When you arrive from the life-giving light of Athens and will have to be concerned with Islam – it is like travelling into the heart of darkness. An experience as if the light has been turned off and human nature appears in its most primitive form. Just like in Joseph Conrad’s novel “The heart of Darkness” [1] you travel down a river getting closer and closer to “Mr. Kurz”. Slowly you realize that Islam is not for children – and that the activities which are being carried out in the name of Islam are so unpleasant to hear about that you want to turn your boat and return into the light. At the same time you are being confronted with the darkness of your own culture – because like Islam the Europeans themselves have also been imperialists. Our methods have been different but our actions have also been terrible. The heart of darkness which lies at the end of Joseph Conrad’s river was created by King Leopold of Congo.
The latest and most intense example of our own imperialistic past was the extermination of the Jews in the gas chambers in Auschwitz, and before that there is a whole string of beads telling about human exterminations. The basic difference between Islamic imperialism and Western imperialism lies in the methods. The Europeans killed people without many words, whereas the Moslems forced their victims from the conquered territories to convert into Islam.
And that did not go off quietly. The expansion of Islam leaves marks of blood over most of the earth. Here are some examples:
Jerusalem 634-48:
The patriarch Sofronius of Jerusalem experiences the Moslem invading troops as “godless barbarians” setting churches on fire, destroying convents, ravaging, raping, and robbing, while thousands are starving to death. [2]
Mesopotamia, Elam, Susa 635-642:
Monofytic Arabs were forced to convert into Islam. Otherwise they would be slaughtered. [3]
Cyprus 643:
The Syrian, Mikael, describes the brutal pillages and massacres when caliph Muawiya conquers Cyprus. [4]
Egypt 693-700:
Everybody surrendering to the conquering Moslems will be slaughtered as the Moslems will spare neither old people nor women nor children. [5]
India 712:
Commandant Muhammad ibn Quasim is ordered to cause destruction to the unbelievers and to make them convert into the only true faith in the unity of God. Anybody who do not submit to Islam must be treated with brutality and be subject to great harm until he submits to Islam”. [6]
In the harbour of Debal the commandant only killed people for three days, after which he found the killing sufficient. Consequently, he was reprimanded by his superiors who thought the killing was not enough due to the sura 47,4 of the Quoran stating: “Oh you true believers, when you meet unbelievers you must behead them.” [7]
India 971-1030:
Mahmud of Ghazni smashes his way like a tornado through India. He is described as follows: “Mahmud was a zealous Moslem and a ferocious type of man which was predominant at that time. This was a type who felt it his duty as well as his amusement to kill people who worshipped false gods. He was greedy of plundering and carefully secured a nice profit from his holy warriors. [8]
India, Bihar 1193:
Muhammed Khiji, Moslem general, slaughters most Buddhist monks in Bihar as they are considered profane, and a big library is destroyed.
“The ashes from the Buddhist sacred things at Sarnath near Benares still bear witness of the fury of the iconoclasts”. [9]
Morocco, 1232:
All Jews in Marrakesh are slaughtered. [10]
The Osmanli impire 1326-59:
Sultan Orkhan establishes an army consisting of Christian children, the so-called janissaries. The Christian children are taken from the Greek aristocracy, Serbians, Bulgarians, and Albanians – often the children of the priests. The system was abolished in 1656. At the same time a system was established where girls were taken from their parents at the age of ten in order to function at the harem of the Sultan. This tradition goes on till the 18th century. [11]
India 1351:
Firuz Shah, Moslem ruler of India, has this comment at a Hindu party: “I ordered the leaders of these people and those behind this blasphemy to be killed. I prohibited serious punishment of the Hindus in general but I destroyed their temples of idols and replaced them with mosques”. [12]
Georgia 1403:
The “bloody and insatiable Timur the limp” destroys 700 villages, slaughters their inhabitants and
razes all the Christians churches of Tiflis to the ground. In Timur Lenk this Mongolian brutality is combined with Jihad. Timur Lenk continues into India where he finds the Moslem leaders far too nice to the pagans. [13]
India 1618-1707:
As a contrast to his father the Moslem ruler Aurangzeb is Moslem puritan. Temples are destroyed, dhimmitude reinstalled, and field forces are sent against the villages Udaipur, Chitor, and Jaipur. [14]
Iran 1642-1666:
All Iranian Jews suffer during the waves of compulsory conversion and persecutions. [15]
Damascus 1840:
Jews are subjects to ritual murder.
