Chapter 13: Myth and Reality

A number of misconceptions regarding Muslim history prevail in the West. Probably the most important of these myths concerns the alleged toleration Muslim society had for practitioners of other faiths. Since it is undeniable that Islam, like other monotheistic religions, is less tolerant than the faiths practiced in India and East Asia, the proponents of this view usually fall back on the idea that, at the very least, Islam is more tolerant than Christianity. This notion of a superior Muslim tolerance as compared to Christianity feeds the legend of peace-loving Muslims victimized by barbaric Christian crusaders. And this idea, in turn, is related to the assertion that at a time that western Europeans led a squalid and brutish existence, Muslims were cultured lovers of learning whose cities were the “ornaments of the world.” The myth of Muslim achievement was exposed in a previous chapter[1], therefore, the relative primitiveness of Dark Ages Europe warrants a closer examination. One additional assertion, which is that of Muslim society being free of racism, has also been effectively refuted in a preceding chapter.[2]

The Myth of Muslim Tolerance
There are a number of excellent works questioning the prevailing myth of a tolerant Islam, so that the issue will be only briefly dealt with here. Ibn Warraq, for one, gives many examples of persecution of religious dissenters and heretics throughout the Islamic world.[3] Bat Yeor also discusses in depth the intolerant treatment of minority religions at all times in Muslim history.[4] Robert Spencer also examines the question of Muslim tolerance and concludes with the following:

Did Muslims treat Christians and Jews better than Christians treated Muslims and Jews? …both sides have a lot to answer for. But this much is clear: the conventional wisdom that religious minorities had a better quality of life in the House of Islam than in Christendom is at least open to question.[5]

The favorable treatment meted out to Jews in Islamic society is one example of tolerance that is often cited. This is, however, contradicted by the documented persecution undergone by such prominent figures as Maimonides. Bostom describes the experience of a less renowned Jewish philosopher:

Moreover, we cannot ignore the testimony of Isaac b. Samuel of Acre (1270-1350 C.E.), one of the most outstanding Kabbalists of his time. Conversant with Islamic theology and often using Arabic in his exegesis, Isaac nevertheless believed that it was preferable to live under the yoke of Christendom rather than that of Islamdom.[6]

Thus, Isaac b. Samuel fled from the Holy Land to Italy and ultimately to Christian Spain. There he wrote as follows:

The word ziz in Arabic is derogatory, for when they wish to say in that tongue, ‘Strike him upon the head,’ ‘Give him a blow upon the neck,’ they say zazzhu (‘hit him’)…Indeed, on account of our sins they strike upon the head the children of Israel who dwell in their lands and they thus extort money from them by force. For they say in their tongue, mal al-yahudi mubah, ‘it is lawful to take money of the Jews.’ For, in the eyes of the Muslims, the children of Israel are as open to abuse as an unprotected field. Even in their law and statutes they rule that the testimony of a Muslim is always to be believed against that of a Jew.[7]

All religious minorities were subject to humiliation and extortion. Far worse were the sporadic pogroms and massacres:

The myth of Islamic tolerance is defied by the massacre and extermination of the Zoroastrians in Iran; the million Armenians in Turkey; the Buddhists and Hindus in India; the more than six thousand Jews in Fez, Morocco, in 1033; hundreds of Jews killed in Cordoba between 1010 and 1013; the entire Jewish community of Granada in 1066; the Jews in Marrakesh in 1232; the Jews of Tetuan, Morocco in 1790; the Jews of Baghdad in 1828; and so on ad nauseum.[8]

Even into modern times, Western ambassadors frequently remarked on the persecution suffered by religious minorities in the Ottoman Empire. In the 18th century “Turkey was no interfaith utopia.” In 1758, the British ambassador observed the Sultan executing Christians and Jews for violating the Dhimmi dress code. Twelve years later “another ambassador reported that Greeks, Armenians and Jews seen outside their homes after dark were hanged. In 1785, a third noted that Muslim mobs had dismantled churches after Christians had secretly repaired them.”[9] Bernard Lewis notes that the so-called “golden age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause” of Jewish sympathy for Islamic societies. Furthermore, the “myth was invented in 19th century Europe as a reproach to Christians—and taken up by Muslims in our own time as a reproach to Jews.”[10]

Furthermore, the primary reason for whatever Muslim tolerance may have existed is that it was realized by pragmatic Islamic leaders, following the initial conquests that persecuting the large conquered population would have had a number of unfortunate results. Any attempt by Muslims to forcibly convert or drive out all infidels would have led to mass rebellion and a stiffened military resistance on the part of the yet unconquered population. It would have also destroyed the economic base of the conquered territories which provided Muslim warriors with the resources for further expansion. And, in fact, once enough of the population became Muslim, the possibility of rebellion receded and the economic dependence on non-Muslims lessened. Under these circumstances, Muslim authorities became less accommodating and put increased pressure on the remaining non-Muslims to emigrate or convert.

In addition, the nature of Islamic expansion was quite unlike the history of Christian expansion in Europe. In their rapid conquests Muslims found many different sects of nonbelievers in the conquered population. Muslim leaders found it advantageous to play off one set of infidels against another. They also found it advantageous to cultivate alliances with persecuted sects against the governing authorities in the still unconquered dar-al-harb. This would, naturally, give the illusion that Muslims were more tolerant, when in fact those infidel groups presently favored were simply pawns in a greater political game.

Fabled Andalusia was supposedly the very model of Islamic tolerance. The prevailing view is that “Andalusia under Islamic rule was a proto-multiculturalist paradigm” which is “all the more appealing to modern post-Christian Westerners because this paradise of tolerance was not constructed under the auspices of Christianity, thereby seeming to vindicate their long insistence that all cultures are equal and that some – particularly non-Christian ones – are more equal than others.”[11] This myth of “Andalusia” is summed up by Yeor.

Andalusia represents the paradisiacal life of Jews and Christians living under the shari’a in the Moorish caliphate of the early Middle Ages. … Jews and Christians were grateful to be protected and to learn from the achievements of Muslim scholars … This vision propagates and imposes the theory that only in Islamic lands did science, art and civilization flourish while Christendom was still immersed in barbarism and illiteracy.[12]

Both Spencer and Yeor effectively demolish the myth of the “tolerant Andalusia.” Stillman, a specialist in the history of the Jews under Islam provides an additional perspective. In iconic Spain there was a “depth of anti-Jewish sentiment” as seen in “the rabble-rousing poetry of Abu Ishaq of Elvira.” Following the assassination of the Jewish vizier Joseph ha-Nagid “a mob went on a rampage in the Jewish quarter of Granada, slaughtering its inhabitants and razing the quarter to the ground.”[13] The Almohad rulers ended whatever small degree of toleration of the Jews still remained in Spain. By 1172 the Almohads “tolerated neither Jews nor Christians within their empire. There were mass conversions of Jews to Islam. Many fled over the frontier into Christian Spain, while others made their way to the more tolerant Muslim East. … Jewish life in … Islamic Spain ceased to exist altogether.”[14] Thus, Jews were expelled from Muslim Spain centuries before their more famous expulsion at the hands of the Christians.

