by Lloyd Billingsley
Mohammed and Islam, as portrayed before the Age of Political Correctness.
British historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) covered a lot of ground in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, first published in 1776. While holding forth on Diocletian, Constantine, Trajan and all, the author devotes attention to the rise of Islam. Since he wrote before the Era of Political Correctness, his work deserves attention on that theme.
“The religion of the Arabs, as well as of the Indians,” he writes, “consisted in worship of the sun, the moon and the fixed stars, a primitive and specious mode of superstition.” The use of “human gore” on altars was a “cruel practice long observed among the Arabs.” This was before Mohammed, whose “base and plebeian origin” is an “unskillful calumny of the Christians.”
Under “the apostle” Mohammed, as Gibbon explains, “the Arab continued to unite the professions of a merchant and a robber.” And “from all sides, the roving Arabs were allured to the standard of religion and plunder: The apostle sanctified the license of embracing female captives as their wives or concubines and the enjoyment of wealth and beauty was a feeble type of the joys of paradise prepared for the valiant martyrs of the faith.” On other themes Gibbon quotes the apostle directly.
“The sword,” says Mohammed “is the key of heaven and of hell, a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting and prayer.”
Back in the day things could get rowdy, and as the author notes, “the wife of Abu Sophian tasted the entrails of Hamza, the uncle of Mohammed.”
According to Gibbon, in the early going Mohammed had a “propensity in favor of the Jews and happy it would have been if they had recognized in the Arabian prophet the hope of Israel and the promised Messiah.” For reasons that should be clear, the Jews did not do so and “their obstinacy converted his friendship into implacable hatred, with which he pursued that unfortunate people to the last moment of his life, and in the double character of an apostle and a conqueror, his persecution was extended to both worlds.”
This is an early example of blaming the victim, but Gibbon is no slouch in coverage of the “implacable hatred,” toward all who failed to recognize the Arabian prophet.
“They could not be ignorant that fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity,” Gibbon writes. “A venerable elder, to whose judgement they appealed, pronounced the sentence of their death: Seven hundred Jews were dragged in chains to the marketplace of the city; they descended alive into the grave prepared for their execution and burial; and the apostle beheld with an inflexible eye the slaughter of his helpless enemies.”
As Gibbon explains, “in the exercise of political government he was compelled to abate the stern rigor of fanaticism, to comply in some measure with the prejudices and passions of his followers, and to employ even the vices of mankind as the instruments of their salvation. The uses of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice, were often subservient to the propagation of the faith, and Mohammed commanded or approved the assassination of Jews and idolaters who had escaped the field of battle.” Even so, the historian did not neglect Mohammed’s softer side.
“Perfumes and women were the two sensual enjoyments which his nature required and his religion did not forbid,” Gibbon explains. “In his private conduct, Mohammed indulged the appetites of a man and abused the claims of a prophet.” So as Richard Grenier said in The Marrakesh One-Two, if Mohammed wants something bad enough, Allah is certain to give it to him.
Only 100 years after his flight from Mecca “the arms and the reign of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean.” And the tradition carried on.
“Fighting for religion is an act of obedience to God,” explains Abubeker in a letter. When they confront those of the “synagogue of Satan. . . be sure you cleave their skulls and give them no quarter until they either turn Mohammedan or pay tribute.”
In similar style, Chaled announces, “Ye Christian dogs, you know your option. The Koran, the tribute or the sword.” It was an offer they couldn’t refuse.
In Decline and Fall, Islam never emerges as a “religion of peace” and contrary to current claims, Gibbon does not portray the Quran as the first constitution in history. The historian provides no evidence for the claim that civilization stands in the debt of Islam for algebra, the compass and “our mastery of pens and printing.”
All told, modern readers will find Gibbon a more reliable guide to Islam than anything from CAIR, Keith Ellison, or the president formerly known as Barry Soetoro, raised in a “predominantly Muslim” school in Indonesia. As president in 2014, he thanked Muslims for their contributions in “building the fabric” of the United States.
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270717/implacable-hatred-lloyd-billingsley
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