#i mean there were long-lasting wars between muslims and christians to spread their religion and seize the holy lands

[brunetteg1rl]

nobody has forgotten th e violence people have done “because of islam” those are just all the same reasons people use to make muslims look like horrible people

i think it wouldn't explain all of it, islamophobia in europe and america goes way back, people today may be putting forward the reasons you mentioned but there are deep-rooted economic, political and social reasons behind it

[nugicus]

Proactive Instead of Reactive: The Flawed Concept of the First Crusade as a Defensive War

It goes without saying but its undeniable how the Crusades have firmly implanted themselves into modern culture, despite the numerous other conflicts that have occurred in the nearly one thousand year-long Middle Ages. Our persistent fascination with them can be seen whenever they are constantly represented in popular media in the past few decades, whether it be Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, History Channel’s Knightfall, DC Comic’s Batman, and video games, such as Ubisolft’s Assassins Creed and Paradox Interactive’s Crusader Kings II. The concept has become so ingrained in our collective understanding that the very terminology of the word “crusade” has evolved to the point that it had begun to lose it’s religious origins and is now included to mean striving for a cause that is commonly considered as just even when such a cause isn’t religious in nature.

There is a completely apprehensible reason for such a profound resonance among today’s collective imagination: the very idea of the Crusades have become extremely fascinating due to the incredible amount of devotion exhibited by the Frankish knights who answered the call. This extreme level of enthusiasm that imbued itself in these holy wars led to thousands of Latin Christians in taking up arms and undertaking a horrendously perilous journey across thousands of miles when traveling just fifty was considered a highly rare occurrence at the time. The existence of a astoundingly high level of religious fervor that characterized the First Crusade allowed its participants to accomplish unimaginable feats of bravery, fortitude, and resilience, including traversing though hundreds of miles of exceedingly arid terrain and brutally carving through the territory of at least three hostile Muslim states in order to reach their much-anticipated goals. Those goals being, of course, the retaking of Jerusalem, which had been conquered by Muslim forces centuries earlier, and the complete salvation of their very souls.

- Frankish knights and men-at-arms. - Osprey Publishing

However, significant historical events that have occurred centuries in the past and have such a momentous effect in the current zeitgeist have the tendency to become subjected to frequent instances of oversimplification, misrepresentation, misappropriation, and even manipulation by individuals through either intentional or ignorant means. The Crusades are no different. In this case, the reason for such a shrewd reshaping of the memory of the holy wars is usually for the purpose of fueling certain ideologically driven agendas that are commonly spread by the repetition of numerous misconceptions about the campaigns for the holy land during the 11th and 12th centuries. One of the most prevailing misconceptions that has a habit of popping up in discourse, especially on the internet, is the claim that the First Crusade (1096-1099) was primarily a defensive war, in which Latin Christianity initiated the conflict by leading armies of rigidly honor-bound, chivalric knights as a response against wanton Muslim aggression that took the form of a “jihad” or a recent catastrophic lose of Christian territory. The claim is used time and again on far right blogs and YouTube videos that display disingenuous maps and poorly researched lectures, like those of Bill Warner, that fail to consider important political and religious divisions between Muslim powers during the medieval period. It is an extremely gross oversimplification of a conflict whose origins, which were highly determined by political, theological, cultural, and historical developments that were occurring internally in both Christian Europe, as well as in the Muslim world, largely dispels the culturally idealistic narrative that the First Crusade was a justifiable reaction to the provocation of Muslim jihad.

In the late 11th century, the political sphere in western medieval Europe existed as a highly fragmented state of affairs. Land was severely divided among a landed, warrior elite descended from the same Germanic “barbarians” who had conquered sections of the former Western Roman Empire centuries prior and who constantly came into conflict with one another over territory due to a myriad of petty feuds, dynastic rivalries, and succession disputes. In order to accomplish their aims, these feudal lords relied on a class of mounted, professional soldiers known as “knights,” who, unlike their modern depictions as a noble class of warriors with a rigid code of honor based on protecting the weak from persecution, constantly pillaged and burned nearby peasant communities in the countryside, especially those that were under the lordship of rival warlords. Further facilitating these incessantly high levels of warfare at the time was the lack of central authority monarchies had over their vassals who were only bound to their kings due to fragile oaths of fealty and could pursue their own territorial ambitions with impunity. This lack of any central control over the power of the warrior nobility coupled with the nearly unending warfare between the feudal lords caused violence and lawlessness to become endemic to the continent. The last time western Europe saw a significant degree of territorial unity was in 800 CE when the king of the Franks, Charlemagne, was crowned Emperor after successfully capturing large swaths of terrain of what is now France, Germany, the Low Countries, and Northern Italy. However, by the late 11th century, Charlemagne’s reign was seen by the European populace as nothing more than a fading memory of a bygone age of momentous political security.

- Medieval Europe at the time the First Crusade was announced. - Crusader Kings II from Paradox Interactive

Similar to the near-powerless feudal monarchs of Europe, the head of the Latin Christian church, the Pope, was having difficulty exerting papal authority over the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Europe. The Pope at this time was nothing more than a religious figurehead who could exert little-to-no authority over the rest of the church hierarchy, including the bishops who, at this time, had stronger ties with local secular rulers, such as the Holy Roman Emperor and the king of France, than they did with the papacy. A number of these monarchs had the ability to appoint high church officials to oversee cities and monasteries and sold church offices to members of the royal nobility, in a practice known as “simony,” who sought highly privileged careers in the church. This is despite the fact that, theoretically speaking, the appointment of ecclesiastical offices was the church’s undertaking. Many members of the church also held a seething contempt for the majority of knights who regarded them as overly vain, violence-prone rogues due to their savage treatment of the peasant population which became so entrenched in European life that religious clerics, such as Bernard de Clairvaux, went so far as to accuse them of “fighting for the devil.”

By the reign of Pope Gregory VII (1073-85), however, the papacy, who saw themselves as having the God-given role to protect Christendom from the corrupting influences of the secular world, had started to attempt reforming the church and knighthood by reasserting their supreme authority over religious affairs through the use of excommunication and by advocating the need of sacral military sponsorships, known as “holy wars.” By calling on Christian rulers to help defend the church, popes that had focused on reform had hoped to redirect the violence caused by the martial enthusiasm of the feudal warlords to be used towards combating the papacy’s and Christendom’s supposed enemies, mainly the Holy Roman Emperor and Muslim forces in the Eastern Mediterranean. These initial proactive measures of forming an military wing of the church under Pope Gregory fell flat on account of his confrontational methods, but one of his reformist-minded successors, Pope Urban II (1088-99), succeeded is calling for a crusade for the Holy Land at the Council of Clermont (1095) after Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenos requested military aid against the Seljuk Turks. This was achieved mainly due to the religious atmosphere of Latin Europe, the gradual acceptance of religiously ordained violence, and the strategy the papacy used to market the crusade.

- Pope Gregory VII was the first leader of the papacy to experiment in the implementation of an armed wing of the church. - Wikipedia

Unlike the fragmentation that characterized the political sphere of western Europe in the late 11th century, the same region was undergoing a period of an unprecedented level of spiritual unity. By 1095, the pagan peoples who once raided, pillaged, and settled all across the interior and coastline of the continent, such as the Tengri Magyars and Norse Vikings, had become largely Christianized, which led to Christianity becoming the most widely established religion in the West and to European society in becoming highly centered around the notion regarding the importance of religious devotion:

“This was a setting in which Christian doctrine impinged upon virtually every facet of human life–from birth and death, to sleeping and eating, marriage and health–and the signs of God’s omnipotence were clear for all to see, made manifest through acts of ‘miraculous’ healing, divine revelation and earthly and celestial portents.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land (2011) 

While this religious doctrine stressed the importance of love, charity, and tradition, it also led to the formation of a perilous anxiety, especially in the mindsets of the warrior nobility, which was brought on by the constantly reminded belief that one was destined to either eternal salvation or eternal damnation in accordance of an individuals acts in life:

“The Latin Church of the eleventh century taught that every human would face a moment of judgement–the so-called ‘weighing of souls’. Purity would bring the everlasting reward of heavenly salvation, but sin would result in damnation and an eternity of hellish torment. For the faithful of the day, the visceral reality of the dangers involved was driven home by graphic images in religious art and sculpture of the punishments to be suffered by those deemed impure: wretched sinners strangled by demons; the damned herded into the fires of the underworld by hideous devils.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land (2011)

It is not surprising, then, that the feudal nobility became intensely obsessed with the idea of repentance of ones sins and purity of ones soul, as the inherent contradiction of having both blood on ones hands and being a committed Christian was not lost on them. For feudal lords and their knights who believed they were destined for hellfire due to their rapacious brutality, there were multiple gestures they could make in their path to atone for their sins. These acts included devoting ones life to a impoverished existence in the form of monasticism, giving alms to the poor and donating to religious houses, and taking part in a pilgrimage to one of the many holy sites of Christendom, namely Jerusalem or Rome. The last being especially compelling due to the journey to sacred locations normally being fraught with danger.

- Medieval depictions of hell, like those found in Giotto's The Last Judgment from 1307, filled the hearts and minds of the faithful with the fear of losing their souls to eternal torment. - Web Gallery of Art

In the 11th century, there was also a growing theological development that was accepted by a greater following as time went on: religiously sanctioned warfare. Christianity may seem like a pacifistic faith, at first, due to one of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament clearly stating “Thou shall not kill,” but many Germanic European Christians had understood the notion that some acts of violence were justifiable, specifically on defensive grounds, and an inescapable part of life if still sinful. There were also many who believed that the papacy may even sanction violence, since in the past bishops of the church would commonly bless weapons and armor and, at least during the time of Charlemagne, direct military campaigns with the express purpose of converting pagans. The concept of papal sponsorship of warfare was found potentially attractive to secular lords and knights who were suffering from “damnation anxiety” for being too well-accustomed to violence on account of Pope Gregory VII, who heavily promoted the idea, claiming that those participating in a holy struggle to defend Christendom would receive the same spiritual rewards as those who participating in a religious pilgrimage.

Despite such a powerful religious atmosphere in Europe at the time, Pope Gregory was mainly unsuccessful in sponsoring an armed pilgrimage to the East, since the idea of the Pope leading an army in person was considered too radical for its time. It did, however, establish an important precedent that would relied upon in a more indirect and refined manner by later popes, namely Pope Urban II, who waited for an opportunity to present itself to make the notion of an armed pilgrimage to the east, now called a “crusade,” into a reality and to spread the papacy’s sphere of influence. As already mentioned, Pope Urban II was offered a chance to expand Rome’s authority outside the confines of central Italy and to redirect the widespread violence spawned from the many petty feuds between noble houses against a common foreign foe by calling for a holy war when, while presiding over an ecclesiastical council in the Italian city of Piacenza during the spring of 1095, ambassadors representing the Greek Christian Byzantine Emperor arrived requesting military aid against Muslim forces. By 1095, the Byzantine Empire lost roughly half of its size, including almost all of Anatolia, when it suffered a catastrophic loss at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 against the Muslim Seljuk Turks and was seeking to regain its lost territory. Using the defense of eastern Christendom as a pretext, Pope Urban called for a crusade by autumn during a special sermon at the Council of Clermont in southern France in a room full of hundreds of spectators, including archbishops, bishops, and abbots. According to accounts, Pope Urban not only sent a call to aid the Greek Christians from the impending threat of Islam. He had also included a secondary aim: sending a military expedition to the holy city of Jerusalem. A site considered the most sanctified in all Christendom, its inclusion as one of the grand objectives for the First Crusade, as well as the admittance of the guarantee of heavenly salvation for those who participated, resonated deeply among the hearts and minds of God-fearing knights all across western Europe.

However, the inclusion of these two spiritually profound goals still presented a serious problem to Pope Urban II. There was no recent horrible atrocity or urgent threat of Muslim invasion towards Latin Christendom in which to draw upon in order to produce a greater sense of legitimate justification and raging hunger for vengeance to encourage knights to cross thousands of miles to retake the holy city of Jerusalem:

“Recent history offered no obvious event that might serve to focus and inspire a vengeful tide of enthusiasm. Yes, Jerusalem was ruled by Muslims, but this had been the case since the seventh century. And, while Byzantium may have been facing a deepening threat of Turkish aggression, western Christendom was not on the brink of invasion or annihilation at the hands of Near Eastern Islam.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land (2011) 

It’s also important to note that the hostility between Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire and the Muslim Seljuk Turks wasn’t religious in nature and the former was also involved in frequent clashes with its Christian Slavic neighbors:

“The reality is that, when Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade at Clermont, Islam and Christianity had largely coexisted for centuries in relative equanimity. There may have been little love lost between Christian and Muslim neighbors, but there was, in truth, little to distinguish this enmity from the endemic political and military struggles of the age.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Firt Crusade: A New History (2005)

So how did Pope Urban II rectify the problem with the lack of a recent nearby tragedy to exploit in order to boost enthusiasm for his militarized religious pilgrimage? He did this by demonizing Muslims in the Near East to absolutely morbid degrees and exaggerating any sort of negative treatment of Christians may have endured under the rule of Islam:

“Muslims therefore were portrayed as subhuman savages, bent upon the barbaric abuse of Christendom. Urban described how Turks ‘were slaughtering and capturing many [Greeks], destroying churches and laying waste to the kingdom of God’. He also asserted that Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land were being abused and exploited by Muslims, with the rich being stripped of their wealth by illegal taxes, and the poor subjected to torture.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land (2011)

He further dehumanized Muslims by describing them as bloodthirsty abominations who took sadistic glee in enslaving and violating Christian women and disemboweling Christian pilgrims who headed for the holy land. It is unsure whether or not Pope Urban II truly believed in his own propaganda, but his incendiary rhetoric and his promise of the remission of sins for those who took part in the holy venture certainly captivated his audience and succeeded in persuading many atonement-seeking knights that fighting Islam was preferable to fighting fellow Christians. He was so successful in his proclamation of a crusade that when news spread of it throughout Europe by word of preachers he managed to recruit both a sanctioned and unsanctioned army in the tens of thousands strong. By 1099, the former led by Bishop Adhemar de la Puy and Count Raymond of Toulouse and numbering around 50,000 footmen and knights miraculously managed to retake Jerusalem after months of fighting, the dwindling of resources, and threats of desertion.

- The Council of Clermont started a deadly dehumanization campaign against Muslims in the Near East. - Wikipedia

Interestingly, this vast, primarily Frankish army wasn’t even what Emperor Alexius had hoped for when he had asked the papacy for military aid against the Turks. He was expecting, at most, a few thousand freelance knights he could comfortably incorporate into his own forces to safeguard his remaining territory and retake parts of Anatolia. When the massive crusader force finally make it to Constantinople, Emperor Alexius tried to demand its leaders, with varying degrees of success, to swear an oath of vassalage to him and return to the Byzantine Empire any territory they took from the Turks.

Evidently, nothing about this dehumanizing speech about Muslims viciously terrorizing Christians inhabiting the Near East could be farther from the truth. First of all, while Islamic society may have far from an ideal progressive paradise by modern standards, one of the reasons it was so successful in it’s growth after the caliphs (the successors of the religion’s founder, the Prophet Muhammed, and leaders of all of Islam’s religious and political affairs) began conquering large swathes of territory outside the Arabian peninsula during the 630s was the relatively tolerant approach it took to treating non-Muslims that resided in territory it had subjugated. Rather than leading mass conversions of the people the caliphs had surmounted, non-Muslims, specifically those with common monotheistic religious roots to Islam, such as Jews and Christians, were labeled as “Peoples of the Book” and where allowed to practice their faiths in exchange for the payment of a poll tax. In all honestly, it was an era of unmatched religious tolerance for its time:

“Most significantly, throughout this period indigenous Christians actually living under Islamic law, whether it be in Iberia or the Holy Land, were generally treated with remarkable clemency. The Muslim faith acknowledged and respected Judaism and Christianity creeds in which it enjoyed a common devotional tradition and a mutual reliance upon authoritative scripture. Christian subjects may not have been able to share power with their Muslim masters, but thy ere given freedom to worship. All around the Mediterranean basin, Christian faith survived and even thrived under the watchful but tolerant eye of Islam. Eastern Christendom may have been subject to Islamic rule, but it was not on the brink of annihilation, nor prey to any form of systemic abuse.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Firt Crusade: A New History (2005)

It’s also far from accurate to suggest that Islam in the late 11th century existed as a singular religious-political, monolithic realm that constantly waged its own holy war on non-Muslim neighbors in the form of a “jihad.” Not unlike western Europe, by the late 11th century the Near East was a fragmented assortment of political and religious holdings and the tensions between them had increased in intensity ever since the fall of the expansive Umayyad caliphate during a bloody coup in 750. After the Abbasid dynasty took over and moved the capital from Damascus to Baghdad, the caliphs authority gradually began to devolve over time to the point they became nothing much more than nominal figureheads who held power only in theory. When the First Crusade was announced in 1095, the Near East was politically and religiously divided between two rivaled forces: the Sunni Seljuk Turks and the Shia Fatimid caliphate. Descended from nomadic tribesmen known for their armies of mounted archers, the Seljuks conquered much of what is now Persia, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia, declared themselves sultan and effectively became the overlords of Sunni Islam and the defenders of the Abbasid Caliphate. However, during the time the crusaders reached the Near East, the Seljuk’s territory was itself in disarray over the succession of the title sultan which led their empire to fracture. Their primary adversaries, the Shia Fatamids, were a rival dynasty who claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammed’s daughter, Fatima, who had conquered large portions of territory that used to be part of the domain of the Abbasids including North Africa, the Levant, Syria, and Egypt.

-  The Seljuk Empire and the Fatamids were the mst powerful Muslim states in the Near East during the late 11th century. - istanbulclues.com

The schism that resulted in the Sunni-Shia split is traced back to a dispute regarding the legitimacy of Muhammed’s successors. Adherents of the Sunni sect subscribe to the belief that Muhammed’s legitimate successor was his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, and that all rightful caliphs are those elected by members of the Muslim elite. Shia Islam, on the other hand, contends that only descendants of Muhammed’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, and his daughter, Fatima, can be proclaimed caliph. Both sects regarded the other as believers in a dangerous heresy and constantly squabbled for territory in the Levant, which fostered a high degree of religious and political disunity in the Near East that aided the crusaders in their taking of Jerusalem.

As time moved ever farther from the era of rapid Muslim conquest and expansion that characterized the 7th and 8th centuries, enthusiasm for Islam’s own version for a holy war, a jihad, gradually began to wane to the point that by the near end of the 11th century it entered a period of relative inactivity. In the classical sense, a jihad, which literally means “struggle” or “striving,” was interpreted by Sunni Muslim jurists during the early period of Islam’s history as an endless holy war to be waged on non-Muslims and endorsed by the caliphs until all accepted the rule of Islam. Similar to the Christian crusades, it was considered a holy obligation that all Muslims should take part and those who contributed to a jihad rewarded with entry into heavenly Paradise. However, as Muslim Arabs began to trade with Christian communities and largely abandoned their nomadic roots, calls of jihad against Christendom started to lose substantial momentum and instead were turned against rival Muslim sects that Sunnis considered heretical: 

“As the centuries passed, the driving impulse towards expansion encoded in this classical theory of jihad was gradually eroded. Arab tribesmen began to settle into more sedentary lifestyles and to trade with non-Muslims, such as the Byzantines. Holy wars against the likes of Christians continued, but they became far more sporadic and often were promoted and prosecuted by Muslim emirs, without caliphal endorsement. By the eleventh century, the rulers of Sunni Baghdad were far more interested in using jihad to promote Islamic orthodoxy by battling ‘heretic’ Shi‘ites than they were in launching holy wars against Christendom. The suggestion that Islam should engage in an unending struggle to enlarge its borders and subjugate non-Muslims held little currency; so too did the idea of unifying in defence of the Islamic faith and its territories. When the Christian crusades began, the ideological impulse of devotional warfare thus lay dormant within the body of Islam, but the essential framework remained in place.” - Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land (2011)

In review, the belief that the First Crusade was a purely righteous backlash against a supposed existential threat posed by Islam is shown to be largely insufficient in evidence after explaining the politically divided state of both western Europe and the Muslim of the 11th century, the unbalanced power dynamic between the Latin Church and secular monarchies, the proactive efforts the papacy attempted in directing holy war, and the generally tolerant treatment towards Christians living under Muslim rule. The purpose of revealing the multiple religious and political complexities that expedite momentous instances of historical conflict is to expose the faultiness of oversimplifying the origins of the crusades which only leads to the manufacturing and reinforcing of historical misconceptions that have the tendency to glorify or mythologize historical events. This construction of an imaginative view of the crusades can be quite dangerous since those that perpetuate it have the penchant of selecting certain elements that fits more comfortably with a groups ideological agenda while glossing over some of the worst cases of religious violence, some of which would be considered examples of genocide by today's international human rights laws. These include the bloody Rhineland massacres, when member’s of the unsanctioned People’s Crusade slaughtered Jewish communities along the Rhine, and the massacre of Jews and Muslims that occurred when the crusaders had taken the city of Jerusalem.

This semi-mythological and overglorified view of the Crusades, however, was not always thus. After the Reformation and during the European Enlightenment, the Crusades became largely re-appraised by scholars and theologians, which led the holy wars to lose their fanciful descriptions and become considered as a significantly dark and exceedingly violent period in European history. It was seen by Enlightenment scholars as a prime example of the vile barbarity and terrible oppressiveness unrestrained religious devotion can ultimately produce if left unchecked. By the 1800s, this hostile attitude towards the Crusades had begun to change during the rise of European imperialism and nationalism. Scholars during the 19th century, such as French historian Joseph Francois Michaud, started a trend that became exceedingly difficult to dislodge from European perspectives. They romanticized the crusaders as daring adventurers who were given the noble task of “civilizing” Asia and interpreted the crusades  as admirable cases of “proto-colonization.” This misrepresentation that overlionizes the Crusades was the beginning of the subject falling sway to the phenomena known as “historical parallelism.”

Historical parallelism is “the desire to see the modern world reflected in the past.” (Asbrigde 2011) Today the concept is being used in a manner to draw a false comparison between the medieval and modern worlds through the utilization of historical inaccuracies surrounding the separate time periods and the misappropriation of crusader imagery as a tool for propaganda purposes. These efforts have increased strikingly in the past few years due to the growing influence of ultra-nationalism in the West that has been increasing since the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Neofascist protestors in Charlottesville, for example, wore shields that were unsubtly emblazoned with the Templar Cross while others have been chanting the infamous medieval crusader phrase “Deus Vult!,” which means “God wills it!” in Latin. Interestingly, the process of appropriating the crusader period isn’t just monopolized by the hard right in the West. Radical Islamic organizations and leaders for decades, such as Sayyid Qutb and Osama bin Laden, have frequently referenced the Crusades as a means of condemning the West and portraying Western military forces, especially those that have intervened in the Levant, as modern-day crusaders that are hell bent on invading Islamic territory and that the only response to such a Christian invasion is violent “jihad.”

While the crude and shameless “borrowing” of crusader symbolism is far from a recent development among alt-right groups and Islamic propagandists, its urgent now more than ever to confront such mistruths that these organizations have the habit of spreading, especially on video sharing sites such as YouTube. In the case of the Crusades, the proliferation of historical falsehoods results in the formation of a false, fatalistic “us vs them” narrative between European and Muslim civilization that characterizes both cultures as if they are locked in never-ending antagonism with each other since medieval times. This agenda-driven endeavor to revise the Crusades as a war fought along ethnic lines is a barely disguised attempt to justify prejudice against Muslim immigrants, including recent Muslim refugees who are desperate to escape from the civil wars that have been plaguing parts of the Middle East. Thankfully scholars, such as historian Christopher Tyerman with his new book The World of the Crusades, have been diligently fighting back against this tide of virulent misinformation with imperative efforts to clarify and correct our understanding of the Crusades through the use of Twitter threads, Op-Eds, blog posts, and books. Their push to reverse this negative transformative effect the internet has had on historiography is undoubtedly an uphill battle but their struggle will hopefully prove how important history as field of study is in this post-9/11 world.

Sources:

Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades: The Authoritative History for the War of the Holy Land. 2011.

Asbridge, Thomas. The First Crusade: A New History. 2005.

Phillips, Jonathan. Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades. 2010. 

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

[countrymadefoods]

Gita is Krishnas Gift to Humanity

“Bhagavad Gita, also called the ‘holy song of the Lord’, is a gift given to the human society from Lord Sri Krishna to direct them towards seeking the higher goals of life...Bhagavad Gita can be compared to an intelligence agency. The word ‘intelligence’ means ‘inside information’. Any agency which has inside information about certain facts is an intelligence agency. Every country in this world has some intelligence agencies...All these agencies have access to information which common people do not have. Similarly, Bhagavad Gita gives us access to a range of inside information.

