> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://otherwise.ghost.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# A Millennium of Conflict
- URL: https://otherwise.ghost.io/a-millennium-of-conflict/
- Published: 2025-07-26T12:18:29.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-17T13:44:00.000Z
- Description: Book review of Sword and Scimitar
- Author: Khaled Salih
- Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1792244264359, #Import 2026-10-17 14:38

*By Khaled Salih*

> **Khaled Mash‘al (Hamas Leader),** [October 31, 2023](https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-their-own-words-october-7-attack?ref=otherwise.ghost.io):  
>  
> “October 7 paved a wide highway towards the removal of Israel, towards liberation, and towards saving Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque.”

> **Fathi Hamad (Hamas Official),** [December 1, 2023](https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-their-own-words-october-7-attack?ref=otherwise.ghost.io):  
>  
> “The \[Palestinian\] people are preparing to establish the Caliphate, with Jerusalem as its capital city, inshallah.”

**Unpacking a Millennium of Conflict: Re-reading *Sword and Scimitar***

[Subscribe](#/portal/signup)

It is never late to re-read this book.

Let us delve into the veiled layers of history, long shrouded in ambiguity and neglect. Today, I’m taking a closer look at Raymond Ibrahim’s provocative work, *Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West*. This book offers a distinct, military-focused lens on a profound, continuous conflict, aiming to reveal its long-term implications and underlying motivations. Ibrahim’s approach is unique: he meticulously examines early Arabic texts not to ascertain what “actually happened,” but to understand “what Muslims believe happened,” making a crucial distinction in his historical analysis. He also intentionally uses original transliterations, such as *allah* and *jihad*, to preserve their authentic context.

The central revelation articulated in Ibrahim’s book, drawing on historian Bernard Lewis, is truly striking: for roughly a millennium—from the rise of Islam in the 7th century until the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683—Christian Europe existed under a “constant threat of conquest and conversion.” A critical insight here is that many new Muslim domains, including Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, and Sicily, were previously Christian territories, fostering a deep and enduring sense of loss and fear across Europe. Ibrahim argues that modern historical narratives frequently “gloss over this macrocosmic significance,” often focusing on specific events like the Crusades or European colonialism, and sometimes framing Europe as the initiator of hostilities. He points out that terms like Arab or Moorish or Ottoman invasions are common, but Islamic invasions are rare, despite rich historical material explicitly stating that jihad was the “common impetus” driving diverse peoples to assault the West.

**Key Concepts Illuminated by Ibrahim**

To fully grasp Ibrahim’s perspective, understanding several core concepts is essential:

- **The Asymmetry of Forbearance**: Ibrahim introduces this concept to argue that over these centuries, there was less of a “Sermon on the Mount tolerance” (turning the other cheek) inherent in Islamic fundamentalism compared to its Christian counterpart. This translated into a “greater emphasis on expansion” and “more aggressive expansion”. This wasn’t merely a philosophical difference; it had profound implications for how battles were fought and, crucially, how conquered populations were treated.
- **Jihad**: Described as the “noblest endeavor” and a “win-win raid,” *jihad* offers rewards both on earth and in the hereafter, making it “essentially risk-free” and fostering a profound sense of fanaticism. A powerful quote attributed to Muhammad highlights this mindset: “Lining up for battle in the path of *allah* is worthier than 60 years of worship.” Ibrahim further details how sword verses (Quran 9.29 and 9.5) are understood by mainstream Islamic jurisprudence to have “abrogated or overwritten 124 verses that call for peace and tolerance,” thereby providing immense theological justification for continuous expansion.
- **The Three Choices**: Populations living in the path of Islamic expansion were offered three fundamental choices: “Convert to Islam, die fighting, or” pay *jizya* and accept *dhimmi* status.
- *Jizya* is not merely tribute; its root meaning is “to repay or recompense,” specifically “recompense for lives that were considered otherwise forfeit.”
- *Dhimmi* Status, derived from a root meaning “to find fault in or affix blame to,” brought with it a “whole host of discriminatory conditions” clearly laid out in documents like the “Conditions of Omar.”
- *Taqiyya*: This Quran-based doctrine allows Muslims living under “infidel authority to feign friendship and loyalty” outwardly, “as long as... enmity is not extinguished from the heart”. This doctrine creates a framework where “outward appearances can be very different from internal intentions,” fostering “strategic patience” and “dissimulation” in long-term political maneuvering.

