by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n If the same exact criticisms being made against Islam today were also made centuries ago, is it reasonable to automatically dismiss them all as \u201cIslamophobic\u201d \u2014 that is, as \u201cunfounded fear of and hostility towards Islam,\u201d as the\u00a0Council on American Islamic Relations<\/a>\u00a0[1] would have it?<\/p>\n This is the question I often ask myself whenever I read pre-modern writings on Islam. Take that elementary schoolbook hero, Marco Polo and\u00a0his famous memoirs<\/a>\u00a0[2], for example. By today\u2019s standards, the 13th-century Venetian merchant would be denounced as a rabid \u201cIslamophobe.\u201d For me, however, his writings contain a far more important lesson \u2014 one in continuity \u2014 and deserve closer scrutiny.<\/p>\n Before examining Polo\u2019s observations, it should be noted that his anthropological accounts are, by and large, objective. That is, unlike\u00a0simplistic explanations<\/a>\u00a0[3] that portray him as a prototypical \u201cOrientalist\u201d with an axe to grind against the \u201cOther\u201d \u2014 specifically non-whites and non-Christians \u2014 in fact, Polo occasionally portrays the few Christians he encountered in a negative light (such as those of the island of Socotra) and frequently praises non-Christians, including Muslims.<\/p>\n For example, he hails the Brahmins of India as being \u201cmost honorable,\u201d possessing a \u201chatred for cheating or of taking the goods of other persons. They are likewise remarkable for the virtue of being satisfied with the possession of one wife (p.298<\/a>\u00a0[4]).\u201d And he refers to one Muslim leader as governing \u201cwith justice\u201d (p.317<\/a>\u00a0[5]) and another who \u201cshowed himself [to be] a very good lord, and made himself beloved by everybody (p.332<\/a>\u00a0[6]).\u201d<\/p>\n That said, Polo clearly had no problem being blunt about Islam (political correctness being nonexistent in the Middle Ages). Whereas he praised the Brahmins for their \u201chatred for cheating or of taking the goods of other persons,\u201d regarding the Muslims of Tauris, (modern day Iraq), he wrote:<\/p>\n According to their doctrine, whatever is stolen or plundered from others of a different faith, is properly taken, and the theft is no crime; whilst those who suffer death or injury by the hands of Christians, are considered as martyrs.\u00a0 If, therefore, they were not prohibited and restrained by the powers who now govern them, they would commit many outrages.\u00a0 These principles are common to all Saracens (p.63<\/a>\u00a0[7]).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In fact, based on the Muslim prophet Muhammad\u2019s numerous raiding expeditions,\u00a0plundering infidels<\/a>\u00a0[8] is quite standard in Islam and treated regularly in legal manuals; the Koran has an entire chapter dedicated to and named after plunder (Surat al-Anfal). As for being a martyr simply by dying at the hands of the infidel enemy, this too has ample support in Islam\u2019s texts and consensus among the\u00a0ulema<\/em>. The authoritative Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary translates\u00a0shahid<\/em>\u00a0(martyr) as \u201cone killed in battle with infidels.\u201d<\/p>\n A more telling anecdote follows: According to Polo, a certain \u201cAchmath\u201d (probably \u201cAhmed\u201d), one of the few Muslims to have had great influence over Kublai Khan, habitually abused the largely non-Muslim subject peoples without the Khan\u2019s knowledge: he put to death anyone he pleased, robbed them of their possessions, and, most notoriously, he and his sons regularly raped and coerced into concubinage countless women. Due to Achmath\u2019s many atrocities, he was eventually assassinated. When the Khan later discovered the extent of Achmath\u2019s crimes, his<\/p>\n attention [went] to the doctrines of the Sect of the Saracens [i.e., Islam], which excuse every crime, yea, even murder itself, when committed on such as are not of their religion. And seeing that this doctrine had led the accursed Achmath and his sons to act as they did without any sense of guilt, the Khan was led to entertain the greatest disgust and abomination for it. So he summoned the Saracens and prohibited their doing many things which their religion enjoined (p.173<\/a>\u00a0[9]).