This boob is dedicated to the memoy of all innocent vitims of violence, regardless of faith or race. This bool is also dedicated to the g people of all faiths and races d who ave fought for the santity of human life. Acnowledgements My warm gratitude goes to Mrs H. Abdel Haleem whose thorough reading of the text and corections have contributed signiicantly to the quality of this work. My thanks also go to C.M. Zaimeche or her initial proof reading of the manuscript and her words of encouragement. Mr L. Ball, inally, is to be thanked or his multiple contributions. Contents Preface 10 INTRODUCTION 1 THE MANUFACTURE OF THE MUSLIM BEAST 12 1. Uninterrupted anti-Muslim Propaganda, Exaggerations, and ���� n 2. Westen Propaganda about Muslim Barbarism, and Realiy 29 3. Westen Academia and its Role in Forming the Image of Muslim Barbarism 3 7 4. The Use of Images 47 Concluding Words - Westen Manufacture of an Image, and Muslim Ineptness 54 THE DEPICTION OF MUSLIMS THROUGH THE AGES 58 1. In the Middle Ages 59 2. The 'Renaissance' 151h-'71h Centuries) 70 h 3. The 1' Centuy 78 h h 4. The 1' & 2d Centuries 85 WESTERN VIEWS OF THE TUKS 103 1. A Brief Histoy of Ottoman Turkey 104 2. The Turk as 'the Cruel Persecutor and Oppressor of Christians' 113 a. The l 51h -1 ih Century Period: 113 b. l81h-19th Century Depictions: 120 3. The Turk as 'the Enemy of Learning and Progress' 126 4. The Fa/lacy of Turkish Barbarism 131 THE MUSLIM AS 'CRUEL OPPRESSOR' 141 1. 'Muslim Intolerance' 142 a. Islam, Intolerance and Reutations: 143 b. 'Muslim Intolerance' and 'Westen Tolerance': Further Evidence rom History: 146 c. The Situation Today: 155 2. Muslim 'Oppression of Women' 159 a. Unremiting Propaganda: 161 b. The 'Islamic Source of Barbarism and Westen Colonial Enlightenment': 166 c. 'The Woes of Muslim Women Today': 172 d. Once More, the Contradiction Between hetoric and Reality: 175 CAPTIVES, SLAVES, AND RACISTS 182 1. The Muslim as the 'Cruel Captor of Christians' 183 a. Muslims under Christian Captivity: 185 b. Christians under the Captivity of Muslims: 192 2. The Muslim as 'the Pitiless Slave Trader' 202 a. Westen Propaganda about Muslim Slave Trading: 202 b. Fallacies Uncovered: Islam and Slavery: 211 b. Slavery Under Westen Cristendom: 214 3. The Muslim as 'a Racist' 221 A Comparative Look at Race under Islam and the Christian West: 223 a. Race under Islam: 224 b. Race under Westen Christendom: 227 THE DEPICTION OF THE MUSLIM AS AN INFERIOR 232 1. The Muslim as an 'Inept, Uncivilised Barbarian': The Problem 236 2. 'Muslim Inherent Inferioriy' 242 Suppressing Muslim Heritage fom Knowledge 249 3. 4. The Muslim as 'an Irrational, Unruly, Fanatic' 266 BARBARISM: CONFLICT BETWEEN RHETORIC AND REALITY 278 1. Islam as the Source of 'Barbarism' 282 2. Muslim Barbarism in Westen Rhetoric, and the Realiy of Barbarism 290 3. Islamic Barbarism? 299 4. The Immoraliy of Manufacturing Barbarsm and Concealing Genocides 308 THE AIMS BEHIND THE MYTH OF MUSLIM BARBARISM 316 1. Manufacturing Barbarism and its Uses: Some Instances 318 2. 'Muslim Barbarism' and Militay Invasions: Some Historical Perspectives 324 a. The Crusades (1095-1291): 324 th 1h b. Westen Colonisation (18 -19 centuries): 329 c. The Case of Iraq Today: 342 3. 'Muslim Barbarism': Its Countless Other Uses 344 Final Words on the uses of'Islamic Barbarism': Demonise and Assault: 354 Conclusions 358 Select Bibliography 362 Index 369 Preface Reasons or Writing this Book History teaches us that no people who have been singled out or demonization have avoided physical harm. This book will show plenty of instances of how, once a community is demonized, painted as threatening, barbaric, and inerior, the result has been its subjugation and genocide. Muslims and Islam have been at the receiving end of the most vitriolic attacks and polemics known in history, and the consequences have been dreadul. From the crusades, through to the colonial era, to our times, this demonizing has always resulted in military invasions of Muslim lands and mass slaying of Muslims. Today, painting the Muslims as the inerior, threatening, and barbic oes could be used to justiy their mass slaughter, just as happened in the past, as history has shown us. Although genocides are always denounced, once removed rom attention and once justiied on the round of the barbarism or ineriority of a communiy, they happen again and again. The West was supposed to have leant rom the mass persecution and killing of the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s but did not. Decades later, the mass rape and killings of Muslims in Bosnia took place in the midst of 'civilised Europe,' on the same grounds, ater they had been demonised and ater their mass killing was justiied intellecually, while the West just stood by and watched. There is today a substantial Muslim minority in the West. Times are also rie with misunderstandings and mutual disrust. Maintaining the cycle of demonizing Islam and Muslims might, under certain circumstances, lead to a repeat of the same horiic experiences of the past that were sufered by both Muslim and non-Muslim populations which were similarly demonized. The outcomes of any outburst of anti-Islamic hysteria in the West could have devastating efects or us all. This book is written so as to begin a counter-demonizing campaign. This campaign does not involve using the same debased means as those Westen polemicists use against Islam. This would be wrong, and Westen society, despite its deects, is a society of great accomplishments and the vast majority of Westeners decent people, just as good and as e bad as Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Chinese, Aricans, and everybody else. If Westen society bears deiciencies, and if Westen Cistendom is not without aults, this is not or this author to judge or pontiicate upon. If Westeners are not all good and perfect this is all too nomal or human nature. This author is himself too aware of the evil mny Muslims, who only bear the name of Muslim, are capable o, or inlict on others, or him to take a naive stand and speak of the holy and sinless naure of Muslims. The aim of this author is to counter the generalised rhetorical onslaught on his aith and comunity not only because of the dangers this might lead to, but also because, as a histoian and as an academic, it is his duty to do so, however averse he is to taking such a stand, and however uncommitted he is by nature. he main ocus of this work is on the issue of the depiction of the Muslims and their aith as barbaria/barbaric. hilst much of the rhetoric daily portrays a barbaic side of Islam and Muslims, as this work shows in every chapter, reality completely contadicts this. This author will use all the power of his arguments and be as blunt as necessay to make the points just stated. In this process, he shows that histoy tells us that the most barbaric crimes are not the work of the Muslims but of the Christian West, the latter having always used images of others' barbarism to justiy its own. Whilst it is necessary to highlight this point to make the argument, this author will avoid dwelling too long on it as it might end in an anti-Westen ranting similar to that of the anti­ Islamic West. It is, indeed, one thing to deend one's realm, it is another to indulge in rhetorical attacks on the other, just as it is one thing to deend physically one's realm against an aacker, and toally another to initiate a physical attack. Nothing, indeed, justiies rhetorical or physical attacks on any one on a small eath, where rather than ighting, we can and ought to live side by side in our diversity in peace and reater prosperity. Hence this book. Introduction INTRODUCTION 'The Sword of Islam', 'The Islamic Threat,' 'The Roots of Muslim Rage,' 'The Green Peil,' Islam's New Batle-Cry': in a veritable lood of publications with these and similar titles, vaious authors seek to explain Islam to us,' says Lueg, who adds: 1 'Simpliied and undiferentiated descriptions of Islam in the media an the lames of vague ears of a supposed threat to Westen culture, and create a hostile image of Islam. For a long time the Islamic Middle East was seen as the polar opposite of the West and the enemy of Christianity .... Hardly anything on the Middle East, or on histoical clashes, or points of contact between the East and the West, is leaned in schools. Instead of knowledge or at least an unbiased examination of Islamic societies, we have cliches and stereotypes, which apparently make it easier to deal with the phenomenon of Islam. The Westen image of Islam is characterised by ideas of aggression and brutality, anaticism, irationality, medieval backwardness and antipathy towards 2 women.' 3 'According to many Westen commentators,' Esposito writes, 'Islam and the West are on a collision course. Islam is a tiple threat: political, demographic, and socio-religious.' For some, the naure of the Islamic threat is intensiied by the linkage of the political and the demographic. Thus Patrick Buchanan could write that while the West inds itself 'Negotiating or hostages with Shiite radicals who hate and detest us, . . . their Muslim brothers are populating Westen countries. The Muslim threat is global in naure as Muslims in 1 A. Lueg: The Perception of Islam in Westen Debate; in The Next Threat; edited by J. Hippler and A. Lueg; (Pluto Press; London; 1995); pp. 7-31; at p. 7. 