When Bhagavad Gita was spoken...Arjuna was a prince warrior, a householder with wife and children, having responsibilities of ruling the kingdom. However, Lord Krishna chose Arjuna to speak Bhagavad Gita...was spoken in the midst of the most gruesome impending war. Lord Krishna, however, chose to speak Bhagavad Gita in that situation by postponing the war.”

”[A] great warrior like Arjuna couldn’t tolerate even the insinuation of desertion and the cowardice it implied. Discouragement and internal state of mind had the power to take such a great hero to such a terrible state. Whether it is depression, dejection, or disheartenment—discouragement is one of our extremely dangerous enemies. For Arjuna even the thought of deserting and leaving the war was unconscionable.

Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.”

(via Gita is krishna’s gift to humanity- The New Indian Express)

Bhagavad Gita

“The Bhagavad Gita often referred to as the Gita...is set in a narrative framework of a dialogue between Pandava prince Arjuna and his guide and charioteer Krishna...Arjuna is filled with moral dilemma and despair about the violence and death the war will cause. He wonders if he should renounce and seeks Krishna's counsel, whose answers and discourse constitute the Bhagadvad Gita... The setting of the Gita in a battlefield has been interpreted as an allegory for the ethical and moral struggles of the human life.

The Gita in the title of the text "Bhagavad Gita" means "song"...the title has been interpreted as "the Song of God"..."the Song of the Lord", "the Divine Song", and "the Celestial Song"...the Bhagavad Gita suggests that it was composed in an era when the ethics of war were being questioned and renunciation to monastic life was becoming popular. Such an era emerged after the rise of Buddhism and Jainism in the 5th-century BCE...the first version of the Bhagavad Gita may have been composed in or after the 3rd-century BCE.”

Greco-Buddhism

“Greco-Buddhism, or Graeco-Buddhism, is the cultural syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed between the 4th century BC and the 5th century AD in Bactria and the Indian subcontinent. It was a cultural consequence of a long chain of interactions begun by Greek forays into India from the time of Alexander the Great...Greco-Buddhism continued to flourish under the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, Indo-Greek Kingdoms, and Kushan Empire. Buddhism was adopted in Central and Northeastern Asia from the 1st century AD, ultimately spreading to China, Korea, Japan, Siberia, and Vietnam.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (250–125 BC)...were followed by the Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BC – AD 10). Even though the region was conquered by the Indo-Scythians and the Kushan Empire (1st–3rd centuries AD), Buddhism continued to thrive.Buddhism in India was a major religion for centuries until a major Hindu revival from around the 5th century, with remaining strongholds such as Bengal largely ended during the Islamic invasions of India. The length of the Greek presence in Central Asia and northern India provided opportunities for interaction, not only on the artistic, but also on the religious plane.”

“According to Ptolemy, Greek cities were founded by the Greco-Bactrians in northern India...A large Greek city built by Demetrius...at the archaeological site of Sirkap...where Buddhist stupas were standing side-by-side with Hindu and Greek temples, indicating religious tolerance and syncretism...In many parts of the Ancient World, the Greeks did develop syncretic divinities, that could become a common religious focus for populations with different traditions...Many of the stylistic elements in the representations of the Buddha point to Greek influence...Greek artists were most probably the authors of these early representations of the Buddha, in particular the standing statues, which display "a realistic treatment of the folds and on some even a hint of modelled volume that characterizes the best Greek work.

Intense westward physical exchange at that time along the Silk Road is confirmed by the Roman craze for silk from the 1st century BC to the point that the Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds...also wrote about Indo-Greek Buddhist king Menander, confirming that information about the Indo-Greek Buddhists was circulating throughout the Hellenistic world.”

“Although the philosophical systems of Buddhism and Christianity have evolved in rather different ways, the moral precepts advocated by Buddhism from the time of Ashoka through his edicts do have some similarities with the Christian moral precepts developed more than two centuries later: respect for life, respect for the weak, rejection of violence, pardon to sinners, tolerance.One theory is that these similarities may indicate the propagation of Buddhist ideals into the Western World, with the Greeks acting as intermediaries and religious syncretists.”

Hinduism

“Hinduism is the world’s oldest religion, according to many scholars, with roots and customs dating back more than 4,000 years. Today, with about 900 million followers, Hinduism is the third-largest religion behind Christianity and Islam. Roughly 95 percent of the world’s Hindus live in India...Hindus revere all living creatures and consider the cow a sacred animal.Food is an important part of life for Hindus. Most don’t eat beef or pork, and many are vegetarians.Hinduism is closely related to other Indian religions, including Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.

Around 1500 B.C., the Indo-Aryan people migrated to the Indus Valley, and their language and culture blended with that of the indigenous people living in the region...The concept of dharma was introduced in new texts, and other faiths, such as Buddhism and Jainism, spread rapidly...In the 7th century, Muslim Arabs began invading areas in India. During parts of the Muslim Period, which lasted from about 1200 to 1757, Hindus were restricted from worshipping their deities, and some temples were destroyed. Saints expressed their devotion through poetry and songs.”

(via Hinduism | History Channel)

Ariana

“Ariana, the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Ἀρ(ε)ιανή Ar(e)ianē (inhabitants: Ariani; Ἀρ(ε)ιανοί Ar(e)ianoi), was a general geographical term used by some Greek and Roman authors of the ancient period for a district of wide extent between Central Asia and the Indus River, comprising the eastern provinces of the Achaemenid Empire that covered the whole of modern-day Afghanistan, as well as the easternmost part of Iran and up to the Indus River in Pakistan (former Northern India).

The Greek term Arianē (Latin: Ariana), a term found in Iranian Avestan Airiiana- (especially in Airyanem Vaejah, the name of the Iranian peoples' mother country). The modern name Iran represents a different form of the ancient name Ariana which derived from Airyanem Vaejah and implies that Iran is “the” Ariana itself – a word found in Old Persian – a view supported by the traditions of the country preserved in the Muslim writers of the ninth and tenth centuries. The Greeks also referred to Haroyum/Haraiva (Herat) as 'Aria', which is one of the many provinces found in Ariana.

The names Ariana and Aria, and many other ancient titles of which Aria is a component element, are connected with the Avestan term Airya-, and the Old Persian term Ariya-, a self designation of the peoples of Ancient India and Ancient Iran, meaning "noble", "excellent" and "honourable".”

Aria (region)

“Aria is an Achaemenid region centered on the city of Herat in present-day western Afghanistan. In classical sources, Aria has been several times confused with the greater region of ancient Ariana, of which Aria formed a part.  Aria was an Old Persian satrapy, which enclosed chiefly the valley of the Hari River... which in antiquity was considered as particularly fertile and, above all, rich in wine. The region of Aria was separated by mountain ranges...in the east...west...north... while a desert separated it...in the south...Its original capital was Artacoana or Articaudna according to Ptolemy. In its vicinity, a new capital was built, either by Alexander the Great himself or by his successors, Alexandria Ariana, modern Herat in northwest Afghanistan.”

Arya (Buddhism)

“Arya is a term frequently used in Buddhism that can be translated as "noble", "not ordinary", "valuable", "precious", "pure", etc. Arya in the sense of "noble" or "exalted" is frequently used in Buddhist texts to designate a spiritual warrior or hero.

The word "noble," or ariya, is used by the Buddha to designate a particular type of person, the type of person which it is the aim of his teaching to create. In the discourses the Buddha classifies human beings into two broad categories. On one side there are the puthujjanas, the worldlings, those belonging to the multitude...On the other side there are the ariyans, the noble ones, the spiritual elite, who obtain this status not from birth, social station or ecclesiastical authority but from their inward nobility of character....In Chinese Buddhist texts, ārya is translated as 聖 approximately, "holy, sacred" 

Getes – the story to be told – Quotes

“The Spanish Chronicles...“The Daco-Getes are considered to be the founders of the Spaniards.”...The Chronicle of the Dukes of Normandy...“The Daco-Getes are considered to be the founders of the nordic nations.”...Collectanea Etymologica...“The Daco-Getes are considered to be the founders of the Teutons and Frisians, of the Dutch and Anglians.”...Cavasius (The Administration of the Kingdom of Transylvania): “In Italy, Spain and Galia, the peoples used to spoke an idiom of an older formation under the name of Rumanian language, as in the time of Cicero. The Rumanian language has more latinity than Italian.”

Bonaventura Vulcannius of Bruges, 1597: “The Getes had their own alphabet long before the Latin one was born. The Getes sang, using the flute, the deeds of their heroes, composing songs even before the foundation of Rome, that of which Cato says – the Romans started to do much later.”...Carolus Lundius...“It has to be clear for everyone, the ones who antiquity named them with a distinguished admiration Getes, the writers named them afterwards, through a unanimous agreement, Goths. The Greeks and other nations took letters from the Getes. We find with Herodotus and Diodorus, direct opinions about the spreading of these letters.”

“GET (pronounced ‘Jet’) = Earth-born. In Rumanian, the word ‘gețuitor’ (viețuitor) means ‘living man’. Earth = Geea/Gaia (Geb/Gebeleizis)...Djed = The forefathers of the first pharaohs of Egypt. Egyptians use this word Djed (pronounced ‘Jet’) when they speak of the ‘old ones’ that lived before them. Therefore this term has to do, not only with the Greeks. In Croatian the word ‘đed’ (pronounced ‘Jed’) means ‘grandfather’, which is another proof that the word ‘Get’ bears the meaning of ‘Old/Ancient’.

[T]he term ‘Gitia’ we have as a reconfirmation of the sacrality of its name, the Vedic opera Bhagavad Gītā (pronounced ‘Geeta’) which means ‘Song of the Lord’ or ‘Divine Song’ that speaks about the noble Aryans (‘Deva’ or ‘Devi’ meaning ‘The Divine’) which invaded the rich land of India...GETO = ‘The Brilliant’ or ‘The Divine’ or ‘The Wolves’, but they also have the meaning of ‘inhabitants of Davas’, where ‘Dava’ = ‘Fortress’. All these terms are in fact epithets that describe the Getes...The exonyms ‘Dac’/’Daki’ were used by the Romans to describe the Getes.”

(via Getes – the story to be told – Quotes | Vieille Europe blog)

Getae

“The Getae, or Gets (Ancient Greek: Γέται, singular Γέτης) were several Thracian tribes that once inhabited the regions to either side of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria and southern Romania. Both the singular form Get and plural Getae may be derived from a Greek exonym: the area was the hinterland of Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast, bringing the Getae into contact with the ancient Greeks from an early date. Several scholars, especially in the Romanian historiography, posit the identity between the Getae and their westward neighbours, the Dacians.

There is a dispute among scholars about the relations between the Getae and Dacians, and this dispute also covers the interpretation of ancient sources. Some historians such as Ronald Arthur Crossland state that even Ancient Greeks used the two designations "interchangeable or with some confusion". Thus, it is generally considered that the two groups were related to a certain degree, the exact relation is a matter of controversy.”

Geats

“The Geats (/ˈɡiːts/, /ˈɡeɪəts/ or /ˈjæts/) (Old English: gēatas)...sometimes called Goths, were a North Germanic tribe who inhabited Götaland ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden during the Middle Ages...Beowulf and the Norse sagas name several Geatish kings, but only Hygelac finds confirmation in Liber Monstrorum where he is referred to as "Rex Getarum"...Some decades after the events related in this epic...described the Geats as a nation which was "bold, and quick to engage in war"...The Hervarar saga is believed to contain such traditions handed down from the 4th century. According to that work, when the Hunnish Horde invaded the land of the Goths and the Gothic king Angantyr desperately tried to marshal the defenses, it was the Geatish king Gizur who answered his call, though there is no actual evidence of a successful invasion.

There is a hypothesis that the Jutes also were Geats, and which was proposed by Pontus Fahlbeck in 1884. According to this hypothesis the Geats would have not only resided in southern Sweden but also in Jutland, where Beowulf would have lived...Gēatas is the Old English form of Old Norse Gautar and modern Swedish Götar...in Beowulf, the Gēatas live east of the Dani (across the sea) and in close contact with the Sweon, which fits the historical position of the Geats between the Danes/Daci and the Swedes. Moreover, the story of Beowulf, who leaves Geatland and arrives at the Danish court after a naval voyage, where he kills a beast, finds a parallel in Hrólf Kraki's saga. In this saga, Bödvar Bjarki leaves Gautland and arrives at the Danish court after a naval voyage and kills a beast that has been terrorizing the Danes for two years (see also Origins for Beowulf and Hrólf Kraki)...As for the origins of the ethnonym Jute, it may be a secondary formation of the toponym Jutland, where jut is derived from a Proto-Indo-European root *eud meaning "water".

Bactria

“Bactria (/ˈbæktriə/); or Bactriana was a historical region in Central Asia. Bactria proper was north of the Hindu Kush mountain range and south of the Amu Darya river, covering the flat region that straddles modern-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and parts of Northern Pakistan. More broadly Bactria was the area north of the Hindu Kush.

After two years of war and a strong insurgency campaign, Alexander managed to establish little control over Bactria. After Alexander's death...Alexander's empire was divided up among the generals in Alexander's army. Bactria became a part of the Seleucid Empire, named after its founder, Seleucus I. The Macedonians, especially Seleucus I and his son Antiochus I, established the Seleucid Empire and founded a great many Greek towns. The Greek language became dominant for some time there.

The Greco-Bactrians were so powerful that they were able to expand their territory as far as India: As for Bactria, a part of it lies alongside Aria towards the north, though most of it lies above Aria and to the east of it. And much of it produces everything except oil. The Greeks who caused Bactria to revolt grew so powerful on account of the fertility of the country that they became masters, not only of Bactria and beyond, but also of India.”

“Bactrians were the inhabitants of Bactria. Several important trade routes from India and China (including the Silk Road) passed through Bactria and, as early as the Bronze Age, this had allowed the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth by the mostly nomadic population. The first proto-urban civilization in the area arose during the 2nd millennium BC.

Control of these lucrative trade routes, however, attracted foreign interest, and in the 6th century BC the Bactrians were conquered by the Persians, and in the 4th century BC by Alexander the Great. These conquests marked the end of Bactrian independence. From around 304 BC the area formed part of the Seleucid Empire, and from around 250 BC it was the centre of a Greco-Bactrian kingdom, ruled by the descendants of Greeks who had settled there following the conquest of Alexander the Great.

The Greco-Bactrians, also known in Sanskrit as Yavanas, worked in cooperation with the native Bactrian aristocracy. By the early 2nd century BC the Greco-Bactrians had created an impressive empire that stretched southwards to include northwest India. By about 135 BC, however, this kingdom had been overrun by invading Yuezhi tribes, an invasion that later brought about the rise of the powerful Kushan Empire.”

Grand Trunk Road

“The Grand Trunk Road is one of Asia's oldest and longest major roads — founded around 3rd century BCE by the Mauryan Empire of ancient India. For more than two millennia, it has linked the Indian subcontinent with Central Asia.”

History of India

“[T]he White Huns were Turks, whose capital was ‘Organj or Khiva...The people called Yue-chi by the Chinese, Jits by the Tartars, and Getes or Getae by some of our writers, were a considerable nation in the centre of Tartary as late as the time of Tamerlane”

(via  The History of India: The Hindu and Mahometan Periods p. 252)

Yuezhi

“The Yuezhi were an ancient Indo-European people first described in Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat by the Xiongnu in 176 BC, the Yuezhi split into two groups migrating in different directions: The Greater Yuezhi...later settled in Bactria, where they then defeated the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom.

The subsequent Kushan Empire, at its peak in the 3rd century CE, stretched from...the Tarim Basin, in the north to...the Gangetic plain of India in the south. The Kushanas played an important role in the development of trade on the Silk Road and the introduction of Buddhism to China...some scholars have associated the Yuezhi with artifacts of extinct cultures in the Tarim Basin, such as the Tarim mummies and texts recording the Tocharian languages.

[N]omadic pastoralists known as the Yúzhī...supplied jade to the Chinese...The export of jade from the Tarim Basin, since at least the late 2nd millennium BC...the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) bought jade and highly valued military horses from a people that Sima Qian called the Wūzhī...traded these goods for Chinese silk, which they then sold on to other neighbours. This is probably the first reference to the Yuezhi as a lynchpin in trade on the Silk Road, which in the 3rd century BC began to link Chinese states to Central Asia and, eventually, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Europe...The Lesser or Little Yuezhi moved to the "southern mountains", believed to be the Qilian Mountains on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, to live with the Qiang... Chinese sources continued to use the name Yuezhi and seldom used the Kushan as a generic term.”

“The central Asian people who called themselves Kushana, who were among the conquerors of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom during the 2nd century BC, are widely believed to have originated as a dynastic clan or tribe of the Yuezhi. Because some inhabitants of Bactria became known as Tukhāra (Sanskrit) or Tókharoi (Τοχάριοι; Greek), these names later became associated with the Yuezhi. The Kushana were a Caucasoid people...They spoke Bactrian, an Eastern Iranian language.

The Kushanas integrated Buddhism into a pantheon of many deities and became great promoters of Mahayana Buddhism, and their interactions with Greek civilization helped the Gandharan culture and Greco-Buddhism flourish. During the 1st and 2nd centuries, the Kushan Empire expanded militarily to the north and occupied parts of the Tarim Basin, putting them at the center of the lucrative Central Asian commerce with the Roman Empire...Following this territorial expansion, the Kushanas introduced Buddhism to northern and northeastern Asia, by both direct missionary efforts and the translation of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese...and established translation bureaus, thereby being at the center of the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism.

"Tocharian"...became the common name for both the languages of the Tarim manuscripts and the people who produced them. Most historians now reject the identification of the Tocharians of the Tarim with the Tókharoi of Bactria, who are not known to have spoken any languages other than Bactrian. Other scholars suggest that the Kushanas may previously have spoken Tocharian before shifting to Bactrian on their arrival in Bactria.”

Kushan Empire

“The Kushan dynasty had diplomatic contacts with the Roman Empire, Sasanian Persia, the Aksumite Empire and Han Dynasty of China...the last of the Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian kingdoms were eventually overwhelmed by invaders from the north, known as the Kidarites.

The Kushans inherited the Greco-Buddhist traditions of the Indo-Greek Kingdom they replaced, and their patronage of Buddhist institutions allowed them to grow as a commercial power. Between the mid-1st century and the mid-3rd century, Buddhism, patronized by the Kushans, extended to China and other Asian countries through the Silk Road.

In 360 a Kidarite Hun named Kidara overthrew the Indo-Sasanians and remnants of the old Kushan dynasty, and established the Kidarite Kingdom. The Kushan style of Kidarite coins indicates they claimed Kushan heritage. The Kidarite seem to have been rather prosperous, although on a smaller scale than their Kushan predecessors. These remnants of the Kushan empire were ultimately wiped out in the 5th century by the invasions of the Hephthalites.”

Kidarites

“The Kidarites  were a dynasty that ruled Bactria and adjoining parts of Central Asia and South Asia in the 4th and 5th centuries CE. The Kidarites belonged to a complex of peoples known collectively in India as the Huna and/or in Europe as the Xionites...Named after Kidara, their founding ruler and purported membership of a clan named Ki, the Kidarites appear to have been a part of a Huna horde known in Latin sources as the Kermichiones (from the Iranian Karmir Xyon) or "Red Huna"...Indian records note that the Hūna had established themselves in modern Afghanistan and [north India]...The Kidarites are the last dynasty to regard themselves (on the legend of their coins) as the inheritors of the Kushan empire, which had disappeared as an independent entity two centuries earlier.”

Ghilji

“The Ghilji also called Khaljī, Khiljī, Ghilzai, or Gharzai (ghar means "mountain" and zai "born of"), are the largest Pashtun tribal confederacy...The Ghilji at various times became rulers of present Afghanistan region and were the most dominant Pashtun confederacy from c. 1000 AD until 1747 AD.”

Gilgit

“Gilgit, known locally as Gileet, is the capital city of the Gilgit-Baltistan region, an administrative territory of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, but claimed by India as its territory. The city is located in a broad valley near the confluence of the Gilgit River and Hunza River...It was an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, and today serves as a major junction along the Karakoram Highway with road connections to China, Skardu, Chitral, Peshawar, and Islamabad.”

“The city's ancient name was Sargin, later to be known as Gilit, and it is still referred to as Gilit or Sargin-Gilit by local people. In Brushaski, it is named Geeltand in Wakhi and Khowar it is called Gilt.

Gilgit was an important city on the Silk Road, along which Buddhism was spread from South Asia to the rest of Asia. It is considered as a Buddhism corridor from which many Chinese monks came to Kashmir to learn and preach Buddhism. Two famous Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, Faxian and Xuanzang, traversed Gilgit according to their accounts. According to Chinese records, between the 600s and the 700s, the city was governed by a Buddhist dynasty referred to as Little Balur or Lesser Bolü.

In mid-600s, Gilgit came under Chinese suzerainty after the fall of Western Turkic Khaganate due to Tang military campaigns in the region. In late 600s CE, the rising Tibetan Empire wrestled control of the region from the Chinese. However, faced with growing influence of the Umayyad Caliphate and then the Abbasid Caliphate to the west, the Tibetans were forced to ally themselves with the Islamic caliphates.”

“Gilgit manuscripts...containing many Buddhist texts such as four sutras from the Buddhist canon, including the famous Lotus Sutra. The manuscripts were written on birch bark...They cover a wide range of themes such as iconometry, folk tales, philosophy, medicine and several related areas of life and general knowledge.

The Gilgit manuscripts are included in the UNESCO Memory of the World register. They are among the oldest manuscripts in the world, and the oldest manuscript collection surviving in Pakistan, having major significance in the areas of Buddhist studies and the evolution of Asian and Sanskrit literature. The manuscripts are believed to have been written in the 5th to 6th centuries AD.

The former rulers had the title of Ra, and there is a reason to suppose that they were at one time Hindus, but for the last five centuries and a half they have been Moslems. The names of the Hindu Ras have been lost, with the exception of the last of their number, Shri Ba'dut...Gilgit was ruled for centuries by the local Trakhàn Dynasty, which ended about 1810 with the death of Raja Abas, the last Trakhàn Raja.”

Gilan Province

Gilan Province...lies along the Caspian Sea, in Iran... It seems that the Gelae (Gilites) entered the region south of the Caspian coast and west of the Amardos River (later Safidrud) in the second or first century B.C.E....the native inhabitants of Gilan have originating roots in the Caucasus is supported by genetics and language, as Gilaks are genetically closer to ethnic peoples of the Caucasus (such as the Georgians) than they are towards other ethnic groups in Iran. Their languages shares typologic features with Caucasian languages.  It was the place of origin of the Buyid dynasty.”

“Gilan is mostly inhabited by Gilaks, a Gilaki Iranian culture is present in the province that is not much different from other Iranian traditions. The biggest differences are seen in foods, traditional songs, traditional clothes, rural areas and their every-day life, and other traditions such as the Gilaki Calendar and the Gilaki New Year called "Nouruz Bel" which is during the summer. This new year is distinct from the more popular Iranian New Year as it relates to the people of Gilan and their mostly agricultural life.”

Epic of Gilgamesh

“The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia that is often regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about Bilgamesh (Sumerian for "Gilgamesh"), king of Uruk, dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur(c. 2100 BC)."

“The first half of the story discusses Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk. After Enkidu becomes civilized through sexual initiation with a prostitute, he travels to Uruk, where he challenges Gilgamesh to a test of strength. Gilgamesh wins the contest; nonetheless, the two become friends. Together, they make a six-day journey to the legendary Cedar Forest, where they plan to slay the Guardian, Humbaba the Terrible, and cut down the sacred Cedar. The goddess Ishtar sends the Bull of Heaven to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull of Heaven after which the gods decide to sentence Enkidu to death and kill him.

In the second half of the epic, distress over Enkidu's death causes Gilgamesh to undertake a long and perilous journey to discover the secret of eternal life. He eventually learns that "Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands". However, because of his great building projects...Gilgamesh's fame survived well after his death with expanding interest in the Gilgamesh story which has been translated into many languages and is featured in works of popular fiction.”

The Origins Of Pearl Diving In The Persian Gulf

“Life in the Persian Gulf revolved around the natural pearl for centuries, according to archaeological evidence dating back to the Late Stone Age in 6000–5000 BC. 

 The Epic of Gilgamesh, a poem from 700 BC Mesopotamia that is among the first recorded examples of literary fiction, describes how the hero dived to the depths with weights tied to his feet for the “flower of immortality”, a well-known early allusion to pearling. By 100 AD, Pliny the Younger had declared that pearls were the most prized goods in Roman society, with those from the Gulf reigning as the most esteemed.

