The tensions between the United States and Iran reached a new level recently. Following a series of announcements regarding its nuclear program and tests of new weapons systems, Tehran announced on Tuesday that it was purchasing the sophisticated Tor M1 anti-aircraft missile system from Russia. On Friday, the IAEA released its highly anticipated report on the Iranian nuclear program and its failure to meet UN Security Council deadline to stop its uranium enrichment efforts. Secretary of State Condi Rice warned Sunday that it was time for Iran and its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop "playing games."
But while the differences between Washington and Tehran are threatening and growing, there are eerie similarities between presidents Bush and Ahmadinejad and their respective fundamentalist followers. For each, the strikingly analogous views regarding religious prophecy, second comings and the end of times for their respective Christian and Shiite eschatologies may be pushing Ahmadinejad and Bush inexorably towards war.
A recent piece by Matthias Kuntzel in the New Republic ("Ahmadinejad's Demons") presents a frightening picture of the Iranian side of the equation. Kuntzel portrays the Ahmadinejad as a "child of the revolution" fostering the cult of martyrdom and mass sacrifice that killed tens of thousands of young Iranians - the Basiji - during the war with Iraq in the 1980's. Just as Ayatollah Khomeini in 1980 called on Iranian children to martyr themselves in battle in the name of Hussein, the third imam and murdered grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, today's Iran of Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khameini have created for a special military unit called "Commando of Voluntary Martyrs." The Martyrs unit now boasts 52,000 members and will soon be in place in every Iranian province.
Central to the ideology of Ahmadinejad and the hard liners in Tehran is the role of the return of the "Twelfth Imam." In Shiite theology, the second coming of this last of the Prophet Muhammad's direct male descendents - the Mahdi - signals the imminent deliverance of the world from evil. As Kuntzel describes:
At the end of this line, there is the "Twelfth Imam," who is named Muhammad. Some call him the Mahdi (the "divinely guided one"), though others say imam Zaman (from sahib-e zaman: "the ruler of time"). He was born in 869, the only son of the eleventh Imam. In 874, he disappeared without a trace, thereby bringing Muhammad's lineage to a close. In Shia mythology, however, the Twelfth Imam survived. The Shia believe that he merely withdrew from public view when he was five and that he will sooner or later emerge from his "occultation" in order to liberate the world from evil.
The killing of Hussein and the return of the Twelfth Imam are essential components of the language - and propaganda - of Ahmadinejad's Iran. He lauded what former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani deemed the "worthwhile" death of martyrdom, "Is there an art that is more beautiful, more divine, more eternal than the art of the martyr's death?" President Ahmadinejad last November declared, "The most important task of our Revolution is to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam." His government has even funded a research institute to study and if possible hasten the coming of "imam Zaman." And in his September 17, 2005 address to the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad implored God for the return of the Mahdi:
"O mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace."
All of which offers disturbing parallels between the Tehran regime and the worldview of President Bush and his fundamentalist followers in the American religious right. From the use of religious imagery and government funding of non-secular initiatives to the meaning of Israel, Armageddon and the second coming of Christ, Bush and the American Taliban see themselves as fulfilling biblical prophecy in the Middle East. In some important ways, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's mirror image may reside in the White House.
The influence and impact of evangelical thinking and language about the End of Times and divine intervention upon the Bush administration is made clear in books like Kevin Phillips' "American Theocracy" and Michael Lind's "Made in Texas." Phillips concludes that George W. Bush is convinced that "God wanted him to be president", a view backed by Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, who reported, "Among the things he said to us was: I believe that God wants me to be president." As White House official Tim Goeglein once put it, "I think President Bush is God's man at this hour, and I say this with a great sense of humility."
President Bush himself has not publicly claimed to have a divine mandate. (As Time reported after September 11, however, "privately, Bush even talked of being chosen by the grace of God to lead at that moment.") But Bush is clear in his belief that God's hand is at work in his presidency. Just last week, Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq, declaring:
"I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there's an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free."
During a February 2003 National Prayer Breakfast, the President intoned:
"We can be confident in the ways of Providence...Behind all of life and all of history, there's a dedication and purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God."
(For more on Bush's use of religious imagery, see "Bush's Religious Language" in The Nation and this commentary by his former speechwriter, Michael Gerson.)
During a March appearance in Cleveland, President Bush brushed aside the question, "Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the Apocalypse? And if not, why not?" While Bush may or may not literally believe that Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ are imminent, his radical right Republican base is another matter altogether. Appearing on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight in March, Kevin Phillips noted that while Bush can't publicly state that he literally believes in the biblical prophecy of Armageddon in the Book of Revelations, his conservative Christian allies clearly do:
"A survey by "Newsweek" several years back found that 45 percent of American Christians believed in Armageddon, that it was coming. And about the same percentage thought the anti- Christ was already on Earth. Now, if you were to take the religious Christians, and the Republican coalition includes most of the religious Christians, you probably have about 55 percent of the Republican coalition that believes in this."
By "this," Phillips is referring to the end of times struggle in Israel, the conversion or mass death of Jews with the Second Coming of Christ. As Jerry Falwell put it, "scripture is clear on that." (Falwell also told Newsweek's Howard Fineman that he introduced George W. Bush to Tim LaHaye, author of the "Left Behind" series on the Second Coming and the Rapture.) That future, as Rod Dreher described it in the National Review four years ago:
"To Jews who adhere to ancient tradition, whose number include religious Israeli nationalists, the long-awaited Messiah will return to become the king of Israel and high priest of a rebuilt Temple, which can only be on Temple Mount. For Christian fundamentalists, Jesus Christ's return at the height of the battle of Armageddon, in which forces of the Antichrist clash in Israel with a 200 million-man army from the East, will require a Third Temple from which the Lord will begin a millennial reign."
The result for Bush's amen corner is what Fineman described as "Apocalypse Politics." That entails above all unswerving support for Israel. Israel is seen as ordained by God, a view held by 44% of Americans, according to a 2003 Pew Research survey. But the evangelical Christian Zionist movement goes further, seeing in Israel "a fulfillment of the biblical prophecy about the second coming of Jesus," a belief shared by 36% of Americans in the Pew research. For the Republican religious right, Israel must not only be staunchly supported in its conflict with the Palestinians, but that the conflict itself should be welcomed, even accelerated.
Bush's conservative Christian allies back Israel in both word and deed. Billy Graham and Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network offer daily prayers for Israel. For one-time presidential candidate Gary Bauer claimed, "America has an obligation to stand by Israel" because "God has promised that land to the Jewish people." Evangelicals organize pilgrimages and tours of Israel and even provide Jewish settlements in the West Bank with financial support. When the President Bush pressured Ariel Sharon in 2002 to pull back its tanks from towns in the West Bank, the White House received a hundred thousand emails from Falwell's followers and faced the Christian Coalition on Mall in Washington. Bush backed off. As the Village Voice reported in 2004, the Bush White House consulted with rapture Christians before finalizing its policy on Sharon's proposed Gaza withdrawal.
But the friends of Bush are not content to wait for the Second Coming of Christ and with it, the slaughter of the mass of Jews with the conversion of the remaining 144,000. As Falwell put it, the arrival of the End of Times should be prodded, advanced and cajoled:
"The danger, if there is a danger in believing in the imminence of the Lord's return - and I do, is to become a fatalist, that certain things are going to happen regardless and there's nothing we can do about them. That isn't true."
Nowhere is this desire to accelerate biblical prophecy more on display than in the ongoing effort to breed the symbolic "red heifer." Since the early 1990's, fundamentalist Christians in the United States have been trying to help breed the perfect calf that will signal the Second Coming. As the NRO's Dreher described the biblical role of the red heifer:
"The ashes of a flawless red heifer - an extremely rare creature - were required by the ancient Hebrews to purify worshipers who went into the Temple to pray. In modern times, rabbinical law forbids Jews from setting foot on the Temple Mount, thus violating the site where the Holy of Holies dwelled, until and unless they are ritually purified. Without a perfect red heifer to sacrifice, the Third Temple cannot be built, and Moshiach - the Messiah - will not come."
It's no wonder Haaretz columnist David Landau deemed the red heifer "a four-legged bomb" with the potential to "set the entire region on fire."
While some wait for the arrival of the biblically mandated bovine, the apocalyptic theocracies of Washington and Tehran seem on a collision course. As President Bush's supporters view themselves as "Israel's only safety belt," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls for Israel to be "wiped off the map." While the mullahs in Tehran look to the return of the Twelfth Imam to deliver them from evil, President Bush's allies await the Second Coming of Christ to usher in a millennium of peace. With their research institutes and breeding programs, the devout on both sides seek to accelerate the End of Times. And as their positions over the Iranian nuclear program harden, Presidents Bush and Ahmadinejad have more in common than they know.
Showing posts with label Killing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Killing. Show all posts
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Muhammed what exactly was he
Was Muhammad a great prophet of God spreading goodness throughout the world or a power hungry manipulator of people who used their desires for sex, eternal life and help from God, for personal gain? One way to answer this question is to ask what he would have done if he were one or the other and than compare what the Koran and the Hadiths say he did, to these expectations. In this essay we will try and determine which is correct by considering what Muhammad would have done if he was a ruthless power hungry man who used religion to manipulate people and comparing that to what he actually did. To help do this let us imagine ourselves in his situation.
If you decided to start a cult you would have to figure out how to do it. You could declare that you are God. After some thought, you might realize that, that is not the best way to go about it. If you claim to be God to people, they will think you are crazy and they will challenge you to perform miracles and you can't perform miracles. Another option is to try and convince them that you can communicate with God (you are his prophet) and that God talks through you. Now you don’t have to perform miracles.
One problem you would face is that if you persuade these people to believe in you, they might tell their friends about their new religion and their friends may convince them that you are a con-artist after their money. How can you prevent that from happening? Somehow you need to stop them from communicating with their friends. (This is a technique commonly used by modern day cults) You could take the approach Muhammad took which was to command them:
O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. [Koran, al-Ma'idah 5:51.11]
And
Ignore disbelievers and their poisonous talk. [Koran 33:48]
And
Stay away from non-Muslims. They are all liars. [Koran 9:107]
What if they start having doubts on their own and start spreading those doubts? You could terrify them into being silent about those doubts by instructing your followers:
Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him. Sahih Al-Bukhari (9:57)
You could also threaten them with burning in the eternal fires of hell if they don’t believe.
