It’s certainly true that once Muslims become a majority in a country, they use any and all methods at their disposal — lethal violence, threats, intimidation, legal sanctions, economic incentives, punitive taxation, clan warfare, social pressure — to persuade unbelievers to convert to Islam and stay there.
Take, for example, this news article from AKI, which reports that Al-Qaeda is trumpeting the success of its mission to keep churches out of Arab countries:
Al-Qaeda halts spread of the church in Arab world, claims leader
A senior al-Qaeda leader, Abu Yahya al-Libi, claims that the terror organisation has stopped the expansion of the church in the Arab world.
“If it wasn’t for our heroes, today we would have many churches in the Arabian Peninsula, as we have already seen with the opening of one in Qatar,” said al-Libi in a video message posted to Islamist websites.
He was referring to the Catholic church inaugurated in the Qatari capital, Doha, in March this year.
Al-Libi also talked about the “danger” posed by inter-religious dialogue between the Arab Ulema or Muslim religious leaders and their Christian counterparts.
The 40-minute message entitled, “The moderation of Islam and the moderation of defeat”, seeks to refute the notion of a moderate Islam.
“At this moment there is a crusader campaign against Islam and that has succeeded in corrupting the personalities in our religion,” al-Libi said.
Here we come to the contradiction that lies at the heart of Islam: if the religion of the Prophet is so true, so perfect, so exactly right for the human race, why is force necessary to install it and maintain it?
If Muslims can be “corrupted” by Christian ideas, there must be something inherently attractive about Christianity that lures them away from Islam.
Thus, violent intimidation must be employed to prevent at all costs even the slightest whiff of Islamic revisionism:
- - - - - - - - -
“Changes in Islamic thought are happening in particular in the most important Arab countries. With the excuse of moderation, they are corrupting our faith.”
He said that Christians “use false slogans and declare that civilisations are talking and not fighting, that the religions are getting closer and are not clashing.”
So the slogans are false, but also so convincing that they tempt believers into giving up their faith in Allah. There’s no explanation of why false ideas can gain such ascendancy, but simply an absolute determination to keep them from taking hold.
In particular, the political leaders of Arab states are too blame for their laxity:
Al-Libi criticised these “ideas of the unbelievers”.
[…]
Al-Libi attacked Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who has suggested hosting a conference on religious dialogue in Saudi Arabia.
“The guardian of monotheism has raised the flag of brotherhood between religions and speaks about things that he does not know,” al-Libi said.
As soon as the door opens to “brotherhood between religions”, many Muslims try to leave through it, and must be forcibly prevented from doing so. True ecumenism would only serve to emphasize the fragility of Islam, and how dependent it is upon coercion, intimidation, and censorship to maintain its hold over Muslims.
Al-Qaeda is well-advised to keep the churches out of Araby, because there is considerable evidence that mass conversion out of Islam occurs whenever possible. This happens even when it is dangerous to do so, as it almost always is. Recently there have been reports that up to a million Iranians have converted to Christianity, despite this horrible risks they face as apostates in Iran.
The latest news concerns Muslims in Kosovo who are converting to Roman Catholicism:
Just last week, a group of 32 individuals of the same family, the Sopi of Lapushnik, converted to Catholicism. Lapushnik is a village located in the north-eastern part of Kosovo, in the same region of Drenica that was the cradle of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and that has traditionally harboured the more fierce resistance against Belgrade. A spokesperson for the family, Ismet Sopi, has told local journalists that there are many more people who intend to convert from Islam in that region, “maybe as many as 320 or 3,200”.
If these reports are true — if, despite the presence of the KLA and hard-line Saudi-funded Wahabbists in Kosovo, Muslims are turning to Christianity — then Islam’s hold at the margins is not as strong as its spokesmen would have us believe.
Members of the Ummah who are only nominal Muslims, when presented with an attractive alternative, tend to shed their Islamic identity rather easily for something that is less harsh and more humane. Christianity does not use a sword to persuade or retain its adherents.
As Pope Benedict XVI said so controversially at Regensburg in 2006:
Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, [the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus] addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood — and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…
If the Iranians and the Kosovars are any indication, Al-Qaeda’s efforts to stop the spread of churches are in vain. The “world’s fastest-growing religion” is thus revealed as a sham, a propaganda ploy intended to hoax the infidels into backing a sure winner.
Islam is brittle and vulnerable. One little push will shatter the façade and turn it into the world’s fastest-shrinking religion.
Hat tips: insubria for the AKI article; Queen for the Kosovo story.
54 comments:
do you really think that it is not true that is the fastest growing religion at the rate they are having kids... I don't dare to be optimist
One push? While I agree Islam is brittle, it has a very strong hold on its adherents, and even its very lax members. Witness the lengths to which Muslim-in-name-only Muslims defend the faith and act as its apologists. If Christianity starts gaining hold in Muslim countries a lot of blood will be spilled to stop it, and given what Islam teaches about unbelievers I do not believe that such murderous acts will prompt conversions away from it.
2 costin
There is an opinion that they actually don't have that many children. In Israel, despite claims of high arab fertility, the average number is not much greater than that of Jews. In many traditional muslim countries population does not grow. So I think, large number of children is the way the nations colonize new areas. Muslims have many children in the countries which they are going to colonize, with the help of authorities. However, if they are not supported, they may reduce their multiplication rate.
I agree with practically nothing in this article. Let's break it down part by part:
1) The truth always emerges in an environment of free speech and therefore Islam should have nothing to fear from open debate if it were true.
This is ridiculously optimistic. Even in an environment of free speech, the most absurd lies are believed by 99% of people. Like Cassandra you can scream and scream at the top of your lungs such obvious truths as 'evolution exists' or 'bread is not the flesh of christ!' but overwhelmingly the lies are still preferred. Most people are too stubborn, stupid, or ignorant to ever know the truth about anything, much less most things, even with the truth freely available.
2) Islam will convert to Christianity all over the world, therefore solving our problem.
This is preposterous. In fact, the percentage of the christian minority in muslim lands has dramatically tanked in the last century. When before we were talking about 20% or more christians, we are now talking maybe 1% and soon 0%. Islam has ethnic cleansed or genocided all christians and will continue to do so, thinking otherwise flies in the face of reality.
3) Christianity will solve all the world's problems once it's been converted to.
Au contraire, Christianity is completely incapable of solving any problems. Christianity oversaw Europe's dark ages and only by rejecting christianity and turning back to its greco-roman pagan roots has europe ever progressed. Christianity in Europe is dead and a few converted muslims won't revive it. The age of the christian west is over, therefore it won't have any power to do anything, and if it did have power, it would just go back to witch burning and dogmatism > science.
