In nearly any history book you will find in English, usually it is relentlessly impressed on the reader that people in all lands the Muslims ruled converted to Islam voluntarily. After the Arab conquests of Persia, Syria, Egypt, the Maghreb, large swathes of Central Asia under the Rashidun Caliphate, people slowly came to embrace Islam in the most benign way over the next two centuries, impressed by its cosmopolitan and liberal outlook and simplicity of living.
Many are unaware that only five to ten percent of all people under Muslim rule by the time of the end of the Umayyad dynasty were Muslim, one hundred and fifty years after the “existence” of so-called Muhammad. These explanations serve as a way of explaining how this went up to around three quarters or more of people by the end of the Abbasid dynasty.
The problem with this picture is that even these books all admit there is a near-complete absence of non-Muslim sources or accounts for anything during this period and afterwards. This is equivalent to trusting a book about the Soviet Union written by a Stalinist. What many of these authors who write about Islam are doing amounts to CHICANERY and DISHONESTY.
CHRISTIAN SUBVERSION
Where these accounts are technically true is that many Christians, particularly Arab Christians, did end up converting to Islam. However, this history is a lot more complicated than what it might seem.
At the time of Muhammad, Syria was split into being ruled by the Byzantine (Roman) Empire, of Christianity, and the Sassanid Empire of Persia (Iran), of Zoroastrianism. These two empires levelled vicious wars against each other for centuries that levelled extreme levels of taxation on their inhabitants. The Arab Christians of Syria had disputes with the Byzantine Empire based on religion. They disagreed with the Council of Chalcedon that claimed the nazarene was of two natures, divine and human. Instead they believed the nazarene was both divine and human at the same time. These Miaphysite Arabs were often persecuted brutally.
One of the major ways in which Christianity led to Islam is through these endless disputes and splitting of Christianity into endless sects like a group of parasites. In addition, these Arabs spoke Syriac at the time, meaning they could not ascend to higher positions as they did not speak Greek. When the Muslim Arab armies came out of Arabia, Byzantine Syria fell like a house of cards.
Beyond their ethnic ties, the Syrian Arabs aided the Muslims because of the Muslims’ relative disinterest in persecuting Miaphysite Christianity. In Byzantium, such people had to pay the anatocismos, kephaleion, church tithes, war taxes against the Sassanids and other forms of taxes mostly designed to fund the extortionate church after Constantine. Tenant farmers were bound to coloni or small farms. This was a remnant of the collapse of the Roman Empire.
The Arabs pushed lower levels of taxation in comparison to the insanity under so-called Byzantium. The poor and Syriac-speaking wealthy therefore benefitted, while the wealthier of the Byzantine Greek-speaking elite simply fled. In fact, for a period, the Christian Arabs made up the military backbone of Muslim forces and most of the bureaucracy, as a plague (the plague of Amwas) had wiped out a huge portion of the Muslim Arab armies. It is known that during the early centuries of the Caliphate, Muslim Arabs themselves lived in fortresses isolated from the rest of the population. This does not ‘prove’ Islam was beloved.
In Sassanid Persia, heavy taxes were also levelled on the peasants, including the upkeep of Zoroastrian temples, gezit, kharaj, war taxes against the Byzantines and widespread thieving. While slavery was never a huge part of Persian rulership, the Zoroastrians also obliged many subject peoples to non-paid labor and public works.
Of course, a certain group also deserves a mention here. Here we will include an excerpt of a monk named Sebeos about the invasion of Byzantine and Persian lands by the Arabs, whose history contains some interesting information:
Chapter 30.
The elimination of the Sasanian [dynasty] which held sway for 542 years. The birth of Muhammad and the entrance of the sons of Ishmael into the land of Armenia. The death of Heraclius and the reign of Constantine.
Twelve peoples representing all the tribes of the Jews assembled at the city of Edessa. When they saw that the Iranian troops had departed and left the city in peace, they closed the gates and fortified themselves. They refused entry to troops of the Roman lordship. Thus Heraclius, emperor of the Byzantines, gave the order to besiege it. When [the Jews] realized that they could not militarily resist him, they promised to make peace. Opening the city gates, they went before him, and [Heraclius] ordered that they should go and stay in their own place. So they departed, taking the road through the desert to Tachkastan to the sons of Ishmael. The Jews called the Arabs to their aid and familiarized them with the relationship they had through the books of the Old Testament. Although the Arabs were convinced of their close relationship, they were unable to get a consensus from their multitude, for they were divided from each other by religion. In that period a certain one of them, a man of the sons of Ishmael named Muhammad [note: this thing did not exist, it is an allegory and front for criminal activity], a merchant, became prominent. A sermon about the Way of Truth, supposedly at God’s command, was revealed to them, and Muhammad taught them to recognize the God of Abraham, especially since he was informed and knowledgeable about Mosaic history.
