Front Page Magazine
Sept 25 2004
John Quincy Adams Knew Jihad
By Andrew G. Bostom
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 27, 2004
Professor John Lewis Gaddis’ recent provocative analysis of the
origins of `unilateralism’ in American foreign policy highlights the
pivotal role of John Quincy Adams. With candor and humility, Gaddis
further reveals that his own contemporary assessment, `…is not a new
interpretation. If you go back and read the famous Samuel Flagg
Bemis, the very distinguished Yale diplomatic historian from half a
century ago, Bemis was certainly making this argument about the
importance of John Quincy Adams.
But I think this has been lost somewhat in intervening years. So, to
an extent, I am trying to rediscover John Quincy Adams, in that
sense.’ Bemis extolled Adams’ seminal contribution to the formulation
of U.S. foreign policy:
`Adams grasped the essentials of American policy and the position of
the United States in the world more surely than any other man of his
time. He availed himself of matchless opportunities to advance the
continental future of his country and the fundamental principles for
which it stood in the world. Nothing is clearer than that the
fourteen fundamentals (above reviewed) remained the main tenets of
American foreign policy during the century following…we may surmise
that he and the fathers of American Independence as well, had they
lived to share the troublous times beyond the British Century in the
science-shrunken smallness of the globe, and to experience the
extraordinary vicissitudes, combinations, and wars of global politics
would have joined the diplomatic revolution rejecting Isolation, and
that he [Adams] would say, as he did say at the time of the Congress
of Panama: `I do not recollect any change in policy; but there has
been a great change in circumstances.’…Even if John Quincy Adams was
not to have another great career, as a crusader against the expansion
of slavery, this first and mighty achievement, of no less than
continental proportions, in laying the foundations of American
foreign policy, would have been great enough for one lifetime.’ 1
Bemis’ landmark 1949 review also included a vague footnote referring
to a work which I located formally in a comprehensive annotated
bibliography of John Quincy Adams’ writings, compiled by Lynn H.
Parsons 2:
`Unsigned essays dealing with the Russo-Turkish War, and on Greece,
written while JQA was in retirement, before his election to Congress
in 1830′ [Chapters X-XIV (pp. 267-402) in The American Annual
Register for 1827-28-29. New York, 1830.]
A brief contribution appeared in the Claremont Review in December,
2002, purporting to summarize the contents of John Quincy Adams’ 136
pages of analysis (although, curiously, never providing the citation,
above, for the original essays). Upon reading Adams’ full set of
essays, however, it is apparent that this rather uninformed,
sanitized Claremont Review piece missed the mark widely.
John Quincy Adams possessed a remarkably clear, uncompromised
understanding of the permanent Islamic institutions of jihad war and
dhimmitude. Regarding jihad, Adams states in his essay series,
`…he [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a
part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind…The precept of
the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the
prophet of God.’
Confirming Adams’ assessment, the late Muslim scholar, Professor
Majid Khadduri, wrote the following in his authoritative 1955
treatise on jihad, War and Peace in the Law of Islam :
`Thus the jihad may be regarded as Islam’s instrument for carrying
out its ultimate objective by turning all people into believers, if
not in the prophethood of Muhammad (as in the case of the dhimmis),
at least in the belief of God. The Prophet Muhammad is reported to
have declared `some of my people will continue to fight victoriously
for the sake of the truth until the last one of them will combat the
anti-Christ’. Until that moment is reached the jihad, in one form or
another will remain as a permanent obligation upon the entire Muslim
community. It follows that the existence of a dar al-harb is
ultimately outlawed under the Islamic jural order; that the dar
al-Islam permanently under jihad obligation until the dar al-harb is
reduced to non-existence; and that any community accepting certain
disabilities- must submit to Islamic rule and reside in the dar
al-Islam or be bound as clients to the Muslim community. The
universality of Islam, in its all embracing creed, is imposed on the
believers as a continuous process of warfare, psychological and
political if not strictly military.’3
And Adams captured the essential condition imposed upon the
non-Muslim dhimmi `tributaries’ subjugated by jihad, with this
laconic statement,
`The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute.’
