The Myth of Muslim Barbarism and Its Aims

379 Pages·2007·12.75 MB·English

by  S. E. Al-Djazairi

This boob is dedicated to the memoy of all innocent vitims of
violence, regardless of faith or race.
This bool is also dedicated to the g people of all faiths and races
d
who ave fought for the santity of human life.
Acnowledgements
My warm gratitude goes to Mrs H. Abdel Haleem whose thorough
reading of the text and corections have contributed signiicantly to
the quality of this work. My thanks also go to C.M. Zaimeche or her
initial proof reading of the manuscript and her words of
encouragement. Mr L. Ball, inally, is to be thanked or his multiple
contributions.
Contents
Preface 10
INTRODUCTION 1
THE MANUFACTURE OF THE MUSLIM BEAST 12
1. Uninterrupted anti-Muslim Propaganda, Exaggerations, and
���� n
2. Westen Propaganda about Muslim Barbarism, and Realiy 29
3. Westen Academia and its Role in Forming the Image of Muslim
Barbarism 3 7
4. The Use of Images 47
Concluding Words - Westen Manufacture of an Image, and Muslim
Ineptness 54
THE DEPICTION OF MUSLIMS THROUGH THE AGES 58
1. In the Middle Ages 59
2. The 'Renaissance' 151h-'71h Centuries) 70
h
3. The 1' Centuy 78
h h
4. The 1' & 2d Centuries 85
WESTERN VIEWS OF THE TUKS 103
1. A Brief Histoy of Ottoman Turkey 104
2. The Turk as 'the Cruel Persecutor and Oppressor of Christians' 113
a. The l 51h -1 ih Century Period: 113
b. l81h-19th Century Depictions: 120
3. The Turk as 'the Enemy of Learning and Progress' 126
4. The Fa/lacy of Turkish Barbarism 131
THE MUSLIM AS 'CRUEL OPPRESSOR' 141
1. 'Muslim Intolerance' 142
a. Islam, Intolerance and Reutations: 143
b. 'Muslim Intolerance' and 'Westen Tolerance': Further
Evidence rom History: 146
c. The Situation Today: 155
2. Muslim 'Oppression of Women' 159
a. Unremiting Propaganda: 161
b. The 'Islamic Source of Barbarism and Westen Colonial
Enlightenment': 166
c. 'The Woes of Muslim Women Today': 172
d. Once More, the Contradiction Between hetoric and Reality: 175
CAPTIVES, SLAVES, AND RACISTS 182
1. The Muslim as the 'Cruel Captor of Christians' 183
a. Muslims under Christian Captivity: 185
b. Christians under the Captivity of Muslims: 192
2. The Muslim as 'the Pitiless Slave Trader' 202
a. Westen Propaganda about Muslim Slave Trading: 202
b. Fallacies Uncovered: Islam and Slavery: 211
b. Slavery Under Westen Cristendom: 214
3. The Muslim as 'a Racist' 221
A Comparative Look at Race under Islam and the Christian West: 223
a. Race under Islam: 224
b. Race under Westen Christendom: 227
THE DEPICTION OF THE MUSLIM AS AN INFERIOR 232
1. The Muslim as an 'Inept, Uncivilised Barbarian': The Problem 236
2. 'Muslim Inherent Inferioriy' 242
Suppressing Muslim Heritage fom Knowledge 249
3.
4. The Muslim as 'an Irrational, Unruly, Fanatic' 266
BARBARISM: CONFLICT BETWEEN RHETORIC AND REALITY 278
1. Islam as the Source of 'Barbarism' 282
2. Muslim Barbarism in Westen Rhetoric, and the Realiy of
Barbarism 290
3. Islamic Barbarism? 299
4. The Immoraliy of Manufacturing Barbarsm and Concealing
Genocides 308
THE AIMS BEHIND THE MYTH OF MUSLIM BARBARISM 316
1. Manufacturing Barbarism and its Uses: Some Instances 318
2. 'Muslim Barbarism' and Militay Invasions: Some Historical
Perspectives 324
a. The Crusades (1095-1291): 324
th 1h
b. Westen Colonisation (18 -19 centuries): 329
c. The Case of Iraq Today: 342
3. 'Muslim Barbarism': Its Countless Other Uses 344
Final Words on the uses of'Islamic Barbarism': Demonise and
Assault: 354
Conclusions 358
Select Bibliography
362
Index 369
Preface
Reasons or Writing this Book
History teaches us that no people who have been singled out or
demonization have avoided physical harm. This book will show plenty of
instances of how, once a community is demonized, painted as
threatening, barbaric, and inerior, the result has been its subjugation and
genocide.