4) Kosovo is/will soon be the site of a win for the west.
What? Come on. . .
The only motivating factor that can defeat Islam is nationalism, ie, a country dedicated to the folk, the fatherland, the history, the language, and the culture, and completely unwilling to sacrifice any of it to any foreign invader. Nationalism has seen such heroic countries as Serbia in WWI and WWII fight off endless hordes of more powerful neighbors, and the same in Paraguay which lost 90% of its population fighting off Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil all at once. Is there any motivating spirit to humanity that can produce a response like 90% losses? Christianity is milk toast in comparison.
Diamed, I disagree with nearly everything you say. Breakdown:
Even in an environment of free speech, the most absurd lies are believed by 99% of people.
Truth Takes Time. But on an over-arching level, rationalism is still doing perfectly well in the West, with the large majority taking it as a matter of course. There has been, however, a depressing laxness in checking our politicians, who're running away with this crazy European Union, and it's a struggle to fix that.
Most people don't like lying, and even Muslims at the time of Muhammad were more concerned about lying than killing. I think it's a common human sensible notion to tell the truth. Absent of pressure and using the Greco-Roman tradition of sensible debate and argument, truth starts out small and wins.
And there are more conversions to Christianity than mentioned in this article, though they're hard to provide documentation for. Iran just formalized the death penalty for apostacy, because people by the hundred thousand seem to prefer Jesus over Muhammad. That's a serious source of instability for the regime. Word has it that Turkey has a similar situation, but that's less clear.
Christianity has traditionally worked very well underground, as we saw in the Roman Empire. And conversions can take place much faster than childbirth, too.
Christianity is completely incapable of solving any problems. Christianity oversaw Europe's dark ages
Now, this is just a bit of ignorance and can be excused. I suggest reading Rodney Stark and get more details.
The only motivating factor that can defeat Islam is nationalism.
We need both. A healthy patriotism, and a constructive religion that teaches people to behave in a positive manner and be responsible for their own lives. Islam takes the good intentions of its adherents and devours them. Christian takes the same intentions and applies them for the good of society. Jesus was a good example for human behaviour, Muhammad wasn't.
I'll abstain from being prophetic about Kosovo. I *hate* being wrong :)
Notice that only the Christian world produced democracy and Universal Human Rights? No coincidence here, for Christianity is compatible with rationalism. Not bad, not at all :)
Now, this is just a bit of ignorance and can be excused. I suggest reading Rodney Stark and get more details.
Henrik, thank you for that - in fact I think I'll get that book myself.
However, to summarise, the middle ages are popularly called "the dark ages" for two reasons: first, until very recently we didn't actually have much written material from that time (the collapse of the Roman empire presaged a dramatic drop in population and literacy) and second, because during the age of enlightenment the era from 500 to 1500 AD was seen as an age of superstition and unreason, opposed to the rationality of the classical era and the new rationality of the enlightenment, hence "dark" compared to their "light", of course completely ignoring that from 500 to around 1000 the entire continent was still recovering from the collapse of the roman empire, undergoing massive population movements and still managed to invent the nation state amongst other things, and from 1000 to 1500 just about all of the facets of modern society - including capitalism - were invented by highly devout, "irrational" and "superstitious" christians. Scholars now refer to it simply as the Middle Ages and, if they do use the term "dark ages", they tend to mean the period immediately surrounding the final collapse of the roman empire - a true and complete civilisational collapse.
@Graham,
".. the middle ages are popularly called "the dark ages" for two reasons: first, until very recently we didn't actually have much written material from that time.."
Until very recently? How's that? Scholars of the medieval period only in posession of a few volumes of Thomas Aquinas and that's it? And then, very recently, "boom" a miraculous Indy Jones-style discovery of a complete medieval library? No seriously, the problem has been that due to hundreds of years of (mainly anti-Catholic) propaganda (of the Dark Ages myth), the established scientific fact that science, the university, free market economy etc actually began in the Middle Ages, still has a very hard time to reach the level of popular imagination. It is true that French protestants destroyed a large part of the medieval library of the Cluny monastery, but there was more than enough left, there as elsewhere. Actually there's a whole world of written material that stems from those mythical "Dark Ages", and you're not to blame for not knowing about it. Being a scholar of the medieval period must indeed be one of the most ungratifying professions when one looks at the impression (almost none) on the popular mind.
The phrase by the way: "Dark Ages", is of recent origins, "..probably first used by the British historian Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862) in his History of Civilization in England. Others soon copied Buckle's usage, and by the twentieth century the term was in such general use that few knew it wasn't long-standing. Indeed, some writers seem almost to suggest that people living in, say, the ninth century described their own time as the Dark Ages.." [quote Rodney Stark, 2003]
"..500 to around 1000 the entire continent was still recovering from the collapse of the roman empire, undergoing massive population movements and still managed to invent the nation state amongst other things.."
That's plainly false. Nation states if anything were largely a result of the protestant attempt at reformation of the traditional Church. You're at least 500 years too early with your assertion ;-)
And about that recovering from the collapse of the Roman Empire, do I still hear an echo of Edward Gibbon's mythmaking history? Already in 732 the army of "the Hammer" was able to defeat the Muslims because they were technologically far more advanced than the muslims who were still on a classical roman level (no real saddle, no stirrups). What to think of the invention of the watermill-technology instead of the roman use of slave labour? As soon as the roman tax-joke is lifted one sees that all over Europe people become very innovative again. That something more than just "recovering" from a "collapse" one would think.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Baron, if you persist in making sense like that, right out in front of God and everybody, someone is bound to notice!
Islam is not and has never been a religion in the commonly accepted sense. It's a program of totalitarian conquest with a few pseudo-theological decorations around the edges. Granted that there are other religions that are equally laughable, none of the others, as far as I recall, endorse the use of violence and coercion to "spread the faith."
For this reason, I consider it mandatory that we get a federal judgment to the effect that Islam is not a religion but a hostile, anti-Constitutional ideology, and that therefore all avowed Muslims shall be required to register as the agents of a foreign power. Until we can chase the lot of them back to the Middle East, that is.
Sagunto sez a lot of the things I'd have said :)
What was (re-)invented in the High Middle Ages was the independent city-states, where citizens would run matters in a proto-democratic manner. That was in Italy, Netherlands, England - the forerunners of industry and capitalism.
