Until the advent of materialism and 19th c. dogma, Western Civilisation was superior to anything Islam had developed. Islam has not aided in the development of the modern world; in fact civilisation has only been created in spite of Islam. Proof of this resides in the 'modern' world and the unending political-economic and spiritual poverty of Muslim states and regions. Squatting on richer civilisations is not 'progress'. Islam is pagan, totalitarian, and irrational.
Christians in Nigeria have faced sporadic persecution since the 1950s, but the past 25 years have seen a wave of violence that is swiftly becoming a slow-motion genocide. Despite that, the international community has for the most part turned a deliberate blind eye on the weekly killings; when pressed for comment, everything from conflicts over grazing land to climate change have been cited as the real reasons behind the ongoing persecution.
Persecution of Christians in Nigeria began to spike after 1999, when 12 northern states adopted Sharia law; the rise of the terrorist group Boko Haram in 2009 marked a dramatic escalation. Famously, Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls in 2014. Christian girls were targeted for forced conversion and marriage to Muslim fighters; 87 of the girls are still cited as “missing” 11 years later.
In addition to Boko Haram, attacks on Christians are carried out by the Islamic State West Africa Province and radicalized Fulani herdsman. According to one Nigerian NGO, over 50,000 Christians have been killed since 2009 alone – and not because of “climate change.”
On July 25th, Spain commemorates its patron saint, James, son of Zebedee. Known primarily as the elder brother of John the Evangelist, for more than a thousand years he was far better known as Santiago Matamoros — St. James the Moor (that is, Muslim) slayer — and was the embodiment of Spain’s holy war against Islam.
On this of all days, recalling his story seems not only appropriate but necessary.
No More Tribute
In the year 711, Muslims from North Africa poured into Christian Spain—a land many believe St. James himself evangelized after Christ’s death and resurrection.
First, not all of the Spanish peninsula was conquered; a remnant of Christians who refused to bow to Muslim rule retreated into the mountainous region of Asturias in the northwest.
Second, Muslim aggression continued against this fledgling Christian enclave until the late eighth century, when a fragile peace was struck on the humiliating condition that the Christian king of Asturias send 100 virgin girls each year to the emir of Córdoba.
This vile arrangement persisted for decades, until King Ramiro I (r. 842–850) ascended the throne and ended it.
Muslim retribution was swift and terrible. Ramiro’s defiance was viewed not simply as political rebellion but as a blasphemous insult to Islamic supremacy. In response, the emir of Córdoba dispatched a massive army northward to crush the impudent Christians once and for all.
Divine Visitation
According to the chronicles, the Muslim force numbered some 60,000 Arab and Berber warriors gathered from across al-Andalus. Ramiro could muster only 5,000 — a small force of Asturian and Galician warriors armed more with faith than with steel. The two armies met near the town of Clavijo in the rugged hills of La Rioja. The Christians steeled themselves for annihilation. As night fell, King Ramiro withdrew to his tent and prayed for divine aid.
That aid came in the form of a vision. St. James the Greater — apostle of Christ and evangelist of Iberia — appeared to the king: radiant, sword drawn, mounted on a white horse. He promised to ride with the Christian army into battle and crush the enemies of Christ.
Ramiro awoke transformed.
“Saint James fights for us!” he was heard crying before sunrise, as his confused men slowly began to gather. “Let the enemies of Christ fall beneath his sword!”
Blaze of Glory
As the sun broke over the hills on May 23, 844, Christian soldiers reported seeing a dazzling figure on horseback descending from the mountains. It was Santiago, clad in shining armor and slashing through Muslim ranks like divine lightning. With the rallying cry “St. James, and strike for Spain!” the Christians charged, emboldened by the presence of their heavenly commander.
What should have been a slaughter of Christians turned into a complete reversal. The Córdoban army was shattered and routed. Later accounts claimed that every last Muslim soldier was slain, their blood sanctifying the soil of Spain.
King Ramiro emerged victorious and swore eternal devotion to St. James. He vowed to raise churches in the apostle’s honor, to make a yearly pilgrimage to his tomb at Santiago de Compostela, and to revere him as the Patron and Protector of Spain. The tribute of 100 virgin Christian girls faded into memory.
Historical Hero
In time, Santiago Matamoros became the divine icon of Christian Spain, enshrined in countless works of art and sculpture: sword raised high, trampling Muslims beneath the hooves of his white charger.
“With Santiago leading us, we shall trample the Crescent beneath the hooves of our horses,” a Castilian noble declared before charging into battle centuries later.
