The Third Wave Part I

 

by Wallace Edward Brand

1^st part of 3  

Summary

The First Wave was begun by Muhammed and went on for over half a millennium. It created an Islamic Empire that extended from Arabia through a large part of Africa, much of Central Asia, east into Iran. The Second Wave, begun in the 14th century by a warlord, Osman Bey, known as the Ottoman, threatened to overwhelm all of Europe. The Muslims were halted in the 17th Century at the gates of Vienna. The Ottoman Empire was still vast and it continued to own all of the Middle East until the first World War, when the area was divided up -- 99% going to the Muslims, 1% to the Jews. In this essay, we discuss the Third Wave of Islamic aggression, which is still in its early stages.
 

"In the eyes of a fanatical and resolute minority of Muslims, the third wave of attack on Europe has clearly begun. We should not delude ourselves as to what it is and what it means. This time it is taking different forms -- two in particular, terror and migration." This is what we have been told by Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Middle East historians.[1] The United States is an additional target of this third wave; here the jihad employs terror, migration and stealth.[2] The facts are set forth below. They show that our ally Israel is the US's first line of defense in our common struggle to protect Western Civilization from a new period of Dark Ages.

The cause of the current wave of terrorism, according to the political left and the political right

Efraim Karsh, Professor and head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College London tells us[3] that "The 9/11 attacks have inspired two diametrically opposed interpretations regarding their "root causes". These can be referred to as the "What is past is prologue camp" and the "Blame America first camp", sometimes also referred to as the "chickens coming home to roost" camp by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, former mentor of President Obama. By and large the right has accepted the "past is prologue" explanation and the left, the "chickens coming home to roost."

Defining the 'Past is Prologue' camp

Karsh characterizes it this way:

According to the political right, the attacks were the latest salvo in the millenarian "clash of civilizations" between the worlds of Islam and Christendom, a violent backlash by a deeply frustrated civilization reluctant to come to terms with its long-standing decline. "For many centuries Islam was the greatest civilization on earth -- the richest, the most powerful, the most creative in every significant field of human endeavor" wrote a prominent exponent of this view. "And then everything changed, and Muslims, instead of invading and dominating Christendom, were invaded and dominated by Christian powers. The resulting frustration and anger at what seemed to them a reversal of both natural and divine law have been growing for centuries, and have reached a climax in our own time." [4] This climax was seeded by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt by Hassan al Banna in 1928 and nurtured by Sayeed Qutb Sheik Abdullah Azzam and and in Jamaat-e-Islamia in Pakistan and Indonesia by Maulana Maududi, and by other philosophers of this view including Ayatollah Ruholleh Khomeini in Iran. It came to fruition with the financing from OPEC petrodollars starting in 1970, but earlier in Palestine. Al-Qaeda is but one of the many offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood around the world. [5]

The 'Blame-America-First' camp — "chickens coming home to roost".

Karsh explains this view this way:

"Not so, argues a vast cohort of academics, journalists, writers, and retired diplomats. It is our fault. The attacks were a misguided, if not wholly inexplicable, response to America's arrogant and self-serving foreign policy by a fringe extremist group, whose violent interpretation of Islam has little to do with the actual spirit and teachings of the religion. Not only does Islam specifically forbid the massacre of innocent civilians but the evocation as a jihad in the context of 9/11 makes a travesty of this concept, which means first and foremost an inner quest for personal self improvement and not a holy war as is widely believed."

"Muslims have never nurtured dreams of world conquest," runs a typical argument in this vein. "They had no designs on Europe, even though Europeans imagined that they did. Once Muslim rule had been established in Spain, it was recognized that the empire could not expand indefinitely" [6]

"In al Qaeda's statements directed at European or American audiences, Islamists maintain that the terrorism they direct against the West is merely reciprocal treatment for decades of Western and Israeli oppression. Yet in writings directed to their fellow Muslims, this animus is presented, not as a reaction to military or political provocation, but as a product of religious obligation" no matter what changes the US makes in its foreign policy. [7]

This suggests that Bin Laden's attribution is taqqiyya (dissimulation) to advance the cause of Islam, as is permitted and even required by the Koran.