MeThinks the collapse of the Roman Empire came a couple centuries too late. Having it crumble earlier would have unleashed more creativity and progress.
And Islam is a mockery of religion, a totalitarian system in religious garb. Useless, except for those in power who benefit from it.
Is this post a rejoinder to ConSwede?
Excellent piece, Baron.
It reminds me of a piece from WND back in February.
Jesus and Mohammed Compared.
There have been persistent reports of as many as six million muslims converting to Christianity annually, and from personal experience with a number of men, and their families, it came as a willful act, and a realization that Christianity offered something islam didn't. For a number of these men, they informed me the transition began late at night, when their families were asleep, and they watched some evangelists on television. That then led to questions and answers, and a turning away from islam. There is no salvation or redemption in islam, and the difference is glaring. Which is why the penalties for questioning Mohammed, or becoming an apostate are so severe, as islam cannot withstand scrutiny.
In the case of my friends, they were already good and kind men, and given the time and the opportunity, they saw the light, and stepped out of the darkness which is islam.
Too often we get so focused on the dangerous flaws of islam, we dehumanize the people, the well intentioned people, that are brought up in islam, and are indoctrinated in the absence of free will.
The opportunities to cast islam into the rubbish pile of failed ideologies are numerous, and conversion is but one. Education is another, and is one reason the murderous mufsideen, like AQ, so violently attack schools.
Homophobic Horse:
Is this post a rejoinder to ConSwede?
At least the two threads are converging. I here repost a paragraph I wrote in the other thread which happens to relate completely to this thread:
---
For Christianity the real enemy is always among us, i.e. those not holding the correct version of the doctrines, the heretics. While the Other holds a protected position in this religion of leftist goodness (inversion of values). The Other is seen as poor and inferior, lost creatures in need of education and conversion (today into liberalism and democracy), but they are never seen as the main enemy. The main enemy is always, and has always been, another Christian (the animosity between classic Christians and secular post-Christians is just one of the many examples of this).
Truth is more important than victory for Christians, while it is the other way around for Muslims. In fact victory is truth for Muslims. While we hear Christians (and secular hyper-Christians) always say how they are not going to fight for and support their country/civilization if it's not according to the morally correct doctrines/principles (liberalism, democracy, anti-fascism, whatever). Victory as such is not seen as desirable by Christians. This makes it likely to leave Christians scattered in small enclaves under Islamic rule, righteously holding on to their hundred or so different versions of the truth (so far this is the record in Northern Africa and the Middle East).
---
Rodney Stark, 2003: "Indeed, some writers seem almost to suggest that people living in, say, the ninth century described their own time as the Dark Ages.."
Today, it is mainly the extreme left that refers to the European past as the Dark Ages. And they also tell teenagers that everything older than ten years ago belong in the Dark Ages.
Henrik: "And Islam is a mockery of religion, a totalitarian system in religious garb. Useless, except for those in power who benefit from it."
Is it not the case that in Western countries, some muslim teenagers are injecting some Christian values into islam? I mean, if you ask a young muslim girl living in Europe what she thinks are the tenets of islam, she is unlikely to reply that islam is mainly about killing the infidels.
Baron:
"“At this moment there is a crusader campaign against Islam and that has succeeded in corrupting the personalities in our religion,” al-Libi said."
They're so weak...so filled with false pride. This assertion is so laughably false.
Consider Al-Qaeda mooj hiding inside mosques to avoid their supposedly cherished martyrdoms.
A true "Crusader campaign" against Islam would flatten them and their sanctuaries like rats in a trap.
These men are so arrogant that they have decided how God can and cannot speak to His own.
Does anyone here really doubt that Islam,(as practiced by such as these), is not doomed?
Their message is so unappealing that instead of missionaries, they must proselytze through the car bomb, even amongst their own.
"If Muslims can be “corrupted” by Christian ideas, there must be something inherently attractive about Christianity that lures them away from Islam."
For every muslim corrupted by Christian ideas, there are 10 to 100 Christians corrupted by muslim ideas.
Baron, if you want to believe that islam is weak, you have the liberty to do so, that won't make it a fact.
The truth is, islam is the most rapidly growing religion.
There is no chance to turn a muslim land, christian. In Guinea there have been 500 years of the most brutal Catholic envagelisation as well as the most soft of all. The result: the majority still are muslims.
Even in America, blacks find it atractive to be muslim.
Some Mexican "mestizos", fed up with the West, claim to descend from the muslims who conquered Spain.
Seriously, in Africa, South and South East Asia, islam is gaining ground as we speak. Look to Darfur! That's what happen when there are too many Christians in a muslim country.
Even in Europe muslims advance without fear. And I am not talking about immigrants.
I am talking about the true front line between Europe and islam (one of many enemies and front lines of European Civilisation): The South East of Europe. I am talking about Nations such as:
Albania - 3 million muslims, +90% muslim;
Bosnia - 2 million muslims, ~40% muslim, virtually controled only by muslims. In the muslim part, Croats were 25% in the early nineties and are now less than 5%;
Kosovo - 1 million muslims,+90% muslim;
Macedonia - 30% muslim with powerfull muslim neighbours;
Montenegro - 20% muslim;
Bulgaria - 1 million muslims, 11% muslim;
And there are 70 million muslims ready to flood the region from Turkey; Hundreds of millions from the Middle East and beyonde.
Muslims enjoy being muslims much more than you Baron enjoy be an European/American.
Muslims are not weak. They never were. And (I am not talking about immigrants) the fact that they rule de facto traditional Christian areas and that they have muslim countries in plain European soil with the help of the E.U. shows they are not weak. We are the weaks here, we are the ones (Europeans) who have abandoned both, our Christian faith and our ancient Pagan Gods.
Stick to reality, otherwise, we are doomed.
"Paraguay which lost 90% of its population fighting off Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil all at once."
That was not Nationalism!
First, Paraguay is not and never will be a Nation.
Second, do you really believe they wanted to see 90% of its population killed?
Third,
I heard a tale in which the "Guerra de lo Chaco" in which Paraguay lost 90% of its population and great parts of its territories was an evil action prepetrated by the evil white governments of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay against the dangerous "brownification" of the Paraguayan elites that was making the cast system of the other three states shake.
It was the way Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay encountered to smash a sort of "communism" that would threaten those societies.
They abused in killings, (mainly ethnic cleansing of Indians in the conquered lands) and in the conquest of territories.
I do not know much, I only heard this version. But one thing I grant you Diamed, it was not "Praguayan Nationalism".