Indeed, the famous Shafi’i jurist of Baghdad, al-Mawardi (d. 1058),
highlights the most salient aspect of the consensus view of classical
Islamic jurisprudence regarding the vanquished non-Muslims `tribute’,
i.e., the jizya: the critical connection between jihad and payment
of the jizya. He notes that `The enemy makes a payment in return for
peace and reconciliation.’ Al-Mawardi then distinguishes two cases:
(I) Payment is made immediately and is treated like booty, however
`it does, however, not prevent a jihad being carried out against them
in the future.’. (II). Payment is made yearly and will `constitute an
ongoing tribute by which their security is established.’
Reconciliation and security last as long as the payment is made. If
the payment ceases, then the jihad resumes. A treaty of
reconciliation may be renewable, but must not exceed 10 years.4 The
nature of such `protection’, i.e., a blood ransom, is reinforced in
this definition of jizya written by E.W. Lane, based on a careful
analysis of the etymology of the term:
`The tax that is taken from the free non-Muslim subjects of a Muslim
government whereby they ratify the compact that assures them
protection, as though it were compensation for not being slain’ 5
Adams’ staunch anti-imperialism, one of the `fourteen fundamentals’
of U.S. foreign policy which Samuel Flagg Bemis states, `…we may
connect with the name of John Quincy Adams more than with that of any
other man’ 6, is consistent with Old Man Eloquent’s support for the
struggle of the Greeks 7 to liberate themselves from the yoke of
centuries of dhimmitude, imposed by the imperialism of Ottoman jihad
8. At minimum, in light of the global war on jihad terrorism, John
Quincy Adams’ candid, timeless ruminations should be required reading
for all contemporary U.S. diplomats and politicians.
Key annotated excerpts from John Quincy Adams’ remarkable series of
essays, are provided below.
Adams on Jesus Christ and Christianity, Relative to Muhammad and
Islam
“And he [Jesus] declared, that the enjoyment of felicity in the world
hereafter, would be reward of the practice of benevolence here. His
whole law was resolvable into the precept of love; peace on earth –
good will toward man, was the early object of his mission; and the
authoritative demonstration of the immortality of man, was that,
which constituted the more than earthly tribute of glory to God in
the highest… The first conquest of the religion of Jesus, was over
the unsocial passions of his disciples. It elevated the standard of
the human character in the scale of existence…On the Christian system
of morals, man is an immortal spirit, confined for a short space of
time, in an earthly tabernacle. Kindness to his fellow mortals
embraces the whole compass of his duties upon earth, and the whole
promise of happiness to his spirit hereafter. THE ESSENCE OF THIS
DOCTRINE IS, TO EXALT THE SPIRITUAL OVER THE BRUTAL PART OF HIS
NATURE.” (Adam’s capital letters)….[pp. 267-268]
`In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of
the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, combining the
powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a
fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself
as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over
an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime
conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he
connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was
himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of
Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future
retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards
and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual
passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain,
by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of
polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as
a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE
OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE
SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE (Adam’s capital letters)….Between
these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of
twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet
flagrant…While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false
prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be
peace upon earth, and good will towards men.’ [p. 269]
Adams on Jihad War, Dhimmitude, and the Muslim View of Non-Muslims;
Examples of the Perfidy of Muslim States, Including the Ottoman
Turkish State
`As the essential principle of his faith is the subjugation of others
by the sword; it is only by force, that his false doctrines can be
dispelled, and his power annihilated.