**The Battlefield and its Echoes: Key Conflicts and Their Legacy**

The book then takes us directly to the visceral realities of these conflicts, starting with the very first decisive clashes:

- **The Battle of Yarmuk** (636 AD): This pivotal six-day battle in Roman Syria, then profoundly Christian, saw the forces of Islam decisively defeat the Byzantines. Khalid bin Walid, known as **the sword of *allah***, famously boasted, “We the Arabs are drinkers of blood and we know there is no blood more tasty than that of the Greeks,” setting a brutal tone. The Romans, already internally divided by theological splits, were further hampered by a chain formation that made them vulnerable, and an unexpected dust storm that favored the Arabs. The battle culminated in a devastating Arab night attack and the “total annihilation of the Roman army,” fueled by the Muslim belief in celestial women beckoning dying *jihadis*, which “framed death in battle as a gain.”
- **The Conquest of Egypt** (639-621 AD): Following Yarmuk, Egypt, a land with a deep Christian history, fell. The siege of Alexandria was harrowing, concluding with a “bloodbath,” the burning of churches (including the ancient church founded by St. Mark), and the controversial account of the burning of **the Great Library of Alexandria**. Ibrahim suggests that regardless of its exact historicity, the library’s burning came to symbolize for Muslims how infidel books should be treated. Accounts from Coptic Chronicles detail centuries of ruin, massacres, violation of nuns, and forced conversions, painting a stark contrast to later Muslim histories that suggest initial leniency.
- ***Jihad* Reaches Europe**: Spain (711 AD): Muslim forces, enticed by promises of spoils and **Grecian maidens**, established a savage kingdom in Christian Spain. Interestingly, Ibrahim highlights significant internal Muslim conflicts during this period, noting that many early Muslim heroes, like Khalid bin Walid and Tariq, met ignominious ends at the behest of their own caliphs, rather than dying fighting infidels.
- **The Battle of Tours** (732 AD): As Muslim forces pushed into Francia (modern-day France), Abdul Rahman’s campaign was described as a “desolating storm,” destroying churches and taking captives without number. The Franks, led by Charles Martel, held a strategic advantage of high ground and wooded terrain, while the Muslim army was hampered by overwhelmed with booty, making them less unified. The decisive Frankish victory at Tours was immensely significant, effectively confining Islam to the Iberian Peninsula for centuries and allowing Western Europe crucial space to develop organically. Ibrahim points out the conspicuous silence of many Muslim historians about Tours, who often omit or dismiss the battle, unwilling to celebrate their enemies’ triumphs.
- **The Rise of the Seljuk Turks and Manzikert** (1071 AD): After Byzantine counter-offensives aimed at destroying Islam, a new force, the Seljuk Turks, emerged, their zealous conversion to Islam “dramatically rekindling the spirit of *jihad*.” Their ambition led to utter devastation, particularly in Armenia, marked by mass slaughter, burning churches, and priests burned alive. This set the stage for the Battle of Manzikert, a hugely important event where the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan defeated a declining Byzantine army plagued by internal treachery. The capture of Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes, the first Roman emperor taken prisoner in over a thousand years, was a huge blow. The Sultan’s treatment of Romanus was deeply humiliating, forcing him to kiss the ground before literally stepping on his neck. While some Western historians portray Alp Arslan’s decision to release Romanus as magnanimity, Ibrahim’s cited Muslim accounts frame it as an act of “supremacist power,” a “calculated advantage” fully in line with *sharia* law. Manzikert became the “divine green light” for the “real Turkification and Islamification of Anatolia,” echoing Yarmuk’s foundational significance for the Arabs centuries earlier.
- **The Crusades Re-examined**: Ibrahim directly challenges the common narrative that negative Western views of Islam originated with the Crusades. He argues that Christian views were negative right from the start, rooted in critiques of Muhammad’s perceived “sexual license and use of force” from the 7th century. Pope Urban II’ s call to arms in 1095 at Claremont, often seen as the genesis of the Crusades, is presented not as a sudden invention but as a response to “news of great persecution” that had been steadily reaching the West for some time, including widespread torture, pillaging, and the imposition of the *jizya* pole tax. The Crusades, in this interpretation, were framed as a response to a perceived “century of escalating persecution and existential threat.” For individual crusaders, motivations were complex, combining “muscular notions of love” for Christ with the “pursuit of sin remission,” effectively reframing their military prowess to “the service of Christ.”
- **The Siege of Antioch** (1097-98): This critical early campaign was marked by brutality on both sides, with Crusader leaders like Bohemond using tactics like decapitating Muslim prisoners and catapulting their heads, which European chroniclers noted was “the custom of the Gentiles” (Muslims). Despite immense suffering from starvation, the Crusaders achieved a “near miraculous victory” after being besieged themselves, with disciplined Frankish infantry panicking the Muslim cavalry.
- **The Capture of Jerusalem** (1099): The ultimate goal, Jerusalem, fell after intense religious preparation by the Crusaders, leading to a “brutal massacre of the Muslim inhabitants, including women, children, the elderly.”
- **Saladin**: In the West, Saladin is often celebrated as a chivalrous knight, but Ibrahim highlights how Muslim biographers primarily depict him as a “pious leader driven fundamentally by religious zeal and the obligation of *jihad*.” His “tactical masterpiece” at the **Battle of Hattin** (1187) lured the Crusader army into a waterless area, resulting in a “complete rout” and the devastating symbolic loss of the True Cross. Saladin’s subsequent capture of Jerusalem saw the immediate reestablishment of *sharia* law, pillaging of churches, and the city’s ritual cleansing from “the pollution of those races.”
- **The Ottoman Turks**: A New Chapter of *jihad*: Rising from Anatolia, the Ottomans were “utterly devoted to frontier warfare which they called Gaza,” intertwining plunder, expansion, glory, and religion. A disturbing aspect of their rise was the **Devshirme** system, or “blood tribute,” which involved the “systematic abduction of young Christian boys from conquered territories,” forcefully converting them to Islam, and subjecting them to brutal training to become the Sultan’s elite Janissaries. Ibrahim notes the irony of some modern academics portraying this forced conversion and *jihadi* indoctrination as a “prestigious education.” Ottoman ambition was immense, with Sultan Bayezid reportedly aiming to “feed his horse oats on the altar of St. Peter’s in Rome.” While suffering setbacks like Bayezid’s own capture and humiliation by Timur, the Ottomans also engaged in “massive enslavement in Europe,” so vast that the claims the word “slave” in many European languages originates from “Slav” due to the enslavement of Slavic peoples. The Turkish word “kiz” (girl/slave girl) came to mean “Christian woman” in Islamic usage, equating Christian women with sexual slavery.
- **The Fall of Constantinople** (1453): This was the “ultimate prize,” the focus of *jihad* for so long. Sultan Muhammad II, Memed the Conqueror, was described as the mortal enemy of the Christians, ruthless and a master of “dissimulation and deceit.” He was “absolutely obsessed” with taking the city, blockading it with a massive fortress and beheading envoys who dared to remind him of peace treaties. The vastly outnumbered defenders, despite incredible heroism, faced overwhelming odds. The contrast between the desperate prayers in the Christian camp and the fervent *jihad* prayers and promises of paradise in the Muslim camp was stark. On May 29, 1453, the final assault was “sheer pandemonium,” ending with the death of Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos and the final end of the Roman state after over 2,200 years. What followed was the “dénouement of *jihad*”: an immediate massacre of the vulnerable, widespread rape, sexual degradation, and mass enslavement, with accounts of Christian women choosing to drown rather than fall into Turkish hands. The defiance of Grand Duke Lucas Notaras, who refused to give his son to Muhammad II for sexual gratification and watched his sons die bravely before his own execution, stands as a particularly tragic example of resistance against tyranny.
- **Constantinople’s Enduring Legacy**: While its fall was catastrophic, its long stand from the 7th to the 15th century was “absolutely pivotal,” absorbing much of the “initial shock and continued pressure of *jihad*,” thereby giving Western Europe “crucial centuries” to mature and strengthen. As John Julius Norwich put it, “Had the Saracens captured Constantinople in the 7th century rather than the 15th, all Europe and America might be Muslim today.”
- **The Tide Turns (Finally)**: After Constantinople’s fall, the tide began to turn, particularly in two key areas. The centuries-long Reconquista in Spain culminated with the fall of Granada in 1492, which Ferdinand and Isabella partly saw as “fitting revenge for the fall of Constantinople.” In the East, Russia threw off the Tatar yoke (c. 1480), framing it as a battle “to save Christianity from marauding infidels.”
- **The Last Great Assault: The Siege of Vienna** (1683): Despite these shifts, the Ottoman threat to central Europe wasn’t over. Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa explicitly aimed to capture Vienna, then “march on Rome and stable his horses in St. Peter's Basilica.” Vienna, seen as the **bulwark** of Christendom, refused to surrender, knowing the fate of nearby towns that had been sacked despite promises of safety. Relief arrived in the form of a Holy League army led by Polish King Jan Sobieski and his “legendary winged Hussars,” who famously declared, “It is not a city alone that we have to save, but the whole of Christianity”. The “decisive Christian victory” at Vienna in 1683, with its massive cavalry charge, largely marked “the end of the major Islamic military threat to Europe in terms of large-scale invasion and conquest potential.”