I agree with the rest of your comment pretty much.
"Notice that only the Christian world produced democracy and Universal Human Rights?"
Come on Henrik!
We had democracy in Europe much before Christianity!
Look at Persia and India! They had Universal Human Rights!
India is an Hindu state with more than 10000000000 persons and it is a democracy!
Christianity has nothing to due to it. I would bet on Nationalism over this.
Because Nationalism provides a necessity to protect the ways of a given people (which will lead to a democracy) and Christianity nothing of the sort.
If it weren't for the Germans and their crazi Gibhelinism (is that the way it is spelled?) we would ge governed autocratic(ly) by the Pope in Rome.
D. Afonso Henriques, our first King, despite being a Christian and have fought against the muslims, did not care at all about the Pope, who wanted a unified Spain (All the Iberia Peninsula). I stick with him.
We do not need Christianity, Christianity needs us, and it is indeed a pity that such a great religion is turning its back over Europe.
I have faith that it will emerge a new type of European Christianity, though.
Just wait for the Pope not to be an European...
"completely ignoring that from 500 to around 1000 the entire continent was still recovering from the collapse of the roman empire, undergoing massive population movements and still managed to invent the nation state amongst other things, and from 1000 to 1500 just about all of the facets of modern society - including capitalism - were invented by highly devout, "irrational" and "superstitious" christians. Scholars now refer to it simply as the Middle Ages and, if they do use the term "dark ages", they tend to mean the period immediately surrounding the final collapse of the roman empire - a true and complete civilisational collapse."
Exactly Archonix.
" Nation states if anything were largely a result of the protestant attempt at reformation of the traditional Church."
What?
Come on Sagunto...
Portugal, Ireland, Switzerland... and many more...
You have to distinguish true Nationalism from the Nationalism of the French Revolution.
"Does anyone here really doubt that Islam,(as practiced by such as these), is not doomed?"
Why do I feel this guy never left "the brave New World"?
Why do I feel that this guy thinks islam equals Al Qaeda?
Oh, maybe because that is the only contact America have had with the religion of peace. Or maybe because you have forget your nobel Founding Fathers and what they did to the pirates of the Barbary cost.
Thanks to that American intrevention, we never had muslims penetrating our lands searching for slaves. Thank you America.
Unfortunatley, some people think that to be a slave one needs to be black and maybe that's why (some)Americans find so hard to imagine that Serbs can be slaves of Turks and Albanians or that most Ukranian prostitutes out of Ukrains are slaves of Turkish masters...
Too bad there are still people with such prejudices.
Sagunto: I liked your comment. It was informative.
Afonso: Was wondering if you (or anyone) could help me... There was a poem I read a while ago, but I can't remember the exact phrasing, so I can't find it anymore... does something like this sound familiar?
"[From Africa] The Musselmen on Iberian Plains descend"
To all: Wasn't the fall of Constantinolple and the [Eastern] Roman Empire the catalyst for the revival of Western Europe ... causing a west-ward migration of scholars and material from the East?
"To all: Wasn't the fall of Constantinolple and the [Eastern] Roman Empire the catalyst for the revival of Western Europe ... causing a west-ward migration of scholars and material from the East?"
I don't know if it had the magnitude of a "catalyst", but surely the fact that many Byzantine scholars moved to Italy (actually to the Italian city states) after the fall of Constantinople is one of the most important factors leading to what we call "Renaissance". But the process had begun before their arrival in the Italian Peninsula and was due to a multitude of factors: re-discovering, studying and interpreting the Greek-Roman texts, the new prestige of the ancient, classic culture (the Byzantines only enriched an already existing trend) - Dante and Petrarca lived before the fall of Constantinople and their works are filled with references (and reverences) to the classics; some rulers who loved and encouraged cultural achievements (see Florence); unprecedented economical development; the independence of these cities which made them flexible regarding internal regulations and trade, etc.
All cruelty springs from weakness
Seneca
Fanaticism is over-compensaton for doubt
Robertson Davis
Weak minds lay an exaggerated stress in not changing them.
Somerset Maugham
That can never be reasoned down that was not reasoned up
Fisher Ames
No great work has ever been related to hatred or contempt.
Camus
The greatest fear possessing me is that the opposition to this threat, sensible counter-intelligence procedures, has been abandoned to flounder upon the oil-rinsed soggy laws that the US has been left holding.
That I see violence against our own citizens by PC (philosophically constipated) state and municipal administrations occurs in my night-mares and day-mares. I've just commented on this at my own site.
Vince,
sorry, but I really can't help you with the poem. What do you mean with "from Africa"? Is it an African poem? A Portuguese or Spanish poem? Sorry but I have no idea what you're talking about.
I do think that the fall of Constantinople on 29th May, 1453 was one of the great catalyzers to a better Renascence with so much the Greek intelligence making to North Italy. But I don't think it was the start nor the only/main factor.
It contributed a lot and Europe would be worst without that Greek knowledge, no doubt.
But if Constantinople had not felt, it would be better because that knowledge would remain there and we would have one more beautifull European city, instead of this filthy Asian city we have today... (that I'd like to visit though).
@Sagunto
Well of course I was generalising a great deal, but:
That's plainly false. Nation states if anything were largely a result of the protestant attempt at reformation of the traditional Church. You're at least 500 years too early with your assertion ;-)
The kingdoms of Saxon england were recognisably nation-states as early as the year 700, but certainly by circa 890 under Alfred the Great there was an emergence of a single national English character, a nation and a state.
Until very recently? How's that? Scholars of the medieval period only in posession of a few volumes of Thomas Aquinas and that's it?
Then let me put it another way: until recently there was a prejudice against materials from that time that meant they were simply ignored. But yes, written materials from the early middle ages were and still are relatively rare simply because people didn't write stuff down much during that period. It was a time when literacy all but disappeared amongst even high-born people, let alone the common peasantry. Much of what we have has been subsequently "interpreted" by enlightenment scholars who put their own anti-christian, pro-classicalist prejudices on it.
And about that recovering from the collapse of the Roman Empire, do I still hear an echo of Edward Gibbon's mythmaking history?
No. THe fact that Europeans were highly innovative doesn't alter the fact that the continent was still recovering from the collapse of the roman empire. Cultures were rapidly altering, language was rapidly changing, borders as we measure them were shifting hundreds of miles in a day. The systems that had kept Europe stable during the peace of rome had disappeared, literacy plummeted, disease increased, mortality increased. Some areas were in a shambles, others recovered much faster but, however you spin it, civilisation simply collapsed and had to recover again. The fact that its rocevery then rapidly took it to a superior level than the prior collapsed civilisation doesn't alter the fact that it had to recover from that collapse. 500 to 1000 was the recovery period in general.
