Meanwhile…ISIS wants to launch the re-reconquista
No surprise here, but still very chilling:
[ISIS] has reportedly issued a chilling threat to launch terror attacks in Spain, declaring: ‘We will recover our land from the invaders.’
The jihadists have long made it their goal to expand their boundaries beyond Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East.
As well as plans to expand the caliphate in Iraq, Syria, North Africa and large parts of western Asia, they have previously released a map marking out plans to seize parts of Europe.
Spain, which was ruled by Muslims for 700 years until 1492, is marked out as a territory the caliphate plans to have under its control by 2020.
You can say this is just trash talk, but I believe that ISIS believes it can, must, and will do it. Whether they are correct remains to be seen. Right now, the West has the tools to stop them. But the West can’t even seem to muster the resolve to halt its own demographic slide towards Islam.
[NOTE: For those unfamiliar with the term “Reconquista,” please see this.]
If ISIS hits any of the Jesuit sites in Spain I will personally go to Spain and kill those savages.
I really think that we should launch a Reconquista of the Christian land of the Middle East and North Africa. But the current Pope’s too worried about global warming and capitolist greed to care that Christianity is being wiped out in the earliest established communities…
Cornhead,
May I join you? I can pay my own way and I’ll find a way to smuggle in a rifle and ammo.
BTW, I plan to attend a Cruz event in Maquoketa on Monday and hear Fiorina in Iowa City on Tuesday.
The Muslims never conquered all of Spain but they did control slowly shrinking parst until Ferdinand and Isabella retook the Kingdom of Granada in 1492.
At the time of the Crusades, Islam was a minority religion in the Holy Land.
Parker
Go talk with Carly. She is very nice.
Just wish she would have rolled out some new and bold proposals in January.
Be the news. Make the news.
Stop going overseas, it’s like the Abraham LIncoln brigade all over again.
Hold the fort, they’ll be here soon enough, probably in from Canada and later Mexico.
At the time of the Crusades, Islam was a minority religion in the Holy Land.
The Normans were also a minority in England in 1095 AD.
People who pay the jizya, it’s good that they have a lot of people. Eventually they convert to Islam to stop paying the jizya.
The Muslims never conquered all of Spain
Debatable, most of the records were lost because Charlemagne didn’t have access to Egyptian papyrus. Islamic pirates sealed that sea trade off.
They were pushing far enough that they got to Tours in France. You know where in the kingdom of Aquitane, Tours was? It wasn’t in Spain.
Once again time for a refresher on history. The True Nature of Islam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y
http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsEurope/FranceAquitaine.htm
Charles Martel, which fought to repel the invaders at Tours, was the dynastic ancestor of Charles the Great, aka Charlemagne. Dates are listed for people unfamiliar with the timeline. Martel was Charles the Great’s grandfather, I think the tree goes.
By the time 1050 AD rolled around, I can’t remember the dates exactly, the first crusades, had already retaken parts of Spain. That’s why Spain, the Kingdoms of Leon and maybe parts of Portugal, was liberated from the Ummayad Islamic dynasty. That’s one of the first defensive crusades, it started before 1000 AD, in fact. The first offensive crusade is what people generally call the First Crusade, which was a power projection.
The city of Leé³n was founded by the Roman Seventh Legion (usually written as Legio Septima Gemina (“twin seventh legion”). It was the headquarters of that legion in the late empire and was a centre for trade in gold, which was mined at Las Médulas nearby. In 540, the city was conquered by the Arian Visigothic king Liuvigild, who did not harass the already well-established Roman Catholic population. In AD 717, Leé³n fell again, this time to the Moors. However, Leé³n was one of the first cities retaken during the Christian reconquest of the Iberian peninsula, and became part of the Kingdom of Asturias in AD 742.
Leé³n was a small town during this time, but one of the few former Roman cities in the Kingdom of Asturias which still held significance (the surviving Roman walls bear the medieval walling upon them). During Visigothic times, the city had served as a bishopric, and incorporating the city into Asturias brought legitimacy to the Asturian monarchs who sought to lead a unified Iberian church, during a time when most of the Iberian Peninsula was governed by Muslim powers.
