Jihad In Sicily

[antoninus]

http://www.historyofjihad.org/italy.html


History of the Islamic Jihad
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from its beginnings at Mecca in 620 C.E. up to 9/11, and the lessons it has for us for winning the War on Terror. If we are to understand Islam, we need to understand the temperament of its founder Mohammed (PBUH*), the way victorious Muslims have treated the subject people, and the reasons for the victory of Islam.

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What is Jihad: The Arabic word Jihad is derived from the root word Jahada (struggle). Jihad has come to mean an offensive war to be waged by Muslims against all non-Muslims to convert them to Islam on the pain of death. Jihad is enjoined on all Muslims by the Quran.

This site brings you the history of the Islamic Jihad from a neutral and factual viewpoint.

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The Jihad against Arabs (622 to 634)

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The Jihad against the Byzantine Christians (634 to 1453)

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The Jihad against Christian Coptic Nubians - modern Sudanese (650)

The Jihad against pagan Berbers - North Africans (650 to 700)

The Jihad against Spaniards (711 to 730)

The Reconquista against Jihad in Spain (730 to 1492)

The Jihad against Franks - modern French (720 to 732)

The Jihad against Sicilians in Italy (812 to 940)

The Jihad against Chinese (751)

The Jihad against Turks (651 to 751)

The Jihad against Armenians and Georgians (1071 to 1920)

The Crusade against Jihad (1096 – 1291 ongoing)

The Jihad against Mongols (1260 to 1300)

The Jihad against Hindus of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (638 to 1857)

The Jihad against Indonesians and Malays (1450 to 1500)

The Jihad against Poland (1444 to 1699)

The Jihad against Rumania (1350 to 1699)

The Jihad against Russia (1500 to 1853)

The Jihad against Bulgaria (1350 to 1843)

The Jihad against Serbs, Croats and Albanians (1334 to 1920)

The Jihad against Greeks (1450 to 1853)

The Jihad against Albania (1332 - 1853)

The Jihad against Croatia (1389 to 1843)

The Jihad against Hungarians (1500 to 1683)

The Jihad against Austrians (1683)

Jihad in the Modern Age (20th and 21st Centuries)

The Jihad against Israelis (1948 – 2004 ongoing)

The Jihad against Americans (9/11/2001)

The Jihad against the Filipinos in Mindanao(1970 onwards)

The Jihad against Indonesian Christians in Malaku and East Timor (1970 onwards)

The Jihad against Russians (1995 onwards)

The Jihad against Dutch and Belgians (2003 onwards)

The Jihad against Norwegians and Swedes (2003 onwards)

The Jihad against Thais (2003 onwards)

The Jihad against Nigerians (1965 onwards)

The Jihad against Canadians (2001 onwards)

The Jihad against Latin America (2003 onwards)

The Jihad against Australia (2002 onwards)

The Global Jihad today (2001 – ongoing)

The War on Terror against Jihad today (2001– ongoing)


The Vision for the post-Islamic (and post-religious) world


Motto of this website:This site is against all forms of fanaticism – religious and non-religious. But the emotional appeal of non-religious fanaticism like Nazism, Fascism or Communism is not as pervasive as that of fanaticism based on religion. When fanaticism and religion are mixed, we have a very potent and dangerous brew that can sustain itself for centuries unlike non-religious fanaticisms like Nazism and Communism which die out when the ringleaders are defeated. This is so, since religion is based on the psychological weakness of all humans, when we humans try to comprehend the unknown (universe). This understanding is (and perhaps will always remain) incomplete.

Religion tries to complete this incompleteness by fantasizing that the unknown is a god and that this god is the creator of all things that happen in this world and the universe. This idea that there is a god, which is assumed to be the unknown power in the universe makes the human mind paranoid because of our fear of the unknown. And this paranoia drives humans to do anything to propitiate this unknown power that is assumed to exist. This is what transforms this weakness of our human mind into a sickness. It is this sickness of the mind that drives humans to undertake wild acts like suicide bombings, fight holy wars, forced conversion, slaughter of humans who give a different name to this assumed power called god, etc, under the delusion of trying to please the unknown power that is assumed to be behind all existence.

While all forms of religious fanaticism are negative, only Islam raises slaughter of all Kafirs (non-Muslims) to a holy creed, it teaches Muslim to gloat over the killing of non-Muslims and celebrate their death. Hence Islam is the most demented and dangerous form of religious fanaticism. And it is not Islamic fanaticism that is to be blamed for this, as Islam itself is fanaticism.

From its root to its fruit Islam is the most violent, and virulent form of this delusion that the unknown universe is a god and all those who do not accept this brand of fantasizing of the unknown universe have to be slaughtered. This is so since Islamic fanaticism was born in a barren and harsh desert environment that gave birth to the paranoid mentality of the Bedouin Arabs among whom was born Mohammed (yimach shmo ve-zichro - may his name and memory be obliterated), the founder of this blood-thirsty creed – Islam.

This blood-thirsty Muslim mentality has trickled down to the newest convert to Islam be he or she Brown Black, Yellow or White. Most importantly it makes Islam the worst enemy of quest and science and of all human progress. While all religions are opposed to science as the Pope was to Galileo and Copernicus; but it is Islam which is the most blood-thirsty expression of this challenge of religion to reason. So Islam will have to be the first to be removed from the path of human progress and the reply to Islam to be effective would have to be more blood-thirsty and paranoid than Islam itself.

Those opposed to Islam will have to be like the hunter who aims his rifle between the eyes of the man-eater tiger and shoots till the tiger is dead meat. The hunter bears no enmity with the tiger, but shoots him dispassionately, so that he himself can live, and NOT end up by becoming the dinner of the man-eater.

This has to be the attitude, not based on a hate of Islam, but a determination to put a full and final end to Islam, so that Human society can progress without the hindrance of any religion obstructing its path.

After Islam is militarily defeated and then destroyed; the need of the day would be to come up with workable creative ideas, for brainwashing the remaining religious fanatics with techniques like anesthesia leading to amnesia and re-education of such brainwashed ex-religious fanatics; or the use of mass lobotomy to achieve the same result. Only such a technique could prevent religious fanaticism from being resurrected with a name other than Islam and insure the progress of human civilization without any obstacle from any religion.

To summarize, the religious outlook that claims to "know the unknown", as a god, allah, etc., is a sub-optimal human response (and so is a sub-human response). Violent monotheism is a criminal response which has brought our world to where it is today, post 11th September.

The need of our age is to start with the destruction of the most blood-thirsty form of religious fanaticism – Islam, followed up with the dovetailing of all other forms of religious fanaticism so that they move over and make way for rational-humanism. To make it more subtle; the need is for religion and religious fanaticism to move out of human minds and be replaced by rational-humanism.

Our maintaining this site, is our contribution for working towards this objective.







The Jihad against the Italians in Sicily (812 -1571)
The History of Jihad site is brought to you by a panel of contributors. This site is co-ordinated by Robin MacArthur with Mahomet Mostapha and Naim al Khoury, New Jersey.
Other contributors to this site include professors and members of the faculty from the Universities of Michigan and Stanford, Kansas State University, Ohio State University, and the London School of Economics. We strongly suggest that this site be recommended as additional reading for students of Islamic History.

We also invite students and professors of this subject to mirror this site on your University or private servers, link it up from your sites, to print it as a non-profit publication and refer it to students, journalists, cinematographers, military personnel, members of both houses of Congress, and Parliamentarians from your countries, members of the judiciary and to all other stakeholders in the subjects of the Islam and the Jihad.



How the Franks, Normans, Venetians and the Knights of Malta doughtily faced the Arabs and the Turkish Jihadis on land and sea, finally defeating them in both theaters



Monday, September 18, 2006 1254 PM
Did you have a look at today's issue of our news portal?



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According to the early Muslim Jurist al-Ghazali “The “contract of the payment of the penal tax “jizya”, or “dhimma” also encompassed other obligatory and recommended obligations for the conquered non-Muslim “dhimmi” peoples. Collectively, these “obligations” formed the discriminatory system of dhimmitude imposed upon non-Muslims - Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists - subjugated by jihad. Some of the more salient features of dhimmitude include: the prohibition of arms for the vanquished non-Muslims (dhimmis), and the ringing of church bells; restrictions concerning the building and restoration of churches, synagogues, and temples; inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims with regard to taxes and penal law; the refusal of dhimmi testimony by Muslim courts; a requirement that Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims, wear special clothes; and the overall humiliation and abasement of non-Muslims.”

