The Key Problems and Supporting Scholarship

The article promotes the flawed version of history that is exactly what Osama bin Laden wants to hear preached alongside a movie about September 11th.

The inaccurate view that the Crusades were unprovoked Christian European imperialism ignores the previous four centuries of Muslim expansion at the expense of the Christian Middle East, North Africa, Mediterranean islands, and Iberia . These regions included modern-day Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Spain, and Portugal. Jerusalem fell in 638 A.D. and Cyprus in 647, and Islamic forces crossed over from North Africa into Spain in 711. Muslim forces also invaded modern-day France, but were defeated by Charles Martel in 732. Click here for a map of the Islamic caliphate.

The point here is not to paint one side as the hero and one as the villain, but to recognize that the Islamic and Western worlds have historically more often been in conflict than at peace. The relative calm that marked the 19th- and 20th-centuries was the exception, not the rule.

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Alfred J. Andrea, “Christendom and the Umma,” in Crusades: The Illustrated History, edited by Thomas F. Madden (University of Michigan Press , 2004):

“Islam's second caliph, Umar (634-644), launched raids against unbelievers outside the peninsula that soon turned into wars of conquest. Byzantium and Sassanian Persia , exhausted after more than a century of wars and suffering bitter internal divisions, were unprepared for the onslaught. Before Umar's death in 644, the Byzantines had lost Syria-Palestine and Egypt —Christianity's most ancient and sacred lands—to Islam, and the Arab conquest of the Sassanian empire (essentially present-day Iraq and Iran ) was almost complete.” – p. 19

“By 751, when Islamic forces defeated a Chinese army at the Talas river (in present-day Kazakhstan ), lands under Islamic domination stretched from Spain in the west to present-day Pakistan and Central Asia . The Byzantine empire was a truncated version of its former self, having lost Syria-Palestine , Egypt , and North Africa to Islam.” – p. 20

Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (Oxford University Press, 1993):

“For almost a thousand years, from the first Moorish landing in Spain to the second Turkish siege of Vienna , Europe was under constant threat from Islam. In the early centuries it was a double threat—not only of invasion and conquest, but also of conversion and assimilation.” – p. 13

2. The article is replete with factual errors; clearly, neither a history book nor a timeline were consulted.

Constantinople was not retaken by the Ottoman Empire in 1389. It had never been a Muslim city until its fall in 1453.

The Ottomans did not win decisively at the battle of Vienna in 1683. In fact, they were decisively defeated for the second time (they had previously failed in 1529).

After 1683, the Ottoman Empire and Europe were not “two equally powerful sides,” nor was there “a widening gulf” between them. The 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz, marking their defeat in Austria , was the beginning of their decline. Soon, they would become known as “the sick man of Europe” and an ally of the West against Russia . Click here for a map of the Ottoman Empire.

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Jonathan Harris, “The Last Crusades: The Ottoman Threat,” in Crusades: The Illustrated History, edited by Thomas F. Madden (University of Michigan Press , 2004):

“By the treaty of Karlowitz of January 1699, the sultan was compelled for the first time to yield large tracts of territory, ceding most of Hungary to Austria and giving up other areas to Poland , Venice , and Russia . As the eighteenth century progressed, it became clear that there was no longer any likelihood of the sultan marching into Rome at the head of his troops. The Ottoman empire now entered on its long period of decline which was to end in its formal dissolution in 1923.” – p. 198

Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror (Random House, 2002):

“For Islamic civilization as a whole, the modern period brought decline and humiliation. This history has been much recounted: after the defeat of the Ottomans at the gates of Vienna in 1683, the territory belonging to Islam was slowly eroded. European power galloped ahead during the industrial revolution, and an inversion resulted: centuries in which Baghdad , Cairo , and Muslim Spain were the preeminent centers of learning and culture ended, and the European ascendancy began. In the late eighteenth and nineteeth centures, Britain and France extended their empires deep into the heartland of Islam, and Ottoman Turkey became ‘the sick man of Europe ,' a great power in decay.” - p. 54

Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (Oxford University Press, 1993):

“After the withdrawal from Vienna and the military and political defeats that followed it, the new relationship became clear to both sides. Europe still had a Turkish problem, because Turkey remained an important factor in the European balance of power, but it was not the problem of Turkish weakness, not of Turkish strength. And Islam, which had long ceased to be regarded by the Christian churches as a serious religious adversary, now ceased to be even a serious military threat.” – p. 19

“In diplomatic relations as in so much else, the retreat from Vienna marked the beginning of a new era. For the first time in their long history, the Ottomans were faced with the need to negotiate a peace treaty, and to do so from a position of weakness, as the defeated party in a long and exhausting war.” – p. 33

3. The article misrepresents the nature of jihad.

While it is true that jihad has many different and mostly peaceful meanings in the Islamic world, it is also a fact that jihad as holy war has been an important mainstream concept since the founding of Islam.

