Introduction

    On September 11, 2001 the continental United States (i.e. the lower 48 states), was directly attacked by a foreign enemy for the first time since the War of 1812 and the burning of Washington by the British.  At 8:45 a.m. on a clear morning American Airlines flight 11, hijacked by Islamic terrorists on a flight from Boston's Logan Airport to Los Angeles with 92 passengers on board slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.  Shortly after this unthinkable occurrence a second hijacked plane, United flight 175 also en-route from Logan to Los Angeles slammed into the south tower.  Following multiple explosions and tremendous fire and heat, both towers unbelievably collapsed with the estimated loss of life of 3000-4000 innocent people.  In addition two other airliners were also hijacked by Islamic terrorist and one was crashed into the Pentagon in Washington  and the other was forced to crash in Western Pennsylvania by brave passengers who were aware by cell-phone with what was happening and prevented the terrorists from achieving their fourth objective which apparently was either the White House or the Capitol building itself.
    The four planes had been hijacked by 19 Arabs from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries at the direction of Al-Qaeda, a terrorist network with branches all over the world and headed by Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi businessman in Afghanistan.  It should be noted that his Saudi citizenship had been taken from him and he had been deported from both Saudi Arabia and Sudan prior to setting up his headquarters in Afghanistan. These attacks in New York and Washington were rightly described by President Bush as evil and as "acts of war",  views agreed to by an overwhelming percentage of the American people.
    The President also told the American people that not only were these attacks acts of war but that the United States was entering into a prolonged struggle against world terrorism in which our objective will be to destroy world terrorism and hold all nations accountable for giving aid or sanctuary to the terrorists.  He made it very clear that there are only two positions possible for nation states; a country either will work with the United States against terrorism or we will consider them allies of the terrorists.  On these views multiple national polls indicate that President Bush has the support of 85-90% of the American people.  This country has not been so united since the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941.
    These recent terrorist attacks, because of their brazenness and evil nature came as shattering surprises, but shouldn t have since Osama bin Laden had publically declared war on the West in general and the United States in particular three years ago in the following statement:

     Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin
     Ayman al-Zawahiri, amir of the Jihad Group in Egypt
     Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Egyptian Islamic Group
     Shaykh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan
     Fazlul Rahman, amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh

     Praise be to God, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: "But  when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)"; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but God is worshipped, God who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders.
     The Arabian Peninsula has never -- since God made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas -- been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations. All this is happening at a time in which nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current  events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.
     No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:
           First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of  places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight  the neighboring Muslim peoples.
          If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression  against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against  their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.
          Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once again trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.
          So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.

          Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve  the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and  Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and  the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

     All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in "Al- Mughni," Imam al-Kisa'i in "Al-Bada'i," al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: "As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the
ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life."

    On that basis, and in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

     The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every  Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it [EMPHASIS ADDED], in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of  Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."

     This is in addition to the words of Almighty God: "And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those      who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? -- women and children, whose cry is: 'Our Lord, rescue us  from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"
     We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with  God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on  Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.
     Almighty God said: "O ye who believe, give your response to God and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that God cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."
     Almighty God also says: "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of God, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty,  and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For God hath power over all things."

     Almighty God also says: "So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith."

    Prior to this statement in 1998, Al-Qaeda had killed American Rangers in Mogadishu, Somalia, carried out a truck bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 and the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.  Since the above 1998 statement Al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-es Salaam Tanzania with much loss of life and the attack on the U.S. Cole in Aden, Yemen killing many sailors and nearly sinking the ship.

    This statement should be read carefully by all Americans. The United States has  described this war as a war against terrorism.  However, our enemy has declared this war to be a holy war, and indeed a resumption of the war between Islam and the Byzantine empire and the Christian Crusaders at the turn of the last millennium.   It is the intent of this essay to review the 1500 years during which Western Civilization has been confronted by militant Islam.

        It is clear that hatred of the West and Western Civilization runs deep in the Islamic world. Even more so is this true for Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups.  Questions to be considered are how did we arrive at the present situation and what does the future hold.

The Christian World at the Birth of Islam.

    In the early 4th century the Roman Emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity and the Roman Empire became Christian. In the middle of the 5th century the Western Empire fell to Germanic tribes from the north but remained Christian.  The Eastern or Byzantine Empire centered in Constantinople remained Christian for another thousand years before falling to the  Turks in 1453.  In the West, were located the dioceses of Britain, Gaul, Spain, Italy and Africa.  In the East were the dioceses of Dacia, Macedonia, Thrace, Pontus, Asia, East, and Egypt.  The Mediterranean Sea was in essence a Roman  and a Christian lake.  In 570, about the time Mohammed is believed to have been born, most of Europe and  Asia Minor including the northern, eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean were Christian.
     Christians lived in Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and in Persia.  Even in Arabia, entire Arab tribes were Christians and many other tribes and larger communities included substantial Christian populations. These Christian populations were present throughout the Arabian peninsula extending even to the extreme southern tip.

Origins of Islam: Muhammed

    There are no contemporaneous written accounts of either Muhammed's birth or his life.  The earliest written biographies were written at least 100 years after his death, much longer than is the case for Christ.  What is known and what is excerpted in this essay comes from oral traditions, anecdotal comments in the Hadith and from the Koran itself.   Muhammed was born around 570 in Mecca in that part of western Arabia along the Red Sea referred to as the Hejaz.  His mother died when he was quite young and he was raised by his grandfather, a prominent member of the Hashim family in the Koraysh tribe.  Mecca was a trading center with a developing relatively wealthy merchant class.  Muhammed married a wealthy widow named Khadija who was an unknown number of years older than he, and as long as she was alive he took no other wives.  She owned a trading company and Muhammed became first her business agent, and then her husband.
    In and around Mecca and in the Hejaz lived Jewish and Christian tribes as well as pagans, who were for the most part polytheistic.  However apart from these non-Jewish, non-Christian tribes were others that were already monotheistic, thus Muhammed did not bring monotheism to the Arabian peninsula although he obviously greatly strengthened and expanded monotheism, the belief in a single all-powerful God.  These monotheists before Muhammed were known as Hanifs and included Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians, as well as Arabs who claimed descent from Abraham as later did Muhammed.

   The tradition says that Muhammed was introspective by nature who spent time by himself meditating.  He became upset at the corruption, idolatry and polytheistic worship that was predominant in the Korysh tribe, his tribe, that basically ran Mecca.  Among other such experiences, while alone he went to the Cave of Hira to meditate when he heard a voice of and saw a vision of a man, subsequently identified as the Angel Gabriel who recited to Muhammed the revelations from Allah that form the earliest chapters or suras in what became in time known as the Holy Koran.  After this he had multiple visions and seizures and with Khadija's help and encouragement became convinced he was the prophet of Allah or God with the mandate to reveal God's will to all mankind.
    In 621 a group of twelve men took an oath with Muhammed not to worship idols, lie, commit adultery or kill their infant daughters.  They also pledged to obey Muhammed and thereby became his twelve disciples analogous to the twelve apostles of Christ.  This may be said to be the beginning of what became known as Islam; submission to Allah and Muhammed as his prophet.  However, Muhammed's message and his ideas were not well received in Mecca and most of his at this time several hundred followers either lived in or went to live in Yathrib, a town now known as Medina located approximately 250 miles north of Mecca.  Muhammed and his few remaining converts fled from Mecca to Medina at night in June 622, an event referred to as the hegira or flight.  This term also refers to the last ten years of Muhammed's life 622-232, the beginning of Muhammed's ministry and  the beginning of the Muslim era, Islam.
    Muhammed was faced with the task of establishing a base of power and authority in Medina where resided already a number of powerful tribes.  He accomplished this in relatively short order.  In February 623, only months after his arrival in Medina Muhammed organized and led raiding parties against Meccan caravans thus adding considerably to the wealth he had inherited from his wife Kadija. A bloody victory under Muhammed's direct command was won at Badr, where 350 of his men fought and defeated 700 Meccans.  After this the raiding parties against Meccan caravans increased in frequencies until finally the Meccans attacked and defeated Muhammed and his men in the Battle of Ohod where 74 of Muhammed's men were killed along with 19 Meccans.  However, the Meccans did not follow up this victory and Muhammed resumed his raids on the Meccan and other caravans thus greatly adding to his wealth and that of his men.
    Muhammed organized his followers, those who followed him to Medina, into a community called the Umma.  Having admired the moral code of the Jews, he preached a belief in one God, Allah, and a religion based on a distinction between good and evil.  His goal was to bring the lawless Bedouin tribes into a  moral system based on charity, love, and equality among all followers, i.e. Muslims to be.

Muhammed and the Jews

    Initially Muhammed was favorably disposed toward the Jews.  Much of the Koran is based on Jewish scripture, i.e. the Old Testament as revealed to Muhammed by the Angel Gabriel, a biblical figure. In Mecca and Medina and in the rest of the Hejaz resided many Arab tribes that were Jewish, and some were quite wealthy.  The Koran describes Jews and Christians as privileged People of the Book, and on their part the Jews appreciated and supported Muhammed's efforts to extirpate idolatry and polytheism.  However as Muhammed's power increased in Medina, he increasingly insisted that the Jews should acknowledge his claim to be God's Prophet and that Judaism had been superceded by his new dispensation from God.    For many valid and theologically well based reasons the Jews not surprisingly refused this demand.  This angered Muhammed and in response he changed the direction Muslims should face when praying from Jerusalem, which was his first edict, to Mecca as it is today. In 625 Muhammed ordered the Jews in the community of Nadhir out of their homes and to move to Syria. He and his followers seized the homes and property of the departed Jews. The next  act in this process occurred in Medina in April 627 when the last Jewish tribe was annihilated by Muhammed and his men following  what is known as the Battle of the Ditch.  Eight hundred Jewish captives with their hands tied behind their backs were led to a trench and under Muhammed's order and in his presence were beheaded. Their lands, chattel, weapons, wealth and cattle were divided among Muhammed s men.  Approximately 1300 Jewish women and children were sold into slavery to surrounding tribes.  The last major action against the Jews occurred in 628 when Muhammed and his men attacked and captured the wealthy Jewish oasis of Khaybar on the route to Syria.  The spoils of war were tremendous and considerably enriched Muhammed and his followers.   The chief of the Jewish tribe was captured and beheaded.  Muhammed took the chief's young wife for his own.