Pearl grounds originally stretched on the Arabian side from Kuwait along the coast of Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman. They also ran along nearly the whole coast of the Persian side of the gulf, from near Bandar-e Bushehr (Kharg island) to Bandar-e Lengeh (Kish island) in the south and even further south into the Strait of Hormuz. The Phoenicians, who likely held the first monopoly on the pearl trade.”

Kish Island

“Kish Island has been mentioned in history variously as Kamtina, Arakia (Ancient Greek: Αρακία), Arakata, and Ghiss.Kish Island's strategic geographic location served as a way-station and link for the ancient Assyrian and Elamite civilizations when their primitive sailboats navigated from Susa through the Karun River into the Persian Gulf along the southern coastline, passing Kish, Qeshm, and Hormoz islands.

In 325 BC, Alexander the Great commissioned Nearchus to set off on an expeditionary voyage to the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf. Nearchus's writings on Arakata contain the first-known mention of Kish Island in antiquity. When Marco Polo visited the Imperial court in China, he commented on the Emperor's wife's pearls; he was told that they were from Kish.”

Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

“From the 4th century onward, Chinese pilgrims also started to travel on the Silk Road to India, the origin of Buddhism, by themselves in order to get improved access to the original scriptures...from the 4th century CE that Chinese Buddhist monks started to travel to India to discover Buddhism first-hand. Faxian's pilgrimage to India (395–414)...Xuanzang (629–644) and Hyecho traveled from Korea to India.”

“Buddhism in Central Asia began to decline in the 7th century in the course of the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana. A turning point was the Battle of Talas of 751. This development also resulted in the extinction of the local Tocharian Buddhist culture in the Tarim Basin during the 8th century. The Silk Road transmission between Eastern and Indian Buddhism thus came to an end in the 8th century...From the 9th century onward, therefore, the various schools of Buddhism which survived began to evolve independently of one another....In the eastern Tarim Basin, Central Asian Buddhism survived into the later medieval period as the religion of the Uyghur Kara-Khoja Kingdom...and Buddhism became one of the religions in the Mongol Empire...Central Asian Buddhism survived mostly in Tibet and in Mongolia.”

Key Monastery

“Kye Gompa (also spelled Ki, Key or Kee - pronounced like English key) is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery located on top of a hill...in the Spiti Valley of...India... Kye Gompa is said to have been founded by Dromtön (Brom-ston, 1008-1064 CE), a pupil of the famous teacher, Atisha, in the 11th century.”

Spiti Valley

“Spiti Valley is a cold desert mountain valley located high in the Himalayas...The name "Spiti" means "The Middle Land", i.e. the land between Tibet and India...Spiti valley is a research and cultural centre for Buddhists. Highlights include Key Monastery and Tabo Monastery, one of the oldest monasteries in the world and a favourite of the Dalai Lama...Spiti valley is accessible throughout year via Kinnaur...Due to high elevation one is likely to feel altitude sickness in Spiti.”

Epic of King Gesar

“The Epic of King Gesar, ("King Gesar" Mongolian: Гэсэр Хаан, Geser Khagan) also spelled Geser (especially in Mongolian contexts) or Kesar is an epic cycle, believed to date from the 12th century, that relates the heroic deeds of the culture hero Gesar...Its classic version is to be found in central Tibet.”

“Some 100 bards of this epic are still active today in the Gesar belt of China: Tibetan, Mongolian, Buryat, Balti, Ladakhi and Monguor singers maintain the oral tradition and the epic has attracted intense scholarly curiosity as one of the few oral epic traditions to survive as a performing art...versions of the epic are also recorded among the Balti of Baltistan, the Burusho people of Hunzaand Gilgit, and the Kalmyk and Ladakhi peoples, in Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, and among various Tibeto-Burmese, Turkish, and Tunghus tribes.”

”It has been proposed on the basis of phonetic similarities that the name Gesar reflects the Roman title Caesar, and that the intermediary for the transmission of this imperial title from Rome to Tibet may have been a Turkic language, since kaiser (emperor) entered Turkish through contact with the Byzantine Empire, where Caesar (Καῖσαρ) was an imperial title. Some think the medium for this transmission may have been via Mongolian Kesar. The Mongols were allied with the Byzantines, whose emperor still used the title. Numismatic evidence and some accounts speak of a Bactrian ruler Phrom-kesar, specifically the Kabul Shahi of Gandhara, which was ruled by a Turkish From Kesar ("Caesar of Rome")... the Tibetan name Gesar derived from Sanskrit...the Ladakh variant of Kesar, Kyesar, in Classical Tibetan Skye-gsar meant 'reborn/newly born', and that Gesar/Kesar in Tibetan, as in Sanskrit signify the 'anther or pistil of a flower', corresponding to Sanskrit kēsara, whose root 'kēsa' (hair) is Indo-European.

King Ge-sar has a miraculous birth, a despised and neglected childhood, and then becomes ruler and wins his (first) wife 'Brug-mo through a series of marvellous feats. In subsequent episodes he defends his people against various external aggressors, human and superhuman. Instead of dying a normal death he departs into a hidden realm from which he may return at some time in the future to save his people from their enemies.”

[thehalalgirlofficial]

The Golden Age of Spain Al-Andalus

From 711-1492 AD, the majority of modern day Spain and Portugal was under Muslim rule. The arabic name given to this region was al-Andalus. Today, the southern part of Spain, where Muslim control lasted the longest, still bears the name Andalusia.  The Muslims entered this region through Tariq Bin Ziayd, who easily took over the country due to its weakness after a recent civil war.  Muslims entered Spain not as tyrants or oppressors, rather as liberators. This is because in their society, many Jews and Christians held government positions. In fact the Golden Age of Jewish history is known as the period of Muslim rule in Spain. Islam allowed the Jews to flourish, with the example of the renowned philosopher Maimonides, Musa ibn Maymun. Spain was home to by far the largest and most brilliant Jewish community in Europe; elsewhere, they were hounded and persecuted. Although non-Muslims paid more in taxes than the Muslims, it was by far less than any previous government had imposed upon them. In addition, it obviously wasn't much of a burden, however, since non-Muslims freely opted and longed to live under Muslim rule.

No where else has there been so long and so close of a relationship between the 3 Great faiths. All Jews and Christians were allowed to maintain their beliefs and live their lives as they desired as long as they respected their Muslim rulers. The tolerance that was displayed towards the Jews and Christians enabled them all to live together in relative peace and harmony, an indication of the Greatness of Islam. As a result of the compassion Islam displayed towards the non-Muslims inhabitants, many of them embraced it as their religion.

Allah says Himself, "Say to the disbelievers I do not worship that which you worship. Nor do you worship that which I worship. And Nor will I worship that which you have worshiped. Neither will you worship that which I worship. To you belongs your religion, and to me mine."

As a result of the tolerance displayed by Islam, the incredibly rich language of the Muslims became the official language of literature and scholarship in Spain for all. Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike devoted their time in studying Arabic. Christians essentially spoke Arabic, which was often considered better than their Latin. They absorbed the Arabic culture so much so that they began to be called, "mozarabs" a corruption of "must'arib" meaning the "Arabized ones." Furthermore, the Christian Priest Alvaro complained in the 9th century that Christians preferred to read Arabic writings and studied Muslim theologians and philosophers rather than their own. He exclaimed, "Oh, the pain and the sorrow! The Christians have even forgotten their own language, and in every thousand you will not find one who can write a letter in respectable Latin to a friend, while as soon as they have to write Arabic, there is no difficulty in finding a whole multitude who can express themselves with the greatest elegance in this language..."

Under their rule, Muslims made Spain a center for learning and knowledge. The Muslims were taught reading, writing, math, Arabic, Qur'an, and Hadith, and became leaders in math, science, medicine, astronomy, navigation, etc. Al-Andalus became renowned for its prosperity as people who quested for knowledge journeyed from afar to learn in its universities under the feet of the Muslims. As a result, Andalus gave rise to a great many scholars. Muslim Spain produced philosophers, physicians, scientists, judges, artists, and the like. Ibn Rushd,  Ibn Sina, Ibn Zuhr, and Al-Razi,to name a few, were all Muslims educated in Andalus. Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, was also educated in Andalusia. Great renowned Christian men like St. Thomas Aquinas and Dante borrowed their philosophies  from the Andalusian philosophers. Ironically, Thomas Aquinas described Arabs as "brutal men dwelling in the desert."

The Islamic civilization had reached its peak in the 10th century, and by 1100, the number of Muslims rose to 5.6 million. There existed in Cordoba alone, 200,000 houses, 600 mosques, 900 public baths, 10,000 lamps, 50 hospitals, and lighted and paved streets. Libraries and research institutions grew rapidly in Muslim Spain, while the rest of Europe remained illiterate. Muslim Spain had truly become an area unique to the entire world.

The Muslim artisans applied their skills in architecture in to making masajid and palaces. The Alhambra Palace, and The Great Mosque of Cordoba, are two of the famous magnificent masterpieces of the Muslims which can still be seen today. Of the Alhambra, one Muslim poet wrote:

"A sun dwells in this place and even its shadow is blessed.

In this palace a multitude of pleasures capture the eye and suspend the intellect.

Here a crystal world teaches marvels.

Everywhere Beauty is carved, opulence is manifest."

On the greatness of the Mosque of Cordoba, one poet praises it by saying, “'The gold shines in your domes like the lightning which flashes among the clouds.”

Muslim Cordoba was described as the "jewel of the tenth century," often compared with Constantinople and Baghdad.

But like all great empires, Muslim Spain had eventually fallen.

Abu Bakr (RA) said, “...Where are the great kings who built cities and castles and fortified them with towering walls? What happened to the lionhearted valorous ones who made their enemy suffer humiliation in the battlefields? Time waned under their feet and they ended inside dark graves. Think of it and take heed.”

Islam had remained strong in Spain for eight centuries. However, as the military power in the Christian North began to strengthen, Al-Andalus gradually began to shrink. The last Amir, Abu Abdullah, more often known as Boabdil, surrendered Granada in 1492. He was called by his people as, "Al-Ghalib,” The Conqueror. Yet, when recognizing his imminent defeat, he exclaimed otherwise proclaiming that none other than Allah was the Greatest. “Wa La Ghalib illa Allah” "There is no Conqueror except Allah," became the motto of his descendents.

Queen Isabella of Aragon, in her quest to eradicate Islam from Spain, issued forth decrees of mass conversions in her 'Holy War' against the Muslims. Muslim prayers were forbidden and masaajid in their original splendor were destroyed and converted into churches. Muslims were converted to Christianity, but were usually insincere Christians fearing for their lives, and remained Muslim by heart. They too, called "Moriscos" were soon to be expelled, because they weren't accepted as real Christians. Eventually, the Muslims and Islam disappeared from Spain entirely.

As one historian says, "The Arabs suddenly appeared in Spain like a star which crosses through the air with its light, spreads its flames on the Horizon and then vanishes rapidly into naught."

By analyzing the tragedy of Islam in Andalus, we find that the Muslims of Spain disregarded the fact that Allah indeed blessed them with Islam, and therefore went astray. They were so successful that as a result, Muslims believed that they treasured the wealth they accumulated so much so that they became arrogant and deviated from the practice of Islam; disregarding the commandments of Allah, and the Sunnah. They failed to remember their prosperity and wealth came from Allah and Him alone. Therefore, Allah took away the abundance of wealth, power, supremacy, and favors that He bestowed upon them so that they would remember. Allah says in the Qur'an.

"Remember Me, and I will remember you. Give thanks to Me and never deny Me"  

When the Muslims in Spain neglected Allah, He therefore neglected them. Allah asks mankind repeatedly in Surah Rahman, “Which of the favors of your Lord will you deny?"

The legacy of al-Andalus serves as a lesson for Muslims. The persecution of Muslims in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries was a great trial of their faith, as is the entire life of a Muslim; this was a great challenge from Allah. In the end, many died fighting for Islam.

Spain and the West will forever stand in the debt of the Muslims of Al Andalus. Their contribution to knowledge eventually lead to the European Renaissance. The 1.2 billion plus Muslims of the world today have the same potential as of the Muslims of the past. By its outstanding example, Muslim Spain proves to the world that as a melting pot of religious faiths and races, we can, in reality, live and prosper with one another.

credits: @certifiedmail

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DECODER

The 3 Most Polarizing Words in India, the Fascist & Terrorist Regime of Fucked-up Hindus!

“Jai Shri Ram” was meant to be a celebration of a Hindu deity. But the phrase is turning into hate speech—and a dog whistle for attacks on Muslims.

— By Snigdha Poonam| February 13, 2020 | Foreign Policy

“Jai Shri Ram!” Those were the words 25-year-old Kapil Gujjar shouted as he pointed his semi-automatic pistol at hundreds of unarmed women and children at Shaheen Bagh, a predominantly Muslim colony in New Delhi, on Saturday, Feb. 1. It was a cool, smog-infused afternoon, and Indians from all walks of life had gathered in a peaceful protest against a controversial new citizenship law that especially affects the country’s poor, women, and, perhaps most of all, Muslims. Gujjar fired three bullets in the air. The crowd scattered. Later, while being handcuffed by the police, Gujjar explained his motive: “In our country, only Hindus will prevail.”

Jai Shri Ram literally translates as “Victory to Lord Ram,” a popular Hindu deity. But while this seemingly harmless phrase originated as a pious declaration of devotion in India, it is today increasingly deployed not only as a Hindu chauvinist slogan but also as a threat to anyone who dares to challenge Hindu supremacy.

Gujjar’s message was aimed at India’s 200 million Muslims —the largest religious minority in a mostly Hindu population of 1.3 billion people—who have become unwitting targets in an us-versus-them culture war waged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The latest catalyst for tensions is the new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which discriminates on the basis of religion. The law grants citizenship to refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who are Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, or Zoroastrians—but not Muslims—as long as they entered India before 2015.

Jai Shri Ram is today increasingly deployed as a threat to anyone who dares to challenge Hindu supremacy.

Activists point out that the CAA goes against the secular principles enshrined in the Indian Constitution. Jai Shri Ram is today increasingly deployed as a threat to anyone who dares to challenge Hindu supremacy. And when coupled with a proposed national registry of citizens that could force people to prove their citizenship, the government’s plans could hurt the many millions of poor and illiterate Indians who don’t possess any documents to further their claims. Mass protests have seized the country’s cities and towns since the CAA was passed on Dec. 11; in scenes unprecedented in modern India, thousands of demonstrators have been forming human chains, singing the national anthem, and reading the constitution aloud. Shaheen Bagh, where hundreds of local Muslim women have staged a sit-in since the start of this year, has become the center of the national movement as more and more Indians—students, professionals, activists, singers, artists—join them every day.

Two days before Gujjar walked into Shaheen Bagh, another young man, a teenager, produced a pistol near the area and shot at anti-CAA demonstrators, injuring one and terrifying hundreds. The juvenile shooter, whom Indian law prohibits the media from naming, had apparently been prepared to become a martyr in what he perceived as a war for Hindu supremacy. In a Facebook video he recorded while on his way to Shaheen Bagh, he had left instructions for his fellow warriors: “On my final journey, cover me in saffron clothes and chant Jai Shri Ram.” The phrase has provoked terror in the capital since the beginning of this year: On the night of Jan. 5, a group of masked attackers affiliated with the Hindu far-right cried “Jai Shri Ram” as they entered Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, a hub of left-wing politics, and brutally beat up students who had been protesting against a recent fee hike.

People take part in protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi, on Feb. 2, the day after a shooter fired on protesters there.

Ram, the popular Hindu god, is the protagonist of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, said to be written sometime between the seventh and third centuries B.C. In modern, mainstream depictions of the Ramayana, Ram is extolled as the embodiment of the perfect man: an exiled prince who rescues his abducted wife and destroys an evil empire before returning home to assume his rightful throne. Ram is always described as just, brave, self-sacrificing, and righteous. His followers even justify the fact that he later abandoned his wife, Sita, after commoners questioned her purity—after all, they argue, Ram’s role as king superseded his duties as a husband. He was likely only following the social mores of his era.

Ram is always described as just, brave, self-sacrificing, and righteous.

In Hindi-speaking regions, Hindus have invoked Ram’s name for more than a century in regular greetings, in exclamation, and in folk songs. The deity’s political influence goes back even further. In the 12th century, a “sudden rush of temples [were] built for Ram” in response to the establishment of the first sultanate in Delhi in 1206, the journalist Shoaib Daniyal points out in Scroll.in. “In the 17th century, for example, two Marathi Ramayans were written, one which compared Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb to Raavan [Ram’s nemesis] and the other to Raavan’s gluttonous brother Kumbhakarna,” he writes.

But the phrase’s cultural relevance changed markedly in the last four decades, when it began to take on a different meaning. I first heard the words while watching the late 1980s television adaptation of Ramayana that aired on the national broadcaster Doordarshan. The program became a Sunday ritual in Hindi-speaking parts of India, and it depicted Ram as an ideal, pious man with a beatific smile—until he encountered evil, which he slew on sight. But Ram never used his special powers unless it was warranted. “Attacking the weak or the innocent to show your arrogance or your might doesn’t count as the dharma [duty] of the brave,” Ram’s spiritual mentor, Vishwamitra, advises while awarding him with celestial weapons.

Some purported followers of Ram now seem to have a different interpretation of dharma. Last year, across several incidents, dozens of poor and innocent Indians were attacked because they refused to say the words Jai Shri Ram. On June 18, a 24-year-old man was lynched in Jharkhand; on June 20, a 40-year-old cleric was hit by a car in Delhi; on June 23, a 25-year-old cab driver was beaten up in Thane near Mumbai; and on July 28, a 15-year-old boy was set on fire in Uttar Pradesh. In each of these attacks, the victims were Muslim, and they were asked to chant Jai Shri Ram by as few as three and as many as 30 Hindu assailants.

The slogan is deployed as effectively in violence as it is in entertainment. Last July, as Muslims were being forced to intone Jai Shri Ram, the country seemed gripped by a viral music video (now deleted) on YouTube titled “Jo Na bole Jai Sri Ram, bhej do usko kabristan” (Those who don’t say Jai Shri Ram, send them to their graveyards). The reference to cemeteries made clear that the message was directed at Muslims and Christians. Four people involved in making and uploading the video were later arrested. There is no stopping the messages of hate, however. On YouTube, one can now find dozens of songs glorifying Ram and denigrating minorities. Most of them mix Hindi hate speech with electronic beats. Some are so popular that they are requested at weddings and played in clubs. “Hindu Blood Hit,” for example, has been viewed more than 3.8 million times. Between psychedelic repetitions of Jai Shri Ram, the singer warns India’s Muslims that their time is up. Other viral songs can be geopolitical: “Jai Shree Ram DJ Vicky Mix” calls for a future in which “there will continue to be a Kashmir but no Pakistan.”

Arun Govil as Lord Ram and Deepika Chikhalia as Sita in Ramanand Sagar’s TV adaptation of the epic Hindu poem Ramayana.

The 1980s television show of the Ramayana reached millions of Indians right as the BJP accelerated its project to unite Hindi-speaking Hindus around the figure of Ram. This was a bold political experiment. Although widely known as the hero of the Ramayana, which has been published in multiple languages and dialects, Ram was worshipped only selectively in India. In some parts such as Tamil Nadu, his worship elicits hostility by those who see the Ramayana’s narrative as racist toward Dravidians, the ancestral inhabitants of southern India. In West Bengal, where the majority of Hindus worship the goddesses Durga and Kali, Ram’s name doesn’t resonate widely.

Ram’s imprint has spread in the years since the BJP chose him as the mascot for its project to build and cultivate a Hindu base of voters.

But Ram’s imprint has spread in the years since the BJP chose him as the mascot for its project to build and cultivate a Hindu base of voters.Ram’s imprint has spread in the years since the BJP chose him as the mascot for its project to build and cultivate a Hindu base of voters. The center for this project was the city of Ayodhya, where a 16th-century Mughal mosque occupied what some believe to be the site of Ram’s birth. Around the mid-19th century, regional Hindu organizations attempted to claim the site and build a temple to Ram on the mosque’s grounds. But then, in the 1980s, the BJP and its ideological allies turned the local demand for a Ram temple at the site into a sweeping Hindu nationalist movement. The slogan for this movement, which was led by BJP leader and then-Home Minister L.K. Advani, was Jai Shri Ram. The words were chanted, loud and clear, as the foundation for the temple was laid next to the mosque and bricks were loaded into trucks and trains headed for Ayodhya. And the same words tore through the city on Dec. 6, 1992, as thousands of Hindu volunteers pounded the mosque with hammers and axes. In a matter of hours, the building was razed; riots sparked throughout India. Jai Shri Ram now had an additional meaning: an expression of Hindu dominance and the BJP’s rise.

Last June, cries of Jai Shri Ram echoed through the Indian Parliament after the BJP was reelected with a sweeping majority, winning 303 of 543 parliamentary seats in an ugly, polarized election. The words were used to heckle Muslim legislators as they took their oaths to uphold the Indian Constitution. Five months later, India’s Supreme Court settled the country’s longest-running property dispute by ruling in favor of a Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya at the same site where the mosque was demolished by Hindu nationalists in 1992. The Muslim petitioners were granted 5 acres elsewhere in the city to build a mosque. On Nov. 9, as the government commenced arrangements for building the temple, Modi tweeted his response to the court verdict: “May peace and harmony prevail!” But those words seem lost amid the dog whistles sounded by senior leaders and amplified on social media with impunity. It is no surprise then that the devotees firing bullets at Shaheen Bagh have different intentions.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

The Truth About Islam

I hated history when I was a little girl but today I appreciate it. Now I understand why they say those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. In order to understand why the Islamic world is entirely different and in many ways incompatible with Western civilizations, at least until they are ready to reform as all other religions have done, you need to understand the history of Islam. By understanding its history, you will better understand the current crisis and events happening in the world today.

When Muhammad supposedly revealed his revelation from the angel Gabriel that he was supposed to be the last of the Prophets in the early six hundreds, he started preaching his claim in his own city of Mecca, he tried to recruit friends and followers so they could help spread his newly formed religion. He tried for 12 years and failed. After 12 years he was only able to recruit his immediate family and friends, so he decided to go to Medina, which was the Jewish hub of Arabia. He figured if he went there and preached his religion to them, they would accept him and that would buy him respect and stature and his religion would be accepted too.

In order for his religion to interest the Jews, Muhammad started borrowing a lot from the Old Testament to make his religion more palatable to them. This is why you see a lot of similarities between Judaism and Islam. For example, Jews don’t eat pigs so Muslims don’t eat pigs, Jews practice Kosher so Muslims practice Halal, Jews pray several times a day so Muslims pray several times a day, Jews fast on Yom Kippur so Muslims fast on Ramadan. He made things up as he went to attract the Jews.

This is also why there are a lot of good scriptures at the beginning of the Quran, when Muhammad was saying all the good things about the people of the book and talking about how similar they are, he was trying to recruit the Jews and make it easy for them to convert. Except the Jews still refused to accept him and follow him so this is when he turned against them, he started killing them and started expelling them. This is the moment Islam went from a spiritual movement to a political movement disguised as a religion, this transition into vengeful, violent jihadism is clear as the Quran goes on.

Muhammad quickly became a military warlord and declared war on the Jews that refused to accept him. Jews and Christians became Dhimmi, second class citizens, and they were only allowed to be kept alive by paying the Jizya, a tax paid to Muslims. So Jews and Christians had a choice: convert to Islam, pay to be kept alive or be killed. Jews and Christians weren’t allowed to blow the Shofar or ring church bells, they could not pray publicly or too loudly, they could not gather together or build new churches or new temples. They were humiliated, often having rocks thrown at them by children and to pay their Jizya they would be forced to kneel during ceremonies and hand over their goods to the Mullah.

In many areas, Jews and Christians were given necklaces to wear as a receipt for their Jizya. They were considered Najis under Islam, equivalent to bodily fluid or garbage, something so dirty and disposable. If a Jew walked on the same side of the street as a Muslim, the Jew had to cross to the other side so the Muslim would not feel dirty by the filth of the Jew. Today it continues, none of us infidels can step foot in Mecca because as far as they're concerned, we are still Najis under Islam, equivalent to dirt or garbage. It’s also why sixteen Muslim countries ban Jews from entering their borders (but hey let’s all close our eyes again and call Donald Trump a bigot and antisemite.)

As Islam continued to grow, the more Jews and Christians were forced to submit and become Dhimmi. Jews and Christians were given identifiable clothing to wear, the yellow star which most people think is a German invention was actually an Islamic invention in the ninth century, it marked Jews and Christians with a badge of shame. Furthermore, the infidels each were forced to hang a piece of lead around their neck with the word Dhimmi on it and the infidel women were forced to wear one red and one black shoe and wear a bell around their necks like cows.