At the pivotal battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, another chronicler exulted: “Santiago, destroyer of Moors, has descended from heaven with a burning sword! Praise be to God, who has shown us His champion!”
Muslim chroniclers, too, took note of this terrifying “apparition” and the fervent devotion it inspired among Christians. “The Franks call upon a dead apostle,” complained Ibn al-Khatib 500 years later, “and yet their banners advance while ours retreat.”
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
The founder and war leader of the Meccan moon-cult, or ‘Islam’ meaning submission to Al Lah (The Lord of Mecca or moon deity) and his ‘only messenger’ Muhammad, was born, lived, died and was real. The sex-slaving, brigand and corrupt was first mentioned by name in a Christian-Syriac fragment, written around 634.
This Syriac document references a Muhammadan raid on peaceful villages and farms. The year of the raid is uncertain. But this was the modus operandi of a cult of cut throats and thieves: “many villages [in Homs] were ravaged by the killing [of the followers] of Muhammad and many people were slain and [taken] prisoner from Galilee to Beth,” and “some ten thousand” other Christians were slaughtered in “the vicinity of Damascus.”
Another Christian monk and historian, Thomas the Presbyter, confirms the depradations of the cult formed by Muhammad. Writing circa 640, he states that “there was a battle [probably Ajnadayn] between the Romans and the Arabs of Muhammad in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled. . . . Some 4,000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there. . . . The Arabs ravaged the whole region.” They even “climbed the mountain of Mardin and killed many monks there in the monasteries of Qedar and Bnata.” By Romans, Thomas means the Byzantine Christians or ‘Eastern Romans’.
The Christian Egyptian Copts also recorded the Muhammadan irruptions. A Coptic homily, dating from around the 640s, associate the Musulmans with a heretical and false piety. This homily advises Coptic Christians to fast, but not “like the Saracens who are oppressors, who give themselves up to prostitution, massacre and lead into captivity the sons of men, saying, ‘we both fast and pray.’” The activities of Muhammad’s followers were the exact opposite of Christian piety.
John of Nikiu, writing in 650 or thereabouts, said that the Musulman invaders and by then, conquerors of Egypt, were “enemies of God” and adherents of “the detestable doctrine of the beast, that is, Mohammed.” The Musulmans were justly described as Satanic. Any cursory reading of the Muslims handbook of hate, Mein Koran, makes this claim obvious and justifiable.
Saint John of Damascus (b. 676) performed a thorough analysis of Muhammad and his cult ‘Submission’. Taking Mein Koran at face value he concluded that the only “miracle” Muhammad performed was to invade, slaughter, and enslave those who refused to submit to him — a “miracle that even common robbers and highway bandits can perform.”
Saint John remarked that this Arab ‘prophet’ (profiteer is fitter) inserted into his own vapid mouth whatever words from his Al-Lah that served him best, “simulating revelation in order to justify his own sexual indulgence”. Saint John remarked that by equating himself with his ‘god’, the moon idol (Al Lah) of Mecca, Muhammad made his religion appealing and justified his own behaviour by easing the sexual and moral codes of the Arabs and fusing the notion of obedience to God with war to aggrandize oneself with booty and slaves.
In the eighth century, Nicetas Byzantinos, who studied the Koran, presented it as the “most pitiful and most inept little book of the Arab Muhammad … full of blasphemies against the Most High, with all its ugly and vulgar filth,” particularly its claim that heaven amounted to a “sexual brothel.” In his entry for the years 629–630, Theophanes the Confessor (b. 758) wrote:
“He [Muhammad] taught his subjects that he who kills an enemy or is killed by an enemy goes to Paradise [Koran 9:111]; and he said that this paradise was one of carnal eating and drinking and intercourse with women, and had a river of wine, honey and milk, and that the women were not like the ones down here, but different ones, and that the intercourse was long-lasting and the pleasure continuous; and other things full of profligacy and stupidity.”
Allah was denounced as an impostor deity, namely Satan: “I anathematize the God of Muhammad,” read one Eastern Roman canonical rite.
Regarding Christianity, Muhammad viewed it as his arch enemy. He and his cult deny the Trinity, reduce Christ to a prophet of Islam (some 600 years before Muhammad formed his cult) and regarded all Christian practices and idols including the cross, as blasphemy and sacrilegious. All of this certainly proves that Muhammad was Satanic. Thus, “the false prophet,” “the hypocrite,” “the liar,” “the adulterer,” “the forerunner of Antichrist,” and “the Beast” became mainstream epithets for Muhammad among Christians for centuries.
These names need to be restored to his cult and all its members.