Triumphs of Islam

Throughout its history Islam has had more than one triumph at the expense of Christianity. Barely a century after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, Islam extended from the Pyrenees in the West to the Himalayas in the East.

Lost forever for Christianity were the lands of its origin in the Middle East (Palestine, Syria and Egypt) and North Africa (Augustine's Church), and later in 711 the downfall of the Christian West Gothic kingdom of the Spanish peninsula, which until the Reconquista in 1492 remained under the Umayyad Caliphs.

Luckily, the northern thrust of the Muslim hordes in Western Europe was finally checked in 732 by Charles Martel at Poitiers in Gaul. Thus, there was a great shift of the religio-political focus in the Mediterranean which could no longer be called 'Christian'.

This was the first catastrophe of historical dimensions for Christianity. One might rightly ask 'why did Christianity fail so badly'? At first Rome dismissed Islam as a Christian heresy, and only after its unprecedented military conquests not only in Europe but also in Central Asia and the East, did Rome try to confront it.

But the Christian world was already internally divided by the politico-doctrinal differences between Rome and Constantinople, which had been brewing since the fifth century. The Arabs exploited all this, and also took advantage of the mutual weakening of the great Empires of Byzantium and Persia, the latter driven by the Arabs from Mesopotamia between 637-51.

The second military defeat for Christianity at the hands of Islam took place in the 11th to 13th century when the Western European Christians conducted several military expeditions to recover the Holy Land from the Saracen Muslims. But the few temporary conquests of these Crusades were to remain just episodes. And, as if these defeats in Palestine weren't enough, the Christian West thought it opportune to direct the fourth Crusade (1202-4) against the Byzantine Empire, which was fatally weakened by the sack of Constantinople, thus making its capture by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 much easier.

Talking about the Ottoman Turks makes one's hair stand on end, because in their heyday of military conquests they horrified the whole Western Christian world. Of this we have personal experience. Who were these Turks? The Turks were Central Asian people from whom the Ottomans derived. The Turkish Empire was established in Northern Anatolia by Osman or Othman at the end of the 13th century and expanded by his successors to include all of Asia Minor and much of southeast Europe. This military expansion resumed years later resulting, as we have already pointed out, in the capture of Constantinople in 1453.

The empire reached its zenith under Suleiman in the mid-16th century dominating the eastern Mediterranean. The victory of the Knights over these Turks during the Great Siege of Malta was decisive in halting their threat to Central Europe. Thereafter the Ottoman Empire began to decline.

Islam seemed to have settled down peacefully in the now known Muslim countries, but since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, Iran became an Islamic fundamentalist state. Under Ayatollah Khomeini, Islam became more and more aggressive and anti-Christian West till we come to Osama bin Laden's 9/11 terrorist attack on the US. Does this herald another triumph of Islam?

"We are at war," announced President Bush to the American people after the attack. On his part, Bin Laden has succeeded in uniting thousands of Al-Qaeda-linked militants from diverse Muslim countries into a powerful organised army which is wreaking havoc all over the world. Curiously enough, according to Bin Laden, his terrorism is squarely based on the Koran. At least, so believe the endless number of Al-Qaeda members who, by blowing themselves up, kill and maim innocent Muslims of the same faith, and then end up in heaven.

As I see it, bin Laden feels incited to such acts out of a deep inner conviction that Islam, as a religion of victors, could and should be zealously emulated by contemporary followers of Islam. Why not continue the Jihad even today? Jihad, not in moral terms of the lesser effort but in terms of war of the great effort, because occasionally Jihad can also justify violence to advance the law of Islam to victory.

Of course, moderate Muslim countries dissociate themselves from Bin Laden's violent method by arguing that Islam is a peaceful religion and that its proselytism is based on persuasion rather than imposition. In fact, in the early Arab conquests, conversion to Islam was not imposed.

Conquered people were only subjected politically, although religious motivations were also involved. History has taught us that politics and religion go hand in hand; one can first subdue a country politically by military means and then religiously, or vice versa; the former, Bin Laden's method, the latter, Muslim proselytism.

The method is different, but the end is the same - Islamisation of the West. In Europe alone there are now more than 20 million Muslim immigrants, and the number is bound to increase with future EU member countries, like Turkey. Another shift of religio-political focus is actually taking place, this time in Central Europe. In the not-too-distant future Europe will cease to be called Europa Christiana. Another triumph of Islam, this time, at the very heart of Christendom?

One might rightly argue that in democratic Europe all religions, including Islam, should be respected and given a chance to increase in number. That is valid enough as long as Christianity in Muslim countries receives the same treatment, and our democracy is not replaced by Muslim theocracy based on the Shariah.