Islam continued to grow as more people became fearful they too would suffer if they did not submit to Muhammad and convert. The Muslims went all the way to Jerusalem, they conquered it and claimed it as their own, either killing, converting or enslaving the local Christians. The Pope in Rome asked his men how they could they sit idly by and allow their brethren to suffer in the Holy Land. He pleaded for them to go liberate the Christians, to go save the Christians, that's why the Crusaders were launched. The Crusaders were able to liberate Jerusalem before Saladin took it back and Jerusalem remained under Islamic control until 1967 when it was freed by the State of Israel.

The Crusaders continued fighting Islam and for 300 years they tried and failed. By the 1300s the Crusaders disappeared because they could not win against Islam, leaving Islam to continue their expansion. They went all the way to Central Europe, they went all the way to China, they went to India, they conquered Spain and as they conquered more nations, more people were forced to pay the Jizya and were forced into slavery. This is how the Islamic Empire became so dominant. They were preparing to overtake the rest of the nations and wipe out Christianity altogether until they were stopped at the gates of Vienna and they were pushed out in defeat.

By the 1600s, Islam had covered more of the Earth's surface than the Roman Empire did at its peak. Between the 1600s and the 1800s, the Europeans were experiencing their industrial revolution where they were able to invent products on factory lines and they were able to sell products which gave them the money to build a strong army in order to fight the Muslims. That's the only way they were able to stop them in Vienna. The Europeans started the pushback against Islam, they pushed them out of Europe and pushed them all the way to the Middle East and North Africa. By 1924 the Islamic Empire ended.

It ended in Turkey by President Ataturk who was a secularist. He ended the Islamic Empire and he gave women a right to an education, the right to work, a right to choose a husband, he stopped making women wear the hijab and Muslims hated him so much that they considered him a Jewish agent. By the time the Islamic Empire or the Islamic State had ended in 1924, they had existed for fourteen hundred years and it ended less than 100 years ago. This is why Islam still appears to linger in the stone ages by modern Western standards, the world’s biggest and most brutal empire driven by this ideology has only just ended when put into perspective. We look back in history and condemn every single empire or supremacy movement but the moment we reach Islam, we close our eyes and convince ourselves that none of that really happened, Islam is the religion of peace.

We have failed to educate our students about history, we have failed to educate our population about history. Take any 17 or 18 year old kid and ask them about World War II and most won’t be able to tell you what happened while we still have over half a million of our American World War II veterans walking around, and it’s these same kids who demand with such conviction for us to believe that Islam is the religion of peace, that there is no link or history of violence, death, supremacy or oppression? They wonder why they are called gullible idiots.

When the Islamic Caliphate ended in 1924, the people thought the Caliphate will never be resurrected, it will never come back. But two things happened in the Middle East in the last century that made the Islamists be able to resurrect it. The first was the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia and the second was Ayatollah Khomeini coming to power in 1979. This gave the Islamists the money and also the spiritual covering in order to explode back onto the world stage. This is where we welcome modern day terrorists, better known as Islamic traditionalists. These modern terror groups are not a different sect of Islam, they haven’t perverted the scriptures, they follow the authentic preachings of Muhammad, exactly the way Muhammad lived and practiced his religion. They brought back the Islamic State long before the West went to war after 9/11.

ISIS is not a new invention. All they have done is simply resurrected the Caliphate that ended less than a hundred years ago and they are trying to finish what Muhammad and the Islamic Empire started and almost finished. Except we are too naive and scared to offend to understand why the Islamic State are doing what they are doing and why they are succeeding. We are quick to ask the question, “What would drive someone to do this?” but then the very answer is shot down and dismissed and we instead choose to just sing John Lennon covers in blissful ignorance. The concerted efforts to dismiss it as “just a few random nutjobs that have nothing to do with Islam” is exactly why we remain as weak, naive and vulnerable to Islamic terrorism as we are today.

There are two things you need to understand about Islam and the principles of war in Islam. One is the law of Taqiyya, which means lying and deception is allowed to gain the trust of non-believers. A Muslim man can lay his hand on the Quran and swear that he is telling the truth, knowing that he is lying but also knowing that the Quran will forgive him because he is advancing the cause of Islam.

The second is the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, which is an Islamic principle of war and a model on how to deceive the enemy when you call for peace. It is based on when Muhammad was attacking the Meccans. He attacked them, he robbed them and spread the goodies among his men, this is how he was able to recruit. Though he realized he didn’t have enough men yet to defeat the Meccans so he signed a ten-year peace treaty with them. He said he will not attack them, he will have peace with them, he will not declare war on them. Muhammad used this treaty for two years to silently build his military, to strengthen his army and when he realized he was strong enough to attack his enemies, he waged war when they least expected, they thought they had a peace treaty with him and Mecca fell within 24 hours.

This became a principle of war in Islam that has continued on through the ages. Iran is a perfect example of how it’s been practiced in recent times. Yasser Arafat met with the Israelis and signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, it was all over the news, the handshaking on the lawn of the White House, Bill Clinton proudly congratulating, Arafat was even handed the Noble Peace Prize.

When the Egyptian press would interview Yasser Arafat and asked him how could he sign a peace treaty with the devil, how could he sign a peace treaty with the Jews, Arafat would tell them to remember Hudaybiyyah. That's all he would have to say and of course the whole Muslim world knew exactly what that meant but everyone in the West and all the Jews in Israel, it went over their heads, nobody understood what he was referring to. The peace treaty was used to make Israel give him his territory, to finance his military, to train his police and give his police the weapons. Like Muhammad, they later broke the peace treaty once they had the power and declared the Second Intifada in 2000. This is the type of deception that we are dealing with still today. They are using us as useful idiots.

Everything terrorists are doing today, is no different to what Muhammad and the Islamic Empire did for over a thousand years. Tell me one thing that terrorists do today that is unIslamic or isn’t in Islamic scriptures. In the Quran, it promises paradise to those Muslims who kill for Allah and condemns those Muslims who do not engage in fighting (4:95) and (9:38-39) It calls for you to kill even if you don’t like it as it’s what Allah has prescribed to Muslims and he knows what’s best for them (2:216) It calls to “cast terror into the hearts of non-believers” (3:151) - sound familiar? Those who reject their faith will be punished with terrible agony (3:56) It tells to cut the hands and the feet off anyone who attacks Allah (5:33)

It calls to behead and cut the fingers and toes off non-believers (8:12) and another call to tie up and behead non-believers, though you must first try get ransom money from them or convert them to Islam to avoid hell (47:3-4) - sound familiar? And calls for his followers to never stop fighting the non-believers until everyone worships Allah - sound familar? It warns that Islam will be offered to people in towns they wish to destroy, if they refuse then there will be “utter destruction.” (17:16) - sound familiar? Remember when Osama Bin Laden sent a letter to America offering them to submit to his demands or face total destruction just before 9/11? He didn’t just come up with this out of nowhere. It also demands to cut the hands off thieves (5:38) and to lash a man or woman one hundred times if they commit wrongful sexual intercourse (24:2)

Muhammad permits children and women being exposed to terrorism as they are the children of the enemy (52:256) Muhammad says, “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him" (52:177) Mummamad gloats, “I have been made victorious with terror!” (52:220) Muhammad says: “I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah” (1:33) Muhammad says, “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: “None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.” (8:387)

Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 990 decalres “Cutting off someone’s head while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ is a tradition of Islam that began with Muhammad.” Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 992 says Muhammad would instruct his military to "Fight everyone in the way of Allah and kill those who disbelieve in Allah” before each one of their raids. Tabari 7:97 talks about Muhammad declaring to,“Kill any Jew who falls under your power.” He instructs to strike a disobedient wife (4:34), he took a 6 year old little girl away from her family to marry her and use her for sex (8:3309), he speaks of it being mostly women in hell as they are disobedient, they are worth only half that of a man, that they are unintelligent and they cannot be efficiently religious as they have periods and their presence makes a prayer invalid (6:301) and he passes around captured female slaves to his men (Tabari VIII:117). Where did we get the idea that this is a man of peace and a religion of peace? Oh I know, to say otherwise is blasphemy and you can be killed or arrested. This is how Islam worked then and it’s how it works today.

The problem we have is deliberately keeping ourselves ignorant to what is happening, to what today’s Islamist groups are trying to do, they are reviving Muhammad’s Caliphate and are hellbent on finishing off his plan. They tell us this over and over, they make it clear attack after attack, yet we still close our eyes and pretend like it has nothing to do with Islam. It’s authentic Islam and it’s not just 0.0001% of Muslims who share their views.

Only 57% of Muslims worldwide disapprove of al-Qaeda. Only 51% disapprove of the Taliban. 81% of Muslims on Al Jazeera approved of regional conquests by ISIS. 2 in 3 Muslims in Britain would not report a terror plot to police. 40% of British Muslims want British law replaced with Sharia law. 1 in 4 British Muslims say 7/7 bombings were justified, 12% of young Muslims in Britain believe that suicide attacks against civilians in Britain can be justified. 1 in 4 support suicide attacks against British troops. 36% of young British Muslims believe that those converting to another religion should be executed.

78% of British Muslims support punishing the publishers of Muhammad cartoons, 24% of Muslim-Americans say that violence is justified against those who "offend Islam", extreme Islamists comprise 9% of Britain's Muslim population, another 29% would "aggressively defend" Islam. 11% of British Muslims find violence for religious or political ends acceptable. 51% of mosques in the U.S. have texts on site rated as severely advocating violence, 80% of young Dutch Muslims see nothing wrong with Holy War against non-believers. Most verbalized support for pro-Islamic State fighters. 28% of British Muslims want Britain to be an Islamic state, 68% of British Muslims support the arrest and prosecution of anyone who insults Islam, 62% of Muslims want Sharia in Canada (15% say make it mandatory).

82% of Egyptian Muslims favor stoning adulterers, 70% of Jordanian Muslims favor stoning adulterers, 77% of Egyptian Muslims favor floggings and amputation, 82% of Pakistanis favor floggings and amputation, 78% of Pakistanis support killing apostates,  81% of South Asian Muslims and 57% of Egyptians suport amputating limbs for theft. 65% of Muslims in Europe say Sharia is more important than the law of the country they live in, 43% of Islamic teachers in Austria openly advocate Sharia law over democracy. 33% of Muslim-Americans say that Sharia should be supreme to the US Constitution. 21% of British Muslims decline to condemn stoning adulterers and more than half want gays to be outlawed. 23% of Turks living in Germany say that a Muslim should not shake the hand of the opposite sex. 33% say that a woman should wear the veil. 73% say that books and movies which offend their religion should be banned. 29% of French Muslims believe Sharia is "more important than the laws of France." Muslims comprise less than 1% of the population in the United States but 9% of prison inmates.  Muslims in France comprise 12% of the population, but 70% of prisoners, Muslims in the Netherlands comprise 4% of the population but 20% of prisoners and Muslims comprise 5% of population in Britain but are over half of the highest security inmates.

1 in 3 British strongly agree that a wife should be forced to obey her husband's bidding. 1 in 10 British Muslims support killing a family member over "dishonor". 91% of honor killings are committed by Muslims worldwide. 95% of honor killings in the West are perpetrated by Muslim fathers and brothers or their proxies. 90% of child sex abuse by gangs in Britain are committed by Muslims. 1 in 5 young British Muslims agree that 'honor' violence is acceptable. Honor killing the woman for sex outside of marriage is favored over honor killing the man in almost every Islamic country. 51% of British Muslims believe a woman cannot marry a non-Muslim and only 51% believe a Muslim woman may marry without a guardian's consent, 62% of British Muslims do not believe in the protection of free speech. Only 6% of Muslim men and 2% of Muslim women would "have no problem" marrying someone from a different religion. 60% of men in Morocco say that if a woman is raped, she should marry her rapist. Just take a moment to think what the reaction would be if this were white Christian American men saying or believing any of these horrific things. Yet we don’t bat an eyelid because it’s coming from Muslims. These are just our average moderate Muslims by the way. Remember that. Let’s continue.

81% of British Muslims refer to themselves only as Muslim, not British. 49% of Muslim Americans say they are Muslim, not American. 74% of young Muslims prefer women wear the veil. 46% of Muslims in Germany want there to be more Muslims than Christians in Germany. Muslim-Americans are four times more likely to say that women should not work outside the home. 26% of Muslim-Americans refuse to assimilate. 26% of young Muslims in America believe suicide bombings are justified, 35% of young Muslims in Britain, 42% of young Muslims in France, 22% of young Muslims in Germany and 29% of young Muslims in Spain believe suicide bombings are justified. Muslim-Americans who identify more strongly with their religion are three times more likely to feel that suicide bombings are justified. 19% of Muslim-Americans say that violence is justified in order to make Sharia the law in the United States. 38% of Muslim-Americans say Islamic State beliefs are Islamic or correct. 25% of Muslim-Americans say that violence against Americans in the United States is justified as part of the "global Jihad”.

45% of British Muslims agree that clerics preaching violence against the West represent "mainstream Islam". We have British mosques literally beating Muhammad’s teachings into Muslim children, teaching them “the disbelievers are the worst creatures,“ “they face torture in the afterlife if they adopt western customs” and to “never trust a person who has less than a fistful of beard.” British Islamic private schools are teaching pupils that British customs are anti-Muslim, intent on “poisoning the thinking and minds“ of Muslims and calls on their students to “expend even life to create a world organized according to Allah’s just order.” We have police who have become too scared to investigate Muslim human trafficking and child rape rings, they have become too afraid to make public the mass sexual, violent attacks and the details of massacres committed by Muslims across Europe, they have even become afraid to report their fellow officers who express radical Muslim beliefs. Teachers are afraid to alert authorities when their Muslim students show warning signs of becoming radicalized.

The problem we have today in the West is being forced to believe that terrorism or even extremism has nothing to do with Islam, that extremists are only 0.00001% of the Muslim population, that this is a religion of peace and it has no links to violence or jihad, all of history on Islam and Muhammad and the Islamic Empire, none of that’s real, none of that happened and anyone who says otherwise is a racist islamophobic bigot who wants to kill and expel all Muslims. Could we be any more naive? Any more stupid? Could we make ourselves any more weak and vulnerable? Nobody is blaming all Muslims, we just want there to be a glimmer of honesty for once and identify what is actually happening in the world, be truthful about what it is that the Islamic State want and what their end goal is. Remember, their Islamic Empire only ceased less than 100 years ago, Islam is only learning to walk in terms of progressiveness, human rights, equality and assimilation and many followers just aren’t ready to give up on Muhammad’s dream of Islamic domination. Not all, but many.

We have slowly began to have the courage to discuss it more openly and it’s been met with a lot of resistance from Muslims and apologetic activists, such as the introduction of Canada’s blasphemy bill, the ban against Britain’s only prevention strategy, Britain’s latest hate crime policy where it’s easier to be arrested for saying a mean thing about Islam online than it is if you’ve been fighting for ISIS overseas or planning a terror plot. Still, people are slowly waking up. The British Prime Minister recently said we're going to have to start having more embarrassing conversations about what is really going on, but there’s really nothing embarrassing about being honest. We should have been having these conversations for many years now. If there is only one good thing that can come from each of these endless attacks and that is learning from them, yet we are refusing to even do that.

We should have far more faith in the people than we currently do to talk about this honestly with each other without resorting to violence. We are told that we cannot talk about Islam because if we do, then it will incite masses of hate crimes against innocent Muslims, it will make moderate Muslims turn to terrorism and when they kill us it will be our own fault for talking about Islam. Really? Is this not the greatest example in modern history of blatant fear mongering drivel to protect the only ideology in the world which you can die for simply criticizing? Well I don't think that we are a lynch mob in waiting, I certainly don't think we are a rabble who have to be lied to, who can't hear the truth or can't handle facts, that’s not who we are, we are not them. We are reasonable, civilized, liberal people who have a right to be very worried, we have a right to feel frustrated about being deceived and silenced, we have a right to expect honesty and action to be taken against the greatest threat of our time.

We are kidding ourselves if we believe that by changing nothing and moving on with our lives will stop the threat or will stop the attacks on us. We have to stop seeing terrorism as just a few nutjobs who we can defeat only if we hold hands and show them that killing our children and loved ones doesn’t effect us. Thank god the Viennese didn’t take this approach when the Islamic State came to their door. We know that today’s Islamic State is the minority of Muslims, obviously, but to tackle them we also have to tackled the far larger number of people who are basically providing the mood music for the extremists and opening the door wide open for them, these are the moderate Muslims who I’ve mentioned above, the sympathetic social justice activists who would rather die than be seen as problematic and the politicians of all parties who think that they can condemn an attack and then spend all their efforts trying to stop their country from having any effective counterterrorism policy and it’s about time these people were called out. Their biggest concern has become taking action against those who are pointing to the problem rather than the problem itself.

These are people who are actively trying to undermine everything in our country to stop the terror from getting any worse than it already is. We are told to just live with it. It’s part of our lives now. What? That’s it? We just accept being killed? At least if we don’t fight Islamic extremism that will spare our Muslim neighbor’s feelings I suppose. In a recent interview with former police chief and Britain’s most prominent Muslim lawyer, he told of many British Islamic community groups who are undermining the fight against terrorism by peddling myths about the government’s key anti-radicalization policy. Mr Afzal condemned the self-appointed community leaders, who he says have an agenda of presenting Muslims “as victims and not as those who are potentially becoming radicals”. He also hit out at the Muslim Council of Britain, saying he was staggered that its agenda for last year’s annual general meeting including “absolutely nothing about radicalization and nothing about the threat of people going to Syria”. “We all have a responsibility to stand up for British values and the rule of law. When they do decide to come to the party, it’s always reluctantly, rather than routinely doing so because it’s the right thing.” Afzal said. These community groups and these Islamic leaders have to be called out as well. Groups such as the Muslim Council of Britain and the Council on American-Islamic Relations have to be held accountable for their fear mongering and the stigma they have forced on anyone talking honestly about the problem.

We have to put the pressure on all of us to understand the reasons and history of Islamic terrorism, to identify what their end goal is and we have to put the pressure on these Islamic groups and leaders to admit this is just as much their problem and they have to sort it out. The message has to be made so clear to stop playing the victim, stop pretending the greatest threat is coming from people telling the truth and let’s start doing all that we can humanly do to fight this very real threat from finishing the job that Muhammad began 1,400 years ago. We have to remove the fear of reporting, police have to stop being afraid to investigate and the media have to stop being afraid of being honest and transparent. The more time we put into protecting ourselves and the less time we spend creating phobias and illnesses to describe the people who identify the problem, the sooner we can all solve it.

[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

[newstfionline]

Theologian-in-Chief

Amy Sullivan, Yahoo News, Jan. 14, 2017

Over the course of his presidency, Barack Obama has spoken about his Christian faith arguably more often and in greater detail than any other modern U.S. president.

That claim will surprise many political liberals who still believe that George W. Bush spent his time in the White House trying to turn the United States in a theocracy run by evangelical Christians. It is also sure to outrage those conservative Christians who argue that Obama is hostile to their faith. And it must confound the 43 percent of Republicans who as recently as the fall of 2015 told pollsters they still thought Obama is Muslim.

But a look back through eight years of Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast speeches, his remarks at the White House Easter Prayer Breakfast that began as a new tradition during his first term, and the heartbreaking number of eulogies he has delivered following mass shootings reveals a president who has spoken about faith not only with great frequency but also with uncommon depth.

“This is a president who is very comfortable with deep reflection and discussion around the theological implications of faith,” says David Domke, communications professor at the University of Washington and co-author of “The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America.”

Previous presidents have certainly invoked religion and displayed a comfort with the language of faith. Dwight Eisenhower is still the only president to have written a prayer that he read at his first inauguration. He was baptized not long after. And he once said of himself, “I am the most intensely religious man I know.” Several decades later, Jimmy Carter taught Sunday school at a Baptist church not far from the White House during his presidency. George W. Bush cited Jesus as his favorite political philosopher in an Iowa debate before the 2000 GOP caucuses, and he enthusiastically made the support of faith-based organizations one of his first domestic policy priorities.

Bill Clinton may come the closest to Obama in being a president whose speeches occasionally veered into sermon territory. At one point during the 1992 campaign, Clinton traveled to Memphis to address the annual Church of God in Christ convention. Dissatisfied with remarks his staff had drafted, Clinton tossed them aside and delivered an extemporaneous sermon on the “new covenant” between government and citizens, drawing “amen”s from the crowd.

If Clinton sometimes aspired to be the preacher-in-chief, however, Obama has been a theologian-in-chief. Since entering the White House in 2009, he has steadily built on the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, the influential theologian he once told New York Times columnist David Brooks was “one of my favorite philosophers.” And as racial tensions at home and terror attacks abroad have spread anxiety, the president has spent the past few years developing a theology of faith in the face of fear.

Let’s get this out of the way first: Yes, Obama is a Christian. Raised in a mostly secular environment--his mother was “spiritual” but suspicious of organized religion, and his grandparents were nonpracticing Protestants--he began attending Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago after he moved to the city to become a community organizer.

He responded to an altar call in 1988 at age 26, knelt before the cross and became a Christian. As he told the National Prayer Breakfast in 2011, “It was through that experience, working with pastors and laypeople, trying to heal the hurting wounds of neighborhoods, that I came to know Jesus Christ for myself and embrace him as my Lord and Savior.”

To little fanfare, in 2010 Obama and his close aide Joshua DuBois began a tradition of hosting Christian leaders at the White House for an Easter breakfast. At these gatherings, which continued through the last year of his presidency, Obama spoke in surprisingly intimate ways about the nature of his faith.

“We are awed by the grace [Jesus] showed even to those who would have killed him,” he told the clergy at that first 2010 breakfast. “We are thankful for the sacrifice he gave for the sins of humanity. And we glory in the promise of redemption in the resurrection.”

At the 2015 breakfast, the president spoke about the daily challenges of faith. “Today we celebrate the magnificent glory of our risen Savior,” he said. “I pray that I will live up to his example. I fall short so often. Every day I try to do better.”

Just a few months later, after the killings at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., Obama stunned mourners when he began singing the first verse from “Amazing Grace” while eulogizing victims of the massacre. It was a powerful moment. But while that may have been a first for a sitting president, others have spoken openly about their faith. Where Obama differs from his predecessors, according to Domke, is his willingness to go deeper in talking about theological ideas.

“In those moments of high-profile eulogies, he has been pretty comfortable with diving into some of the deeper areas of how faith can comfort and sustain people,” says Domke. “Obama didn’t just sing ‘Amazing Grace.’ He preached about the meaning of grace.”

Indeed, Obama took the extraordinary step of weaving a mini-sermon about the responsibilities of grace into a funeral address. “According to the Christian tradition,” he began, “grace is not earned. Grace is not merited. It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God.”

He continued, “As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us, for he has allowed us to see where we’ve been blind.” That hymn reference allowed Obama to segue into the sins the Charleston slaughter forced into the open. And once again, “the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation.”

Whenever individuals make “the moral choice to change,” Obama suggested, “we express God’s grace.” The message left unsaid: to fight moral change is to refuse to embody grace.

In the last year of his presidency, Obama has turned his attention to the question of how people of faith should respond to fear. Speaking at the White House Easter breakfast in the aftermath of terror attacks in Brussels, he told his guests, “These attacks can foment fear and division. They can tempt us to cast out the stranger, to strike out against those who don’t look like us or pray exactly as we do.”

But, he continued, “if Easter means anything, it’s that you don’t have to be afraid. We are Easter people, people of hope and not fear.”

Obama’s most complete mediation on fear took the form of his final National Prayer Breakfast address, in which he preached on a verse from 2 Timothy: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

“It is a primal emotion--fear--one that we all experience. And it can be contagious,” he acknowledged. “For me, and I know for so many of you, faith is the great cure for fear. Jesus is a good cure for fear.”

“His love,” Obama continued, “gives us the power to resist fear’s temptations. He gives us the courage to reach out to others across that divide, rather than push people away.”

That’s a message that hasn’t been heard from many pulpits in the past year, with conservative Christians afraid of government and threats posed by immigrants and refugees, and liberal Christians afraid of Trump himself and the normalization of intolerance. But it’s a profoundly Christian message--”My faith tells me that I need not fear death; that the acceptance of Christ promises everlasting life and the washing away of sins,” Obama reminded his listeners.

He moved on to argue that being free from fear should lead Christians to be more open, not closed and defensive, protecting their own turf. “Each of us is called … to assume the best in each other,” the president said, “and not just the worst.”

Obama closed with a remarkable tale about a U.S. sergeant in World War II whose soldiers were captured by Nazis. When the Nazi colonel ordered Jewish POWs to identify themselves, the sergeant responded by telling all 200 of his troops to line up. Holding a pistol to the sergeant’s head, the German ordered, “Tell me who the Jews are.” The American simply repeated over and over, “We are all Jews.”