2 Ibid. 3 J. Esposito: The Islamic Threat; Mh or Reality? (Oxord Universiy Press; 1992); p. 175. 1 The Myth of Muslim Barbarism -and its Aims Europe, the Soviet Union, and America "prolierate and 4 prosper.' Other observers, such as Charles rauthammer, in the midst of the n­ ravelling of the Soviet Union, spoke of a global Islamic uprising, a vision of Muslims in the heartland and on the periphery of the Muslim world rising up in revolt: a 'new "arc of crisis"... another great movement is going on as well, unnoticed but just as potentous: a global intiada. '5 Hippler and Lueg note how: 'In almost all orms of the media, 'experts' seek to enlighten us on the new dangers rom the East: holy wars, anatical masses, the revenge of the Middle Ages on modenity and of religion on the Enlightenment. Islam is sometimes a 'challenge', sometimes a threat. The conquest of Vienna by the Turks is apparently once again imminent. With Khomeini, Gaddai, Saddam Hussein, Araat and the Algerian undamentalists, the anti-Westen wave is rolling on, at any rate splashing across popular magazines and television screens. The threat might be a spiritual one, an Oriental counter-model to W estem civilisation; it might result in stopping the low of oil, or in a cultural invasion by immigrants rom Turkey to the Maghreb. It might lie in the Islamic atom bomb, in terrorism or in a treatened Islamic undamentalist world revolution in the Iranian mould. Simple minds might even see it as a battle of Islam against Christianity, or against 'unbelievers.' In Europe and the USA all these perceptions of threats exist, sometimes side by side and at other times separately. Sometimes they crop up suddenly and compete with each other, and at other times they are systematized and compounded, all depending on what is required or desired in a particular situation. '6 To enhance this perception of Muslim threat and Muslim barbarism, there are uninterrupted, highly publicised, arrests and dismantling of 'Islamist teror plots.' From one end of the West to the other, not a day passes when we are not told, in the midst of the loudest media uproar, 4 P. J. Buchanan: Rising Islam may overwhelm the West; New Hampshire Sunday News; August 20; 1989. 5 C. rauthammer: The New Crescent of Crisis: Global Intiada; Washington Post; Februay 16; 1990. 6 J. Hippler and A. Lueg: Introduction; in The Next Threat; op cit; p. I. 2 Introduction about Islamic teror networks being dismantled, and multiple arrests, Islamic teror networks, seemingly, proving more powerful than Westen states themselves. It matters little if these highly publicised arrests in their near entirey end in releases and acquittals of those arrested: still the constant arrests and discoveries of 'plots' have now created the certainty that all Muslims in the West are guilty of barbaric intentions. Following a recent (2006) dawn raid by crowds of British police, and the arrests of two alleged Muslim 'terrorists' involved in a 'chemical' plot, to the remark by a jounalist that the wo arrested men were law-abiding citizens, a member of the British govenment stated 7 that terrorists hide behind the law-abiding veneer. This helps people conclude that being a law-abiding citizen would not protect a Muslim rom being suspected of intending to inlict terible woes on Westen society. In Canada, likewise, the arrest of seventeen alleged terrorists resulted in mass hysteria, with all Muslims deemed a danger to civilised society. 8 This Westen certainty that Islam and Muslims are a threat, and that if any violence is committed it can only be by Muslims, and that the Christians are only victims, is not new, but ollows a long-established Westen tradition of bombardment of opinion with similar depictions. Thus Vitkus writes: 'The demonisation of the Islamic East is a long and deeply­ rooted tradition in the West - spanning the centuries, rom the 1h early medieval period to the end of the 20 century. It harks back to ancient representation of Easten empires and invading hordes that predate Islam, including the Assyrians and the Persians of the Ancient World. The Classical and Biblical stereotypes that were established in the collective consciousness of the West were uther sharpened and solidiied later by the historical experience of 'Holy War' that began with the rise oflslam, continued during the period of the cusades, and endured during the Spanish Reconquista and Ottoman imperialism. In Westen Europe, a long histoy of military aggression and cultural competition (taking place primarily, but not entirely, in the Mediterranean Basin) seved 7 Inteview on Newsnight BBC2 2 June 06; seen by this author. 8 The Independent; 10 June 06; p. 35. 3