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By the mid 7th century, after overrunning North Africa, the Arab Muslims turned their attention towards the North Mediterranean coast in an effort to invade the Byzantine Empire from the West. By then the Arabs, who already controlled the North African coast and Spain, considered Sicily a highly strategic step for their expansion towards the north of Italy and an advance into Europe.


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After the Muslim occupation of Sicily, the Christian resistance began immediately to recapture the island. The Franks tried to take back the island in the 9th century, but failed. By the 11th century, the baton of resistance to the Saracens was taken up by the Normans. The Normans undertook an attempt to liberate Sicily by sending in an expeditionary assault in 1068 with just sixty knights. But with their shock tactics, they gave a stunning blow to the Arab chieftain Ayub ibn Temim at the Battle of Misilmeri (then called by the Arabs Menzil el Emir), outside Palermo.

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The Arabs who had started developing pretensions of becoming a naval power, sent a fleet to Sicily and conquered the undefended fortress of Palermo in Sicily in 830. With Sicily as a base they started harassing the mercantile shipping in the Mediterranean, and more importantly they tried repeatedly to invade Italy from Sicily.

The Battle of Palermo

The Christian resistance began immediately to recapture the island of Sicily. The Franks tried to take back the island in the 9th century, but failed. By the 11th century, the baton of resistance to the Saracens was taken up by the Normans. The Normans undertook an attempt to liberate Sicily by sending in an expeditionary assault in 1068 with just sixty knights. But with their shock tactics, they gave a stunning blow to the Arab chieftain Ayub ibn Temim at the Battle of Misilmeri (then called by the Arabs Menzil el Emir), outside Palermo.


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The fortress of Palermo whose name derived from the Arab Balarm - defines its origins as an Arab city. Palermo, when it was an Arab emirate for five hundred years, was described as "the city of the 300 mosques, very few of which survive today, with most of them having been converted into Churches by the Franks who liberated Palermo.

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This was followed by the main Norman assault in 1071, when they attacked and defeated the Arabs at Palermo. This fortress whose very name derived from the Arab Balarm - defines its origins as an Arab city. Palermo, when it was an Arab emirate for five hundred years, was described as "the city of the 300 mosques, very few of which survive today, with most of them having been converted into Churches.

Norman Valor drove the Arab Muslims from Sicily


The Battle of Palermo stands as one of the most astounding Norman escapades in Italy against the Muslims. It rivals the Battle of Hastings (1066) in importance. Socially, the Normans' occupation of Arab Palermo was far more significant than their conquest of Saxon London, as it brought Sicily back into the European orbit, a development which eventually established an Italianate presence in the central Mediterranean.

The Normans had taken Messina during an early morning battle in Spring 1061. In the ten years since, they had sought to consolidate their control of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula, fighting the Arabs in a string of skirmishes. At Palermo, the Arabs were again led by their wily and intrepid commander Ayub ibn Temim and the Normans by a young and energetic leader named Robert Guiscard de Hauteville and his younger brother, Roger de Hauteville.

But the Normans with their conquests in other parts of Europe, notably England, where they fought the battle of Hastings in 1066 and defeated the Saxons, were chronically short of trained knights. (Indeed, it would be years following the Battle of Palermo before they could wrest back control of Enna, from the Muslims. Enna had been an Arab-Muslim stronghold in east-central Sicily


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After the victory at the battle of Palermo, all mosques that had been churches (before the Arabs' arrival two centuries earlier) were re-converted into Churches. But even after the conquest of Palermo, the Normans had liberated only a part of Sicily, the rest of the island still lay under Arab occupation.

Illustration courtesy: Nafpaktos

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In 1072 Palermo had something over a hundred thousand residents. On the morning of January 5, 1072 Robert's cavalry attacked the al Kasr district (high ground near what became the cathedral, Piazza Vittoria and the Norman Palace). Fighting was fierce, and penetrating the walls seemed like an impossible feat. Leaving his brother, Roger, to maintain the attack on al Kasr, Robert and some knights attacked al Khalesa, the administrative district on the coast, built around the emir's fortress.

Re-conversion of Mosques into Churches and of the Muslim populace into Christianity rolled back the Jihad in its entirety


This was taken by nightfall, though most of the adjacent al Kasr district, further inland, remained in Saracen hands. Nevertheless, a Saracen delegation surrendered to the Normans the following morning. Specifically, the Normans first entered al Khalesa over a wall near what is now the Spasimo. (In a corner of this structure there remain the vestiges of an eight-century Mosque that the Normans changed into a church. The traces of this change can be seen clearly even today.)