“I can’t imagine a moment in which that young American sergeant expressed his Christianity more profoundly than when, confronted by his own death, he said, ‘We are all Jews,’” said Obama. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

Obama’s approach to religion as president has been in keeping with everything else we know about him. It makes sense that the former professor would respond to years of almost unbearable violence--he delivered at least 10 national addresses following mass shootings in the space of seven years--through reflection on faith and grace and belief.

In his last such appearance--after five Dallas officers were killed by a sniper--Obama quoted from the Epistle of John and the prophet Ezekiel. “My faith tells me these men did not die in vain,” he told mourners.

The son of two secularists was also the first president to regularly mention nonbelievers, starting with his first inaugural address in 2009: “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers.”

The man who spent part of his childhood living in Indonesia and whose sister Maya identifies with Buddhism has opened up the White House for celebrations of many faiths. He is the first president to host a celebration of the Hindu holiday Diwali by lighting a diya in the Oval Office. Obama continued an annual White House tradition that has been in place since 1996 of holding an iftar dinner to observe the end of Ramadan. And he is the first president to host a Passover seder for family, friends and staff every year of his presidency.

And the man who spent his entire presidency having his Christian faith denied by critics who suggested he was hiding a secret Muslim identity has consistently spoken out on the need to protect Muslim Americans from discrimination.

It may be that Obama’s willingness to embrace people of other faiths, his broadening of the official religious landscape beyond just white Christian traditions, make it difficult for so many Americans to hear him when he speaks about his own faith.

[goconservativechristian]

Origin and History of Catholicism [Part II]by Moisés Pinedo

[EDITOR'S NOTE: To read Part I of this article, click

HERE

]CATHOLIC DEVELOPMENTA new church was born, a church completely different from the church established by Christ. While the church of Christ was born in Jerusalem (Acts 1:12; 2:1; etc.), this church was born in Rome. While the church of Christ was born with spiritual power (Acts 2:2-4), this church was born with political and military power. While the church of Christ was born under the authority of only one divine Head (Colossians 1:18), this church was born under the authority of one human head—the pope. This new church soon invaded the Earth with its new doctrines.However, an unexpected threat for this kind of Christianity was quickly approaching from the East: Islam. With Muhammad as its leader, the religion of Islam originated in A.D. 622 and spread aggressively. Less than 25 years from the beginning of the “Hegira” (i.e., Muhammad’s flight from Mecca), the followers of Muhammad had taken control of Egypt, Palestine, Persia, and Syria (Mattox, 1961, p. 173). With its thirst for conquest, this religion threatened to convert the whole world to its beliefs. Soon the threat to Catholicism became increasingly obvious. Many Catholics in conquered nations had converted to Islam out of fear; the advancement of this doctrine over Roman influence and its official religion seemed inevitable. The Roman religion, and the unity of the nation that depended on it, would collapse soon if something were not done quickly. Thus the conflicts between Catholics and Muslims gave rise to the infamous Crusades.The Crusades (from 1096 until 1270) were military expeditions that started out as a fulfillment of a “solemn vow” to regain the “holy places” in Palestine from the hands of the Muslims. In November 1095, Pope Urban II encouraged the masses to fight together against the Islamic Seljuk Turks who invaded the Byzantine Empire and subjected Greek, Syrian, and Armenian Catholics. He also wanted to extend his political and religious power. To encourage Catholics to involve themselves in a bloody war in the “name of God,” the pope offered forgiveness of sins, care for the lands belonging to crusaders, and the prospect of plunder (see Hitchens and Roupp, 2001, p. 186).Although multitudes of people answered the call to join the Crusades, they failed to accomplish the initial goal of recovering the Holy Lands. After many years of fighting and much loss of life, the Holy Lands were still in Muslim hands. Nevertheless, the Crusades improved the relationship between Catholic nations and stopped the advancement of the Turks in Europe.Shortly after the Crusades, new ideologies, which Catholicism considered heresies, threatened the Catholic Church. Multitudes of people, led by relentless religious leaders, executed those considered to be heretics without judicial process. The need for judicial regulation concerning heresy, the Catholic concern about the growth of new revolutionary ideas, and the desire to increase the power of the Catholic Church, gave rise to another wave of bloodshed paradoxically known in history as the “Holy” Inquisition.The Inquisition is described generally as the judicial institution created in the Middle Ages to deal with the enemies of the state religion (i.e., Catholicism). There were three types of inquisitions.

The Episcopal Inquisition was established by Pope Lucius III in 1184. It was overseen and administered by local bishops. Once the orthodox doctrines were established, any deviation from them was investigated and studied by the bishop of the respective diocese. If the “crime” was confirmed, it was punished, primarily by canonic penances (see Chami, 1999a).

The Pontifical Inquisition was created by Pope Gregory IX in 1231 (see Schmandt, 1988, 10:277). This type of inquisition was entrusted to the Dominican order which answered only to the pontiff. It was introduced in France in 1233, in Aragon in 1238, and in Italy in 1254 (Mattox, 1961, pp. 214-215). The inquisitors would go to the place of the alleged heresy, and with the help of the authorities, ask the heretics to present themselves voluntarily before the tribunal. The public also was encouraged to report heretics; anyone could accuse anyone else of heresy. The accused was forced to confess his “heresy” without an opportunity to confront his accusers or defend himself. A long imprisonment awaited the “heretic” who denied the charges. His imprisonment would be interrupted by numerous torture sessions until he confessed his “heresy.” If he continued to refuse to confess, he was turned over to the civil authorities who administered the death penalty to the “obstinate heretic.”

The Spanish Inquisition is considered the most dreadful of all. It began in 1478 with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV, and it lasted until 1834 (see “Inquisition,” 1997, 6:328). This tribunal was different from the Pontifical Inquisition because the inquisitor was appointed by the king rather than the pope, so the inquisitor became a servant of the state rather than the church (see Chami, 1999b). Some of the principal reasons for this inquisition were:

The Jewish “threat”—In the 14th and 15th centuries, Europe was ravaged by grave economic crises. Many plagues and epidemics contributed to this situation. Because of their strict hygiene practices, the Jews in Europe survived these epidemics and plagues. While Europeans fell into despair and poverty, most Jews retained their economic status. This situation produced many protests against the Jews and increased the political and religious avarice for, and confiscation of, Jewish wealth. Forced to give up their economic activities, and being pressured by fanatical priests, many Jews converted to the Catholic religion at the beginning of the 15th century. Many Catholics became jealous of the continued financial progress and social position of these Jews and accused them of artificial, insincere conversion (see Domínguez, n.d.).

The need for unity in the kingdom—Spain was united politically under the “Catholic Rulers,” Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, but there still were different religious ideologies in the country. Hoping to unify their country religiously, the rulers asked the pope for permission to “purify” their kingdom of non-Catholic ideologies by means of the Inquisition (see Chami, 1999b).

These were some reasons for the cruel Spanish Inquisition. In time, this brutal tribunal dedicated itself to the persecution of Muslims, alleged witches, and supporters of Protestantism.Though prior inquisitions were cruel, the Spanish Inquisition was devised to terrify even the vilest criminal. Its instruments of torture were even more innovative and inhumane than those of earlier times. Torture treatments included, but were not limited to (1) dislocation of the joints of the body; (2) mutilation of vaginal, anal, and oral interior cavities; (3) removal of tongues, nipples, ears, noses, genitals, and intestines; (4) breaking of legs, arms, toes, and fingers; (5) flattening of knuckles, nails, and heads; (6) sawing of bodies in half; (7) perforation of skin and bones; (8) tearing of skin from the face, abdomen, back, extremities, and sinuses; and (9) stretching of body extremities (see Rodriguez, 2007).Although Catholicism may want to deny its past, history speaks loudly concerning the atrocities committed in the name of the Catholic faith. Catholicism may try to hide behind the injustices committed by other religious groups to cover its own disgrace, but the truth is that Catholic methodology was the inspiration for the bloody canvas of other religious “artists.” There is no doubt that the Crusades and Inquisitions played a major role in the development and growth of the Catholic Church in a world that did not want to conform to this kind of religion.CATHOLICISM IN RECENT TIMESIn the past, the Catholic Church used violent methods to destroy opposition to its teachings and practices. Today, without the torture, tribunals, and slaughter, Catholicism seems passive toward the growth of other religions.The beginning of the 16th century added new fuel to the fire of the Inquisition. Ninety-five reasons for this were nailed to the door of the Catholic Church building in Wittenberg, Germany. Who was responsible? One man: Martin Luther. Although some men before him had attempted to ignite the fire of reformation (e.g., John Wycliffe, John Hus, et al.), the Reformation movement was ineffective until Luther.Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Saxony, Germany in 1483. He was the son of a poor miner and paid for his studies at the University of Erfurt with alms he collected. In 1505, he became more interested in the salvation of his soul and the search for spiritual peace thanthe study of law. He entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt where he became a devout, but spiritually troubled, monk. By 1508, Luther had come to the conclusion that some teachings and organization of the Catholic Church were completely different from those of the New Testament. The immorality of the clergy in Rome, irreverence toward the sacraments by their own defenders, and the avarice of those who collected indulgences and other penalties set Martin Luther on a collision course with the Catholic Church. In 1517, his 95 theses disturbed the Catholic world to the point that, by 1520, the pope drew up a bull calling for Luther to recant his teachings or be excommunicated.However, he did not succumb to this threat, and continued to spread his teachings (see Mattox, 1961, pp. 243-261; Pelikan, 1988, 12:531-533). Others, such as Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531) in Switzerland and John Calvin (1509-1564) in France and Geneva, Switzerland, also contributed greatly to the Reformation and the development of Protestant religions.Various conditions helped the progress of the Reformation in the 16th century. (1) The Renaissance—This cultural movement stimulated intellectual freedom and awakened enthusiastic study of the Scriptures in Europe. Many people began to realize the difference between Catholicism and New Testament Christianity. (2) Corruption of the hierarchy in the Catholic Church—Money bought rights and privileges, and immorality ruled the day, even among the Catholic clergy. Inconsistency between faith and practice became notorious. (3) Secular sovereigns’ support of opposition to Catholic hierarchy—By this time, the Catholic Church owned a third of the land of Western Europe. Kings and rulers were eager to possess this land, as well as other properties that the church had taken for itself. (4) The advent of the printing press—Luther and others used the printing press to spread their ideas and the Scriptures throughout Germany and other countries (see Mattox, 1961, pp. 239-246). By 1542, Protestantism was spreading to many places and was even penetrating Italy with its doctrines. Because of his fear of this new ideological rebellion, Pope Paul IIIincited the public and church leaders to return to the harsh levels of the Inquisition. In spite of this, Protestantism flourished.The Catholic Church had encountered a great enemy that seemingly lacked the faintest intention of yielding. However, the “Holy Office” of the Inquisition continued work during the subsequent centuries and expanded to the colonies of Spain in the New World. The tribunal of the Inquisition had jurisdiction over other tribunals organized in Latin American colonies. In these colonies, the Inquisition did not reach the same disgraceful level it did in Europe since natives merely were beginning to learn the Catholic religion and did not yet understand every Catholic dogma. But the poor example of “kindness” shown in conquered nations could not erase the inherent cruelty of the “holy” tribunal.In 1808, Joseph Bonaparte (brother of Napoleon) signed a decree terminating the “Holy Office,” but it was not until 1834 that the final edict of its abolition was published (see O’Malley, 2001; “Inquisition,” 1997, 6:328). Having its political, military, and social arm broken, the only thing left for the Catholic Church was to “follow the herd” and accept what seemed to be the end of its dictatorship.In sharp contrast to its past, the Catholic Church has become progressively more tolerant of other religions in spite of its public, verbal opposition. This tolerance has led to a mixture of Catholicism with evangelical religions, such as Lutheranism, Pentecostalism, etc., resulting in serious repercussions for Catholicism worldwide. This situation clearly shows that this kind of religion is based not on the Bible, but on religious preferences. No one can say with certainty what the Catholic Church will become or accept in the future, but history vividly illuminates its past beliefs and practices.REFERENCESChami, Pablo A. (1999a), “Origin of the Inquisition” [“Origen de la Inquisición”], [On-line], URL:http://www.pachami.com/Inquisicion/Origen.html.Chami, Pablo A. (1999b), “The Spanish Inquisition” [“La Inquisición en España”], [On-line], URL: http://pachami.com/Inquisicion/Espa.htm.Domínguez, Antonio O. (no date), “The Jewish Problem” [“El Problema Judío”], [On-line], URL: http://www.vallenajerilla.com/berceo/florilegio/inquisicion/problema judio.htm.Hitchens, Marilynn and Heidi Roupp (2001), How to Prepare for SAT: World History(Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series).“Inquisition” (1997), The New Encyclopædia Britannica (London: Encyclopædia Britannica).Mattox, F.W. (1961), The Eternal Kingdom (Delight, AR: Gospel Light).O’Malley, John W (2001), “Inquisition,” Encarta Encyclopedia 2002 (Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation).Pelikan, Jaroslav (1988), “Luther, Martin,” The World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago, IL: World Book).Rodriguez, Ana (2007), “Inquisition: Torture Instruments, ‘a Cultural Shock’ for the Audience” [“Inquisición: Instrumentos de Tortura, ‘Sacudida Cultural’ para el Espectador”], La Jornada, March 9, [On-line], URL: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/01/09/index.php?section=cultura& ;article=a04n1cul.Schmandt, Raymond H. (1988), The World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago, IL: World Book).

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A Brief Global History of the War on Cannabis

Ryan Stoa of High Times Reports:

I want a Goddamn strong statement on marijuana … I mean one on marijuana that just tears the ass out of them. … By God we are going to hit the marijuana thing, and I want to hit it right square in the puss. … I want to hit it, against legalizing and all that sort of thing.

—Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States

Before the war on drugs put marijuana farmers firmly in its crosshairs, cannabis was being grown openly and with commercial success on every continent on earth, much as it had been for centuries.

This ancient and extensive history of cannabis farming has given rise to the idea that prohibitions put in place in the mid-20th century were the first of their kind — a whirlwind of racial, political, and economic forces that successfully used marijuana prohibition as a pretext for suppression. By contrasting prohibition with our ancient history of cannabis farming, some historians make our modern-day drug laws appear irregular and shortsighted. In his seminal (and controversial) book on cannabis, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” (referred to by many legalization advocates as “the Hemp Bible”), Jack Herer opens with the following line:

For thousands upon thousands of years, all over the world, whole families came together to harvest the hemp fields at the height of the flowering season, never dreaming that one day the U.S. government would be spearheading an international movement to wipe the cannabis plant off the face of the earth. 

Yet, while unprecedented in scope, the United States’ war on drugs was not the first of its kind. The reality is that marijuana has been controversial for almost as long as humans have been farming it. Many societies throughout history have banned cannabis cultivation and use. What many of these crackdowns and prohibitions have in common is social and economic inequality, or a distrust of the unknown. When members of a minority or lower class embrace marijuana use, the ruling class moves to outlaw marijuana as a form of suppression and control. Marijuana is perceived to be a threat to the order of society, and stamping it out naturally begins with a prohibition on cultivation.

A Look At The Ancients

As a case in point, the ancient Chinese might have been the first cannabis farmers — and, as far as we know, were the first to write about psychoactive marijuana — and yet they may also have been the first to reject it as a socially acceptable drug. The rise of Taoism around 600 BCE brought with it a cultural rejection of intoxicants. Marijuana was then viewed as antisocial, and derisively dismissed by one Taoist priest as a loony drug reserved for shamans. The sentiment persisted into the modern era — to this day, marijuana struggles to disassociate itself with the stained history of opium in China.

Muslim societies have a complex relationship history with marijuana. Hashish use spread widely with the expansion of Islam in the seventh century CE, and remains popular today. Early Arabic texts referred to marijuana as the “bush of understanding” and the “morsel of thought.” Yet traditional theologians believed Mohammed prohibited marijuana use (the Koran [2: 219] prohibits “intoxicants,” but how that word should be interpreted is still up for debate). One prominent theologian associated marijuana with the dreaded Mongol empire, and many upper-class Muslims pushed for prohibition, for fear that marijuana use would disrupt the labor force. In the end, some societies tolerated marijuana use or turned a blind eye; others (such as Damascus in 1265) embraced prohibition.

Sufi Muslims took these tensions to the next level. The mystical Sufis believed that spiritual enlightenment could be reached by an altered state of consciousness, and a mind-bending drug like marijuana would seem a logical vehicle to reach that state. Sufis believed hashish was a vehicle not only to personal enlightenment but to direct communication with Allah. These beliefs did not go over well with the rest of mainstream Islam, however. To make matters worse for the Sufis, they were often lower-class laborers. That marijuana use was therefore central to a religion perceived to be a heretical challenge to religious, economic, and political order made the plant an easy target for authorities.

In 1253, Sufis were openly growing marijuana in Cairo, Egypt. The government, claiming that Sufism was a threat to society, raided their farms and destroyed all their crops. Undeterred, the Sufis made deals with farmers in the Nile River Valley to grow marijuana on their farmlands. This successful agricultural partnership lasted until 1324, when Egyptian troops raided the countryside and destroyed all the marijuana they could find. For Sufis and marijuana farmers, the situation only got worse. Martial law was imposed in 1378, and this time the authorities destroyed more than marijuana crops: entire farms and farming villages were burned to the ground. Farmers were imprisoned or executed, and hashish users had their teeth pulled. Despite this swift and vicious crackdown, the demand for hashish remained strong. The cycle of cultivation, consumption, and crackdown continued in Egypt for centuries.

Christianity and Cannabis

Islam was not the only major world religion to feel threatened by marijuana. Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal ban on cannabis in the first year of his papacy, in 1484. At the time, marijuana, along with other mind-altering plants, was being cultivated for medicinal and spiritual applications throughout Europe by pagans who were considered to be witches and sorcerers. The Christianity of Pope Innocent VIII, however, was predicated on a future fulfillment in the afterlife, and a rejection of momentary pleasures or enlightenment. The pagans growing marijuana profoundly challenged this premise by promising spiritual enrichment in the present, with a plant grown right here on earth. Pope Innocent VIII thus wasted no time in addressing this existential threat, declaring cannabis to be an unholy sacrament of the satanic Mass. The pagans who cultivated it were persecuted into imprisonment, exile, or death. 

Colonial empires, with their unfailing concern for a robust military and hard-working labor force, have often viewed marijuana with suspicion. Though the Spanish were one of the first colonial empires to encourage the cultivation of hemp in the Americas, they were not as enthusiastic about marijuana. The Spanish governor of Mexico issued an order in 1550 limiting cannabis farming because “the natives were beginning to use the plant for something other than rope,” write Robert Clarke and Mark Merlin in their book “Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany.” White South Africans, descended from Dutch or British colonialists, passed a series of laws in the 19th century designed to crack down on the cultivation and use of marijuana by indentured Indian farm workers, who were viewed by whites as societal contaminants and a threat to civil order. 

The Portuguese empire also struggled to control cannabis. The Portuguese wanted to foster a strong hemp-producing workforce just like those of their colonial rivals, but they considered marijuana a pernicious vice, especially when used by slaves. The Portuguese introduced marijuana prohibitions to many of their African colonies, including Zambia and Angola. Nonetheless, explorers to the region noticed marijuana being grown “nearly everywhere” and used by “all the tribes of the interior,” according to a report published by the Transnational Institute.

When the Portuguese brought slaves to Brazil in the 16th century, the slaves brought marijuana along with them, as seeds were sewn into the clothing they wore onto the slave ships and then germinated upon arrival. Whatever strains they were using must have been well adapted to the Brazilian landscape; marijuana was soon growing from the coasts to the Amazon and everywhere in between. For the most part, marijuana cultivation was permitted during Portuguese rule. But when Brazil gained its independence in the early 19th century, Rio de Janeiro’s municipal cannabis prohibition started a chain reaction of prohibitions around the country aimed at curbing marijuana use among slave populations. 

One reason Portugal may have been lenient on marijuana farming in Brazil is the fact that the Queen of Portugal herself was using it while stationed there during the Napoleonic wars. This wasn’t the first time Napoleon Bonaparte was involved in the history of marijuana. Several years earlier, in 1798, Napoleon had launched the French campaign into Egypt and Syria, a large-scale offensive designed to cut off British trade and liberate Egypt from Ottoman rule. After the initial conquest, Napoleon attempted to maintain local support by embracing Islamic culture and scientific exchange. An unusually large percentage of French forces in Egypt (totaling around 40,000) were scientists and scholars, and were responsible for establishing libraries, laboratories, and research centers that went on to make significant contributions in a number of disciplines.

The discovery of hashish may not have been seen as a breakthrough at the time, but it had a great effect on European culture and literary thought. Prior to the French campaign in Egypt, hashish wasn’t well known in Europe and certainly wasn’t commonly used. The 40,000 French troops stationed in Egypt, however, quickly learned about it. Hashish was ubiquitous in Egypt at the time, bought and sold in cafés, markets, and smoking lounges. Lacking access to their customary French wines and liquors and encouraged by Napoleon to embrace Egyptian culture, many French troops took up hashish.

Hashish

Unfortunately, hashish was still associated with Sufi mystics and looked down upon by the Sunni elite. After Napoleon went back to France, the general he had left in charge of Egypt, General Jacques-François Menou, was a noble-born French revolutionary who married into an upper-class Sunni family after taking command of Egypt. For Menou, the prospect of a hashish ban killed two birds with one stone: It would appease the Sunni elite by cracking down on Sufis, and alleviate a perceived public health problem among the French troops. The ordre du jour banning the cultivation, sale, and consumption of cannabis, considered by some scholars to be the first drug prohibition law in the modern era, came down in 1800. It opens with the following:

Article One: The use of strong liquor, made by certain Muslims with a certain grass [herbe] called hashish, and smoking of the seed of cannabis, are prohibited throughout Egypt. Those who are accustomed to drinking this liquor and smoking this seed lose reason and fall into a violent delirium, which often leads them to commit excesses of all kinds. 

Whether or not Menou’s order was the first modern penal law on drugs, it largely failed to work (a fact that should come as no surprise to us in the 21st century). Hashish continued to be produced, sold, and consumed widely throughout Egypt, and it came home with French troops when they left Egypt in 1801. It wasn’t long before hashish was being widely used in France and the rest of western Europe.

Despite efforts by authorities in Europe to paint hashish as an unstable and dangerous substance, many of the Romantic period’s most accomplished artists and writers were brought together because of cannabis. Dubbing themselves Le Club des Hachichins (Hashish-Eaters’ Club), luminaries such as Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, Gérard de Nerval, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, and Alexandre Dumas would meet in Paris to take hashish and exchange notes on their experiences. They rejected mainstream attempts to associate hashish with what was regarded as Oriental barbarism and, through their writings, normalized marijuana use and popularized the Romantic era’s bohemian creed: l’art pour l’art (art for art’s sake).

Across the Channel, the British Empire wrestled with the conspicuous presence of cannabis in India. As a native plant to the Indian subcontinent, cannabis could be found growing in the wild by hunter-gatherers, and was likely cultivated by the earliest agrarian settlers. Psychoactive marijuana strains featured prominently in early texts of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Tantrist religions. As the Indian marijuana farming industry matured over time, the harvested product was divided into three gradients, all of which remain available today.

Bhang is the cheapest, most prevalent, and lowest-quality marijuana; it consists of crushed leaves, seeds, and/or flowers, and produces the least potent high. On the other end of the spectrum, Charas is the highest-quality and most expensive marijuana in India. It is sold as a highly potent hashish produced from plants grown in the most desirable cannabis-producing farmlands of the Hindu Kush and Himalaya mountain ranges between 4,000 to 7,000 feet. It remains one of the most revered marijuana products in the world today. Somewhere in between Bhang and Charas is Ganga. A mid-grade crop in both price and potency, Ganga is cultivated from well-cared-for female plants, and consists of a mixture of resin and cannabis flower. 

One of the first Europeans to write about the Indian marijuana industry was a Portuguese doctor named Garcia da Orta. He wrote of Bhang in 1563:

The Indians get no usefulness from this, unless it is in the fact that they become ravished by ecstasy, and delivered from all worries and cares, and laugh at the least little thing. After all, it is said that it was they who first found the use of it. 

Some 200 years later, the British mulled over the possibility of a marijuana prohibition in India. The Indian ruling class and the British governor-general of India pushed for a total ban, fearful that marijuana would create social unrest. The British Parliament, however, had other ideas. Short on cash, the government saw the marijuana industry as an opportunity to raise some revenue. They taxed cannabis in 1790, and three years later, established a regulatory framework to issue licenses to farmers and sellers. 