Muslims and Islam have been at the receiving end of the most vitriolic
attacks and polemics known in history, and the consequences have been
dreadul. From the crusades, through to the colonial era, to our times, this
demonizing has always resulted in military invasions of Muslim lands
and mass slaying of Muslims. Today, painting the Muslims as the
inerior, threatening, and barbic oes could be used to justiy their mass
slaughter, just as happened in the past, as history has shown us.
Although genocides are always denounced, once removed rom attention
and once justiied on the round of the barbarism or ineriority of a
communiy, they happen again and again. The West was supposed to
have leant rom the mass persecution and killing of the Jews in the
1930s and 1940s but did not. Decades later, the mass rape and killings of
Muslims in Bosnia took place in the midst of 'civilised Europe,' on the
same grounds, ater they had been demonised and ater their mass killing
was justiied intellecually, while the West just stood by and watched.
There is today a substantial Muslim minority in the West. Times are also
rie with misunderstandings and mutual disrust. Maintaining the cycle of
demonizing Islam and Muslims might, under certain circumstances, lead
to a repeat of the same horiic experiences of the past that were sufered
by both Muslim and non-Muslim populations which were similarly
demonized. The outcomes of any outburst of anti-Islamic hysteria in the
West could have devastating efects or us all.
This book is written so as to begin a counter-demonizing campaign. This
campaign does not involve using the same debased means as those
Westen polemicists use against Islam. This would be wrong, and
Westen society, despite its deects, is a society of great accomplishments
and the vast majority of Westeners decent people, just as good and as
e
bad as Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Chinese, Aricans, and everybody else. If
Westen society bears deiciencies, and if Westen Cistendom is not
without aults, this is not or this author to judge or pontiicate upon. If
Westeners are not all good and perfect this is all too nomal or human
nature. This author is himself too aware of the evil mny Muslims, who
only bear the name of Muslim, are capable o, or inlict on others, or him
to take a naive stand and speak of the holy and sinless naure of Muslims.
The aim of this author is to counter the generalised rhetorical onslaught
on his aith and comunity not only because of the dangers this might
lead to, but also because, as a histoian and as an academic, it is his duty
to do so, however averse he is to taking such a stand, and however
uncommitted he is by nature.
he main ocus of this work is on the issue of the depiction of the
Muslims and their aith as barbaria/barbaric. hilst much of the rhetoric
daily portrays a barbaic side of Islam and Muslims, as this work shows
in every chapter, reality completely contadicts this.
This author will use all the power of his arguments and be as blunt as
necessay to make the points just stated. In this process, he shows that
histoy tells us that the most barbaric crimes are not the work of the
Muslims but of the Christian West, the latter having always used images
of others' barbarism to justiy its own. Whilst it is necessary to highlight
this point to make the argument, this author will avoid dwelling too long
on it as it might end in an anti-Westen ranting similar to that of the anti­
Islamic West. It is, indeed, one thing to deend one's realm, it is another
to indulge in rhetorical attacks on the other, just as it is one thing to
deend physically one's realm against an aacker, and toally another to
initiate a physical attack. Nothing, indeed, justiies rhetorical or physical
attacks on any one on a small eath, where rather than ighting, we can
and ought to live side by side in our diversity in peace and reater
prosperity. Hence this book.
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
'The Sword of Islam', 'The Islamic Threat,' 'The Roots of Muslim
Rage,' 'The Green Peil,' Islam's New Batle-Cry': in a veritable lood
of publications with these and similar titles, vaious authors seek to
explain Islam to us,' says Lueg, who adds:
1
'Simpliied and undiferentiated descriptions of Islam in the
media an the lames of vague ears of a supposed threat to
Westen culture, and create a hostile image of Islam.
For a long time the Islamic Middle East was seen as the polar
opposite of the West and the enemy of Christianity .... Hardly
anything on the Middle East, or on histoical clashes, or points
of contact between the East and the West, is leaned in
schools. Instead of knowledge or at least an unbiased
examination of Islamic societies, we have cliches and
stereotypes, which apparently make it easier to deal with the
phenomenon of Islam. The Westen image of Islam is
characterised by ideas of aggression and brutality, anaticism,
irationality, medieval backwardness and antipathy towards
2
women.'
3
'According to many Westen commentators,' Esposito writes, 'Islam
and the West are on a collision course. Islam is a tiple threat: political,
demographic, and socio-religious.' For some, the naure of the Islamic
threat is intensiied by the linkage of the political and the demographic.
