ePub Faith and Sword: A Short History of Christian-Muslim Conflict (Globalities) by Alan G. Jamieson in History

Review

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Islam shall be spread by the Sword; The Prophet MuhammedBy BertAn easy read; detailed history of the longest war in history; from before 700 AD until today. The spread of Islam was a movement based on teaching of the Prophet Muhammed. Incorrectly onsidered a great military leader he preached jihad; his massive hordes of male believers stormed north to Turkey and east to all of N Africa and captured Christian Spain by the mid 700 AD. The desert warriors fought often without even primitive weapons and sheer force of belief in jihad and promises of the Koran. Poorly trained; organized and equpped; millions reached most all of Spain; southern France; and areas including Sicilly. They overwhelmed with sheer force European defenders. They had no logistics; food or support and lived off the land. These mobs of followers it is reported often murdering their victims instantly without the offer of conversation to Islam;and took their women as their mates in a tribal form of relationship provided by their leaders. No organized Euopean resistance existed until around 1050 AD and after when leaders of Christian Europe commenced attacks in what is called "The Crusades". This book reveals the strategy used by Muhammed to require total discipline;and assurance of heaven only if warrior; in his jihad event; was killed fighting the infidel. Infidel being anyone other than a muslim. Reveling; shocking; to the point and rather brief; you are unlikely to receive these facts from your church; Bible study; or newspaper. A rather scary but frank look at the basic tactic of promsing uneducated masses something they could not receive on earth; unlimited women; rivers of wine and gold; in paradise; but only upon death in battle. Encouraging death; and creating multi wives for the religous leaders and survivors at home. But; enslaving the women and making them subject to strict laws and ownership by their father; or husband A Bit Shocking and unlike what you probably expect.9 of 13 people found the following review helpful. The Longest WarBy Donald J. KeckA brief; but comprehensive account of the thirteen hundred year conflict between Islam and the Christian civilizations of Byzantium and Western Europe. The book is only 222 pages in length. Yet it is amazingly inclusive. Nothing significant has been left out. At the same time the author's non-judgmental approach eschews the usual anti-western/anti-Christian; or anti Muslim; harangue.The Crusades; for example; are presented as just one episode in the millennia long see-saw struggle for control of the borderlands between the Islamic World and the West - a European push-back that came after four hundred years of Islamic Jihad and conquest of the Christian lands around the Mediterranean from the Levant to Spain and Portugal.This book serves no ones ideological or political agenda. It is an objective historical account of the perennial struggle for dominance between Dar al Islam and the Christian (later secular) West. It is primarily a study of conflict; rather than of peaceful intercourse; between two civilizations. (For that see: Zachary Karabell's PEACE BE UPON YOU.)Four centuries of Muslim expansion and Christian defeat were followed by a period of Christian recovery (during the era of the Crusades and the Reconquest of Sicily; Spain and Portugal); which was followed by four more centuries of Muslim advance under the Ottoman Turks. Finally; the tide of Islamic expansion was reversed by a secularized Europe remade and revitalized by the commercial; industrial; technological and military revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.What we are witnessing today is a renewed Jihad (Holy War) against a predominantly secular Western Civilization led by fanatic Islamists from some of the most remote and primitive reaches of the world; whose proclaimed objective is to topple the most economically and militarily powerful nations on earth.Can they succeed? Only if the west crumbles from within through a loss nerve; a collapse of will and self hatred. Only a loss of faith in its own historical achievements; culture; religious and political beliefs and institutions; and a loss of confidence in the rightness of its cause and the will to defend it; can bring Western Civilization down.It is well to remember; however; that once before (in the seventh and eighth centuries) a horde of backward desert tribesmen inspired by a fanatical faith in Allah overran and destroyed the vastly more advanced Roman Civilization lying around the littoral of the Mediterranean basin.