And, like I said, in at least one part they managed to invent the nation state. :)
"500 to 1000 was the recovery period in general."
In general, really. Because some places of the holly continent had to spent the "recovery" fighting the muslims from 711 to 1492.
I, personaly, see the Dark Ages as have been happenning in different epochs in different places.
It is, first of all, characterised by the fall of the Romans and the expansion of the Germans. But usually the Germanics rapidly blended in with the Nations they conquered and adopted "Roman/European" culture. So, the Germanics had no great impact. They were just the dead blow, the Germanics preventing Europe of evolving by destroying the Roman empire, they stagnated Europe.
Then, the real Dark Ages popped in:
Moors in the Iberian Peninsula;
Mongols in the East;
And Turks in Anatolia, Greece and the Balkans.
That was really Dark Ages because very few "European culture" was created in the "occupied" areas.
The Byzantine golden perion was exactley that, since the fall of the Roman Empire to the XIII century;
The North had no Dark Ages, in that time there was the process of the Vikings becaming Europeans, it was also the time of Germanic/Viking expansion. The Dark Ages were before, when Germanics were not Europeans at all.
In the Northwest there are no Dark Ages at all, only wars of power and the prior process of the Germanics blending in. England has exported high culture, as well as Wales, Ireland and Scotland had maintained and prefected their high culture during this times. The same can not be said to the Balkans in the XVII and XVIII century, can it?
Think about it. No, seriously, think about it...
Holy old bald-headed unrevised protestant Jesus!
This is the silliest argument ever on this site. We can hash this out over brandy and cigars...after the victory.
What do we do next? How do we win? These are the questions that should concern us.
This idiotic blame game gets us nowhere.
Most people don't like lying, and even Muslims at the time of Muhammad were more concerned about lying than killing
Most Christians don't. Islamic culture encourages lying. It's one of the reasons their military and business endeavors tend to be colossal failures. The oil business is a great success only because it's actually being run by infidels.
I mean, if you ask a young muslim girl living in Europe what she thinks are the tenets of islam, she is unlikely to reply that islam is mainly about killing the infidels.
Islam was never mainly about killing infidels, it's mainly about dominating and ruling the world. Good luck getting the girl to admit to Islam's agenda of world domination.
Alfonso:
"Why do I feel that this guy thinks islam equals Al Qaeda?"
Because you're a fool.
To Al-Gaeda, Al-Gaeda equals Islam...you dig?
"Why do I feel this guy never left "the brave New World"?"
Because you're ignorant.
I lived for two years in Tunisia, four years in Brasil, and have sailed around the world, literally, for the past twenty years.
But please, by all means continue hugging your cherished notion of the parochial and xenophobic American...the entertainment value is quite rewarding.
ALL American Christians MUST wear polyester and have never ventured more than 3 counties away from the place where they were born,(or born again, if'n you prefer).
"Too bad there are still people with such prejudices."
Indeed, Alfonso...indeed.
Islam: born in terror, must be maintained by terror.
It is the central truth of this "religion".
randian, let me more precise:
Most humans do not like lying. Christianity discourages lying, Islam tolerates or even encourages it.
Human beings, who see their leaders lying to them, get a natural dislike for what they see. Islam supresses that natural reaction against lies.
@Graham,
I'll try to briefly touch upon all three points you mentioned in your last post. Some aspects of your argument are perhaps not that different from what I'm trying to say, though we differ enough to merit some further discussion.
First of all, I'm glad you mention Alfred, as far as my info goes the only king in England ever credited with "the Great". Now I don't want to expand on the nation state argument too much. When one makes general statements about nation states as we know them, I thought it best to mention today's consensus among historians that stresses the close association between the Reformation and the formation of what we today recognize as nation states in Europe. With some considerable measure of semantic flexibility, one could indeed argue that some southern parts of (Alfred's) England could be regarded as a precursor. Same holds mutatis mutandis for the Netherlands as well. But modern day England and Holland were shaped, not during the first millennium, but considerably later, when all over Europe the Reformation, mostly implemented "top down" by local nobles, disrupted the fabric of traditional society.
For the situation in England, I'd recommend you to read the 2nd edition of the UK-bestseller - rare for a scholarly and well researched work - by prof. Duffy: "The stripping of the Altars" (1992; 2005).
Back to Alfred and the great many things he did for his people (in close cooperation with the traditional clergy, beacons of literacy and learning among other things). You can place this in the wider perspective of the 8th century's First Renaissance, the Carolingian. Now renaissance usually is taken to mean a little bit more than just recovery, I'm sure you'll agree on that.
Since some time now, scholars have begun more & more to push the "Dark Age" designation further back, excluding the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries (see Knowles: "The Evolution of Medieval Thought, 1988). That would leave the sixth and seventh centuries as periods that were marked by cultural retrogression. No doubt about that among preeminent scholars.
But what you do is still hang on to a vision of "roman peace" before the "collapse" and that - taken as a general statement about the history of the late roman empire - is not substantiated by today's research. On a side note, I'd say that as an ordinary person I'd prefer medieval housing above the roman "model", because I'd prefer houses with actual windows and (very important innovation) chimneys above the roman building that didn't have them. I'm sure I would have preferred Alfred's reign above that of any emperor during the last troubled centuries of "roman peace". A peace that during those days never really was, considering the increased 'barbarian' attacks that started from the 2nd century onwards.
If so Bilgeman, why do you dare state what you did?
Have you forget your time in Tunisia?
I am puzzled...
Do you think that a Christianity with American flavour would destroy the Mohamedan cult?
1400 in the vanguard is a hard achievment weather we want to recognize it or not.
It would be easier to eradicate Native American, South East and African cultures/peoples than islamic ones.
Islam is a great Civilisation and it is getting stronger and stronger.
Alas, it is THE Civilisation that may destroy the European one.
"American Civilisation"? If you believe that exists, wait untill America cease to be the world's super power.
It's easy to love your country/(fake) people when we're on top...
If America was to have the GDP of Eastern Europe, a civil war would break up because it is so damned artificial.
I am not going to revisit this thread.
blah blah blah..
We all know one thing... it wont be Europeans destroying the cult.
It won't be the American Left.
It won't be the non-religious isolationist Right of Buchanan/Ron Paul
Every one better hope that the Christians of America have their wits about them.
There is no one else.
If I'm wrong... then please.. tell me who.
Vince,
I think the Europeans are more likely to be the ones destroying the cult than American Christians. We haven't seen the life and vitality from American Christians, as the ones we have seen from Denmark and Italy. Not even close.
There is no one else.
There are also the Chinese and the Russians. And I wouldn't fully count out the people of Iran.
Anyway, my prediction is that if the Europeans won't do it, then the Chinese will. America is the one that will try to stop it.
No one will be doing anything.. that's my bleak assessment.
The only people who are going to boldly act in their self-interest are the Islamists who have no rules.. no restraints.. no morality.. no humanity.
They'll be after us soon enough. After Bush is out of office and one of the three national embarassments take office.
But what you do is still hang on to a vision of "roman peace" before the "collapse" and that - taken as a general statement about the history of the late roman empire - is not substantiated by today's research.
Apparently not. My understanding of this era's history is heavily influenced by my wife (she being the real historian out of us two) and her speciality is ancient Greek and early Roman imperial history prior to Nero, when Pax Romana actually meant something. It looks like I'm falling into the trap the enlightenment scholars fell into, seeing the classical era as one monolithic block of awesomeness. Ironic.
Vince,
No one will be doing anything.. that's my bleak assessment.
No one will be doing anything significant in the current power configuration. But power configurations change.
If by "doing anything" you mean stopping a major Islamic nuclear attack on the West, I think you are right. Nobody will stop that (just possibly stall it for a while), But once the Muslims have nuked us, this will certainly change the way the game is set up and played.
"If by "doing anything" you mean stopping a major Islamic nuclear attack on the West, I think you are right"
That's what I meant.
I work in the Sears Tower... so my interest in the story ends with that.
@Graham,
Well maybe your wife would then agree with the fact that say, the last hundred years of the Roman Republic leading up to the early imperial period, starring the Gracchus brothers, Marius and the terror of Sulla, the populares vs the optimates, and finally the grave civil war during and right after the period of Gaius I Caesar, were the time of multiple and severe economic and social crises (due to numerous wars in the 2nd century BC that ruined the roman farms, peasants being mandatorily drafted into the army).
Sure there was a period of peace under the reign of Octavianus Augustus, but it came at a price and the fundamental crisis at the root of Roman society wasn't resolved. There is a period of great cultural bloom lasting for about a hundred years after the Flavian dynasty, but meanwhile, the (rural, economic) decline is steady. By the time Gaius Diocletianus needs desperate measures to reorganize the economy (still more regulation, even more centralist planning, i.e. disastrous in the long run), people are actually leaving the Roman Empire in droves. Now the steady decline doesn't mean that the arts and literature must necessarily suffer, that's why I sometimes get the impression that for some historians in the past and today's politicians, the presence of noble arts and fine tall buildings are enough for them so suppose everything was allright. Of course roman society was far more interesting than just the gated community of a few privileged persons, reading their Cicero or a bit later the (interesting) musings of Marcus Aurelius.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
I work in the Sears Tower... so my interest in the story ends with that.
OK Vince, then I understand your take on this. And then it makes sense for you to put your hope in the Christians of America. In this short-term time frame (which means an unaltered power configuration of the world) there's no one else to hope for really.
"There are also the Chinese and the Russians. And I wouldn't fully count out the people of Iran."
"And I wouldn't fully count out the people of Iran..."
Amén to that!
But a Persian Nation will not be built this way. The more the U.S. attacks Iran, the more the Persians will blend in (with Turks, Arabs and especially Islam) in Iran.
Also, Persians are used to empires, they wouldn't like to hava tiny little Nation of their own.
Maybe Russia... that's where I have my faith on!
By the way, have you seen the Eurovision song conquest and how the Baltics and others "enfant terribles" did lay down to Russia?
Delightfull...
By the way, Portugal was the 2nd best of Western Europe, ending in 13th or something.
alfonso:
"If so Bilgeman, why do you dare state what you did?"
("Does anyone here really doubt that Islam,(as practiced by such as these), is not doomed?")
Because al-Libi himself admitted as much.
And our own Western history. Any faith with clergy that claimed that THEY and they alone could interpret God's Word simply became irrelevant.
Look at the Holy Mother Church's position on Papal Infallibility...a doctrine that only was formulated in the late
19th century.
Within 100 years the Church is well down the road,(in Europe, at least), to being cheerfully ignored.
"Have you forget your time in Tunisia?"
Not at all, and if you've read much of my copy, you'll see I have a great appreciation for the dichotomy between what the Jihadits SAY and how the vast majority of Muslims actually LIVE.
VinceP1974, I'm checking on that line of verse you posted. I found a long lost poem (I too had only one line) thru a poetry search site. I'll see if I can find the site again. Any more lines, words?.
It has a vaguely familiar ring to it... or maybe I'm just reading GoV too frequently!
Thanks... I can't remember any more phrases.. i think maybe horse and sword are words used
I found it (somehow).
This is it:
"Long had the crimes of Spain cried out to Heaven:
At length the measure of offence was full.
Count Julian called the invader ...
...Mad to wreak
His vengeance for his deeply injured child
On Roderick's head, an evil hour for Spain,
For that unhappy daughter, and himself.
Desperate apostate, on the Moors he called,
And, like a cloud of locusts, whom the wind
Wafts from the plains of wasted Africa,
The Mussulman upon Iberia's shores
Descends. A countless multitude they came:
Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade,
Persian, and Copt, and Latin, in one band
Of erring faith conjoined, strong in the youth
And heat of zeal, a dreadful brotherhood."
source
A curious though occurred to me while reading this:
The reason Muslim apostates are condemned to death is that they represent one of the greatest threats to Islam. Not just in their abandonment or conversion but also in the knowledge that they carry away.
As Henrik R Clausen noted:
“Islam supresses that natural reaction against lies.”
Only a completely indoctrinated Muslim will fully comprehend the Koran’s subtext of deceit and treachery. They will not just be aware of kitman and taqiyya but actually comprehend their crucial role in advancing Islam. Much like a defecting spy, Muslim apostates will have inside information about Islam’s agenda and be most qualified to explain it in the Koran’s own terms.
It’s been said that “some people aren’t on speaking terms with the truth.” Islam is an entire empire that literally depends upon not being on speaking terms with the truth. As Henrik observed, one of Islam’s main objectives is to immunize its followers against their natural aversion to lies. What better way of preconditioning people in order to induct them into a cult that most definitely does not have their best interests at heart? If an organization’s primary objective is to turn its adherents into cannon fodder at the earliest opportunity, a foremost priority will be ensuring that its followers be gullible in the extreme.