Garments of fire have been prepared for the unbelievers. Scalding water shall be poured upon their heads, melting their skins and that which is in their bellies. (Koran 22:19-22:23)
One way to increase your wealth and power and wipe out those that spread doubt about you at the same time, would be to conquer the infidels who dare not honor you as their prophet and seize their money. You might instruct your followers:
Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush. (Koran 9:5)
If you wanted revenge against those who refuse to accept your religion and you were a totally ruthless and vicious sicko you might tell your followers to torture the non-believer. You might say:
Take him and fetter him and expose him to hell fire. And then insert him in a chain whereof the length is seventy cubits. (Koran 69:30-37)
and
I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them. (Koran 8:12)
and
They should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides. (Koran 5:33)
Smiting above necks by Muslims in modern times can be seen here.
Inevitably you will find some people who don't believe in you because they already believe in other religions. It would be much easier to manipulate people into believing that you are a prophet if you argue that your God Allah is the same as their God. According to the following text in the Koran Muhammad did this. In this text Allah is God, Isa is Jesus, Marium is Mary the Taurat is the Torah and the Injeel is the New Testament.
5.44] Surely We revealed the Taurat in which was guidance and light; …[5.46] And We sent after them in their footsteps Isa, son of Marium, verifying what was before him of the Taurat and We gave him the Injeel in which was guidance and light, and verifying what was before it of Taurat and a guidance and an admonition for those who guard (against evil).
There is evidence that Muhammad did this with the Pagans in Arabia as well. The crescent moon which is a symbol of Islam is also a symbol of the moon God which was worshipped by the Arabs of Muhammad’s time. One of the names of the moon God was Al-Ilah which is most likely where the word Allah came from. The Kaaba was the house of the moon God and is the holiest place in Islam. For more about this see Was Allah the Moon God?
Saying that Allah is the same God as the God of other religions may create unexpected problems. What if other religions teach, that killing the non-believer is wrong? The Jewish Mishna teaches that:
whoever destroys one life is regarded by the Torah as if he has destroyed a whole world; and whoever saves one life, is regarded as if he has saved a whole world.
According to the Koran, Muhammad did not deny that Allah had said this but explained that it did not apply to killing non-Jewish infidels. Muhammad said that Allah said: (Koran 5.32-5.33)
32. That is why We decreed for the children of Israel that whosoever kills a human being, except (as punishment) for murder or for spreading corruption in the land, it shall be like killing all humanity; and whosoever saves a life, saves the entire human race. Our apostles brought clear proofs to them; but even after that most of them committed excesses in the land.
33. The punishment for those who wage war against God and His Prophet, and perpetrate disorders in the land, is to kill or hang them, or have a hand on one side and a foot on the other cut off, or banish them from the land. Such is their disgrace in the world, and in the Hereafter their doom shall be dreadful.
Muslims often quote 5.32 out of context to show that Islam is a benevolent religion. After the failed car bombing attempts in London by Muslim doctors, Dr. Asma Mobin-Uddin, of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in an editorial in the New York Post 7/4/2007 wrote that:
"The Koranic verse that equates saving one life with saving the lives of all of humanity teaches me the sacredness of each life and inspires me to strive for professional excellence."
Taking this verse out of context in this way is extremely deceptive since the only reason that verse is in the Koran is to justify killing and maiming Jewish infidels.
Dealing with the problem of compassionate verses in religions that you incorporate into your own is only one of your problems if you are trying to be a wealthy prophet. One problem with encouraging your followers to attack and loot the infidel is that the non-believing infidel might defend himself. That might deter your followers from attacking. You could give them the incentive of being able to keep the booty. You could tell them:
The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause ... will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) (Hadith Sahih Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 2 Number 35)
The lure of booty has motivated Muslim soldiers throughout history. The Turkish historian Seaddedin wrote about how the offer of booty motivated Muslim soldiers when he wrote about the fall of Constantinople to his fellow Muslims in 1453. He wrote:
Having received permission to loot, the soldiers thronged into the city with joyous hearts and there, seizing the possessors and their families, they made the wretched unbelievers weep.
You could give them the incentive of sex also by saying that it's fine with Allah if your followers have sex with the captured women and keep them as slaves.
33:50 - "Prophet, We have made lawful to you ... the slave girls whom God has given you as booty."
4:24 - And all married women (are forbidden) unto your save those (captives) whom your right hand possesses.
Still the risk of death might deter some of your followers. If you were a brilliant and evil man you might think of and carry out the following ingenious solution to the problem. You could tell your followers that they will go to paradise if they die fighting for the faith. You might complete the previous sentence as follows:
The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause ... will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr). (Hadith Sahih Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 2 Number 35)
and remind your followers that:
"Know that paradise is under the shades of swords." Sahih al-Bukhari Vol 4 p55
So tell us what it is like to be in paradise your followers might ask. You might say that those who enter paradise will enjoy:
"abundant fruits, unforbidden, never-ending." There will be "gushing fountains" and everyone "shall recline on jeweled couches face to face, and there shall wait on them immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup of purest wine." Suras (or chapters) 55 and 56 of the Quran.
That might not be enough to convince your lusty male followers to risk death in battle so you might tell them some even more thrilling aspects of Paradise. You might tell them:
"Therein are bashful virgins whom neither man nor jinnee will have touched before ... virgins as fair as corals and rubies," sura 55. A few lines later, you might remind them of "virgins chaste and fair ... they shall recline on green cushions and fine carpets."
By now you have a rapt audience of eager male listeners. How many virgins are there for a man who dies for Allah an eager follower asks?
Why the smallest reward for every believer who is admitted to Paradise is 72 wives. The proof is in the Book of Sunan (volume IV, chapters on "The Features of Paradise as described by the Messenger of Allah," Chapter 21: "About the Smallest Reward for the People of Paradise," Hadith 2687). The Tafsir of Surah Al-Rahman (55), verse 72: mentions servants as well "It was mentioned by Daraj Ibn Abi Hatim that Abu-al-Haytham Abdullah Ibn Wahb narrated from Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri, who heard the Prophet Muhammad saying: 'The smallest reward for the people of Paradise is an abode where there are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from Al-Jabiyyah [a Damascus suburb] to Sana'a.'"
Are they really virgins a starry eyed follower asks?
The chastity of the black-eyed was not violated by man nor jinn (verse 74 of Surah Al-Rahman (55))
What if a follower is concerned that when are surrounded by all those women he won’t be able to do it? Tell him not to worry. TIRMZI, vol. 2 states on page 138:
A man in paradise shall be given virility equal to that of one hundred men.
Even with all this incentive there may be some of your followers who are afraid of getting hurt. They may be afraid of dying, the cowards. Not only that but they may fear that since they haven’t led the most moral life they may not qualify for paradise and spend eternity in hell. Reassure the miserable cowards. Tell them that the rewards of Al Shaheed (Martyr) include:
(Hadith Tirmidhî and Ahmad):
· He will not feel the agony of death.
· He does not feel the pain of the killing except like that of a pinch.
· All the Shaheed’s sins and faults are forgiven with the first drop of blood that comes out of his body.
· The soul of the martyrs dwell in Paradise whenever they like.
· Allah will marry him to Hur-al-een.
Sheikh Abd Al-Salam Abu Shukheydem, Chief Mufti of the Palestinian Authority police force reminded his Muslims brothers of these Hadiths in September 1999. (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Palestinian Authority), September 17, 1999.), He said in regard to the martyr:
"From the moment the first drop of his blood is spilled, he does not feel the pain of his wounds and he is forgiven for all his sins; he sees his seat in Paradise; he is saved from the torment of the grave; he is saved from the great horror of Judgment Day; he marries 'the black-eyed'; he vouches for 70 of his family members; he gains the crown of honor, the precious stone of which is better than this entire world and everything in it." In a Friday sermon broadcast on Palestinian television, Sheikh Ismail Al-Radwan declared: "He is given 72 'black-eyed.'"
Congratulations. You’ve almost completely brainwashed your followers into becoming murdering madmen but something is still missing. Some of your followers had Jewish or Christian friends. They don’t want to kill them. You need paranoia. You need to convince your followers that the non-believers are evil. You need to tell them that (Koran 5:13):
you shall always discover treachery in them
And Koran (4:76)
disbelievers fight for the devil. So fight the minions of the devil.
And Koran (7:177)
Those who deny Muhammad's revelation are evil.
And Koran (8:55)
The worst beasts in Allah's sight are the disbelievers.
And Koran(8:59 8:60)
They are your enemy and the enemy of Allah.
There is still something missing. You need more paranoia. If you want your followers to wipe out the Jews you need to make the Jews out to be a threat. You might do what Muhammad did to get his followers to massacre them.
He accused the Jewish tribe of the Bani Quraytha of wanting to betray him and the angel Gabriel ordered him to attack them. He went to them, put them under siege for 14 days. Finally they surrendered. So Mohammed killed all their men, enslaved their women and children [Saheeh Muslim - 1769].
Ali Sina gives us an example of how Muhammad motivated his followers to seize the property of the Jews of Bani Nadeer tribe. He wrote.:
Bani Nadeer had the best-cultivated land in Yathrib. Muhammad had his eyes on their plantations and farms. Bukhari Volume 9, Book 92, Number 447 … So he had to come up with an excuse…. He needed a pretext to act upon his plan and confiscate the properties of these wealthy Jews. There again, the prophet of Allah had a new “inspiration”. It was a brilliant idea. He told his companions that the Jews had plotted to kill him. His followers believed him when he told them of his Miiraj in the company of Gabriele (that the angel Gabriel told him that the Jews planned to kill him). They had no difficulty believing whatever to believe in any absurdity that he concocted…
The Koran describes Muhammad's massacre of the Jews http://main.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/jews.htm which leads modern Moslems to think such behavior is a good thing. After the battle all 700 men left in the tribe were slaughtered in one day the unfortunates being forced to dig their own graves before their heads were struck off. The women were enslaved. Muslims always prized females not only because they could be used to do domestic work, but also because they could used to used to satisfy their carnal appetites of their owners and also be used as breeding stock to breed more slaves. Islamic enslavement of the non-believer continues today in the Sudan and Mauritania. In fact Islamic genocide against the non-believer is occurring in the Sudan.
Once you are killing Jews some of them will fight back and so will become a threat. Then it is much easier to create paranoia toward them and convince your followers that they are evil. Creation of Paranoia by Muslims toward the non-believer in order to destroy them is rampant today. To see a movie of this click here. Why would modern day Muslims create paranoia? We can understand why Muhammad did but why do Muslim preachers do it? Why does Palestinian TV incite hatred of Jews in children? Some of the motivations are probably the same as those of Muhammad, non-believers might cause doubt in the believers and threaten their power and status. If the preacher believers that those who fight the non-believer score points with Allah then he probably thinks that by inciting people to fight Jihad he is also scoring points with Allah. If he believes that children will go to heaven if they fight the non-believer then there is no reason to feel guilty about inciting them to fight the non-believer. He understands just as Muhammad did that in order to motivate people to fight Jihad against the infidel it is helpful to make the infidel appear to be an evil threat who has committed atrocities against fellow Muslims.
