctant clergy.
That nothing could be further from the truth is an understatement. From the very first Christian references to Muslims in the seventh century, to Pope Urban’s call to the First Crusade more than four centuries later, the “Saracens” and their prophet were consistently abhorred.
Thus, writing around 650, John of Nikiu, Egypt, said that “Muslims”—the Copt is apparently the first non-Muslim to note that word—were not just “enemies of God” but adherents of “the detestable doctrine of the beast, that is, Mohammed.”[1] The oldest parchment that alludes to a warlike prophet was written in 634—a mere two years after Muhammad’s death. It has a man asking a learned Jewish scribe what he knows about “the prophet who has appeared among the Saracens.” The elderly man, “with much groaning,” responded: “He is deceiving. For do prophets come with swords and chariot? Verily, these events of today are works of confusion…. you will discover nothing true from the said prophet except human bloodshed.”[2] Others confirmed that “there was no truth to be found in the so-called prophet, only the shedding of men’s blood. He says also that he has the keys of paradise, which is incredible.”[3]
Muhammad is first mentioned by name in a Syriac fragment, also written around 634; although only scattered phrases are intelligible, they all revolve around bloodshed: “many villages [in Homs] were ravaged by the killing [of the followers] of Muhammad and many people were slain and [taken] prisoner from Galilee to Beth…” “[S]ome ten thousand” people were slaughtered in “the vicinity of Damascus…”[4] Writing around 640, Thomas the Presbyter mentions Muhammad: “there was a battle [Adjnadyn?] between the Romans and the Arabs of Muhammad in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled… Some 4,000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there … The Arabs ravaged the whole region”; they even “climbed the mountain of Mardin and killed many monks there in the monasteries of Qedar and Bnata.” A Coptic homily, also written around the 640s, is apparently the earliest account to associate the invaders with (an albeit hypocritical) piety. It counsels Christians to fast, but not “like the Saracens who are oppressors, who give themselves up to prostitution, massacre and lead into captivity the sons of men, saying, ‘we both fast and pray.’”[5]
Towards the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth centuries, learned Christians began to scrutinize the theological claims of Islam. The image of Muslims went from bad to worse. The Koran—that “most pitiful and most inept little book of the Arab Muhammad”—was believed to be “full of blasphemies against the Most High, with all its ugly and vulgar filth,” particularly its claim that heaven amounted to a “sexual brothel,” to quote eighth century Nicetas Byzantinos, who had and closely studied a copy of it. Allah was denounced as an impostor deity, namely Satan: “I anathematize the God of Muhammad,” read one Byzantine canonical rite.[6]
But it was Muhammad himself—the fount of Islam—who especially scandalized Christians: “The character and the history of the Prophet were such as genuinely shocked them; they were outraged that he should be accepted as a venerated figure.”[7] Then and now, nothing so damned Muhammad in Christian eyes as much as his own biography, written and venerated by Muslims. For instance, after proclaiming that Allah had permitted Muslims four wives and unlimited concubines (Koran 4:3), he later declared that Allah had delivered a new revelation (Koran 33:50-52) offering him, the prophet alone, a dispensation to sleep with and marry as many women as he wanted. In response, none other than his favorite wife, Aisha, the “Mother of Believers,” quipped: “I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires.”[8]
Based, then, on Muslim sources, early Christian writers of Semitic origins— foremost among them St. John of Damascus (b. 676)— articulated a number of arguments against Muhammad that remain at the heart of all Christian polemics against Islam today.[9] The only miracle Muhammad performed, they argued, was to invade, slaughter, and enslave those who refused to submit to him—a “miracle that even common robbers and highway bandits can perform.” The prophet clearly put whatever words best served him in God’s mouth, thus “simulating revelation in order to justify his own sexual indulgence”[10]; he made his religion appealing and justified his own behavior by easing the sexual and moral codes of the Arabs and fusing the notion of obedience to God with war to aggrandize oneself with booty and slaves.
Perhaps most importantly, Muhammad’s denial of and war on all things distinctly Christian—the Trinity, the resurrection, and “the cross, which they abominate”—proved for Christians that he was Satan’s agent. In short, “the false prophet,” “the hypocrite,” “the liar,” “the adulterer,” “the forerunner of Antichrist,” and “the Beast,” became mainstream epithets for Muhammad among Christians for over a thousand years, beginning in the late seventh century.[11] Indeed, for politically correct or overly sensitive peoples who find any criticism of Islam “Islamophobic,” the sheer amount and vitriolic content of more than a millennium of Western writings on Muhammad may beggar belief.
Even charitable modern historians such as Oxford’s Norman Daniel—who rather gentlemanly leaves the most severe words against Muhammad in their original Latin in his survey of early Christian attitudes to Islam—makes this clear: “The two most important aspects of Muhammad’s life, Christians believed, were his sexual license and his use of force to establish his religion”; for Christians “fraud was the sum of Muhammad’s life…. Muhammad was the great blasphemer, because he made religion justify sin and weakness”; due to all this, “There can be no doubt of the extent of Christian hatred and suspicion of Muslims.”
