{"id":11999,"date":"2019-09-26T10:00:04","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T17:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=11999"},"modified":"2019-09-30T14:10:02","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T21:10:02","slug":"book-review-sword-and-scimitar-fourteen-centuries-of-war-between-islam-and-the-west-by-raymond-ibrahim-da-capo-press-2018-pp-297","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/book-review-sword-and-scimitar-fourteen-centuries-of-war-between-islam-and-the-west-by-raymond-ibrahim-da-capo-press-2018-pp-297\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West by Raymond Ibrahim. Da Capo Press, 2018. Pp. 297"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Please read this book review from my colleague<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry Scambray \/\/ New Oxford Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen\nCenturies of War Between Islam and the West<\/em> by Raymond\nIbrahim.  Da Capo Press, 2018.   Pp. 297<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             We judge individuals by what they say and\nwhat they do.  We judge cults, religions and ideologies the same way; that\nis, by their doctrines and history.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

             Which is common sense, of course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently though, common sense is abandoned\nwhen it comes to ideologies like Marxism which has largely escaped such\nscrutiny by our schools and popular culture; and now the same cover up is\nhappening with Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Raymond Ibrahim, fluent in Arabic  is\nan equal opportunity Middle East scholar committed to truth rather than\nconforming to dangerous fads.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibrahim gained attention\nwith his revealing translations in his 2007 book, The\nAl Qaeda Reader<\/em>, which showed the difference between what Osama bin Laden said in\nArabic to Muslims and what he said for receptive, if not gullible, Western\naudiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibrahim\u2019s second\nbook, Crucified Again<\/em>, showed the murder and destruction that Christians are enduring\nat the hands of Muslims throughout the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sword\nand Scimitar<\/em>, Ibrahim begins by explaining Mohammed\u2019s doctrine of jihad or\n\u201choly war\u201d: \u201cWhereas the rewards of the pre-Islamic tribal raid were limited to\ntemporal spoils and came with the risk of death, the deified raid (jihad)\noffered rewards in the here and <\/em>the hereafter \u2013 meaning it was essentially risk free \u2013 and thus\nled to a newborn fanaticism and determination.\u201d   In other words,\nrobbery, murder and enslavement were sacralized and then transformed into a\nprodigious engine of Islamic conquest.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conquest being the major\nfeature of Islam\u2019s 1,400 year history, Sword and Scimitar<\/em> takes the reader on a\ntour \u2013 \u201ca tour of force\u201d \u2013 as represented by eight significant battles and an\narray of lesser clashes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

             Skillfully\nrelying on first person descriptions, Ibrahim\u2019s narration of these battles is\ngripping and suspenseful while also evoking the pain and terror of\nwarfare.   Especially after the current revival of jihad, his\nrecounting of these barbaric episodes and their consequences is not\ncomforting.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