---Supporting scholarship

David Cook, Understand Jihad (University of California Press, 2005):

“Perhaps because early Muslim history is heavily emphasized in the Islamic educational curriculum, those who write in Arabic or other Muslim majority languages realize that it is pointless to present jihad as anything other than militant warfare.” – p. 43

Alfred J. Andrea, “Christendom and the Umma,” in Crusades: The Illustrated History, edited by Thomas F. Madden (University of Michigan Press , 2004):

“Islam has also prosecuted holy wars, or jihads , a term often misunderstood simply as a bloody war against non-believers. But in fact jihad means ‘striving' and there are various forms of spiritual jihad as well as ‘ jihad of the sword.' One hadith (story) relates that after a victorious military campaign Muhammad told his followers: ‘We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad .' That ‘greater jihad ' is a moral struggle against evil. In this sense, all true Muslims are mujahidin , holy warriors, in a lifelong struggle to follow the way of God by practicing the Five Pillars and fighting their lower selves. This in no way negates the fact that the Prophet and his followers were warriors who engaged in pitched battles with their enemies. Almost from the beginning, Islam has accepted that holy war in defense of the true faith is an obligation on all able-bodied men. What is more, those who die in defense of Islam are martyrs and assured of Paradise .” – p. 27

Bernard Lewis, The C risis of Islam (Modern Library, 2003):

“For most of the fourteen centuries of recorded Muslim history, jihad was most commonly interpreted to mean armed struggle for the defense or advancement of Muslim power. In Muslim tradition, the world is divided into two houses: the House of Islam ( Dar al-Islam ), in which Muslim governments rule and Muslim law prevails, and the House of War ( Dar al-Harb ), the rest of the world, still inhabited and, more importantly, ruled by infidels. The presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule. Those who fight in the jihad qualify for rewards in both worlds—booty in this one, paradise in the next.” – pp. 31-32

“For most of the recorded history of Islam, from the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad onward, the word jihad was used in a primarily military sense.” – p. 33

“Jihad is present from the beginning of Islamic history—in scripture, in the life of the Prophet, and in the actions of his companions and immediate successors. It has continued throughout Islamic history and retains its appeal to the present day.” – p. 37

Robert Irwin, “Islam and the Crusades,” in The Oxford History of the Crusades , edited by Jonathan Riley-Smith (Oxford University Press, 1999):

“Jihad, which is commonly translated as ‘holy war', literally means ‘striving'; that is striving to advance Islam. According to traditional Sunni Muslim doctrine, leadership of the holy war to extend the territories of Islam was vested in the caliph. In the eighth and ninth centuries it had been one of the duties of the Abbasid caliph to direct the jihad. Harun al-Rashid, for example, led his troops against the Byzantines every other year; in the alternate years he led the hajj , or pilgrimage to Mecca . Jihads were also launched in the eastern lands against the pagan Turks in Transoxania and central Asia as well as against idolatrous Hindus in northern India . Volunteers for these and other holy wars were known as ghazis . They fought in the expectation of booty and, if they fell in the course of campaigning, they were assured of the status of martyrs.” – p. 222

4. The article does not explain why al Qaeda attacked us.

As a follower of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam and adherent to Wahhabism (the fundamentalist sect of Islam prevalent in Saudi Arabia and preached in Islamic schools around the world), Osama bin Laden seeks the establishment of a pan-Islamic caliphate (or empire) stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean . Al Qaeda's ideology unites disparate regional terrorist groups, who seek the overthrow of their own governments, under a global umbrella. Bin Laden and those like him believe they are engaged in a defensive jihad. Terrorist attacks in Britain , Spain , Turkey , Egypt , Morocco , Saudi Arabia , Jordan , Pakistan , India , Indonesia , the Philippines , Thailand , and elsewhere, alongside foiled plots in Australia , Singapore , Italy , Germany , and France , demonstrate that the United States is not their only target. President Bush was exactly right when, in the aftermath of September 11 th , he told the American people, “They stand against us, because we stand in their way.”