[…]
Then all of them assembled together, from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt [The text is corrupt here. The citation is from Genesis 25.18], and they set out from the P’arhan desert twelve tribes moving in the order of the Houses of the patriarchs of their tribe. They were divided into 12,000 men, of which the sons of Israel were in their own tribes, 1,000 to a tribe, to lead them to the country of Israel. They travelled army by army in the order of each patriarchy: Nebaioth, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah. These are the peoples of Ishmael. They reached Moabite Rabbath, at the borders of Ruben’s land. The Byzantine army was encamped in Arabia. The Arabs fell upon them suddenly, struck them with the sword and put to flight emperor Heraclius’ brother, Theodosius. Then they turned and encamped in Arabia.
All the remnants of the sons of Israel then assembled and united, becoming a large force. After this they dispatched a message to the Byzantine emperor, saying: “God gave that country as the inherited property of Abraham and of his sons after him. We are the sons of Abraham. It is too much that you hold our country. Leave in peace, and we shall demand from you what you have seized, plus interest. The emperor rejected this. He did not provide a fitting response to the message but rather said: “The country is mine. Your inheritance is the desert. So go in peace to your country.”
And Heraclius started organizing brigades, as many as 70,000 troops giving them as a general, a certain one of his faithful eunuchs. He ordered that they were to go to Arabia, stipulating that they were not to engage them in war, but rather to keep on the alert until he could assemble his other troops and send them to help. Now the Byzantines reached the Jordan and crossed into Arabia. Leaving their campsite on the riverbank, [the Byzantines] went on foot to attack [the Arabs’] camp. [The Arabs], however, had placed part of their army in ambuscades here and there, lodging the multitude in dwellings around the camp. Then they drove in herds of camels which they penned around the camp and the tents, tying them at the foot with rope. Such was the fortification of their camp.
The beasts were fatigued from the journey, and so [the Byzantines] were able to cut through the camp fortification, and started to kill [the Arabs]. But suddenly the men in the ambuscades sprung from their places and fell upon them. Awe of the Lord came over the Byzantine troops, and they turned in flight before them. But they were unable to flee because of the quicksand which buried them to the legs. There was great anxiety caused by the heat of the sun and the enemy’s sword was upon them. All the generals fell and perished. More than 2,000 men were slain. A few survivors fled to the place of refuge.
The Arabs crossed the Jordan and encamped at Jericho. Then dread of them came over the inhabitants of the country, and all of them submitted. That night the Jerusalemites took the Cross of the Lord and all the vessels of the churches of God, and fled with them by boat to the palace at Constantinople. The Jerusalemites requested an oath from the Arabs and then submitted.
The emperor of the Byzantines was no longer able to assemble his troops against them. The Arabs divided their army into three parts. One part went to Egypt, taking territory as far as Alexandria. The second part went north to war against the Byzantine empire. In the twinkling of an eye they had seized land from the sea to the shores of the great Euphrates river, as well as Edessa and all the cities of Mesopotamia, on the other side of the river. The third part of the army was sent to the east, against the kingdom of Iran [Sassanid Persia].
In that period the kingdom of Iran grew weaker, and their army was divided into three parts. Then the Ishmaelite troops who were gathered in the east, went and besieged Ctesiphon, since the king of Iran resided there. Troops from the land of Media, some 80,000 armed men under their general Rostom assembled and went against [the Arabs] in battle. Then [the Arabs] left the city and crossed to the other side of the Tigris river. The Iranians also crossed the river, pursuing them. And they did not stop until they reached their borders, at the village called Hert’ichan. The Arabs continued to pursue them, going and encamping in the plain. Present were Mushegh Mamikonean, son of Dawit’, the general of Armenia with 3,000 armed men, and also prince Grigor, lord of Siwnik’, with 1,000 men.
The Iranian and Arab armies attacked each other, and the Iranian forces fled before them. But the rabs pursued them, putting them to the sword. All the principal naxarars died, as did general Rostom. They killed Mushegh and two of his sister’s sons, as well as Grigor, the lord of Siwnik’, along with one son. Some [of the Iranian troops] escaped and fled back to their own land. The remnants of the Iranian forces assembled in Atrpatakan at one spot and made Xorhoxazat their general. Then they hurried to Ctesiphon and took the treasury of the kingdom, the inhabitants of the cities, and their king, and then hurried to get back to Atrpatakan.
