The Enemy of My Enemy

     "In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth.  Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law the doctrine of one omnipotent God, he connected indissolubly with it the audacious falsehood that he was himself His prophet and apostle.  Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus the faith and hope of immortal life and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion.  He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind.  THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE ... Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged.  The war is yet flagrant ... While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace on earth, and good will towards men."

                                                                                 -- John Quincy Adams (emphasis his)

     "Ever since the Crusades, the people of Western Christendom developed a stereotypical and distorted vision of Islam, which they regarded as the enemy of decent civilization . . . It was, for example, during the Crusades, when it was Christians who had instigated a series of brutal holy wars against the Muslim world, that Islam was described by the learned scholar-monks of Europe as an inherently violent and intolerant faith, which had only been able to establish itself by the sword.  The myth of the supposed fanatical intolerance of Islam has become one of the received ideas of the West."

                                        -- Karen Armstrong, Islam: A Short History (Modern Library, 2000), 179-80.

     The more I learn about him, the higher does Old Man Eloquent rise in my esteem . . .  But the Islamophilia of certain groups in our society warrants some attention.  Why, when Islam has manifestly spread itself by the sword and indeed only by the sword, and when its vicinity to people of any other faith brings violence -- to Sikhs and Jains in the Punjab, Hindus in Pakistan and India, animists and Christians in Nigeria and the Sudan, Catholic Christians in the Philippines, Orthodox Christians in the Balkans, Jews in Palestine, and the few remaining Zoroastrians in Iran and in Chinese Turkestan -- do western liberals, haters of war, gloss over it, and prefer rather to slander "fundamentalist" Christians in their own country, fearing them more than they fear the ayatollahs?

     What, in fact, is to fear from the "fundamentalist" Christians?  Tax policy?  States' rights?  The rejection of Darwinism?  Bible-believing Americans do not blow up trade centers; but they sure will help you put the roof back on your house after a big storm, and their kids tend to be polite enough.  What's to fear?  Theism?  What are those on the left talking about when they see a "theocracy" coming out of Texas, but nothing at all from Teheran?  Isn't it the reversal of that sexual revolution -- a revolution that has deeply compromised Bible-believing Christians themselves?  What else can possibly be gained from deflecting attention away from Shari'a and towards (horribile dictu) people who believe that fornication, adultery, sodomy, and abortion (and, chillingly enough, even contraception) are immoral?

     And then there are some on the right who make common cause with Muslims, as they probably should, to fight the lunatic anti-family proposals coming from the UN.  To our great shame, we "Christian" nations now find ourselves looking up to the shining examples of such places as Saudi Arabia, whose people look upon our sexual madness with disbelief.

     But the enemy of my enemy is not my friend.  There was once a thriving Nestorian Christian culture, extending from the Levant all the way into China.  It is no more.  There was once a thriving Persian culture, centered around the intelligent and humane religion of Zoroaster; it was put to the sword.  There is no Islamic Patrick, no Islamic Boniface, no Islamic Cyril and Methodius, no Islamic Damien of Molokai, no Islamic Jean de Brebeuf, no Islamic Matteo Ricci, no Islamic Teresa of Calcutta.  Ms. Armstrong is too dull to draw distinctions; Old Man Eloquent saw them, and that was during a time of burgeoning interest in all things Islamic.  But we are an effete culture -- literally, "birthed-out," barren, exhausted.  We have not the strength even to replace ourselves with children.

     Some years ago, after teaching a few classes on what happened to the works of the Islamic heretics Avicenna and Averroes, I asked a philosopher friend of mine whether their rejection was inevitable.  So it seemed to me, reading selections from the Koran and from their bitter and clear-thinking opponent, the theologian Al-Ghazali.  He said that he thought that Islam really left no room for the development of natural law thinking; the flaw lies at the heart of the religion, in the voluntarist conception of God.  "What will happen to us, then?" I asked.  "One side will destroy the other," he replied.  And he was a liberal who detested war.

Comments

[Joe Long]

It struck me during the early Afghanistan phase of the current war: the enemy actually drove pickup trucks with AK-47s in the gun racks, regularly beat their barefoot-and-pregnant women and took their scriptures literally, particularly the bloodthirsty parts; they were, in short, the lefties' nightmare of an evil redneck...but when it came right down to it, the violent Islamists actually fulfilling every detail of the Hollywood caricature of the murderous misogynistic fundamentalist, just were never resented with the same intensity as, say, the Promise Keepers. American Leftists, at least, seem to believe the enemies of THEIR enemies must be friends!

