A Conversation I Once Had

In my last year at The University of Colorado, I resurrected the defunct Israel advocacy group on campus, EMET (Education, the Middle East, and Truth). As the President of EMET, I stood behind a table with an Israeli flag on it for two hours a week. One day, a girl came up to me and said that she was a Muslim, from Africa, and wanted to know what we were doing and had to say.

She was very nice. We had a discussion about the great things that Israel does, contributes to the world, and so on. Then she said, “well, what do you think about what is happening to the Palestinians?”

I said that it is a complex issue and both sides have valid claims to some areas, but I support the Jewish people having a state in Israel. I said that Palestinians should have better living condidtions, but do necessarily have a legitimate claim to all lands that they want us to leave.

She said that living conditions would be better if it were not for Israelis. I said living conditions would be better if it weren’t for Fatah, Hamas, and Yasser Arafat’s legacy. I was then told that the Jewish people never had a real right to Israel, and that Muslims had always been there.

I responded that Muslims first took Israel about 1300 years ago (aprox.), while the Jewish people had been there for over 3000 years. Muslims expelled and murdered Jews during the Muslim Crusades in the Middle East. I was then told that Muslims never had a crusade.

How could I have a reasonable discussion with someone who does not know her own religious history let alone the complexities of the modern conflict? If was baffeled that she, and I think she was being honest, had no knowledge of how her religion spread throughout the Middle East to become one of the largest religions in the world. People did not start following Islam simply due to diving intervention. Like early Judaism (in Canan) and Christianity, Islam was initially spread by the sword.

I thought this was an interesting memory, and wanted to share it with you. Here is a breif history of the beginning of Islam from The American Thinker.

630 Two years before Muhammad’s death of a fever, he launches the Tabuk Crusades, in which he led 30,000 jihadists against the Byzantine Christians. He had heard a report that a huge army had amassed to attack Arabia, but the report turned out to be a false rumor. The Byzantine army never materialized. He turned around and went home, but not before extracting ‘agreements’ from northern tribes. They could enjoy the ‘privilege’ of living under Islamic ‘protection’ (read: not be attacked by Islam), if they paid a tax (jizya).

This tax sets the stage for Muhammad’s and the later Caliphs’ policies. If the attacked city or region did not want to convert to Islam, then they paid a jizya tax. If they converted, then they paid a zakat tax. Either way, money flowed back to the Islamic treasury in Arabia or to the local Muslim governor.

632—634 Under the Caliphate of Abu Bakr the Muslim Crusaders reconquer and sometimes conquer for the first time the polytheists of Arabia. These Arab polytheists had to convert to Islam or die. They did not have the choice of remaining in their faith and paying a tax. Islam does not allow for religious freedom.

633 The Muslim Crusaders, led by Khalid al—Walid, a superior but bloodthirsty military commander, whom Muhammad nicknamed the Sword of Allah for his ferocity in battle (Tabari, 8:158 / 1616—17), conquer the city of Ullays along the Euphrates River (in today’s Iraq). Khalid captures and beheads so many that a nearby canal, into which the blood flowed, was called Blood Canal (Tabari 11:24 / 2034—35).

634 At the Battle of Yarmuk in Syria the Muslim Crusaders defeat the Byzantines. Today Osama bin Laden draws inspiration from the defeat, and especially from an anecdote about Khalid al—Walid. An unnamed Muslim remarks: ‘The Romans are so numerous and the Muslims so few.’ To this Khalid retorts: ‘How few are the Romans, and how many the Muslims! Armies become numerous only with victory and few only with defeat, not by the number of men. By God, I would love it . . . if the enemy were twice as many’ (Tabari, 11:94 / 2095). Osama bin Ladin quotes Khalid and says that his fighters love death more than we in the West love life. This philosophy of death probably comes from a verse like Sura 2:96. Muhammad assesses the Jews: ‘[Prophet], you are sure to find them [the Jews] clinging to life more eagerly than any other people, even polytheists’ (MAS Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an, Oxford UP, 2004; first insertion in brackets is Haleem’s; the second mine).

638 Muslim Crusaders conquer and annex Jerusalem, taking it from the Byzantines.

638—650 Muslim Crusaders conquer Iran, except along Caspian Sea.

639—642 Muslim Crusaders conquer Egypt.

641 Muslim Crusaders control Syria and Palestine (named for the Philistines by the Romans, after changing the name from Judea).

643—707 Muslim Crusaders conquer North Africa.