A holy war then. A small one. The Moors are North African Ummayad dynasty, Muslims essentially.
Early in its existence, Leé³n lay directly to the north of the wealthy, sophisticated, and powerful Caliphate of Cé³rdoba. When internal dissensions divided Al-Andalus loyalties in the 11th century, leading to an age of smaller Taifa successor states of the Caliphate, the impoverished Christian kingdoms who had been sending tribute to the Caliphate found themselves in a position to demand payments (parias) instead, in return for favours to particular factions or as simple extortion.
Spain became like their conquerors. They even sent tribute. Like the Jizya.
Welfare has been viewed by Islam as a kind of tribute, a jizya even. Sooner or later, once they gain enough military power, they’ll wish for more. As they usually do. The Jizya was also paid in boys and girls, btw. That’s what Rot in England is too, you know. Child slave and rape center, selling out the girls and boys for Islamic “protection”.
Much of this part of history is fragmentary and not very well documented. Since they were fighting Islam, after all, and Islam had access to the ancient classical world, including papyrus in Egypt. Thus accounts of that period would be either from Islamic sources or sources who traded with Islam (collaborators). The rest would have been lost to time, hard to dig up or reconstruct.
There are entire decades that are just blank. Islamic slave raids, unrecorded, because nobody was left alive to record them. The men ended up beheaded, the women sold to harems as sex slaves.
Ever since the Enlightenment, the myth makers in the West have eulogized medieval Muslim culture. especially the wonderfulness of Andalusia, its intellectual achievements, and it’s multicultural tolerance. So what’s the problem? ISIS wants to correct the wrongs done by Europeans and to bless the World with a renewal of Andalusia. Anyone who opposes that wonderfulness is just a racist and a bigot that’s all.
Incidentally, Carly Fiorina has finally responded to questions about her speech about how great Islam was during the middle ages. She still agrees with the myth makers. One can infer from her statement that since Islamic culture used to be so great, the problem can not be intrinsic to Islam but is instead caused by people who have misunderstood and who have abused the religion. If the wonderfulness which was Medieval Islam can stoop to the level of intolerance we see today, we lowly Westerners can just as easily slide into a similar level of intolerance. She has not backed down one inch but asserts that Islam was indeed better than others during the Middle Ages. Although she does not say in what way we could lose our own tolerance based on the context it is easy to infer that she is referring to intolerant people who read the Koran and Hadiths and blame Islam itself for the crimes committed in its name rather than the good tolerant people who carefully separate the religion, Islam, from any crimes committed in its name.
https://www.carlyforpresident.com/answers/
1st page third row.
The graduating class of pretty much any midwestern high school could take over Spain.
All the wonders and glories of Islam were built on ideas, bodies and loot taken from the defeated.
If I remember correctly what I picked up while stationed in Spain, only Galicia, in the far north-western corner of Spain held out against Islam.
I drove along the south coast of Spain, on one of my vacations – and noted how many places along that coast had “tower” in their name. Good reason – watchtower. Even after the Reconquista, the raids, robbery and slave-trading went on.
http://www.celiahayes.com/archives/927
Ymar:
Thanks for the history, and the links.
We’ve discussed this so many times, but it is unfathomable to me how people like Fiorina refuse to read up on Islam and its mountains of bodies and enslavement of peoples.
This information is just not that obscure. I always recommend Andrew Bostom’s “The Legacy of Jihad.” It’s an eye-opening, blood-curdling account with many primary sources of the cancerous spread of Islam.
There is simply no way to pretty it up. Kind of like the Aztec “religion.”
The Muslim Ummah universally agrees that Allah has proclaimed that once land is part of “Dar al-Islam” (‘house’ of Islam) it forevermore remains Muslim. It is therefore a theological imperative that ‘Andalusia’ be returned to Islam. ISIS is simply honoring Allah’s decree.
Spain’s current residents are thus, ‘illegal squatters’.
“it is unfathomable to me how people like Fiorina refuse to read up on Islam and its mountains of bodies and enslavement of peoples. This information is just not that obscure. Promethia
She’s too smart, too perceptive for ignorance to be explanitive. I suspect Fiorina’s political calculus is the motivation for her willful blindness toward Islam.