This is precisely what Islam does. Witness the cacaphony of cognitive dissonance issuing forth from the MME (Muslim Middle East).
“Islam is the Religion of Peace and we’ll kill anyone who says otherwise!”
“The Jews orchestrated 9-11 and Osama is a hero for blackening America’s eye!”
“We must be allowed to build mosques around the world but not one Church or Synagogue may be erected in Muslim lands!”
“The Jews are worthless dogs and must trade thousands of Arab prisoners for a single Israeli hostage!”
“Wearing the hijab, niqab or burqa is liberating and empowers women!”
“Jihad is a spiritual quest!”
If the foregoing is not enough, then please consider how the Arab press consistently portrays Israelis as Nazis. This, despite Islam’s dedication to genocide of the Jews and “Mein Kampf” being a bestseller in the MME, although retitled as “Mein Jihad”. Simply examine how the Palestinians continually pose as victims in their conflict with Israel even though they perpetuate the cycle of violence and breach every single peace treaty or pact they make. The list is endless.
Islam's endemic cognitive dissonance is a DIRECT result of palliating deceit. How else are they able to swallow camels whole while strangling on gnats?
Nobody can lie to a person better than their own self. When that vice is made into a virtue not much remains in terms of perverting reason or countenancing perfidy. No one is more qualified to reveal these fundamental contradictions and distortions than an exiting Muslim apostate. Islam’s almost total reliance upon deceit and treachery make such a person exceptionally dangerous to its cause.
Bilgemen,
""Have you forget your time in Tunisia?"
Not at all, and if you've read much of my copy, you'll see I have a great appreciation for the dichotomy between what the Jihadits SAY and how the vast majority of Muslims actually LIVE."
Yes, of course there is a difference!
Here in the West all people are poore/middle class but all admire and all ambition sucess, that means, being a wealthy capitalist/chief corporation.
In the Tunisia, sucess is being a Jihadist or an erudict over Alahs issue.
The masses are not heros, the differences are in what the masses "admire". Once upon a time, Europeans had the ideal of being charming (Christian) knights... that is, a jihadist to muslims...
Vince,
I've never heard that poem. Is it in English? It seems to be. Anyway, I will leave some "background" on it, I think you may apreciate. I am not calling you an ignorant but I doubt you know what happened in the late VII and early VIII century in Iberia. Even in Iberia itself, only one to three percent of the people may know (more or less) what happened. Here it goes:
"Long had the crimes of Spain cried out to Heaven:"
Well... I don't hate Germans and stuff but the Romans were the best. "The crimes" were a civil war that the Visigothic Germanic barbarians who rulled the Peninsula managed to create. The Germanics made this land vulnerable. We had a nice Germanic kingdom of Suebis though. In the Northwest of the Peninsula, in what later evolved into Portugal. There the Germanics became an upper class as well, but blended in more easily both culturally and phisically (I saw a genetic paper that claimed that 19% of the "bloodlines" of Iberia were "Germanic" and following a Northwest-Southeast continum. Being greater the influence in the Northwest). But even in the XV century there were some people who claimed to be, and were reffered to as "Suebi". (Some schoolars say it was just a synonym for blonde in the Northwest, though. I personally do not believe it.)
Throughout the Middle Ages and untill the XIX century, important families in the Peninsula were fond on to show and exhibit their blue blood, or "Gothic" (Germanic, Royal, whathever) blood. The thing is, the Suebis of the Northwest were annexated by the Visigoths and rapidly the Visigoths putted Hipânia (Iberia in Latin. Spain (España) derives from it, it was the pretention of the Spanish-Castillan state to controle all Hispânia since the very beggining) under a all encopassing civil war.
"Count Julian called the invader"
I do not know Julian's background. All I know is that he was a count (I believe of Southestern Spain) and was evolved in the Civil War in the bad guy's side. He asked the muslims from Morroco to help him, thus the invader.
"His vengeance for his deeply injured child
On Roderick's head, an evil hour for Spain"
Maybe Ricardo was the son of Julian, thus the "deeply injured child".
The civil war was because there was no consensus over who would be the next Visigothic King among the Visigothic nobility. Ricardo and Roderico (Roderick) were the would-be-Kings.
Roderico was the rightfull heir but there was a kind of coupe de etát that had drove Ricardo (or one of its family, but I believe it was Ricardo) intto the throne. The Western half of Hispania was for Roderico.
Roderico was made King. But His Royal Highness was viciously murdered in the battle fied by the Morrocan muslim troops Julian had called to support him.
That was indeed the beggining of 800 years of islam in the Peninsula, the biggening of the muslim conquest.
I think that battle was the one of 711 in Guadalete. You may google it if you so whish.
"For that unhappy daughter"
This maybe a reference to His Royal Highness, the Queen.
A nobel Visigothic Women who was "the beautiest of all women in Hispania" and was loved by her subdits and whose name I can't recall. She was Roderico's wife.
After the "chiefe of the muslims" had killed Roderico, he (I don't know his fricking Arab name, maybe it was Tarik or something) married Roderico's widow. (What a sordid action!!! Really muslim.) Despite all, Her Majesty, the Nobel Lady, managed to (sort of) Christianise the muslim man (not really. He reamined a muslim) she had married and that man was more soft towards Christians. For that sin he was killed by his fellow muslims (Nice done sand cammels!)
"A countless multitude they came:
Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade,
Persian, and Copt, and Latin"
Latin???
Well, the vast majority of muslims were Berbers. And of course, an Arab elite.
(The same genetic paper claimed that the "bloodlines" of the Peninsula are between 3% to 8% "muslim". That is, descending from those invaders and their 800 years of rule here. Jews were included because they were/are almost genetically not diferentiated from the Arabs. Though there is also some 5% to 12% "Iberian" lines in the Peninsula. Mainly in the South that are "indigenous" but "related to Norh African groups". That is, the ancient Iberian people.)
Of course, many people came but their presence were negligeble excepting Arabs, Berbers and muslim Slavs in the East of Spain.
I hope you to find this... amusing... if not intressing.
Hi Afonso.
I was familiar with the history and enjoyed reading your version of it.
There's a website that has the histories of all the Jihad wars causes by Muslims, the link is (or was.. I think it's down)
http://www.historyofjihad.org/
My interest in the poem was because of the image it forms of the Muslims Hoardes streaming into Spain from Africa.