Previous Islamic Empires, Previous Islamic Jihads

There were actually two Islamic Empires, the result of the first two waves of jihad or "holy war". These are chronicled in Karsh's book, Islamic Imperialism, a history.[8] You can find the details of these waves of aggression in a recent book, The Legacy of Jihad,[9] written by a Rhode Island physician and author of many commentaries on Islam. Dr. Bostom tells you how Islam expanded and what happened to non-muslims in conquered areas.

You will find that Islamic jihad is a grisly campaign against non-Muslims to satisfy Mohammed's goal -- forcing the "one true faith" on the entire world or to collect tribute in the form of a poll tax, jizya, from monotheists who would not accept Islam. But if they pay jizya, they are treated as second class citizens called "dhimmis". Islam, as practiced in the 7th through the 19th century was a faith bent upon the conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims.

Subjugated monotheists, "People of the Book" such as Christians or Jews, were given three choices, 1. convert to Islam, or 2. accept second class citizenship, pay a discriminatory tax and sometimes accept demeaning obligations, or 3. die. Polytheistic peoples were offered only the last choice.

In Legacy of Jihad Bostom describes how at the very outset of Islam, the Jewish Qurayzah tribe was purported to have aided the forces of Muhammad's enemies and how they were subsequently isolated and besieged. After their surrender some six to nine hundred Jewish men were beheaded in front of Muhammad and their decapitated bodies buried in trenches. The young Jewish males, women, and children were sold into slavery and their property and land were confiscated.

Throughout the first and second waves of jihad, non-Muslims were discriminated against, made slaves, raped and then converted to Islam or became second class citizens. There was no converting back. Apostasy resulted in death.

In an insatiable thirst for slaves and women for harems (places of sexual slavery) Islam declared Jihads deep into Africa and Europe, depopulating Eastern Europe and the coast of Africa. Jihad campaigns over 1300 years against non-Muslims were characterized by massacre, enslavement, and pillage. You are confronted with how such military conquests have subdued millions of indigenous peoples and expropriated vast expanses of land.

One reviewer of Bostom's history said: Islam needs to be understood for what it is by head-in-the-sand westerners and, besides analysis and understanding, western civilization certainly needs to identify a lasting cure for this violent, self-absorbed, hate-filled, psychotic plague before more damage is done.

Death, murder, rape plunder and misery were the lot of infidels who were on the receiving end of jihad. Muslim conquests were not the peaceful transitions of willing converts but conquest by the sword. Modern day Jihad is not an isolated incident, but a tradition going back 1300 years.

Mawlana Maududi, in his monograph, Jihad in Islam, [10] has written in unequivocal terms that the sole objective of Islam is to overthrow any un-Islamic political system anywhere in the world and replace it by an Islamic system with Shar'ia law. To do so, Muslims (belonging to the Party of Allah) must use physical force whenever necessary to quickly attain this objective and keep the application of force forever.

In 1942 Ayatollah Ruholleh Khomeini mocked the notion that Islam is a religion of peace:

"...Islam's jihad is a struggle against idolatry, sexual deviation, plunder, repression and cruelty. The war waged by [non-Islamic] conquerors, however, aims at promoting lust and animal pleasures. They care not if whole countries are wiped out and many families left homeless. But those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [God's Law] . . . .

"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender to [the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists that to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors!" [11]

The religion of Islam spread poverty, war, slavery, tyranny, illiteracy and backwardness through brutal military force, and brought slavery and marginalization for non-Muslims to all regions that this totalitarian religion conquered. [12]

Are the terror attacks we are now seeing a "Third Wave"?

The First Wave

The first wave commenced in the time of Muhammad in the 7th Century and lasted until about the 13th Century. Military colonies were established in the 9th Century and the rate of expansion slowed. From the Arabian Peninsula, the first Islamic Empire extended west and included large areas of Northern Africa (the Maghreb) and southern Spain. To the east it included Iran, and large parts of Central Asia. The decline of this first Islamic empire is described in detail by Efraim Karsh[13]. The invasion of the Mongols caused the collapse of the first Islamic Empire; it was already in decline and therefore easy prey. The Mongol invaders drove Turkish tribes to Anatolia. These Islamic Turkish tribes that were fleeing the Mongols settled in what is now Turkey. The Mongols looted and murdered, but couldn't govern. They soon fell into decline.

 

Wallace Edward Brand is a retired lawyer living in Virginia.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

./…