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James Dobbins, “ America Needs to Pick Its Fights Carefully,” International Herald Tribune (May 2, 2006):

“While not centrally controlled, the constituent elements of this new global insurgency are thought to share a common methodology (terrorism), a common inspiration (jihad or holy war), and a common objective (the unification of all Muslims under the religiously directed governance of a new Caliphate).”

Jason Burke, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror (I.B. Tauris, 2003):

“In the ‘cosmic struggle' between the forces of good and evil, jihad is seen as largely defensive. A sense of last-ditch defence is a common theme in the writings of bin Laden and other Islamic militants. It is not sophistry but a manifestation of a genuine sense that they are warriors engaged in a desperate struggle for survival against an aggressive and powerful enemy intent on humiliating, weakening and eventually destroying them.” - p. 32

Walter Laqueur, No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003):

“As he [Azzam] saw it, the liberation of Afghanistan was not the aim but just the first step in the coming jihad. The real aim was to restore to Muslim rule all the territories that had once been theirs, from Southern Spain to the Philippines , Central Asia, India , parts of Europe and Africa . He believed in something that could be defined as a Muslim Brezhnev doctrine – if the Soviet leader had stated that every country that had become Communist at one time was to remain Communist forever, Azzam argued that all countries that had been occupied by Muslims at one time or another were to be restored to Allah's fold. But why only Spain ; why not France, the rest of Europe, America , and Asia ? Azzam believed that jihad should continue until Allah alone is worshipped by all mankind. If the Communists had believed in the final and total victory of world revolution, Azzam believed in the final (and near) victory of Islam.” – p. 51

“The rule of Islam, peace and general well-being, could be established only by means of jihad, of holy war. The crimes of the West, the exploitation and the massacres committed by colonial rule, had to be avenged. But even if there would have been no colonial heritage, the West would still be the main obstacle on the road to the global victory of Islam – Western demoralizing cultural influences as much as Western economic predominance.” - p. 55

Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (Columbia University Press, 2002):

"To instrumentalise his group's pan-Islamic ideology, Osama despatched thousands of Al Qaeda and other terrorist 'graduates' to join Islamist groups worldwide, the introduction of these alumni boosting the wider terrorist agenda. These fighters are devout Muslims inspired by Islamic scholars and willing to sacrifice their lives in the name of Islam. Hence the international system has witnessed a marked increase in the number of Islamist groups engaged in suicide operations (originally pioneered by Hezbollah in the 1980s) and Islamic movements emphasising 'martyrdom', especially in Kashmir and Chechnya." - p. 92

Peter Bergen, Holy War, Inc. (The Free Press, 2001):

“Bin Laden articulates an all-encompassing worldview with a much wider appeal than simple hatred of Israel . Of course, he is opposed to Israel, but he also calls for the end of U.S. military actions against Iraq; demands the creation of a ‘Muslim' nuclear weapon; claims it is a religious obligation to attack American military and civilian targets worldwide because of the continued presence of U.S. troops in the Gulf; criticizes the governments of countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia for not instituting what he sees as true Islamic law; and supports a multitude of holy wars around the globe.” – p. 37

“For Azzam the jihad in Afghanistan was an obligation for every Muslim, as he explained in a widely distributed pamphlet entitled ‘Defending Muslim Territory Is the Most Important Duty.' And it was not simply from Afghanistan that the infidels had to be expelled. Azzam wrote: ‘This duty will not end with victory in Afghanistan; jihad will remain an individual obligation until all other lands were Muslim are returned to us so that Islam will reign again: before us lie Palestine, Bokhara, Lebanon, Chad, Eritrea, Somalia, the Philippines, Burma, Southern Yemen, Tashkent and Andalusia [southern Spain].” – p. 53

5. The article is a disservice to those whose memory we should honor and to those serving on the frontlines in a global war we did not instigate. We need clarity at home if we are to win.