Geoffrey Britain; Promethea; Dennis:
You are way off base with Fiorina. Do some research and you’ll discover what’s going on with her.
It’s actually fairly simple. Fiorina has done her homework, and then some. She majored in medieval history and knows a lot about it:
She said that back in the first week of October. She got what ISIS was about, and she got the historic connection to historic Islam and its conquests. Of course, some people criticized her for saying that, as though she was ignoring other aspects of ISIS (such as, for example, their use of modern social media). But of course she was not, nor was she saying (as other people tried to accuse her of) that she could fight ISIS by using her BA degree. She was connecting something usually thought of a sort of useless (and which certainly hadn’t figured before in her business career)—a medieval history and philosophy degree—and saying she knows something about the Middle Ages.
What’s more, and more importantly for the purposes of our discussion here, does that sound like the statement of a person who wears rose colored glasses about terrorist groups such as ISIS and their connection to Islam’s history? Of course not. But she is also correct that for a little while during medieval history, some Islamic lands were among the most cultured and tolerant on earth at the time. That is something with which someone like Bernard Lewis, one of the greatest historians of Islamic history, concurs.
I’ve written about this elsewhere on the blog at great length. This is one of the things that was used to destroy Fiorina. The smear campaign has worked, but she is no more soft on Islam or terrorists than any of the other candidates, and she is in fact very knowledgeable.
I realize that Carly’s candidacy has faltered, so her position about Islam is not really that important. The only reason I brought her up is because I’m still trying to understand how a skilled politician could be so easily defeated.
If Neo is correct, I’m even more mystified about how Carly’s campaign bungled the issue about Islam so badly. Neo says that those who brought up Carly’s speech about the glories of Medieval Islam were conducting a smear campaign. In my understanding of the term, calling something a smear campaign indicated that those who brought up the issue were being unfair to her, like they were trying to damage her even though they knew that it didn’t represent her present position. For crying out loud, if that is the case, why didn’t she correct the misconceptions right away? Also, when she put up the link on her own website specifically addressing the speech in question why didn’t she answer the questions people had raised? I don’t get it.
Here’s some of what Carly said in the original speech.
“While modern Western civilization shares many of these traits, the civilization I’m talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, and enlightened rulers like Suleiman the Magnificent.”
She was specific that she was talking about a time interval of 800 years. Is that 800 years the “little while during medieval history” that Neo is discussing?
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/speeches/fiorina/minnesota01.html
Dennis:
My answer to why she didn’t answer effectively is that I really don’t think she realized how much the speech had been used online against her, and how much it had hurt her and how great the need was to correct the misunderstanding. This was a failure of her campaign. She has less money and staff then most, and that may have been part of it, but it was definitely a failing that frustrated me.
I’ve written something about the number of years reference, here.
“The smear campaign has worked, but she is no more soft on Islam or terrorists than any of the other candidates, and she is in fact very knowledgeable.”
Saying that “some Islamic lands were among the most cultured and tolerant on earth at the time” isn’t helpful because; a) it isn’t proven: El Andaluz consists of what were the richest provinces under the Roman Empire so the “richness” could be just the heritage of what was conquered, until islam squandered it (so like the Left) b) it is pretended, that is, we don’t know as good as nothing about it (*) and c) if it was there at all it either it went as far as it could under islam and then died or islam killed it off. d) to expand c), as far as it went it was codified and set in stone under islam, like the worth (half a man) of a woman
And anyway it is irrelevant because the grooming gangs, the no-go zones, the rape-culture, the fact that “fidelity” is meaningless for men which gave rise to that rape-culture and which means that a “muslim community” will be automatically at war with a non-muslim one, the dividing of the world in “Dar al-islam” and “Dar al-Harab”, and so on aren’t the work of ISIS but of islam itself.
So what is her opinion on the “muslim world”, on Saudi Arabia, on the Sudan, on apostasy laws, on Purdah, on the Pashtun pederast culture (which hasn’t originated in islam but is certainly endorsed by it). What is her opinion of the responsibilities of the “muslim world” on human rights, on religious freedom, on …, in the “muslim world”? To repeat, ISIS and consorts are but symptoms.
