Gunga Din's thesis, one for which Madden provides conveniently disingenuous evidence, is that there is an Islamic monolith which has eternally threatened the great, enduring values of the the chrisitian world (insert appropriate rolly-eyed emoticon here).
The wave of Islamic conquest which roared out of Arabia in the seventh century easily toppled the corrupt and decaying Sassanid empire in what is today Iraq and Syria, and easily dealt with an equally corrupt and decaying Persia. It failed to take Anatolia, and it failed to make any kind of military impression on the Roman Empire, which in its remnant at that time we refer to as the Byzantine Empire. The Arabs turned west, and in North Africa they found fertile ground for proselytizing. The kingdoms of North Africa and Iberia were currupt and decaying German kingdoms established by the Vandals and Visigoths (hence, the Arabic name for Iberia--al Andalus, a corruption of the name Vandal). The seething resentment of the local Berbers and Moors (Morrocans) of North Africa was a perfect ground in which to sow Islam, and it was the Berbers and Moors, not Arabs, who went on to overrun North Africa and Iberia. When the Muslim Berbers and Moors crossed the mountains into what is now France, they were stopped by the Franks whose kingdom was virgorous and healthy--the Muslims, whether Arabs or Moors, only ever succeeded in toppling corrupt and decaying regimes.
It was the arrival of Seljuk Turks which changed the equation. The Turks who captured Baghdad found it convenient to their political control to adopt Islam, and to make a puppet of the Caliph, which allowed them to engross the administrative machinery of the Caliphate to their own ends. Even then, within less than a century, the Turkish conquest had fragmented into clan warfare--the Osmali Turks (usually referred to as the Ottoman Turks, because of the Arabic version of Osman, which is Uttuman) were the eventually successful conquerors of Anatolia, not Arabs. Turks became Muslims, certainly, no one would deny that. However, Turks conquered because that was what Turks did--they sought new wealth and land for direct occupation or sources of tribute, just as their successors the Mongols would do. That they were become Muslims is incidental. They had no plan to make the world Muslim, rather, they wanted to conquer as much of the world as they could because they wished to enrich themselves.
Mr. Madden, just as is the case with Gunga Din, is pursing a christian agenda by willfully and disingenuously ignoring a distinction between the Muslim fanatic Arabs who came out of Arabia in the seventh century, and failed to topple the Byzantine Empire, and the Turks, who only accomplished that end over a period of more than five hundred years by gradual infiltration. The Companions of the Prophet and the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law Ali had conquired in the name of Islam--the Turks conquered for mere personal aggrandizement. But it is wonderful propaganda that Mr. Madden fashions for a world grown suspicious of all Muslims.
If you do an online search for Mr. Madden, you will find the article which Gunga Din has cut and pasted. You will also find several examples of an article at different sites in which Mr. Madden unabashedly peddles his anti-Muslim propaganda. In that article, found at the National Observer site which Gunga used, as well as several others, Madden writes:
Quote:The warriors on both sides believed, and by the tenets of their respective religions were justified in believing, that they were doing God's work. History, though, was on the side of Islam. Muslim rulers were becoming more, not less powerful. Their jihads grew in strength and effectiveness until, in 1291, the last remnants of the crusaders in Palestine and Syria were wiped out forever.
What happened to the Crusaders was the same thing that happened to the Seljuk Turks and the Ayyubid Kurdish dynasty--they were overwhelmed by the Mongols. Many Mongols and Tatars and their descendants eventually became Muslims--but just as was the case with the Turks, the Mongols came for the conquest itself, to plunder and to lay nations under tribute. In the case of neither the Turks nor the Mongols was the goal to spread Islam as a holy mission. Madden referring to the Turks as jihadists and failing to mention the Mongols at all is stark evidence of his propagandistic intent. The Mamluks of Egypt (mamluk is a Turkish word which means "owned" and refers to military slaves, most of them Caucasian tribesmen, the preferred source for Turkish military slaves) became a great military force under the leadership of Saladin, the Kurdish military genius who had retaken Jerusalem from the Franks. Saladin's uncle Ayyub had been a mercenary general working for Seljuk Turks, and became the first successful commander opposing the Crusaders. The dynasty was named for him, but Saladin's weak and ineffective son was the last of the three rulers of the Ayyubid dynasty, and the Mamluks took over from him and asserted their independence.
The Mongol invasion of the middle east stopped at the Sainai, when the Mongol leadership hurried home to a disputed succession of the dynasty of Temujin, known as Gengis Kahn, which was also short-lived. The Mamluks were therefore left unmolested, and claimed to have defeated the Mongols--a specious claim. For that same reason, the Osmali Turks were left unmolested in Anatolia, and enabled to pick up the pieces of the shattered Seljuk hegemony. The Osmanli Turks and the Mamluks both rarely ever controlled more of the middle east than they could directly, militarily garrison, and accepted the existence of tributary states where they could not reach militarily, or could not be bothered to make the effort.
Both Madden and Gunga Din would have you believe in a great, evil and satanic Muslim plot to destroy christianity. Which is very a propos, given that the subject of this thread is christian lies.
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