              The battles are taken chronologically\nbeginning in 636 with the lesser known Battle of Yarmuk, a place now in\nSyria.  This battle displayed the fierce power of jihad by imbedding in\nthe Western mind a fear of Islam for the ensuing 1,000 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And with good reason, for as Ibrahim, channeling\nother historians, reports, Yarmuk \u201chad more important consequences than almost\nany other battle in all world history,\u201d for within 73 years after this Muslim\nvictory, the area from Syria west to Morocco, 37,000 sq. miles, was permanently\nconquered by Islam!  \u201cPut differently, two-thirds of Christendom\u2019s\noriginal territory \u2013 including three of the five most important centers of Christianity\n\u2013 Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria \u2013 were swallowed up by Islam and\nthoroughly Arabized,\u201d as Ibrahim puts it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             However, despite Islam\u2019s vast conquests,\nConstantinople, \u201cEastern Rome\u201d, with its wealth, strategic location and light\nskinned women, prized as potential concubines and slaves, tantalized the\nMuslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            So in\n717, Constantinople was sieged by the Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate.\nUnfortunately for them, their invading fleet was commandeered by their own\nconscripted Coptic Christians, who jumped ship once the opportunity presented\nitself.  Worse for the jihadists was the annihilating weapon called \u201cGreek\nfire,\u201d akin to modern flamethrowers, which along with a huge storm and debris\nfrom a volcano, wrecked all but five of the attacking 2,560 Muslim vessels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That the Byzantines withstood this siege was a\nstunning setback over an insurgent Islam which had it prevailed would have\nopened a crucial portal into a then divided and vulnerable Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Islam\u2019s defeat at Constantinople was followed in\n732 by another debacle at the opposite end of the Mediterranean at Tours, 150\nmiles south of Paris.   The Charles-Martel-led Franks, organized into\nphalanxes, literally undercut the charging Berber Muslim cavalry.  It was\na rout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              After Tours, no serious attempt was made to\nbreach the wall of the Pyrenees though Islam occupied Spain until 1492 when\nColumbus discovered America while seeking an alternate route to India so as to\navoid Muslim raids on caravans through the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             But\nif the Pyrenees became a dam against the rising tide of Islam, that tide\nsubsequently overflowed into the Mediterranean, as Ibrahim notes.  Thus\nthe coastline of southern Europe was awash with raids by Saracens, as they were\nthen called, making the Mediterranean \u201ca Muslim Lake\u201d just as it once was, \u201ca\nRoman Lake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            In 1071,\nthe Seljuk Turks won a significant victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of\nManzikert, also now in Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             This triumph marks the \u201cTurkification and\nIslamification of Anatolia,\u201d as Ibrahim writes.  So what Yarmuk was for\nthe Arabs, Manzikurt is for the Turks, with the victory commemorated annually\nby Prime Minister Erdogan and the Turkish government.  Even the\nbattlefield is considered sacred wherein \u201c15,000 Turks defeated 210,000\nChristians\u201d, as the official account puts it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1095, Christendom finally mounted an offense\nagainst Islam, the Crusades.   The immediate reason for this\ncounter-attack was that the Seljuk Turks had gained control of the Islamic Empire\nand began raping, murdering and enslaving pilgrims to the Holy Land. \nThus, the Crusaders took the fight across the Mediterranean, a thousand miles\naway, and mostly prevailed over the Muslim occupiers of territory that\nChristianity had originally gained by conversion.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

             Another pivotal victory, this time led by\nSaladin, occurred in 1187 at the Battle of Hattin, near Tiberius.  \nIt was an ignominious defeat of the Crusaders by Saladin who gleefully watched\nwhile Sufis and other devout Muslims beheaded captured Christians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             These defeats hastened the Crusader\u2019s\ndeparture from The Holy Land, as Ibrahim writes, though the superior Crusader\nforces could had remained in Palestine.  But they left in 1291, tired of\nthis distant conflict just as Americans are tiring of their own overseas wars\nwith jihadists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             \n\u201cFor more than three centuries prior to the Crusades and for more than three\ncenturies after Hattin, Spain for eight hundred years was a microcosm of the\nwar between Islam and Christianity,\u201d Ibrahim adroitly summarizes.  Thus\nthe Spanish victory in 1212 at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa was\ntransformational, for it ended Muslim hegemony in Spain and was celebrated for\nhundreds of years until Vatican II abolished the celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             Constantinople, however, remained \u201ca bone in\nthe throat of Allah.\u201d   So in 1453 the Turk\u2019s 100,000 fighters and\n100 warships surrounded the great metropolis\u2019 7,000 Christians guarding its 15\nmile wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The previously repelled Muslims now possessed a\ncannon provided by a bribed German or Hungarian.  It had a mile range and\nbelched out 1,300 pound bombs which devastated the walls of the city though it\ntook hours to reload.  When holes were blown in the city\u2019s walls, the\ndefenders hurriedly repaired them; when the Turks tunneled under the wall, they\nwere intercepted or buried alive.  When a fire spewing siege tower was\nrolled up to the wall, the defenders blew it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After seven frustrating weeks, the Turk\u2019s leader\nMuhammed II exhorted his troops with promises of women, handsome boys and\nvirgins in the next world and booty and concubines in this world; slackers were\npromised \u201ca lingering death\u201d by impalement which meant hammering a lengthy pole\nup the anus and then standing the pole and person upright like a scarecrow to\nfrighten other potential deserters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one observer of the ensuing carnage wrote:\nthe invaders climbed through breeches in the walls and clawed over human\npyramids of their own fallen; the defenders fought bravely with axes, pikes and\njavelins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Finally on\nMay 29, with overwhelming numbers, the jihadists triumphed.  So the city\nthat began with Constantine the Great ended with Constantine XI, and the Roman\nEmpire, dating from 753 BC concluded its 2,206 year run!  The victors then\nforced the vanquished to endure \u201cstrange and horrible unions and foul\ndebaucheries,\u201d according to other contemporary commentators.  Survivors\nwere enslaved; the Hagia Sophia, the most beautiful church of the early Middle\nAges, was transformed into a brothel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             Gaining\nimpetus by this momentous victory, the scourge of Islam continued to lash its\nvictims into submission though there were notable defeats at Malta and\nLepanto. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, Muslim forces began bombarding\nVienna in mid July 1683.  The Viennese retaliated with their own artillery\nbarrages.  But the Ottoman\u2019s blockade caused the spread of dysentery\ninside the city and bodies began piling up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