Muslim Spain, therefore, was no paragon of religious toleration for the “peoples of the book”. However, the circumstances for Christians and Jews in the Maghreb were far worse. In fact Christianity in the land of St. Augustine ultimately became extinct under Muslim rule. Thus in “contemporary North Africa, however, there were no native Christians to absorb some of the Muslim hostility against nonbelievers.” For that reason, the persecution of the Jews of North Africa paralleled that occurring anywhere in medieval Christian Europe.[15] In Almohad North Africa the “urban Jewish population from Tunisia to Morocco had outwardly professed Islam during the height of the Almohad terror. Those communities that resisted were put to the sword.” The Almohad regime also dealt the final blow to North African Christianity. “The Jews became the dhimmis par excellence in North African society, for no native Christian population seems to have survived the Almohad persecution.”[16]

Muslim persecution of the Jews in the Maghreb, however, eased somewhat under the Merinids of 14th century Morocco who found the Jews to be useful allies and go-betweens with respect to the rising Portuguese power. The Merinids “employed Jews in their service because of the latter’s extreme vulnerability and, hence, according to Islamic political psychology, dependability.”[17] Christians in conflict with Muslims, of course, were equally capable of playing that game. In 16th century Morocco “most of the Jewish newcomers seem to have preferred living in the Portuguese-held coastal towns rather than the Islamic interior. They joined in the defense of these enclaves against Muslim attacks.” The practical-minded Portuguese were “notably tolerant toward the Jews in their African possessions” long after Jews were expelled from Portugal proper in 1497.[18]

Egypt differed from the rest of North Africa, in that a strong Christian minority survived; the consequence was a slight mitigation in the situation of the Jews. “In the Mamluk Empire, the Jews were not the only infidels. The Copts more frequently and more immediately took the brunt of anti-dhimmi persecution.” [19] Muslim rulers often found it useful to play one group of dhimmis off against another.

The Real Imperialism
A fantasy almost unique to modern western intellectuals of a “progressive” outlook is that Muslims are natural allies in the struggle against “imperialism”. This conceit ignores the fact that it is Islamic imperialism that was by far the most successful version. “It turns out that the Arabs were the most successful imperialists of all time, since to be conquered by them (and then to be like them) is still, in the minds of the faithful, to be saved.”[20]

Muslim imperialism was much more durable and robust than any existing in the ancient world. The ancient Persians conquered a large territory but were content to leave the native cultures in place or even, as in the case of the return of the Jews from exile, to preserve them. The Macedonian Greek conquests were as rapid and extensive as that of the early Arabs. However, their effect on the conquered population was superficial and their empire ephemeral. The Romans also conquered a vast territory. But in contrast to the Arab conquests, the Roman Empire took three centuries to build. Moreover, while Roman culture penetrated all of Western Europe, modern Europeans, even those speaking Latin languages do not regard themselves as ‘Roman’. On the other hand, Muslim descendants of Egyptians, Babylonians and Berbers consider themselves Arab:

Arabic penetrated the conquered peoples to such an extent that at the beginning of the eighth century it had evolved into the official imperial language. … by adopting the Arabic language, the conquered peoples – Iranians, Syrians, Greeks, Copts, Berbers, Jews and Christians – placed their abundant talents and learning at the service of their conquerors …[21]

The ultimate adoption of the Arabic language and Islamic religion by indigenous populations was accompanied by the neglect and erasure of ancient traditions. A similar process followed the later Turkish conquests. Even where native languages were preserved, the adoption of Islam by the conquered led to the extirpation of much of the pre-existing culture at the hands of the Muslim imperialists.

Five centuries later the Mongols conquered an empire as large as that of the Arabs in a similar short amount of time. However, their imperialism was a failure in comparison. The Mongols wrought much devastation, but the civilization of the vanquished survived; there was no mass adoption of Mongol language or culture.

The modern empires of Western Europe encircled the globe. However, with the exception of certain sparsely populated lands, mostly in North America and Australia, there was no irrevocable displacement of aboriginal cultures. Even in the superficially Christianized lands conquered by the Spaniards the native Aztec, Mayan and Incan outlooks remain strong and have even undergone something of a modern revival. European imperialism was, paradoxically, beneficial to certain native cultures which were under attack by Islam. The British and French put an end to the African slave trade. British rule in India protected many Hindus from further Muslim depredations. And, far from attempting to replace Hindu culture, many Britons became ardent students and popularizers of Indian culture and the Hindu classics.

Furthermore, according to the historian Paul Fregosi, even the recent colonial experience of Islamic lands under European rule was much milder than that of Christian lands conquered by Muslims. When he compares “the Muslim occupation of Christian lands in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to European colonialism, he finds that the latter was much briefer and less culturally pervasive.”[22]

“Civilized” Arabs and “Barbarian” Europeans
The apologists for Islam point to the high level of civilization in the Muslim world when compared to that of early medieval Europe. They would be rather more convincing in their assertion, if the Muslim raids and conquests themselves were not a major cause of decline in the civilization of an already beleaguered West.

The effect of the Arab conquests in the Mediterranean and their continued raids and incursions on Western Europe was severe. When the Roman Empire fell into the hands of the barbarians, there was a period of upheaval. Within a short time, however, civilization in the West began to recover. Then for a few centuries beginning with the seventh, new waves of barbarians descended on Europe. From the north seafaring Vikings began their destructive incursions and at the same time Europe was attacked from the east by nomadic horsemen from the steppes. In both of these cases the invaders were eventually contained and then absorbed into the Christian civilization of Europe. However there was a third wave of invaders from the east and south. These were, of course, the Arabs, whose religion of Islam, was a much more formidable threat and was to constitute a continuing disruptive force to western European civilization and to Byzantium. The almost permanent war, the disruption of trade and the sundering of the Mediterranean were a constant drain on the economy of Europe and retarded the full recovery of western civilization right up to the time of the Renaissance. The noted authority on medieval Europe, Christopher Dawson notes the following regarding the dark ages in Europe.

But the worst had not yet come. In the seventh century the Arabs conquered Byzantine Africa, the most civilized province of the West … Early in the eighth century the tide of Moslem invasion swept over Christian Spain and threatened Gaul itself. Christendom had become an island isolated between the Moslem south and the Barbarian north.[23]

The Muslim invasion was, thus, a primary factor in the slow recovery of civilization in Europe after the shock resulting from the fall of Rome. Other distinguished historians also note the importance of continual warfare brought by Muslims in causing the decline of civilization in Europe. According to Henri Pirenne the Arab advance “changed the face of the world.” The rapid Arab advance destroyed the classical civilization of Europe and “put an end to the Mediterranean commonwealth in which it had gathered its strength.”[24] Historian Walter Kircher asserts that “with the conquests of the Moslems and their domination of Mediterranean trade routes, large-scale commercial activity, and with it the coining and use of money almost ceased in Western Europe.”[25]

The Arab assault upon the west continued into later centuries. The navy of the Aghlabids of North Africa (800-909), “harried the coasts of Italy, France, Corsica and Sardinia.” They conquered Sicily in 902. “Besides Sicily, Malta and Sardinia were seized mainly by pirates whose raids extended as far as Rome.”[26] Moreover, as we have seen, there were continuing raids by Muslim corsairs seeking booty and slaves on the coasts and shipping of Western Europe. Despite this harassment, civilization in the West recovered and eventually far surpassed that of Islam.

Therefore, the temporary superiority of Muslim civilization in the seventh through the tenth century is irrelevant. Islam came into possession of the most advanced and civilized lands in the world. And, as was shown in Chapter 11, after a brief period of high culture, Muslims squandered this advantage. At the same time, Muslim predation helped to cause and then to prolong the European dark ages.