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Sicily had been under Muslim occupation for nearly three centuries from 812 up to 1071. The population had been wholly converted to Islam, and there was not a single church left standing. They had either been reduced to rubble or had been converted into Mosques. When the Normans retook Sicily, they reversed history in equal measure and with equal ruthlessness.

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The ceremonial entry of the Norman Christians into Palermo took place on January 10, 1072 with a Greek Rite mass celebrated by the Orthodox bishop Nicodemus of Palermo in the old cathedral (on the site of the present one), that had then been hastily re-converted into a church from its use as a mosque.

Here was a historic juncture where Robert and Roger chose to defy convention and their own Christian tradition. All mosques that had been churches (before the Arabs' arrival two centuries earlier) were re-converted into Churches. But even after the conquest of Palermo, the Normans had liberated only a part of Sicily, the rest of the island still lay under Arab occupation.

But in spite of the Norman attack, the Arabs in Sicily were divided, and taking advantage of the situation, Count Roger, after a series of campaigns, subdued the rest of the island and brought it under Norman Rule. Count Roger also invaded other islands to make sure his southern flank was secure from a possible Arab attack, having reduced the Arabs to a state of vassalage and releasing the foreign Christian slaves, he returned to Sicily without even bothering to garrison his prize.


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In 1127, Roger II the son of Count Roger, led a second invasion of Malta; having overrun the Island he placed it under a more secure Norman domination under the charge of a Norman governor. He also garrisoned with Norman soldiers the three castles then on the islands. From about this period the Maltese moved back gradually into the European orbit to which they had belonged for a period of five hundred years prior to the Arab interlude.

After the Norman liberation, there were no Muslims left in Sicily, Malta, Sardina and other surrounding islands that had been under Muslim occupation. All the Muslims were reconverted to Christianity. This ensured that the population forgot about the Islamic interlude. The Normans acted as an exorcist to exorcize the influence of Islam on the population and returned the lands to Christendom.

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In 1127, Roger II the son of Count Roger, led a second invasion of Malta; having overrun the Island he placed it under a more secure Norman domination under the charge of a Norman governor. He also garrisoned with Norman soldiers the three castles then on the islands. From about this period the Maltese moved back gradually into the European orbit to which they had belonged for a period of five hundred years prior to the Arab interlude.

Lessons from the Battle of Palermo

Sicily had been under Muslim occupation for nearly three centuries from 812 up to 1071. The population had been wholly converted to Islam, and there was not a single church left standing. They had either been reduced to rubble or had been converted into Mosques. When the Normans retook Sicily, they reversed history in equal measure and with equal ruthlessness. After the Norman liberation, there were no Muslims left in Sicily, Malta, Sardina and other surrounding islands that had been under Muslim occupation.


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With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the prospect of the conquest of Europe was reignited in Muslim hearts. This prospect had been defeated at the battles of Poitiers and Palermo and had been rolled back by the Reconquista in Spain.

After the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottomans now moved toward Malta which had remained a peaceful Christian bastion for more than four centuries after its liberation by the Normans in 1127. In the meanwhile Malta had become the base for the Crusader knights of Malta and it played an important role as a transit point for the crusaders to go to the holy land.

So Malta was a marked fortress for the Muslims who bided their time to seek revenge when they could again come within striking distance. This was the second Muslim lunge at Italy.

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This ensured that the population forgot about the Islamic interlude. The Normans acted as an exorcist to exorcize the influence of Islam on the population and returned the lands to Christendom.

The second Muslim lunge at Italy

Although Sicily was never directly threatened again, the shadow of the Islamic Jihad loomed once again over Italy when the Ottoman Turks started moving into the Mediterranean after 1500 A.D. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the prospect of the conquest of Europe was reignited in Muslim hearts. This prospect had been defeated at the battles of Poitiers and Palermo and had been rolled back by the Reconquista in Spain.

After the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottomans now moved toward Malta which had remained a peaceful Christian bastion for more than four centuries after its liberation by the Normans in 1127. In the meanwhile Malta had become the base for the Crusader knights of Malta and it played an important role as a transit point for the crusaders to go to the holy land.

So Malta was a marked fortress for the Muslims who bided their time to seek revenge when they could again come within striking distance.