Thus Patrick Buchanan could write that while the West inds itself
'Negotiating or hostages with Shiite radicals who hate and
detest us, . . . their Muslim brothers are populating Westen
countries. The Muslim threat is global in naure as Muslims in
1 A. Lueg: The Perception of Islam in Westen Debate; in The Next Threat; edited by J.
Hippler and A. Lueg; (Pluto Press; London; 1995); pp. 7-31; at p. 7.
2 Ibid.
3 J. Esposito: The Islamic Threat; Mh or Reality? (Oxord Universiy Press; 1992); p.
175.
1
The Myth of Muslim Barbarism -and its Aims
Europe, the Soviet Union, and America "prolierate and
4
prosper.'
Other observers, such as Charles rauthammer, in the midst of the
n­
ravelling of the Soviet Union, spoke of a global Islamic uprising, a
vision of Muslims in the heartland and on the periphery of the Muslim
world rising up in revolt: a 'new "arc of crisis"... another great
movement is going on as well, unnoticed but just as potentous: a
global intiada. '5
Hippler and Lueg note how:
'In almost all orms of the media, 'experts' seek to enlighten
us on the new dangers rom the East: holy wars, anatical
masses, the revenge of the Middle Ages on modenity and of
religion on the Enlightenment. Islam is sometimes a
'challenge', sometimes a threat. The conquest of Vienna by the
Turks is apparently once again imminent. With Khomeini,
Gaddai, Saddam Hussein, Araat and the Algerian
undamentalists, the anti-Westen wave is rolling on, at any
rate splashing across popular magazines and television screens.
The threat might be a spiritual one, an Oriental counter-model
to W estem civilisation; it might result in stopping the low of
oil, or in a cultural invasion by immigrants rom Turkey to the
Maghreb. It might lie in the Islamic atom bomb, in terrorism or
in a treatened Islamic undamentalist world revolution in the
Iranian mould. Simple minds might even see it as a battle of
Islam against Christianity, or against 'unbelievers.' In Europe
and the USA all these perceptions of threats exist, sometimes
side by side and at other times separately. Sometimes they
crop up suddenly and compete with each other, and at other
times they are systematized and compounded, all depending on
what is required or desired in a particular situation.
'6
To enhance this perception of Muslim threat and Muslim barbarism,
there are uninterrupted, highly publicised, arrests and dismantling of
'Islamist teror plots.' From one end of the West to the other, not a day
passes when we are not told, in the midst of the loudest media uproar,
4 P. J. Buchanan: Rising Islam may overwhelm the West; New Hampshire Sunday
News; August 20; 1989.
5 C. rauthammer: The New Crescent of Crisis: Global Intiada; Washington Post;
Februay 16; 1990.
6 J. Hippler and A. Lueg: Introduction; in The Next Threat; op cit; p. I.
2
Introduction
about Islamic teror networks being dismantled, and multiple arrests,
Islamic teror networks, seemingly, proving more powerful than
Westen states themselves. It matters little if these highly publicised
arrests in their near entirey end in releases and acquittals of those
arrested: still the constant arrests and discoveries of 'plots' have now
created the certainty that all Muslims in the West are guilty of barbaric
intentions. Following a recent (2006) dawn raid by crowds of British
police, and the arrests of two alleged Muslim 'terrorists' involved in a
'chemical' plot, to the remark by a jounalist that the wo arrested men
were law-abiding citizens, a member of the British govenment stated
7
that terrorists hide behind the law-abiding veneer. This helps people
conclude that being a law-abiding citizen would not protect a Muslim
rom being suspected of intending to inlict terible woes on Westen
society. In Canada, likewise, the arrest of seventeen alleged terrorists
resulted in mass hysteria, with all Muslims deemed a danger to
civilised society. 8
This Westen certainty that Islam and Muslims are a threat, and that if
any violence is committed it can only be by Muslims, and that the
Christians are only victims, is not new, but ollows a long-established
Westen tradition of bombardment of opinion with similar depictions.
Thus Vitkus writes:
'The demonisation of the Islamic East is a long and deeply­
rooted tradition in the West - spanning the centuries, rom the
1h
early medieval period to the end of the 20 century. It harks
back to ancient representation of Easten empires and invading
hordes that predate Islam, including the Assyrians and the
Persians of the Ancient World. The Classical and Biblical
stereotypes that were established in the collective
consciousness of the West were uther sharpened and
solidiied later by the historical experience of 'Holy War' that
began with the rise oflslam, continued during the period of the
cusades, and endured during the Spanish Reconquista and
Ottoman imperialism. In Westen Europe, a long histoy of
military aggression and cultural competition (taking place
primarily, but not entirely, in the Mediterranean Basin) seved
7 Inteview on Newsnight BBC2 2 June 06; seen by this author.
8 The Independent; 10 June 06; p. 35.
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