But as soon as they had departed and gone some distance, the Ishmaelite army unexpectedly came upon them. Horrified, [the Iranians] abandoned the treasury and the inhabitants of the city, and fled. Their king also fled, winding up with the southern troops. Now the Arabs took the entire treasury and returned to Ctesiphon, taking the inhabitants of the cities along too. And they pillaged the entire country.
The venerable Heraclius ended his life in ripe old age. He reigned for 30 years. Heraclius made his son Constantine swear to have clemency upon all those transgressors whom he had ordered exiled. He made him vow to send each back to his place, and to bring back the aspet, his wife and son, and to establish him in his former rank. “Should he want to go to his land, as I have sworn—and may my oath not be false—release him, and let him go in peace.”
Heraclius died and his son Constantine ruled. But no one was chosen as general of the land of Armenia, since the princes were disunited and quit each other’s presence..
[…].
We heard this account from men [who had returned] from captivity in Xuzhastan Tachkastan, who themselves had been eye-witnesses to the events described and narrated them to us.
Chapter 31.
Now I shall speak about the plot of the Jewish rebels, who, finding support from the Hagarenes [Arabs] for a short time, planned to rebuild the temple of Solomon. Locating the place called the holy of holies, they constructed the temple with a pedestal, to serve as their place of prayer. But the Ishmaelites envied the Jews, expelled them from the place, and named the same building their own place of prayer. The Jews built a temple for their worship, elsewhere. It was then that they came up with an evil plan: they wanted to fill Jerusalem with blood from end to end, and to exterminate all the Christians of Jerusalem.
Now it happened that there was a certain grandee Ishmaelite [Arab] who went to worship in their private place of prayer. He encountered three of the principal Jewish men, who had just slaughtered two pigs and taken and put them in the Muslim place of prayer. Blood was running down the walls and on the floor of the building. As soon as the man saw them, he stopped and said something or other to them. They replied and departed. The man at once went inside to pray. He saw the wicked sight, and quickly turned to catch the men. When he was unable to find them, he was silent and went to his place. Then many Muslims entered the place and saw the evil, and they spread a lament throughout the city.
The Jews told the prince that the Christians had desecrated their place of prayer. The prince issued an order and all the Christians were gathered together. Just as they wanted to put them to the sword, the man came and addressed them: “Why shed so much blood in vain? Order all the Jews to assemble and I shall point out the guilty ones.” As soon as they were all assembled and the man walked among them, he recognized the three men whom he had previously encountered. Seizing them, the Arabs tried them with great severity until they disclosed the plot. And because their prince was among the Jews present, the Arab ruler ordered that six of the principals involved in the plot be killed. He permitted the other Jews to return to their places.
Just as we see with communism replacing Christianity in Russia and the treachery towards Christians elsewhere, or the ultimate treachery towards Muslims in places like Spain by the 1400s, Biblical Hebrews constantly do this routine. One sack of shit is replaced with another. In this case, the corrupted method of Zoroastrianism where worshippers blasphemed the Demons upon going to sleep fell forever, replaced by Islam.
This trojan horse is being deployed in our societies too.
The enemy INSTIGATES the problem, CREATES a reaction and then PUSHES the solution. Christians surrendering to Islam for ‘protection’ is NOTHING new. All of these phenomena are by design and very deliberate. The enemy also hopes to make life impossible in our societies so people turn to Islam or create a reinvigorated form of Christianity in opposition to it voluntarily.
THE DIRECTNESS OF ISLAM
Experiencing Roman Christianity was dependent on understanding Latin or Greek. These regimes of the enemy hoisted a religious system on a populace that barely understood it. Access to Bibles, even in the highly-literate Levant, was scarce. While many churches held services in Syriac, this was tolerated mildly at best. Priests were required to act as intermediaries and access to a priest was rare at best.
Zoroastrianism was also undercut by Islam in this way and its similarity to Islam such as the five prayers likely encouraged conversions.
Islam, the religion of ‘submission’ and which calls its believers ‘slaves’, as we can see, emerged as an egalitarian program of the enemy, in some ways like communism. Although it is doubtful there was a ‘whole’ system at this point, it is true Islam did not need intermediaries for any believer and conversion was easy. We do not say this in praise, as this is also part of the stupidity of Islam and its attractiveness to people of meager intellectual faculty.