You promised your followers booty if they fight for you. The problem is you have to deliver on the promise of the booty and yet you want it. So tell them that since Allah granted victory the spoils belong to him and one fifth should go to his prophet (you) and let them have the rest (Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52 Number 46 8:41). What if your followers want to rape their captive women? If you want them to kill for you, it would be wise to satisfy their sexual desires and offer it as a reward for mass murder so you tell them that Allah decrees that they can rape their captives (Sahih Muslim, Book 8, Number 3371).
Congratulations, your brainwashed followers are enthusiastically killing the infidel right and left and you are getting wealthy off the booty.
You've got power now. It's time for revenge. Those Jews wouldn't worship you and they have a lot of hot women and money. Order a massacre but only of the men and children. Your devout brainwashed followers will now carry it out without hesitation.
But wait a minute. You could be making more money. What good do a lot of dead non-believers do for you? Wouldn't it be better if they all paid taxes? You don't want the non-believer killed, you want them enslaved. Not only will you be making money off of them but every day they have to live in humiliation while you dominate. That’s even better revenge then killing them. So you would tell your followers:
Fight those who do not believe in Allah, ... until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection. [Koran 9.29]
Now you're making money. Oh, oh, some of your idiot followers have decided to force the infidel to convert to Islam. If they do that you won't get as much taxes. Ah tell them:
Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error (Koran 2:256)
and
If it had been thy Lord's Will, they would all have believed, all who are on earth! Wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe? (Koran 10:99)
Now your followers have the women and you want them. One of your soldiers has a particularly pretty one. You could command your soldier to give her to you but he might get very upset and soldiers tend to be dangerous. Since you are rich you could pay him a lot of money for her and that might get him a little less angry. You've got plenty of money since your followers give you a cut of the loot. This is what Mohammed did after he heard that a soldier called Dahia had obtained a Jewish woman of "incomparable beauty" by the name of Safiya bint Huyay after participating in an attack against her Jewish brethren. He sent for Dahiya, paid him Safiya's price and married her. (Ibn Saad, al-Tabaqat, pp. 120-123). Rayhana Bint Zayd was another Jewish woman, whom Mohammed made his concubine after her family and tribe was totally butchered by his followers.
Now you're rich and powerful. But you still have a problem. You have to pretend that you are good. You can't do all those deliciously immoral acts that you want to do. Lets say you want to engage in immoral sexual behavior. People might not approve and question your saintliness. Not a problem. You can say that God commanded you to do it. Lets say you saw a hot babe and want to add her to your burgeoning collection of wives and you already have more than four wives and you told your followers that they can just have four wives. You can say that God allows as many infidel slave sex partners as you want. What if your infidel wife has the bright idea to convert to Islam so that you can't have her and your four wives. Make Islamic law say that a slave who converts to Islam is still a slave! What about the children she gives birth to. Boubacar Messaoud, who was born a slave in Mauritania and is now his country's leading anti-slavery campaigner explained:
“It's like having sheep or goats. If a woman is a slave, her descendants are slaves."
What if the girl you are lusting after is Muslim and is not a slave. Just say that you got a special dispensation from God granted through the archangel Gabriel and go for it! Let say you want to marry into a powerful family but the only girl available is only 9 years old. That won't look good to your followers. So you explain to them that God wanted you to have sex with the child of your desires:
"...the Prophet said to her (Aisha), 'You have been shown to me twice in my dream. I saw you pictured on a piece of silk and someone said (to me). 'This is your wife.' When I uncovered the picture, I saw that it was yours. I said, 'If this is from Allah, it will be done.'"(Hadith, Sahih Bukhari 5:58:235)
Lets say your son Zayad has married an incredibly beautiful wife by the name of Zainab who is ravishing and you want her. Not a problem. Have Allah command him to annul the marriage.
(Sura 33:37) Then when Zayad had dissolved his marriage with her (Zainab) we joined her in marriage to thee: in order that there may be no difficulty to the believers in the matter of marriage of the wives of their adopted sons....
Some of your followers get excited and raise their voice to you. You could tell them to keep it down but it would be far more effective if Allah would do so through you. In the Koran that is exactly what Allah does in sura XLIX.
Believers, do not raise your voices above the voice of the Prophet, nor shout aloud when speaking to him as you do to one another…Those who speak softly in the presence of God’s apostle are the men whose hearts God has tested for piety.
A devout Muslim named Shaikh (see Leaving Islam) was reading this passage when a question entered his mind. Why is it really for Allah to tell people to show reverence to Muhammad? Can’t Muhammad tell the people these things himself? God was acting as a servant to Muhammad. Shaikh wrote:
I came to the conclusion, all of a sudden, that it was Muhammad himself who was telling the people how to bow before him in the name of Allah, as though it were a command from Allah.
This was the beginning of Shaikh’s realization that his dear and beloved Islam was a lie. Shaikh points out another example. He writes:
If you read sura XXXIII.56 you will see it says, “Verily, God and His Angels pray for the prophet.” In every other religion, it is man who worships God, but here God appears to be worshipping man.
As you became rich other people might get the idea to declare that they are prophets too. They might even copy your tactics and threaten those who don't believe in them with hell. If such tactics worked for you it might work for them too. Then there'll be less money for you. Their followers might even become a threat to you. Not a problem. Just declare that you are the last prophet.
In My Ummah (Islamic Nation), there shall be born Thirty Grand Liars (Dajjals), each of whom will claim to be a prophet, But I am the Last Prophet; there is No Prophet after Me. (Abu Dawood Vol 2 p. 228; Tirmidhi Vol 2 p.45)" [1]
Once you declare yourself the last prophet you can accuse anyone who declares himself a prophet after you of being a heretic and you or your followers can have him eliminated. This was the fate of a Persian, Siyyid 'Ali-Muhammad who announced in May 23, 1844, that he had a mission to herald the arrival of "One greater than Himself". This announcement was the birth of the Bahai religion. Siyyid said:
I am one of the sustaining pillars of the Primal Word of God. Whosoever hath recognized Me, hath known all that is true and right, and hath attained all that is good and seemly; and whosoever hath failed to recognize Me, hath turned away from all that is true and right and hath succumbed to everything evil and unseemly...all those who cherish My love and follow My behest abiding within the mansions of Paradise, and the entire company of Mine adversaries consigned to the lowest depths of hell-fire.
Although Muhammad was dead by 1844 his followers were not. Since Muhammad had said that he was the last prophet, Siyyid was considered a heretic by Moslems and killed and his followers persecuted. Their religion survived this persecution and a picture of their beautiful temple in Wilmette Illinois can be viewed online.
The approach I have described for motivating Muslims to kill is still in use today. The New York Times reported this approach being used by Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammad to motivate his Muslim followers in England. The New York Times reported: (Militants in Europe Openly Call For Jihad and the Rule of Islam 4/24/2004)
In Slough, Sheik Omar spent much of his time Thursday night regaling his young followers with the erotic delights of paradise — sweet kisses and the pleasures of bathing with scores of women — while he also preached the virtues of death in Islamic struggle as a ticket to paradise.
Muhammad's use of religion to justify his exploitation of women to satisfy his sexual desires has led to Islamic sexual exploitation of women throughout history. His use of sex and divine revelations into manipulating his followers into going to war against the infidel has led to a history of bloody wars against the non-believers and murder of non-believers that continues to this day.
The sinister use of sex to motivate murder is a factor in suicide bombings. Aaron Klein interviewed a suicide bomber who explained
I pray that Allah gives me the honor to be dead in an operation. This is the supreme and the noblest way to ascend to Allah. These martyrs have special status in the next world and have bigger chances to watch Allah's face and enjoy the magnificent pleasures he offers us… I will tell you more the moment that I will explode myself when there will be one dark-eyed virgin who will carry up my soul to the sky.
Death announcements of suicide bombers in the Palestinian Press, often takes the form of a wedding not funeral announcements. Serge Trifkovic in his book The Sword of the Prophet give the following examples:
With great pride, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad marrieds the member of its military wing ... the martyr and hero Yasser Al-Adhami, to the black-eyed." (Al Istiqlal, October 4, 2001)
Sa'id Al-Hutari, who exploded himself and 23 Israeli teenagers at a Tel Aviv disco on June 1, 2001, wrote in his will: "Call out in joy, oh my mother, distribute sweets, oh my father and brothers; a wedding with 'the black-eyed' awaits your son in Paradise." (Al Risala, July 7, 2001)
Al Jazeera calls these suicide murders "Paradise" operations. (Al-Jazeera's New Name for 'Martyrs' wnd.com 10/29/05). The terror guide to the hijackers who crashed planeloads of innocent people into the World Trade Center said:
It will be the day, God willing, you spend with the women of paradise...Know that the gardens of paradise are waiting for you in all their beauty, and the women of paradise are waiting, calling out, "Come hither, friend of God."
In 2002 Muhammed Yusuf was approached by two strangers who tried to recruit him as a suicide bomber. Yussuf said:
They promised that if I died that way I would get 70 virgins in heaven and even talked about how I would be given a place to have sex, covered in diamonds and pearls, where even angels couldn't see me.
Muhammed had recently lost his father. They told him that if he committed a suicide bombing he'd see his father real soon. (Matt Roper, Exclusive: They Tried to Make Me a Suicide Bomber mirror.co.uk, 7/14/05)
I have described how Islam is used to turn people into enthusiastic killers. The down side of creating such killers as they can turn against the one who created them. Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia sent out preachers of Wahhabi doctrine who recruited Bedouins to Islam who became the Ikhwan or brotherhood. Though brotherly to each other the Ikhwan were ruthless killers who under Ibn Saud’s leadership conquered the Hejaz. At this point Ibn Saud wanted to restrain them from completely destroying the Hejaz but he had given birth to a monster. The “Brothers” were enraged at being blocked from further putting Hejaz to fire and the sword. Laurent Murawiec quoted one brother writing about Ibn Saud in Princes of Darkness. The brother wrote that:
“You have … prevented me from raiding the [other] Bedouins, so we are neither Moslems fighting the unbelievers, nor are we Arabs and Bedouins raiding each other… You have kept us away from both our religious and worldly concerns.
Others complained
Since [Ibn Saud] has ruled, no one has riaded an enemy and no one has stolen so much as a chicken! Nothing to do but stay at home like women…
These fanatics were killed by the British who in those days were better armed than the Wahabis, luckily for Ibn Saud. The modern government of Saudi Arabia may not be so lucky.
