Revisionist Whitewashing

[Richard Wiig]

Were Conquered Christians Really Liberated Muslims?

by Raymond Ibrahim

FrontPageMagazine.com

April 24, 2011

http://www.raymondibrahim.com/9465/were-conquered-christians-really-liberated-muslims

Imagine if a top American historian appeared on the MSM insisting that the only reason Europeans conquered the Americas was to "defend" the Native Americans—who somehow had adopted Christianity centuries before Jesus was born—from being persecuted by heathen tribes.

While that would create a maelstrom of outrage and derision in the West, in the Arab world—where some think bewitched animals work as infidel operatives—such absurdities regularly pass for "truth."

Copts: Muslims Before Muhammad

Consider the case of Fadel Soliman, a celebrated Sharia expert and Arab media darling. Director of the Bridges Foundation—which teaches Muslims "how to present Islam" to non-Muslims—Soliman also lectures at Western universities, churches, and governmental agencies, including the U.S. Dept. of Defense.

His new Arabic book, Copts: Muslims Before Muhammad, which he has been promoting all over the media, including al-Jazeera, asserts that, at the time of the Muslim conquest of Egypt (c. 640), the vast majority of Egyptians were not, as history has long taught, Christians, but rather prototypical Muslims, or muwahidin, who were actually being oppressed by Christians: hence, the Muslim conquest of Egypt was really about "liberating" fellow Muslims. Soliman's evidence is that the Arian sect, which rejected the claim that Jesus was coequal with God, was present in 4th century Egypt. Therefore, according to Soliman, the indigenous Egyptians were practicing "proto-Islam" hundreds of years before it was founded in the 7th century.

As with much of modern academia's approach to Islam, this thesis is based on pure fiction. While the Arians were pronounced heretics at the Council of Nicea (325) for their interpretation of the Trinity, they nonetheless accepted all of Christianity's core tenets—including original sin, crucifixion, resurrection, and salvation—all of which directly contradict Islam's teachings. What an imaginative stretch, then, for Soliman to portray the Arians as prototypical Muslims, simply because they did not believe Jesus was coequal with God (a standard that would make many people today "Muslims").

Needless to say, no historian has ever suggested that Muslims invaded Egypt to liberate "proto-Muslims." Rather, the Muslim historians who wrote our primary sources on Islam, candidly and refreshingly present the conquests as they were—conquests, for the glory and empowerment of Islam and its followers at the expense of unbelieving infidels.

Of course, with the weakening of Islam in the modern era, embarrassed Muslims began to euphemize their imperialistic history, portraying jihad as "defensive," "spiritual," etc.—culminating with Soliman's fairy tale. Even the unapologetic Sayyid Qutb, the sheikh of "radical Islam," interpreted jihad and the conquests as "altruistic" endeavors to "liberate" mankind.

Such sophistry is inevitable; for the Muslim conquests pose a thorny problem for Muslims. As David Cook writes in Understanding Jihad, p.167:

[T]he conquests were seen from the beginning as one of the incontrovertible proofs of Islam. To disavow them or to examine them critically—which has yet to happen in the Muslim world—will be very painful for Muslims especially Arabic-speaking Muslims. At every point… when Muslims have tried to abandon militant jihad for the internal, spiritual jihad… the memory of the conquests and the need to rationalize them have defeated this effort. The problem may lie in the unwillingness to confront the fact that the conquests were basically unjustified. They were not a "liberation" and they were not desired by the non-Muslim peoples; they were endured and finally accepted.

Fadel Soliman, Islam expert and "bridge-builder"

The question remains: Are Islam's apologists disingenuous or deluded? When it comes to "bridge-building" Soliman—who provides "sensitivity training" to the FBI and Pentagon—one is inclined to answer in the former: his book contains academic crimes, including flagrant mistranslations to support his thesis and wild, but undocumented, assertions (for example, that the Arians, like the Muslims, used to proclaim "There is no god but Allah and Jesus is his prophet").

That said, Muslim self-deception—typified by the impulsive need to always exonerate Islam—is a very real and widespread phenomenon. I am reminded of an Arabic op-ed I read last year in Al-Masry Al-Youm, which opened by bluntly saying: "We Muslims have an inferiority complex…and feel that our Islamic religion needs constant, daily affirmation from Europeans and Americans… What rapturous joy takes us when one of them converts—as if to reassure us that our religion is 'okay.'" Discussing how the Arab world exulted when it erroneously thought that Muslim critic Henryk Broder had accepted Islam—based on sarcastic remarks he had made—the author wrote "but we are a people who do not understand sarcasm, since it is subtle and requires a bit of thinking and intellectualizing; rather, we read quickly, with a hopeful eye, not an eye for truth and reality."

Considering Islam's lax views on deception, this comes as no surprise. After all, whether Muslims consciously deceive infidels or unconsciously deceive themselves, the goal has long been one: empowering Islam and its adherents—reality be damned.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I actually read this thing.

It's nothing more than a collectivist article, and not a very good one.

Basically non-arguments about non-issues involving collective stereotypes.

Something about someone was trying to rewrite history, but this collective was actually that collective, so this proves Islam is evil.

(yawn)

Michael

[Mike11]

FrontPageMeg,

You get what you pay for.

Or wait, that's a bit harsh wasn't it?

Umm

I find this article's argument simplistic, selective in its source material and self serving.

Err, that might be too much...

Islam is not on the offensive, it is - eek, definitely do no want to say that.

*yawn* I guess is the best response.

Edited May 1, 2011 by Joel Mac Donald

[anthony]

That said, Muslim self-deception—typified by the impulsive need to always exonerate Islam—is a very real and widespread phenomenon. I am reminded of an Arabic op-ed I read last year in Al-Masry Al-Youm, which opened by bluntly saying: "We Muslims have an inferiority complex…and feel that our Islamic religion needs constant, daily affirmation from Europeans and Americans… What rapturous joy takes us when one of them converts—as if to reassure us that our religion is 'okay.'"

Yawn-making, but for this. Before you guys nod off, it should be considered carefully, since there is a nugget of truth in it. It has often occured to me that Muslims seek acceptance from Westerners, and it has been unforthcoming, mainly, in their history.

That a billion-plus religion has collectively low self-worth, is beyond comprehension to the West. But it wasn't so long ago that the English and most Europeans perceived 'Mohammedans' as a savage race, knowing nothing about the thinkers and intellectuals in their past.

In conversations with Muslims, and in the media, I used to keep seeing the same obsessiveness to simply be loved, by those the Arab world considered 'modern' and cultured. Decades on, and that unsatisfied desire is finding other outlets - at its most extreme, among a minority, one of hatred. "You spurn us, and won't let us integrate, then we will do it by force."

It is a psychological-ideological phenomenon that we should pay attention to.

Tony

[Mike11]

The feelings of humiliation in the Muslim world are well known. Islam is a political religion and at heart its validity in the mind of its practitioner is its success in the real world. Mohammed himself (peace and atheist blessings be upon him) told his people that the proof of Allah's message lay in the striking successes of the Islamic Arabs. Islam did not grow up in a vacuum however and its admiration for the West has had a major impact. Muhammad Abduh was educated in Paris and Nasser learned socialism in a Kibbutz.

Islam began with a strong spirit of religious toleration, open to the People of the Book and aggressively assimilated the wisdom of Hindu, Chinese and Greek cultures. They embraced the spirit of public debate in matters of Sharia Law which acted to restrain the State on liberal principles, attacking harsh taxes (on the grounds that they were bad for business) and safe guarding property rights of the People.

The early Bedouin, the heart and soul of Islam, were quasi-democratic and by and large the Arabs resented the intrusions of Absolute Monarchy.

Because of this, one hundred years ago the vast majority of Arab, Turkish and Persian intellectuals were democratic, western reformers who saw our system as ideal to the revival of the pure Islam experienced in the Golden Age of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs. Even after the destruction of this movement at the hands of British and French guns the Arab Socialists would continue to look to the West to find political systems which matched Islamic teachings and history.

What can be done to repair this relationship which brought us Aristotle and Avicenna, and gave them Paine and Marx?

Hint: Not the OP

Edited May 1, 2011 by Joel Mac Donald

[BaalChatzaf]

What can be done to repair this relationship which brought us Aristotle and Avicenna, and gave them Paine and Marx?

Not a bloody thing. These people scooped out their frontal cortices with a runcible spoon eight centuries ago.

There goes your Muslim: different mountain, different god.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Mike11]

Dear Baal,

While I disagree with you I find your post edifying and insightful into the perfectly pure, concise mind of one who values Blood & Honour. I am grateful for the chance to see that the Holocaust is not restricted by any Orthodox interpretation but rather invites a flowering of Jewish thought and can indeed be remembered as a Heroic moment in your adopted Aryan heritage.

In Admiration,

Joel Mac Donald

Edited May 1, 2011 by Joel Mac Donald

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I think everything culture-wise is going to merge naturally over time, all within a big capitalist tent.

The only way to keep them separate is to encourage strong governments--including the current one world government putsch attempt. When governments are diluted, peaceful relations do their magic.

That's basically how it worked in Brazil, where a white Catholic colonialist culture merged with black slaves with their deity religion and the local Indians with even more.

And I mean merged as in literally. It's very hard to find pure white, black or red people in any great number there (well, maybe in some specific regions). They've all intermingled and their blood is mixed.

Brazil has always had a half-assed government (especially for its size), and I'm starting to think there are distinct social advantages to having a half-assed central authority. It is there right in front of you, so you have to deal with it, but it is so screwed up that peaceful folks can work around it, thus it is more irritation than obstacle.

You can't do that when it is well organized and highly competent at wielding lethal force in blind obedience to a ruler.

To get back to my point, I believe Jews and Muslims and Westerners and all the other cultures are eventually going to integrate, unless war machines manage to stay strong.

Michael

[Mike11]

What you describe has been key in creating the peaceful Canada I live in. The French and English were bitterly, hatefully divided. Had a strong State existed us Anglos would have inflicted an injury worthy of any European ethnic cleansing.

This is why we value a federal system that gives the provinces and ethnic groups a great deal of political power. It is the only way we can work together, unfortunately when us Anglos hold the power in Canada we tend to break things.

Have you ever been to Canada, is it at all similar to Brazil?

Edited May 1, 2011 by Joel Mac Donald

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Joel,

Only once.

My parents told me they once took me to Canada when I was an infant, about a year old or so.

It didn't leave much of an impression on me.

Michael

[Mike11]

[Richard Wiig]

But it wasn't so long ago that the English and most Europeans perceived 'Mohammedans' as a savage race,

Once again, since when was Islam a race?