They [The Russians] have been from time immemorial, in a state of
almost perpetual war with the Tatars, and with their successors, the
Ottoman conquerors of Constantinople. It were an idle waste of time
to trace the causes of each renewal of hostilities, during a
succession of several centuries. The precept of the Koran is,
perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of
God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of
tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive
promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may
submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to
propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it
can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed
alike, by fraud, or by force. Of Mahometan good faith, we have had
memorable examples ourselves. When our gallant [Stephen] Decatur ref
had chastised the pirate of Algiers, till he was ready to renounce
his claim of tribute from the United States, he signed a treaty to
that effect: but the treaty was drawn up in the Arabic language, as
well as in our own; and our negotiators, unacquainted with the
language of the Koran, signed the copies of the treaty, in both
languages, not imagining that there was any difference between them.
Within a year the Dey demands, under penalty of the renewal of the
war, an indemnity in money for the frigate taken by Decatur; our
Consul demands the foundation of this pretension; and the Arabic copy
of the treaty, signed by himself is produced, with an article
stipulating the indemnity, foisted into it, in direct opposition to
the treaty as it had been concluded. The arrival of Chauncey, with a
squadron before Algiers, silenced the fraudulent claim of the Dey,
and he signed a new treaty in which it was abandoned; but he
disdained to conceal his intentions; my power, said he, has been
wrested from my hands; draw ye the treaty at your pleasure, and I
will sign it; but beware of the moment, when I shall recover my
power, for with that moment, your treaty shall be waste paper. He
avowed what they always practised, and would without scruple have
practised himself. Such is the spirit, which governs the hearts of
men, to whom treachery and violence are taught as principles of
religion.’ [p. 274-275]
`Had it been possible for a sincere and honest peace to be maintained
between the Osmanli and his christian neighbors, then would have been
the time to establish it in good faith. But the treaty was no sooner
made than broken. It never was carried into effect by the Turkish
government.’ [p. 276]
`From the time when the disaster of Navarino ref had been made known
to him, the Reis Effendi [Ottoman diplomat assigned to Russia] had
assumed the tone of the aggrieved party, and made formal demands of
indemnity, and the punishment of the offending admirals. He still
manifested however, a solicitude to prevent the rupture of the
negotiations by the departure of the ambassadors…’ [p. 298]
`Upon the departure of the ambassadors, the Sultan, who must have
been, however, unwillingly preparing his mind for that event,
immediately determined upon two things; a war with Russia alone – and
a dallying attempt to protract the negotiation, and gain time of
preparation for the conflict.’ [p. 298]
[From the Ottoman Reis Effendi, to his Russian counterparts] `The
present friendly letter has been composed and sent, to acquaint your
excel – lency. with the circumstance; when you shall learn, on receipt
of it, that the Sublime Porte has at all times; no other desire or
wish than to preserve peace, and good understanding ; and that the
event in question has been brought about, entirely by the act of the
said minister, we hope that you will endeavor, do every occasion, to
fulfil the duties of friendship.’ But precisely at the time when this
mild, and candid, and gently expostulary epistle was despatched for
St. Petersburg, another state paper was issued, addressed by the
Sultan to his own subjects-this was the Hatti Sheriff of the 20th of
December, sent to the Pashas of all the provinces, calling on all the
faithful Mussulmen of the empire to come forth and ‘fight for their
religion, and their country, against the infidel despisers of the
Prophet. The comparison of these two documents with each other, will
afford the most perfect illustration of the Ottoman faith, as well as
of their temper towards Russia.
The Hatti Sheriff commenced with the following admirable com – mentary
upon the friendly profession, which introduced the letter to count
Nesselrode. `It is well known (said the Sultan) to almost every
person, that if the Mussulmen naturally hate the infidels, the
infidels, on then part, are the enemies of the Mussulmen : that
Russia, more espe – cially, bears a particular hatred to Islamism, and
that she is the principal enemy of the Sublime Porte.’
