Discussing Islam with a Muslim is difficult. My blog helps atheists, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and others understand Islam and its holy books; Quran (Qu’ran or Koran) and Hadith. The blog enlightens Muslims on the cult-like and violent nature of Islam, Mohammed’s pedophilia, and, especially, the clear scientific and logical errors in the Koran. I also examine the fallacies behind the concept of Islamaphobia.
As I'm sure all readers know, South Park producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone had their latest episode censored due to some nutty Muslims who threatened them with murder. Yes, I know, the nuts denied the threat, but just happened to included the address of the South Park production studio, showed a disgusting picture of the murdered Theo Van Gogh (caption: "Theo Van Gogh - Have Matt Stone And Trey Parker Forgotten This?") and said that they would "probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show." Looks like a threat, smells like a threat and, well, it is a threat.
An interview with the Younus Abdullah Mohammed of the website, Revolution Muslim, revealed that he thought, "Islam will take over the world." That comment should be no surprise to anybody who understands Islam. It is a cult fixated on converting all (or killing those that won't). He also said that America is made up of, "Darwinist faggots who are as despicable as the rest, walking around eating your Triscuits." I can't explain this last comment, but it is quite funny.
Anyway, in honor of South Park, I would like to post a great interview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali by Anderson Cooper:
For further fun, here are the famous Denmark Muhammad cartoons:
And, finally, here's the image that was posted on the hacked Revolution Muslim website:
Hilarious. Watch Georgie squirm in his seat. He tries to counter attack, but resorts to the tu quoque ("you too!") fallacy. The great part is that the interviewee turns it around on him.
What's so funny is that Galloway is completely blind to his bias. He can't tell the difference between facts and what he wishes were fact.
Just came across this intro to Islam from Geert Wilders on FaithFreedom.org It is definitely worth a read:
Allow me to give you a brief Islam 101. The first thing you need to know about Islam is the importance of the book of the Koran. The Koran is Allah’s personal word, revealed by an angel to Mohammed, the prophet.
This is where the trouble starts. Every word in the Koran is Allah’s word and therefore not open to discussion or interpretation. It is valid for every Moslem and for all times.
Therefore, there is no such a thing as moderate Islam.
Sure, there are a lot of moderate Moslems. But a moderate Islam is non-existent. The Koran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The Koran calls for Moslems to kill non-Moslems, to terrorize non-Moslems and to fulfill their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every Moslem, Islam is to rule the world - by the sword. The Koran is clearly anti-Semitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Moslems and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem.
But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, and a pedophile. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. He advised on matters of slavery, but never advised to liberate slaves.
Islam has no other morality than the advancement of Islam. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad. There is no gray area or other side.
Koran as Allah’s own word and Mohammed as the perfect man are the two most important facets of Islam. Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a hereafter, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology.
It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ’submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia.
If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies. This is what you need to know about Islam, in order to understand what is going on in Europe.
Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam “the most retrograde force in the world,” and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Koran: Mein Kampf, he said, is “the new Koran of faith and war.”
I've been asked in a number of emails to discuss Israel's Operation Cast Lead against Hamas, but have been personally busy with my real life work. However, it occurred to me that it would be easy enough to just let Hamas and their supporters speak for themselves. [After completing the post, I noticed that it ended up quite long. It is sectioned so you can read in pieces]
Here's a video of Hamas commentary before the recent Gaza war. Since it's based on material before the war, they are not reacting to the retaliation. Instead, they are more "forward-looking"...
Is this just rhetoric? Well, let's look at their Hamas charter (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp):
From the Preamble: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."
From Article 7: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem)."
From Article 13: "Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement." and "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."
From Article 15: "The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem." and "The bond of one day for the sake of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it. The place of one's whip in Paradise is far better than the world and whatever there is on it. A worshipper's going and coming in the service of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it." (As related by al-Bukhari, Moslem, al-Tarmdhi and Ibn Maja).
"I swear by the holder of Mohammed's soul that I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and be killed, and then invade again and be killed." (As related by al-Bukhari and Moslem)."
Let's examine the words in Article 13 about peaceful solutions being in contradiction to the movement and how any such initiatives are a "waste of time." For newcomers to Islam, this philosophy does not contradict the numerous ceasefires or hudnas as explained by Umdat as-Salik, a medieval summary of Shafi'i jurisprudence:
Hudnas with a non-Muslim enemy should be limited to 10 years: "if Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).
So you see a "hudna" is completely different to a true peaceful solution. In 2004, Hamas was very clear, again, in their own words (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudna),
In January 2004, senior Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi offered a 10-year hudna in return for complete withdrawal from all territories captured in the Six Day War, and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Rantissi said the hudna was limited to ten years and represented a decision by the movement because it was "difficult to liberate all our land at this stage; the hudna would however not signal a recognition of the state of Israel."
Note the "ten years." Also, as recently as June 2008, you can hear the same point being made.
When asked if he could envision a 50-year hudna (cease-fire) with Israel, Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan responded, "The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself for the final battle. We don't need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel. Israel is an impossibility. It is an offense against God."
Remember, that the June 2008 hudna is the hudna that directly preceded Operation Cast Lead. The hudna was also violated by Hamas and an extension was rejected by Hamas. It was the violation, extension rejection, and violence escalation that caused Israeli retaliation.
HATE INDOCTRINATION What does Hamas say to it's children? Let's go to the videotape...
Is it just the tv? No, it gets worse. It starts in the schools. Yes, the UNRWA schools funded by tax dollars. Let's take a look what Palestinian children are being taught:
“...Oh you who are Jews ...long for death if you are truthful... for the death from which you flee, that will surely overtake you ...” and “Those [Jews] who were charged with the Torah, but did not observe it, are like a donkey carrying books...” [Reading the Koran, grade 6. p.20, 23, 78].
“One must beware of the Jews, for they are treacherous and disloyal.” [Islamic Education for Ninth Grade p. 79, these and below from CMIP report] “I learn from this lesson: I believe that the Jews are the enemies of the Prophets and the believers.”[Islamic Education, Part Two, for Fourth Grade p. 67] “Remember: “The final and inevitable result will be the victory of the Muslims over the Jews.” [Our Arabic Language for Fifth Grade p. 67] “The clearest examples of racist belief and racial discrimination in the world are Nazism and Zionism. “ [The New History of the Arabs and the World, P. 123]
While any civilian deaths are a tragedy, it nonetheless says quite a bit when lies and disinformation are used by Hamas at such a great scale. Contrast Hamas with the IDF and their fact-based Youtube site. When comparing Hamas and Israel, the above cartoon keeps coming back as one of those pictures that says a thousand words. I'll hold off in this post from a heavy analysis, and stick to Hamas's own words. With Muhammad's endorsement of lying as a means to an end, it's no wonder that there is so much doublespeak when Hamas members speak to the press. In this video, you'll see the BBC interviewer struggling to understand the answers as he points out contradictions (and, btw, it should be noted that this is the same BBC who conducted an investigation into its own anti-Israel bias and then spent an estimated £200,000 in an effort to withhold the report - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Balen_Report):
There are three parts, so watch all three if you can stomach the bull.
There's more. In the Hamas effort at disinformation, Hamas got France 2 to participate in it's second case of blood libel against Israel. In this second, sickening case, Hamas redistributed video from 2005 that showed horrible civilian deaths in Gaza during a Hamas celebration. Without regard for the value of civilian lives, Hamas brought live ordinance to the rally. When that live ordinance exploded, many people died or were injured. Since Fatah thwarted Hamas's 2005 attempt to blame the Israelis for their own violence, they saved the tape and reused it in 2009 thanks to the ever-cooperative France 2:
One more example of Taqqiyah and I'll stop. In this next case, they have made the same BBC as well as CNN complicit. This video at Liveleak, takes a detailed examination of Hamas's propaganda from a medical perspective:
Additional military analysis will tell you that Israeli drones to not fire missiles that target children and leave such little damage (clothes even hanging on the line). Also, note the contradictions in the story from this report(http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/01/08/hamas.boy/index.html) that says, "Just a short time earlier, Mashharawi had been filming other, less personal images of the war-- scenes like incoming missiles and the damage they do. Then, he got a phone call." and this report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7819819.stm) which says "Ashraf rushed upstairs and took the boys to hospital, but it was hopeless. They were buried the same day." So was he out filming or at home? Also, you'll notice that the CNN report talks about being "hit by a rocket" while the BBC report talks about " two small rockets" - is it one rocket or two. Finally, the key actor here is Mads Gilbert, noted anti-Israel Norwegian who supported the 9-11 attacks. There's more, but I think it's now obvious that this is staged Pallywood...Taqqiyah.