The tax-and-regulate scheme worked to some extent. But in a vast landscape where cannabis grows in the wild, many farmers and their crops escaped the tax. The British encouraged the regulatory system to decentralize, allowing cities and states to experiment with different taxation schemes. The results were mixed. The strength of the black market was frustrating enough that the British Parliament considered prohibition measures in 1838, 1871, 1877, and 1892. But ultimately the measures failed to pass, because the tax revenues that did come in couldn’t be ignored.

Temperance movement advocates persisted, however, driven by the evils of opium use which they associated with cannabis. Parliament responded by commissioning the most comprehensive government study of marijuana in human history. The seven-volume 3,500-page “Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission” of 1894 to 1895 called over a thousand witnesses from around the world. The findings emphatically rejected the alleged grounds for prohibition. The commission found (as its predecessors did) that marijuana cultivation is nearly impossible to eradicate, and argued that it produces no “evil results” in the first place:

Prohibition

Total prohibition of the cultivation of the hemp plant for narcotics, and of the manufacture, sale, or use of the drugs derived from it, is neither necessary nor expedient in consideration of their ascertained effects, of the prevalence of the habit of using them, of the social and religious feeling on the subject, and of the possibility of its driving the consumers to have recourse to other stimulants or narcotics which may be more deleterious. 

The commission went on to recommend a tax-and-license scheme for the marijuana farming industry:

The means to be adopted for the attainment of [control and restriction] are:

adequate taxation, which can be best effected by the combination of a direct duty with the auction of the privilege of vend;

prohibiting cultivation, except under license, and centralizing cultivation. 

This may represent the first time in history a government study has recommended a centralized marijuana farming scheme. Comprehensive as it is in other respects, however, the commission’s report does not elaborate on this centralization proposal; it merely suggests that the most effective way of limiting supply is “to grant licenses for cultivation in such a way as to secure supervision and registration of the produce.” 

Despite the commission’s efforts, Parliament’s endorsement of its report was lukewarm. As a result, the marijuana farming trade continued unchanged, with taxation and licensing of cultivators continuing to be hit and miss. Bhang was informally grown nearly everywhere; Ganga crops were, for the most part, produced on government-licensed farms; and Charas was imported from the Hindu Kush and Himalayas. This basic structure persisted into the global prohibition era of the 20th century. The proposal to “centralize cultivation” was largely forgotten after the commission’s report was published. But a century later, government regulators trying to find their way through the post-prohibition era of the 21st century would come to recognize its advantages.

The history of marijuana farming tells us that when prohibitions are imposed, they almost always come from the ruling class. Marijuana’s role as a spiritual, medicinal, or recreational drug of the poor working classes stokes fears among the elite that the political, religious, or economic order that has served them so well may be disrupted. There aren’t, therefore, many cases where marijuana was embraced by the ruling class and persecuted from below. But the story of the Bashilange tribe suggests that marijuana users can be targeted from any angle.

In the mid-19th century, the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa was a vast wilderness, and it was controlled by the Bashilange tribe. The Bashilange were ruthless fighters, eating the bodies of their victims and enslaving their prisoners. They enacted few laws, save a requirement that other tribes in the region pay tribute to their supremacy or face a certain death. While exploring these lands, however, the Governor of German East Africa observed a remarkable shift in the Bashilange’s culture. The tribe had discovered marijuana, and rapidly embraced the plant as a pillar of their tribe’s identity.

Tribesmen of the Bashilange dubbed themselves the Sons of Cannabis, and soon passed laws to promote peace and friendship. They rejected cannibalism and were no longer permitted to carry weapons in the village. They stopped killing their rivals, and started having more sex. Marijuana was smoked regularly and at most important events, including religious ceremonies, holidays, and political alliances. Formerly known for being cold-blooded killers, the Sons of Cannabis became tranquil marijuana-growing peacemakers.

Unfortunately, their rivals did not share the Sons of Cannabis’s newfound love of peace and friendship. Many tribes lost respect for their former rulers and stopped making tribute payments. With weakening support in the region, the Bashilange tribe splintered. The Sons of Cannabis, no longer the fearsome fighters of yore, were overthrown by their fellow tribesmen who yearned for a return to the tribe’s dominant past. The new regime reinstituted the tribe’s violent practices, and largely returned the Bashilange to its former warring nature. 

Jack Herer may have been using hyperbole when he claimed that cannabis farmers throughout history could not have conceived of the 20th century’s crackdown on marijuana. The historical record illustrates that while many regions of the world have tolerated or embraced marijuana farming in the past, plenty of others have seen authorities attempt to exterminate farmers and their crops. Targeting the first step in the supply chain is a logical starting point for prohibitionists, and marijuana’s role as an agent of religious, political, or economic change has long made it a threat to the established social order.

Our marijuana-farming ancestors of the past could have told us, based on experience, that when prohibitionists come after cannabis, they will do so in predictable ways. They will use rhetoric to associate the plant with violence, depravity, and other more dangerous drugs, as the European temperance movement did in France and Great Britain. They will use a militarized show of force to eradicate crops, persecute farmers, and dissuade the next generation from growing marijuana, as the Ottomans did in Egypt. They will portray marijuana users as religious extremists or dangerous minorities, as Pope Innocent VIII did in Europe, Sunni Muslims did in the Middle East, or white South Africans did in South Africa. The best-case scenario, they might say, is that the authorities will turn a blind eye to the unstoppable forces of supply and demand, much as the Portuguese did in Brazil or the British did in India.

In telling us this, our marijuana-farming ancestors might as well have been writing the playbook for the 20th-century war on drugs. The cannabis prohibition era in the United States did not invent this “greatest hits” collection of tactics that prohibitionists have been using for centuries; it simply brought them all together in one place, and injected them with more financial and military resources than any prohibition movement in history has ever seen.

*** Ryan Stoa is an associate professor of law at the Concordia University School of Law and the author of “Craft Weed,” from which this article is adapted.

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Origin and History of Catholicism [Part II]by Moisés Pinedo

[EDITOR'S NOTE: To read Part I of this article, click

HERE

]CATHOLIC DEVELOPMENTA new church was born, a church completely different from the church established by Christ. While the church of Christ was born in Jerusalem (Acts 1:12; 2:1; etc.), this church was born in Rome. While the church of Christ was born with spiritual power (Acts 2:2-4), this church was born with political and military power. While the church of Christ was born under the authority of only one divine Head (Colossians 1:18), this church was born under the authority of one human head—the pope. This new church soon invaded the Earth with its new doctrines.However, an unexpected threat for this kind of Christianity was quickly approaching from the East: Islam. With Muhammad as its leader, the religion of Islam originated in A.D. 622 and spread aggressively. Less than 25 years from the beginning of the “Hegira” (i.e., Muhammad’s flight from Mecca), the followers of Muhammad had taken control of Egypt, Palestine, Persia, and Syria (Mattox, 1961, p. 173). With its thirst for conquest, this religion threatened to convert the whole world to its beliefs. Soon the threat to Catholicism became increasingly obvious. Many Catholics in conquered nations had converted to Islam out of fear; the advancement of this doctrine over Roman influence and its official religion seemed inevitable. The Roman religion, and the unity of the nation that depended on it, would collapse soon if something were not done quickly. Thus the conflicts between Catholics and Muslims gave rise to the infamous Crusades.The Crusades (from 1096 until 1270) were military expeditions that started out as a fulfillment of a “solemn vow” to regain the “holy places” in Palestine from the hands of the Muslims. In November 1095, Pope Urban II encouraged the masses to fight together against the Islamic Seljuk Turks who invaded the Byzantine Empire and subjected Greek, Syrian, and Armenian Catholics. He also wanted to extend his political and religious power. To encourage Catholics to involve themselves in a bloody war in the “name of God,” the pope offered forgiveness of sins, care for the lands belonging to crusaders, and the prospect of plunder (see Hitchens and Roupp, 2001, p. 186).Although multitudes of people answered the call to join the Crusades, they failed to accomplish the initial goal of recovering the Holy Lands. After many years of fighting and much loss of life, the Holy Lands were still in Muslim hands. Nevertheless, the Crusades improved the relationship between Catholic nations and stopped the advancement of the Turks in Europe.Shortly after the Crusades, new ideologies, which Catholicism considered heresies, threatened the Catholic Church. Multitudes of people, led by relentless religious leaders, executed those considered to be heretics without judicial process. The need for judicial regulation concerning heresy, the Catholic concern about the growth of new revolutionary ideas, and the desire to increase the power of the Catholic Church, gave rise to another wave of bloodshed paradoxically known in history as the “Holy” Inquisition.The Inquisition is described generally as the judicial institution created in the Middle Ages to deal with the enemies of the state religion (i.e., Catholicism). There were three types of inquisitions.

The Episcopal Inquisition was established by Pope Lucius III in 1184. It was overseen and administered by local bishops. Once the orthodox doctrines were established, any deviation from them was investigated and studied by the bishop of the respective diocese. If the “crime” was confirmed, it was punished, primarily by canonic penances (see Chami, 1999a).

The Pontifical Inquisition was created by Pope Gregory IX in 1231 (see Schmandt, 1988, 10:277). This type of inquisition was entrusted to the Dominican order which answered only to the pontiff. It was introduced in France in 1233, in Aragon in 1238, and in Italy in 1254 (Mattox, 1961, pp. 214-215). The inquisitors would go to the place of the alleged heresy, and with the help of the authorities, ask the heretics to present themselves voluntarily before the tribunal. The public also was encouraged to report heretics; anyone could accuse anyone else of heresy. The accused was forced to confess his “heresy” without an opportunity to confront his accusers or defend himself. A long imprisonment awaited the “heretic” who denied the charges. His imprisonment would be interrupted by numerous torture sessions until he confessed his “heresy.” If he continued to refuse to confess, he was turned over to the civil authorities who administered the death penalty to the “obstinate heretic.”

The Spanish Inquisition is considered the most dreadful of all. It began in 1478 with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV, and it lasted until 1834 (see “Inquisition,” 1997, 6:328). This tribunal was different from the Pontifical Inquisition because the inquisitor was appointed by the king rather than the pope, so the inquisitor became a servant of the state rather than the church (see Chami, 1999b). Some of the principal reasons for this inquisition were:

The Jewish “threat”—In the 14th and 15th centuries, Europe was ravaged by grave economic crises. Many plagues and epidemics contributed to this situation. Because of their strict hygiene practices, the Jews in Europe survived these epidemics and plagues. While Europeans fell into despair and poverty, most Jews retained their economic status. This situation produced many protests against the Jews and increased the political and religious avarice for, and confiscation of, Jewish wealth. Forced to give up their economic activities, and being pressured by fanatical priests, many Jews converted to the Catholic religion at the beginning of the 15th century. Many Catholics became jealous of the continued financial progress and social position of these Jews and accused them of artificial, insincere conversion (see Domínguez, n.d.).

The need for unity in the kingdom—Spain was united politically under the “Catholic Rulers,” Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, but there still were different religious ideologies in the country. Hoping to unify their country religiously, the rulers asked the pope for permission to “purify” their kingdom of non-Catholic ideologies by means of the Inquisition (see Chami, 1999b).

These were some reasons for the cruel Spanish Inquisition. In time, this brutal tribunal dedicated itself to the persecution of Muslims, alleged witches, and supporters of Protestantism.Though prior inquisitions were cruel, the Spanish Inquisition was devised to terrify even the vilest criminal. Its instruments of torture were even more innovative and inhumane than those of earlier times. Torture treatments included, but were not limited to (1) dislocation of the joints of the body; (2) mutilation of vaginal, anal, and oral interior cavities; (3) removal of tongues, nipples, ears, noses, genitals, and intestines; (4) breaking of legs, arms, toes, and fingers; (5) flattening of knuckles, nails, and heads; (6) sawing of bodies in half; (7) perforation of skin and bones; (8) tearing of skin from the face, abdomen, back, extremities, and sinuses; and (9) stretching of body extremities (see Rodriguez, 2007).Although Catholicism may want to deny its past, history speaks loudly concerning the atrocities committed in the name of the Catholic faith. Catholicism may try to hide behind the injustices committed by other religious groups to cover its own disgrace, but the truth is that Catholic methodology was the inspiration for the bloody canvas of other religious “artists.” There is no doubt that the Crusades and Inquisitions played a major role in the development and growth of the Catholic Church in a world that did not want to conform to this kind of religion.CATHOLICISM IN RECENT TIMESIn the past, the Catholic Church used violent methods to destroy opposition to its teachings and practices. Today, without the torture, tribunals, and slaughter, Catholicism seems passive toward the growth of other religions.The beginning of the 16th century added new fuel to the fire of the Inquisition. Ninety-five reasons for this were nailed to the door of the Catholic Church building in Wittenberg, Germany. Who was responsible? One man: Martin Luther. Although some men before him had attempted to ignite the fire of reformation (e.g., John Wycliffe, John Hus, et al.), the Reformation movement was ineffective until Luther.Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Saxony, Germany in 1483. He was the son of a poor miner and paid for his studies at the University of Erfurt with alms he collected. In 1505, he became more interested in the salvation of his soul and the search for spiritual peace thanthe study of law. He entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt where he became a devout, but spiritually troubled, monk. By 1508, Luther had come to the conclusion that some teachings and organization of the Catholic Church were completely different from those of the New Testament. The immorality of the clergy in Rome, irreverence toward the sacraments by their own defenders, and the avarice of those who collected indulgences and other penalties set Martin Luther on a collision course with the Catholic Church. In 1517, his 95 theses disturbed the Catholic world to the point that, by 1520, the pope drew up a bull calling for Luther to recant his teachings or be excommunicated.However, he did not succumb to this threat, and continued to spread his teachings (see Mattox, 1961, pp. 243-261; Pelikan, 1988, 12:531-533). Others, such as Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531) in Switzerland and John Calvin (1509-1564) in France and Geneva, Switzerland, also contributed greatly to the Reformation and the development of Protestant religions.Various conditions helped the progress of the Reformation in the 16th century. (1) The Renaissance—This cultural movement stimulated intellectual freedom and awakened enthusiastic study of the Scriptures in Europe. Many people began to realize the difference between Catholicism and New Testament Christianity. (2) Corruption of the hierarchy in the Catholic Church—Money bought rights and privileges, and immorality ruled the day, even among the Catholic clergy. Inconsistency between faith and practice became notorious. (3) Secular sovereigns’ support of opposition to Catholic hierarchy—By this time, the Catholic Church owned a third of the land of Western Europe. Kings and rulers were eager to possess this land, as well as other properties that the church had taken for itself. (4) The advent of the printing press—Luther and others used the printing press to spread their ideas and the Scriptures throughout Germany and other countries (see Mattox, 1961, pp. 239-246). By 1542, Protestantism was spreading to many places and was even penetrating Italy with its doctrines. Because of his fear of this new ideological rebellion, Pope Paul IIIincited the public and church leaders to return to the harsh levels of the Inquisition. In spite of this, Protestantism flourished.The Catholic Church had encountered a great enemy that seemingly lacked the faintest intention of yielding. However, the “Holy Office” of the Inquisition continued work during the subsequent centuries and expanded to the colonies of Spain in the New World. The tribunal of the Inquisition had jurisdiction over other tribunals organized in Latin American colonies. In these colonies, the Inquisition did not reach the same disgraceful level it did in Europe since natives merely were beginning to learn the Catholic religion and did not yet understand every Catholic dogma. But the poor example of “kindness” shown in conquered nations could not erase the inherent cruelty of the “holy” tribunal.In 1808, Joseph Bonaparte (brother of Napoleon) signed a decree terminating the “Holy Office,” but it was not until 1834 that the final edict of its abolition was published (see O’Malley, 2001; “Inquisition,” 1997, 6:328). Having its political, military, and social arm broken, the only thing left for the Catholic Church was to “follow the herd” and accept what seemed to be the end of its dictatorship.In sharp contrast to its past, the Catholic Church has become progressively more tolerant of other religions in spite of its public, verbal opposition. This tolerance has led to a mixture of Catholicism with evangelical religions, such as Lutheranism, Pentecostalism, etc., resulting in serious repercussions for Catholicism worldwide. This situation clearly shows that this kind of religion is based not on the Bible, but on religious preferences. No one can say with certainty what the Catholic Church will become or accept in the future, but history vividly illuminates its past beliefs and practices.REFERENCESChami, Pablo A. (1999a), “Origin of the Inquisition” [“Origen de la Inquisición”], [On-line], URL:http://www.pachami.com/Inquisicion/Origen.html.Chami, Pablo A. (1999b), “The Spanish Inquisition” [“La Inquisición en España”], [On-line], URL: http://pachami.com/Inquisicion/Espa.htm.Domínguez, Antonio O. (no date), “The Jewish Problem” [“El Problema Judío”], [On-line], URL: http://www.vallenajerilla.com/berceo/florilegio/inquisicion/problema judio.htm.Hitchens, Marilynn and Heidi Roupp (2001), How to Prepare for SAT: World History(Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series).“Inquisition” (1997), The New Encyclopædia Britannica (London: Encyclopædia Britannica).Mattox, F.W. (1961), The Eternal Kingdom (Delight, AR: Gospel Light).O’Malley, John W (2001), “Inquisition,” Encarta Encyclopedia 2002 (Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation).Pelikan, Jaroslav (1988), “Luther, Martin,” The World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago, IL: World Book).Rodriguez, Ana (2007), “Inquisition: Torture Instruments, ‘a Cultural Shock’ for the Audience” [“Inquisición: Instrumentos de Tortura, ‘Sacudida Cultural’ para el Espectador”], La Jornada, March 9, [On-line], URL: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/01/09/index.php?section=cultura& ;article=a04n1cul.Schmandt, Raymond H. (1988), The World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago, IL: World Book).

Copyright © 2008 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

We are happy to grant permission for items in the "Doctrinal Matters" section to be reproduced in part or in their entirety, as long as the following stipulations are observed: (1) Apologetics Press must be designated as the original publisher; (2) the specific Apologetics Press Web site URL must be noted; (3) the author’s name must remain attached to the materials; (4) textual alterations of any kind are strictly forbidden; (5) Some illustrations (e.g., photographs, charts, graphics, etc.) are not the intellectual property of Apologetics Press and as such cannot be reproduced from our site without consent from the person or organization that maintains those intellectual rights; (6) serialization of written material (e.g., running an article in several parts) is permitted, as long as the whole of the material is made available, without editing, in a reasonable length of time; (7) articles, excepting brief quotations, may not be offered for sale or included in items offered for sale; and (8) articles may be reproduced in electronic form for posting on Web sites pending they are not edited or altered from their original content and that credit is given to Apologetics Press, including the web location from which the articles were taken.

For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:

Apologetics Press

230 Landmark Drive

Montgomery, Alabama 36117

U.S.A.

Phone (334) 272-8558

http://www.apologeticspress.org

[stevefinnell-blog]

Origin and History of Catholicism [Part II]by Moisés Pinedo

[EDITOR'S NOTE: To read Part I of this article, click

HERE

]CATHOLIC DEVELOPMENTA new church was born, a church completely different from the church established by Christ. While the church of Christ was born in Jerusalem (Acts 1:12; 2:1; etc.), this church was born in Rome. While the church of Christ was born with spiritual power (Acts 2:2-4), this church was born with political and military power. While the church of Christ was born under the authority of only one divine Head (Colossians 1:18), this church was born under the authority of one human head—the pope. This new church soon invaded the Earth with its new doctrines.However, an unexpected threat for this kind of Christianity was quickly approaching from the East: Islam. With Muhammad as its leader, the religion of Islam originated in A.D. 622 and spread aggressively. Less than 25 years from the beginning of the “Hegira” (i.e., Muhammad’s flight from Mecca), the followers of Muhammad had taken control of Egypt, Palestine, Persia, and Syria (Mattox, 1961, p. 173). With its thirst for conquest, this religion threatened to convert the whole world to its beliefs. Soon the threat to Catholicism became increasingly obvious. Many Catholics in conquered nations had converted to Islam out of fear; the advancement of this doctrine over Roman influence and its official religion seemed inevitable. The Roman religion, and the unity of the nation that depended on it, would collapse soon if something were not done quickly. Thus the conflicts between Catholics and Muslims gave rise to the infamous Crusades.The Crusades (from 1096 until 1270) were military expeditions that started out as a fulfillment of a “solemn vow” to regain the “holy places” in Palestine from the hands of the Muslims. In November 1095, Pope Urban II encouraged the masses to fight together against the Islamic Seljuk Turks who invaded the Byzantine Empire and subjected Greek, Syrian, and Armenian Catholics. He also wanted to extend his political and religious power. To encourage Catholics to involve themselves in a bloody war in the “name of God,” the pope offered forgiveness of sins, care for the lands belonging to crusaders, and the prospect of plunder (see Hitchens and Roupp, 2001, p. 186).Although multitudes of people answered the call to join the Crusades, they failed to accomplish the initial goal of recovering the Holy Lands. After many years of fighting and much loss of life, the Holy Lands were still in Muslim hands. Nevertheless, the Crusades improved the relationship between Catholic nations and stopped the advancement of the Turks in Europe.Shortly after the Crusades, new ideologies, which Catholicism considered heresies, threatened the Catholic Church. Multitudes of people, led by relentless religious leaders, executed those considered to be heretics without judicial process. The need for judicial regulation concerning heresy, the Catholic concern about the growth of new revolutionary ideas, and the desire to increase the power of the Catholic Church, gave rise to another wave of bloodshed paradoxically known in history as the “Holy” Inquisition.The Inquisition is described generally as the judicial institution created in the Middle Ages to deal with the enemies of the state religion (i.e., Catholicism). There were three types of inquisitions.

The Episcopal Inquisition was established by Pope Lucius III in 1184. It was overseen and administered by local bishops. Once the orthodox doctrines were established, any deviation from them was investigated and studied by the bishop of the respective diocese. If the “crime” was confirmed, it was punished, primarily by canonic penances (see Chami, 1999a).

The Pontifical Inquisition was created by Pope Gregory IX in 1231 (see Schmandt, 1988, 10:277). This type of inquisition was entrusted to the Dominican order which answered only to the pontiff. It was introduced in France in 1233, in Aragon in 1238, and in Italy in 1254 (Mattox, 1961, pp. 214-215). The inquisitors would go to the place of the alleged heresy, and with the help of the authorities, ask the heretics to present themselves voluntarily before the tribunal. The public also was encouraged to report heretics; anyone could accuse anyone else of heresy. The accused was forced to confess his “heresy” without an opportunity to confront his accusers or defend himself. A long imprisonment awaited the “heretic” who denied the charges. His imprisonment would be interrupted by numerous torture sessions until he confessed his “heresy.” If he continued to refuse to confess, he was turned over to the civil authorities who administered the death penalty to the “obstinate heretic.”

The Spanish Inquisition is considered the most dreadful of all. It began in 1478 with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV, and it lasted until 1834 (see “Inquisition,” 1997, 6:328). This tribunal was different from the Pontifical Inquisition because the inquisitor was appointed by the king rather than the pope, so the inquisitor became a servant of the state rather than the church (see Chami, 1999b). Some of the principal reasons for this inquisition were:

The Jewish “threat”—In the 14th and 15th centuries, Europe was ravaged by grave economic crises. Many plagues and epidemics contributed to this situation. Because of their strict hygiene practices, the Jews in Europe survived these epidemics and plagues. While Europeans fell into despair and poverty, most Jews retained their economic status. This situation produced many protests against the Jews and increased the political and religious avarice for, and confiscation of, Jewish wealth. Forced to give up their economic activities, and being pressured by fanatical priests, many Jews converted to the Catholic religion at the beginning of the 15th century. Many Catholics became jealous of the continued financial progress and social position of these Jews and accused them of artificial, insincere conversion (see Domínguez, n.d.).

The need for unity in the kingdom—Spain was united politically under the “Catholic Rulers,” Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, but there still were different religious ideologies in the country. Hoping to unify their country religiously, the rulers asked the pope for permission to “purify” their kingdom of non-Catholic ideologies by means of the Inquisition (see Chami, 1999b).