This appeal to the natural hatred of the Mussulmen towards the
infidels, is in just accordance with the precepts of the Koran. The
document does not attempt to disguise it, nor even pretend that the
enmity of those whom it styles the infidels, is any other than the
ne – cessary consequence of the hatred borne by the Mussulmen to
them – the paragraph itself, is a forcible example of the contrasted
character of the two religions. The funda – mental doctrine of the
christian religion, is the extirpation of hatred from the human
heart. It forbids the exercise of it, even towards enemies. There is
no denomina – tion of christians, which denies or misunderstands this
doctrine. All understand it alike – all acknow – ledge its obligations ;
and however imperfectly, in the purposes of Divine Providence, its
efficacy has been shown in the practice of christians, it has not
been wholly inoperative upon them. Its effect has been upon the
manners of nations. It has mitigated the horrors of war – it has
softened the features of slavery – it has humanized the intercourse
of social life. The unqualified acknowledgement of a duty does not,
indeed, suffice to insure its performance. Hatred is yet a passion,
but too powerful upon the hearts of christians. Yet they cannot
indulge it, except by the sacrifice of their principles, and the
conscious violation of their duties. No state paper from a Christian
hand, could, without trampling the precepts of its Lord and Master,
have commenced by an open proclamation of hatred to any portion of
the human race. The Ottoman lays it down as the foundation of his
discourse. [p. 299-300]
`The last appeal of the Sultan to the fanaticism of his people, and
to the protection of his prophet, has been vain. He told them, that
since the happy time of their great prophet, the faithful Mussulmen
had never taken into consideration the numbers of the infidels. He
reminded them, too truly reminded them, how often they had put
millions of Christians to the sword; how many states and provinces
they had thus conquered, sword in hand.’ 9 [p. 302]
`[More from the Ottoman Sultan’s pronouncement to his
subjects]…`all infidels are but one nation…This war must be
considered purely a religious and national war. Let all the
faithful, rich or poor, great or little, know, that to fight is a
duty with us; let them then refrain from thinking of arrears, or of
pay of any kind; far from such considerations, let us sacrifice our
property and our persons; let us execute zealously the duties which
the honor of Islamism imposes on us – let us unite our efforts, and
labor, body and soul, for the support of religion, until the day of
judgement. Mussulmen have no other means of working out salvation in
this world and the next.”
Those provinces are the abode of ten millions of human beings, two
thirds of whom are Christians, groaning under the intolerable
oppression of less than three millions of Turks. Those provinces are
in some of the fairest regions of the earth. They were Christian
countries, subdued during the conquering period of the Mahometan
imposture, by the ruthless scymetar of the Ottoman race; and under
their iron yoke, have been gradually dwindling in population, and
sinking into barbarism. The time of their redemption is at hand.’
[p. 303]
`With regard to the Hatti Sheriff of the 20th of December, summoning
the whole Ottoman nation to arms against Russia, the sultan now
thinks proper to say, that it was only a proclamation which the
Sublime Porte, for certain reasons, circulated in its states; an
internal transaction, of which the Sublime Porte alone knows the
motives, and that the language held by a government to its own
subjects cannot b a ground for another government to pick a quarrel
with it – especially, as the Grand Vizier had, immediately after the
departure of the Russian envoy, written a letter to the prime
minister of Russia, declaring the desire of the Sublime Porte till to
maintain peace. That if Russia had conceived suspicions, from the
Sultan’s address to his subjects, she might have applied amicably to
the Porte to ascertain the truth and clear up her doubts.’ [p. 311]
Remonstrating Against the Moral Equivalence of Britain and the
European Powers
`In the kings [British King, George IV] speech, at the opening of the
session of Parliament, on the 29th of January, he said that, `for
several years a contest had been carried on between the Ottoman
Porte, and the inhabitants of the Greek provinces and islands, which
had been marked on each side, by excesses revolting to humanity’.’