[ELC]

Why, when Islam has manifestly spread itself by the sword and indeed only by the sword, and when its vicinity to people of any other faith brings violence... do western liberals, haters of war, gloss over it, and prefer rather to slander "fundamentalist" Christians in their own country, fearing them more than they fear the ayatollahs?... Isn't it the reversal of that sexual revolution -- a revolution that has deeply compromised Bible-believing Christians themselves? Yes, it is. I believe "western liberals" actually fear the fundamentalist Christian threat to their lives of immorality (a largely imaginary threat, ISTM) more than they fear the fundamentalist Islamist threat to their lives, period. I know that, to the onlooker, that mindset makes no sense whatever. Actually, it is an understatement to say it makes no sense. But that doesn't mean it isn't the case.

[chutney]

Bible-believing Americans do not blow up trade centers

This Oklahoma City native thinks you need to lay off the pipe.

[David Gray]

>This Oklahoma City native thinks you need to lay off the pipe.

Most of us in OKC know that the Murragh building was blown up by a Baathist sympathizer who was a pagan. Perhaps you should know this too.

[David Gray]

Or Murrah if you like.

[Bill Markley]

Ms. Armstrong and many others these days overlook how the Crusades started in response to Muslim expansionism in the Middle East. I will never be one of those PC-niks of today who "apologize" for the Crusades.

[Christopher Hathaway]

I think we should apologize for the Crusades..to God. It is Him that we offended by mixing His Gospel of peace with war. We owe the Muslims nothing but evangelism.

[Tony Esolen]

Christopher,

Yes, I see your point -- and wonder if you see the point of the Greek and Syrian Christians who were being plowed under by the Seljuk Turks. Check out the history of late 17th century Poland, and ask what life in Europe would now be like if John Sobieski had let the Turks take Vienna. That said, I don't know that we now are called, in the first instance, to take up arms. But we sure had better get our Christian house in order. If it were not for our technological edge, which is huge but which cannot last forever, we would be overrun.

The Armstrong and JQ Adams quotes were dug up by Robert Spenser, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades. Spenser asks, rhetorically, why nobody ever bothers to consider the horrible (for the people there, and for the history of civilization) fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. I have heard people blame that fall, too, on the Crusades ... That's very dubious, historically; but isn't it interesting, this shift of blame? If we're talking about the Crusades, then the fall of Constantinople is a terrible thing, a blot that cannot be expunged. But if we're talking about the Turks who actually took the darned city? Not a peep.

[Christopher Hathaway]

Tony, I see nothing wrong in Christian peoples defending themselves from the invading Moslem hordes, or in liberating others from them. As long as we don't do it in God's name.

Let the righteous kings go to war. Let the holy priests stay apart and offer the Gospel to all.

[Daniel C]

The Greeks carry a huge grudge against the Christian West for Constantinople, but truly despise the Turks for the Turkish invasion and occupation. At least that's my take listening to my Greek wife, mother-in-law and others both in Greece and here in America.

[Maclin Horton]

Regarding the fall of Constantinople: having read an account of it many years ago which left quite a strong impression on me, I kept waiting, in the aftermath of 9-11 and amid the many references to the sack of Jerusalem by the Crusaders as a significant contributor to Islamic rage, for some journalist or pundit to bring it up. I never heard it mentioned.

And yes, I know the Crusaders also sacked Constantinople. The point is that the conventional wisdom does not consider the historic misdeeds of Islam to be significant.

I've never believed the myth of a paradise of culture, learning, and tolerance in Islamic Spain, either.

[Tony Esolen]

Maclin,

Yes, I agree. Even the sack of Constantinople was not at all as it has been portrayed. It wasn't the rampaging of a bunch of restless and half-savage thugs from Europe. What happened was that one claimant to the Byzantine throne enlisted the Crusaders as support against the other claimant -- it was a civil war. Then the claimant they favored double-crossed the Crusaders. Who was in the right, I can't say, but I note that the Orthodox theologian David Hart has said that it was no better than the corrupt old dynasty of the Comneni deserved. No excuse, but some perspective.