Western Europe was not the only region whose civilization was retarded by Islamic aggression. Byzantium was also under constant pressure from Muslims. This may, at least partly, explain the long stagnation of Byzantine civilization. This Byzantine stagnation continued until the later middle ages. The late Byzantine renaissance that then occurred, ironically, may have been due to a deep recognition on the part of cultured Byzantines that their end at the hands of the implacable Muslims was inevitable leading them to devote resources to one final amazing effort. Without the constant Islamic attacks one can only speculate what heights the Byzantine genius might have attained. As it turned out the last Byzantine renaissance was effectively displaced to safer soil in Italy and the West. The unfortunate fate of the ancient Hindu civilization is still another example of the destructive nature of the Islamic meme with respect to adjacent cultures.

In general, any non-Muslim population subject either to razzias or to direct Muslim rule suffered from cultural atrophy. Any intellectual resources arising in such cultures were appropriated, through conversion, slavery or dhimmitude, to serve the interests of the Islamic state. In Ottoman ruled Europe there was an absence of any great achievement at the very time that the neighboring European nations were experiencing rapid advancement. The historian A. H. Lybyer notes the disincentive to achievement experienced by populations subjected to Muslim warfare or conquest:

The Ottoman system took children forever from parents, discouraged family cares among its members through their most active years, allowed them no certain hold upon property, gave them no definite promise that their sons and daughters would profit by their success and sacrifice, raised and lowered them with no regard for ancestry or previous distinction, taught them a strange law, ethics and religion, and ever kept them conscious of a sword raised above their heads which might put an end at any moment to a brilliant career.[27]

That the Balkans, once the site of the last brilliant Byzantine renaissance, “did not produce great art and science under the Ottomans is no mystery.”[28]

The Myth of the Crusades
Few things are more certain to put Westerners on the defensive than the mention of the Crusades. “Virtually all Westerners have learned to apologize for the Crusades. Less noted is the fact that these campaigns have an Islamic counterpart for which no one is apologizing and of which few are even aware.”[29]

The notion of hordes of violent barbaric Europeans descending on civilized Muslims who had, since time immemorial, lived in peace on their ancestral lands is a fabrication. In the late eleventh century, as we have seen, western Christendom finally imbibed the ideology of holy war from its longtime Muslim adversaries – the speech of Pope Urban at Clermont in 1095 initiating both the crusades and the gathering speed of the Spanish reconquista. Christians were certainly no slackers when it came to warfare and violence, but the condemnation of such actions in the New Testament presented Christian religious leaders with an almost insurmountable obstacle in finding scriptural sanction for unleashing war on distant lands. Trifkovic describes the dilemma:

What the Crusaders did to the Muslim inhabitants of Jerusalem in 1099 was as bad as what the Muslims had done to countless Christian cities before and after that time, but the carnage was less pardonable because, unlike the Muslims’, it was not justifiable by Christian religious tenets. From the distance of almost a millennium, however, it is time to see the phenomenon as Christendom’s reaction to Muslim aggression. It was a reconquest of something taken by force from its rightful owners …[30]

This alleged Western aggression was, therefore, simply a retaking of lost Christian territory for if “Westerners had no right to invade these putative Muslim places, then Muslims had no right to conquer them to begin with.”[31] It is, of course, true that

…these sins of the Muslims do not excuse the sins that the Christians committed against them in return. One massacre doesn’t cancel out another. But clearly what we now call ‘human rights abuses’ have not come only from the Western side, and the recent defensiveness of the West before the House of Islam and the world on this issue is hardly justified by the facts.[32]

Furthermore, the Crusades were ineffective in ending Muslim aggression against Christian lands. Long after the Crusades “had become a distant memory in the West, the warriors of jihad continued to press into the heart of Europe.” The fall of the Crusader stronghold of Acre in 1291 put an end to crusading activity in the Muslim east. “Through the next four centuries, however, Muslim armies solidified their hold on southeastern Europe and kept advancing whenever and wherever it was possible to do so.”[33]

Islam and Christianity
It is one of the delights of modern historians to unfavorably compare Christianity with Islam. Both religions, of course, are the offspring of Judaism. However, their early histories could not be more different. Christianity came to power after centuries as a marginal and often persecuted sect. Islam, after less than a decade of persecution, became a distinct religion at the same time that it assumed political power. Islam from its beginning was always more of a political than a religious movement.

The difference between the two faiths is exemplified by the activities of pious reformers. Pietistic and monastic movements arising within the framework of Christian society were invariably pacific and quietist, seeking a return to the basic New Testament principles. Similar movements within Islam, however, were usually warlike, aggressive and militant in conformity with basic Koranic doctrine. One need only compare and contrast the activities of St. Francis and his followers with those of the communal military sects of North Africa founded by pious Muslim scholars. Warlike, angry and violent Christians, while marking most of Christian history acted in direct contradiction to the teachings of the founder of the religion. Similar warlike and violent Muslims behaved according to the precepts of their Prophet.

Furthermore, the experience of the newly triumphant Christianity following the conversion of the emperor Constantine contrasts with that of conquering Islam. The early Muslim rulers had to deal with the existence of populations following other higher religions. Christians, on the other hand, were only confronted by an outmoded paganism and a small population of Jews. Muslim rulers, as a practical matter, had to tolerate large non-Muslim populations for many years. Similarly, as a practical matter, Christian rulers had to tolerate paganism for several centuries after assuming political power. Long afterward, paganism continued to exist in a subterranean manner sometimes surfacing as witchcraft, or as the Neo-Platonism which openly emerged during the Renaissance. Christianity also adopted many pagan practices, as Islam inevitably incorporated beliefs and practices of preceding religions.

While Muslims ruled over both Christian and Jewish dhimmis, Christian rulers only had to contend with the existence of Jews as a rival religion. The experience of dhimmis under Islam paralleled that of Jews under Christianity. Christian and Jewish dhimmis were sometimes persecuted and sometimes protected or even utilized by Muslim rulers. Similarly, Jews in Christian Europe were often persecuted but also often protected or even favored by tolerant or practical secular or religious leaders. Often their talents and international connections were utilized by Christian monarchs as they were by Muslim sultans. There were times that Christian reformers, e.g. Cromwell and the Puritans, showed friendship to Jews as a way of making theological points. Also in some instances, as in Byzantium and Venice, itinerant Muslims were granted some measure of tolerance. Similarly in Reconquista Spain up until the 16th century, various Muslim populations lived under the protection of Christian rulers in a sort of reverse dhimmitude. On the whole, therefore, the experience of other religious groups living under both Christianity and Islam were similar.

Although established Christian and Muslim societies share many common features, with respect to proselytism and conversion, the historical experience of the two religions were quite different. The initial spread of Christianity was peaceful, whereas that of Islam was the result of violence. Walter Brandmüller outlines the different ways that Christianity and Islam began:

For the Christians, conversion was something that must be voluntary and individual, obtained primarily through preaching and example, and this is how Christianity did in fact spread during its first centuries. Obviously, we must immediately note that this conception of early Christianity underwent changes in later eras, connected with the diffusion of a spirit of religious intolerance in Western culture. John Paul II himself acknowledged that in this regard the Church’s children ‘must return with a spirit of repentance [for] the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of truth.’ (Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 35).

But on the part of the Muslims, from the earliest times, even while Mohammed was still alive, conversion was imposed through the use of force. The expansion and extension of Islam’s sphere of influence came through war with the tribes that did not accept conversion peacefully, and this went hand in hand with submission to Islamic political authority. Islamism, unlike Christianity, expressed a comprehensive religious, cultural, social, and political strategy. While Christianity spread during its first three centuries in spite of persecution and martyrdom, and in many ways in opposition to Roman domination, introducing a clear separation between the spiritual and political spheres, Islam was imposed through the power of political domination.[34]

Moreover, neither religion had a monopoly on either toleration or persecution of religious minorities. The continued existence of Jews in Europe could not have occurred if there were no philosemitic or at least pragmatic members of the ruling elite. Practical Christian rulers also tolerated Muslims in reconquered territory as was the case in Sicily and early Reconquista Spain and later in Russia and the Balkans. And, of course, mercantile minded Christian rulers as in Constantinople and Venice mandated freedom of worship for Muslim merchants.

Muslims were quite as capable of persecuting Jews as were Christians. The rabbi Isaac b. Samuel (cf. above) wrote the following:

For this reason our rabbis of blessed memory have said, ‘Rather beneath the yoke of Edom [Christendom] than that of Ishmael.’ They plead for mercy before the Holy One, Blessed be He, saying, ‘Master of the World, either let us live beneath Thy shadow or else beneath that of the children of Edom’ (a Talmudic verse)[35]

Thus, Muslims were not always more tolerant of Jews than were Christians nor was the flow of Jewish refugees as between Christian and Muslim lands always one way, as the conventional wisdom would have us believe. Indeed, under the fanatical Almohads the position of both Christians and Jews in Spain became quite untenable.

The succeeding Almohads (1130-1232) wrought tremendous destruction upon both the Jewish and Christian populations in Spain and North Africa. This devastation—massacre, captivity, and forced conversion—was described by the Jewish chronicler Abraham Ibn Daud, and the poet Abraham Ibn Ezra. Suspicious of the sincerity of the Jewish converts to Islam, Muslim “inquisitors” (i.e., antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed the children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslim educators. …

These brutal, discriminatory practices resulted in a massive emigration of Jews and Jewish converts to Islam to the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula, from both Muslim-controlled Al-Andalus and the North African Maghreb. During the first half of the 13th century, Jaime I of Aragon, in particular, advanced policies of protecting Jews within his territories, granting safe-conduct and letters of naturalization to all Jews who made their way by land or sea, and established themselves in the states of Majorca, Catalonia, and Valencia. Jewish converts to Islam were permitted to return to Judaism if they wished so. Within 250 years, however, the descendants of these Jews who had escaped the Muslim Almohad depredations would be subjected to the fanatical rage of the Spanish Inquisition, and some of them would find refuge under the suzerainty of the Muslim Ottoman empire, especially in the region of Salonika, at the end of the 15th century. To complete this morose cycle of persecution, the vacuum filled by Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition was created when their co-religionist counterparts—the Jews living under Byzantine (and Venetian) rule in Thrace—were subjected to massacre, pillage, enslavement, and deportation by these same Ottoman conquerors, during their jihad campaigns of the early to mid-15th century.[36]

Both religions zealously persecuted heretics and apostates. However, centuries before the inquisition was institutionalized, Muslim rulers were executing and often burning heretics. In 742 Dja’d Ibn Dirham was put to death for believing in free will and that the Koran was created. Ibn al-Muqaffa, well known for his rational and unorthodox religious views, was burned in 760. Furthermore under the caliph “Mansur’s successors, al-Mahdi (775-785 C.E.) and al-Hadi (785-786 C.E.) repression, persecution, and executions were applied with even greater ferocity. Special magistrates were appointed to pursue the heretics, and the whole inquisition was masterminded by the Grand Inquisitor, called the Sahih al-Zanadiqa. It was enough for a simple rumor to be aired for the Inquisitor to take immediate steps to incriminate the suspect.”[37] It is noteworthy that the Catholic country where the Inquisition was practiced with the most zeal and greatest effect was Spain, which had been under Muslim rule for centuries. Even the family of the prophet, the Hashimites, was not safe from this early inquisition. “Several members of the family were executed or died in prison.”[38] The scholar Al-Sarakhsi was executed in 899 after “he incurred the wrath of the caliph” for his public discussion of heretical doctrines.[39]

As demonstrated by the Crusades, Christianity was also able to mount religious war. Warfare, in general, among Christians was frequent. However, neither “Christianity nor any other religion has ever had a doctrine like jihad. … Ibn Khaldun acknowledges this … ‘The other religious groups … did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty to them, save only for purposes of defense.’ … Islam is ‘under obligation to gain power over other nations.’”[40] It is an undeniable fact that “the Crusaders who pillaged Jerusalem were transgressing the bounds of their religion in all sorts of ways.” However, the Muslim warriors who “murdered, raped, pillaged and enslaved”, were following Muhammad’s example.[41]

Modern progressives are profuse in their condemnation of the treatment of women in Christian societies. However, the condition of women in Muslim ruled lands is incomparably worse. Bernard Lewis makes the following succinct, but apt, cultural comparison:

The women of Christian Europe were very far from achieving any kind of equality, but they were not subject to polygamy or legal concubinage. Even the limited measure of freedom and participation that they enjoyed never failed to shock a succession of Muslim visitors – all of them male – to Western lands. Western civilization was richer for women’s presence; Muslim civilization poorer by their absence.[42]

The institution of Muslim slavery was discussed at length.[43] The difference between Christian and Muslim attitudes toward this institution is also noted by Lewis:

Although it was known in medieval Europe, slavery was of minor importance there, far less significant in the social and economic life of Europe than in pre-Columbian America or in Muslim and non-Muslim Africa. … The inventiveness and cupidity of Europe, learning from and drawing on the plantation systems and the slave trade of Africa and the Islamic world, found this answer. Colonial slavery and the seaborne slave trade became a major factor in the crisscrossing interchanges between the four shores of the Atlantic – western Europe, western Africa, North America, and South America.

But it was Europe, too, that first decided to set the slaves free: at home, then in the colonies, and finally in all the world. Western technology made slavery unnecessary; Western ideas made it intolerable. There have been many slaveries, but there has been only one abolition, which eventually shattered even the rooted and ramified slave systems of the Old World.[44]

Moreover, it is of interest to note that the Spanish and Portuguese, the Christians most influenced by Islamic culture, were the first to apply large scale colonial slavery and whose traders introduced it to other western colonial powers.

In the next chapter, the origins of these prevailing myths regarding Islam are considered. In addition, the reasons for the abrupt revival of the aggressive Islamic meme, after several centuries of somnolence are examined.

[1] Chapter 11: The Parasitic Civilization.
[2] Chapter 8: The Slave Society.
[3] Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim, pp. 278-81.
[4] Yeor, Islam and Dhimmitude.
[5] Spencer, Islam Unveiled, p. 155.
[6] Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad in Palestine.
[7] Ibid
[8] Alyssa A. Lappen, And Dhimmitude For All, FrontPageMagazine.com, April 11, 2005.
[9] Ibid
[10] Bernard Lewis, in the Encyclopedia of Islam, 1968 quoted in Lappen, And Dhimmitude For All.
[11] Spencer, Onward Muslim Soldiers, p. 186.
[12] Bat Yeor, Eurabia, USA, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005, p. 191.
[13] Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, p. 59.
[14] Ibid, p. 61.
[15] Ibid, p. 75.
[16] Ibid, pp. 76-77.
[17] Ibid, p. 79.
[18] Ibid, p. 82.
[19] Ibid, p. 75.
[20] Naipaul, Among the Believers, p. 142.
[21] Karsh, Islamic Imperialism, pp. 26-7.
[22] Spencer, Islam Unveiled, p. 140.
[23] Christopher Dawson, The Making of Europe, Cleveland, Meridian, 1956, p. 171.
[24] Quoted in Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire, p. 390.
[25] Walter Kircher, Western Civilization to 1500, New York, Harper Perennial, 1991, p. 157.
[26] Hitti, History of the Arabs, p. 451.
[27] Quoted in Murray, Human Accomplishment, p. 364.
[28] Ibid
[29] Spencer, Islam Unveiled, p. 132.
[30] Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet, p. 102.
[31] Spencer, Islam Unveiled, p. 139.
[32] Ibid, p. 137.
[33] Ibid, p. 140.
[34] Walter Brandmüller, Christianity and Islam in History, Frontpagemag.com, December 27, 2005.
[35] Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad in Palestine.
[36] Andrew Bostom, Jihad in Europe: Past as Prologue?, FrontPageMagazine.com, February 20, 2006.
[37] Warraq, Leaving Islam, p. 44.
[38] Ibid
[39] Ibid, p. 49.
[40] Spencer, Onward Muslim Soldiers, p. 174.
[41] Spencer, Islam Unveiled, p. 137.
[42] Lewis, Cultures in Conflict, p. 24.
[43] Chapter 8: The Slave Society.
[44] Lewis, Cultures in Conflict, p. 72.