[p. 304]
`Still more extraordinary was it to the ears of Christendom to hear a
British king, in a speech to his parliament, style the execrable and
sanguinary head of the Ottoman race, his ancient ally; and denominate
a splendid victory, achieved under the command of a British admiral,
in the strict and faithful execution of his instructions, and
untoward event. But the last member of the paragraph from his
majesty’s speech, which we have quoted, to those accustomed to the
mystifications of royal speeches and diplomatic defiances, explained
these apparent disparates. He declares the great objects to which
all his efforts have been directed, and of which, while adhering to
his arrangements, he will never lose sight, are the termination of
the contest between the hostile parties; the permanent settlement of
their future relations to each other, and maintenance of the repose
of Europe, upon the basis on which it has rested since the last
general peace.’ [p. 305]
`And where is the protection to the commerce of his majesty’s
subjects! And where is the determination to launch all the thunders
of Britain at half a dozen skulking piratical cockboats, driven by
the desperation of famine to seek the subsistence of plunder,
assigned in the protocols, the treaty and the communications to the
Ottoman Porte, as the great objects of his majesty’s interference
between a legitimate sovereign and his revolted rayahs?…In all
these documents, issuing from the profound and magnanimous policy of
the British warrior statesman, nothing is more remarkable, than the
more than stoical apathy with which they regard the cause, for which
the Greeks are contending; the more than epicurean indifference with
which they witness the martyrdom of a whole people, perishing in the
recovery of their religion and liberty…The royal speech of January,
1828 indicates that in the protocol and in the treaty, the government
of George IV, had outwitted themselves, and were the dupes of their
own policy. It presents the singular spectacle of a sovereign,
wincing at the success of his own measures, and repining at the
triumph of his own arms. From that time the partialities of England
in favor of he ancient ally, have been little disguised; and the
disposition to take side with the Porte has only been controlled, by
the unwelcome necessity of adhering to the faith of treaties.’ [pp.
306-307]
`Far from being like the Hatti Sheriff of the 20th December, an
appeal to the Ottoman people, a bold and candid avowal of the
precepts of the Koran; it is an utter departure from them, and an
assumption, equally shameless and hypocritical, of argument on
Christian grounds.’ [pp. 308-309]
Justice of the Greek Revolution
`If ever insurrection was holy in the eyes of God, such was that of
the Greeks against their Mahometan oppressors. Yet for six long
years, they were suffered to be overwhelmed by the whole mass of the
Ottoman power; cheered only by the sympathies of all the civilized
world, but without a finger raised to sustain or relieve them by the
Christian governments of Europe; while the sword of extermination,
instinct with the spirit of the Koran, was passing in merciless
horror over the classical regions of Greece, the birth-place of
philosophy, of poetry, of eloquence, of all the arts that embellish,
and all the sciences that dignify the human character. The monarchs
of Austria, of France, and England, inflexibly persisted in seeing in
the Greeks, only revolted subjects against a lawful sovereign. The
ferocious Turk eagerly seized upon this absurd concession, and while
sweeping with his besom of destruction over the Grecian provinces,
answered every insinuation of interest in behalf of that suffering
people, by assertions of the unqualified rights of sovereignty, and
by triumphantly retorting upon the legitimates of Europe, the
consequences naturally flowing from their own perverted maxims.’ [p.
278]
`This pretended discovery of a plot between Russia and the Greeks, is
introduced, to preface an exulting reference to the unhallowed
butchery of the Greek Patriarch and Priests, on Easter day of 1822,
at Constantinople, and to the merciless desolation of Greece, which
it calls `doing justice by the sword’ to a great number of rebels of
the Morea, of Negropont, of Acarnania, Missolonghi, Athens, and other
parts 10 of the continent.The document acknowledges, that although
during several years, considerable forces, both naval and military,
had been sent against the Greeks, they had not succeeded in
suppressing the insurrection.’ [p. 301]
NOTES
1. Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of
American Foreign Policy, New York, 1949. pp. 571-572.
2. Parsons, Lynn H. John Quincy Adams- A Bibliography, Westport, CT,
1993, p. 41, entry # 194.
3. Khadduri, Majid. War and Peace in the Law of Islam, 1955,
Richmond, VA and London, England, pp. 63-64.
4. Al- Mawardi, The Laws of Islamic Governance [al-Ahkam
as-Sultaniyyah], London, United Kingdom, 1996, pp. 77-78.
