Sword and Scimitar by Raymond Ibrahim

Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West

review by

D a l e   B r o w n

Author Raymond Ibrahim offers us a riveting history of eight wars from 636 to 1683.  He highlights the fact that Arabs, Moors, Ottoman and Tatars (all Muslims) invaded Syria, Egypt and all of north Africa, which was once all Christian territory.  Starting with the Ridda wars against local tribes around Arabia Muhammed's followers with a taste for pillage were seduced also by the heavenly promise of sex in the afterlife with beautiful houris.  But before heaven, Muslim jihadis were often inflamed by exaggerated fantasies of lustful beauties in the Byzantine Empire where one could be rewarded with sexy women taken in raids on kafir (infidel) towns.  The Koran spells this out clearly regarding those whom your right hand possesses.

This is not the usual book which centers on the years of the Crusades.  This covers those nasty years leading up to the Crusades and uses references from both Christian as well as Muslim sources.  Treaties mean nothing to a prophet who comes with a sword and chariot.  Emperor Heraclius who had nightmares of rats invading from the desert soon found that turning the other cheek was no solution to these blood thirsty warriors who had been promised heaven through death against the Christian infidels guilty of shirk.  The Trinity being viewed as polytheism (shirk) by Muslims therefore the message of the cross was one to be destroyed for the sake of Allah.

In 636 the battle of Yarmuk turned Khalid into a Muslim hero and it opened a door which changed world history.  Next Alexandria fell to Muslim troops in 641 and the Coptic Christians watched the famous library go up in flames.  Omar said of the books "If they agree with our book (Koran), we do not need them; if they disagree, we do not want them.  Burn them."

Then followed the rightly guided caliphs who milked the Copts into poverty and death.  As a result Islam won many converts turning Egypt, a once Christian nation into a Muslim one.

The Berbers of north Africa soon found themselves selling their children into slavery to pay jizya to the Muslim invaders.  Uqba, with sword and shahada, pushed all the way to the Atlantic.  Carthage was burned in 698 and by 709 all of north Africa was under Muslim rule.  Like the bible prediction of the Arabs, "Like a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."  When the sword was unable to conquer, then the Arabs used trickery and cunning deception.  Early criticism of Islam is based on the very words of Muslim scripture, "Allah guarantees him who strives in His Cause and whose motivation for going out is nothing but Jihad in His Cause and belief in His Words (Islamic Monotheism), that he will admit him into Paradise (if martyred) or bring him back to his dwelling place whence he has come out with what he gains of reward and booty." (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Hadith No 3123)

Within less than 75 years, 75 percent of the Christian world had fallen to Islam.  Then the Caliphate's capital was moved from Medina to Damascus to be closer to their ultimate prize, Constantinople.
In 718 an attempt was made to besiege the Byzantine capital by hundreds of ships and over 200,000 Muslim warriors but they did not get the job done instead they found themselves confronted with Greek fire that burned many of their ship and were stranded for a winter eating their pack animals.  When they finally made a retreat for home most of the ships went down in a storm and a volcano from the Island of Santorini dumped hot ash on them as well.  Of course the Christians felt this was God acting on their part.  Omar set about the forced conversions of many Christians producing many martyrs in effort to convince emperor Leo to convert.  Leo replied in a letter rebuking the claims of Islam and renouncing Muhammad as a prophet.  Two years later Omar was poisoned by one of his slaves.  No serious attempt was made against Constantinople for seven hundred years.

Muslims Berbers of north Africa set their sights on Iberia lead by Tarek in 711 after a few test runs he loaded some ships with warriors and upon landing in Spain he burned the ships leaving no other choice but to conquer the land of King Roderick.  With help from Musa from Africa most of the southern Iberian Peninsula was over run in a few short years with churches destroyed and their bells smashed.  They were stopped by the Franks in the battle of Toulouse in 719 but not totally for they ruled most of the coast.  In 732, a hundred years after Muhammad's death, Muslim hordes cut their way to Tours and was met by Charles Martel, "The Hammer" and his wall of steel.  Thousands of Muslim horsemen charged forward and were slaughtered.  When their leader, Abdul fell they fled with booty and their lives.  While their progress on land was hindered their pirates in the Mediterranean exploited soft targets and continued the traditional slave trade.  We must be reminded that one whole chapter of the Koran is dedicated to "The Spoils of War" al-Anfal.

Eventually Christians began to change from being on the defense and started taking offensive action in territory that had been stolen by Muslim jihadis.  Nikephoros in 961 liberated Crete, then added Tarsus and Cyprus to the list.  He used the same brutal terror that Muslims had used.  He ordered the burning of Korans and was not one for negotiating with the Devil.

Then in 1019 the Muslim Turks invaded Armenia destroying hundreds of churches, slaughtering priests and civilians, and carrying off slaves of whom ever they chose.  That was only the beginning for Armenia.  While Muslim leaders might negotiate a temporary peace for the sake of politics they are not one for taking responsibility for "lone wolves" that continue with their own private jihad against infidels.

So fast forward a few decades and the Turks win a battle at Manzikert 1071 which is celebrate to this day in Turkey.  Following was the sack of Anatolia and the famous biblical cities such as Ephesus and then Nicaea where the famous creed was formulated.  The Byzantine empire was vanishing from the face of the earth as blood ran from the throats of the martyrs.  With no rapture to carry them away they fell by the sword to rot in heaps upon the ground as Muslims cried Allahu Akbar.  The atrocities of the Muslim invaders were told in vivid detail far and wide in effort to rally military support.  The author records many of these stories of horror.  In 1095 Pope Urban had heard enough.  Men began to rally from the west in a common cause, that was to strike back at the demonic hordes of Islam.  Many went totally unprepared and fell like lambs to the slaughter before the brutality of Muslims.  The ebb and flow of Crusaders continued for decades, to Saladin who smashed King Guy.  By 1291 Jerusalem was forever lost to Christendom.

Christians had fled to the mountains in Spain and over the years inbreeding with whites brought about a liberal form of Islam.  In 1086 African Almoravid (zealots) invaded Toledo again and taught the local liberal Muslims a lesson in old fashion jihad.  In 1139 Alfonso Henriques defeated the Almoravids at Ourique and became the first king of Portugal.

The Muslims added the spires to this cathedral after the invasion of Constantinople in 1453.

Muslims ruled Spain until they were finally driven out in 1492, yet many remained until the final purge from 1609-1614 when all Moriscos had to be driven out because of taqiyya tactics of deception and terror.  While European explorers set out to gain wealth in foreign lands of America and Asia Islam continued to plague shipping.  Americans got a taste of it in 1800 when they came to grips with the fact that paying jizya to safeguard shipping was never going to stop.  Captain Bainbridge made the last payment to Tripoli and the following year America sent war ships to the Mediterranean to deal with pirates.

In the invasion of 1453 Muslims took their ships over land

 around the chain that blocked the entrance to the Golden Horn

This book is a great addition to anyone's library especially if you are looking for real answers about Islamic conflict with the west.  For those that do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.