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The Turks launched two attacks against the island in 1547, and again in 1551 and again in 1565 till they were finally routed decisively at the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571. The Turks had a policy of ravaging the Maltese countryside to terrorize the peasantry, while they ignored the fortified towns. They turned their attention to the island of Gozo and carried away the entire Christian population into slavery, the children being brought up as Muslims who were to be thrown into battle as suicide warriors named Janissaries (from Jan = life and Nisar = given away).

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Turks ravaged the Maltese peasantry to instill terror

And so as if to prove the point, the Turks launched two attacks against the island in 1547, and again in 1551 and again in 1565 till they were finally routed decisively at the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571. The Turks had a policy of ravaging the Maltese countryside to terrorize the peasantry, while they ignored the fortified towns. They turned their attention to the island of Gozo and carried away the entire Christian population into slavery, the children being brought up as Muslims who were to be thrown into battle as suicide warriors named Janissaries (from Jan = life and Nisar = given away).

That same year the Turks drove the Knights out of Tripoli. These attacks stung the Knights into feverish activity to improve the islands' defenses in anticipation of another, and possibly bigger, attack. On the 18th May, 1565, the Ottoman Turks and their allies pitted 48,000 of their best troops against the islands with the intention of invading them, and afterwards using them as a base to make a thrust into Southern Europe by way of Sicily and Italy.

Pan-European Christian alliance defeats the Turkish Jihad

At the battle of Malta, against the Turks were drawn up some 8,000 men: 540 Knights; 4,000 Maltese; and the rest made up of Spanish and Italian mercenaries. Landing unopposed, the first objective of the Turks was to secure a safe anchorage for their large invasion fleet, and with that in mind, launched their attack on St.Elmo. After a heroic resistance of thirty one days the fort succumbed to the massive Turkish bombardment and continuous cavalry charges.


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In 1571, Don John of Austria commanding the fleet of the Holy League, met the Ottoman Turks in the waters at the mouth of the Gulf of Patros. Don John of Austria met his fleet off Messina and saw that he had 300 ships, great and small, under his command. The Pope himself had outfitted twelve galleys and the depth of his war chest had paid for many more. The next largest contingent was that of Venice.

Although they were no longer the dominating power of yesteryear, the Venetians could still assemble a fleet of more than a hundred vessels beneath the winged Lion of St. Mark’s standard. The Venetians provided the technological cutting edge that was to win the battle.

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After the fort had been reduced, the Ottomans turned their attention to the two badly fortified towns overlooking the harbor. Subjected to a ceaseless bombardment, the Christian forces held back the enemy behind the crumbling walls, and against all odds, kept the enemy at bay until a small relief force of some 8,000 troops arrived from Sicily (a smaller relief force of 600 men had previously landed at about the time that St.Elmo had fallen).

These attacks in addition to their losses from disease, fire and steel, totally demoralized the Turks. Added to this was the fact that their supplies were running low. The Turkish invaders were in no position to offer further battle, and the Turks retreated never again to attempt another invasion in that part of the Mediterranean.

The Battle of Lepanto


In 1571, Don John of Austria commanding the fleet of the Holy League, met the Ottoman Turks in the waters at the mouth of the Gulf of Patros. Don John of Austria met his fleet off Messina and saw that he had 300 ships, great and small, under his command. The Pope himself had outfitted twelve galleys and the depth of his war chest had paid for many more. Don John's eye must have gazed with pride on the 80 galleys and 22 other ships that had been provided by his half-brother Philip II of Spain.

Each of these Spanish galleys held a hundred soldiers on top of the rowers who propelled the ship through the water and no less than 30,000 men in the service of Spain would fight at Lepanto. The next largest contingent was that of Venice.



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The Turkish fleet under the command of Ali Pasha had been reinforced by a Calabrian traitor fisherman who had turned Moslem. His name was Uluch Ali and he was now the Bey of Algiers, that notorious nest of the Muslim corsairs feared by all Christian ships plying their trade in the Mediterranean. Don John moved his force towards the anchorage of Lepanto where he knew the Turks to be waiting and during the night of October 6th, with a favorable wind behind him, Ali Pasha moved his fleet westward towards the mouth of the Gulf of Patras and the approaching ships of the Holy League.

The action that was to follow was the biggest naval engagement anywhere on the globe till then.