Chapter 12: The Islamic Reformation

Conventional wisdom holds that the problems brought by Islam to its own adherents and to non-Muslims alike, can only be mitigated through a reformation similar to that which occurred in Christianity beginning in the 16th century. However, the fundamentalist “back to scripture” radical Wahhabi sect is the closest modern Islamic analogue to the Protestant Reformation. And that is certainly not what is meant when the call for reformation is discussed. This chapter contains an outline of those movements in Islamic history which, in one sense or another, have attempted to reform Islam.

Kharijites
These separatists, responsible for the assassination of the caliph Ali, viewed “with hostile eyes the political developments occurring behind the scenes among the Moslem leaders” and “concluded that the only sure way of getting the right caliph was to let the whole Moslem world” participate in his election. “It was natural that these fierce puritans” should be slaughtered by the Umayyads.[1] Thus, Kharijitism represented a reaction by Arab grass roots warriors against an increasingly remote ruling elite. They embodied the early spirit of tribal “republicanism” against increasing autocracy. Despite the religious fanaticism of this early Wahhabi like group, they in some sense represent the last significant political activity of the free Bedouin spirit.

Mu’tazilites
In the first centuries following the Arab conquests, increasing numbers of non-Arab converts embraced Islam bringing with them their Hellenistic outlook. Thus, there were spawned within early Islam several movements influenced by pre-Islamic philosophy and theology. The Mu’tazilites “took it for granted that the theological doctrines … were subject to rational testing. Their reading of translations of works of Greek philosophy made it seem to them a foregone conclusion that no doctrine could be true which did not survive such a test.”[2] However, despite a period of support from certain more enlightened rulers, Mu’tazilism could not withstand the inevitable Islamic reaction. Although “the Mu’tazilites did manage to teach the orthodox theologians the value of using a rational method of exposition, the weight of opinion turned against them and the 10th century saw their school come to an end.”[3]

The Qadarites were another briefly flourishing movement influenced by pre-Islamic Greek ideas. They “represent a reaction against the harsh predestinarianism of Islam … and betray Christian Greek influence.”[4]

Ismailites
Following the political dispute leading to Shi’ism, a number of extremist Shi’ite sects emerged which presented a challenge to Islamic orthodoxy. These radical Shi’ite mystical movements posed a more enduring attack on orthodox Islam than their rationalist opposites were able to do. These groups often embodied an anti-Arab reaction and a reassertion of Mesopotamian and Persian national aspirations.

Ismail, the first son of the sixth Imam, accused of drunkenness was barred from the succession. His followers, the Ismailites or Seveners remained loyal. They believe that Ismail never died but would return as the Mahdi. “In their fervid belief, Ismail was the very incarnation of God himself, and would soon return.” Interpreting the Koran allegorically, they “arrived at an esoteric, hidden doctrine, which was so heretical that they spread it to others only through secret missionary activity.”[5]

The Qarmatians were a radical Ismailite offshoot that in the 9th century established a state on the western shore of the Persian Gulf in defiance of the Abbasid caliphate. “Before they finally fell, the Qarmatians set a record of a century of revolutionary violence and bloodshed – all at bottom a kind of vengeance of the Persians upon the Arabs … a vengeance disguised … as religious obedience to the will of a divine Imam descended from Muhammad.”[6]

Another violent offshoot of the Ismailites was the famous “Assassins” who specialized in political terrorism directed against both Muslims and Crusaders. They now survive as a rather more peaceful sect, half of whose members “have acknowledged as their rightful heads a fabulous line of Khans” including the famous Agha Khan.[7]

Sufis
Of all the existing Muslim sects, none evokes as much hopeful admiration on the part of non-Muslims as the contemplative and relatively tolerant Sufis. They softened the hard edges of legalistic Islam; many Sufi masters and disciples attempted to humanize Islam’s remote and implacable deity. Sufism’s vaunted tolerance may be due, in part, to its being a continuance in Islamic guise of older mystical traditions. The modern Sufi popularizer, Idries Shah, contends that Sufism, in a variety of forms long predated the Muslim conquest. “The breakup of the old order in the Near East, according to Sufi tradition, reunited the ‘beads of mercury’ which were the esoteric schools operating in the Egyptian, Persian and Byzantine empires into the ‘stream of quicksilver’ which was intrinsic, evolutionary Sufism.”[8] Thus, the Sufi “innovation” was a result of the same cross cultural fertilization that resulted in a temporary renaissance of science and technology in the early Muslim empires.

Sufism embodied a number of non-Islamic influences. Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, Buddhism, and Hinduism provided Sufism with its philosophical foundations. Christian monasticism gave the Sufis a model for organization. Theosophical and pantheistic thought was incorporated into Sufi teachings.[9]

Christian teachings influenced Sufism to such an extent that many early Sufis were regarded by orthodox Muslims as crypto-Christians. Besides an almost unseemly affection for the prophet Jesus, the veneration of saints characterized many Sufi orders “especially … in places where Christians … embraced Islam more or less superficially.” Such saint worship was in direct conflict with Koranic doctrine.[10] Moreover, the “Sufi eschatological traditions with their Antichrist suggest that the fraternities found many recruits among those newly converted to Islam from the older forms of monotheism.”[11] The first great Sufi mystic was Ma’ruf al-Karkhi who before embracing Islam was either a Christian or from the closely related Sabian sect; the Sabians or Mandaeans claimed John the Baptist as their prophet. Another famous early Sufi mystic was “dhu-al-Nun (Man of the fish) al-Misri (the Egyptian), of Nubian parents who died … in 860.”[12] At that time since Nubia was still a Christian land it is likely that al-Misri was also a convert.