Right at the end of my text up above is a link to where the entire document is.
The poem was in a book published aroudn 1900 about the history of women or something.
This is the section where I got the poem from...
Chapter XIII
Women among the Moors
The closing years of Gothic rule in Spain, and the various causes which
finally led to the Moorish invasion, are somewhat involved in legend and
mystery. But in spite of a scepticism which has been openly expressed by
some authors, it seems more than probable that the fabled Rodrigo, from
his capital at Toledo, actually ruled over Spain in the year 709, and
that he was, directly or indirectly, the cause of the invasion of the
Moors. According to the commonly accepted story, the moral condition of
Spain at the beginning of the eighth century was most deplorable. The
Goths had lost that reputation for honesty and chastity which in the
earlier days of their power had distinguished them from the Romans.
Rodrigo, "the last of the Goths," lived a life of such flagrant
profligacy that the coming of the Moors was but just punishment for all
his sins. As Miss Yonge has remarked, "the fall of Gothic Spain was one
of the disasters that served to justify the saying that all great
catastrophes are caused by women." The woman in the present instance was
Florinda, often called La Cava, reputed to be the daughter of Count
Julian, commander of the south of Spain and in charge of the fortress of
Ceuta. Although Rodrigo already possessed a wife, Egilona, who was a
brilliant, able, and beautiful woman, he was a man of little moral force
and had a roving eye and lusty passions. Seeing Florinda once upon a
time, he coveted her, succeeded in winning her affections, and was not
content until he had betrayed her confidence and brought dishonor upon
her and her father. Count Julian, filled with a righteous anger at this
unwarranted act on the part of his liege lord, openly revolted, called
in the Moors, and unwittingly opened his country to an invader who would
be slow to leave. The story is told in the old ballad, as follows:
"Long had the crimes of Spain cried out to Heaven:
At length the measure of offence was full.
Count Julian called the invader ...
...Mad to wreak
His vengeance for his deeply injured child
On Roderick's head, an evil hour for Spain,
For that unhappy daughter, and himself.
Desperate apostate, on the Moors he called,
And, like a cloud of locusts, whom the wind
Wafts from the plains of wasted Africa,
The Mussulman upon Iberia's shores
Descends. A countless multitude they came:
Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade,
Persian, and Copt, and Latin, in one band
Of erring faith conjoined, strong in the youth
And heat of zeal, a dreadful brotherhood."
_La Cava_, the name by which Florinda has been called ever since by the
Spaniards, means "the wicked one," and the general theory has been that,
in spite of her betrayed innocence, she has been held in execration for
all that followed. Others, however, have pointed out the discrepancy
between the generally acknowledged purity of character of Florinda and
the meaning of _La Cava_, and it is their opinion that Count Julian's
daughter is merely legendary, and that _La Cava_ refers in some
allegorical way to the dissolute and voluptuous life which Rodrigo had
been leading and which was in itself a good and sufficient reason for
all the misfortunes which were to follow.
While all is not clear as to the reason for the invitation to come to
Spain, there is no cause to doubt that it was accepted in a most hearty
manner. Modern historians do not hesitate to say that the Catholic
churchmen, not realizing the danger, invited the Moslems to aid them in
repressing a revolt among the Gothic nobles. However the case may have
been, Mousa, the Berber chieftain, sent his bravest sheik, Tarik, with a
goodly following, to lead the invasion. The white-turbaned warriors
crossed the strait between what had always been called the Pillars of
Hercules, and landed upon that great rock which has ever since borne
that leader's name, Gebel-al-Tarik--Gibraltar--the "rock of Tarik."
Rodrigo, with an army of about eighty thousand men, which he had hastily
gathered together, hastened to meet the invaders, and the two armies met
on the banks of the Guadelete. Egilona, Roderick's wife, was left with a
safe guard in the strongly fortified town of Meriba, while the "last of
the Goths," in shining armor and wearing a helmet adorned with horns of
gold, such as may be seen upon old Gothic coins, fought vainly against
the terrible horsemen of the deserts. _La bataille est merveillose e
pesant_, to quote the words of the _Song of Roland_, describing that
other battle, between the Franks and the Moors, some sixty-five years
later in the fatal pass of Roncesvalles; the Goths were overwhelmingly
defeated, and Rodrigo disappeared in a most mysterious way, leaving his
crown and sceptre upon the river bank. Mousa, with another invading
force, had followed close upon the heels of Tarik, and he it was who
pushed on to Meriba and laid siege to the town, knowing full well that
the queen was within the gates, while Tarik, by a series of easy
conquests, made his way to Toledo. When the siege came to a close and
the Berbers entered the fortifications, they were amazed at the richness
and vast amount of treasure which fell into their hands. The jewel
caskets of Egilona in particular excited their wonder and admiration,
and so many chains of gold and precious stones did they find among her
possessions that she was straightway named "the Mother of Necklaces."
When the spoils of battle were divided, the fair captive queen fell to
the lot of Mousa's son, Abdul Aziz, who had been made ruler over the
newly conquered territory. The young Moorish prince was soon a slave to
the charms of Egilona, and so great did his love for her become that he
married her, with the promise that he would always regard her as queen
and would never marry again; he never broke that promise. Seville was
his capital, and there his power was so great that the kalif in
Damascus, fearing that he might attempt to rule independently, sent out
men to take his life. These assassins found him so beloved by his
soldiers that they feared to attack him until they had circulated the
rumor that Egilona was about to convert him to the Christian faith and
that he would soon wear a crown upon his head, like any Christian king.
After this story had been spread abroad, the kalif's men followed Aziz
to a small mosque, where he went sometimes to pray, cut off his head,
and showed it in the public place, with the order for his death.
Nice you know what happened Vince, and as you can see, much better than I do... so you can see how neglected it had been. We are only told at school that the muslims came in 711 and that's it.
You can see how envolt and mistery and non-certainty the event is. I have told you my version, luckily you have a one you can rely (more).
I just want to say:
"La bataille est merveillose e
pesant_, to quote the words of the _Song of Roland_, describing that
other battle, between the Franks and the Moors, some sixty-five years
later in the fatal pass of Roncesvalles;"
I thought this battle was between the Franks and the Basques;
"Rodrigo, with an army of about eighty thousand men,"
People say that Tarik had seven thousand men and that Roderico had little more (I would be surpirsed if it surpassed ten thousand...)
I really believe eighty thousand is an exageration.
Well, nice.
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