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Although they were no longer the dominating power of yesteryear, the Venetians could still assemble a fleet of more than a hundred vessels beneath the winged Lion of St. Mark’s standard. The Venetians provided the technological cutting edge that was to win the battle.

The Turkish fleet under the command of Ali Pasha had been reinforced by a Calabrian traitor fisherman who had turned Moslem. His name was Uluch Ali and he was now the Bey of Algiers, that notorious nest of the Muslim corsairs feared by all Christian ships plying their trade in the Mediterranean. Don John moved his force towards the anchorage of Lepanto where he knew the Turks to be waiting and during the night of October 6th, with a favorable wind behind him, Ali Pasha moved his fleet westward towards the mouth of the Gulf of Patras and the approaching ships of the Holy League.


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The Turkish flotilla initially arrayed in a giant crescent-shaped formation, quickly sliced into three sections by two concentrated charges of the Venetian navy. The centre, under Ali Pasha, nevertheless pushed forward and the action opened when the cannon of Don John's two centre galleasses (gunships) began to do great execution among Ali Pasha's advancing ships.

Seven or more Turkish galleys went down almost immediately as a result of the longer range of the Christian fleet. The Turks were not lacking in murderous instinct, however, and they pressed on in the face of intense fire from the galleasses, the galleys' guns and crossbowmen on the Christian decks.

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The action that was to follow was the biggest naval engagement anywhere on the globe till then. The Turkish flotilla initially arrayed in a giant crescent-shaped formation, quickly sliced into three sections by two concentrated charges of the Venetian navy. The centre, under Ali Pasha, nevertheless pushed forward and the action opened when the cannon of Don John's two centre galleasses (gunships) began to do great execution among Ali Pasha's advancing ships.

Seven or more Turkish galleys went down almost immediately as a result of the longer range of the Christian fleet. The Turks were not lacking in murderous instinct, however, and they pressed on in the face of intense fire from the galleasses, the galleys' guns and crossbowmen on the Christian decks.


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At Lepanto, in a wild melee of attack, retreat and counterattack played out on decks awash with the blood of the slain, the air rent by the screams of the wounded and dying seamen from both sides, the Spaniards forced their way onto the Turkish galley three times. Twice they were beaten back but finally they stormed the Turkish poop and a wounded Ali Pasha was beheaded on the spot. His head was spitted on a pike and held aloft for all the Turkish fleet to see and the Ottoman battle flag, never before lost in battle, was pulled down from the mainmast. The Muslim centre broke and retired as best it could, their courage forgotten in face of the grisly sight of their admirals head held aloft by the elated Spaniards. Amen.

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Christians follows Muslim tactics and outdo the Muslims

Ali Pasha tried to come alongside the Christian ships in the hope of boarding. Here the legendary steadfastness under fire of the 16th and 17th century Spanish infantryman came to the fore and attack after attack was beaten off by killing shots from their guns and engaging in hand to hand combat by the Spanish swordsmen. Then Don John gave the order to board Ali Pasha's flagship.

In a wild melee of attack, retreat and counterattack played out on decks awash with the blood of the slain, the air rent by the screams of the wounded and dying seamen from both sides, the Spaniards forced their way onto the Turkish galley three times. Twice they were beaten back but finally they stormed the Turkish poop and a wounded Ali Pasha was beheaded on the spot. His head was spitted on a pike and held aloft for all the Turkish fleet to see and the Ottoman battle flag, never before lost in battle, was pulled down from the mainmast. The Muslim centre broke and retired as best it could, their courage forgotten in face of the grisly sight of their admirals head held aloft by the elated Spaniards. Amen.


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Lepanto was a battle to death for both sides. Negotiations were never on the agenda. The options were fight, flight or death. The first mistake made by Rodrigo in Spain when he faced the first Muslim Jihad in 711, he had tried to walk his way out by negotiating his freedom, only to be betrayed and having his head sawed off to be paraded before the Visigothic Spanish army – a grisly sight that numbed and demoralized the Visigoths at the Battle of the Guadalete river between the Muslims and the Visigothic Spaniards.

From Guadalete to Palermo, the Christians had come a long way, learning what their enemy was all about. Once having seen the bestiality of the Muslims, the Christians never forgot nor forgave the Muslims.