The influence of Zoroastrianism, like Christianity, manifested itself in the saint-worship condemned by the orthodox.[13] One famous early Persian Sufi was al-Bistani (ca. 875) whose grandfather was a Zoroastrian priest.[14]

Sufi mystical and meditative practices show great similarity to those practiced by Hindu yogis. Buddhist teachings were another school of thought originating in India that was adopted by certain Sufi schools. Al-Bistani, in addition to Zoroastrian influences, brought certain Buddhist doctrines into Sufi thought. “The Aghani has preserved for us at least one portrayal of an unmistakable Buddhistic view of life.” The Persian al-Bistani, grandson of a Magian, “probably introduced the doctrine of fana, self-annihilation ... a reflection of Buddhist Nirvana."[15] In addition, the school established by an early Sufi of Central Asia, ibn Adham, had “features reminiscent of the asceticism of Buddhist monks.”[16]

Since Buddhism was an alien and non-monotheistic religion, those Sufis studying Buddhist ideas were more likely to run afoul of the ulema than were those who stayed with more familiar Christian or Zoroastrian ideas. Noss observes that “a few mystics were not theists. They substituted the realm of truth for Allah; and when the Buddhist influences penetrated Iraq, the Sufis there moved perilously close to atheism … These and others among the more extreme Sufis were recognized by the Orthodox Moslems as heretics.”[17]

At a later time, the Sufism practiced in Anatolia combined Christian teachings with more primitive strains. In Turkey “besides inheriting the old religions of Asia Minor the dervish orders … have preserved the traces of shamanism which the early Turks brought with them from Central Asia.”[18] Sufism in Anatolia also evinced the very opposite tendency. Greek philosophical notions existed alongside the more primal Central Asian shamanism. The famous Bektashi “was a missionary, semiheretical order with Neoplatonic tendencies toward pantheism and mysticism” and “used wine frankly as a means to spiritual intoxication.” Their heretical doctrine that was probably most shocking to the orthodox was the unprecedented equality they gave to women.[19]

Syncretism was the inevitable result of the many methods and beliefs that Sufism adopted from other religions and philosophies. This was particularly evident in newly conquered Anatolia. The account of the funeral of the great Sufi saint Rumi “indicates quite clearly that a powerful process of religious syncretism was in dynamic motion by which Christians and Jews were accommodating themselves to this particular Muslim religious fraternity. The very syncretism and mutual accommodation of dervishes and Christians would eventually result in the absorption of a great many Christians through conversion.”[20]

In general, Sufism is strongest in those areas where ancient pre-Islamic cultural traits are best preserved. The Sufis continue “to uphold the validity of personal religious response, intuition, the practices of their religious orders, and reverence for sainted leaders. This is true especially in the non-Arab areas and particularly among the Berbers, Persians and Turks.” However, Sufism has always been and remains to this day under relentless attack from the champions of orthodoxy. “But even the Sufis have been chastened by Wahhabi puritanism and orthodoxy; in fact they have abandoned many a practice to which they were once devoted.”[21]

A long history of Sufi martyrs attests to the pressure brought to bear by the forces of orthodoxy. The Persian al-Hallaj was executed in 922 for having declared ‘I am the truth’. “His crucifixion made him the great Sufi martyr.”[22] A later Sufi martyr, al-Suhrawardi, was executed in 1191 at the behest of the normally tolerant Saladin. Apparently, the forbearance of that great Muslim ruler could not extend to someone whose “impassioned prayer” with Neo-Platonic and Christian elements, was regarded by the orthodox as apostasy.[23] A later powerful ruler, Mehmed the Conqueror was unable to save his Persian dervish friend who was burned at the stake by a fanatical crowd instigated by the Mufti. Shortly afterward, the Persian savant’s heretical followers were also slaughtered.[24]

One of the most renowned of the Sufi masters was more fortunate, but still barely escaped with his life. Ibn El-Arabi, (ca 1200) despite his outward conformity to Islamic norms was “accused of heresy and worse in Egypt. He narrowly escaped an attempt by a fanatic to murder him.”[25]

The history of Sufi persecution demolishes one other myth which passes as conventional wisdom; that being the contention that the official execution of heretics originated under Christianity. As Darlington observes heretics “were crucified by sultans before they were burnt by popes; the first Sufi to die was Al-Hallaj in Baghdad in A.D. 922; and 500 years later there was Badr el-Din” who in 1420 was executed in Konya.[26]

Many Sufi savants and sects eventually accommodated themselves to the implacable forces of orthodox Islam, thereby deflecting persecution. There arose, therefore, what may be termed the other face of Sufism; Sufism has its dark sides. Some Sufi masters with their followers reconciled their mystical doctrines with those of orthodox Islam. Other Sufi sects went beyond simply conforming to theological orthodoxy. Sufis have been generally pacific in contrast to the violent mystical Shi’ite sects. However, certain Sufi sects fully embraced and even exceeded the bellicosity characteristic of Islam in general.

Al-Ghazali was the principal figure who began the redirection of the mystical energies diverted to Sufism into the service of orthodox Islamic scholarship. The masterpiece of this one-time Sufi mystic was Ihya Ulam al-Din. “The mysticism of this work vitalized the law, its orthodoxy leavened the doctrine of Islam.” Fundamentally he “employed Greek dialectic to found a pragmatic system and made philosophy palatable to the orthodox school of theologians.” Furthermore, in Hitti’s view, the “scholastic shell constructed by al-Ash’ari and al-Ghazzali has held Islam to the present day” while western Christendom succeeded in breaking through its own version of scholasticism.[27] However, as shown in a previous chapter[28] the inability of Islam to advance appears to be more fundamental than that of being enclosed in a scholastic shell. As Spencer puts it:

Al-Ghazali’s masterwork heralded the beginning of the decline of Islamic philosophy … Although al-Ghazali himself probably would have disapproved … The Incoherence of the Philosophers helped reinforce an anti-intellectual strain of thought that was present in Islam from the beginning.[29]

Nevertheless, despite his mystical leanings and his ending the period of creative Islamic philosophy, al-Ghazali became one of the most acclaimed authorities in theology and law. “So successful was this heretic in becoming the virtual father of the Moslem church, that even the most orthodox still call him by the highest academic title known, the Authority of Islam.”[30]

Furthermore, al-Ghazali’s attitude toward holy war illustrates that not all Sufis were pacific contemplatives:

Indeed, even al-Ghazali (d. 1111), the famous theologian, philosopher, and paragon of mystical Sufism, (who, as noted by the great scholar of Islam W.M. Watt, has been ‘…acclaimed in both the East and West as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad…”), wrote the following about jihad:
‘…one must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year...one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them...If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab [People of The Book – Jews and Christians, typically] is enslaved, his marriage is [automatically] revoked…One may cut down their trees...One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever they decide...they may steal as much food as they need...’[31]

It was among the Turks that the idea of the warrior Sufi attained its highest development. The ghazis of Anatolia, following the collapse of the Seljuk state were reinforced by “‘holymen,’ sheikhs and dervishes of an unorthodox Moslem persuasion … and who rekindled Turkish enthusiasm for war against the infidel.”[32] A.E. Vacalopoulos also notes the importance of Sufis both in participating in jihad and in inciting Seljuk and Ottoman ghazis to embark on further conquests:

...fanatical dervishes and other devout Muslim leaders…constantly toiled for the dissemination of Islam. They had done so from the very beginning of the Ottoman state and had played an important part in the consolidation and extension of Islam. These dervishes were particularly active in the uninhabited frontier regions of the east. Here they settled down with their families, attracted other settlers, and thus became the virtual founders of whole new villages, whose inhabitants invariably exhibited the same qualities of deep religious fervor. From places such as these, the dervishes or their agents would emerge to take part in new military enterprises for the extension of the Islamic state. In return, the state granted them land and privileges under a generous prescription which required only that the land be cultivated and communications secured.[33]

Under the Ottomans one of the most important dervish orders, the Bektashi, was particularly “noted for its connection with the Janissaries.”[34] However, despite their co-option by orthodox Islam, in some Sufis, even among the militant Bektashis, unconventional views regarding jihad could still be found. One dervish in 1690 went among Ottoman troops on the eve of battle calling them fools for believing in the heavenly rewards promised to jihadists. The story “reflects a widespread suspicion of the dervish orders” and the questioning on the part of the orthodox clergy of Sufism’s commitment to basic Islamic doctrine.[35]

Heretical Muslim Sects
Some sects have embraced such eccentric theological views that they are regarded by many of the more conventional Muslims as, not merely heretics, but apostates. These sects often provide an expression of the submerged national feelings of peoples conquered by Muslim invaders. Shi’ism has been the source of many of these heretical and apostate movements. Some of these extremist Shi’ite sects are Takhtajis, Qizil-bash and Bektashis of Turkey and the Ali-deifiers of Persia and Turkestan. These sects along with Nusayris, Assassins, Druses and Qarmatians are considered beyond the pale of mainstream Islam even by more conventional Shiites.[36] Some of these Shi’ite sects, like the Sufis, have adopted many doctrines from Christianity. In fact, at least one of these mystical sects, the Bektashi is sometimes regarded as a Sufi fraternity instead of as an independent Shi’ite sect (see above). Other sects add syncretistic elements from Buddhism, Hinduism and shamanism.