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course, crimes against non-Muslim infidels have a doctrinal base and fall within the legal jurisdiction of jihad and its attendant institutions (e.g., dhimma status): war upon and death for non-subjugated infidels is a Koranic mandate (e.g., 8:39, 9:5, 9:29); the sub-human treatment of infidel slaves, particularly women, or, in the Koran\u2019s language, \u201cwhat your right hand possesses<\/a>\u00a0[10],\u201dis well codified. Little wonder that Muslims like this Achmath \u2014 or today\u2019s terrorists \u2014 can act \u201cwithout any sense of guilt.\u201d<\/p>\n (It is significant to note that, in both of Polo\u2019s block quotes above, he criticizes Muslim doctrine \u2014 not Muslim peoples. In other words, he allows for what would today be called \u201cmoderate\u201d Muslims, as shown by his aforementioned praise for individual Muslim leaders.)<\/p>\n Polo also confirms that Muslim leaders \u2014 not just today but from of old \u2014 have relied on Muhammad\u2019s account of a lusty paradise to lure young men into becoming \u201cmartyrs.\u201d Based on his account of the Shia assassins, who, in accordance with \u201cthe description Muhammad gave of his paradise,\u201d dedicated their lives to assassinating and terrorizing their opponents, simply to enter into \u201cparadise, where every species of sensual gratification should be found, in the society of beautiful nymphs\u201d (p.78<\/a>\u00a0[11]). (It is further interesting to note that the assassin leader took into his service men primarily between the ages of 12-20 \u2014 not unlike Osama bin Laden\u2019s position that Muslim men aged 15-25 are most suited for jihad and martyrdom:\u00a0The Al Qaeda Reader<\/em><\/a>\u00a0[12], p.267.)<\/p>\n Other \u201cIslamophobic\u201d allusions are scattered throughout Polo\u2019s account: the caliph of Baghdad\u2019s \u201cdaily thoughts were employed on the means of converting to his religion [Islam] those who resided within his dominions, or, upon their refusal, in forming pretences for putting them to death\u201d (p.59<\/a>\u00a0[13]); and Muslims \u201cutterly detest the Christians\u201d (p.316<\/a>\u00a0[14]), perhaps in accordance to Koran 60:4 \u2014 still cited by today\u2019s Islamists as mandating permanent hatred for non-Muslims.<\/p>\n Here, then, is the problem: If today it is \u201cIslamophobic,\u201d that is, irrational, to claim that Islam advocates war against and subjugation for infidels, permitting the latter to be abused, plundered, and enslaved in the process \u2014 what does one make of the fact that, some 700 years ago, the same exact claims were made by our Venetian traveler? Indeed, what does one make of the fact that, centuries before and after Polo, a diverse host of writers \u2014 including John of Damascus (d.749) Theophanes the chronicler (d.818), Francis of Assisi (d.1226), Joinville the crusader (d.13th century), and Manuel the Byzantine emperor (d.1425) \u2014 all made the same \u201cIslamophobic\u201d observations about Islam? (The latter\u2019s writings, when merely quoted by the pope,\u00a0caused an uproar<\/a>\u00a0[15] in the Muslim world.) This, of course, is to say nothing of the countless Muslim\u00a0ulema<\/em>\u00a0who regularly affirm that Islam teaches war, subjugation, slavery, and plunder vis-a-vis the infidel, tracing it back to the words of the Koran and Muhammad.<\/p>\n In short, the word \u201cIslamophobia\u201d is a ruse \u2014 also permitted in Islam under the\u00a0doctrine of\u00a0taqiyya<\/em><\/a>\u00a0[16] \u2014 meant to paralyze all discussion concerning Muslim doctrine; and it has been successful: the\u00a0United Nations<\/a>\u00a0[17] has already presided over a conference titled \u201cConfronting Islamophobia\u201d and a\u00a0Council of Europe summit<\/a>\u00a0[18] condemned \u201cIslamophobia.\u201d Moreover, the influential Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) regularly lambasts the specter of Islamophobia, calling it the \u201cworst form of terrorism<\/a>\u00a0[19],\u201d and publishing two reports on the phenomenon.<\/p>\n