Muhammed and the Christians

    As a child Muhammed's first nurse was a Christian woman from Abyssinia (Ethiopia).  In hsi life Muhammed was acquainted with many Christians including Christian Monks that he knew well, and was exposed to and familiar with many Christian influences and doctrines.  His influential first wife Khadija had strong Christian links.
    As was the case with the Jews, in the beginning of his ministry Muhammed was favorably disposed to the Christians.  The Christian Gospel was considered by Muhammed to be of divine authority.  He considered Jesus to be a divine messenger or prophet of God, and the Christian Gospel was in fact the word of God, the Good News, and the truth.  However, in view of his struggles with some of the Arab tribes over polytheism, he could not accept Christ as the Son of God nor accept the Christian Trinity, and therefore Christ was not divine. In this he received moral support from the Jews. Muhammed apparently misunderstood the Trinity as  God, Jesus and Mary, not too surprising in view of the development of Mariolatry in the Catholic Church.
    Muhammed did not believe that Christ was crucified on the cross.  Rather he believed that someone else took his place.  However, Muhammed did accept the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ.  According to the Koran, both Christ and Mary were taken up bodily into heaven.  Muhammed and his followers asserted that Muhammed was the Holy Comforter spoken of in the Bible, the Paraclete.  This claim was not accepted by Christians.
    Unfortunate, as was the case for the Jews, after Muhammed consolidated his power in Medina he increasingly became hostile to Christians, as Christians increasingly resisted his religious claims.  Muhammed in 630 led a large military force to the city of Tabuk, 250 miles northwest of Medina and forced the Christians there to pay a heavy tax and tribute in order to prevent Muhammed and his men from attacking the city. This was also done to other Christian towns and cities.  Muhammed informed Christian cities in the Hejaz that he was the Prophet of God and they must submit to Islam and pay required tithes, taxes and tribute or face retribution.  The situation did not improve with the Caliphs who succeeded Muhammed on his death.
    In January 630, eight years after his flight from Mecca to Medina, Muhammed and 10, 000 of his followers reentered Mecca as its conqueror.  He was conciliatory toward those who had opposed him and placated the people in the city who now pledged allegiance to him..  He departed Mecca in about two weeks,
    Muhammed died two years later in 632.  In the last two years of his life he consolidated his rule, both temporally and spiritually among all of the tribes in the Hejaz in Western Arabia.

The Religion of Islam

    Islamic religious beliefs are based on the Koran and the hadiths, o.e. the syings of Muhammed.  These beliefs are summarized in the Pillars of Islam and the Pillars of Faith in Islam.  The Pillars of Islam are the five duties required of all Muslims: 1) the profession of faith that there is no god but Allah: Muhammed is the prophet of Allah, 2) ritual prayer five times a day with the face turned toward the shrine of the Ka'bah in Mecca, 3) paying the alms tax levied to benefit the poor and needy, 4) fasting from sun-up to sun-down during the holy month of Ramadan, and 5) at least one pilgrimage to Mecca, i.e. the Hajj.
    The six Pillars of Faith in Islam are: 1) belief in God (Allah), 2) belief in Allah's angels,  3) belief in Allah's revealed books including the Koran, the New Testament, Psalms of David, and the Pages of Abraham, 4) belief in Allah's messengers including many of the prophets of the Jewish scriptures as listed  below, Jesus, John the Baptist and previous Arab prophets such as Hud and Salih, 5) belief in the Last Day, a belief very similar to Christian eschatology including an intercessory role for Jesus, and a belief in a prophetic figure, the Mahdi,  to come after Jesus, and 6) belief in Allah's determination of affairs whether good or bad, as in "it is the will of Allah."

    The Koran is considered by Muslims to be the word of God, Allah, as revealed to his prophet Muhammed. It is believed by pious Muslims to provide revelation from God that is complete, unalterable and final, and is not subject to change or amendment.  The intermediary in these revelations to Muhammed was the Angel Gabriel.  It is clear that Muhammed's understanding of these revelations was influenced by his knowledge of the Jewish scriptures, the Jwish scriptures (Christian Old Testament) as well as the teachings of Jesus.  It was his view that the Jews from the time of Jacob, i.e. Israel had gone astray and that his revelations expressed the true word of God in the lineage from Abraham to his  son Ishmael via Hagar.   Abraham was born in Ur, south of present day Baghdad in Mesopotamia, present day Iraq, moved north along the Euphates river to Haran, and then after staying in Haran many years journeyed south to Canaan, present day Palestine.
    In the tradition of Islam and Judaism, both Jews and Arabs are Semites, i.e. descendants of Noah's son Shem.  According to the Islamic tradition Abraham traveled to Medina in the Hejaz with his Egyptian servant Hagar and their son Ishmael.  God asked Abraham to offer up his first son Ishmael as a human sacrifice which Abraham was prepared to do until divine intervention produced a sheep to be used in Ishmael s place.  In this tradition Ishmael became the progenitor of all the Arabs.  In the Biblical tradition God asked Abraham to offer up his second son Isaac as a human sacrifice and who was subsequently spared. Isaac was the progenitor of the Jews and his son Jacob took the name Israel.  Thus the importance of Abraham to both the Jewish and the Islamic tradition and indeed to the Christian tradition as well.
    Many Bible stories and Biblical history are repeated in the Koran.  The Jewish Torah, the first five books in the Bible, is considered to be definitive law in the Islamic faith.  In the Koran it is described as a "perfect code for the righteous."  The Koran includes from the Bible the creation story, Adam and Eve's fall, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon and many other Biblical stories and events.Of the twenty-seven prophets mentioned in the Koran exclusive of Muhammed, twenty-two are from the Old Testament including Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses.  Three are from the New Testament; John the Baptist, his father Zechariah and Jesus.
    The Koran consists of 114 suras, or chapters.  Some of these revelations were made to Muhammed in Mecca before the hegira or flight to Medina.  These are the Meccan suras.  The Medinan suras, approximately two thirds of all suras,  are longer than the Meccan suras and exhibit less apparent religious enthusiasm.  There is more tolerance for other faiths and even pagan Arabs in the Meccan suras than suras from the Medinan period after Muhammed had consolidated political and military power, and religious authority.  The suras were recorded by scribes, called ameneunses, since it is believed that Muhammed neither read nor write.  Some were Christians, some were several of his wives and other Muslims who could read and write.
    At the time of Muhammed's death in 632 the Koran had not yet been compiled and assembled.  The first uniform text of the Koran was fixed in 655, twenty three years after Muhammed's death.  It is not known who arranged the order and named the suras in their present form.  It is likely that information about Jewish and Christian theology and history was incorporated into the Koran in its formative years from written sources present in the region in pre-islamic times. There is so much Old Testament material in the Koran that is it difficult to Imagine one man, no matter how gifted, memorizing it on hearing it from the Angel Gabriel, and transcribing it with the aid of his scribes.

Successors to Muhammed.

    On Muhammed's death in 632, after some initial uncertainty, his second in command Abu Bakr became the first Caliph, meaning in arabic successor.  He swiftly consolidated his power against his opponents, particularly those in Medina and Yemen.  Upon his death, possibly by poisoning, he was succeeded as the second Caliph by Umar, his deputy.  Neither of these two Caliphs were of the family of Hashim, i.e. Mohammad's family and there were significant numbers of believers who felt that Ali, husband of Muhammed ' daughter Fatima, was the rightful heir to the Caliphate.  In time the supporters of Ali became known as the Shi'a, i.e. the party of Ali.  After the murder of Umar in 644, the third Caliph was Othman of the Omayyad clan or family.  He, in turn was murdered in 656 and was succeeded, finally, by Ali.  Unfortunately Ali was murdered in 661 and the Omayyad clan came back into power.
    The first four Caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar, Othman and Ali collectively became known as the Medina Caliphate.  In 661 the Omayyad Caliphate began and after moving the Caliphate to Damascus in Syria ruled until replaced by the Abbasid Caliphate in 750 which moved the Caliphate to Baghdad..  The first of the Abbasid Caliphs, Abul Abbas, started his rule by rounding up members of the deposed Omayyad family, inviting them to a banquet and then slaughtering them.  The nominal suzerainty of the Abbasids was ended by the Mongol conquest in 1258.  Hulagu, the Mongol, in 1258 initiated a massacre in Baghdad that lasted a month. The Mongols sacked Baghdad, destroyed most of the city and killed possibly as many as 800,000 of its residents.  Following this event, multiple Caliphates and Sultanates existed in the Islamic world.  In 908 a Caliphate was established by Abu Muhammed Obaydulla, a leader of the Shi'a sect.  This Caliphate lasted until 1171 and these Caliphs became known as Fatimids, in honor of Fatima, Ali's wife and Muhammed's daughter. The Mongols, some of whose leaders were converted to Islam were followed by the Seljuq Turks and eventually the Ottoman Turks who established the Turkish Sultanate and Caliphate and ruled the Islamic world until 1919, the end of the World War I, and the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire as will be discussed later.