Frankly, what you describe about Fiorina is like the (nonsensical) notion that the modern feminists pretend to have of Mohammed being the first “feminist”. It is at best self-delusional.
Phil D:
It’s not the least bit delusional. Her views, as far as I can tell, are based on those of extremely reputable scholars of the history of Islam such as Bernard Lewis, not sound bites on websites. Nor do her views make her the least bit soft on terrorism, or naive about the Muslim world today.
Scholars may certainly differ on subjects related to history, and the era of history we are discussing here is no different. That doesn’t mean anyone espousing these points of view is delusional. Throwing that word around is absurd.
If you want her to answer those questions of yours, why not go to her website and attempt to ask her?
Does anyone really believe that any of the Republican candidates would be squishly on Islam? I mean, even Rand Paul would have to be bombing them at this point.
I don’t think Carly’s position on Islam was that big a factor in the race. I think her CEO performance got a lot more attention. Most people don’t know who Bernard Lewis is.
Nick says at 9:41:
“Does anyone really believe that any of the Republican candidates would be squishly on Islam?”
Absolutely. Everyone including the Democrats are committed to acting tough towards ISIS or Al-Qaeda but they refuse to make any connection between the “religion of peace” and terrorism. I think you can almost guarantee that Jeb Bush and Chris Christie would be super squishy about Islam.
Neo’s point about the brief “Golden Age of Islam” is well taken. The present authoritative Sunni Hadiths were not written down and codified for about 200 years after Mohammad’s death. Bukhari made his collection about hijri year 220. The rest of the major Hadith collections followed his. Until then, Islam was still somewhat fluid. Also, since the Muslims were vastly outnumbered by non-Muslims in most territory they conquered they had to either commit mass in attempted genocide like they did in India or they could make some temporary accommodations for the continued existence of their new subjects as they did in North Africa and the Middle East. A few authentic Muslim philosophers survived until Al-Ghazali around 1100 AD or about hijiri year 478. Since Al-Ghazali didn’t ban mathematics there were still a few Muslim mathematicians. Since Al-Ghazali Islam has been brain dead.
Promethea Says:
January 23rd, 2016 at 10:13 pm
We’ve discussed this so many times, but it is unfathomable to me how people like Fiorina refuse to read up on Islam and its mountains of bodies and enslavement of peoples.
Before the advent of the internet, there were no sources available. None whatsoever, the scientific consensus had sealed them, like the Kreminologists and Sovietologists. They were sympathetic to Islam, so they ensured that all the sources said the same thing, pretty much.
They don’t even call the “Moors”, part of the Caliphate or the Ummayad Dynasty. They just destroyed the connection by renaming them or using historically confusing names.
People believed the Communists didn’t have spies in the US government. That was recent history btw. Not ancient.
Humans are easy to fool. It doesn’t matter what your education is. It doesn’t matter what your credentials are. It doesn’t matter who you think you are. A good enough user of the Art of Propaganda can con anybody, any human at least.
The reason why people begin to talk about Fiorina here, is because their DNA is activating. The DNA which tells them “do not blame Islam, do not criticize Islam, shut up and be safe”.
It’s activating, you can see it. They just pop up. Dennis starts criticizing Islam, then shifts to something he knows he can knock down, a woman. Attack woman vs Attacking Islam?
It’s like a Pavlov conditioning reflex. People don’t even know they are doing it. That is what Islam has done to Westerners.
Ymarsakar Says at 11:12 am
“Dennis starts criticizing Islam, then shifts to something he knows he can knock down, a woman. Attack woman vs Attacking Islam?”
Congratulations Ymarsakar. You have it all figured out. -)
neo,
As a Presidential candidate, it is incumbent upon Fiorina to make her complete position on Islam clear, especially given its importance. A failure to address fairly put questions as to the nature of Islam is critical because her willingness to condemn ISIS, while continuing to go along with the lie that Islam is a “religion of peace” is entirely insufficient.