The Nusayris or Alawites, “followers of ibn-Nusayr present a remarkable example of a group passing directly from paganism to Isma’ilism.” They “consider Ali the incarnation of the deity”, possess a liturgy and celebrate a number of Christian festivals particularly that of Christmas and Easter.[37]

Another extreme Shi’ite manifestation is represented by the Druses. These began as an “Ismailite sect which originated from the adulation given to the mad Fatimid caliph, Hakim al Mansur, … by two of his ministers, who declared him to be a return in the flesh of the hidden Imam, and in fact an incarnation of God himself.”[38]

The Ahmadiya, another movement with strong syncretistic elements, regarded as distinctly heretical by the orthodox, was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who at the end of the 19th century proclaimed himself both Messiah and avatar of the Hindu god Krishna. “But he remained a Moslem in the sense that he said he was not a prophet in himself but only in and through Muhammad.” Ahmad rejected the concept of holy war and his followers are both pacifists and “ardent missionaries.” The Lahore splinter branch has returned to the Moslem fold by rejecting Ahmad’s extreme claims, although they still revere him as a “genuine renewer of religion.”[39]

Syncretism
Several religions were founded with certain marked Islamic influences, but are to such a large extent combined with other religious doctrines that they have transcended Islam altogether. Sikhism is a syncretistic religion combining elements of Hinduism and Islam. Sikhism had its start with certain reformers of Hinduism who appeared in India and whose “recurrent efforts of reform were the indirect effects of the severe and militant monotheism of the Moslems.” One such was Kabir (1440-1518) who “caught from the Moslems their hatred of idols.” Adopting monotheism “he declared that the love of God was sufficient to free anyone of any class or race from the Law of Karma.”[40] Kabir was followed by Nanak (1469 – 1538) whose doctrine was “an attempt to combine the insights of two widely differing faiths.” He “called his God the True Name, because he meant to avoid any delimiting name … like Allah, Rama, Shiva or Ganesha.” He also removed the Hindu proscription against meat eating. [41] Moreover, although Nanak’s sect began as both contemplative and pacific, “yet it was the singular fate of the religion … to change with the years into a vigorously activist political faith.” Under the impetus of Islamic persecution there developed “in full strength a military ardor, a self dedication to the arbitrament of the sword.”[42]

Bahaism, a syncretistic offshoot of Ismailism became, like Sikhism, a separate faith. The Persian Mirza Ali Muhammad, calling himself Bab-ud-Din proclaimed that his mission “was to prepare the way for a greater than himself who should come after him and complete the work of reform and righteousness which he had begun.” Bab-ud-Din was executed as a heretic in 1850. The next leader, who took the name of Baha‘u’Llah, was imprisoned by the Turks. The Bahais “call upon all religions to unite, for every religion contains some truth.”[43]

Prospects for Reform
There are, thus, severe impediments to Islamic reform. Following the example of the early Protestants by returning to scriptural roots leads to the rise of fundamentalist sects, such as Wahhabism which are even more fanatically committed to warlike and repressive doctrines. On the other hand, attempts at doctrinal reform seem destined to failure. The movements established by such reformers have either been forced to accommodate themselves to Sunni or Shi’ite orthodoxy, or else have been formally ejected from the main body of Islam as apostasies.

Some of the most troublesome aspects of Islam are deeply embedded within the Islamic meme and, therefore, are very difficult to reform. These include the violence inherent in the doctrine of jihad, the sexual ideology depending on the oppression of women and the intolerance inherent in the doctrine of Muslim supremacy and destiny. There is also the attitude toward labor, the stifling of initiative and innovation and the intellectual atrophy resulting from fatalism, parasitism and slavery. All of these are the very factors responsible for Islam’s historical success and growth. Consequently, they have become crystallized in Islamic culture and are, thus, extraordinarily difficult to uproot or to drastically modify.

Perhaps what is needed as a prerequisite of real reform is a raising of consciousness among the masses in the territories conquered by Arabs and their Turkish or Mogul successors which would lead them to embrace with pride the buried and suppressed achievements of their pre-Islamic ancestors. It may be necessary for Muslims to recognize and mourn for the oppression, enslavement, rape and indignities that one fraction of their ancestors imposed on the greater part, often the overwhelmingly greater part, of their ancestral lineage. Secularism and the political disestablishment of Islam would necessarily follow. As Warraq puts it:

…this process of historical education … would lead to a much needed broadening of the intellectual life, a deeper tolerance for other ways of life, a simple expansion of historical knowledge that has remained so limited and narrow. Greater knowledge of the pre-Islamic past can only lead to the lessening of fanaticism. … The ideas of change and continuity will also have to become a part of the Muslim’s consciousness if Muslim societies are to move forward – this will only occur with the recognition of the pre-Islamic past…[44]

Thus far there has been only one Muslim nation, Turkey, where such a program has achieved any real success. Even there, the failure of the Kemalist elite to fully acknowledge their own history and to disestablish Islam in the village culture of Anatolia, may be leading to an Islamic revival. Other secularizing movements, usually established by dictators, have recognized the regressive nature of orthodox Islam on economic and social development. However, the modern personality cults of despots, even fairly benevolent ones like Ataturk, and the superficialities of certain secular elements within the governing and intellectual elite have not, so far, been sufficient for major and lasting reform.

The promoters of change have often recognized that a return to pre-Islamic roots is an essential condition for removing the debilitating effects of Islam. Ataturk and less palatable secularizers like Saddam or Nasser have attempted to undermine Islam by returning to an older pre-Islamic substrate as the basis of a new nationalism. So Ataturk emphasized the Hittite ancestry of the Anatolian Turks; of course he conveniently ignored the more important Greek ancestry because the Greeks were regarded as the current enemy. The Shah held a massive party to celebrate the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great. Nasser decorated Cairo with replicas of colossal Egyptian statuary. Saddam fancied himself the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar who will, literally, rebuild Babylon. These attempts to uproot and minimize the effects of Islam have, for a number of reasons, seen rather mixed results.

One of the problems with such attempts at reform is that the reformers have always held back from fully acknowledging their history and have been unwilling to confront Islamic attitudes that are firmly rooted in rural villages or urban souks. Thus, the Turks have embraced and mythologized the quite remote history of the Hittites, even claiming against all evidence that the latter were an offshoot of the Central Asian Turkish “sun” people. At the same time, they reject their much more recent Greco-Roman, Byzantine and Armenian heritage. They even refuse to acknowledge their recent history of genocide against Armenian Christians, or their ethnic cleansing of the numerous Greek speaking population of Anatolia which occurred shortly thereafter.