             As\nhappened in 1453 with Constantinople, Western Europe refused to help because of\nits own troubles and also at this juncture because of the disunity caused by\nthe Reformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             By\nSeptember the situation was dire.   Fortunately, the Polish military\nhero, Jon Sobieski, offered deliverance.  As Ibrahim writes,\u201d the Poles\nwere common and crude, at least to the ultra-refined, wig-and-powder-wearing\nViennese court\u201d; nonetheless, King Leopold flatteringly wrote Sobieski, \u201cYour\nname alone, so terrible to the enemy, will insure victory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             By then, joining in to rescue Vienna were 40,000 Austro German\ntroops which merged with the 25,000 man Polish army.  Though outnumbered\nby jihadists, the Christians turned back this last direct attack on Europe by\nIslam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             One could argue that Ibrahim has equated\nlesser battles to historical hinge points like those at Tours, Constantinople,\nLepanto and Vienna.  Nonetheless, as one can see, he establishes the\nsignificance of each of his choices just as his book demonstrates that his\nknowledge of Muslim conquests and depredations offers depth and perspective to\neach of his choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             This is so because Ibrahim fleshes out the\nhistory of these eight battles by recounting the numerous attacks and savagery\nthat occurred in their wake.  One such occurred in 1019 when the Seljuk\nTurks descended on Armenia, the nearest Christian country.  The Armenians\nfought bravely but succumbed to the plunder, rape and massacres by the\ninvaders; as Ibrahim dryly writes, \u201cThis was the beginning of the misfortunes\nof Armenia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cameos of fearless individuals like the Genovese\nnobleman, Giovanni Guistiniani, animate this tale of the killing fields of\njihad.  In 1453 Guistiniani, a siege expert, rushed in to defend\nConstantinople at his own expense accompanied by 700 highly trained soldiers at\na time when others were fleeing in panic.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibrahim was an Arabic language specialist for\nthe Library of Congress and has testified before Congress, is a consultant to\nAmerica\u2019s intelligence community and lectures at universities and the National\nDefense Intelligence College.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibrahim quotes Bernard\nLewis to the effect that, \u201c.  .  . the limits and even the identity\nof Europe were established first through the advance, and then the retreat, of\nIslam.\u201d  As Ibrahim trenchantly concludes, \u201cSimply put, the West is\nactually the westernmost <\/em>remnant of what was a much more extensive civilizational\nblock that Islam permanently severed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that separation remains\nthough it is sometimes blurred by the velocity and volume of contemporary\nevents.   But Sword & Scimitar<\/em> is a compelling reminder of the terrifying\ndynamic which continues to drive the Islamic world.   History hasn\u2019t\nended and Ibrahim has written an engaging and sobering narrative that makes\nthat extremely clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This review originally appeared in the September\n2019 issue of the New Oxford Review<\/em>, and is reprinted with permission. Copyright\n\u00a9 2019 New Oxford Review, <\/em>www.newoxfordreview.org<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry Scambray lives and writes in Fresno, California<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please read this book review from my colleague Terry Scambray \/\/ New Oxford Review Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West by Raymond Ibrahim.  Da Capo Press, 2018.   Pp. 297              We judge individuals by what they say and what they do.  We judge cults, religions and ideologies the same way; that is, by their doctrines and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-37x","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1683,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/democracy-at-risk\/","url_meta":{"origin":11999,"position":0},"title":"Democracy at Risk","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim American Thinker A review of\u00a0The War of Ideas: Jihadism Against Democracy\u00a0by Dr. Walid Phares (Macmillen, 2007, pp. 288) first appeared inThe America Thinker\u00a0under the book's title. 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