PhilD puts it well, “So what is her opinion on the “muslim world”, on Saudi Arabia, on the Sudan, on apostasy laws, on Purdah, on the Pashtun pederast culture (which hasn’t originated in islam but is certainly endorsed by it). What is her opinion of the responsibilities of the “muslim world” on human rights, on religious freedom, on …, in the “muslim world”? To repeat, ISIS and consorts are but symptoms.”
That, “Her views, as far as I can tell, are based on those of extremely reputable scholars of the history of Islam such as Bernard Lewis” is sadly, part of the problem.
Bernard Lewis is the scholar primarily responsible for George Bush’s declaration that “Islam is a religion of peace”
See: “What Went Wrong With Bernard Lewis?”
That article by Andrew Bostom is an extremely learned, insightful and objectively fair analysis of Bernard Lewis’s errors in scholership.
Meantime Obama and Kerry (mustn’t forget Mrs. Jarrett!) continue their personal capitulation to Iranian Islamism on our behalf. No strategic vision? Oh, Obama had a strategic vision alright. He just never told the Americans what it is. Better to surprise them.
sdferr,
He did allude to it with his “fundamental transformation of America”.
Of course, “useful idiots” don’t need specifics, as their support is predicated upon projecting upon the blank slate of their ‘avatar’, their own subconscious aspirations and illusions.
Unfortunately, such is the case with much of Trump’s support. Though frustration and disgust with the GOPe and leftist/liberal machinations, rather than ideological ‘reform’ of America is the motivation for the Trump phenomena.
“[ISIS] has reportedly issued a chilling threat to launch terror attacks in Spain, declaring: ‘We will recover our land from the invaders.’”
This matter takes to much far with this unknown identity either group or indvitusls who master minded by unground Ba*
Whoever done or doing these criminal and terrorist act it went beyond any boundiries and realities.
Should the fight goes to those core of Ba* not just those individuals, non of those crimes wittness any going after those who really master mind all this.
All the talk and news tells due to his belive those terrorists but that not enght to trigger these Ba.
Defintly there are more bhind this oprations that now seen it globally rather than in area or country having some cuses.
Have said that there many qestion still have no answers?
From whatever source and oprations clamed by these Ba* of killing foreigners in fact the killing much far number of innocent in iraq Afghanistan Turkey Egypt…
If turkey opration was agenst german citizen so there are much others in Dubai, Kuwists, Oman or Saudi Arabia so is so why these Ba* waiting for?
Another qestion if now they calling for Spain is it make more sence and more reality to look not far to have the land from Israel?
Looks there are many secret in fighting this beast called ISIS
BTW, Toyota have this name on one of model car they produced and funny ISIS loves Toyota 4w Truks as core fighting tool.
“Frankly, what you describe about Fiorina is like the (nonsensical) notion that the modern feminists pretend to have of Mohammed being the first “feminist”. It is at best self-delusional.”
Rereading this I seem rather to have put my foot in it.
The self-delusional person meant is Fiorina, not NeoNeocon.
Sorry about that, English isn’t my native language.
Geoffrey Britain:
I have agreed that Fiorina’s failure to explain better is a campaign failure of hers, and I believe it has hurt her.
But she certainly has never said anything or indicated anything about how Islam is a “religion of peace.” And her praise of the Golden Age is about a certain age in history, long ago.
Speaking of Reconquista. How about the infiltration/subversion of all of Europe. So few are aware of what is happening. In fact many of the politicians seem to be okay with it.
Here’s one who isn’t. A magnificent speech by a member of the Swiss parliament (English subtitles provided) exposes exactly what is happening and calls for Europeans to stand up and defend their countries. Exactly what we need to hear from our candidates as well. Five minutes and well worth the time.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/pCW2hxux3Ro?rel=0
Geoffrey Britain:
I have agreed that Fiorina’s failure to explain better is a campaign failure of hers, and I believe it has hurt her.
But she certainly has never said anything or indicated anything about how Islam is a “religion of peace.” And her praise of the Golden Age is about a certain age in history, long ago—not about present-day Islam at all, and not even about the religion of Islam back then but rather about the culture it created back then as compared to other cultures of the time.