5. E. W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London, 1865), Book I Part
II, Jizya, p. 422.
6. Bemis, S. F. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American
Foreign Policy, p. 570.
7. Ackowledging his earlier position of strict neutrality, while
Secretary of State, Pappas makes clear how as President (perhaps
under the influence of Lafayette), Adams came to support the Greek
cause (Pappas, Paul C. The United States and the Greek War for
Independence, 1821-1828, New York, 1985, pp. 125-126.):
`The case of the Greek frigates demonstrated once again America’s
benevolent neutrality toward Greece. Motivated no doubt by
philhellenic zeal, the United States government came to the Greek’s
rescue in violation of the nation’s law and the international laws of
neutrality. President Adams and members of the cabinet and of
Congress enthusiastically helped Contostavlos [the Greek national
seeking warships for his country] and cooperated in passing swiftly
and discreetly a bill authorizing the government to purchase one of
the Greek frigates. The American government also cooperated in
postponing the purchase of the frigate so that Contostavlos could
deal with the houses, which refused to compromise on their high
demands. And finally, when Contostavlos was ready to sail with the
frigate Hope to Greece, President Adams temporarily put aside
neutrality to allow an armed ship to sail out of New York with
American officers and sailors…’
8. Vacalopoulos describes how jihad imposed dhimmitude under Ottoman
rule provided critical motivation for the Greek Revolution
(Vacalopoulos, A.E. Background and Causes of the Greek Revolution,
Neo-Hellenika, Vol. 2, 1975, pp.54-55):
`The Revolution of 1821 is no more than the last great phase of the
resistance of the Greeks to Ottoman domination; it was a relentless,
undeclared war, which had begun already in the first years of
servitude. The brutality of an autocratic regime, which was
characterized by economic spoliation, intellectual decay and cultural
retrogression, was sure to provoke opposition. Restrictions of all
kinds, unlawful taxation, forced labor, persecutions, violence,
imprisonment, death, abductions of girls and boys and their
confinement to Turkish harems, and various deeds of wantonness and
lust, along with numerous less offensive excesses – all these were a
constant challenge to the instinct of survival and they defied every
sense of human decency. The Greeks bitterly resented all insults and
humiliations, and their anguish and frustration pushed them into the
arms of rebellion. There was no exaggeration in the statement made
by one of the beys if Arta, when he sought to explain the ferocity of
the struggle. He said: `We have wronged the rayas [dhimmis] (i.e.
our Christian subjects) and destroyed both their wealth and honor;
they became desperate and took up arms. This is just the beginning
and will finally lead to the destruction of our empire.’ The
sufferings of the Greeks under Ottoman rule were therefore the basic
cause of the insurrection; a psychological incentive was provided by
the very nature of the circumstances.’
9. Bat Ye’or summarized the impact of the first two centuries of Arab
Muslim conquests on indigenous Jews and Christians of the Middle
East, as follows (The Jerusalem Quarterly 1987; Vol. 42, Pp. 84-85):
`Muslim chroniclers described the ongoing jihad (holy war), involving
the destruction of whole towns, the massacre of large numbers of
their populations, the enslavement of women and children, and the
confiscation of vast regions. This picture of catastrophe and
destruction corresponds to the period of gradual erosion of
Palestinian Jewry. According to [the Muslim chronicler] Baladhuri (d.
892 C.E.), 40,000 Jews lived in Caesarea alone at the Arab conquest,
after which all trace of them is lost…”.