00:10:00 Alla-hu Akbar, Alla-hu Akbar 00:32:00 Hitler! Heil Hitler! Hitler! Hitler! Hitler! … 00:40:00 We must just kill all those Jews, man! Then we'd be rid of them, man! 00:45:00 All Jews, man, they will never be loved, never loved. 01:15:00 We are prepared for everything! Prepared for everything! It is you [shouting]. 01:28:00 [Interrupting] Give us some Jews! 01:29:00 Now listen up. Now you go home, treading [??] where you want. If you meet some Jews. 01:35:00 [Interrupting] We fuck them, man! 01:38:00 Tell them how many they've killed. 01:40:00 Tell them how all Arabs from Copenhagen, how all Arabs from [??], how all Arabs from Hitler, how their punishment will be, for the blood of the Palestinians. 02:00:00 [Assorted shouting, including:] Fucking Jews, man! 02:08:00 Death to Israel. 02:42:00 Kill the Jews. 02:44:00 Allah-hu Akbar 03:08:00 Israel under my foot, Palestine in my blood! 03:18:00 Muhammad Rasul Allah! [Muhammad prophet of Allah!] 05:20:00 Down, down Israel! Down, down Israel! 05:22:00 Down, down USA! Down, down USA! 05:24:00 Viva, viva Palestine! Viva, viva Palestine! 05:25:00 [The banner reads:] Is this defense? 05:30:00 Viva, viva Palestine! Viva, viva Palestine! 05:50:00 Give us some Jews! Give us some Jews! [Explosion heard] 06:10:00 Israel under my foot, Palestine in my blood! Israel under my foot, Palestine in my blood! 06:25:00 [Arabic – probably a Khaybar reference]
Khaybar is a Jewish village that Muhammad and his followers destroyed, massacring inhabitants.
Here's one more video showing Hamas supporters violently attacking the Israeli Embassy. Note the almost useless Dhimmi police.
Let me end with some words that are not from Hamas, but may help to end on a lighter note. The irony is that the fake news sounds more truthful than what France 2, CNN and BBC publish.
UPDATE According to Al Jazeera (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200911591418168902.html), Mahmoud Khalil Al-Mashharawi of the CNN video died on Jan 1, well before the Jan 7 date claimed by the CNN/BBC video. (information found by Vilhjalmur Örn Vilhjalmsson of Denmark and translated by Augean Stables).
Father Apoorva, a 57-year-old builder, is still recovering from his injuries. Still reeling with shock, the family was initially even hesitant to tell their name.
Instead, Parikh’s son Rohan, 22, a business student, recounted his father’s experience in an email.
His father had gone to the Oberoi that night for dinner with two of his closest friends, he said. The three friends were at a restaurant on the first floor of the Oberoi when they heard gunshots. The hotel staff tried to rush the guests out of the kitchen exit.
‘As the guests tried to rush into the kitchen, one terrorist burst into the restaurant and began to shoot anyone that remained in the restaurant. At this point my father was in the kitchen and, along with his two friends, rushed to the fire exit.
‘They had barely descended a few steps when they were trapped from both ends by terrorists.
‘The terrorists then rounded up anyone alive (about 20 people) and made them climb the service staircase to the 19th floor. On reaching the 18th floor landing they made the people line up against a wall.
‘One terrorist then positioned himself on the staircase going up from the landing and the other on the staircase going down from the landing.
‘Then, in a scene right out of the Holocaust, they simultaneously opened fire on the people. My father was towards the centre of the line with his two friends on either side. Out of reflex, or presence of mind, he ducked as soon as the firing began.
‘One bullet grazed his neck, and he fell to the floor as his two friends and several other bodies piled on top of him. The terrorists then pumped another series of bullets into the heap of bodies to finish the job.
‘This time a bullet hit my father in the back hip. Bent almost in double, crushed by the weight of the bodies above him, and suffocating in the torrent of blood rushing down on him from the various bodies my father held on for 10 minutes while the terrorists left the area.
‘When he finally had the courage to wiggle his arms he found that there were four other survivors in the room. They communicated to each other by touch as they were too afraid to make a sound.
‘My father moved just enough to allow himself room to breathe and then lay still. The survivors passed over 12 hours lying still in the heap of bodies too afraid to move.
‘They constantly heard gunfire and hand grenades going off in the other parts of the hotel. They feared that any noise would bring the terrorists back.
‘After approximately 12 hours, the terrorists returned with a camera and flashlight and joked and laughed as they filmed what they thought was a pile of dead bodies.
‘They then moved to the landing below where they set up explosives. On their departing, my father decided that it was too risky to remain where they were, due to the explosives.’
The three survivors then climbed the rest of the stairs to reach an air-cooling plant room where they hid, drinking sips of water from the air-conditioning unit, till Friday, November 28, morning when a commando team rescued them and took them to hospital.
Since the authorities have captured one of the Mumbai Jihadi's, we find out the truth:
“From there, they mandated to kill indiscriminately, particularly white foreign tourists, and spare Muslims split up into five batches. Two of them Ismail and Ajmal took a taxi to Victoria Terminus. Three other batches of two each headed for Oberoi Hotel, Cafe Leopold and Nariman House. The remaining four went to Taj Hotel.”