These were some reasons for the cruel Spanish Inquisition. In time, this brutal tribunal dedicated itself to the persecution of Muslims, alleged witches, and supporters of Protestantism.Though prior inquisitions were cruel, the Spanish Inquisition was devised to terrify even the vilest criminal. Its instruments of torture were even more innovative and inhumane than those of earlier times. Torture treatments included, but were not limited to (1) dislocation of the joints of the body; (2) mutilation of vaginal, anal, and oral interior cavities; (3) removal of tongues, nipples, ears, noses, genitals, and intestines; (4) breaking of legs, arms, toes, and fingers; (5) flattening of knuckles, nails, and heads; (6) sawing of bodies in half; (7) perforation of skin and bones; (8) tearing of skin from the face, abdomen, back, extremities, and sinuses; and (9) stretching of body extremities (see Rodriguez, 2007).Although Catholicism may want to deny its past, history speaks loudly concerning the atrocities committed in the name of the Catholic faith. Catholicism may try to hide behind the injustices committed by other religious groups to cover its own disgrace, but the truth is that Catholic methodology was the inspiration for the bloody canvas of other religious “artists.” There is no doubt that the Crusades and Inquisitions played a major role in the development and growth of the Catholic Church in a world that did not want to conform to this kind of religion.CATHOLICISM IN RECENT TIMESIn the past, the Catholic Church used violent methods to destroy opposition to its teachings and practices. Today, without the torture, tribunals, and slaughter, Catholicism seems passive toward the growth of other religions.The beginning of the 16th century added new fuel to the fire of the Inquisition. Ninety-five reasons for this were nailed to the door of the Catholic Church building in Wittenberg, Germany. Who was responsible? One man: Martin Luther. Although some men before him had attempted to ignite the fire of reformation (e.g., John Wycliffe, John Hus, et al.), the Reformation movement was ineffective until Luther.Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Saxony, Germany in 1483. He was the son of a poor miner and paid for his studies at the University of Erfurt with alms he collected. In 1505, he became more interested in the salvation of his soul and the search for spiritual peace thanthe study of law. He entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt where he became a devout, but spiritually troubled, monk. By 1508, Luther had come to the conclusion that some teachings and organization of the Catholic Church were completely different from those of the New Testament. The immorality of the clergy in Rome, irreverence toward the sacraments by their own defenders, and the avarice of those who collected indulgences and other penalties set Martin Luther on a collision course with the Catholic Church. In 1517, his 95 theses disturbed the Catholic world to the point that, by 1520, the pope drew up a bull calling for Luther to recant his teachings or be excommunicated.However, he did not succumb to this threat, and continued to spread his teachings (see Mattox, 1961, pp. 243-261; Pelikan, 1988, 12:531-533). Others, such as Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531) in Switzerland and John Calvin (1509-1564) in France and Geneva, Switzerland, also contributed greatly to the Reformation and the development of Protestant religions.Various conditions helped the progress of the Reformation in the 16th century. (1) The Renaissance—This cultural movement stimulated intellectual freedom and awakened enthusiastic study of the Scriptures in Europe. Many people began to realize the difference between Catholicism and New Testament Christianity. (2) Corruption of the hierarchy in the Catholic Church—Money bought rights and privileges, and immorality ruled the day, even among the Catholic clergy. Inconsistency between faith and practice became notorious. (3) Secular sovereigns’ support of opposition to Catholic hierarchy—By this time, the Catholic Church owned a third of the land of Western Europe. Kings and rulers were eager to possess this land, as well as other properties that the church had taken for itself. (4) The advent of the printing press—Luther and others used the printing press to spread their ideas and the Scriptures throughout Germany and other countries (see Mattox, 1961, pp. 239-246). By 1542, Protestantism was spreading to many places and was even penetrating Italy with its doctrines. Because of his fear of this new ideological rebellion, Pope Paul IIIincited the public and church leaders to return to the harsh levels of the Inquisition. In spite of this, Protestantism flourished.The Catholic Church had encountered a great enemy that seemingly lacked the faintest intention of yielding. However, the “Holy Office” of the Inquisition continued work during the subsequent centuries and expanded to the colonies of Spain in the New World. The tribunal of the Inquisition had jurisdiction over other tribunals organized in Latin American colonies. In these colonies, the Inquisition did not reach the same disgraceful level it did in Europe since natives merely were beginning to learn the Catholic religion and did not yet understand every Catholic dogma. But the poor example of “kindness” shown in conquered nations could not erase the inherent cruelty of the “holy” tribunal.In 1808, Joseph Bonaparte (brother of Napoleon) signed a decree terminating the “Holy Office,” but it was not until 1834 that the final edict of its abolition was published (see O’Malley, 2001; “Inquisition,” 1997, 6:328). Having its political, military, and social arm broken, the only thing left for the Catholic Church was to “follow the herd” and accept what seemed to be the end of its dictatorship.In sharp contrast to its past, the Catholic Church has become progressively more tolerant of other religions in spite of its public, verbal opposition. This tolerance has led to a mixture of Catholicism with evangelical religions, such as Lutheranism, Pentecostalism, etc., resulting in serious repercussions for Catholicism worldwide. This situation clearly shows that this kind of religion is based not on the Bible, but on religious preferences. No one can say with certainty what the Catholic Church will become or accept in the future, but history vividly illuminates its past beliefs and practices.REFERENCESChami, Pablo A. (1999a), “Origin of the Inquisition” [“Origen de la Inquisición”], [On-line], URL:http://www.pachami.com/Inquisicion/Origen.html.Chami, Pablo A. (1999b), “The Spanish Inquisition” [“La Inquisición en España”], [On-line], URL: http://pachami.com/Inquisicion/Espa.htm.Domínguez, Antonio O. (no date), “The Jewish Problem” [“El Problema Judío”], [On-line], URL: http://www.vallenajerilla.com/berceo/florilegio/inquisicion/problema judio.htm.Hitchens, Marilynn and Heidi Roupp (2001), How to Prepare for SAT: World History(Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series).“Inquisition” (1997), The New Encyclopædia Britannica (London: Encyclopædia Britannica).Mattox, F.W. (1961), The Eternal Kingdom (Delight, AR: Gospel Light).O’Malley, John W (2001), “Inquisition,” Encarta Encyclopedia 2002 (Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation).Pelikan, Jaroslav (1988), “Luther, Martin,” The World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago, IL: World Book).Rodriguez, Ana (2007), “Inquisition: Torture Instruments, ‘a Cultural Shock’ for the Audience” [“Inquisición: Instrumentos de Tortura, ‘Sacudida Cultural’ para el Espectador”], La Jornada, March 9, [On-line], URL: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/01/09/index.php?section=cultura& ;article=a04n1cul.Schmandt, Raymond H. (1988), The World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago, IL: World Book).

Copyright © 2008 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

We are happy to grant permission for items in the "Doctrinal Matters" section to be reproduced in part or in their entirety, as long as the following stipulations are observed: (1) Apologetics Press must be designated as the original publisher; (2) the specific Apologetics Press Web site URL must be noted; (3) the author’s name must remain attached to the materials; (4) textual alterations of any kind are strictly forbidden; (5) Some illustrations (e.g., photographs, charts, graphics, etc.) are not the intellectual property of Apologetics Press and as such cannot be reproduced from our site without consent from the person or organization that maintains those intellectual rights; (6) serialization of written material (e.g., running an article in several parts) is permitted, as long as the whole of the material is made available, without editing, in a reasonable length of time; (7) articles, excepting brief quotations, may not be offered for sale or included in items offered for sale; and (8) articles may be reproduced in electronic form for posting on Web sites pending they are not edited or altered from their original content and that credit is given to Apologetics Press, including the web location from which the articles were taken.

For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:

Apologetics Press

230 Landmark Drive

Montgomery, Alabama 36117

U.S.A.

Phone (334) 272-8558

http://www.apologeticspress.org

[megaonewayjesuslove-blog]

Origin and History of Catholicism [Part II]by Moisés Pinedo

[EDITOR'S NOTE: To read Part I of this article, click

HERE

]CATHOLIC DEVELOPMENTA new church was born, a church completely different from the church established by Christ. While the church of Christ was born in Jerusalem (Acts 1:12; 2:1; etc.), this church was born in Rome. While the church of Christ was born with spiritual power (Acts 2:2-4), this church was born with political and military power. While the church of Christ was born under the authority of only one divine Head (Colossians 1:18), this church was born under the authority of one human head—the pope. This new church soon invaded the Earth with its new doctrines.However, an unexpected threat for this kind of Christianity was quickly approaching from the East: Islam. With Muhammad as its leader, the religion of Islam originated in A.D. 622 and spread aggressively. Less than 25 years from the beginning of the “Hegira” (i.e., Muhammad’s flight from Mecca), the followers of Muhammad had taken control of Egypt, Palestine, Persia, and Syria (Mattox, 1961, p. 173). With its thirst for conquest, this religion threatened to convert the whole world to its beliefs. Soon the threat to Catholicism became increasingly obvious. Many Catholics in conquered nations had converted to Islam out of fear; the advancement of this doctrine over Roman influence and its official religion seemed inevitable. The Roman religion, and the unity of the nation that depended on it, would collapse soon if something were not done quickly. Thus the conflicts between Catholics and Muslims gave rise to the infamous Crusades.The Crusades (from 1096 until 1270) were military expeditions that started out as a fulfillment of a “solemn vow” to regain the “holy places” in Palestine from the hands of the Muslims. In November 1095, Pope Urban II encouraged the masses to fight together against the Islamic Seljuk Turks who invaded the Byzantine Empire and subjected Greek, Syrian, and Armenian Catholics. He also wanted to extend his political and religious power. To encourage Catholics to involve themselves in a bloody war in the “name of God,” the pope offered forgiveness of sins, care for the lands belonging to crusaders, and the prospect of plunder (see Hitchens and Roupp, 2001, p. 186).Although multitudes of people answered the call to join the Crusades, they failed to accomplish the initial goal of recovering the Holy Lands. After many years of fighting and much loss of life, the Holy Lands were still in Muslim hands. Nevertheless, the Crusades improved the relationship between Catholic nations and stopped the advancement of the Turks in Europe.Shortly after the Crusades, new ideologies, which Catholicism considered heresies, threatened the Catholic Church. Multitudes of people, led by relentless religious leaders, executed those considered to be heretics without judicial process. The need for judicial regulation concerning heresy, the Catholic concern about the growth of new revolutionary ideas, and the desire to increase the power of the Catholic Church, gave rise to another wave of bloodshed paradoxically known in history as the “Holy” Inquisition.The Inquisition is described generally as the judicial institution created in the Middle Ages to deal with the enemies of the state religion (i.e., Catholicism). There were three types of inquisitions.

The Episcopal Inquisition was established by Pope Lucius III in 1184. It was overseen and administered by local bishops. Once the orthodox doctrines were established, any deviation from them was investigated and studied by the bishop of the respective diocese. If the “crime” was confirmed, it was punished, primarily by canonic penances (see Chami, 1999a).

The Pontifical Inquisition was created by Pope Gregory IX in 1231 (see Schmandt, 1988, 10:277). This type of inquisition was entrusted to the Dominican order which answered only to the pontiff. It was introduced in France in 1233, in Aragon in 1238, and in Italy in 1254 (Mattox, 1961, pp. 214-215). The inquisitors would go to the place of the alleged heresy, and with the help of the authorities, ask the heretics to present themselves voluntarily before the tribunal. The public also was encouraged to report heretics; anyone could accuse anyone else of heresy. The accused was forced to confess his “heresy” without an opportunity to confront his accusers or defend himself. A long imprisonment awaited the “heretic” who denied the charges. His imprisonment would be interrupted by numerous torture sessions until he confessed his “heresy.” If he continued to refuse to confess, he was turned over to the civil authorities who administered the death penalty to the “obstinate heretic.”

The Spanish Inquisition is considered the most dreadful of all. It began in 1478 with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV, and it lasted until 1834 (see “Inquisition,” 1997, 6:328). This tribunal was different from the Pontifical Inquisition because the inquisitor was appointed by the king rather than the pope, so the inquisitor became a servant of the state rather than the church (see Chami, 1999b). Some of the principal reasons for this inquisition were:

The Jewish “threat”—In the 14th and 15th centuries, Europe was ravaged by grave economic crises. Many plagues and epidemics contributed to this situation. Because of their strict hygiene practices, the Jews in Europe survived these epidemics and plagues. While Europeans fell into despair and poverty, most Jews retained their economic status. This situation produced many protests against the Jews and increased the political and religious avarice for, and confiscation of, Jewish wealth. Forced to give up their economic activities, and being pressured by fanatical priests, many Jews converted to the Catholic religion at the beginning of the 15th century. Many Catholics became jealous of the continued financial progress and social position of these Jews and accused them of artificial, insincere conversion (see Domínguez, n.d.).

The need for unity in the kingdom—Spain was united politically under the “Catholic Rulers,” Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, but there still were different religious ideologies in the country. Hoping to unify their country religiously, the rulers asked the pope for permission to “purify” their kingdom of non-Catholic ideologies by means of the Inquisition (see Chami, 1999b).

These were some reasons for the cruel Spanish Inquisition. In time, this brutal tribunal dedicated itself to the persecution of Muslims, alleged witches, and supporters of Protestantism.Though prior inquisitions were cruel, the Spanish Inquisition was devised to terrify even the vilest criminal. Its instruments of torture were even more innovative and inhumane than those of earlier times. Torture treatments included, but were not limited to (1) dislocation of the joints of the body; (2) mutilation of vaginal, anal, and oral interior cavities; (3) removal of tongues, nipples, ears, noses, genitals, and intestines; (4) breaking of legs, arms, toes, and fingers; (5) flattening of knuckles, nails, and heads; (6) sawing of bodies in half; (7) perforation of skin and bones; (8) tearing of skin from the face, abdomen, back, extremities, and sinuses; and (9) stretching of body extremities (see Rodriguez, 2007).Although Catholicism may want to deny its past, history speaks loudly concerning the atrocities committed in the name of the Catholic faith. Catholicism may try to hide behind the injustices committed by other religious groups to cover its own disgrace, but the truth is that Catholic methodology was the inspiration for the bloody canvas of other religious “artists.” There is no doubt that the Crusades and Inquisitions played a major role in the development and growth of the Catholic Church in a world that did not want to conform to this kind of religion.CATHOLICISM IN RECENT TIMESIn the past, the Catholic Church used violent methods to destroy opposition to its teachings and practices. Today, without the torture, tribunals, and slaughter, Catholicism seems passive toward the growth of other religions.The beginning of the 16th century added new fuel to the fire of the Inquisition. Ninety-five reasons for this were nailed to the door of the Catholic Church building in Wittenberg, Germany. Who was responsible? One man: Martin Luther. Although some men before him had attempted to ignite the fire of reformation (e.g., John Wycliffe, John Hus, et al.), the Reformation movement was ineffective until Luther.Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Saxony, Germany in 1483. He was the son of a poor miner and paid for his studies at the University of Erfurt with alms he collected. In 1505, he became more interested in the salvation of his soul and the search for spiritual peace thanthe study of law. He entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt where he became a devout, but spiritually troubled, monk. By 1508, Luther had come to the conclusion that some teachings and organization of the Catholic Church were completely different from those of the New Testament. The immorality of the clergy in Rome, irreverence toward the sacraments by their own defenders, and the avarice of those who collected indulgences and other penalties set Martin Luther on a collision course with the Catholic Church. In 1517, his 95 theses disturbed the Catholic world to the point that, by 1520, the pope drew up a bull calling for Luther to recant his teachings or be excommunicated.However, he did not succumb to this threat, and continued to spread his teachings (see Mattox, 1961, pp. 243-261; Pelikan, 1988, 12:531-533). Others, such as Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531) in Switzerland and John Calvin (1509-1564) in France and Geneva, Switzerland, also contributed greatly to the Reformation and the development of Protestant religions.Various conditions helped the progress of the Reformation in the 16th century. (1) The Renaissance—This cultural movement stimulated intellectual freedom and awakened enthusiastic study of the Scriptures in Europe. Many people began to realize the difference between Catholicism and New Testament Christianity. (2) Corruption of the hierarchy in the Catholic Church—Money bought rights and privileges, and immorality ruled the day, even among the Catholic clergy. Inconsistency between faith and practice became notorious. (3) Secular sovereigns’ support of opposition to Catholic hierarchy—By this time, the Catholic Church owned a third of the land of Western Europe. Kings and rulers were eager to possess this land, as well as other properties that the church had taken for itself. (4) The advent of the printing press—Luther and others used the printing press to spread their ideas and the Scriptures throughout Germany and other countries (see Mattox, 1961, pp. 239-246). By 1542, Protestantism was spreading to many places and was even penetrating Italy with its doctrines. Because of his fear of this new ideological rebellion, Pope Paul IIIincited the public and church leaders to return to the harsh levels of the Inquisition. In spite of this, Protestantism flourished.The Catholic Church had encountered a great enemy that seemingly lacked the faintest intention of yielding. However, the “Holy Office” of the Inquisition continued work during the subsequent centuries and expanded to the colonies of Spain in the New World. The tribunal of the Inquisition had jurisdiction over other tribunals organized in Latin American colonies. In these colonies, the Inquisition did not reach the same disgraceful level it did in Europe since natives merely were beginning to learn the Catholic religion and did not yet understand every Catholic dogma. But the poor example of “kindness” shown in conquered nations could not erase the inherent cruelty of the “holy” tribunal.In 1808, Joseph Bonaparte (brother of Napoleon) signed a decree terminating the “Holy Office,” but it was not until 1834 that the final edict of its abolition was published (see O’Malley, 2001; “Inquisition,” 1997, 6:328). Having its political, military, and social arm broken, the only thing left for the Catholic Church was to “follow the herd” and accept what seemed to be the end of its dictatorship.In sharp contrast to its past, the Catholic Church has become progressively more tolerant of other religions in spite of its public, verbal opposition. This tolerance has led to a mixture of Catholicism with evangelical religions, such as Lutheranism, Pentecostalism, etc., resulting in serious repercussions for Catholicism worldwide. This situation clearly shows that this kind of religion is based not on the Bible, but on religious preferences. No one can say with certainty what the Catholic Church will become or accept in the future, but history vividly illuminates its past beliefs and practices.REFERENCESChami, Pablo A. (1999a), “Origin of the Inquisition” [“Origen de la Inquisición”], [On-line], URL:http://www.pachami.com/Inquisicion/Origen.html.Chami, Pablo A. (1999b), “The Spanish Inquisition” [“La Inquisición en España”], [On-line], URL: http://pachami.com/Inquisicion/Espa.htm.Domínguez, Antonio O. (no date), “The Jewish Problem” [“El Problema Judío”], [On-line], URL: http://www.vallenajerilla.com/berceo/florilegio/inquisicion/problema judio.htm.Hitchens, Marilynn and Heidi Roupp (2001), How to Prepare for SAT: World History(Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series).“Inquisition” (1997), The New Encyclopædia Britannica (London: Encyclopædia Britannica).Mattox, F.W. (1961), The Eternal Kingdom (Delight, AR: Gospel Light).O’Malley, John W (2001), “Inquisition,” Encarta Encyclopedia 2002 (Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation).Pelikan, Jaroslav (1988), “Luther, Martin,” The World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago, IL: World Book).Rodriguez, Ana (2007), “Inquisition: Torture Instruments, ‘a Cultural Shock’ for the Audience” [“Inquisición: Instrumentos de Tortura, ‘Sacudida Cultural’ para el Espectador”], La Jornada, March 9, [On-line], URL: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/01/09/index.php?section=cultura& ;article=a04n1cul.Schmandt, Raymond H. (1988), The World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago, IL: World Book).

Copyright © 2008 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

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[thanx4comin2mytedtalk]

Lets talk about the Arab situation around the world - mostly discrimination to muslims - (please read)

[ So, i had to write an essay for my school about anything that i wanted to, and i really liked the idea of sharing this with more people, because everybody needs to know about this problem. It’s getting worse every year, and not just whit muslims ]

Please help sharing this. -k

A/N: I’m really sorry if there’s any grammatical mistake, english is not my first language so i tried my best

Throughout this essay, the stigmatization that has spread throughout the world around the Muslim religion will be discussed. First of all, the stigma is known as a discreditor that makes a person undesirable, representing negative responses; and in extreme cases, it can turn the person into a malignant and / or the dangerous legitimacy that is morally excluded from the social sphere, and that you get an instill fear or hatred in the population. This ideology of hatred begins at to extend itself in a great way in the year 2001 after the day of September 11 in the World Trace Center-twin springs-in which more than 2000 people were classified. This was attributed to the extremist group of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. After this, the groups that sounded against Muslims, and even those who opposed all immigrants regardless of their nationality or religion, arose and / or increased in large numbers. To the aforementioned, Harem Abudayyeh2, says the following: "We have to be prepared, as Latinos, for the requirements in our jobs and in the presence of Immigration agents in our homes." Faces of terrorists to all immigrants, and not just Arabs and Muslims.

To the previous point, we can summarize the fact that in the last 5 years, the number of attacks and recruitments of young people with extremist jihadist groups have increased exponentially, most of the cause of the massive level of internet diffusion , by which you can recruit young people from all over the world, change their way of thinking and see the world.

For this very reason, it should be noted, that, people, more, than, for example, "holy wars" and Muslim children, since, less than 20% of all people who profess religion, the field of the branch that It is believed that religion. It must be expanded by whatever means necessary; Even for the violence. Although, this same hatred has not been generated only within the same religion, but also, mass media, such as television, radios, newspapers; as also actions of governmental services have been generalizers around the subject, often dismissing all followers of religion as terrorists.

In the first place, it must be explained that within Islam there is the concept of jihad, which is the effort that Muslims must make in order for the kingdom of God - Allah - to rule on earth; that is, his holy war, but there are those who interpret the Koran in a more literal and extreme way, leading them to convert and subject all who profess another religion that does not be yours, even though this must be done through violence. Knowing this, it can be explained that there are different branches and subdivisions within Islam; of which the two most extreme currents are Salafism and Wahhabism. Salafism is the oldest ideology of Muslims, which consists of following, imitating and reviving the way of being of the first Muslims; This group turns to jihad around the year 1300, when an invasion war against Damascus takes place4, where the foundations and foundations of jihad are established in an organized way as if it were a war manual. On the other hand, Wahhabism is the "clean and pure" form of Salafism, which moves it away from other currents such as Sufism and Shiism. This belief was modernized to achieve a control of the masses to expand as a nation and religion. These two became more violent with respect to the jihad, arriving to form the terrorist groups recognized today, such as Daesh and Al Qaeda. This ideology of primitive Muslims, can be seen now in Saudi Arabia, where you still cut someone's hand when he steals, or beheaded whoever shows his rejection of Islam. These beliefs and customs so old and extremist, they produce that the world-wide society sees the Muslims like very violent people, that realize public executions that soon publish in Internet realizing threats to different countries.

As a second point, we can mention the lack of acceptance and protection of the mosques present in the countries where attacks have been carried out or even in different countries of the Middle East, since every time an attack occurs by extremists from that area, segregation begins against the Muslim population around the world; they are persecuted, at airports they are inspected more than any other traveler, they are interrogated frequently; and also, they suffer attacks in their temples. The attack on a sacred place of prayer, whether it be a Christian church, mosques, Orthodox cathedrals, Mormons, Jews, among others; for any religion, it is a very serious offense, but Muslims, in the vast majority of counties in the United States, instead of receiving protection in their temples, are spied on, and mosques are controlled because they are of suspicious appearance or administration. . Even if they are the target of a large number of attacks, and like any other religion, they should receive respect, many people, because of this stigma, do not respect them because they label all Muslims equally. Personally, I had the possibility to visit a mosque and learn how everything works within them, and it is very different in comparison to other places of prayer, being from a dress code for women, as it is also, where to look while praying, or the way in which the Qur'an is professed. It is a strict religion within all its branches, from the most peaceful Muslims to the most extreme, but the strictness of a religion must never be confused with extremism and violence, that within Islam, less than 20% of its followers, they belong to extremist groups. Even in one of his public appearances, Pope Francis said the following words "I want to reiterate firmly that the path of violence and hatred does not resolve the

 problems of humanity, and to use the name of God to justify this way, is a blasphemy "

Thirdly, I want to explain in greater detail the most relevant factor of the stigma created against the followers of Islam, whether due to misinformation or overexposure with respect to these issues; leaving two as the main factors, the discourse of hatred and misinformation-manipulation-about events and cyber-bullying in both mass media and social networks. First, the discourse of hatred and disinformation focuses mainly on the way in which these issues are addressed within the mass media, since, for example, the conflicts that occur in the Middle East (Attacks in Syria and Afghanistan) do not they appear as relevant news that we should be aware of, since in these places countries that are great powers are involved, such as the United States, Russia, Germany, China, among others, not even in order to solve this problem and serve as mediator between all the sides that face; but they intervene for their economic and acquisitive interests in the area. On the contrary of when an attack occurs in a crowded sector of one of the countries mentioned above, events are constantly repeated, long-term news programs of an urgent nature are made, where what is happened is overexposed, and hate speech begins with disqualifications. and threats against those who belong to the same religion. Faced with this series of attacks, in May 2016, in the United Kingdom, a simulation of a possible risk situation was carried out in front of a suicide bomber, who shouted Allahu Akbar, which was criticized, as it was stereotyped that the attackers would be Muslims, or of Arab origin, to which the citizens reacted, making it clear that they could all be terrorists and not just Muslims. Along with this mass and overexposure of attacks by Arabs, the level of hatred that is promoted through social networks, especially on Twitter, since in this place everyone can display all their thoughts no matter how extreme or generalizing these be; disqualifications that may fall within the concept known as Islamophobia. This concept does not have a clear definition, but it is accepted in the European Union, being recognized as the rejection towards Islam and therefore, to Muslims, but specifically a UN committee that is responsible for the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, which defines it as "[...] a form of racism and xenophobia manifested through hostility, exclusion, rejection and hatred against Muslims, especially when the Muslim population is a minority, something that happens with greater impact in Western countries. "Also inside this cyber

use of bots within social networks, for the mass dissemination of manipulated images with which Islam is represented as an imminent threat.

