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.
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.
“I have been commanded to wage war against the mankind until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah….If they do so, their blood and property are protected.” Muhammad bin Abdullah, ‘Prophet of Islam’
The conflict between the cult of Muhammad and the rest of the world, and with its most detested enemy namely Christianity (Mein Koran is more Christophobic, than anti-Semitic), is based on the ‘principles’ of its founder. As quoted above Muhammad the slave of Allah (Abdullah) was a warrior chieftain. He was no prophet of peace, but a profiteer of war, brigandage, sex slavery, destruction and violence. His mission, given to him apparently by the archangel Gabriel, was to spread the cult of Allah, or the worship of the moon deity of Mecca, around the globe with the sword and scimitar.
The message delivered to the mentally unstable Muhammad in his meditation cave in 610 A.D when he was 40 by the archangel Gabriel was simple – make sure all humans ‘submit’ to this Allah deity. Muhammad a former caravan leader for his wealthy older wife spent 12 years trying to spread this message in his hometown of Mecca, winning fewer than 100 converts. The Meccans allowed Muhammad to freely preach in the polytheistic, celestial worshipping city.
When Muhammad became more brazen and preached against the existing idols worshipped by the Meccans, including the Sun and Venus, he became a threat to the pilgrimage trade. This centred around the Kabah shrine which housed a black asteroid and 360 idols. Many surrounding tribes journeyed to the shrine as a votive of cult duty which brought economic benefits to Mecca. Muhammad’s ramblings about submission only to the Al-Lah or main deity of Mecca, and his demand that all other idols and cults be disbanded, was bad for business.
Muhammad and his small band were forced to flee to Medina. With his gang of ruffians, he inserted himself into Medinan politics, became an arbiter in disputes between city factions and eventually a sort of prince of Medina. With many men at his disposal, he began his career of violence, launching raids against other cities, villages and caravans.
Muhammad’s principle of ‘religiosity’ can be summed up in one of his earliest commands given to his men in Medina, “Fight them (non-Muslims) until they testify that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger; if they do so, then their blood (lives) and possessions are denied you.” Notice the conflation between the Arab celestial idol or Al Lah, meaning the Lord who was the moon, and Muhammad. Only Muhammad is the mediator between the moon deity and mankind. Only Muhammad can wield absolute power because only Muhammad has access and insight to the desires of the moon deity.
To convert to Muhammad’s cult and partake of the spoils of raiding and small-scale warfare, all one had to do was confirm that there is only one god named Al Lah, and that Muhammad is his only messenger. This is called the sha-ha-da and is the first pillar of the Muslim cult. The name Islam simply means submission to Al Lah and most importantly, to his only messenger, Muhammad.
The primary impetus to join Muhammad’s gang in Medina was the spoils of war and raiding. Arabs were famous even in the days of the Roman empire, for being raiders and thieves. It was a part of the culture. Now Muhammad was offering criminals, brigands, rapists, cut-throats, the violent and the mentally unstable, divine sanction, absolution, redemption and upon death in battle or after conversion to the cult, a paradise of virgins, wine, food and entertainment. It was a winning stratagem. As Edward Gibbon no friend of Christianity drily wrote, “(Muhammad) employ(ed) even the vices of mankind as the instruments of their salvation.”
On average Muhammad led 9 military expeditions each year between 622 and 630 A.D. The success of pilfering, sex slaving and wanton destruction had attracted some 10.000 men into a resolute and violent army. As Muslim historians of a later date admitted (such as Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century), these Arab tribesmen following Muhammad were illiterate, savage, brutal and atavistic. This was no religiously inspired crowd of devotionals and penitents. These were cruel and barbaric men, plundering, raping, stealing, murdering and converting people at the point of the sword. So it came to pass that in 630 A.D. Muhammad with 10.000 men attacked Mecca where he was previously rejected and forced the Meccans to submit to the Al Lah cult.