The failures of other secularizing despots have been even greater. Saddam might have seen himself as leading the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar and Nasser may have thought of himself as carrying on the ancient tradition of the Pharaohs, but neither of them were willing to discard all of the old Arab and Muslim resentments against the western powers and against Christians and Jews. The late Shah may have viewed himself as successor to the ancient Persian emperors, but he was unwilling to accommodate himself to more liberal secular forces and, thereby, helped to bring his radical Shi’ite enemies to power.

Erasure of the pre-Islamic past occurred in almost all conquered lands. It is noteworthy that Muslim peoples, with the partial exception of the Persians, have a singular lack of curiosity regarding the pre-Islamic traditions of their ancestors. This distinguishes Islam from the other supra-national proselytizing religions, Christianity and Buddhism. While the path was sometimes indirect, the last two religions ultimately came to terms with the pre-existing civilizations in the lands in which they triumphed. Islam, however,

…adamantly required conquered people to scorn their own past and love their Islamic Arab conquerors by striving to imitate them. More importantly, the Koran is written in Arabic and Islam's sacred places, Mecca and Medina, are in Arabia. It was clear that the conquered and newly converted had to accept the primacy of the Arabic language, Arabic values and above all Arabia itself.[45]

Thus, it may be said that the “vanquished were ‘culturally disemboweled,’ condemned to the enforced psychosis of renouncing their old and highly developed identities for a crude and violent desert blueprint that regulated the minutest details of their lives.”[46]

Iran was the one great exception to this almost complete erasure of the past. As we have seen, the Persians at a very early time endeavored mightily to preserve their national consciousness and even succeeded to a small degree in using Islam as a means of reasserting their culture. Thus, the efforts made by the modern dynasty of Shahs are consistent with the history of Iran under Islam. Bassi describes these efforts as follows:

There have been times when Iran has dared to remember its past. In 1926, Reza Khan was crowned the first Pahlavi King of Iran and as part of his reforms he made it clear that he regarded Islam as a foreign imposed faith that should not determine Iran’s identity. As part of his attack on Islam, Reza Khan connected his new Iran with the ancient Zoroastrian past. The Farsi language was purged of Arabic words, architecture began to take inspiration from ancient Achaemenian styles and schoolbooks were re-written to enhance an Iranian identity. Cities were renamed with Iranian names, parents were encouraged to give Iranian, and not Arabic, names to their children. In 1935 Persia itself was replaced with Iran, as it was known in the days of Cyrus the Great. These reforms were of course reversed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.[47]

However, these “attempts to restore Persian national pride met only bewilderment and anger. … Rather than evoke pride, this past greatness inspired contempt, as the creation of infidel predecessors.”[48] There is one notable exception to the trashing of ancient Iranian history by fanatical Shi’ites. Even the latter still maintain and cultivate the ancient anger and resentment against the West that goes back to Alexander’s invasion and the wars with the Romans.

Iranian Shi’ites reversal of the reforms of the Pahlavi dynasty has been matched by a more general fundamentalist reaction against modern secularism; a reaction often directed against the pre-Islamic artifacts cherished by secular nationalists. One example is that of the Pakistani militants who want to use the archaeological site of Mohenjo-Daro, not as a celebration of the achievements of their ancestors, but as a “teaching opportunity” for the truth of Islam triumphing over barbaric idolaters. Even the secular Turks are not exempt from a desire to uproot pre-Islamic culture; in Cyprus “Muslims attempted to use the fourth century monastery of San Makar as a hotel.” In Libya Tripoli’s Catholic cathedral was recently converted into a mosque.[49] In Afghanistan there was, of course the destruction of the famous Bamiyan Buddhas.

However, for most of Muslim history it was neglect and indifference that played the most significant role in the erasure of the past. The actions of the Ottoman authorities are illustrative. These include the use of the Parthenon as an ammunition storage depot. There was also the permission granted by various Turkish authorities to Europeans to dismantle and export archaeological treasures in exchange for relatively small payments or bribes.

Thus, a true hope for Islamic reforms must wait for actions such as the following throughout most of the Muslim world. One such action might be for a future Iranian regime to resume the secular reforms begun by the Shahs, albeit under more democratic auspices. Another would be for Turkey to acknowledge its Greek and Armenian cultural and genetic heritage. Only by accepting the Hellenic heritage common to western civilization can the Turkish elite truly reach their long desired goal of becoming modern Europeans. The Turks would also do well to acknowledge their past history of jihad, persecution and genocide, and integrate these into their modern national consciousness. Still another such action would be for Egyptians to truly embrace their great past and reject the parochial calls of fanatical Muslim scholars. At the same time they would do well to recognize the Coptic minority as the purest embodiment of that past and cease the persecution to which that group is still subjected. Similarly, true reform can only be achieved in Iraq when all persecution of the Assyrian and Chaldean Christians ceases. Also, reform in Pakistan can only come about with the recognition of their past as part of Indian civilization and an end to discrimination against Hindus and other minorities.

Another requirement for reform would be acknowledging the truth of Islamic history on the part of both Muslim and Western scholars. The next chapter examines some of the myths about that history which are widely believed and disseminated.

[1] Noss, Man’s Religions, p. 747.
[2] Ibid, p. 748.
[3] Ibid, p. 750.
[4] Hitti, History of the Arabs, p. 245.
[5] Noss, Man’s Religions, pp. 765-66.
[6] Ibid, p. 766.
[7] Ibid, p. 767.
[8] Idries Shah, The Sufis, Garden City, NY, Anchor Books, 1971, p. 35.
[9] Noss, Man’s Religions, pp. 753-54.
[10] Ibid, p. 769.
[11] Hitti, History of the Arabs, p. 433.
[12] Ibid, pp. 434-35.
[13] Noss, Man’s Religions, p. 769.
[14] Hitti, History of the Arabs, p. 435.
[15] Ibid
[16] Frye, The Heritage of Central Asia, p. 228.
[17] Noss, Man’s Religions, pp. 754-55.
[18] Hitti, History of the Arabs, pp. 437-38.
[19] Muller, The Loom of History, p. 282.
[20] Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor, p. 391.
[21] Noss, Man’s Religions, p. 772.
[22] Hitti, History of the Arabs, p. 435.
[23] Ibid, p. 439.
[24] Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries, p. 90.
[25] Shah, The Sufis, p. 163.
[26] Darlington, The Evolution of Man and Society, p. 346.
[27] Hitti, History of the Arabs, p. 432.
[28] Chapter 11: The Parasitic Civilization.
[29] Spencer, Islam Unveiled, pp. 122-23.
[30] Shah, The Sufis, p.167.
[31] Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad in Palestine, FrontPageMagazine.com, December 7, 2004.
[32] Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries, p. 19.
[33] Quoted in Andrew G. Bostom, Eurabia’s Morass Elicits Mythical “Solutions”, American Thinker, November, 24, 2005.
[34] Hitti, History of the Arabs, p. 432.
[35] Lewis, The Middle East, p. 238.
[36] Hitti, History of the Arabs, p. 449.
[37] Ibid, pp. 448-49.
[38] Noss, Man’s Religions, p. 770.
[39] Ibid, pp. 775-76.
[40] Ibid, p. 311.
[41] Ibid, p. 315.
[42] Ibid, p. 317.
[43] Ibid, p. 776.
[44] Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim, p. 207.
[45] Paolo Bassi, The Iranian Identity Crisis: Islam v. Iranian Identity.
[46] Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet, p. 90.
[47] Bassi, The Iranian Identity Crisis: Islam v. Iranian Identity.
[48] Spencer, Islam Unveiled, pp. 125-26.
[49] Ibid, p. 173.