And I have already read plenty about Bernard Lewis, as well as several of his major works. He has been quite harsh on Islam as it is today, including a book he wrote right before 9/11 called What Went Wrong. There are quite a few people who criticize him, and I’ve read them, too.
Nor was I citing Fiorina as a disciple of his today. I was saying her position in her speech right after 9/11, in which she praised medieval Islam, was based on things such as the position of scholar Bernard Lewis on the subject of the history of Islam, and that it did not represent some sort of delusion (which had been the accusation of another commenter) but a bona fide and highly respected academic position held by many intelligent and learned people.
I was not debating the truth or falsehood of it, nor was I saying she was some sort of present-day Lewis groupie.
expat:
On blogs and among blog commenters, Fiorina’s position on Islam was discussed a great great deal. I saw tons of commenters saying the equivalent of: “I liked her till I saw that speech.”
Commenters go out and spread the word to others who don’t read blogs, too, and that’s how people hear about it. How many? I don’t know. But her support was just starting to build—mostly, probably, among the sort of people who read blogs and pay attention to these things—and then it began to fall. H-P was certainly another way it happened, but the Islam thing was quite big too.
Enough about Fiorina.
What about Trump? We all assume that Trump gets it because of his statement that he would temporarily block Muslim immigration. That is a start, but has he made any speeches or put out any position papers which indicate how he will deal with the problem of Islam long term? Inquiring minds want to know.
Because of Ted Cruz’s evangelical background, I have no doubt that he gets it. He knows that Christians are being massacred wholesale in the Middle East right now and he knows that the danger is Islam itself, not just ISIS or Al-Qaeda.
It mystifies me that anyone could think that recognizing that there was a golden age of Islam for 700 years or so up until the Reconquista in any way implies that Carly (or anyone else, for that matter) is soft on Jihadism today. That’s like saying because there was a Hitler, we can’t recognize the greatness of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, or because there was a Stalin, we can’t recognize Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekov.
And to think Chris Christie will be “squishy” on Islam is just ridiculous — just look for any of his speeches on the subject — he always goes back to 9/11 and the friends and neighbors he lost.
Anybody who thinks Christie will be soft on radical Islam don’t know nuttin’ about New Joisey!
Richard Saunders,
In the case of Fiorina, it’s all about Trump supporters and propaganda, I believe.
That is, the two most essential elements of the Gospel According to Trump Supporters is that he is the “only one” who will be tough on illegal immigration and tough on Islamic terrorists and their supporters in the Muslim world. And/or that he was the first one of the candidates talking about these things.
Not true. I’ve written posts and comments about it, so I’m not going to reinvent the wheel on that right now. But those are the twin foundations (the most major ones, anyway; there are others, including “he’s the only one who tells the truth”) of the propaganda effort launched by those who want to promote his candidacy.
So, as part of that effort, the other candidates must be discredited on those two fronts in particular. There has been a remarkably quick and seemingly organized internet effort to find some sort of hook to hang the accusations “soft on immigration” and “soft on Islamic terrorim” around the neck of each other candidate (particularly the frontrunners) and to spread the disinformation all around the web.
In this endeavor, the activists who began it are then assisted by readers who support Trump and who pick up on the meme and spread it further. They become the foot soldiers of the movement, as it were, and I think they tend to believe whatever suits their existing belief system. So that, if a person wants Trump to win, and Fiorina is threatening to catch up with Trump (which she was at one point), it’s time to take her down. The activists scour the internet for everything she ever said or did, looking for a hook to discredit her. If they don’t find anything really good for that purpose, they find something that can be used for that purpose to convince the foot soldiers of the movement that it reflects poorly on the Trump rival (in this case, Fiorina), and that it means what the propagandists say it does.
Thus, Fiorina’s speech, which praised the Golden Age of Islam and occurred shortly after 9/11, was an obvious tool for them. Spin it to the ignorant (or to those who really have studied the history and don’t think the Golden Age was quite as Golden as it has usually been made out to be by historians) and then tie that into the idea that it is evidence of her love of Islam and her softness on terrorism today, and her lack of fit to lead the country in the fight against it.