This same cyber, is justified and backed by recognized Islamophobes, among them, Robert Spencer, who faces jihad; Pamella Geller, who sabotaged the construction of a mosque in Ground Zero; and Bruce Bawer, who is the writer of a book called "While Europe sleeps: how radical Islam is destroying the West from within." All these characters, who share ultra-conservative ideals, were exposed by Niham Awad, who is the director executive and founder of the Council of American Islamic Relations, who said "We see politicians trying to get points by marginalizing Muslim Americans and questioning their loyalty and love of the country."

To conclude, after all the above, it is clear that the world society tends to think and generalize that the followers of Islam are terrorists, although not even 30% of all of them really is. It should be noted that currently, specifically in Europe, the Muslim population is largely accepted, as, for example, 15.8% of the population of Manchester is. But, on the other hand, in the United States has increased the number of audits to immigrants, and even the number of people who have not been able to enter the country, for reasons of reforms and / or different factors.

Finally, it should be clear that although the Muslim religion is so strict in its practices because it is guided by ancient customs, this is not a determinant that justifies that all are terrorists; terrorist Muslims are those who are part of Wahhabism, even giving their lives for jihad, but not even 20% of the entire population that professes Islam, which are approximately 2 billion people around the world.

[hallsp]

War is Coming

There exists in Iraq a sizeable enclave of Sunni Muslims who have avoided being caught up in the sectarian conflict which so dominates the Middle East. These are the Kurds, and they consider themselves part of Greater Kurdistan.

Numbering anywhere from 30 million to 45 million people, and spread out over borderlands straddling Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, the Kurdish people are the largest ethnic group without a state, and have suffered a long history of oppression. There is, for example, some exact parallels between repressive Ottoman reaction to Arab nationalism in the last century and Turkish reaction to Kurdish nationalism in this century. It’s no surprise, therefore, that nationalism, and the struggle for self-determination, dominates over matters of religion.

Most Kurds are Sunni, though a fraction are Shia, a very few are Christian, a small portion are Jewish (though they’ve all upped sticks and moved to Israel) and a minority have stood by the indigenous religions of old, mainly Yazidism.

Often, discussing Iraq, you’ll hear talk involving a clumsy trilateral: Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. It’s accurate up to a point, but manages to conflate religion with ethnicity, and to ignore the diverse beliefs of the Kurds entirely.

I arrived in Kurdish Iraq in July at a time of immense change.

To the North, in Turkey, Recip Tayyep Erdoğan has declared war again on the secessionist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK. To the West, in Syria, Kurds have been fighting bravely against forces of the Islamic State since the very beginning of the civil war and have managed to carve out a small statelet on the border with Turkey, based on the democratic confederalism of Abdullah Öcalan, who remains in prison in Turkey. To the East, in Iran, ongoing repression fuels continued unrest.

In Iraq, the situation is very volatile indeed.

Mosul, the Islamic State’s capital in Iraq, is only about an hour’s drive from Erbil, the capital of autonomous Kurdish Iraq, and has only just been retaken by Iraqi and Kurdish forces. Kirkuk, a deliberately Arabised Kurdish city and the biggest oil prize in the area, is still being fought over between Baghdad and the Kurdish regional authorities.

On top of all that, Masoud Barzani, who’s been in power for fourteen years, twelve of them legally, had scheduled a referendum on independence for September 25th. Baghdad is opposed. Istanbul is opposed. Tehran is opposed. The United States and the European Union are opposed.

If you want to understand Kurdistan, you have to visit Halabja.

In 1980, with the urging of the United States, Saddam Hussein launched an aggressive war against the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran, which killed upward of a million people. In 1988, at the very end of that war, he launched his Anfal campaign in which he used chemical weapons to murder thousands of Kurdish civilians. The town of Halabja, in particular, was completely devastated and left strewn with bodies.

If you visit, as I did, you can still meet with some of the survivors. There’s a monument with a small museum showing gruesome photographs of the aftermath, and proudly displaying a copy of the death certificate of Saddam Hussein and his two sons, Qusay and Uday. The Kurds are delighted that Saddam is gone. And they love the United States and Britain. This was the case even prior to the war in 2003 and the reason is this:

In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded the tiny emirate of Kuwait, annexing it as the nineteenth province of Iraq. In response, a coalition of thirty-plus countries enforced a swift withdrawal, but opted to leave Saddam in power in Baghdad.

Instead, the coalition encouraged rebellion in Iraq, hoping for a coup. In fact, what followed was a popular domestic uprising – an intifada of disaffected Kurds and Shia. Saddam was brutal in quashing this revolt, forcing the coalition to establish no-fly zones over Iraq to protect civilians. These were enforced, illegally, until the war in 2003, and routinely fired upon. This minimal protection allowed the development of an autonomous region, Iraqi Kurdistan, which has survived to the present day.

Elections were held in Kurdish Iraq in 1992. The vote was split by the two main Kurdish political parties (rival Kurdish clans in reality, though politically divergent too): the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by Masoud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talabani. As a result, they shared government. In 1994, however, fighting broke out between the peshmerga of the PUK and the KDP. After severe fighting, with Iraq supporting the KDP and Iran supporting the PUK, a peace deal was brokered in 1998. The KDP would control the north, while the PUK would control the south.

After the 2003 war, a more unified government was established, with Barzani becoming President of Iraqi Kurdistan and Talabani becoming the first President of Iraq, the Kurds having decided to make a go of federalism.

Now, with the rise of the Islamic State, Iraq was falling apart at the seams, and federalism seemed destined to fail. A referendum for independence was organised for September 25th.

I had come to Iraq partially out of solidarity with their aspiration to independence. I hoped that independence would be a step in the right direction for the people of Kurdistan.

I was quickly disabused of this notion.

“War is coming,” whispered Zana, my companion one day on the road from Halabja to Sulaymaniyah. “People are saving money and preparing their passports in case of disaster.”

“Barzani is a dictator,” announced Zana in broken English, “he should have only had ten years in power, but the parliament voted him another two. That was four years ago. Then he dissolved the parliament. I’m voting no, not that it matters, because the government here is corrupt. If Baghdad retake control then maybe we will have some transparency.”

“But won’t the same problems exist with Baghdad in power?” I asked.

“No,” he replied, “Baghdad accounts for every barrel of oil that comes out of the ground. Here, no one knows how much oil is being lost every day. Barzani is a thief. He lives in luxury and we all live in poverty.”

In Sulaymaniyah I met Mohammad, a student at the American University, and he was of the exact same opinion. “Independence will mean entrenched corruption, and probably war,” he claimed, “I’ll be voting no, not that it matters.”

The situation is already at boiling point, so it’s hard to imagine how things will go in the event of a vote for independence. Certainly Baghdad won’t stand for it.

And that may mean that war is coming.

[theconservativebrief]

MOSCOW — “Stay in the car,” Yuri says. He looks out the window, up at the grey Soviet-era tower block we’re idling outside. An old woman is staring out the window. “She’s looking at us. She’s suspicious.”

Eugeny and his wife, Lyudmilla, have already gone inside. But Yuri (who, like everyone quoted in this article, has asked to be identified by first name only for security reasons) is worried that entering as a group will attract attention. Attention means somebody might call the police. And when you’re a Jehovah’s Witness in Russia — labeled by the government as a member of an “extremist” sect, the same designation they use for neo-Nazis and ISIS members — dealing with the police is the last thing you need.

Eight million Christians around the world self-identify as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their worship is characterized by frequent public proselytizing.

And, according to a new law signed this week by President Putin, they are unable to share their faith with one another in the street — or in private homes. The law, among the most sweeping in post-Soviet history, prevents any form of evangelism outside of state-approved buildings, including in private, in homes, and on the Internet. In practice, it affects members of non-Russian-Orthodox religious groups, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, and Protestant Christians.

This is not the first legal strike against Russia’s religious minorities. In April 2017, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses, which represents the faith of an estimated 175,000 Russians, violates the country’s anti-extremist statutes. An appeal was refused in June 2017 continuing years of state-sponsored persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a religious group.

Police frequently raid Jehovah’s Witness services — both in private homes and in Kingdom Halls — and, according to members, turn a blind eye to discriminatory civilian violence. Yuri recalls one instance where a “sister” — as Jehovah’s Witnesses refer to female members of their community — was beaten and threatened with a gun by another woman while out preaching, only for the police to dismiss her as a “cult member” and a thief when they finally arrived. But since the most recent Supreme Court ruling, Yuri says, things have gotten worse.

“We’re on their radar at all times,” says Yuri, an affable man in his 50s who apologizes, frequently, for his near-perfect English, which he taught himself through the internet. Their largest Kingdom Hall, located in a northern suburb of Moscow, lies empty, the entrance marked with caution tape, after the building’s owner deemed it too risky to let Jehovah’s Witnesses use. We are meeting in July of 2017, shortly after the refusal of the first ruling’s appeal.

Still, the community has developed a strategy to keep its faith and worship alive. They enter the building in twos and threes to avoid attracting attention. They mix up the homes they use, to keep it difficult for government forces or potential harassers to track. They set a table laden with food, which, during the Saturday worship session I attended in July, goes entirely untouched. It’s there so that if police arrive, they can claim that they’re simply gathering for a party. And, Yuri tells me, they always keep a few bottles of vodka on hand. If the police come, he says, they can down it quickly. The police will smell their breath, notice their inebriation, and believe that they’re been carousing, not worshipping.

Because the Jehovah’s Witness translation of the Bible is banned in Russia, many access their sacred texts via smartphone.

Today, about 20 Witnesses gather in this Moscow suburb. They are roughly split evenly by gender, and a mix of ages. Nearly all follow the lesson on their tablets or phones, using specialized apps. (Importing physical copies of the Jehovah’s Witness Bible is also forbidden.)

Yuri’s wife, Alla, helpfully translates the verses from Russian to English for me on her phone. They pray for the wisdom of their rulers, reading verses from the Book of Daniel about faith in times of turmoil. They affirm Jehovah — their rendering of the term for the Judeo-Christian God — as lord of the universe. From time to time Yuri and his friend Eugeny, a wide-eyed bald man fond of speaking with his hands, ask questions of the flock, calling on members of the community to help interpret the Bible.

The worship service, which runs about 90 minutes, is a muted affair. After all, they can no longer sing during services in people’s homes, lest the sound attract the suspicion of neighbors.

But it is, Yuri says, the best they can do.

To be a Jehovah’s Witness in Russia, after all, is to fall afoul of the extremely complex interplay between nationality, faith, and nationalism in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which — as I have previously written — bolsters its authoritarian regime by appealing to the fundamental “Russianness” of the state Orthodox Church. For Putin and his supporters, Jehovah’s Witnesses seem like a dangerous foreign influence. Yuri jokes that other Russians think Jehovah’s Witnesses are foreign spies, or that their frequent doorstop evangelism is actually a ploy to gather data to send back to the CIA; after all, in Russia, their religious expression inherently codes them as dangerously “Western” and “other.”

The history of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, and the former USSR more widely, has always been tied up with politics. They were the subject of suspicion under the hyper-secularist Soviet regime. Lyudmilla, Eugeny’s wife, tells me that both her grandfather and father were sent to Siberian gulags by Stalin for decades for being Jehovah’s Witnesses. The religion spread during the chaotic 1990s, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, when religion was finally no longer taboo, and people started asking questions about God.

“A lot of people started when the Soviet Union was destroyed, to say what is written in the Bible,” Alla recalls. “[Talking about religion] became open. After the Soviet Union fell, you could talk about God openly — no problem! That was very interesting [to me] — [I wondered] what was inside [the Bible]?”

Kingdom Halls like this one in a northern suburb of Moscow lie empty after the latest Supreme Court decisions.

For others, faith allowed them to find meaning in the chaos of the fall of the Soviet Union. Eugeny proudly tells me his religion under the USSR was “communism!” He served in the army, all the way up until what he called “civil war — Russians firing on Russians” — marking the fall of the Soviet Union.

When communism started to fall, Eugeny felt himself at sea. “I was communist, but at the same time, geopolitics was interesting for me,” he says. “And in the army I realized that the most great geopolitician was Jehovah. But I didn’t know him [yet]” — he had felt the stirrings of religious longing but had not yet become a true believer.

Only when his now-wife Lyudmilla started to preach did the world start to make sense to him. “[I realized that I] have to serve God. I realized that God is Almighty and I wanted to serve him,” he said. Geopolitics at last makes sense, he says. Now, he says, he sees the world as a chess board, God as the ultimate player.

For all four of the Jehovah’s Witnesses I interviewed, religion in the Soviet years had been primarily a function of national and ethnic identity, not faith. Yuri, who was raised in Uzbekistan, considered himself Muslim because of his ethnicity, nothing more. “I was born in a Muslim family?” He shrugs to demonstrate emphasis. “Okay, I’m Muslim.”

He remembers being shocked the first time he saw an Uzbek Witness try to convert him. “I said, what? Look at you? Look in the mirror, you are Muslim. And you became … Christian? Why?”

His wife, Alla, was a “Christian” in the same way Yuri was raised as a “Muslim.” She grew up in Siberia before moving to the warmer climate of Uzbekistan for her health. That’s where she met Yuri.

At first, Alla was more receptive than her husband to the Jehovah’s Witness evangelists who knocked on their door. But Yuri was worried at first about the mysterious strangers who studied the Bible with his wife — and their foreign ways.

“I was worried, a little bit, that it wasn’t the traditional way … I worried that it was a cult,” he said. But he started to warm to the idea of a faith that was led by discussion and asking questions — not tradition. And the idea of being religious in name only did not appeal to him. “[Russian] Orthodox people, they drink a lot. They can lie, they can steal, they can do many things. But at the same time, they wear the cross. I said, ‘Hey, you are not afraid of God. If you are Christian, your behavior should be according to the Bible.’ But I didn’t find [that] with Orthodox people.” Jehovah’s Witnesses were different, Yuri says. He stopped drinking, smoking, hanging out with a “bad crowd.” His family was shocked — and suspicious. What he was doing wasn’t “traditional” after all. But they couldn’t deny the change in his behavior.

For as long as Yuri can remember, Jehovah’s Witnesses in his native Uzbekistan dealt with similar harassment under the recently deceased nationalist dictator Islam Karimov as they face now in Russia, where he moved for work some decades ago. They’d have to pay the odd bribe or fine at a police station, or they’d get into trouble with local toughs. But the situation in Russia under Putin, all agree, has gotten worse, reminding them of the worst days of Stalinism, except with a different ethos. In the old days, Jehovah’s Witnesses were a threat to the secularist state. Today, they are a threat to the Russian Orthodox establishment. But the methods remain the same.

“My father, my grandfather, were prisoners for reading the Bible,” sighs Lyudmilla, “Then they were rehabilitated [after the fall of the USSR and considered] the victims of political repression. The government said sorry to that generation. But now they’ve started to put us under stress again.”

They all agree, however, that this does not let them stop practicing their faith — or even proselytizing. Although they do not stand on street corners any longer, they go a few times a week to knock on doors and try to preach what they believe is God’s word, even if they’re more likely than not to be shouted at or attacked as suspected foreign spies or agents of treason. “The [state-run] TV and newspapers, they demonize Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Yuri says. “But we aren’t stopping preaching — and we won’t stop preaching.”

Yuri makes sure to say that he is not political. Jehovah’s Witnesses are expected to be neutral bystanders in political affairs (worldwide, for example, they request exemptions from mandatory military service, something that they are denied in Russia). “It doesn’t matter who is the president. Just don’t touch us. We don’t want to change the president. We have to pray for the [leaders] — that they can manage the country with wisdom.”

Still, he is more than a little caustic when reminding me of the story of the biblical prophet Daniel, once the prisoner of a disbelieving king.

“Daniel, he had good days, he had bad days,” Yuri says. “But he held to his faith. Every day, he served God.” He points out that the biblical word he uses in Russian, spastayanstvom, has the connotation of a donkey: day by day, turning in circles to mill the grain. In other words: Daniel was stubborn.

“Now we have bad day in Russia,” he says. “But we will continue to worship God as Daniel did. Thanks to God, Daniel was saved. And he will save us. But who has to worry? The people who put Daniel in the lion’s den. They had to worry. Because when Daniel was released from the lion’s place, the bad people were killed by the king — you see what I mean?”

Yuri winks at me. “So, the people who do the same things in Russia have to worry. Not us. Jehovah’s Witnesses survived in Hitler’s time. In Stalin’s time. We survived gulags. Siberia. We have a God. The people who persecute us — they’re the ones who have to worry.”

Update: this story, originally reported in July 2017, has been updated to reflect Russia’s latest legal developments

Original Source -> Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned in Russia. That doesn’t stop them from worshipping.

via The Conservative Brief

[trendingnewsb]

I Photographed Women In 60 Countries To Change The Way We See Beauty

My name Mihaela Noroc, I’m a Romanian photographer who’s been travelling the world for the past 4 years with my backpack and my camera, photographing everyday women and collecting their stories. My project is called The Atlas of Beauty.

My goal is to show that every woman shines like a star because beauty is diversity, and not just what we see in mass-media.

For me, the real beauty has no age, colours or trends. You can find it in Africa or in Europe, in a village or in a skyscraper, in a smile, in a gesture, in an intense gaze, in some wrinkles, or in a story. You can find it in every kind-hearted human being.

Now The Atlas of Beauty becomes a stunning book with more that 500 portraits and many interesting stories. In a time of hate and intolerance, I want to send a message about love and acceptance. I hope this book will get into many homes around the world, convincing more people that diversity is a treasure and not a trigger for conflicts and hate. We are very different but at the same time we are all part of the same family.

More info: Facebook

Kathmandu, Nepal

Sona was celebrating Holi when I met her.

Chichicastenango, Guatemala

Maria was selling vegetables in the market of a small village.

Reykjavik, Iceland

Thorunn brings Icelandic women together via a popular online community.

Omo Valley, Ethiopia

Her tribe is called the Daasanach. With the high temperatures here, nudity is not unusual.

Idomeni Refugee Camp, Greece

This mother and her daughters fled the war in Syria.

Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan

She was working in the field in one of the most remote places of the world.

Paris, France

Imane has African and European origins and dreams to open an art gallery for artists from all over the world.

Kathmandu, Nepal

She was walking with her son. She didn’t speak English, but he did. So I told him I wanted to photograph his mother. And he asked me why. ‘Because she’s beautiful.’ He proudly smiled and looked at his mother. ‘Yes, she is.’

Korolyov, Russia

Nastya takes passport photos in this little shop, but her dream is to take landscape photos around the world.

Nampan, Myanmar

I met this lovely lady at a local market.

Pushkar, India

While traveling from country to country, I was happy to see that women have joined public forces all over the world.

Belgian with Polish origins

Ania dreams to compete in the Paralympic Games.

Tehran, Iran

Mahsa is a graphic designer and is proud of the fact that from the time she turned eighteen, she has been financially independent.

Timisoara, Romania

Alice was celebrating her high school graduation.

Milan, Italy

The daughter, Caterina, is a ballerina and her biggest supporter is her mother, Barbara.

Berlin, Germany

Anais has a Malian mother and a French father and feels both African and European.

Istanbul, Turkey

Pinar is a theater actress. While she loves playing different roles on stage, in real life, she adores being herself, natural and free.

Amazon Rainforest

She was wearing her wedding outfit.

Havana, Cuba

An actress? A model? No, she wishes only to finish her studies and become a nurse.

Tibetan Plateau

Among the most graceful women I encountered, this Tibetan mother of two in a rural village looked like this the moment she opened her door to me; she had been cleaning her house, and yet she was wearing her jewelry.

Cuenca, Ecuador

A moment of tenderness at the food market.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

She’s wearing a deel, which is a traditional outfit commonly seen in Mongolia.

Syria

I met this young Yazidi girl from Syria in a refugee camp from the Kurdistan Region in Iraq. Hasa was feeling fortunate that she’s alive and has the chance to study. Unfortunately she lost six of her small cousins when Isis attacked her village in Syria.

Pushkar, India

While traveling from country to country, I was happy to see that many women have joined public forces all over the world. I met this young policewoman in Pushkar, India, almost two years ago.

Jodhpur, India

While traveling in India, almost two years ago, I noticed that trains are the country’s vital circulatory system. They transport more than twenty million people every day. Just imagine twenty million fascinating stories! I wanted to hear hers but the train left after a few seconds from Jodhpur Station.

Milan, Italy

I met this mother and her daughter last year in Milan, Italy. Caterina began dancing when she was three years old. Her mother, Barbara, was supportive, but knew that there were few opportunities to study ballet in their small town so, although her husband and son had to remain home, she moved with Caterina to Milan, where her daughter could fulfill her dream and attend one of the most esteemed ballet schools in the world. Art requires huge sacrifices, but imagine how Barbara feels today seeing Caterina dancing on the celebrated stage of La Scala.

Tbilisi, Georgia

Natia, from Tbilisi, Georgia, studies Law and wishes to become a criminalist. She told me that her dream is to work for the FBI someday. In the meantime she already gained a scholarship and works in this coffee shop for a living.

Lisbon, Portugal

Daniela is from Lisbon, Portugal and has Angolan origins. It’s lovely to walk on the streets of this gorgeous city and see so many diverse people living in harmony.

Chichicastenango, Guatemala

Many women of the world carry great burdens every day, either literally or figuratively. And they do it, like this lovely woman, with so much tenderness and positivity. I met her in January, in Chichicastenango, a small town from Guatemala.

Idomeni, Greece

I met this brave mother of three children last year in Idomeni Refugee Camp from Greece. She escaped from her hometown in Iraq, which was under ISIS’s control. She traveled a long road to Europe with her children, spending all her savings, in hope of a safer life.

Korolyov, Russia

Nastya works in a small shop where she takes passport photos. But her dream is to take landscape photos around the world. Some time ago she made the first step, starting to study photography. In her everyday job her dream might feel far away. But “far” doesn’t mean “impossible.”

Guatemala

A beautiful family dressed in stunning outfits made by the mother.

Pokhara, Nepal

It was a Sunday in 2015 and just like every weekend, many people from Pokhara, Nepal were spending their time around the splendid Phewa lake.

Havana, Cuba

With her features she could be on the covers of magazines in most countries of the world. But Elianis never thought about such things. She just wishes to finish her studies and become a nurse.

Tibet

Berlin, Germany

This German young woman travels as much as she can. Her loved ones are spread all over the world and she is still searching for a place where she would love to live.

Baku, Azerbaijan

In a society dominated by men, where many women are still afraid to be photographed without asking permission from their husbands, things are changing. There are more and more Azerbaijani women who fight for gender equality and although they are now a minority, I’m sure they will soon be a majority. Fidan is one of these amazing women who would never start a relationship, if she wouldn’t be treated equally and respected.

Bucharest, Romania

In 2005 mAGDA experienced a terrible car accident, as a passenger. In most parts of the world, people in wheelchairs are condemned to isolation by authorities. While traveling around the planet I visited tens of countries where you don’t see them at all, in public areas. Why? Because in all those places, leaving your home in a wheelchair is almost an impossible mission due to that lack of infrastructure. But Magda wants to change the way people in wheelchairs are treated, at least in her country, through some amazing initiatives.

Kathmandu, Nepal

We live in a beautiful world and diversity is one of our greatest gifts. In the same time, this world became much more intolerant towards diversity, in the last years. But don’t lose hope! I’ve seen with my own eyes during my travels that there’s much more kindness in this world, than hate. We just have to notice it, share it with others and make this world a better place for our children.

Ethiopia

She is a Muslim and her best friend, another young woman who owns this small terrace, is a Christian. While traveling in Ethiopia, in February, I admired the way Christians and Muslims get along. I saw many beautiful friendships that go beyond religion.

Zürich, Switzerland

Patricia and Rebecca, from Switzerland, are sisters. There’s only one-year difference between them. “When we were small, most of the kids laughed at our red hair. But that brought us closer to each other.” Years have passed and I noticed them in Zürich Central Station, two days ago. There was something magical about them.

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