The historical distortion here is just incredible. At the outset, he talks about Islam attacking "classical Greece."
Classical Greek civilization describes a period of two centuries, the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. Islam does not arise until the beginning of the 7th century CE--more than a thousand years later. At the time that the Muslims of Arabia marched out into the Sassanid (Neo-Persian) empire, Greece was a part of the Roman Empire; the later Roman Empire, usually called the Byzantine Empire. It was not until the 16th century that Muslims, in the form of the Osmanli (Ottoman) Turks invaded the Balkan peninsula. This was not jihad, it's only purpose was to expand the political control (and therefore, the taxation base) of the Osmanli dynasty. No one was required to convert to Islam.
That's just for starters. This clown is presenting a distorted view of history in order to support a straw man fallacy with which he begins his screed. He asserts, without presenting any evidence, that people (a sufficiently vague group about which to make a claim) respond to remarks about jihad by bringing up the crusades. But leaving aside the fallacious basis for his rant, he is also fudging the data. So, for example, he lists all manner of "battles" in what we would call France. However, there was a single campaign in 732 CE, conducted by the satrapy of Al Andalus on behalf of the Umayyad Caliphate. After the Franks and Burgundians defeated the Muslims at a battle usually called the battle of Tours in 732, the Muslims withdrew and never again attempted the conquest of "France" (a political entity which did not exist at that time). The little red dots in France are the record of the continuing defeats the Franks inflicted on the Arab-Berber army until they finally crossed the mountains, never to return.
This clown keeps speaking of "Islam" as though it were a coherent monolith with a set policy of "jihad." Certainly Muslims, just like Christians, liked to conquer their neighbors so that they could plunder them, and then, it was hoped, tax the bejesus out of them ever after. This sort of behavior was common all over the world in those centuries, and had nothing to do with religion. The Umayyad dynasty took control of of most (but certainly not all) of the Muslim world after the First (first, mind you) Muslim civil war, which took place less than 30 years after the death of the Prophet. This joker explains none of this. The conquests of the Umayyads were largely private ventures, and were initially successful because of corrupt or decayed administrations which they overthrew. That doesn't mean, however, that everyone rushed to become Muslims, or tore off as fanatical holy warriors. The invasion of what we call Spain was slowed and hindered over more than a generation by revolts among the Berbers, most of whom had become Muslims, but had no interest in trading their former oppressive German masters (Vandals and Visigoths) for new oppressive Arab masters. This delayed the progress of the Umayyad conquest, and the disastrous defeat of the dynasty by Leo III in 717, followed by a half century of military reverses fighting the Romans and the surviving German (Visigothic) "kings" in Iberia lead to the collapse of the dynasty when they falied to crush the Abbasid revolt.
In fact, as Muslims could not be taxed in most situations, but infidels (Christians and Jews) could, it was not in the interest of the Umayyads and their Abbasid successors to promote the conversion of the people of newly conquered regions. Some jihad . . .
Most the little red dots on this horseshit map are cobbled together out of petty raids and counterattacks of the Christians whom they tried to conquer. Most of the "battles" which appear in the middle east in the years after the two muslim civil wars (the battles of which he lists as examples of "jihad") were cases of either rebellion, or of the Romans fighting back, and doing so successfully. When Leo III drove the Arabs away from their siege of Constantinople in 717, two major factors were the attack of the Bulgars on the Arab besieging army (they had no screening army--buncha military putzes) and a defection of a large portion of the Arab fleet, who found the prospect of raiding Christian shipping far more lucrative than blockade duty for an inept army.
Gunga Dim knows about as much about history as he does about science--which is to say, next to nothing.
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace