islam

"W hat is now called 'the West' is actually the westernmost remnant of what was a much more extensive civilizational block that Islam permanently severed, thereby altering the course of 'Western' history." - Raymond Ibrahim The below article by Raymond Ibrahim presents a condensed synopsis of the core presentation of his new book, Sword and Scimitar, which I intend to review here as soon as possible.  When it comes to understanding the threat to Christianity and the West from Islam, having a long view of history is essential. This is Raymond Ibrahim's forté, tracing the inexorable continuity of Islamic history and its relentless imperative to wage jihad against the Christian world. In the words of Hilaire Belloc, whom Mr. Ibrahim cites below, we hear a dire warning from a serious observer of history: The whole spiritual strength of Islam is still present in the masses of Syria and Anatolia, of the East Asian mountains, of Arabia, Egypt and North Africa. T...

"If Christian minorities living under Islamic authority have little choice but to speak well of their 'coexistence' with Islam, why are Western leaders, politicians, and talking heads of all varieties—who are not under Islamic authority—also behaving like cowed dhimmis?" Raymond Ibrahim applies his penetrating insights into the historical continuity of Islamic persecution of Christians to the tragic case of the Coptic Pope Tawadros II's recent remarks. It should be noted that Orthodox Christian patriarchs and bishops subjugated under Muslim rule in the Islamic world have also made similar such statements, and some have even gone much further, to the borders (and beyond?) of outright blasphemy, heresy, and apostasy: His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has written of a “dialogue of loving truth” with Islam, and of Orthodoxy having for centuries “coexisted peacefully” with Islam, and projects the chimera of an “interfaith commitment.....