The six centuries between 640 and 1240 C.E., she further observes:
`. witnessed the total and definitive destruction of Judaism and
Christianity in the Hijaz (modern Saudi Arabia), and the decline of
once flourishing Christian and Jewish communities in Palestine
(particularly in Galilee for the Jews), Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia,
and Persia. In North Africa, the Christians had been virtually
eliminated by 1240 C.E., and the Jews decimated by Almohad
persecutions… notwithstanding some brighter intervals, these six
centuries witnessed a dramatic demographic reversal whereby the
Arab-Muslim minority developed into a dominant majority, resorting to
oppression in order to reduce the indigenous populations to tolerated
religious minorities…’
Professor H.Z. Hirschberg includes this summary of a contemporary
Judeo-Arabic account by Solomon Cohen (which comports with Arab
historian Ibn Baydhaq’s sequence of events), from January 1148 C.E,
describing the Muslim Almohad conquests in North Africa, and Spain
(Hirschberg, H.Z., The Jews of North Africa, Leiden, Vol. 1, 1974,
pp. 127-128):
`Abd al-Mumin…the leader of the Almohads after the death of Muhammad
Ibn Tumart the Mahdi [note: Ibn Tumart was a cleric whose writings
bear a striking resemblance to Khomeini’s rhetoric eight centuries
later] …captured Tlemcen [in the Maghreb] and killed all those who
were in it, including the Jews, except those who embraced Islam…All
the cities in the Almoravid [dynastic rulers of North Africa and
Spain prior to the Almohads] state were conquered by the Almohads.
One hundred thousand persons were killed in Fez on that occasion, and
120,000 in Marrakesh….Large areas between Seville and Tortosa [in
Spain] had likewise [emphasis added] fallen into Almohad hands.’
Speros Vryonis provides a contemporary Georgian chroniclers account
of the Seljuk jihad in Asia Minor and Georgia during the late 11th
and early 12th centuries (Vryonis, Speros Jr. `Nomadization and
Islamization in Asia Minor’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 29, 1975,
pp. 50-51):
`The process itself is described in its essential details by the
Georgian chronicle for northeast Asia Minor and the adjoining
Georgian regions. The process which it describes was not unique to
the northeast, for we see it in the west and the south of Asia Minor
as well..
`The emirs spread out, like locusts, over the face of the land…The
countries of Asis-Phorni, Clardjeth, up to the shores of the sea,
Chawcheth, Adchara, Samtzkhe, Karthli, Argoueth, Samokalako, and
Dchqondid were filled with Turks who pillaged and enslaved all the
inhabitants. In a single day they burned Kouthathis, Artanoudj, and
hermitages of Clardjeth, and they remained in these lands until the
first snows, devouring the land, massacring all those who had fled to
the forests to the rocks, to the caves…The calamities of Christianity
did not come to an end soon thereafter, for at the approach of
spring, the Turks returned to carry out the same ravages and left
[again] in the winter. The [inhabitants] however were unable to
plant or to harvest. The land, [thus] delivered to slavery, had only
animals of the forests and wild beasts for inhabitants. Karthli was
in the grip of intolerable calamities such as one cannot compare to a
single devastation or combination of evils of past times. The holy
churches served as stables for their horses, the sanctuaries of the
Lord served as repairs for the abominations [Islam]. Some of the
priests were immolated during the Holy communion itself, and others
were carried off into harsh slavery without regard to their old age.
The virgins were defiled, the youths circumcised, and the infants
taken away. The conflagration, extending its ravages, consumed all
the inhabited sites, the rivers, instead of water, flowed blood. I
shall apply the sad words of Jeremiah, which he applied so well to
such situations: `the honorable children of Zion, never put to the
rest by misfortunes, now voyaged as slaves on foreign roads. The
streets of Zion now wept because there was no one [left] to celebrate
the feasts. The tender mothers, in place of preparing with their
hands the nourishment of the sons, were themselves nourished from the
corpses of these dearly loved. Such and worse was the situation at
the time.’…
By the time [of the late 11th and early 12th centuries, i.e.
(1083-1125)]…the nomads had effected permanent settlement in these
regions, moving into the abandoned and devastated areas with their
tents, families, and flocks of livestock.’
