Page 73 - BV20

Islam’s Peace 73

into three pieces. Mecca was taken in 692 by Mus lim con quests in volv ing mul ti ple
Abd-al-Malik (who in 691 had built the Dome of mas sa cres of lit er ally mil lions con tin ued for
the Rock in Je ru sa lem to re place the Ka’aba). He more than 1,300 years. Un der the Abbasids
united Mus lims once again by force and Is lam the Is lamic em pire reached its ze nith of
con tin ued its con quests. power, pros per ity and learn ing.

In 712, Mus lim raid ers un der Mu ham - In Spain (to which Mus lims point as
mad Qasun be gan the in va sion of In dia, de mol - an ex am ple of their tol er ance) the gar ri son of
ish ing tem ples and pal aces and mas sa cring, as in Muez was slaugh tered in 920; Pamplona was
Con stan ti no ple, where the streets ran with put to the sword in 923; then Cordova,
blood. “The mas sa cres per pe trated by Mus lims Zaragoza and Mereda, with all adult males
in In dia are un par al leled in his tory, big ger in killed and women and chil dren en slaved. The
sheer num bers than the Ho lo caust....” Jews of Granada were butch ered in 1066, 34
(Trifkovic, Sword, 112). But Is lam is “peace!” years af ter 6,000 Jews had been slaugh tered
in Fez, Mo rocco. In 1146, Is lamic Fez was
The Umayyad ca liph ate ruled the Mus - put to the sword by ri val Mus lims, the
lim world un til 749 when all of the Umayyads Almohads, who con quered much of North
were mur dered by the ri val Abbasids, ex cept one Af rica af ter an ni hi lat ing the Almoravides
sur vi vor, abd-al-Rahman, who fled to Spain (an other Mus lim fac tion) with about 100,000
where he es tab lished an in de pend ent ca liph ate. mas sa cred, an other 120,000 killed in
Thus be gan the Abbasid ca liph ate, which lasted Marrakesh, and sim i lar slaugh ters else where
un til 1258 in spite of in trigue, as sas si na tions and -- all ges tures of “peace.”
up ris ings -- all peace ful, of course.
The 400-year rule of the Ot to man
The dou ble-cross and mur der of Mus - Turks saw forced kidnapings of young boys
lims at the hands of Mus lims con tin ues to this into Is lam and slav ery, caus ing par ents to mu -
day. Scarcely a Mus lim re gime is not ruled by a ti late chil dren to make them un de sir able. Un -
dic ta tor who seized power from other Mus lims, der the Ot to mans, be ing Greek, Ar me nian,
as in Syria and, re cently, Iraq. The ten-year rev o - Serb or any other non-Mus lim was to live in
lu tion in Al ge ria has cost 100,000 lives. In Af - daily fear of mur der, rape, tor ture, geno cide.
ghan i stan, ri val Mus lim war lords fight one To this day, Serbs and Bul gar i ans loathe
an other. “In fi dels” have to in ter vene there as in Turks and Bosnians.
the Gulf, to en force peace among “peace ful”
Mus lims. When Sul tan Murad III died, his son
Mu ham mad had all nine teen of his broth ers
Mus lims loyal to the mur dered Ali and mur dered and the seven of his fa ther’s con cu -
his sons are called Shi’ites (the ma jor ity in Iran). bines who were preg nant sewn into sacks and
The oth ers are called Sunnis and com prise the thrown into the sea. The suc ces sor of Murad
ma jor ity else where. These two fac tions have IV had all 300 women in his harem sewn into
long dem on strated that “Is lam is peace” by sacks and thrown into the Bosporus. Like so
fight ing one an other, as in the eight-year war be - many other Mus lim lead ers, he was mur dered
tween Iran and Iraq when more peo ple were -- peace fully.
killed than in World War I.
The per se cu tion of Jews in Ro man
Cath o lic Eu rope was mild com pared to what

The Berean Voice