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Lessons of the Battle of Lepanto

The Christians had now learnt their lessons. Lepanto was a battle to death for both sides. Negotiations were never on the agenda. The options were fight, flight or death. The first mistake made by Rodrigo in Spain when he faced the first Muslim Jihad in 711, he had tried to walk his way out by negotiating his freedom, only to be betrayed and having his head sawed off to be paraded before the Visigothic Spanish army – a grisly sight that numbed and demoralized the Visigoths at the Battle of the Guadalete river between the Muslims and the Visigothic Spaniards.

From Guadalete to Palermo, the Christians had come a long way, learning what their enemy was all about. Once having seen the bestiality of the Muslims, the Christians never forgot nor forgave the Muslims. And so “mercy” was a quality not much in vogue any longer in the wars between the crescent and the cross.


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Beheading and sticking the severed head on to a pike and parading it were unchristian and uncivilized practices, but it was the Muslims who had introduced them into Europe, and the Christians were quick to learn and use them against the Muslims. A lesson we need to relearn, not to behead and stick the head once again on a pike, but to unleash a nuclear and neutron assault on the enemy, before he does it to us at New York, London, Madrid, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, Moscow, Berlin or in any city in the civilized world.

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The Christians were quick to learn the tactics of foul warfare from the Muslims and turn their new learning against a ruthless adversary. Apart from the bravery of soldiers on both sides, the tactic that clinched victory was the gruesome act of beheading of the Turkish Admiral Ali Pasha and his deputy Uluch Ali.

Beheading and sticking the severed head on to a pike and parading it were unchristian and uncivilized practices, but it was the Muslims who had introduced them into Europe, and the Christians were quick to learn and use them against the Muslims. A lesson we need to relearn, not to behead and stick the head once again on a pike, but to unleash a nuclear and neutron assault on the enemy, before he does it to us at New York, London, Madrid, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, Moscow, Berlin or in any city in the civilized world.

The engagement at Lepanto had lasted for more than four hours and when the smoke finally cleared it became apparent that this was a major victory for the Holy League and a bitter defeat for the Ottoman Turks. Almost 8,000 of the men who had sailed with Don John were dead and another 16,000 wounded.

On the brighter side 12,000 Christian galley slaves had been released from their servitude to the Ottomans. The Turks and Uluch Ali's Algerines had suffered much more grievously. Of the three hundred and thirty Turkish ships, fewer than fifty managed to escape and most of them were burned because they could not be made sufficiently seaworthy for further use; one hundred and seventeen Muslim galleys were captured intact and the rest were sunk or destroyed after they had been run ashore by the fleeing Turks.

More than fifty thousand of the seventy-five thousand men who had entered the battle on the Muslim side were killed, five thousand were taken prisoner (with at least twice that number of Christian galley slaves liberated), and only a few were able to escape either by ship or by swimming ashore. Turkey, for the first time in several centuries, was left without a navy

The day belonged to Don John, the Holy League and Christendom. When the news of the victory broke, church bells were rung all over in Europe in a spontaneous outburst of joy and thanksgiving. The victory at Lepanto, put paid any further Turkish adventure to invade Italy by sea. More so it left the European powers without any formidable rival on the seas, paving the way for aggressive and bolder forays by the European maritime powers to sail across all the oceans and establish colonies in the Americas, Australia, Africa and Asia.

The Jihad had a penultimate break at Lepanto, the final one was to come a century later at Vienna in 1683, that put paid all attempts of the Muslims to overrun Europe. Muslim rule was thenceforth confined to the south eastern corner of Europe in the Balkans where the seed of Islam was not uprooted when the Christians liberated those lands between 1850 and 1920.


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The overarching relevance of the Battles of Palermo and Lepanto was that they saved the Italian mainland from a Muslim invasion and so also indirectly prevented (or should we say delayed) the Islamization of Europe (or Eurabia) when there was no power strong enough in Central Europe in the 10th to the 15th centuries to resist a successful Muslim onslaught.

But modern Europeans have become enfeebled by modernism and liberalism, qualities that the Muslim immigrants will have nothing to do with. And if we do not wake up and reinvent the spirit of Palermo, we shall lose our homelands to the Muslims in a few decades from today. What the Muslims failed to achieve on the battlefields of Lepanto and Palermo, they will achieve through lax immigration laws, and the sacrifices of our brave knights at Lepanto and Palermo would ultimately prove to have been in vain.