[Anglican Peggy]

Chutney,

I dont know what religion you are but your choice of name makes me think that maybe you are not a Christian? Maybe a Hindu or Muslim. I'm sorry to deal in steroetypes here, but if it is a cultural, religious difference that causes your misunderstanding of who the OKC bombers were, then I want to in all charity correct your understanding.

Christianity is a confessional faith. Many people are born into Christian families and raised in Christian homes. But in our theology, one is not a true Christian unless one confesses that Christ is Lord and practices our faith as he commanded us. Otherwise, you would be what is called a nominal Christian, a Christian in name or by birth only. A person who denies Christ by word or deed or by refusing to practice the faith is not a real Christian.

In contrast, islam believes that all people are born muslims and that being a muslim is something that cannot be changed no matter how hard a person works to resist it. I am fairly sure that the same goes for Hindus although Hindus do not believe that Hinduism is the natural and unchanging state of all mankind.

I can see why it would be natural for someone who believes that one cannot change the religion that they are born into to think that someone who is born a Christian remains a Christian no matter what they do. But according to the theology of our faith, the OKC bombers were not observant Christians and did not bomb the Murrah building for religious motives. Their motives were clearly political. They belived they were punishing our government for oppressing and massacring US citizens. They believed that they were great patriots. Religion and in particular the Christian religion, had nothing to do with it.

[Joe Long]

Christopher - I share your concern but shy from your wording - surely a Christian who fights, must do so "in God's name". We cannot add souls to the Kingdom of God by the sword, it is true - but justice, protection, liberation...these things may well be done in God's name.

[Anonymous]

Every one keeps saying there own opinon and views about Islam whilst they completely know nothing about it. I advise all those who harbour false views about Islam to see behind all the steroetypes about Islam. The bad actions of some Muslims should never deter people from learning indepth about the truth of Islam. People can talk bad about the Prophet Muhammed but the truth of his noble, true and wise actions shall never be forgotten from those who are truthful, not arrogant and not spiteful.
Learn the truth about Islam and when you come across something about Islam that you do not know or agree with you should investigate further about it(you might then understand and agree) instead of using flimsy and ignorant information about Islam and using it to deter people from the light,truth and guidance of Islam.

(1- Muhammad was an illiterate person who did not know how to read or write. He was not known to have an interest in literature and he never composed a single poem in his entire life. Muhammad, therefore, could not have written the Qur'anic text with its superb style that no Arab in Makkah could produce a text similar to it. A person cannot gain the power and fluency of expression via meditation only.

2- To write a highly perfect text (even a short one) of a majestic style, the writer cannot do without the help of the pen to write, edit, correct, and rewrite again. The Qur'an contain more than 6600 verses that are composed of more than 77000 words. The style of the Qur'an is homogeneous, the ideas are consistent, and the accounts are accurate. Muhammad was illiterate; he did not know how to write. It was impossible for an illiterate person to be able to author such a long text.

3- Muhammad could not be the author and developer of the social, economical, political, legislative and religious systems that are contained in the Qur'an [and in Islam]. As a matter of fact no single human being could develop such systems by himself alone. If a society or a community endeavors to develop and perfect such systems, it will need large numbers of thinkers, philosophers, experts in sociology, religious scholars, politicians, and men of wisdom. It will need also many years [perhaps hundreds of years] for implementation, evaluation, experimentation and perfection. The systems of life in Islam have been proven to be ideal for man for more than 1400 years. They are until now the same teachings that were revealed to Prophet Muhammad in a span of about twenty years only; they did not go into the normal cycle of development and evolution that is characteristics of man-made laws and legislation.)

1- The Qur'an contains many statements of a scientific nature that are in total agreement with proven scientific facts; these facts were not known at the time of Prophet Muhammad.

2- The Qur'an contains many prophecies that came true.

3- The Qur'an contains detailed and accurate accounts about historical events that took place hundreds of years before the time of Prophet Muhammad.

4- The Qur'an contains comprehensive systems of life: social, economical, and political, as well as worshipping practices. These systems regulate the life of the individual as well as the society as a whole.

5- The Style of writing of the Qur'an is very special that was unaccustomed to by the Arabs themselves. Prophet Muhammad challenged the Arab idolaters to come up with one chapter or even few verses like the Qur'an. They could not.

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