A. E. Vacalopoulos summarized the devastating impact of five
centuries of Seljuk and Ottoman jihad campaigns in Asian Minor and
the Balkans (Vacalopoulos, A.E. Origins of the Greek Nation-The
Byzantine Period, 1204-1461, New Brunswick, N.J., 1970, pp. 61, 68;
72-73):
`At the beginning of the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks forced
their way into Armenia and there crushed the armies of several petty
Armenian states. No fewer than forty thousand souls fled before the
organized pillage of the Seljuk host to the western part of Asia
Minor. From the middle of the eleventh century, and especially after
the battle of Malazgirt [Manzikurt] (1071), the Seljuks spread
throughout the whole Asia Minor peninsula, leaving error, panic and
destruction in their wake. Byzantine, Turkish and other contemporary
sources are unanimous in their agreement on the extent of havoc
wrought an the protracted anguish of the local population…[The Greek
chronicler] Kydones described the fate of the Christian peoples of
Asia Minor thus:
`The entire region which sustained us, from the Hellespont eastwards
to the mountains of Armenia, has been snatched away. They [the
Turks] have razed cities, pillaged churches, opened graves, and
filled everything with blood and corpses…Alas, too, they have even
abused Christian bodies. And having taken away their entire wealth
they have now taken away their freedom, reducing them to the merest
shadows of slaves. And with such dregs of energy as remain in these
unfortunate people, they are forced to be the servitors of the Turk’s
personal comforts.’
`From the time the Ottoman Turks first set foot in Thrace under
Suleiman, son of Orchan, the Empire rapidly disintegrated….From the
very beginning of the Turkish onslaught under Suleiman, the Turks
tried to consolidate their position by the forcible imposition of
Islam. [The Ottoman historian] Sukrullah [maintained] those who
refused to accept the Moslem faith were slaughtered and their
families enslaved. `Where there were bells’, writes the same author,
`Suleiman broke them up and cast them onto fires. Where there are
churches he destroyed them or converted them into mosques. Thus, in
place of bells there were now muezzins. Wherever Christian infidels
were still found, vassalage was imposed upon their rulers. At least
in public they could no longer say `kyrie eleison’ but rather `There
is no God but Allah; and where once their prayers had been addressed
to Christ, they were now to `Mohammed, the prophet of Allah.’ ‘
E.G. Browne (A Literary History of Persia, Vol. III, 1928, p. 196)
describes the jihad depredations of Timur [Tamerlane] against the
Christian populations of Georgia and Asia Minor, at the outset of the
15th century (A Literary History of Persia, Vol. III, Cambridge,
1928, p. 196):
`The winter of A.D. 1399-1400 was spent by Timur in Qarabagh near the
Araxes, and ere spring had melted the snows he once more invaded
[Christian] Georgia, devastated the country, destroyed the churches
and monasteries, and slew great numbers of the inhabitants. In
August, 1400, he began his march into Asia Minor by way of Avnik,
Erzeroum, Erzinjan, and Sivas. The latter place offered stubborn
resistance, and when it finally capitulated Timur caused all the
Armenian and Christian soldiers to the number of four thousand to be
buried alive; but the Muhammadans he spared.’
10. John Cartwright, British Consul-General in Constantinople, filed
the following report from Constantinople May 25, 1822 (in, Argenti,
Philip. The Massacres of Chios, Described in Contemporary Diplomatic
Reports, London, 1932, pp. 39-40.)
`Scio [Chios], with the exception of twenty five of the Mastic
Villages, was a complete scene of desolation – the air corrupted by
the stench of dead bodies had produced an infectious disorder on
board the Turkish Fleet which was daily carrying off its’ victims.
The fate of the unhappy survivors in the Sciote tragedy is miserable
indeed – the females and children doomed to slavery from which there
will be but little chance of redemption, as all possible means are
taken to prevent the sale of them to Christians. The hostages who
were confined in the Castle of Scio as well as those who were here
have been put to death.’
Andrew G. Bostom, MD, MS is an Associate Professor of Medicine at
Brown University Medical School, and occasional contributor to
Frontpage Magazine. He is the editor of a forthcoming essay
collection entitled, “The Legacy of Jihad”.