The Arab and Islamic Conquest

    The spread of Islam in the first one hundred years after Muhammed's death was by Arab conquest and the force of military arms.  By 660, less than thirty years after the death of Muhammed, the Medina Caliphate ruled all of the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and much of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Persia (Iran). After Muhammed died in 632, the first Caliph Abu Bakr led the invasion of Syria.  During this military action in 634, the whole region between Gaza and Caesarea including Palestine and the Holy Land was devastated.  Four thousand peasants, Christians and Jews, were massacred.  During the campaigns in Mesopotamia, between 635 and 642 monasteries were sacked, and monks killed.  According to the Chronicle of John written by the Bishop of Nikiu in approximately 695, as the Arabs advanced into Egypt "whoever gave themselves up to them was massacred, they spared neither the old nor the women or children."  In North Africa Tripoli was pillaged in 643 and Carthage razed to the ground with most of the inhabitants killed.
   By 750, the end of the Omayyad Caliphate and the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate, North Africa, Spain and the Sind region of Northern India had been incorporated into the Muslim Empire.  Spain was conquered in 712.  The Muslim armies then crossed the Pyrenees and invaded France, raided the southern coast of France, now called the Moorish Coast, before being defeated by Charles Martel and his men in 732 at the Battle of Poitiers, two hundred miles from Paris.
    Most but not all of the population in these conquered lands in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia Minor were converted to Islam.  At that time the religious distinctions among Judaism, Christianity and Islam among the un-lettered masses of people were not as clearly delineated as they are today, since so much of the Koran was related to Jewish scripture and in Islam Jesus was venerated as a prophet, although not as the Son of God.
    An important question to be answered is why  the Arab invaders were so successful in converting Eastern Christendom, the very lands that had become Christian in the first hundred years after Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, to Islam so quickly. there is no one that has answered this question so well as Bat Ye'or in her book: Islam and Dhimmitude:Where Civilizations Collide.  The following analysis is taken directly from this book.

    "The Arab conquest which followed domination by Byzantium embraced a multitude of peoples from diverse ethnic groups, languages, and cultures. The Christianization of the ancient world, pursued since the conversion of Constantine, represented not only the eradication of paganism but primarily an attempt for religious uniformization in the Eastern and Western Christian empires. The pagan world was collapsing and Christianity was emerging from the ruins. But in effecting its fusion with Christianity, paganism brought its beliefs, distortions, and constant sources of renewed schisms and conflicts. The institution of the Church, the formulation of worship and its liturgy, and the budding of a patristic literature, grew and developed amid a profusion of heresies and violent theological anathemas. Ethnic and cultural divisions blended into the temporal interests of the powerful Churches, heirs to the pagan priesthood's colossal wealth. The Church, linked with the imperial Byzantine power, attempted to combat voices of dissent expressed in the Christological debate: Arianism (in North Africa, and Spain), Nestorianism, and Monophysitism (in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, Armenia). Throughout the Empire the struggle to unify the Christian faith gave rise to bloody religious revolts, the crucifixion of dissident monks, and murderous fanaticism supported by a repressive legislative apparatus, inspired by canon law.
    These conflicts between Church and State, and between the different Christian denominations, appeared at every level: at the levels of the priorities  of episcopal sees, the demarcation of dioceses, the autonomy of financial sources, and the appointment of bishops. At the level of dogma, the imperial authority intervened to impose the councils' doctrinal decisions upon recalcitrant bishops. Lastly, a juridical conflict developed between the Byzantine state, heir to Roman jurisdiction with its respect for the different religions of its subjects, and the Church which tried to replace it with canon law in order to impose a rigid system of religious intolerance and exclusivism in all areas.
    After the Arab conquest, Muslim caliphs and governors knew how to play upon the inter-Christian dissension in order to impose Islam irrevocably on Christian countries. The Monophysite wish to be rid of the Chalcedonian Greeks had facilitated the Persian, and then the Arab, conquest of Egypt, :Mesopotamia, and Syria; the conquest of Spain was organized by princes and dissident bishops. The Arab advance into Armenia, then the Turkish conquest of Anatolia and the Balkans, were based on the same alliances and betrayals in high imperial and ecclesiastical circles. The alliance between the turban and the tiara constituted a major factor in the Islamic progression, the patriarch under Islam regaining the legislative and economic power which the Christian state had disputed. In fact, the rallying of the Eastern Churches to the Arab-Islamic government reflected the power struggles between the Christian state and the Churches. It was through this loophole that Islam, by gratifying the patriarchs' ambitions for economic and religious autonomy, was able to ensure their collaboration, amenability, and betrayal in the defeat of the Christian state.
Christians who collaborated with Muslim armies-princes, bishops, governors, tribes, or mercenaries-are known historical persons, designated by name and office. During the Arab invasion of the seventh century, Tagrit (Iraq) was betrayed by the Monophysite Archbishop Marutha,  Hira (Iraq) by its  Nestorian bishop, and Egypt ceded by the Melchite Governor-Bishop Cyrus. Michael the Syrian mentions collaboration by the Coptic patriarch Benjamin; Damascus was surrendered by its Melchite governor, Mansur b.Sarjun, who received from the Arabs the administration of the provinces. One of the leaders of Hims (Syria), Abu Ju'ayd, is also recorded as a traitor to the Byzantines and as having been active in the capture of Jerusalem which was handed over without a battle by the patriarch Sophronius. The invasion of Spain was organized by Prince Julian and by Bishop Oppas. The Christian Arab tribes-Monophysite and Nestorian-who provided the Muslims with information or assisted them in the seventh century are well known. Fully documented, likewise, are the defections by Armenian mercenaries, the accession of Christian collaborators to the highest offices under the caliphate, the goodwill toward the Islamic authority on the part of the Nestorian, Monophysite, and Melchite patriarchs.
    However, the illusions were short-lived. Less than fifty years after the conquest, the wave of destructions of churches, amply recorded by Christian and Muslim chroniclers, swept over the whole dar al-Islam. Repression harshened under Harun aI-Rashid (786-809), while his son, al-Ma'mun (813-33), dealt the death-blow to the Copts' revolts by massacres and deportations. This is the period-with a few remissions here and there-of that long hellish descent for the Churches, corroded by simony and the corruption established by the sale of ecclesiastical offices to the highest bidder-a system which ruined Christian communities and favored a trend toward Islamization.
    As the inter-Christian divisions were an essential factor in stabilizing Islamic power, the authorities were quick to support and exploit them. The caliph was able to manage the large Christian populations, who constituted the majority of his subjects at the beginning of the conquests, by playing on the rivalries between Melchites, Monophysites, and Nestorians through the grant of a favor or the transfer of a church. The caliph entrusted to the patriarch the task of collecting the taxes extorted from his flock, leaving him only with a pittance. The chronicles record in detail these relationships based on money and violence and always involving torture, from the lowest social level to its summit. Equally, one should have few illusions about the appointment of high Christian officials, particularly to the Treasury. Integrated into this Islamic machinery for the destruction of Christendom, they could, by a gesture, temporarily slow it down, temper it, or exacerbate it, but could not abolish it".

Major Divisions in Islam

    The most significant division within Islam is between Sunni and Shi 'a Muslims.  This division began as a struggle for succession and leadership of Islam at the time of Muhammed's death in 632.  Muhammed's deputy Abu Bakr was chosen to be the first Caliph, or successor to Muhammed.  A significant number of Muhammed's followers strongly disagreed, and held that Ali, husband of Muhammed's daughter Fatima and thus from  Muhammed's family should be chosen.  Ali was chosen to be the fourth Caliph, but was murdered in 661 by a Muslim from a rival faction after the First Civil War. This war also saw the son of Ali murdered by the victorious Umayyed's who established the next caliphate.  This crystalized the Shi'a's, i.e the party of Ali as a permanent minority and dissenting party.
    The remaining Muslims became known as Sunni Muslims or the party of tradition. Both Sunni and Shi'a Muslims follow Muhammed and the Koran. Most Muslims in the world follow the Sunni tradition. Sunni's believe that the first four caliphs were rightful successors to Muhammed, while Shi'ites obviously do not. Sunni's place more emphasis on tradition and consensus building.  Using consensus they were able to incorporate a variety of practices and usages that had arisen over time into their belief system even when support for all such practices could not always be found in the Koran.  Sunni's hold that the historical experience of the Sunni community gives theological value to precedent and tradition thus making conformism and obedience religious obligations.
    Shi'ites believe that after the death of Muhammed, and especially after the murder of Ali thirty years later Islam took a grievously wrong turn, and as a result the majority, i.e. the Sunni's have been in the words of the historian Bernard Lewis "living in sin."  Shi'ites, are a  minority among all Muslims, but Shi'ism has been  the sole legal faith in Persia/Iran since the 16th century.  Shi'ites also differ from Sunni Muslims in having ayatollahs and imams.  Ayatollahs are religious leaders, and imams are Muslim leaders believed by Shi'ites to be divinely appointed, sinless infallible successors to Muhammed.  The Ayatollah Khomeini led the Iranian revolution that in 1979 led to the overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
    An important tradition within Sunni Islam is Wahhabism.  This movement derived from the teaching of Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the 18th century.  This tradition is fundamentalist in the sense that it requires of its adherents a literal interpretation of the Koran and a strict doctrine of predestination.  Followers of this doctrine describe themselves as muwahhidin, i.e. as "unitarians" who believe God is one and only one.  Wahhabism condemns as un-Islamic the practice of using the name of any prophet, saint or angel in a prayer, calling on them for intercession, making vows to them or visiting tombs for such intercession.  In 1744, Abd al-Wahhad, the founder of this tradition obtained the support and commitment of Ibn Saud in Arabia and by 1811 the Wahhabi Saudis established control over most of Arabia. In 1932 the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established with Wahhabism the established religion with Sunni Islam.   It was from this tradition that Osama bin Laden derived his even more extreme form of Islam.
    Another religious tradition within Islam is sufism.  Sufism is a form of Islamic mysticism that developed in the 7th and 8th centuries and to which Wahhabism was and is strongly opposed.  Sufism developed following the murder of Ali, Muhammed s son-in-law, in reaction to the perceived worldliness of the Umayyed caliphs and period.  In sufism there exists masters and their bands of disciples. Sufi practice was characterized by saint worship, veneration and visiting tombs and miracles hence the strong opposition from the Wahhabis.  Orthodox Muslims also were concerned about the abuse of power and authority by masters toward their disciples.  There were strong conflicts in  sufism with the shariah, or Islamic law.  On the other hand sufism led to a flowering of Islamic and Persian poetry and literature that gave comfort to millions.  Its missionary activities in preaching trust in God, faith in God's love have enlarged the fold of the believers.  In India by virtue of incorporating earlier pre-Islamic strands of mysticism sufism evolved into dervish orders which emphasized emotionalism and hypnotic ecstatic states.

Dhimmitude and the Dhimmis
    The origin of dhimmitude and the status of the dhimmis in Islamic societies are well described by Bat Ye'or in her book Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide:

    "The elimination of the Medina Jews between 624 and 627 enriched the  umma. The property of the Banu Nadhir formed the Prophet's share of the  war-treasure, while the booty taken from the other tribes was apportioned between the Muslim warriors, the Prophet receiving a fifth. In 628, benefitting from a nonaggression treaty (Hudaybiya) with the Meccans, Muhammad went on to besiege the oasis of Khaybar, 140 kilometers away, cultivated by Jewish peasants. They surrendered after a siege lasting one and a half months. According to Muslim jurisconsults some centuries later,  the agreement (dhimma) made between Muhammad and the Jews of Khaybar formed the basis of the dhimmi status. The Prophet allowed the  Jews to farm their lands, but only as tenants; he demanded delivery of half  their harvest and reserved the right to drive them out when he wished. On  these conditions, he granted his dhimma, that is to say, his protection for  their lives and safety. Similar pacts were concluded in the same year with Jews living in other oases, Fadak and Wadi'l-Qura (628), Mu'ta (629), as  well as with nomadic or sedentary Christianized tribes. These tribes preserved their religion on payment of a tribute (jizya), the symbol of their  submission. In exchange, Muhammad undertook to respect their religion and to protect them from Bedouin razzias. Each community could keep its own religious jurisdiction. The dhimma of Khaybar inspired the treaties which the Arab conquerors subsequently granted to the indigenous inhabitants of lands outside Arabia. Later treaties concluded with the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) were modeled on the letters of protection which Muhammad sent from Tabuk in 630 to the Jewish and Christian populations of Makna (north of the Hijaz, on the gulf of Eilat) and in south Palestine: Eilat,Jarba, and Adhruh".

       The dhimmis thus are People of the Book, i.e. Christians and Jews who live in Muslim  lands under the authority of Islam.  First a word about People of the Book. In Islam the Koran exists eternally and has from the beginning of time. Thus the Koran existed prior to the Bible, both old and new testaments. The Bible is an imperfect and inadequate revelation from God, Allah, and is superseeded by the pre-existing Koran now revealed to Muhammed by the Angel Gabriel. Since Christians and Jews are mentioned in the Koran they are People of the Book.  However, unless they accept Islam they are nevertheless infidels.
    The dhimmis thus are Christians and Jews living in Muslim lands under the "protection" of Islam as discussed above, and their subservient status is defined by Bat Ye'or as one of dhimmitude.  Under Islam,  humiliation and degradation of the dhimmis was  considered a religious duty.  The dhimmis, i.e. Christians and Jews may worship in their faiths, but only in silence and humility.  Burials of thedead must be carried out secretly and quietly, and dhimmis and Muslim graves separatedand differentiated.  Islamic law is supreme in litigation between Muslims and dhimmis, and evidence and  testimony from dhimmis  are inadmissible in Islamic courts. Muslims should not associate with dhimmis.
    The subsevient status, i.e. the dhimmitude of Christians and Jews was daily emphasized by concious degradation of their status. Differentiation in clothing was the subject of many detailed regulations. The dhimmis were not allowed to ride such noble animals as horses and donkeys but must ride only donkeys. When passinf Muslims on the street dhimmis must turn awat their eyes, bow and make way.  Houses of the dhimmis must be smaller, of humble and dark appearance.
    In the 19th century, as the Islamic world receded and Western, i.e. European  power became dominent in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, much, but not all,  of this Islamic order described above was forced the change under  the influence of Western ideas of modernity and secularization. Thus under Western duress  the dhimmis were freed from a millennium of degradaion. It is of course a reversal of the effects of modernity and secularization and the return of  authority of  a caliph over all the Islamic world, the umma that Miltant Islam desires.

The Crusades

    The Muslim Empire, which had expanded so rapidly under the Medina and Omayyad Caliphates, consolidated under the Abbasids who came into the Caliphate in 750.  The loose army organization was replaced by smaller highly trained corps of full-time professional soldiers who, in the main, had few ties and little contact with the rest of the population.  The Abbasids moved the Caliphate from Damascus to Baghdad, thus removing it even further from its original Arab birthplace in the Hejaz of Arabia.
    The Abbasids were even less tolerant to Christianity than had been the Omayyads, and many thousands of Christian churches and monasteries were closed.  Under the Fatimid Caliphate in 969 the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was burned and in 965 the Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem was burned alive on charges of being a Byzantine spy.  In 1071 the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV was defeated in Armenia by the Seljuk Turks thus further weakening the Byzantine Empire.  Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem, continuing a long tradition of such pilgrimages were encountering increasing difficulty in gaining access to the holy places, primarily by extortion of money and humiliation if not by physical force.  The response from Christendom came in the form of the Crusades.
    In November 1095 Pope Urban II convened a Church Council in Clermont.  His chief concern was a breakdown of the  Christian  peace, or a lawful society in Europe. At the end of the Council meetings and outside the church he addressed a crowd made up primarily of nobles who had been present.  He denounced the violence and injustice on the part of some Knights that had contributed to a breakdown of the peace and civil society.  He then suggested that they employ their strength rather in defense of their Christian brethren in Eastern lands under Muslim control , specifically the Holy Land of Jesus' birth, life, crucifixion and resurrection, who were being ill treated by the Muslim infidels.  The Crusades ended in 1291 when the Crusaders were forced to abandon Acre, their last stronghold.  Thus the Crusades lasted two hundred years in the form of eight wars between the Christian Franks, as they were called by their enemy, and the Muslim Arabs and Turks.
    The first Crusade was successful in capturing Jerusalem in 1099.  The siege and battle were bloody and many Muslims and Jews were massacred.  However, such massacres were not systematic and Muslim records in Cairo record that the Franks particularly respected  women.  As a result of the first Crusade, a Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was established that lasted until 1143 when the Crusaders were driven from Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks from Anatolia.  The second  Crusade ended in a dismal failure.  However, by this time Christians and Muslims who had remained in Syria and Palestine had established a reasonable accommodation with each other and a blended civil society resulted.  However, some of the Franks were not satisfied with this status quo and waged a short war in which they were soundly defeated by Saladin in 1187.
    The third Crusade, renowned in lore for the battles between Richard the Lion-Hearted and Saladin also was unsuccessful.  However Saladin also was unsuccessful in driving the Frankish presence from the Holy Land.  The fourth Crusade is known mainly for the sack of Constantinople, the Byzantine Capital in 104l  by the Christian Crusaders from the West who established a short lived Latin Kingdom in the East that only lasted until 1234.
    Little glory can be awarded to either side in the Crusades.  The battles were bloody and there were many massacres of innocents on both sides.  The period was characterized by intrigue, treachery, betrayal and broken promises on both sides.  It must be noted that the Crusades did not come about because of anti-Muslim fanaticism but rather because of a visceral and deeply rooted attachment to the holy places in the Holy Land.  The preeminent historian of Islam Bernard Lewis, at Princeton University points out that the initial Crusades, even including the conquest of Jerusalem attracted little attention in the Muslim world.  The real counter-crusade began when the crusaders started to attack the Muslim holy land of the Hejaz, including the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.  Professor Lewis points out that in the Arabic historiography of the period the words Crusade or Crusader do not occur.  The Christian invaders were referred to as Franks or infidels.
    A positive outcome of the Crusades  was a weakening of the feudal system in Europe and a creation of artisan and craftsman guilds.  It was a rather remarkable accomplishment for the Crusaders to remain in the holy land in small enclaves for two hundred years, so far removed from their base of supplies and reenforcement.  In addition our whole concept of the Holy Land emerged from the objectives laid out by Urban II in 1095 and the results of the Crusades themselves.

The Mongol Conquests

    The first Mongol invasion of the lands of Islam occurred in 1220.  Under the leadership of Genghis Khan, many cities in Transoxonia and Khorasan were terrorized and destroyed.  When Genghis Khan died seven years later his empire stretched from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Japan.  In 1256 forces under the Mongol leader Hulegu invaded Persia and Syria, sacked Baghdad and took control of Mesopotamia and  the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the fertile crescent.
    These Mongol regimes became rivals and struggled with each other for control of territory.  The group derived from Hulegu s leadership were known as the Ill-Khans and controlled Persia, and Mesopotamia, lands where Islam had been well established.  In 1295 a Buddhist named Mahmud Ghazan became Khan, converted to Islam and compelled most of the Mongol leadership to become Muslim as well.  However, by the middle of the 14th century Mongol rule became weak, fragmented and too diffuse to resist successfully Turkic power.  Unfortunately, the Mongol invasion and the sack of Baghdad had a devastating effect on Islamic culture and its artistic and scientific achievements.

The Ottoman Empire

    The Byzantine Empire on its Eastern flank increasingly was pressed by Turkic speaking pastoralists from central Asia known to history as the Seljuq Turks.  They became converted into Sunni Islam early in the 11th century, and expanded their power and influence into western Persia and Syria, and occupied Baghdad.  As tribal bands occupying much of Anatolia (present day Turkey), they pressed very close to Constantinople, the Byzantine capital.  During the first half of the 14th century, the Anatolian Seljuq sultanate was one of the most important Muslim states  of its day.  It ruled over a heterogeneous population including both Armenian and Greek Christians.
    Lasting Muslim power in Anatolia did not, however, come from the Seljuqs, but rather from a warrior state on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire.  This tribal state known as th Osmanlis or Ottomans was named after its founder Osman I who ruled from 1281-1324.   In 1453 the Sultan Mehmed II laid siege to and conquered Constantinople thus ending the Byzantine Empire.  He allowed his troops three days of plunder before entering and assuming control over the city. Many men, women and children were massacred.  In 1683 from July 17 to September 12 the Ottoman Turks laid siege to Vienna.  They were defeated by a combined force led by John III Sobieski of Poland.  This marked the beginning of the end of Turkish domination in Eastern Europe.  The peak of Ottoman power and influence as well as of Ottoman culture was reached during the sultanate of Suleyman I who ruled from 1520-1566, and who was known among the Ottomans as the Lawgiver , and who became known in Europe as the Magnificent .  After his reign the Ottoman Empire, due to a variety of causes and influences declined until at the outbreak of World War I it became known as the sick man of Europe. 

20th Century Developments

    Many developments in the early years of the 20th century are important in relation to the interactions of the Islamic World
with Christendom,  i.e. the culturally still Christian West in Europe and the Americas.  Most seminal in this regard was WorldWar I and its aftermath.  This war, referred to at the time as the Great War led to the end of the Russian and Austrian-Hungarian Empires and the rise of communism, fascism and Naziism in that order.  More important to the subject ofthis essay was the demise of the Ottoman Empire.  The Ottomans had made the bad mistake to side with the Central powers,Germany and Austria against the Allies, namely Britain, France and Russia.
    Prior to the catalyst for the Great War to come that occurred in Sarajevo in 1914, there had been several earlier wars in the Balkans.  The Balkans were and still are a place where Catholic Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Islam interacted violently. A major problem facing the Ottomans in the early 20th century and facing Western Europe today was the irredentism of national minorities in the Balkans in general and within the Ottoman Empire in particular.  Within Armenia, Armenian national consciousness was developing strongly with hopes and aspirations for a separate, independent and Christian Armenia.  This was not something the Ottomans favored in fact they reacted violently against the Armenians.  The so-called Young Turks headed by Enver Pasha in control in Istanbul, subjected the Armenians to deportation and exile with the intent to populate the vacant towns and villages with Muslim refugees.  A ruthless campaign was initiated by the Ottoman authorities to disarm the entire Armenian population of all personal weapons.  As an aside, the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution in the Bill of Rights was intended specifically to prevent this action by a government against its citizens. What followed in 1915 were mass deportations and massacres of men women and children in what is now known as the Armenian genocide.  The total number of victims will never be precisely known, but the most accepted and authoritative estimates puts the total at over one million men, women and children dead, and hundreds of thousands more deported..  The Ottomans also disposed in a similar manner the Assyrians in Iraq, another Christian minority.
    About the Armenian massacres, Bat Ye'or in her book The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam wrote as follows:

    "The genocide of the Armenians was the natural outcome of a policy inherent in the politico-religious structure of dhimmitude. This process  of physically eliminating a rebel nation had already been used against the rebel Slav and Greek Christians, rescued from collective extermination by European intervention, although sometimes reluctantly.
     The genocide of the Armenians was a jihad. No rayas took part in it. Despite the disapproval of many Muslim Turks and Arabs and their refusal to collaborate in the crime, these massacres were perpetrated solely by Muslims and they alone profited from the booty: the victims' property, houses, and lands granted to the muhajirun, and the allocation to them of women and child slaves. The elimination of male children over the age of twelve was in accordance with the commandments of the jihad and conformed to the age fixed for payment of the jizya. The four
stages of the liquidation-deportation, enslavement, forced conversion, and massacre-reproduced the historic conditions of the jihad carried out in the dar ai-harb from the seventh century on. Chronicles from a variety of sources, by Muslim authors in particular, give detailed descriptions of the organized massacres or deportation of captives, whose sufferings in forced marches behind the armies paralleled the Armenian experience in the twentieth century.
 This policy was not an isolated phenomenon. It was part of a defensive strategy to maintain Islamic jurisdiction over a territory which had been conquered by war and to eliminate dhimmi nationalism. The Armenian tragedy was therefore accompanied by the destruction of Jacobite and Nestorian Christians in the Euphrates valley north of Syria. In September 1915, at Jabal Musa (Antioch), French ships took on board 4,000 to 5,000 Armenians, in extremis, who had been encircled by the Turks and  Arabs. However, the British and French authorities, fearing the hostility of the Muslim populations, refused permission for the Armenians to disembark in Egypt, Rhodes, Cyprus, Tunisia, and Morocco. In the end, the British High Commissioner of Egypt agreed to let them go ashore temporarily at Alexandria ."

    At the conclusion of the Great War(WWI) in 1918,  the victorious Allies proceeded to dismantle the Ottoman Empire.  The Russians coveted Istanbul and control of the Bosporus waterway between the Black and the Mediterranean seas.  In this they were thwarted by General Mustafa Kemal, better known as Attaturk the father of the secular state modern day Turkey.  This was accomplished by the force of military arms under Attaturk s command against the Western powers.
    During the war, Britain and France sought help in the Middle East against the Ottomans wherever they could find it.  Sharif Hussain ibn Ali of Mecca in the Hijaz of Arabia along the Red sea had imperial ambitions for an Arab nation, headed of course by himself.  The British bribed the sharif and his Bedouin sons and tribesmen with gold and the promise of booty in what perhaps misleadingly has been termed the great Arab revolt, and glamorized by Lawrence of Arabia. The forces of Hussain and his sons attacked and captured the port of Aqaba on the Red sea in their most famous victory and eventually entered Damascus as victors along with the real victors the British army.  However, at the time most of the Arab world from one end to the other was indifferent or hostile to this desert revolt.  Specifically, there was little interest to this event in Palestine and the Muslims in Mesopotamia (Iraq) were hostile to it.  Lawrence had made promises to the Arabs and the British and France had signed the Sykes-Picot agreement on dividing up the Ottoman Empire after the war, and these agreements were not feasible to keep in the reality of the post-war situation.
    The outcome of many diplomatic maneuvers at Versailles and elsewhere was to give France a Mandate (i.e. temporary authority) over Syria and Lebanon and Britain a Mandate over Palestine and Iraq.  Sharif Hussein's son Feisal was made King over Iraq. His son Abdullah, as a consolation prize since he had coveted Iraq, was made King of a newly established Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan, now called  Jordan, which was carved out of the British Mandate of Palestine in violation of the spirit if not the letter of the Balfour declaration of 1917 in which the British had promised Palestine to the Zionists as a national home.  It was called Hashemite in view of Abdullah's claimed lineage with the Hashim family of the Prophet Muhammed.  Kuwait had achieved its status as a British protectorate after World War I, and full independence in 1961.

Arab Nationalism

    Arabism, or Arab nationalism and Islamism have important elements in common, but the differences are more important and crucial for understanding than the similarities.   All Arabs are not Muslim, some are Christian, and all Muslims are not Arab.  In fact, by virtue of the Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries all people that speak arabic are not Arabs, witness the Berbers of North Africa where there is currently a revival of Berber nationalism and the native Berber language of pre-Islamic conquest time. Many Arabs in the middle East speak arabic, consider themselves to be Arab and especially in the past ,identified themselves with Arab nationalism.  Until the Lebanon civil war Lebanon was a predominately Christian country.
        We have seen that sharif Hussein of Mecca's call for an Arab nation under his control fell on mostly deaf ears throughout the Arab world.  After World War II the cause of Arab nationalism was promoted most vigorously by military dictators interested in power for themselves and their respective cliques, not Arab nationalism per se.  A good example was  Nasser who fell out of favor after Egypt's humiliating defeat by Israel in the six-day war of 1967, and Arab nationalism has been in decline ever since.  The high water mark of Arab nationalism was the merging of Egypt and Syria into the United Arab Republic in 1958 but this didn't last long.   The truth is that pan-Arabism or Arab nationalism was more of a dream by Western Orientalists or romantics such as Lawrence of Arabia than a practical political reality in the Arab world, Even though many of the Arab national states in the Middle East were creations of the Western powers after World War I, the rulers of these national states are much more interested in their national identities as Egyptians, Syrians, Iranians and so on than in surrendering any power to such a vague idea as Arab nationalism per se.

Islamism (Islamic Fundamentalism)

    According to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate dictionary on the internet, Islamism is the "faith, doctrine or cause of Islam." The cause of Islam has been described no better than by Martin Kramer in his book Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival as follows:
    "The idea is simple: Islam must have power in this world. It is the true religion-the religion of God-and its truth is manifest in its power. When Muslims believed, they were powerful. Their power has been lost in modem times because Islam has been abandoned by many Muslims, who have reverted to the condition that preceded God's revelation to the Prophet Muhammad. But if Muslims now return to the original Islam, they can preserve and even restore their power.
     That return, to be effective, must be comprehensive; Islam provides the one and only solution to all questions in this world, from public policy to private conduct. It is not merely a religion, in the Western sense of a system of belief in God. It possesses an immutable law, revealed by God, that deals with every aspect of life, and it is an ideology, a complete system of belief about the organization of the state and the world.  This law and ideology can only be implemented through the establishment of a truly Islamic state, under the sovereignty of God. The empowerment of Islam, which is God's plan for mankind, is a sacred end.  It may be pursued by any means that can be rationalized in terms of Islam's own code. At various times, these have included persuasion,  guile, and force.
    What is remarkable about Islamic fundamentalism is not its diversity. It is the fact that this idea of power for Islam appeals so effectively across such a wide range of humanity, creating a world of thought that crosses all frontiers. Fundamentalists everywhere must act in narrow circumstances of time and place. But they are who they are precisely because their idea exists above all circumstances. Over nearly a century, this idea has evolved into a coherent ideology, which demonstrates a striking consistency in content and form across a wide expanse of the Muslim world. 
    This is, in Kramer's view what Islamism, or Islamic fundamentalism is all about.  Bassam Tibi, in his book The Challenge of Fundamentalism:Political Islam and World Disorder describes Islamic fundamentalism in a similar manner.
    Islamic fundamentalism, as a form of religious fundamentalism has been considered by some, mistakenly, to be analogous to Protestant fundamentalism.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Protestant, or Evangelical fundamentalism is mostly a 20th century movement with its roots stretching back into the 19th century.  It emphasizes a literal interpretation of the Bible and the inerrancy of scripture.  It seeks a return to the peaceful teaching of Jesus and his apostles. Islamic fundamentalism also seeks a return, in its case to the inerrant teachings of Muhammed as found in the Koran and the Hadith, or the sayings of Mohammed.  The differences between these two fundamentalism are immense.  Evangelical fundamentalism seeks a return to Christ's teaching by preaching the gospel, i.e. the good news, and the conversion of people to Christianity by persuasion, as in the time of Paul and the other writers of the New Testament.
    In contrast, Islamic fundamentalism, as we have just described, and as derived specifically from Muhammed in the Koran and in the Hadith is by Jihad or holy war and a revolution to institute an Islamic world order.  The Islamic concept of Jihad , or holy war is described as documented in and derived from the Koran by Ibn Warraq in his book Why I am not a Muslim as follows:
    "The totalitarian nature of Islam is nowhere more apparent than in the concept of jihad, the holy war, whose ultimate aim is to conquer the entire world and submit it to the one true faith, to the law of Allah. To Islam alone has been granted the truth: there is no possibility of salvation outside it. It is the sacred duty-an incumbent religious duty established in the Koran and the traditions of all Muslims to bring Islam to all humanity. Jihad is a divine institution, enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam. Muslims must strive, fight, and
kill in the name of God.
Sura 9.5-6: Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find them.
Sura 4.76: Those who believe fight in the cause of God.
Sura 8.12: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Infidels, strike off their heads then, and strike off from them every fingertip.
Sura 8.39-42: Say to the Infidels: If they desist from their unbelief, what is now past shall be forgiven them; but if they return to it, they have already before them the doom of the ancients! Fight then against them till strife be at an end, 'and the religion be all of it God's.
Sura 2.256: But they who believe, and who fly their country, and fight in the cause of God may hope for God's mercy: and God is Gracious, Merciful. It is a grave sin for a Muslim to shirk the battle against the unbelievers those who do will roast in hell.
Sura 8.15, 16: Believers, when you meet the unbelievers preparing for battle do not turn your backs to them. [Anyone who does] shall incur the wrath of God and hell shall be his home: an evil dwelling indeed.
Sura 9.39: If you do not fight, He will punish you severely, and put others in your place. Those who die fighting for the only true religion, Islam, will be amply rewarded in the life to come.
Sura 4.74: Let those fight in the cause of God who barter the life of this world for that which is to come; for whoever fights on God's path, whether he is killed or triumphs, We will give him a handsome reward.
    It is abundantly clear from many of the above verses that the Koran is not talking of metaphorical battles or of moral crusades: it is talking of the battlefield. To read such blood thirsty injunctions in a holy book is shocking. Mankind is divided into two groups, Muslims and non-Muslims. The Muslims are members of the Islamic community, the umma, who possess territories in the dar al-Islam, the Land of Islam, where the edicts of Islam are fully promulgated. The non-Muslims are the Harbi, people of the dar al-Harb, the Land of Warfare, any country belonging to the infidels that has not been subdued by Islam but that, nonetheless, is destined to pass into Islamic jurisdiction, either by conversion  or by war (Harb). All acts of war are permitted in the dar al-Harb."

    Jihad is defined in Merriam-Webster as a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty.   In al-islam, an important and authoritative Islamic web site, jihad, defined as fighting in the cause of Allah, is documented in many references in both the Koran and the hadiths under such heading as; excellence of jihad, judgment pertaining to jihad, elements of the battle, the stages of the battle, spoils and treaties and covenants.
    Ibn Khaldun, who died in 1406), made the following comments concerning Muslim jurisprudence of the preceeding five centuries with regard to the uniquely Islamic institution of jihad:
    "In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the (Muslim) mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. ..The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. ..Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations."
  The concept of Islamic fundamentalism in the 20th century can be traced back to the writings of the Egyptian teacher and political preacher Sayyed Qutb writing in the immediate post World War II period.    In his writing the Christian West is morally bankrupt, about to crumble and only Islam is prepared to assume world leadership from the West for a Islamic world order.
    The late sheikh of Azhah, Judulhaq Ali Judulhaq made a distinction between Islamic Jihad, peaceful for worthy purposes, and Jihad Massallah, a resort to violence and in fact terrorism to accomplish the Islamic world revolution.  In contrast Islamic fundamentalist Hassan al-Banna ridiculed such an idea, and described lesser and greater forms of jihad.  In his view, violent Islamic world revolution through force and terrorism is the greater jihad true to the teachings of Muhammed.   In the view of Hassan Tibi in his book referenced above Islamic fundamentalism is not a renaissance of religious belief but rather is a political movement toward the hegemony of a world Islamic order. This author points out perceptively that Islamic fundamentalists are not terrorists, per se, but Islamic terrorists are Islamic fundamentalists.

The Issue of Palestine

    Historically Palestine encompassed the Holy Land of Judea, Samaria and Galilee, as well as the present country of Jordan, which, as mentioned earlier was carved out of the British Palestine Mandate after World War I.  For our purposes we will start with the year 70 in the Christian era when the Romans destroyed both the Jewish state in Palestine and the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.  The Jews were dispersed from Palestine to all over the known world in what is known as the diaspora.  After another Jewish revolt in 132, the Jews were driven even more from Judea, although some remained, especially in Galilee.  With the conversion of Constantine to Christianity in the early 4th century the residents of Palestine were mostly Christian.  In 352 the Jews in Galilee revolted as did the Samaritans in the 6th century. Both revolts were violently suppressed.  Jerusalem came under Persia control in 614 but in 628 Palestine and Jerusalem were restored to the Byzantine (Christian) Empire again.  A short ten years later, Palestine was conquered by the Arabs.  The periods of the Arab conquest, the Crusades,, the Ottoman Empire and many relevant events in the 20th century have been covered earlier in this essay.
     Following widespread  pograms against the Jews in Russia, as written about by Sholem Aleichem in his stories about  Tevye  the Dairyman, and as dramatized in Fiddler on the Roof, a first wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine from Russia took place in the 1890's.  The Zionist movement began in 1896 on the  publication of Theodor Herzl s book A Jewish State.  Especially following the widespread anti-Semitism revealed in France by the Dreyfus affair, the Zionists had come to the conclusion that the Jews would never be fully accepted and assimilated in Europe and therefore a Jewish national home or state was necessary. Zionism was a secular movement and was not supported by orthodox Jews who held to the view that a return to Palestine, i.e. Zion, would and should only occur following the long awaited arrival of the Jewish Messiah.   The map on page 22  shows that the British divided the Palestine Mandate in 1922 such that three-quarters of it went to form the newly established Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan with Abdullah as its King.  It is fair to say that Trans-Jordan was the establishment of an authentic Palestinian State, but unfortunately with an imported Arab from the Hijaz as its King.
    Following the founding of Trans-Jordan the remaining one quarter of Palestine was set aside as a Jewish national home in at least partial honoring of the Balfour agreement of 1917.  Unfortunately, at least for the Jews, the British backed away from even this commitment by recommending the further partition of the remaining one quarter of Palestine into Palestinian and Jewish sections.
    In 1919 an important event happened that is not widely known.  This was a signed agreement between Emir Feisal, representing the Arab Kingdom of Hijaz and Chaim Weitzman, representing the Zionist organization.  Feisal, of course was later installed by the British as the King of the newly created Kingdom of Iraq.  This agreement is worth citing in its entirety:

AGREEMENT BETWEEN EMIR FEISAL AND DR. CHAIM WEIZMANN,
JANUARY 3, 1919
His Royal Highness the Emir Feisal, representing and acting on behalf of the Arab Kingdom of Hedjaz, and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, representing and acting on behalf of the Zionist. Organisation, mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jew-
ish people, and realising that the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab State and Palestine, and being desirous further of confirming the good understanding which exists between them, have agreed upon the following Articles:

ARTICLE I
The Arab State and Palestine in all their relations and undertakings shall be controlled by the most cordial goodwill and understanding, and to this end Arab and Jewish duly accredited agents shall be established  and maintained in the respective territories.
ARTICLE II
Immediately following the completion of the deliberations of the Peace Conference, the definite boundaries between the Arab State and Palestine shall be parties hereto.
ARTICLE III
In the establishment of the Constitution and Administration of Palestine all such measures shall be adopted as will afford the fullest guarantees for carrying into effect the British Government's Declaration of the 2d of November, 1917.
ARTICLE IV
All necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement, and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking such measures the Arab
peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights, and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development.
ARTICLE V
No recognition nor law shall be made prohibiting or interfering in any way with the free exercise of religion; and further the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall ever be
required for the exercise of civil or political rights.
ARTICLE VI
The Mohammedan Holy Places shall be under Mohammedan control.
ARTICLE VII
The Zionist Organisation proposes to send to Palestine a Commission of experts to make a survey of the economic possibilities of the country, and to report upon the best means for its development. The Zionist Organisation will place the aforementioned Commission at the
disposal of the Arab State for the purpose of a survey of the economic possibilities of the Arab State and to report upon the best means for its development. The Zionist Organisation will use its best efforts to assist the Arab State in providing the means for developing the natural re-
sources and economic possibilities thereof.
ARTICLE VIII
The parties hereto agree to act in complete accord and harmony on all matters embraced herein before the Peace Congress.

ARTICLE IX
Any matters of dispute which may arise between the contracting parties shall be referred to the British Government for arbitration. Given under our hand at London, England, the third day of January; one thousand nine hundred and nineteen.
Chaim Weizmann.
Feisal ibn-Hussein.

RESERVATION BY THE EMIR FEISAL
If the Arabs are established as I have asked in my manifesto of January 4th addressed to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I will carry out what is written in this agreement. If changes are made, I cannot be answerable for failing to carry out this agreement.
Feisal ibn-Hussein.

    The key  statement is this document is this reservatiom by Emir Feisal .  What he meant  by the Arabs being established as he had asked was the fantasy of an Arab nation including Arabia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt under a caliphate with sharif  Hussain of Mecca as caliph.  Nobody in the Islamic world wanted this except for sharif  Hussain and his followers.