There is widespread propaganda that the on September 11th Islam was hijacked, and that Islam is a religion of peace. Clearly the intent of Muhammad was not peace, clearly his primary goal was war for profit. In fact Islam divides the world into the dar al-Islam, the house of peace which is all areas ruled by Islam and dar al-Harb, the house of war. Islam is a religion of war. Islam was not hijacked on September 11th, on September 11th we saw the true face of Islam. It is the peaceful moderate Muslims who hijack their religion.
The Reverend Jerry Falwell said that Muhammad was a terrorist. He was condemned by the National Council of Churches among other organizations. Ali Sina wrote an article defending Falwell called Is Falwell to be Blamed for Calling Muhammad a Terrorist?
Here is one paragraph from that essay:
What Falwell said was not factually untrue. Muhammad did things that by today’s standard would be seen as acts of terrorism. He raided towns without any previous warning, killed unarmed men who had gone to the fields and markets after their daily business, captured their wives and children and distributed the younger women among his soldiers while always keeping the prettiest ones for himself and having sex with them in the same day he murdered their fathers, husbands and loved ones. These are not fables but historic facts recorded and preserved by Muslims themselves.
What Muhammad did hundreds of years ago radical Muslims are doing today. Suicide bombers and holy war jihadists in search of paradise open the gates of hell on earth with the flaming explosions they create and in the process destroy the paradises that existed on earth. Islam has turned the Paradise of Kashmir into a terrorist hell. A terrorist bomb has ended tourism in the paradise of Bali for the forseeable future. Muslims are committing genocide in the Sudan. Islam has caused endless wars in the Middle East and throughout the world. 95% of the conflicts in the world as of 2001 involved Muslims. One of the greatest threats to the world today is that of Islamic fanatics getting hold of weapons of mass destruction. These fanatic Muslims have no fear of the consequences of setting off such weapons as they believe that Allah will grant them victory or at the worst will bring them to paradise. Muhammad died a long time ago but the religion he created lives on and continues to bring misery and death and to threaten us all.
If you decided to start a cult you would have to figure out how to do it. You could declare that you are God. After some thought, you might realize that, that is not the best way to go about it. If you claim to be God to people, they will think you are crazy and they will challenge you to perform miracles and you can't perform miracles. Another option is to try and convince them that you can communicate with God (you are his prophet) and that God talks through you. Now you don’t have to perform miracles.
One problem you would face is that if you persuade these people to believe in you, they might tell their friends about their new religion and their friends may convince them that you are a con-artist after their money. How can you prevent that from happening? Somehow you need to stop them from communicating with their friends. (This is a technique commonly used by modern day cults) You could take the approach Muhammad took which was to command them:
O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. [Koran, al-Ma'idah 5:51.11]
And
Ignore disbelievers and their poisonous talk. [Koran 33:48]
And
Stay away from non-Muslims. They are all liars. [Koran 9:107]
What if they start having doubts on their own and start spreading those doubts? You could terrify them into being silent about those doubts by instructing your followers:
Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him. Sahih Al-Bukhari (9:57)
You could also threaten them with burning in the eternal fires of hell if they don’t believe.
Garments of fire have been prepared for the unbelievers. Scalding water shall be poured upon their heads, melting their skins and that which is in their bellies. (Koran 22:19-22:23)
One way to increase your wealth and power and wipe out those that spread doubt about you at the same time, would be to conquer the infidels who dare not honor you as their prophet and seize their money. You might instruct your followers:
Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush. (Koran 9:5)
If you wanted revenge against those who refuse to accept your religion and you were a totally ruthless and vicious sicko you might tell your followers to torture the non-believer. You might say:
Take him and fetter him and expose him to hell fire. And then insert him in a chain whereof the length is seventy cubits. (Koran 69:30-37)
and
I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them. (Koran 8:12)
and
They should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides. (Koran 5:33)
Smiting above necks by Muslims in modern times can be seen here.
Inevitably you will find some people who don't believe in you because they already believe in other religions. It would be much easier to manipulate people into believing that you are a prophet if you argue that your God Allah is the same as their God. According to the following text in the Koran Muhammad did this. In this text Allah is God, Isa is Jesus, Marium is Mary the Taurat is the Torah and the Injeel is the New Testament.
5.44] Surely We revealed the Taurat in which was guidance and light; …[5.46] And We sent after them in their footsteps Isa, son of Marium, verifying what was before him of the Taurat and We gave him the Injeel in which was guidance and light, and verifying what was before it of Taurat and a guidance and an admonition for those who guard (against evil).
There is evidence that Muhammad did this with the Pagans in Arabia as well. The crescent moon which is a symbol of Islam is also a symbol of the moon God which was worshipped by the Arabs of Muhammad’s time. One of the names of the moon God was Al-Ilah which is most likely where the word Allah came from. The Kaaba was the house of the moon God and is the holiest place in Islam. For more about this see Was Allah the Moon God?
Saying that Allah is the same God as the God of other religions may create unexpected problems. What if other religions teach, that killing the non-believer is wrong? The Jewish Mishna teaches that:
whoever destroys one life is regarded by the Torah as if he has destroyed a whole world; and whoever saves one life, is regarded as if he has saved a whole world.
According to the Koran, Muhammad did not deny that Allah had said this but explained that it did not apply to killing non-Jewish infidels. Muhammad said that Allah said: (Koran 5.32-5.33)
32. That is why We decreed for the children of Israel that whosoever kills a human being, except (as punishment) for murder or for spreading corruption in the land, it shall be like killing all humanity; and whosoever saves a life, saves the entire human race. Our apostles brought clear proofs to them; but even after that most of them committed excesses in the land.
33. The punishment for those who wage war against God and His Prophet, and perpetrate disorders in the land, is to kill or hang them, or have a hand on one side and a foot on the other cut off, or banish them from the land. Such is their disgrace in the world, and in the Hereafter their doom shall be dreadful.
Muslims often quote 5.32 out of context to show that Islam is a benevolent religion. After the failed car bombing attempts in London by Muslim doctors, Dr. Asma Mobin-Uddin, of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in an editorial in the New York Post 7/4/2007 wrote that:
"The Koranic verse that equates saving one life with saving the lives of all of humanity teaches me the sacredness of each life and inspires me to strive for professional excellence."
Taking this verse out of context in this way is extremely deceptive since the only reason that verse is in the Koran is to justify killing and maiming Jewish infidels.
Dealing with the problem of compassionate verses in religions that you incorporate into your own is only one of your problems if you are trying to be a wealthy prophet. One problem with encouraging your followers to attack and loot the infidel is that the non-believing infidel might defend himself. That might deter your followers from attacking. You could give them the incentive of being able to keep the booty. You could tell them:
The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause ... will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) (Hadith Sahih Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 2 Number 35)
The lure of booty has motivated Muslim soldiers throughout history. The Turkish historian Seaddedin wrote about how the offer of booty motivated Muslim soldiers when he wrote about the fall of Constantinople to his fellow Muslims in 1453. He wrote:
Having received permission to loot, the soldiers thronged into the city with joyous hearts and there, seizing the possessors and their families, they made the wretched unbelievers weep.
You could give them the incentive of sex also by saying that it's fine with Allah if your followers have sex with the captured women and keep them as slaves.
33:50 - "Prophet, We have made lawful to you ... the slave girls whom God has given you as booty."
4:24 - And all married women (are forbidden) unto your save those (captives) whom your right hand possesses.
Still the risk of death might deter some of your followers. If you were a brilliant and evil man you might think of and carry out the following ingenious solution to the problem. You could tell your followers that they will go to paradise if they die fighting for the faith. You might complete the previous sentence as follows:
The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause ... will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr). (Hadith Sahih Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 2 Number 35)
and remind your followers that:
"Know that paradise is under the shades of swords." Sahih al-Bukhari Vol 4 p55
So tell us what it is like to be in paradise your followers might ask. You might say that those who enter paradise will enjoy:
"abundant fruits, unforbidden, never-ending." There will be "gushing fountains" and everyone "shall recline on jeweled couches face to face, and there shall wait on them immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup of purest wine." Suras (or chapters) 55 and 56 of the Quran.
That might not be enough to convince your lusty male followers to risk death in battle so you might tell them some even more thrilling aspects of Paradise. You might tell them:
"Therein are bashful virgins whom neither man nor jinnee will have touched before ... virgins as fair as corals and rubies," sura 55. A few lines later, you might remind them of "virgins chaste and fair ... they shall recline on green cushions and fine carpets."
By now you have a rapt audience of eager male listeners. How many virgins are there for a man who dies for Allah an eager follower asks?
Why the smallest reward for every believer who is admitted to Paradise is 72 wives. The proof is in the Book of Sunan (volume IV, chapters on "The Features of Paradise as described by the Messenger of Allah," Chapter 21: "About the Smallest Reward for the People of Paradise," Hadith 2687). The Tafsir of Surah Al-Rahman (55), verse 72: mentions servants as well "It was mentioned by Daraj Ibn Abi Hatim that Abu-al-Haytham Abdullah Ibn Wahb narrated from Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri, who heard the Prophet Muhammad saying: 'The smallest reward for the people of Paradise is an abode where there are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from Al-Jabiyyah [a Damascus suburb] to Sana'a.'"
Are they really virgins a starry eyed follower asks?
The chastity of the black-eyed was not violated by man nor jinn (verse 74 of Surah Al-Rahman (55))
What if a follower is concerned that when are surrounded by all those women he won’t be able to do it? Tell him not to worry. TIRMZI, vol. 2 states on page 138:
A man in paradise shall be given virility equal to that of one hundred men.
Even with all this incentive there may be some of your followers who are afraid of getting hurt. They may be afraid of dying, the cowards. Not only that but they may fear that since they haven’t led the most moral life they may not qualify for paradise and spend eternity in hell. Reassure the miserable cowards. Tell them that the rewards of Al Shaheed (Martyr) include:
(Hadith Tirmidhî and Ahmad):
· He will not feel the agony of death.
· He does not feel the pain of the killing except like that of a pinch.
· All the Shaheed’s sins and faults are forgiven with the first drop of blood that comes out of his body.
· The soul of the martyrs dwell in Paradise whenever they like.
· Allah will marry him to Hur-al-een.
Sheikh Abd Al-Salam Abu Shukheydem, Chief Mufti of the Palestinian Authority police force reminded his Muslims brothers of these Hadiths in September 1999. (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Palestinian Authority), September 17, 1999.), He said in regard to the martyr:
"From the moment the first drop of his blood is spilled, he does not feel the pain of his wounds and he is forgiven for all his sins; he sees his seat in Paradise; he is saved from the torment of the grave; he is saved from the great horror of Judgment Day; he marries 'the black-eyed'; he vouches for 70 of his family members; he gains the crown of honor, the precious stone of which is better than this entire world and everything in it." In a Friday sermon broadcast on Palestinian television, Sheikh Ismail Al-Radwan declared: "He is given 72 'black-eyed.'"