Even the theological claims behind the jihad were examined and ridiculed. In his entry for the years 629/630, Theophanes the Confessor wrote: “He [Muhammad] taught his subjects that he who kills an enemy or is killed by an enemy goes to Paradise [Koran 9:111]; and he said that this paradise was one of carnal eating and drinking and intercourse with women, and had a river of wine, honey and milk, and that the women were not like the ones down here, but different ones, and that the intercourse was long-lasting and the pleasure continuous; and other things full of profligacy stupidity.”[12]
Similarly, in a correspondence to a Muslim associate, Bishop Theodore Abu Qurra (b.750), an Arab Christian, quipped: “[S]ince you say that all those who die in the holy war [jihad] against the infidels go to heaven, you must thank the Romans for killing so many of your brethren.”[13]
In short, the widespread narrative that European views of Muhammad as a “sinister figure,” a “cruel warlord,” and a “lecher and sexual pervert” began as a pretext to justify the late eleventh century Crusade—which itself is the source of all woes between Islam and the West—is an unmitigated lie. The sooner more people in the West understand this—understand the roots of the animosity—the sooner the true nature of the current (or rather ongoing) conflict will become clear.
My copy of the quran was translated by a devout muslim. All one has to do is read it to understand how twisted, blatantly foul, licentious and murderous it is.
The odd thing is few"friends" will touch the in depth writing. They want thr jokes and the self-ish-ies and pics of their kids...yet when I tell them FB is the epitome of pedo freinds grabbing their baby pics they unfriend but it's true, sad but true.
Nevertheless I liked the article, just venting a little.
Great post. I am curious In Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah ,Eerdmans ,reprint ,1986 Book 1 pp.4-5 “In his daring madness the Syrian king Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) had forbidden their religion,sought to destroy their sacred books,with unsparing ferocity forced on them conformity to heathen rites, desecrated the Temple by dedicating it to Zeus Olympius, and even reared a heathen altar upon that of burnt offering (1 Macc. 1>54,59 ,Josephus Antiquities XII 5.4.) Worst of all his wicked schemes had been aided by two apostate High Priests ,who had out vied each other in buying and prostituting the Holly Office.
Yet far away in the mountains of Ephriam (Birthplace of the Maccabees ID with modern ElMedyeh about 16 m. NW of Jerusalem in the ancient territory of Ephriam) Godhad raised for them a most unlooked for and unlikely help. Only three yrs. later and after a series of brilliant victories by undisciplined men over the flower of the Syrian Army ,Judas the Maccabee—Truly God’s Hammer—had purified the Temple ,and restored the altaron the very same day On which the “abomination of desolation” had been set up init’s place.”The footnotes on the meaning of the term Hammer “...We adopt the derivation from “Maqqabaha “ -a Hammer,Like Charles Martel(the French man who led the Army that turned back the Islamic Invaders at Tours? ; the restoration of the Temple — 1 Macc . IV.52-54 ;Megill Taan 23;on the Abomination of Desolation— 1 Macc 1.54 (See Daniel 11:31 and Matthew 24:15 in a Christian Bible. these references in The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah seem to make no reference to Christian/ Muslim opposition but seem to rely on the Hebrew roots of our Christian faith. What say You? How does this fit with your post?
Mohammed waged war against all non-Moslems beginning in 623 AD. A non-Moslem could convert, be put to the sword, or, under certain conditions, stay alive as a non-Moslem.
[Mohammed gave lip service to the “People of the Book” who were allowed to live under Moslem rule, subject to the dhimma contract in an Islamic state; i.e., they were second class citizens with few, if any, rights, and had to pay the “jizra,” or annual tax to be allowed to live in the Islamic state.”
Following his death in 632 AD, Islam waged war against non-Moslems, and have continued to do so to this day.
Following Mohammed’s death in 632 AD, the conflict between two factions of Islam re: the rightful heir to Mohammed began. It continues to this day. The Sunni/Shia dispute is the world’s longest running “Hatfield and McCoy”feud!
Taxman Bravo Zulu, Matt!
A stunning truism, in one picture!
I hope it goes viral - am sending it to my entire email buddies list, and will encourage them to do likewise!
Thanks.
Thanks, that’s why I make them. I got the idea from a similar meme, but mine is a big more clear.
Mohammed wasn’t born until AD 570, and the Christian New Testament (bible) was complete by about AD 100. Judah the Macabee lived in the 160s BC. The Christian, Charles Martel, defeated the Muslims in France in AD 732.
Therefore these all were in different time periods, so naturally there is nothing about Mohammed or the Muslims in the New Testament.
Captures the entire essence of the argument, Matt, clearly and concisely!
In the times before Islam there was no conflict between The West and Islam.
Sometime in the future, when there is no Islam, there will be no conflicts between the rest of the world and Islam!
I posted prematurely. Here is what I should have said:
Sometime in the future, when there is no Islam, there will be no conflicts between the rest of the world and Islam!
Until there is no Islam, there will be conflict!
moozlums arose out of murder and subjecting others. They continue no matter what. Read thier guiding tome...the quran. No moozlums...know peace.
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