“Spare Muslims” - why? Quran 4:93 And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his punishment is hell; he shall abide in it, and Allah will send His wrath on him and curse him and prepare for him a painful chastisement.
Contrast that to:
Quran 9:5 So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
and
Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177: Allah’s Apostle said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”
You see, unbelievers are fine to slay, especially those Jews…but don’t touch another Muslim!
They "accused India, the US and Israel of hatching a conspiracy to defame Pakistan. The program, anchored by Qudsia Qadri, was completely outrageous and reflected the Pakistani mindset towards India."
UPDATE
Just saw this blog post from Patterico. The MSM has been apologizing on behalf of Islam for so long that journalists are fully blind to Islam's promotion of hatred and violence towards Jews:
On Thursday during CNN’s coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks, a CNN security analyst couldn’t understand why the terrorists targeted a Jewish Center:
And we still - but we still do not know a motive. You know,you look at the Jewish center. Why did they hit the Jewish center? You know, and you look at the other places, you know, big icons where there are going to be a lot of people. And that’s what terrorists do. They hit places that they consider soft targets where they can have the most bang for the buck, if you will, and where there are a lot of people - hotels, train stations, those kind of things.
Bharti, the interrogator, said Kasab has told police that he is from a village called Faridkot, in Pakistan's Punjab province, and that he dropped out of school after the fourth grade. His father owned a food stall. An acquaintance introduced him to an outlawed group called Lashkar-i-Taiba in 2005, Bharti said, and Kasab later trained with the group in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.
"He went through different stages of training. At first, it was the recitation of the Koran and lectures about jihad. He was being prepared mentally. Then small-weapons training," Bharti said in an interview. "Then came the hard physical, marine training. At first, Kasab used to vomit. They were taught how to survive at sea, on ground, and how to control thirst and hunger. From a batch of about 25, 10 were handpicked for the Mumbai mission."
Now even the Washington Post understands that Islam had something to do with it. Maybe CNN will realize why they attacked the Jewish Center after all.
The handlers told a team of gunmen who had seized a Jewish center to shoot hostages if necessary.
"If you are still threatened, then don't saddle yourself with the burden of the hostages. Immediately kill them," he said.
Six Jewish foreigners, including a rabbi and his wife, were killed inside the Jewish center.
Later in the night, nearly 24 hours after the attacks began, the handlers urged the gunmen to "be strong in the name of Allah"
"Brother, you have to fight. This is a matter of prestige of Islam," the handler said. "You may feel tired or sleepy, but the commandos of Islam have left everything behind, their mothers, their fathers."
The gunmen were told several times not to kill any Muslim hostages.
The woman in black wanted an Islamic divorce. She told the religious judge that her husband hit her, cursed her and wanted her dead.
But her husband was opposed, and the Islamic scholar adjudicating the case seemed determined to keep the couple together. So, sensing defeat, she brought our her secret weapon: her father....The judge promptly reversed himself and recommended divorce.
UK Sharia law in action - the beaten wife has to bring a man into the mix to get justice. She barely has a voice.
What an awful site, yet it continues. I wish the politicians that instituted Sharia simply read a few paragraphs from the Quran, like this one (4:34):
Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.
If you fear desertion, admonish them, leave them alone in bed and beat them. Oh, and the husband is both judge and jury. It's verses like this and the supporting Hadith that bring about this kind of counseling: If the husband beats her, she should go to the police and have a divorce, Qurashi said. "But if he's slapped her only once or something like that," she said, "and he admits he has made a mistake and promised not to do it again, then we say, 'You have to forgive.' "
Clearly, Qurashi didn't talk to the first woman who got more than a few slaps. That's because Qurashi is an "unofficial" counselor - after all, she's not a man. BTW, since when is it ok to slap once "or something like that"? Tell us Qurashi - what if the one and only slap injures the woman? Explain to us where you draw the line. Does anybody else see the insanity here?
Then, of course, there's the unfairness in inheritance distribution, never mind all the inheritance mistakes. Well UK Sharia has an answer for that:
Three months ago, for example, a wealthy Bangladeshi family asked Dr. Raza's council to resolve an inheritance dispute. It was resolved according to Shariah, he said. That meant the male heirs received twice as much as the female heirs.
How about this quote - wife beating, child abuse and Jew hating all rolled into one:
A Pakistan-born 33-year-old mother of five explained that her husband would beat her and her children. "He threatens to kill us," she said, as her daughter translated from Urdu. "He calls me a Jew and an infidel."