***Jihad*’s Enduring Manifestations**

Even as Ottoman imperial power declined, *jihad* did not disappear; it often “reverted... to its primordial pyratical form.” This is where the Barbary pirates come in. For centuries, these North African pirates preyed on Christian shipping, enslaving potentially millions of Europeans, all “explicitly justified as *jihad*.” This directly impacted the newly formed United States in the late 18th century. In a famous meeting, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams directly questioned Tripoli’s ambassador about these attacks. His blunt explanation, as recorded, was that his actions were “founded on the laws of their prophet Muhammad, that the Quran commanded warfare against all nations who didn’t acknowledge Islam and that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found and enslave captives.” This explicit religious justification led to the **Barbary Wars**, where the US chose to fight rather than pay tribute, setting a precedent. The first American published Quran in 1806 was explicitly intended to inform Americans why they had been at war.

**A Challenging Perspective and a Provocative Thought**

Ibrahim’s S*word and Scimitar* presents a challenging perspective, emphasizing the “profound and often devastating impact of *jihad* understood as religiously mandated warfare as a central and consistent thread” through 14 centuries of history. For a final, provocative thought, Ibrahim cites Hilaire Belloc’s early 20th-century warning: that modern Western civilization had “effectively forgotten all about Islam, taking it for granted that it is decaying and no longer a force to be reckoned with.” Belloc cautioned that “Islam may at any moment be become as large a menace in the future as it has been in the past,” a thought that certainly leaves much to ponder about history’s echoes and their potential relevance.

Raymon Ibrahim, 2018, *Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West.* New York: Da Capo Press.

[Subscribe](#/portal/signup)