There does not have to be a single rational relation between that speech and fighting terrorism today. Fiorina can have said 100 other things that show she understands the situation and is tough on Islamic terrorism—but that’s okay, just don’t mention them, and your listeners/readers (who have neither the time nor the inclination to look it up) won’t know about them. The accusation will seem very plausible to them, because they’re not really thinking about it deeply enough to question it.
That’s how the propaganda is spread all around the internet and beyond. I saw it happen with the Fiorina Golden Age speech within the space of about 2 days, just as her stock had risen after her first debate on the top card. And people were rejecting her as a result.
Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit is a prime example of Trumpmania. He excuses everything Trump says and is very understanding of his “compromises” to make a deal. Yet today he has a post on Queen Rania of Jordan and criticizes her for saying that the radicals do not represent Islam. If anyone should get a break for saying this, it is certainly the queen of the most reasonable country in the area who with her husband is trying to keep it together. So apparently it’s OK to lie to make a few million, but you can’t say something nice about Islam to keep your head and keep your country from ISIS and Hamas.
Richard Saunders Says at 6:48 PM:
“It mystifies me that anyone could think that recognizing that there was a golden age of Islam for 700 years or so up until the Reconquista in any way implies that Carly (or anyone else, for that matter) is soft on Jihadism today. That’s like saying because there was a Hitler, we can’t recognize the greatness of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, or because there was a Stalin, we can’t recognize Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekov.”
I’m not aware of anyone who denies that early Islam was somewhat better than it is today – a brief Golden Age although I believe the so called Golden Age was much shorter than either you or Carly claim and it wasn’t really all that Golden. What Hitler has to do with Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky etc. escapes me.
“And to think Chris Christie will be “squishy” on Islam is just ridiculous…”
We have already discussed Carly Fiorina extensively here. I brought her up because I just discovered that she has addressed her speech about Medieval Islam recently. I was disappointed in her response to the criticism.
To the best of my knowledge, Chris Christie has not been vetted here. One blogger who has expertise on Islam whom I read frequently is Daniel Pipes at the Middle East Forum. In my view, Dr. Pipes is overly optimistic about the possibility of reforming Islam, but he is always a good read since he is well informed and frank in his discussions. On May 1, 2012 long before Trump declared his candidacy, Pipes posted about Chris Christie and his problem with Islam. Rather than reproducing Dr. Pipes’ post here, I’ll provide the link and let anyone who is interested in the information Daniel Pipes has provided review the post for themselves.
http://www.danielpipes.org/11106/chris-christie-islam
Congratulations Ymarsakar. You have it all figured out.
I assume that is the best you can do for now, Dennis.
My wife is a retired high school Spanish teacher. Several years before she retired, she had an advanced Spanish class which had in it a girl whose parents were Saudi professionals who’d immigrated. She was born here. She wore the whole robe thing, but was cheerful and apparently assimilated and very popular with her classmates.
When the subject came to el Cid, she wanted to have a different subject for her paper because, she said, the subject of el Cid demeaned her faith.
The Cid was an eleventh century mercenary fighting in the various little wars between the various little kingdoms. Sometimes for and sometimes against Christians, for or against Muslim kingdoms. An equal-opportunity skullbuster.
Several questions: Fifty years after the movie with Heston and Loren, how does any American kid even know the name? Much less what he did or what his position was. About the only two things I can figure is that he cashed his last paycheck fighting against a Muslim town. He might have died of camp fever the year before, or achieved what seems to have been his goal of setting up for himself on the Med coast and dying in bed with his grandkids knifing each other at the funeral after the custom of the time.
Or perhaps he has been folded into the matter of Spain, which is the Reconquista.
How on earth does an American kid know anything about this, much less what position to take?
She has to be learning it at what passes for Muslim Sunday school.
It’s about as nutty as somebody whose name is Godwinson whining about how his family has been displaced by those rotten Normans [it was almost exactly the same time frame] and all those Plantegenets, Tudors, Dutch William, Hanovers, Windsors, are all usurpers. And maybe he’ll blow up a nursery school to make his point.
What else are they teaching this kid’s younger peers?