    The events that occurred at the end of World War I related to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire are important and relevant to the Palestinian problem with us today and also to the sources of Arab resentments and rage to be discussed later in this essay.
    In 1916 Great Britain and France with the assent of then imperial Russia made provisions for the breakup of the Ottoman Empire at the end of hostilities. The provisions of this secret Sykes-Picot agreement were disclosed to the world by the newly established Bolshevik government in Russia in 1917.  As discussed earlier in this essay the British during the war had enlisted the services of the shariff of Mecca in the Hejaz, Hussain ibn Ali in the war against the Ottoman Turks  in the Middle East. Hussain and his ambitious sons Feisal and Abdullah had imperial ambitions of their  own and they also were the recipients of British armaments and gold. Hussain's family, the Hashemites, wanted to establish an Arab Nation extending from Mesopotamia, soon to be Iraq all the way to Yemen at the southern end of the Arabian peninsula. Colonel T.E. Lawrence, of Lawrence of Arabia fame was a romantic Arabist who shared this vision and on behalf of the British expressed considerable support for this imperial dream.  The dream and fantasy died because of Arab fractiousness, which Lawrence was well aware of and which had frustrated him in his dealings with the Arabs, and because of political realities.  In the Sykes-Picot agreement for dismembering the Ottoman Empire, the French and British assigned Lebanon and Syria to France, and southern Mesopotamia including Baghdad, and the ports of Haifa and Acre to Great Britain.  In the Balfour Declaration of 1917 the British government said it would look favorably on the establishment of a Jewish National home on Palestine in response to Zionist interests.  In 1920 at the San Remo Conference the French Mandate of Syria and the British Mandates of Iraq and Palestine were established as already described.
    These developments did not sit well with sharif Hussain and his sons in the light of what ever promises had been made by Lawrence on behalf of Great Britain for an Arab Nation.  However, in compensation the British made Feisal King of Iraq and Abdullah King of Trans-Jordan.  However in Arabia the Hashemites lost out to the family of ibn Saud who defeated them in a war for control of Arabia, lost the Hejaz to the Saudis in 1924 and saw the establishment of the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with fundamentalist Wahhabism as the religion of the state.
    The 1920's saw the beginning of considerable Jewish immigration into Palestine, with many establishing Kibbutzim, communal farms, or settling in the towns and cities.  The Jews established their presence in Palestine by buying land and property from what we now refer to as the Palestinians. The Palestinian authorities fought violently against this Jewish presence by rioting and reprisals against the Palestinians who had sold land to the Jews.  The Palestinian authorities ordered that land should not be sold to Jews, and those that did so would be severely punished.   In support of the Arab world in general and the Palestinians the British severely limited Jewish immigration, with such limitation formally sanctioned with a White Paper in 1930.
    After World War II and the Holocaust in which Nazi Germany killed six million Jews for no other reason than that they were Jewish and talented, Zionist pressure  for a Jewish state in Palestine, which was still under British control, grew stronger. The British announced their withdrawal and the United Nations proposed to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.  The Jews accepted but the Arabs did not.  In 1948 the Jews announced the establishment of the state of Israel which was immediately recognized by the United States and the Soviet Union.  Israel was  immediately invaded by five neighboring Arab countries.  The Arab states were defeated in this 1948 war of independence for Israel. After the 1948 war 800,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands with most re-settling in Israel.  Approximately 650,000 Palestinians were displaced from Israel and ended up in refugee camps in Jordan and elsewhere where they remain today.
    Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq again made war on Israel in 1967 and were again defeated in what is known as the  Six Day War.  As a result the socalled West Bank, essentially Judea and Samaria, moved from Jordanian to Israeli control. All of jerusalem was now under Jewish authority. The Arab countries were again defeated by Israel 1973 in the Yom Kippur war.
    It is clear to this writer that the Jews, have accepted unconditionally and as an unalterable historic fact the division of Palestine into Jordan and Israel.  They also have accepted, perhaps reluctantly but accepted nonetheless that there must be some sort of Palestinian autonomy and self government in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), and Gaza.  It is equally clear that the Palestinian leadership and indeed much of the Arab world has not yet accepted the right of Israel to exist As a nation with secure and defensible borders.
    The Palestinian Authority knows where the terrorists against Israel are in the West Bank and Gaza, and could go after them in a meaningful way if they wished to So far they have not chosen to crack down on Hamas, Hizb Allah or the Islamic Jihad.  At this time the situation in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza is unresolved, volatile and dangerous.

French and Vatican Arab Policy: The Anti-Jewish Fulcrum

    The role of Christian anti-semitism in the issue of Palestine today must be considered.  No one has done this better than Bat Ye'or in her book Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide. The following analysis is taken directly form her book:

    "The great Arab uprising against the Ottoman sultan which France had sought in the 1830s did not occur for want of a concept which would unify ethnically diverse and mutually hostile populations. The missionaries who, had flocked to the Levant helped to fill this gap. >From the 1840s they set about teaching and modernizing the Arabic language, the centralizing pole of a future Arab nation which would detach the Arabic-speaking provinces from the Ottoman Empire. Thus, the concept of an Arab nation was born in the French Catholic missions of the Levant. After the massacres of Christians in Syria between 1840 and 1860, the Christians clung to Arabism in order to surmount the religious conflicts and strengthen a policy of rapprochement with the Muslims.
    The French protectorate over the Catholic rayas directed them to Arabization, and used them as agents of its anti-Zionist Arab policy. Simultaneously, the Judeophobic campaign frequently renewed blood libel accusations in Europe, in Russia, and in the Ottoman Empire where Christian rayas endeavored to associate with Muslims. This was the beginning of the polarization of the Eastern Christian communities, Arabized by Catholic missions, in the anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist campaign, and the appearance of a theme that was to have a great future: a struggle that would unite Christians and Muslims against the "Jewish enemy."Thus the return of the Jews to Palestine, contemporary with an immigration of Levantine Christian refugees, unleashed antisemitic passions in Europe . At the end of the century, French religious and extreme-right parties called for the abolition of the republican laws, the segregation of the Jews in ghettos--as had been done by Pope Pius IX in Rome-and the restoration of their traditional discriminatory status, in order to remove their means of political and economic action. Closely associated with the European antisemitic movements, the Eastern Churches--particularly the Palestinian Churches--integrated European antisemitism into the machinery of hatred and linked it to Arab-Muslim anti-Zionism. After the First Zionist Congress in Basle (1897), a two-stage Christian-Muslim strategy was developed: the fabrication of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and its incorporation into Arab nationalism. The Protocols, a Christian work of anti-Zionist political theology, was symbiotically connected by Arab Christians with the concept of an Arab nation, an ideology uniting Christendom and Islamdom. This symbiosis is revealed  in a book by Negib Azoury, Le Reveil de la Nation Arabe (The Awakening of the Arab Nation), published in Paris in January 1905. A Latin Catholic close to; the Jesuits, Azoury was born in Lebanon in 1873, studied in Paris in the mid-1890s, and lived there toward the end of 1904 till 1908, frequently returning to Cairo. >From 1898 to 1904 he was an assistant to the Turkish governor of Jerusalem, Kiazim Bey.
    For Azoury, France and Rome represented two basic political poles of an Arab nation which extended over the whole Levant, except for Egypt. This Arab nation not only gathered Arab Christians and Muslims together in Palestine, but It also represented all the branches of Christianity Hence ;Arabism embodied the nucleus of the Muslim-Christian symbiosis, bringing 'together the whole of Christendom and Islamdom against Israel. For Azoury, the pillars of this symbiosis would be the papacy, as a unifying force of Christianity in its entirety through the Uniate movement; and the Caliphate on the Muslim side. Both institutions, of irreproachable morality, would coordinate their activity in perfect harmony, under the political aegis and military protection and collaboration of France. Azoury further explains that his present book "will allow the reader to realize the unique idea that we are recommending in our two books." He is referring to Le Riveil de La Nation Arabe and a forthcoming book, Le Peril ,Juif Universel (The Universal Jewish Peril), both united in the same concept.The  link between traditional Christian anti-Judaism and the Christian involvement in anti-Zionism and Arabism is thereby acknowledged. Azoury declares that he has exposed the universal nature of the Jewish peril from new and entirely unknown point of view".

 The Christian West and the Islamic World Contrasted

 Islam Today

In Islamic theology the Koran is eternal and inerrant. There is no central Islamic authority, outside the Koran, as there was in the days of the Caliphs. To gain a glimpse of Islamic beliefs and practices today we turn to the Islamic question and answer web site: www.islam-qa.com.

  Welcome to Islam Question & Answer! This site aims to provide intelligent, authoritative responses to anyones question about Islam, whether it be from a Muslim or a non-Muslim, and to help solve general and personal social problems. Responses are composed by Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid, a known Islamic lecturer and author. Questions about any topic are welcome, such as theology, worship, human and business relations, or social and personal issues.
 All questions and answers on this site have been prepared, approved, revised, edited, amended or annotated by Shaykh Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid, the supervisor of this site.
 With the spread of Islam world-wide walillah il-hamd and its diffusion into the internet, some sites have been published claiming to serve Muslims and to speak in the name of Islam. However, not all of these sites, which discuss issues relevant to Islam, present accurate and reliable information based on the true beliefs and practices of the Prophet (peace & blessings of Allaah be upon him) and his companions. Thus, there is a need to increase the number of sites providing resources based on these authentic teachings. It is hoped that this site will be among them. The objectives of Islam Q&A include:
    * to teach and familiarize Muslims with various aspects of their religion
    * to be a source for guiding people to Islam
    * to respond to users questions and inquiries to the best of our resources and capabilities
    * to assist in solving the social and personal problems of the Muslims in an Islamic context
 It was decided to make the site all-encompassing, directed towards Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Subject areas include, but are not limited to, Islamic fiqh and jurisprudence, Islamic history, Islamic social laws (including marriage, divorce, contracts, and inheritance), Islamic finance, basic tenets and aqeedah of the Islamic faith and tawheed, and Arabic grammar as it relates to the Quran and Islamic texts.
 The responses are handled by Sheikh Muhammad Salih al-Munajjid, using only authentic, scholarly sources based on the Quran and sunnah, and other reliable contemporary scholarly opinions. References are provided where appropriate in the responses. All requests are held with confidence, and replies are available personally and/or publicly (posted to this site).
 A database organized by subject areas, containing common as well as previously asked questions, is available for exploring, either by browsing the entire contents or specific subject areas, or by searching for specific keywords. In an effort to maximize efficient use of everyones time and effect the most rapid responses, please be sure to consult the database before submitting a question to make sure it has not already been asked before.