THE INCLUSION OF NON-ARABS
The major problem of the Islamic rulers and a huge problem for every single Muslim sate since the inception of Islam is how to deal with conversions. The jizya tax was incredibly lucrative when forced on 90 percent of the population: it was not so lucrative when 85 percent of people had become believers. Mass conversions to Islam and Arabizations of areas like Iraq caused severe imbalances in the Umayyad and Abbasid economies. As stated in the Slavery of Arabs article, any attempts to reduce Arabs to the serfdom equivalent in Europe were introduced, yet broadly failed.
At the beginning of Islam, with confusion prevailing and possibly influenced by the residuum of Judaism on their new religion, the Arabs continued to cling to racial practices. Non-Arabs were rarely if ever permitted marriage to Arabs. Arabs delegated many responsibilities to others of their race, even if Christian. Christian Arabs gained discounts of jizya on a racial basis.
Therefore, non-Arab Muslims were still compelled to pay this tax under the Umayyads. However, this caused enough resentment for this dynasty to be overthrown by the Abbasids, who abolished this tax on non-Arabs and many of the social restrictions.
The conversion of the Middle East and North Africa to Islam was a gigantic disaster for the finances of the Caliphates. Land taxes (kharaj) and zakat (charity payments) had to be issued instead. Slavery gained more and more impetus to fuel the economy. Increasingly, non-Muslim properties and belongings were seized violently under yet more trials.
The Muslim entities in Spain and India were ironically better off as they had a far larger pool of non-Muslims to simply exploit. This is one of the reasons the Muslim entities in these regions continued to wage war prolifically.
ISLAMIC INQUISITION (MIHNA/TAFTISH)
As we see in Sebeos’ account, the Islamic method of Inquisition was in practice from the beginning. As urban areas progressively became Arabic speaking and Islam began to gain urban inroads, different ideas of Islamic thought proliferated in the Caliphate. These groups within the government became competitive. While it is true these groups lacked some of the institutional power of the Catholic Church, which formally exchanged souls for power, they still were able to enact large scale purges of ‘heretics’, witches and apostates through the legal system and through the prerogatives of rulers.
Typical proceedings would involve someone being dragged to court to be judged by religious judges (qadi), with hadith scholars and transmitters acting as a jury and asked questions on the nature of their beliefs with “yes” or “no” questions.
One major controversy was on whether the Quran had eternally existed ‘somewhere’ (traditionalism, what most Muslims believe now) or whether it had been created by Allah in transmission to Muhammad (mutazilism, the belief of the rulers of the time, as assuming the Quran is eternal would contradict the oneness of so-called Allah). During the era of Al-Mamun, with the Mihna inquisition revolving around the nature of the Quran, this was turned into a ritual of a single question to the prosecuted: was the Quran “created” or not?
If the person answered no, they were functionally deprived of their rights, often beaten and executed. Historians tend to see the Mihna as the only ‘major’ Islamic repression in the early centuries of Islam. While this has attracted a lot of attention, it was not the only Inquisition in Islam. It had been going on since the time of the Umayyad dynasty two centuries before:
However, late in his reign, the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ordered the crucifixion of a man named al-Harith for claiming to be a prophet. The man is remembered as al-Kadhdhab (the Liar). Hisham, son of and successor to Abd al-Malik, ordered one of the Liar’s alleged followers, Ghaylan, to be gruesomely dismembered and his body gibbetted as an example for all to see what came of heresy. About a century later, the Abbasid Caliph al-Wathiq wielded a sword, striking the first blow, in the execution of Ahmad b. Nasr, who had been tried in the Mihna (inquisition), of which the earlier trial of Ahmad b. Hanbal is the most famous. Ibn Hanbal was flogged but not killed. The tie between each of these incidents is the forceful Caliphal involvement as a political and religious leader in shaping the norms of correct belief, what it means to be a good, believing Muslim.
Inquisition in Early Islam, John P Turner
Even the Mihna, however, was carried out as a purge of ‘polytheists’. Every single letter on this subject describes the enemy side as ‘polytheists’ and bound for hell.
Muslim scholars began to compile large amounts of texts on ‘variations’ in belief systems and how to systematically target these. Modern European historians yet again fawn over these, claiming they are the first objective comparisons and analyses of different religions. Yet these books were not meant as a ‘systematic analysis of religion’, they were intended as catalogs of heretics and non-believers to DESTROY them. Academic terminology in the West is constantly misleading and lying with Islam.
One of these by Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi begins with:
… to help you with your request about the correct religion and the straight path and distinguishing it from the heretical tendencies and the degenerate views.
Al-Farq bayn Al-Firaq, Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi
I have read this book and he even insults purveyors of other beliefs to their face. If these are ‘guides to religion’, then so are the endless Christian works before describing heretical sects. The enforcers of the tenets of books such as these and legal rulings by judges were named the Hisbah who functioned as a morality police during the Caliphate periods, including well into the Ottoman Empire. They enforced Friday prayer adherence, violent methods against displays immorality, women’s dress and other facets. Other organizations such as the shurta functioned as secret police and surveillance agents in tandem with the Islamic court system.
Torture was commonly and egregiously used against so-called ‘heretics’, such as beatings and floggings, the rack, amputation, blinding, branding, mock executions, waterboarding, exposures to dogs, and crucifixions, similarly to those practiced by the Christian Inquisition. The Almohad rulers used these methods copiously towards ‘non-believers’ long before the formal advent of the Catholic equivalent in Spain.
Nowadays, we have the religious police of Iran named the “guidance control” or “morality police”, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice by the Taliban and the Hisbah modelled exactly off of the Caliphate of the Islamic State. The Islamic State also operated a secret police called the amniyat analogous to the shurta.
WAR AND SLAVERY
This aspect has more or less been covered in the Slavery articles, but this does merit attention. Repression, torture and destruction of pagans and ‘non-believers’ was endless. Many of these were simply taken as slaves endlessly, as I have already elaborated.
The most vicious resistance to Islam overall, even via all Arab accounts, came from the Berbers of North Africa. Entire tribes like the Awraba were murdered. Others were enslaved and many more were forcibly converted to Islam violently. Many descendants of these Berbers became Khajirites and other distinct sects of Islam that were also suppressed and destroyed.
PERSECUTION
As conversions to Islam intensified, more and more cruelty on the part of Muslims did also. Zoroastrians for example were baited by Muslims torturing dogs, which were held to be holy by them and yet were despised by Muhammad.
Zoroastrians believed dogs were moral and loyal creatures. Alley dogs were often given scraps of food after religious ceremonies and at the fire temple (Choksy, 1989, p. 17: Boyce, 1977, p. 162-63). On the other hand, according to Islam, dogs are unclean and even despicable. In one Muslim hadith, among many ordering the killing of dogs, Prophet Moḥammad says: “Angels do not enter a house wherein there is a dog or a picture” (Boḵāri, V, p. 515, bk. 59, no. 128). Muslims, at times, drew on some of these religious contrasts to make conversion to Islam more permanent, for example, forcing new Zoroastrian converts to kick a dog.
Encyclopedia Iranica
Even now we see this over and over again. Orchestrations of Muslim ‘debates’ versus the non-believer would occur with a hostile atmosphere, forcing the non-Muslim to argue for their faith under duress. Laws were formulated to put pressure on non-Muslims. The property holding rights of non-Muslims into the Abbasid era was precarious and subject to Muslim seizures. Non-Muslims were forbidden to bear arms for example, which we hold to be a basic fundament for any civilized class in any country.
MISSIONARY WORK
Later results were often achieved by Muslim missionaries who tended to use deceptive and charismatic methods to sway people to Islam. Although music in Islam is forbidden, if a tribe was encountered cherishing music, missionaries would create stations (zawiya) with elaborate performances or groups of chants to entice the public to see them. By groups like the Qalandariyya, drugs such as cannabis (hashish or bhang) or opium were often used around such performances.
The local language would be learned and certain works of Arabic may be composed to go with it. Missionaries would often educate themselves in herbalism to act as medics for the local populations and convince them to adopt Islam.
Another method was to encourage Islam via being merchants. These trade networks would provide relief for famine or copious opportunities to sell slaves in exchange for weaponry, often acting as mediators between tribes. The quality of slaves would often be impressive to local rulers. Islam would often be encouraged through the back door: a missionary would marry a local prominent woman and progressively convince everyone to adopt Islam if they wanted any access to her.
CONCLUSION
Islam is exactly like its twin, Christianity, and what it is designed to lead to, which is communism. There is no cosmopolitan, liberal and highly advanced form of Islam like the scholars say. If Islam ‘resembled’ this at some point, it is only because it had to negotiate with non-Muslims to keep existing and has come out on top compared to its twin, and likewise.
[JG] Karnonnos
English