Congratulations. You’ve almost completely brainwashed your followers into becoming murdering madmen but something is still missing. Some of your followers had Jewish or Christian friends. They don’t want to kill them. You need paranoia. You need to convince your followers that the non-believers are evil. You need to tell them that (Koran 5:13):
you shall always discover treachery in them
And Koran (4:76)
disbelievers fight for the devil. So fight the minions of the devil.
And Koran (7:177)
Those who deny Muhammad's revelation are evil.
And Koran (8:55)
The worst beasts in Allah's sight are the disbelievers.
And Koran(8:59 8:60)
They are your enemy and the enemy of Allah.
There is still something missing. You need more paranoia. If you want your followers to wipe out the Jews you need to make the Jews out to be a threat. You might do what Muhammad did to get his followers to massacre them.
He accused the Jewish tribe of the Bani Quraytha of wanting to betray him and the angel Gabriel ordered him to attack them. He went to them, put them under siege for 14 days. Finally they surrendered. So Mohammed killed all their men, enslaved their women and children [Saheeh Muslim - 1769].
Ali Sina gives us an example of how Muhammad motivated his followers to seize the property of the Jews of Bani Nadeer tribe. He wrote.:
Bani Nadeer had the best-cultivated land in Yathrib. Muhammad had his eyes on their plantations and farms. Bukhari Volume 9, Book 92, Number 447 … So he had to come up with an excuse…. He needed a pretext to act upon his plan and confiscate the properties of these wealthy Jews. There again, the prophet of Allah had a new “inspiration”. It was a brilliant idea. He told his companions that the Jews had plotted to kill him. His followers believed him when he told them of his Miiraj in the company of Gabriele (that the angel Gabriel told him that the Jews planned to kill him). They had no difficulty believing whatever to believe in any absurdity that he concocted…
The Koran describes Muhammad's massacre of the Jews http://main.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/jews.htm which leads modern Moslems to think such behavior is a good thing. After the battle all 700 men left in the tribe were slaughtered in one day the unfortunates being forced to dig their own graves before their heads were struck off. The women were enslaved. Muslims always prized females not only because they could be used to do domestic work, but also because they could used to used to satisfy their carnal appetites of their owners and also be used as breeding stock to breed more slaves. Islamic enslavement of the non-believer continues today in the Sudan and Mauritania. In fact Islamic genocide against the non-believer is occurring in the Sudan.
Once you are killing Jews some of them will fight back and so will become a threat. Then it is much easier to create paranoia toward them and convince your followers that they are evil. Creation of Paranoia by Muslims toward the non-believer in order to destroy them is rampant today. To see a movie of this click here. Why would modern day Muslims create paranoia? We can understand why Muhammad did but why do Muslim preachers do it? Why does Palestinian TV incite hatred of Jews in children? Some of the motivations are probably the same as those of Muhammad, non-believers might cause doubt in the believers and threaten their power and status. If the preacher believers that those who fight the non-believer score points with Allah then he probably thinks that by inciting people to fight Jihad he is also scoring points with Allah. If he believes that children will go to heaven if they fight the non-believer then there is no reason to feel guilty about inciting them to fight the non-believer. He understands just as Muhammad did that in order to motivate people to fight Jihad against the infidel it is helpful to make the infidel appear to be an evil threat who has committed atrocities against fellow Muslims.
You promised your followers booty if they fight for you. The problem is you have to deliver on the promise of the booty and yet you want it. So tell them that since Allah granted victory the spoils belong to him and one fifth should go to his prophet (you) and let them have the rest (Al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52 Number 46 8:41). What if your followers want to rape their captive women? If you want them to kill for you, it would be wise to satisfy their sexual desires and offer it as a reward for mass murder so you tell them that Allah decrees that they can rape their captives (Sahih Muslim, Book 8, Number 3371).
Congratulations, your brainwashed followers are enthusiastically killing the infidel right and left and you are getting wealthy off the booty.
You've got power now. It's time for revenge. Those Jews wouldn't worship you and they have a lot of hot women and money. Order a massacre but only of the men and children. Your devout brainwashed followers will now carry it out without hesitation.
But wait a minute. You could be making more money. What good do a lot of dead non-believers do for you? Wouldn't it be better if they all paid taxes? You don't want the non-believer killed, you want them enslaved. Not only will you be making money off of them but every day they have to live in humiliation while you dominate. That’s even better revenge then killing them. So you would tell your followers:
Fight those who do not believe in Allah, ... until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection. [Koran 9.29]
Now you're making money. Oh, oh, some of your idiot followers have decided to force the infidel to convert to Islam. If they do that you won't get as much taxes. Ah tell them:
Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error (Koran 2:256)
and
If it had been thy Lord's Will, they would all have believed, all who are on earth! Wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe? (Koran 10:99)
Now your followers have the women and you want them. One of your soldiers has a particularly pretty one. You could command your soldier to give her to you but he might get very upset and soldiers tend to be dangerous. Since you are rich you could pay him a lot of money for her and that might get him a little less angry. You've got plenty of money since your followers give you a cut of the loot. This is what Mohammed did after he heard that a soldier called Dahia had obtained a Jewish woman of "incomparable beauty" by the name of Safiya bint Huyay after participating in an attack against her Jewish brethren. He sent for Dahiya, paid him Safiya's price and married her. (Ibn Saad, al-Tabaqat, pp. 120-123). Rayhana Bint Zayd was another Jewish woman, whom Mohammed made his concubine after her family and tribe was totally butchered by his followers.
Now you're rich and powerful. But you still have a problem. You have to pretend that you are good. You can't do all those deliciously immoral acts that you want to do. Lets say you want to engage in immoral sexual behavior. People might not approve and question your saintliness. Not a problem. You can say that God commanded you to do it. Lets say you saw a hot babe and want to add her to your burgeoning collection of wives and you already have more than four wives and you told your followers that they can just have four wives. You can say that God allows as many infidel slave sex partners as you want. What if your infidel wife has the bright idea to convert to Islam so that you can't have her and your four wives. Make Islamic law say that a slave who converts to Islam is still a slave! What about the children she gives birth to. Boubacar Messaoud, who was born a slave in Mauritania and is now his country's leading anti-slavery campaigner explained:
“It's like having sheep or goats. If a woman is a slave, her descendants are slaves."
What if the girl you are lusting after is Muslim and is not a slave. Just say that you got a special dispensation from God granted through the archangel Gabriel and go for it! Let say you want to marry into a powerful family but the only girl available is only 9 years old. That won't look good to your followers. So you explain to them that God wanted you to have sex with the child of your desires:
"...the Prophet said to her (Aisha), 'You have been shown to me twice in my dream. I saw you pictured on a piece of silk and someone said (to me). 'This is your wife.' When I uncovered the picture, I saw that it was yours. I said, 'If this is from Allah, it will be done.'"(Hadith, Sahih Bukhari 5:58:235)
Lets say your son Zayad has married an incredibly beautiful wife by the name of Zainab who is ravishing and you want her. Not a problem. Have Allah command him to annul the marriage.
(Sura 33:37) Then when Zayad had dissolved his marriage with her (Zainab) we joined her in marriage to thee: in order that there may be no difficulty to the believers in the matter of marriage of the wives of their adopted sons....
Some of your followers get excited and raise their voice to you. You could tell them to keep it down but it would be far more effective if Allah would do so through you. In the Koran that is exactly what Allah does in sura XLIX.
Believers, do not raise your voices above the voice of the Prophet, nor shout aloud when speaking to him as you do to one another…Those who speak softly in the presence of God’s apostle are the men whose hearts God has tested for piety.
A devout Muslim named Shaikh (see Leaving Islam) was reading this passage when a question entered his mind. Why is it really for Allah to tell people to show reverence to Muhammad? Can’t Muhammad tell the people these things himself? God was acting as a servant to Muhammad. Shaikh wrote:
I came to the conclusion, all of a sudden, that it was Muhammad himself who was telling the people how to bow before him in the name of Allah, as though it were a command from Allah.
This was the beginning of Shaikh’s realization that his dear and beloved Islam was a lie. Shaikh points out another example. He writes:
If you read sura XXXIII.56 you will see it says, “Verily, God and His Angels pray for the prophet.” In every other religion, it is man who worships God, but here God appears to be worshipping man.
As you became rich other people might get the idea to declare that they are prophets too. They might even copy your tactics and threaten those who don't believe in them with hell. If such tactics worked for you it might work for them too. Then there'll be less money for you. Their followers might even become a threat to you. Not a problem. Just declare that you are the last prophet.
In My Ummah (Islamic Nation), there shall be born Thirty Grand Liars (Dajjals), each of whom will claim to be a prophet, But I am the Last Prophet; there is No Prophet after Me. (Abu Dawood Vol 2 p. 228; Tirmidhi Vol 2 p.45)" [1]
Once you declare yourself the last prophet you can accuse anyone who declares himself a prophet after you of being a heretic and you or your followers can have him eliminated. This was the fate of a Persian, Siyyid 'Ali-Muhammad who announced in May 23, 1844, that he had a mission to herald the arrival of "One greater than Himself". This announcement was the birth of the Bahai religion. Siyyid said:
I am one of the sustaining pillars of the Primal Word of God. Whosoever hath recognized Me, hath known all that is true and right, and hath attained all that is good and seemly; and whosoever hath failed to recognize Me, hath turned away from all that is true and right and hath succumbed to everything evil and unseemly...all those who cherish My love and follow My behest abiding within the mansions of Paradise, and the entire company of Mine adversaries consigned to the lowest depths of hell-fire.
Although Muhammad was dead by 1844 his followers were not. Since Muhammad had said that he was the last prophet, Siyyid was considered a heretic by Moslems and killed and his followers persecuted. Their religion survived this persecution and a picture of their beautiful temple in Wilmette Illinois can be viewed online.
The approach I have described for motivating Muslims to kill is still in use today. The New York Times reported this approach being used by Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammad to motivate his Muslim followers in England. The New York Times reported: (Militants in Europe Openly Call For Jihad and the Rule of Islam 4/24/2004)
In Slough, Sheik Omar spent much of his time Thursday night regaling his young followers with the erotic delights of paradise — sweet kisses and the pleasures of bathing with scores of women — while he also preached the virtues of death in Islamic struggle as a ticket to paradise.
Muhammad's use of religion to justify his exploitation of women to satisfy his sexual desires has led to Islamic sexual exploitation of women throughout history. His use of sex and divine revelations into manipulating his followers into going to war against the infidel has led to a history of bloody wars against the non-believers and murder of non-believers that continues to this day.
The sinister use of sex to motivate murder is a factor in suicide bombings. Aaron Klein interviewed a suicide bomber who explained
I pray that Allah gives me the honor to be dead in an operation. This is the supreme and the noblest way to ascend to Allah. These martyrs have special status in the next world and have bigger chances to watch Allah's face and enjoy the magnificent pleasures he offers us… I will tell you more the moment that I will explode myself when there will be one dark-eyed virgin who will carry up my soul to the sky.
Death announcements of suicide bombers in the Palestinian Press, often takes the form of a wedding not funeral announcements. Serge Trifkovic in his book The Sword of the Prophet give the following examples:
With great pride, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad marrieds the member of its military wing ... the martyr and hero Yasser Al-Adhami, to the black-eyed." (Al Istiqlal, October 4, 2001)
Sa'id Al-Hutari, who exploded himself and 23 Israeli teenagers at a Tel Aviv disco on June 1, 2001, wrote in his will: "Call out in joy, oh my mother, distribute sweets, oh my father and brothers; a wedding with 'the black-eyed' awaits your son in Paradise." (Al Risala, July 7, 2001)
Al Jazeera calls these suicide murders "Paradise" operations. (Al-Jazeera's New Name for 'Martyrs' wnd.com 10/29/05). The terror guide to the hijackers who crashed planeloads of innocent people into the World Trade Center said:
It will be the day, God willing, you spend with the women of paradise...Know that the gardens of paradise are waiting for you in all their beauty, and the women of paradise are waiting, calling out, "Come hither, friend of God."
In 2002 Muhammed Yusuf was approached by two strangers who tried to recruit him as a suicide bomber. Yussuf said:
They promised that if I died that way I would get 70 virgins in heaven and even talked about how I would be given a place to have sex, covered in diamonds and pearls, where even angels couldn't see me.
Muhammed had recently lost his father. They told him that if he committed a suicide bombing he'd see his father real soon. (Matt Roper, Exclusive: They Tried to Make Me a Suicide Bomber mirror.co.uk, 7/14/05)
I have described how Islam is used to turn people into enthusiastic killers. The down side of creating such killers as they can turn against the one who created them. Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia sent out preachers of Wahhabi doctrine who recruited Bedouins to Islam who became the Ikhwan or brotherhood. Though brotherly to each other the Ikhwan were ruthless killers who under Ibn Saud’s leadership conquered the Hejaz. At this point Ibn Saud wanted to restrain them from completely destroying the Hejaz but he had given birth to a monster. The “Brothers” were enraged at being blocked from further putting Hejaz to fire and the sword. Laurent Murawiec quoted one brother writing about Ibn Saud in Princes of Darkness. The brother wrote that:
“You have … prevented me from raiding the [other] Bedouins, so we are neither Moslems fighting the unbelievers, nor are we Arabs and Bedouins raiding each other… You have kept us away from both our religious and worldly concerns.
Others complained
Since [Ibn Saud] has ruled, no one has riaded an enemy and no one has stolen so much as a chicken! Nothing to do but stay at home like women…
These fanatics were killed by the British who in those days were better armed than the Wahabis, luckily for Ibn Saud. The modern government of Saudi Arabia may not be so lucky.
There is widespread propaganda that the on September 11th Islam was hijacked, and that Islam is a religion of peace. Clearly the intent of Muhammad was not peace, clearly his primary goal was war for profit. In fact Islam divides the world into the dar al-Islam, the house of peace which is all areas ruled by Islam and dar al-Harb, the house of war. Islam is a religion of war. Islam was not hijacked on September 11th, on September 11th we saw the true face of Islam. It is the peaceful moderate Muslims who hijack their religion.
The Reverend Jerry Falwell said that Muhammad was a terrorist. He was condemned by the National Council of Churches among other organizations. Ali Sina wrote an article defending Falwell called Is Falwell to be Blamed for Calling Muhammad a Terrorist?
Here is one paragraph from that essay:
What Falwell said was not factually untrue. Muhammad did things that by today’s standard would be seen as acts of terrorism. He raided towns without any previous warning, killed unarmed men who had gone to the fields and markets after their daily business, captured their wives and children and distributed the younger women among his soldiers while always keeping the prettiest ones for himself and having sex with them in the same day he murdered their fathers, husbands and loved ones. These are not fables but historic facts recorded and preserved by Muslims themselves.
What Muhammad did hundreds of years ago radical Muslims are doing today. Suicide bombers and holy war jihadists in search of paradise open the gates of hell on earth with the flaming explosions they create and in the process destroy the paradises that existed on earth. Islam has turned the Paradise of Kashmir into a terrorist hell. A terrorist bomb has ended tourism in the paradise of Bali for the forseeable future. Muslims are committing genocide in the Sudan. Islam has caused endless wars in the Middle East and throughout the world. 95% of the conflicts in the world as of 2001 involved Muslims. One of the greatest threats to the world today is that of Islamic fanatics getting hold of weapons of mass destruction. These fanatic Muslims have no fear of the consequences of setting off such weapons as they believe that Allah will grant them victory or at the worst will bring them to paradise. Muhammad died a long time ago but the religion he created lives on and continues to bring misery and death and to threaten us all.
Christianizing of the Heathen – on the point of a sword
Christianizing of the Heathen – on the point of a sword
"That force was often used in the conversion of northern peoples is undeniable, and it was used with a ferocity and violence beyond anything the conquistadors did in the Americas and far beyond anything that happened in modern Africa or Asia ..."– Andrew Walls (The Missionary Movement in Christian History, p72)
Part of Christian mythology relates to the "winning for Christ" of the fierce Germanic tribesmen who purportedly destroyed ancient civilization. In very broad brush terms, we are given a comforting image of the heroic priest, armed only with his Bible and Christian forbearance, who subdues the savage warriors with homilies from the Good Book. (We are, of course, being offered an early-day version of how European colonial "missionaries" saw their own activity).
As if by magic (or rather, miracle, such is the efficacy of the Lord's word) whole tribal confederations and vast tracks of Europe are baptised to Christ. Where the legions of Caesar had failed to vanquish, a humble monk with bell, book and candle triumphs. In a trice, Europe becomes a patchwork of "Christian kingdoms" and history becomes a story of the consolidation of regal power, the mopping up of a few recalcitrant pagans and suppression of the odd heresy.
As ever in the history of Christianity, the truth is far darker and far bloodier.
Gem encrusted Bibles– just the thing for an illiterate king.
CHRIST MAGIC – Not for Reading
Christian literature: precious gems on the cover – nonsense within.The few remaining books had become "sacred objects".Such objects filled the illiterate tribesmen with awe. Special shrines ("cumdachs") were built to house these dazzling artifacts, regarded as having talismanic properties.
"Bede related how scrapings from Irish manuscripts were used to treat snakebites, while popular superstition suggested that the Book of Durrow had the ability to cure sick cattle."– I. Zaczek (Celtic Art and Design, p10)
Why did barbarian chieftains convert?
Barbarian 'aristocracy' was the highest echelon of an 'heroic' social structure. Raids into neighbouring territories were an essential part of the barbarian economy. By acquiring 'prestige goods' – such as slaves, jewelry, gold pieces, fine weapons – the barbarian ruling elite preserved its rule and raised its social status. Success at raiding strengthened the link between a chief and his warriors.
Yet tribal leadership itself was always threatened by the great social mobility of tribal society. At any time, any bold and able warrior could raise his own status and become a new member of the elite or even a chieftain. High Kings (or Great Khans) were effectively the result of an election held by clan or tribal elders in time of emergency. The claims of a barbarian 'king' to legitimacy were fragile and leaderships changed often and violently.
This 'aristocratic vulnerability' became especially acute during the period of migrations in the 3rd to 5th centuries, when tribal territories were ill-defined and ever-changing, tribal alliances continuously made and remade, and warriors of the same tribe fought both for and against the Romans.
In a word, barbarian leadership was neither well-defined nor secure.
Contact with Rome meant influence from a world which was everything barbarian society was not: a stable 'kingdom' that seemingly embraced the whole world and existed 'forever'. Roman society by the 5th century was becoming ever more rigid and hierarchical, with eroding social and geographic mobility and an immense and widening gulf between rich and poor. Rome's urban middle class was being taxed out of existence, freedmen were being confined in indentured labour and hereditary employments and the soldiery was being reduced to a peasant-farmer militia.
By emulation, these characteristics helped to accentuate the growth and the power of a more rigid and stable barbarian aristocracy.
In short, tribal chieftains wanted to rule like Romans:
"Every Goth wishes to be like a Roman, " said Theodoric, "but only the humblest Roman wants to be like a Goth."
So strong was barbarian desire to establish a 'Roman' legitimacy for their new kingdoms that the illiterate Charlemagne, centuries later, styled himself "King of Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans." He was crowned Emperor and Augustus.
Follow My Leader ...
Once a warrior king embraced 'Christianity' – an adoption of form and formality with little or no regard to content – the warrior aristocracy followed its king. Thus, for example, when Clovis accepted Christ as his new god, he compelled 3000 of his retainers to follow him into the baptismal font.
Among the common tribesmen religious allegiance was not an issue of conscience. This was not an age of individual opinion or preference. When the tribal leadership adopted a new god the tribe followed suit. Not to have done so would have been tantamount to rebellion. When Charlemagne insisted on baptism as the sign of submission, he punished with appalling barbarity any resistance, as when, in cold blood, he beheaded, in a single day, 4500 Saxons at Verden, in 782 AD.
Having adopted Christ as their new god, the warrior aristocracies forced the new faith on their peoples.
The Lost World of "Gothica"
(c. 450-550)
Much of Roman civilization was actually restored by the Goths.
Theodoric ruled the Gothic world from a palace at Ravenna, modelled on Diocletian's palace at Spalato. His administrators were Roman; he maintained the senate; he made Roman patricians, like Boethius, consuls. He also checked the expansion of the Franks and brought peace to the west.
His many dynastic links included a marriage to Audofleda, the sister of Clovis, king of Franks. He ruled Spain on behalf of his infant grandson; pacified the Vandals and protected the coasts with a fleet of a thousand vessels. In Rome he presided over games in traditional Roman manner; the dole was still distributed and the aqueducts still flowed.
Theodoric was Arian, but he tolerated all sects of Christianity. He was even called upon to arbitrate between warring popes – Symmachus and Lawrence! In the last year of his life he moved against the Catholics when they attacked Jewish traders and conspired with Constantinople.
After his death in 526, his daughter Amalasuntha ruled the Ostrogothic kingdom as regent. His grand daughter Matasuntha married Germanus, nephew of the Eastern Roman Emperor – but that was after Romano-Gothic Italy had been destroyed by Catholic armies from the east.
Invasion by Justinian and 30 years of warfare (Rome changed hands four times) destroyed urban civilization in Italy and brought whole regions to famine.
"Byzantine rule lasted just 14 years before an invasion of Lombards under Alboin swept it away. Instead of a powerful and virile Gothic state that might have fought off the barbarians, Italy had no resistance to offer. Rome became a backwater, and the victories of Justinian a disaster for the Christians of the West."
– Geoffrey Regan (Decisive Battles, p40)
Theodoric's Mausoleum, Ravenna.Built in 526 by his daughter Amalasuntha.
Worthy of the age of Augustus or Hadrian, the 30' central 'chapel' is crowned by a single piece of granite weighing 450 tons. Under the Goths, Roman intellect had not yet disappeared.
"The professors of grammar, rhetoric and jurisprudence were maintained in their privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths."– Gibbon (Decline & Fall, ch 39)
Justinian (another Christian "Great") – bankrupted the East by destroying the West!
Church of the Holy Wisdom – (Istanbul)
Justinian starved and robbed his troops and was merciless in his rapacious taxation – but he did build a big church.
Millions died as a result of his greed and vanity. Edward Gibbon estimated that the number of lives lost during the half century of his reign might have approached a hundred million. Procopius, in The Secret History, put the number even higher.
But then, we do have that big church ...
Enter the Christian Bishop...
Rome – as represented by the local aristocrat-cum-bishop – could bestow legitimacy, and with it all the pomp and ceremonial that filled subject people with awe and obedience. As the empire decayed, its rituals and regalia became ever more ornate and overbearing.
The barbarian kings delighted in Roman titles –which they put on their coinage, modelled very closely on Roman coinage. From 382 onwards barbarian tribes had been granted the status of 'federate of the Romans' (foedus) and their chieftains had been accorded patrician status. Some barbarian chiefs (for example, Fravitta, in 401) were even raised to the status of consul. When there were no longer emperors to bestow some grand honorific, the occasion fell into the hands of the bishop.
The barbarian kings sought marriage into the imperial bloodlines.
In a notable example, the Empress Galla Placidia was carried off to Gaul by the Goths, and in 414 she was married (in a Roman-style wedding ceremony) to the Visigothic chieftain Athaulf at Narbonne. The bridegroom wore a toga! 'Catholic princesses' were conveniently found at many convenient moments: Ingund married to Hermengild in 583 (intensifying the Gothic civil war in Spain); Bertha married to the Saxon Aethelbert in 600 (levering the Catholic church into Kent); and of course Clotilda, married to the hero Clovis.
The barbarian kings wanted Roman patricians in their entourage, men who could advise them in the governance of their newly acquired peoples. Everywhere, the indigenous 'Romans' outnumbered their warrior overlords.
The outstanding example is the court of Theodoric, Ostrogothic king of Italy. His administration was modelled on that of his imperial predecessors and was staffed by Romans. Among 'men of letters' at his court was Aurelius Cassiodorus, senator, statesman, monk and writer. As the local "statesman" the Bishops "spoke" for the native people and offered "administration" of cities and districts on behalf of the alien king.
Thus arose the Dark Age elite – a fusion of ex-pagan chiefs, who were in awe of all things Roman (including its Christianity), and degenerate Roman landowners who survived by foisting Christianity on to superstitious tribesmen.
Civil and ecclesiastical power coalesced. Saying much the same thing in Christ-speak, Bishop Isodore of Seville (560-636):
"Those who will not practice virtue by the admonition of the priest, may be kept from doing evil by the power of the king."(Isidore, Sententiae, I, 16).
The very heart of this veneer of legitimising romanitas was the religion by which the emperors had legitimised and made 'divine' their own rule – Christianity. Hence the rise and rise of the Christian bishops and, in particular, the Bishop of Rome – the custodian of the corpse of the empire and self-styled bestower of its legacy.
With his book of Christian spells and the inheritance of more than a thousand years of Roman 'gravitas' behind him, the patrician-bishop easily swayed the untutored mind of a barbarian king.As well as "Christ magic" he offered "legitimacy" and the power of the written word for kingly diplomacy. With his help, an upstart king's authority could now be proclaimed everywhere. With bribes and baubles, he gained access; he took on the role of ambassador and agent; he lent support to one side against another in fratricidal conflict; he advised; he provided 'virgin brides' and officiated at royal weddings and ceremonials; he governed the locals on behalf of his barbarian overlord.
Through it all, his own wealth and authority grew. And the nonsense he peddled – Christianity – became official dogma.
How the West was Won: The Rise and Rise of the Franks
Before the closing years of the 5th century the Christian Church showed no interest in converting barbarians. God, it seems, had chosen the Roman Empire to spread his Word. Yet when the fierce tribesmen arrived at the city gates, that event was "God's Judgement" and the Christian bishops were all too ready to abandon the empire and throw in their lot with the invader.
Despite the '3-day wonder' of the sack of Rome in 410 by the Visigoths, it was Gaul that was in dire straits in the 5th century, not Italy (which enjoyed a late 'Indian summer' under its Gothic king.)
In the late 5th century Salian Franks under Clovis began three centuries of expansion by absorbing the other Frankish tribes. In 486 Clovis defeated the Roman general Syagrius and the last Gallo-Roman region of Gaul – Soissons – was overrun. Subjugation of the Thuringians and Bavarians, followed.
The Franks were a heathen German tribe, almost the only one untouched by Arianism, spreading from the east. While the primitive Franks continued to give homage to their old Germanic gods, other, more Romanised, tribes had adopted Arian Christianity as a 'national' religion.
Backward and barbarous they may have been but for the beleaguered Catholic bishops, the Franks were the great hope. In the Franks, the papal agents found a fierce but malleable tribe and they spared nothing to bring the Frankish overlords under their sway. The dominion of the Franks in the west ensured the triumph of Roman Catholicism.
Thus, the "conversion" of Clovis is a crucial event, comparable to the "conversion" of Constantine – and equally is surrounded by the same fanciful mythology.
Clovis's conversion, like Constantine's, was no "inward experience of grace" but was a military matter. He was convinced that victory in battle lay in the gift of the god of the Christians. Christ for him was a talismanic war god.
According to the myth, in 496, after a close call against the Alamanni, the day had been 'saved' by a prayer either from Clovis himself, or the Catholic Bishop Gregory of Tours (or maybe both!) A grateful Clovis took baptism, to become the first "Catholic" ruler in the west.
Of course, he had been softened up somewhat by marriage in 493 to a Catholic princess, the Burgundian Clotilda, put forward as his bride 'on account of her beauty and wisdom' (and no doubt her Catholicism!) Clovis, like Constantine a century and a half earlier, was also aware of the political advantage of posing as a liberator of "those oppressed by religious heresy":
"It grieves me to see that the Arians possess the fairest portion of Gaul. Let us march against them, vanquish the heretics, and share out their fertile lands."
In 507 Clovis took Aquitaine from the weak Visigothic king Alaric II, and then subjugated Burgundy. Both areas were forcibly converted to Catholicism – to the delight of the local bishops.
At Clovis' death in 511, Clotilda went into a monastery at Tours where she stayed until her death in 545. No surprises that she made the sainthood!
In the half century after Clovis, the belligerent Franks advanced eastward as far as the Elbe and took advantage of the preoccupation of the Ostrogoths with Justinian's invasion of Italy to seize Gothic territories in Gaul and the north.
The religious war – such a fine innovation of Christianity! – would never end. In the 8th century, Frankish conquest carried the sword of Christ to the throat of the Thuringians and Bavarians, and halted the armies of Islam that had overwhelmed the Visigoths in Spain. Towards the end of the century, in forty bloody years of continuous aggression, Charlemagne's Franks slaughtered tens of thousands of Saxons, Avars and Slavs in order that they might know God's loving kindness.
"That force was often used in the conversion of northern peoples is undeniable, and it was used with a ferocity and violence beyond anything the conquistadors did in the Americas and far beyond anything that happened in modern Africa or Asia ..."– Andrew Walls (The Missionary Movement in Christian History, p72)
Part of Christian mythology relates to the "winning for Christ" of the fierce Germanic tribesmen who purportedly destroyed ancient civilization. In very broad brush terms, we are given a comforting image of the heroic priest, armed only with his Bible and Christian forbearance, who subdues the savage warriors with homilies from the Good Book. (We are, of course, being offered an early-day version of how European colonial "missionaries" saw their own activity).
As if by magic (or rather, miracle, such is the efficacy of the Lord's word) whole tribal confederations and vast tracks of Europe are baptised to Christ. Where the legions of Caesar had failed to vanquish, a humble monk with bell, book and candle triumphs. In a trice, Europe becomes a patchwork of "Christian kingdoms" and history becomes a story of the consolidation of regal power, the mopping up of a few recalcitrant pagans and suppression of the odd heresy.
As ever in the history of Christianity, the truth is far darker and far bloodier.
Gem encrusted Bibles– just the thing for an illiterate king.
CHRIST MAGIC – Not for Reading
Christian literature: precious gems on the cover – nonsense within.The few remaining books had become "sacred objects".Such objects filled the illiterate tribesmen with awe. Special shrines ("cumdachs") were built to house these dazzling artifacts, regarded as having talismanic properties.
"Bede related how scrapings from Irish manuscripts were used to treat snakebites, while popular superstition suggested that the Book of Durrow had the ability to cure sick cattle."– I. Zaczek (Celtic Art and Design, p10)
Why did barbarian chieftains convert?
Barbarian 'aristocracy' was the highest echelon of an 'heroic' social structure. Raids into neighbouring territories were an essential part of the barbarian economy. By acquiring 'prestige goods' – such as slaves, jewelry, gold pieces, fine weapons – the barbarian ruling elite preserved its rule and raised its social status. Success at raiding strengthened the link between a chief and his warriors.
Yet tribal leadership itself was always threatened by the great social mobility of tribal society. At any time, any bold and able warrior could raise his own status and become a new member of the elite or even a chieftain. High Kings (or Great Khans) were effectively the result of an election held by clan or tribal elders in time of emergency. The claims of a barbarian 'king' to legitimacy were fragile and leaderships changed often and violently.
This 'aristocratic vulnerability' became especially acute during the period of migrations in the 3rd to 5th centuries, when tribal territories were ill-defined and ever-changing, tribal alliances continuously made and remade, and warriors of the same tribe fought both for and against the Romans.