 He was born on 30/12/1381 AH. He completed his elementary, middle and secondary schooling in Riyaadh, and completed his university studies in al-Dahran, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He attended the classes of Shaykh Abd al- Azeez ibn Abd-Allaah ibn Baaz, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al- Uthaymeen and Shaykh Abd-Allaah ibn Abd al-Rahmaan al-Jibreen; they were the shaykhs from whom he learned the most. He also studied under Shaykh Abd al-Rahmaan ibn Naasir al-Barraak and Shaykh Muhammad, the son Seedi al-Habeeb al-Shanqeeti. He learned the recitation of the Qur aan from Shaykh Sa eed Aal Abd-Allaah.
 Among his shaykhs from whom he learned were also Shaykh Saalih ibn Fawzaan Aal Fawzaan, Shaykh Abd-Allaah ibn Muhammad al-Ghunaymaan, Shaykh Abd al-Muhsin al-Zaamil and Shaykh Abd al-Rahmaan ibn Saalih al-Mahmood.
  The shaykh from whom he learned the most with regard to fatwas was Shaykh Abd al- Azeez ibn Abd-Allaah ibn Baaz  may Allaah have mercy on him; his relationship with him lasted for fifteen years. He is the one who encouraged him to teach, and wrote to the Da wah and Guidance Centre (Markaz al-Da wah wa l-Irshaad) in Dammaam to ask them to co-operate with him in arranging lectures, khutbahs, and classes. Because of Shaykh Abd al- Azeez ibn Baaz (may Allaah have mercy on him), he became a khateeb, imaam and lecturer.
 He also started the website Islam  Questions and Answers  on the Internet in 1997, and this work is still continuing until the present. And Allaah is the Source of Strength.

Question:

What is the meaning of the word Islam?

Answer:

Praise be to Allaah.

 If you refer to Arabic language dictionaries you will find out that the meaning of the word Islam is: submission, humbling oneself, and obeying commands and heeding prohibitions without objection, sincerely worshipping Allaah alone, believing what He tells us and having faith in Him.
 The word Islam has become the name of the religion which was brought by Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).
 Why is this religion called Islam? For all the religions on earth are called by various names, either the name of a specific man or a specific nation. So Christianity takes its name from Christ; Buddhism takes its name from its founder, the Buddha; the Zoroastrians became well known by this name because their founder and standard-bearer was Zoroaster. Similarly, Judaism took its name from a tribe known as Yehudah (Judah), so it became known as Judaism. And so on. Except for Islam, for it is not attributed to any specific man or to any specific nation, rather its name refers to the meaning of the word Islam. What this name indicates is that the establishment and founding of this religion was not the work of one particular man and that it is not only for one particular nation to the exclusion of all others. Rather its aim is give the attribute implied by the word Islam to all the peoples of the earth. So everyone who acquires this attribute, whether he is from the past or the present, is a Muslim, and everyone who acquires this attribute in the future will also be a Muslim.

From Kitaab al-Islam Usooluhu wa Mabaadi uhu by Dr. Muhammad ibn Abd-Allaah ibn Saalih al-Suhaym. (www.islam-qa.com)

Question:

What is the ruling on taking European nationality for a Muslim who has come to a European country fleeing from oppression in his homeland, where he has lost his identity papers and has lost all hope of going back to his country? May Allaah reward you with good?

Answer:

Praise be to Allaah.

 In order to answer this question, we must explain two things.
   1  Whether settling in a kaafir country is permissible
  2  Establishing whether there is a need to take the nationality.
  With regard to the first matter, settling in a kaafir country is not permissible unless the following conditions are met:
 1-     There should be a legitimate need for settling in their country, which cannot be met in the Muslim lands, such as trade, da wah, officially representing a Muslim country, or seeking knowledge that is not available in a Muslim country either because it does not exist there, or what is available is not of good quality. Or there should be fear of death, prison or torture, not mere harassment, for oneself or for one s family and children, or fear for one s wealth.
 2-     Settling there should be regarded as temporary, not permanent. It is not permissible to have the intention of staying there permanently; rather one should have the idea that it is temporary, because settling there permanently means that one has migrated (made hijrah) from the land of Islam to the land of kufr. This clearly goes against the ruling of sharee ah that it is obligatory to migrate from the land of kufr to the land of Islam. Having the intention of staying there temporarily means that when the need to stay in the kaafir country no longer applies, one will get up and leave.
 3-     The kaafir country in which one wants to settle should be one which is at peace with the Muslims, not one which is at war with them. Otherwise it is not permissible to settle there. A country is regarded as being at war with the Muslims if it is hostile towards the Muslims.
 4-     There should be religious freedom in the kaafir country, so that the Muslim will be able to practise his religion openly.
 5-     He should be able to learn the laws of Islam in that country; if it is difficult for him to do so then it is not permissible for him to settle there because that implies that he is turning away from learning the religion of Allaah.
 6-     He should think it most likely that he will be able to protect and maintain his religious commitment, and that of his family and children, otherwise it is not permissible for him to settle there, because preserving one s religious commitment takes precedence over preserving one s self, one s wealth and one s family. Whoever meets this condition  and how difficult it is to meet it  is permitted to settle in the land of the kuffaar, otherwise that is forbidden to him, because of the texts which clearly forbid settling there and enjoin migrating from such lands, as is well known, and because of the great danger which that poses to religion and morals, which no one can deny except one who is arrogant.
 Secondly: there should be a legitimate need for taking the nationality, such as the benefits for which the Muslim has settled in the kaafir country being dependent upon his taking the nationality. Otherwise that is not permissible for him, because taking the nationality is an obvious manifestation of befriending the kuffaar, and because it involves speaking words which it is not permissible to believe in or adhere to, such as approving of kufr or man-made laws. Moreover, taking the nationality may lead to staying in the kaafir land permanently, which is not permissible, as stated above. Having established these two points, I hope that Allaah will forgive the Muslims who settle in kaafir lands for the great danger that they have exposed themselves to, because either he is forced to settle there and necessity makes permissible that which is ordinarily forbidden, or to serve an interest which outweighs the harms. And Allaah knows best.

Shaykh Khaalid al-Maajid, Faculty Member, College of Sharee ah, Imaam Muhammad ibn Sa ood Islamic University. (www.islam-qa.com)

Question:

Is the one who fails to rule by that which Allaah has revealed and bases the entire legal system on man-made laws a kaafir? Should we differentiate between him and one who judges according to sharee ah, but may rule in a manner contrary to sharee ah on some issues, because of his own whims and desires or because of a bribe, etc.?

Answer:

Praise be to Allaah.

 Yes, we must make this distinction. The one who rejects the law of Allaah and casts it aside, and replaces it with man-made laws and the opinions of individuals has committed an act of kufr which puts him beyond the pale of Islam. Whereas the one who adheres to the religion of Islam, but is a sinner and wrongdoer by virtue of his following his whims and desires in some cases, or pursuing some worldly interest, but admits that he is a wrongdoer by doing so, is not guilty of kufr which would put him beyond the pale of Islam.
  Whoever thinks that ruling by man-made laws is equal to ruling by sharee ah, and thinks that it is OK to do that, is also guilty of kufr that puts him beyond the pale of Islam, even if it is only in one instance.

Shaykh Abd-Allaah al-Ghunaymaan (www.islam-qa.com)
 
 

Question:

In a situation where the muslims are engaged in jihad against an agressor like in bosnia. when the mujahideen are fighting they sometimes capture land and booty: Money, arms, etc..
Islamically speaking it is haram in islam to steal. but is this theft? If it is not then...
1) how must the money be used?
2) who can use it?
3) does it have to be distributed? to who?
4) what is ment by a fifth?

Answer:

Praise be to Allaah.

 Allaah has prescribed jihaad for His sake for great purposes and reasons, such as spreading this religion, telling people about it and about the purpose for which Allaah created them. Other purposes of jihaad include repulsing the aggression of the enemies of this religion, who fight it in order to extinguish its light and are trying to eliminate it and its followers. The basic evidence for this is the aayah (interpretation of the meaning):
  Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged; and surely, Allaah is Able to give them (believers) victory Those who have been expelled from their homes unjustly only because they said: Our Lord is Allaah.   [al-Hajj 22:40]
 What is happening in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and other parts of the Muslim world is that which Allaah has told us about concerning the kuffaar (interpretation of the meaning):
  They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus that you all become equal (like one another).  [al-Nisaa  4:89] and they desire that you should disbelieve  [al-Mumtahanah 60:2]
  Many of the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) wish that if they could turn you away as disbelievers after you have believed, out of envy from their ownselves, even after the truth has become manifest unto them  [al-Baqarah 2:109]
  Never will the Jews nor the Christians be pleased with you (O Muhammad) till you follow their religion  [al-Baqarah 2:120].
 So the fighting that is taking place between the Muslims and the kuffaar is the checking of one set of people by means of another, which is part of the laws of the universe created by Allaah, which Allaah mentioned when He said (interpretation of the meaning):
  So they routed them by Allaah s Leave and Dawood (David) killed Jaaloot (Goliath), and Allaah gave him [Dawood (David)] the kingdom [after the death of Taloot (Saul) and Samuel] and Al-Hikmah (Prophethood), and taught him of that which He willed. And if Allaah did not check one set of people by means of another, t