Isn't Islam great? Go here for more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/19/europe/19shariah.php
This is the third in a series of posts that has less to do with discussing Islam with Muslims, and more to do with non-Muslim ignorance to the vicious cult of Islam. In Parts 1 and 2, I demonstrated that Islam means "submission" not "peace," and that the Quran is extremely violent when you understand verse abrogation, and the history of Muhammad.
Here, I will point out the fallacy of Islam's supposed tolerance of other faiths and of atheists. Let's start with the great Ayaan Hirsi Ali educating the uneducated on Dhimmitude and on Muslim intolerance
Dhimmis and "People of the Book"
So what is Ayaan Hirsi Ali referring to, and do 1000 year old churches and synagogues tell the full story? What about the apologist retort that Muslims protect "People of the Book" (Jews and Christians)? Well, first here is the Quran verse referenced by Ayaah Hirsi Ali:
9:29 Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the (Jizya) tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection. Sounds almost exactly like her words in the video, except worse. Fight against them until they pay the Jizya tax acknowledging inferiority and live in a state of subjection. The word to describe people in such a state is "Dhimmi." How does it look in practice? (from Al-Maghili, a fifteenth century Muslim theologian) On the day of payment {of the jizya} they {the dhimmi} shall be assembled in a public place like the suq {place of commerce}. They should be standing there waiting in the lowest and dirtiest place. The acting officials representing the Law shall be placed above them and shall adopt a threatening attitude so that it seems to them, as well as to others, that our object is to degrade them by pretending to take their possessions. They will realize that we are doing them a favor in accepting from them the jizya and letting them go free. (Al-Maghili, quoted in Bat Ye'or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, 361.)
Here's more from Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali:
…the dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle…Jews, Christians, and Majians must pay the jizya …on offering up the jizya, the dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard and hits [the dhimmi] on the protruberant bone beneath his ear [i.e., the mandible]… They are not permitted to ostentatiously display their wine or church bells…their houses may not be higher than the Muslim’s, no matter how low that is. The dhimmi may not ride an elegant horse or mule; he may ride a donkey only if the saddle[-work] is of wood. He may not walk on the good part of the road. They [the dhimmis] have to wear [an identifying] patch [on their clothing], even women, and even in the [public] baths…[dhimmis] must hold their tongue….
Dhimmis were also prohibited from building churches, proselytizing or openly practicing their religion. Sounds like modern day Saudi Arabia, correct? Well, this is one reason why Wahabi Muslims in Saudi Arabia think they have the purest version of Islam. Dhimmitude was and is not pleasant, and it was also not the rule. In many cases, Jews and Christians were just made into slaves or killed. Find a full history here from Bat Ye'or and other scholars.
What about those that were not perfect in their Dhimmitude or did not want to live in a state of subjection:
…the whole Gaza region up to Cesarea was sacked and devastated in the campaign of 634. Four thousand Jewish, Christian, and Samaritan peasants who defended their land were massacred. The villages of the Negev were pillaged…Towns ...were isolated and closed their gates. In his sermon on Christmas day 634, the patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, lamented…that the Christians were being forcibly kept in Jerusalem: ‘…chained and nailed by fear of the Saracens (Muslims),’ whose ‘savage, barbarous and bloody sword’ kept them locked up in the town…
Sophronius, in his sermon on the Day of the Epiphany 636, bewailed the destruction of the churches and monasteries, the sacked towns, the fields laid waste, the villages burned down by the nomads who were overrunning the country.
In a letter the same year to Sergius, the patriarch of Constantinople, he mentions the ravages wrought by the Arabs. Thousands of people perished in 639, victims of the famine and plague that resulted from these destructions. According to [the Muslim chronicler] Baladhuri (d. 892 C.E.), 40,000 Jews lived in Caesarea alone at the Arab conquest, after which all trace of them is lost...
The above is only from the history of Palestine. In Moorish Spain, churches were turned right into mosques. In a strange irony, Muslims in Spain are now asking for equal rights to the Church of Cordoba. This church had been Christian, was turned into a mosque by the Moors, then turned back into a church. Destruction or alteration of Dhimmi property continues until today - Iran destroyed seven ancient synagogues just last week. What about those that were not "People of the Book"? Well, let's start with the estimated millions of Hindus killed during the Muslim conquest of India. K.S. Lal estimates up to 80 million killed, and, while others have criticized this number, most scholars concede of a death toll in the many millions.
Of course there are the 1/4 million Armenians murdered by the Turks. Then there were the original non-Muslims who lived in the core of today's Islamic strongholds: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt...was that a peaceful conversion? Well, it wasn't called "Muslim conquest" for nothing.