Turkey 1894, 1895, and 1896:
Armenian Christians are persecuted and exterminated. About 250,000 die. [17]
Turkey 1904 and 1909:
30,000 Armenians are slaughtered in Anana. [18]
Turkey 1915:
The first mass murder in this century was carried out. About 1 million Armenians were shot, drowned, thrown down from the rocks, and survivors were made slaves. [19]
The Islamic imperialism was not seriously weakened until the expansion of the Western world, and it is still due to the Western world that Moslem countries are being kept in a string with a demand to observe human rights and behave properly.
However, this does not mean that the Islamic imperialism has stopped. It has only become more discrete. The movement we call “terrorism” is in fact Islamic fundamentalists trying to carry on with their old Islamic virtues – a kind a “puritans”. The Islamic imperialism is not limited to the Western world, Thailand, Afghanistan, Russia, India, Pakistan, and so on. The reason why there is so much hype about them is that they have also attacked the leaders of the world, i.e. those of the Western world. In fact the Islamists behave like angles in the Western world in comparison with their behaviour in the countries dominated by Moslems. The Copts in Egypt are being persecuted every day, in Thailand Islamists make holy war against the Buddhists, in the Middle East Christians and Jews are being persecuted, and in Pakistan Christians are being persecuted, too
And in Denmark? Well, what do you think?
The Western world and imperialism.
After the Second World War something crucial happened to the Western world. The light from Athens broke really through the fog of murder and ravage. The leaders of the world wrote down the human rights – rights which are like an echo of the ideas of Socrates, rules which almost refer to the works of Aristotle. This light has soon broken out from all corners of the world. Russia, China, South America, North America, Europe, Japan. We decided to let our imperialistic past behind us trying to live together in liberty and peace.
Under the surface of our society there is a permanent fear of the return of imperialism. Whenever the slightest signs of imperialism crop up large parts of the world will react against it. This has been one of the reflections behind the accusations of racism against those who criticize Moslems.
A disagreeable factor in connection with the half unconscious reaction is that the political leaders have not been aware of the fact that by doing so they have protected another kind of imperialism, i.e. the Islamic imperialism. The most important danger is that the Western world shall fall back to its former habits. Maybe many ordinary people conclude that democracy cannot protect us from the increasing Islamic imperialism which will make us solve the problem in the good old fashion way – we kill them. This reaction would bring about immense consequences for the whole world if the instigators of democracy, the Europeans, started to kill people. Then the idea of democracy will weaken and we would risk relapsing into another middle age with kings, authority of the Church, and limitation of freedom of speech.
To prevent the loss of our civilization, which was built up with such difficulty, it is important that our civilization reacts against the Islamic imperialistic threat and handles the problem with democratic tools.
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[1]The Heart of Darkness is considered the best novel of the 19th century. Joseph Conrad was Polish but wrote in England during the great period of the British Empire. The Heart of Darkness is the original book behind the cult film “Apocalypse Now” from the seventies. Years ago The heart of Darkness was seen as a clash with imperialism. Joseph Conrad had himself been close to the Belgian Congo and experienced imperialism at close quarters. The book is a long poem.
[2] Warraq, s. 327
[3] Warraq, s. 327
[4] Warraq, s. 327
[5] Warraq, s. 327
[6] Warraq, s. 327
[7] Warraq, s. 328
[8] Warraq, s. 329
[9] Warraq, s. 334-335
[10] Warraq, s. 338
[11] Warraq, s. 344-345
[12] Warraq, s. 331
[13] Warraq
[14] Warraq, s. 333
[15] Warraq,s. 338
[16] Warraq, s. 353
[17] Warraq, s. 353
[18] Warraq, s. 353
[19] Warraq, s. 353
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