In the 21st century, the dominant narrative of American history is one of white European Christian exploitation. We are told from an early age that we are invaders, aliens, usurpers; that we gained this territory through aggression, colonialism, and genocide of the native population. Further, we are told that there is no remedy to this situation. Our nation was conceived in sin, and no matter how far we progress in ethnic, religious and racial tolerance; no matter how much money we lay out in benefits and reparations, we cannot wash the blood from our hands.
Accordingly the progressive view is that we must always show deference, humility, and passivity in foreign policy; that our interactions with other nations should take the form of eternal apologies and bottomless unaccountable foreign aid. And God forbid we should make a moral judgment on a genocidal dictator, or a backwards theocracy, because in light of our past it would be an enormous hypocrisy.
This interpretation by definition assumes that the West was the only society on earth that behaved in such a way; that the rest of the world was a harmonious Eden. That native cultures lived peacefully, in the territory where they had always lived, in balance with nature and the surrounding peoples. Well, any thinking person should know that humans and their societies are much more complicated than that. For example, it’s a common assumption that Arabs have always populated North Africa, and that Islam is the native religion of Iran and Turkey. Here I will provide some brief examples that represent the way in which the Arab world became the Arab world, and how Dar-al-Islam, the domain of Islam, became the domain of Islam.
Before Islam, Arabs were only found in the Arabian Peninsula, hence the name. Muhammad was an Arab of the tribe Quraysh, from the Mecca region. By grasping firmly to his new religious and political ideology, the Arab people and their new Muslim faith were spread across the Middle East in a rapid series of violent conquests.
Before Islam, Egypt was a Christian land. When the Arab Muslims invaded in 641AD, they called the local people Copts, a derivation of the Greek word for Egypt, “Ekyptos”. Thus, the Arabs called the local people simply “Egyptians”, underlining the fact that they were foreign invaders. The capital of Christian Egypt was Alexandria, named after Alexander the Great. The Church of Alexandria was founded in 42 AD, which makes it the longest uninterrupted institution of Christianity on earth. After the invasion the Copts were relegated to Dhimmi status under Islamic Sharia law. Christians could continue to worship but were not allowed to build new churches, or renovate the churches that already existed. Dhimmis were required to pay a tribute tax to the Muslim rulers and acknowledge Muslim supremacy. Dhimmis were prohibited from bearing arms, or giving testimony in court cases involving Muslims. Obviously these laws were designed to eliminate the indigenous religions, making it too humiliating and costly to maintain a different faith in a Muslim land, and in Egypt they’ve had their desired effect. The former Coptic Christian majority now makes up only 10% of the population, under siege and decreasing every day. Their second-class status is underlined periodically by violence and destruction. In October 2005 angry Muslim crowds gathered around St George’s Coptic Church in Alexandria, one man burst into the church shouting “Allahu Akbar”, and stabbed a nun and a male parishioner.
Before Islam, Iran was Persia. Persia had existed as an empire and a fountain of civilization and culture for more than a thousand years. On the eve of the Arab Muslim invasion in 637 AD, the religion of Persia was Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic faith that rose in Persia at about the same time that Judaism developed in the Levant, and it had a profound influence on the three Abrahamic religions as well as the religions of the East. After Persia’s fall to Islam, Zoroastrians were relegated to dhimmi status. Today they number less than 200,000 worldwide, the largest community being India where refugees from Iran found some tolerance. In Iran itself about 22,000 Zoroastrians remain, or less than 0.1% of the population.
Before Islam, Iraq was called Assyria. Prior to the Arab Muslim conquest, the majority of its inhabitants were Assyrian Christians. By the dawn of the 20th century, dhimmi laws, persecutions and conversions had reduced their numbers to about 5% of the Iraqi population. On the eve of the US-led invasion in 2003, they had dropped to 1%. A lot of noise has been made about the plight of Iraqi refugees since 2003. What is less widely known is that Assyrian Christians make up 40% of the 1 million refugees that have left Iraq, despite making up less than 1% of the population. These refugees represents 2/3 of the pre-war Christian population. The removal of the tyrant Saddam Hussein allowed the Sunni and Shia Muslims to revert to the customary persecution of their Christian neighbors. Frivolous events such as the Danish Muhammad cartoons have had very real repercussions for Iraq’s dwindling Christian community, in the form of bombings and murders. Seven churches were bombed in January 2006, in retaliation for the dreaded cartoons of blasphemy. Since the start of the war at least 46 Churches and Monasteries have been bombed.
These are three brief examples, but this story has been repeated wherever Islam has asserted itself. When Islam comes to a new nation, its purpose is not to adapt to the fabric of the host society, or to become just one religion among many equals. Its goal is to become the dominant religion. The Muslim belief is that once a territory has been under Muslim rule, it can never be relinquished again. And so former Muslim colonies such as Spain, Israel and the Balkans, are high on the list for reconquest. But make no mistake, any territory is fair game.
The territories where Islamic law is in force are known as “Dar-al-Islam”, the “domain of Islam”. Territories ruled by infidel law are known as “Dar-al-Harb”, the “domain of war”. This means that any non-Muslim territory, whether it be ruled by humanists, atheists, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., is fair game for conquest. In 2003, UK-based Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi said “It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar-Al-Harb is not protected.”
These are the unvarnished politically-incorrect truths about the way in which Islam views the rest of the world. The three vanquished societies I have highlighted are tangible evidence that this creed is translated into action when the conditions are favorable for conquest. Please keep this in mind as you make decisions that will determine the future path of your own societies.
Further reading on Egypt and the native Copts:
Further reading on Iraq and the native Assyrians:
Further reading on Iran and the native Zoroastrians:
Dar-al-Islam, Dar-al-Harb, and Dhimmitude: