Book Review: 'Islamic Imperialism – A History.' By Efraim Karsh.

Or so Muslims believe. Islam is an Arab invention and its book of rules – the Koran – the greatest invention yet in imperialist history. The communists had Marx. Their fascist co-socialists Mein Kampf. The Arabs, the Koran. Islamic ideology and its universalism is the great motivating force for a pagan moon cult. Karsh's book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how a small, backwards and illiterate group of Arab bedouin set out to recast and conquer the world through a cult as virulent, pernicious and adaptable as any yet seen in human history. It is a necessary anodyne to the politically-correct nonsense about Arab culture and Islam. It is sure to get Karsh sued.

Islam is an imperialist venture. It always has been. Contrary to media and educational dis-information the great imperialist empires were born not in the West and not in 'fascist' Christian states but in the Middle East. The first great multi-ethnic empire was that of Sargon the 'Great' circa 2500 b.c. in modern day Iraq. A litany of near eastern empires litter history's pages. Europeans and whites are mere newcomers in the ancient tradition of imperialist ambition.

Islam originated in the Arabian peninsula – an area bordering the great empires of the ancient world and which was a trading and caravaning land where various trade routes merged from east and west, and north and south. The Arabs would have been very familiar with not only Judaism and Christianity, but the concept of empire, be it Roman, Persian, Byzantine, Assyrian or Egyptian. Indeed the Arabs conquered Ethiopia in 1200 b.c. with the Yemeni Queen of Sheba sharing Solomon's bed. Aspiration to empire was nothing new to the Arab tribes.

Islam was the tool to not only meld together disparate, poor, illiterate, warring and uncivilised Arab tribes, but to expand Arabian hegemony and wealth accretion. Islam was a primitive exercise in building wealth and power. Karsh makes the point that, 'The birth of Islam, by contrast [to Christianity], was inextricably linked with the creation of a world empire and its universalism was inherently imperialist. It did not distinguish between temporal and religious powers, which were combined in the person of Muhammad, who derived his authority directly from Allah.....'

With nothing to counter act 'Islam' meaning submission, the Arabs were forced to channel their energies and their loyalties to spread 'Allahs' message. Islam is pan-national and universal. There is only one house which should exist in the world – Dar al Islam – and everyone outside this 'house' is in the Dar al harb – the house of war. Dar al Isalm must conquer Dar al harb.

This idea that the infidel must be converted or killed, or at the very least, subjected to dhimmi or second class status [where the dhimms pay all the taxes and are subservient to Arab and Muslim rule]; was codified as Karsh points out in the Medina Constitution, created by Muhammed to explain his vision of permanent war to his followers. The Medina Constitution is clear and declared that Muslims should “fight all men until they say There is no god but Allah.” This concept is the crux of Arab – Muslim imperialism. It is a pretty clear statement of imperialist intent.

As the Arabs exploded in the 7th century and defeated the tottering empires of the Near East, and swept across North Africa into Spain, the nature of Arab and Muslim imperialism became clear. The Arabs were more interested in booty, money and tribute, than in changing the empires they had so easily vanquished. '...Arab conquerors were far less interested in the mass conversion of the vanquished peoples than in securing their tribute. Not until the second and third Islamic centuries did the bulk of these populations embrace the religion of their latest imperial masters, and even this process, emanated from below in an attempt to escape paying tribute....'

Karsh highlights the important factor of greed, earthly desires and hard cash, as motivations for Arab conquests. Serving the Meccan moon deity Allah and creating an empire on earth was motivated not just by ideological purity and universalism, but by the allure of women, sex, money and power. Indeed for much of Islam's early history, as Karsh explains, the Arabs were the master race, the rest subservient or submissive [Islam] to Arab interests. “Non-Arabs played no role in the making of imperial policies and had to endure numerous encroachments on their social and cultural identities, notably the superimposition of Arabic over their indigenous languages.” Muslims today of course must still posture in ritualised pagan Arab positions, submit themselves to the pagan Arab moon deity, and chatter their offerings in Arabic, a language most of them have no understanding of. So much for Islam's sense of equality, human worth, purity and spiritual innocence.

Karsh goes through the entire history of various Muslim empires – Arab, Turk, Persian, African, Afghani and Indian. The bloodletting in Islam imperialist ventures was prodigious and not confined to the Arabs. In fact the Turks were the most vicious and barbaric of the Muslim conquerors. Islam was not spread by peace but by the destruction of some 300 million innocents and countless millions of soldiers. Examples of Islamic atrocity are legion and too numerous to mention. But as Karsh elucidates, 'The sixty-year orgy of bloodletting and mayhem attending the Ottoman Empire's rearguard action to keep its reluctant European subjects under its domination [19th and early 20th centuries] pales in comparison with the treatement meted out to the foremost nationalist awakening in Turkey-in-Asia: that of Armenia.....Johannes Lepsius, the chief of the Protestant Mission in the Ottoman Empire who had personally witnessed the atrocities and had studied them thoroughly, put the number [of Armenian dead] higher, at 1.396.000...”

And that was just one tragic episode during the period 1890-1920. Karsh makes the important point that Islam is constantly on the march to conquer or reclaim lost land. Thus the state of Israel must be wiped off the map. “..the Question of Palestine is neither an ordinary territorial dispute between two national movements nor a struggle by an indigenous population against a foreign occupier. It is a holy war by the worldwide Islamic umma [community] to prevent the loss of a part of the House of Islam to the infidels.” This is obvious. The Jews were resident in Israel 3.000 years and conquered by the Arabs only 1400 years ago. Their return is an afront to Arab and Muslim land claims and concepts of umma-integrity.

It is a canard and a specious claim that Islam is somehow a 'religion' of peace or of accomodation. There is nothing tolerant about Islamic and Muslim imperialism in any era, any epoch or at any fixed point in history. Its borders are bloody to quote Huntington and will always remain so. The great imperialist book, the Koran, mandates that the world will only know 'peace' when mankind submits to the pagan Arab moon deity, Ali-ilah or Allah. Karsh's book is a well sourced and detailed description of Islamic empires past and present and a necessary counter-balance to the chattering fools who maintain that Islam is not a threat. 300 million dead over 1400 years and the establishment of a pagan Arab cult movement on every Continent makes that claim a mockery.