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Modern liberalism has set the lethargy in motion that prevents the immediate decimation of the Muslims who are a perennial threat to civilization

Modern liberalism had set the lethargy in motion a lethargy that came to roost at Mostar and other cities in the Balkans which saw the slaughter by the Muslims and Christians of each other. Howsoever ideal may liberalism be, it is of no value when dealing with the blood-thirsty Muslims. This is the lesson which the Serbs and Croats learnt in the 1990s. But these being Christian lands originally, it was the Muslim who were the occupiers and even if we forget the concept of anyone being an occupier, since the world belongs to all humans, with their beastlike behavior, the Muslims became unwelcome citizens wherever they attacked ravaged and imposed their beastlike cult on their unwilling victims. The Muslims have quarreled and fought with everyone wherever they went, and when there were no non-Muslims around, they fought among themselves. Such is the beastlike legacy that Islam has given the modern age.

But the overarching relevance of the Battles of Palermo and Lepanto was that they saved the Italian mainland from a Muslim invasion and so also indirectly prevented (or should we say delayed) the Islamization of Europe (or Eurabia) when there was no power strong enough in Central Europe in the 10th to the 15th centuries to resist a successful Muslim onslaught.

But modern Europeans have become enfeebled by modernism and liberalism, qualities that the Muslim immigrants will have nothing to do with. And if we do not wake up and reinvent the spirit of Palermo, we shall lose our homelands to the Muslims in a few decades from today. What the Muslims failed to achieve on the battlefields of Lepanto and Palermo, they will achieve through lax immigration laws, and the sacrifices of our brave knights at Lepanto and Palermo would ultimately prove to have been in vain.

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* For those uninitiated, PBUH expands to Perpetual Battle Upon Hagarism (Islam) – founded by the accursed Mohammed-ibn-Abdallah (Yimach Shmo – May his name and memory be obliterated).
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Select Bibliography

Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict, by Obadiah Shoher

Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries (Hardcover) by Paul Fregosi

The Sword of the Prophet: History, Theology, Impact on the World by Srdja Trifkovic

Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer

Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam) by David Cook

Why I Am Not a Muslim by Ibn Warraq

Onward Muslim Soldiers by Robert Spencer

Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye'Or

Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeor

What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commentary by Ibn Warraq

Islam and Terrorism: What the Quran Really Teaches About Christianity, Violence and the Goals of the Islamic Jihad by Mark A. Gabriel, Mark A. Gabriel

A Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) by Robert Spencer

The Great Divide: The failure of Islam and the Triumph of the West by Marvin Olasky

The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims by Robert Spencer

Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer, David Pryce-Jones

The Koran (Penguin Classics) by N. J. Dawood

Don't Keep me Silent! One Woman's Escape from the Chains of Islam by Mina Nevisa

Christianity And Islam: The Final Clash by Robert Livingston

Holiest Wars : Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden by Timothy R. Furnish

The Last Trumpet: A Comparative Study in Christian-Islamic Eschatology by Samuel, Ph.D. Shahid

Unleashing the beast: How a fanatical islamic dictator will form a ten-nation coalition and terrorize the world for forty-two months by Perry Stone

Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature (Religion and Politics) by David Cook

Islam and the Jews: The Unfinished Battle by Mark A., Ph.D. Gabriel

The Challenge of Islam to Christians by David Pawson

The Prophetic Fall of the Islamic Regime by Glenn Miller, Roger Loomis

Prophet of Doom : Islam's Terrorist Dogma in Muhammad's Own Words by Craig Winn

The False Prophet by Ellis H. Skolfield

The Approach of Armageddon: An Islamic Perspective by Muhammad Hisham Kabbani

The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God by George Weigel

Infiltration : How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington by Paul Sperry

Unholy Alliance : Radical Islam and the American Left by David Horowitz

Unveiling Islam : An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs by Ergun Mehmet Caner

Perfect Soldiers : The Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It by Terry McDermott

Islam Revealed A Christian Arab's View Of Islam by Anis Shorrosh

Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out by Ibn Warraq

The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam's Holy Book by Ibn Warraq



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Unfortunately for humankind, the end of the death-seeking fiery cult of Islam can only come about through a fiery death-giving weapon. Ironically such nuclear mushroom clouds would be the blazing hell-fire that the Quran talks about and acknowledges will bring about an end to Islam such that there will be no one across the globe to say “Lah ilah il Allah, Mohammed ur Rasoolallah” (There is no god but allah and Mohammed is his prophet).

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[Hyperion]

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[antoninus]

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