“Thus, Fiorina’s speech, which praised the Golden Age of Islam and occurred shortly after 9/11, was an obvious tool for them.”
What I object to is the fact that that “Golden Age” is used as a tool by the islamists and the islamists’ tools in the West (*).
“That’s like saying because there was a Hitler, we can’t recognize the greatness of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, or because there was a Stalin, we can’t recognize Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekov.”
That’s upside down, it’s like saying that since there was a Bach or a Dostojevski therefore a new Hitler or a new Stalin wouldn’t be all that bad.
As for the argument that since islam once had an “Golden Age” therefore it can be great and good again. Well, for that you will have to reproduce the original factors which include conquest and slavery and I would like to take a pass on that.
But maybe it can come from inside islam? I’m with Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, as cited by pope Benedict;
That would imply that islam destroys whatever “good” it originally inherited, just like nazism did with Germany or communism with Russia.
Now one could say that islam and muslims are a reality which one has to live with and see Fiorina’s speech in that context. Trying to make islam do better by hanging the Fata Morgana of islam’s Golden Age before its eyes and saying that what happens today is just an aberration, or even worse, has nothing to do with islam.
But it is exactly this blindness that has produced the monsters of today. For example, it is by giving Saudi Arabia a pass on human rights that enabled it to spread and infiltrate the West with its toxic religious culture of which ISIS is but an offspring (*). I cannot but see Fioriana’s speech in the same light.
(*) As another example, I remember reading about expositions held in the UK under the title of something “1001 contributions of islam”. That was during the time that the grooming gangs were covered up by Labour.
Also, I see from googling the subject that in the “contributions” Timbuktu is mentioned as a site of scholarship. Timbuktu’s wealth was completely based on the slave-trade. Now that’s a “Golden Age” which should be reproduced.
That’s how the propaganda is spread all around the internet and beyond………
If just Fiorina’s speech did harm her by very well orgaized propaganda Sadly for some they ittentionly work and enjoy doing it, but for Trump works apposite
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Mr Trump has two significant partnerships in countries with large Muslim populations. He earns between $1m and $5m a year from licensing his brand to the Trump Towers Istanbul development in Turkey, which is owned by the Ortadogu conglomerate, according to a public filing of his interests that he made to the US Federal Election Commission as part of his presidential campaign.
He also earned $2.5m last year from licensing his brand to the Trump Hotel and Tower in Baku, Azerbaijan, a development owned by the oligarch Anar Mammadov.
Trump Organisation is developing in two golf and property developments in Dubai with Damac, whose chief executive Hussain Sajwani he has described as a “good friend”.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka, now executive vice-president of development and acquisitions at his holding company Trump Organization, said the company was looking at “multiple opportunities in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia: the four areas where we are seeing the most interest.”
But whether these will now go ahead is unclear. Mr Trump’s remarks, in which he called for a “total shutdown” on Muslims entering the US, have sparked outrage in Dubai, the Gulf’s commercial hub, where he is a frequent visitor.
Mr Habtoor on Tuesday described the comments as “a huge mistake” and urged others to distance themselves from Mr Trump and his business interests. It would be a “huge mistake to associate themselves with Donald Trump”, he said. “His brand is a liability, not an asset.”
Derogatory remarks about Mexicans last summer cost Mr Trump a lucrative deal with Univision, the US’s largest Hispanic television network. A number of other companies also ended their relationships with him.
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While Mr Trump has ambitions in the Gulf, it is home to a small proportion of his overall holdings, which are mostly in the US and he says are worth more than $10bn.”
For those who believe that Muslim rule in Spain was tolerant compared to Christian rule:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1066_Granada_massacre
What Muslims did in one day took the Inquisition 200 years.
Gringo Says
US Invaded Iraq also done a massacre.
World history telling us no war with without innocent killed and those who fights for their own causes?
“dame stupid”
hey now, let’s don’t be gratuitously insulting the ladies — many of ’em are pretty damned smart.
PhilD — Hunh? How does saying that Islam once had a Golden Age (whether it was gold plate or 24 carat is another matter) imply that it could have one again? That’s like saying anyone who says that Spain was once the most powerful empire in the world implies that it could be so again.