In a word, barbarian leadership was neither well-defined nor secure.
Contact with Rome meant influence from a world which was everything barbarian society was not: a stable 'kingdom' that seemingly embraced the whole world and existed 'forever'. Roman society by the 5th century was becoming ever more rigid and hierarchical, with eroding social and geographic mobility and an immense and widening gulf between rich and poor. Rome's urban middle class was being taxed out of existence, freedmen were being confined in indentured labour and hereditary employments and the soldiery was being reduced to a peasant-farmer militia.
By emulation, these characteristics helped to accentuate the growth and the power of a more rigid and stable barbarian aristocracy.
In short, tribal chieftains wanted to rule like Romans:
"Every Goth wishes to be like a Roman, " said Theodoric, "but only the humblest Roman wants to be like a Goth."
So strong was barbarian desire to establish a 'Roman' legitimacy for their new kingdoms that the illiterate Charlemagne, centuries later, styled himself "King of Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans." He was crowned Emperor and Augustus.
Follow My Leader ...
Once a warrior king embraced 'Christianity' – an adoption of form and formality with little or no regard to content – the warrior aristocracy followed its king. Thus, for example, when Clovis accepted Christ as his new god, he compelled 3000 of his retainers to follow him into the baptismal font.
Among the common tribesmen religious allegiance was not an issue of conscience. This was not an age of individual opinion or preference. When the tribal leadership adopted a new god the tribe followed suit. Not to have done so would have been tantamount to rebellion. When Charlemagne insisted on baptism as the sign of submission, he punished with appalling barbarity any resistance, as when, in cold blood, he beheaded, in a single day, 4500 Saxons at Verden, in 782 AD.
Having adopted Christ as their new god, the warrior aristocracies forced the new faith on their peoples.
The Lost World of "Gothica"
(c. 450-550)
Much of Roman civilization was actually restored by the Goths.
Theodoric ruled the Gothic world from a palace at Ravenna, modelled on Diocletian's palace at Spalato. His administrators were Roman; he maintained the senate; he made Roman patricians, like Boethius, consuls. He also checked the expansion of the Franks and brought peace to the west.
His many dynastic links included a marriage to Audofleda, the sister of Clovis, king of Franks. He ruled Spain on behalf of his infant grandson; pacified the Vandals and protected the coasts with a fleet of a thousand vessels. In Rome he presided over games in traditional Roman manner; the dole was still distributed and the aqueducts still flowed.
Theodoric was Arian, but he tolerated all sects of Christianity. He was even called upon to arbitrate between warring popes – Symmachus and Lawrence! In the last year of his life he moved against the Catholics when they attacked Jewish traders and conspired with Constantinople.
After his death in 526, his daughter Amalasuntha ruled the Ostrogothic kingdom as regent. His grand daughter Matasuntha married Germanus, nephew of the Eastern Roman Emperor – but that was after Romano-Gothic Italy had been destroyed by Catholic armies from the east.
Invasion by Justinian and 30 years of warfare (Rome changed hands four times) destroyed urban civilization in Italy and brought whole regions to famine.
"Byzantine rule lasted just 14 years before an invasion of Lombards under Alboin swept it away. Instead of a powerful and virile Gothic state that might have fought off the barbarians, Italy had no resistance to offer. Rome became a backwater, and the victories of Justinian a disaster for the Christians of the West."
– Geoffrey Regan (Decisive Battles, p40)
Theodoric's Mausoleum, Ravenna.Built in 526 by his daughter Amalasuntha.
Worthy of the age of Augustus or Hadrian, the 30' central 'chapel' is crowned by a single piece of granite weighing 450 tons. Under the Goths, Roman intellect had not yet disappeared.
"The professors of grammar, rhetoric and jurisprudence were maintained in their privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths."– Gibbon (Decline & Fall, ch 39)
Justinian (another Christian "Great") – bankrupted the East by destroying the West!
Church of the Holy Wisdom – (Istanbul)
Justinian starved and robbed his troops and was merciless in his rapacious taxation – but he did build a big church.
Millions died as a result of his greed and vanity. Edward Gibbon estimated that the number of lives lost during the half century of his reign might have approached a hundred million. Procopius, in The Secret History, put the number even higher.
But then, we do have that big church ...
Enter the Christian Bishop...
Rome – as represented by the local aristocrat-cum-bishop – could bestow legitimacy, and with it all the pomp and ceremonial that filled subject people with awe and obedience. As the empire decayed, its rituals and regalia became ever more ornate and overbearing.
The barbarian kings delighted in Roman titles –which they put on their coinage, modelled very closely on Roman coinage. From 382 onwards barbarian tribes had been granted the status of 'federate of the Romans' (foedus) and their chieftains had been accorded patrician status. Some barbarian chiefs (for example, Fravitta, in 401) were even raised to the status of consul. When there were no longer emperors to bestow some grand honorific, the occasion fell into the hands of the bishop.
The barbarian kings sought marriage into the imperial bloodlines.
In a notable example, the Empress Galla Placidia was carried off to Gaul by the Goths, and in 414 she was married (in a Roman-style wedding ceremony) to the Visigothic chieftain Athaulf at Narbonne. The bridegroom wore a toga! 'Catholic princesses' were conveniently found at many convenient moments: Ingund married to Hermengild in 583 (intensifying the Gothic civil war in Spain); Bertha married to the Saxon Aethelbert in 600 (levering the Catholic church into Kent); and of course Clotilda, married to the hero Clovis.
The barbarian kings wanted Roman patricians in their entourage, men who could advise them in the governance of their newly acquired peoples. Everywhere, the indigenous 'Romans' outnumbered their warrior overlords.
The outstanding example is the court of Theodoric, Ostrogothic king of Italy. His administration was modelled on that of his imperial predecessors and was staffed by Romans. Among 'men of letters' at his court was Aurelius Cassiodorus, senator, statesman, monk and writer. As the local "statesman" the Bishops "spoke" for the native people and offered "administration" of cities and districts on behalf of the alien king.
Thus arose the Dark Age elite – a fusion of ex-pagan chiefs, who were in awe of all things Roman (including its Christianity), and degenerate Roman landowners who survived by foisting Christianity on to superstitious tribesmen.
Civil and ecclesiastical power coalesced. Saying much the same thing in Christ-speak, Bishop Isodore of Seville (560-636):
"Those who will not practice virtue by the admonition of the priest, may be kept from doing evil by the power of the king."(Isidore, Sententiae, I, 16).
The very heart of this veneer of legitimising romanitas was the religion by which the emperors had legitimised and made 'divine' their own rule – Christianity. Hence the rise and rise of the Christian bishops and, in particular, the Bishop of Rome – the custodian of the corpse of the empire and self-styled bestower of its legacy.
With his book of Christian spells and the inheritance of more than a thousand years of Roman 'gravitas' behind him, the patrician-bishop easily swayed the untutored mind of a barbarian king.As well as "Christ magic" he offered "legitimacy" and the power of the written word for kingly diplomacy. With his help, an upstart king's authority could now be proclaimed everywhere. With bribes and baubles, he gained access; he took on the role of ambassador and agent; he lent support to one side against another in fratricidal conflict; he advised; he provided 'virgin brides' and officiated at royal weddings and ceremonials; he governed the locals on behalf of his barbarian overlord.
Through it all, his own wealth and authority grew. And the nonsense he peddled – Christianity – became official dogma.
How the West was Won: The Rise and Rise of the Franks
Before the closing years of the 5th century the Christian Church showed no interest in converting barbarians. God, it seems, had chosen the Roman Empire to spread his Word. Yet when the fierce tribesmen arrived at the city gates, that event was "God's Judgement" and the Christian bishops were all too ready to abandon the empire and throw in their lot with the invader.
Despite the '3-day wonder' of the sack of Rome in 410 by the Visigoths, it was Gaul that was in dire straits in the 5th century, not Italy (which enjoyed a late 'Indian summer' under its Gothic king.)
In the late 5th century Salian Franks under Clovis began three centuries of expansion by absorbing the other Frankish tribes. In 486 Clovis defeated the Roman general Syagrius and the last Gallo-Roman region of Gaul – Soissons – was overrun. Subjugation of the Thuringians and Bavarians, followed.
The Franks were a heathen German tribe, almost the only one untouched by Arianism, spreading from the east. While the primitive Franks continued to give homage to their old Germanic gods, other, more Romanised, tribes had adopted Arian Christianity as a 'national' religion.
Backward and barbarous they may have been but for the beleaguered Catholic bishops, the Franks were the great hope. In the Franks, the papal agents found a fierce but malleable tribe and they spared nothing to bring the Frankish overlords under their sway. The dominion of the Franks in the west ensured the triumph of Roman Catholicism.
Thus, the "conversion" of Clovis is a crucial event, comparable to the "conversion" of Constantine – and equally is surrounded by the same fanciful mythology.
Clovis's conversion, like Constantine's, was no "inward experience of grace" but was a military matter. He was convinced that victory in battle lay in the gift of the god of the Christians. Christ for him was a talismanic war god.
According to the myth, in 496, after a close call against the Alamanni, the day had been 'saved' by a prayer either from Clovis himself, or the Catholic Bishop Gregory of Tours (or maybe both!) A grateful Clovis took baptism, to become the first "Catholic" ruler in the west.
Of course, he had been softened up somewhat by marriage in 493 to a Catholic princess, the Burgundian Clotilda, put forward as his bride 'on account of her beauty and wisdom' (and no doubt her Catholicism!) Clovis, like Constantine a century and a half earlier, was also aware of the political advantage of posing as a liberator of "those oppressed by religious heresy":
"It grieves me to see that the Arians possess the fairest portion of Gaul. Let us march against them, vanquish the heretics, and share out their fertile lands."
In 507 Clovis took Aquitaine from the weak Visigothic king Alaric II, and then subjugated Burgundy. Both areas were forcibly converted to Catholicism – to the delight of the local bishops.
At Clovis' death in 511, Clotilda went into a monastery at Tours where she stayed until her death in 545. No surprises that she made the sainthood!
In the half century after Clovis, the belligerent Franks advanced eastward as far as the Elbe and took advantage of the preoccupation of the Ostrogoths with Justinian's invasion of Italy to seize Gothic territories in Gaul and the north.
The religious war – such a fine innovation of Christianity! – would never end. In the 8th century, Frankish conquest carried the sword of Christ to the throat of the Thuringians and Bavarians, and halted the armies of Islam that had overwhelmed the Visigoths in Spain. Towards the end of the century, in forty bloody years of continuous aggression, Charlemagne's Franks slaughtered tens of thousands of Saxons, Avars and Slavs in order that they might know God's loving kindness.
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