Obama - A Student of History?
By William
J. Federer
In his speech in Cairo,
Egypt, June 4, 2009, President Obama stated: “As
a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam
that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way
for Europe’s Renaissance.”
Civilization is indeed
indebted to Islam for Europe’s Renaissance, but the President’s speech was
conspicuous in its omission of certain details.
The Renaissance was a revival
of interest in Greek art, architecture, sculpture and philosophy, brought
about by Greeks fleeing the Islamic 
invasion
of the Byzantine Empire.
It began in the year 1071,
when Turkish Muslims defeated the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert and proceeded to invade the Byzantine Empire, which
is today Turkey.
Later Muslim Ottoman
Turks took boys from Christian families and forced them into the Sultan’s
service as janissary soldiers, and if they were handsome, into Muslim pederasty
- “the sodomy of the Turks.”
In 1095, the proud
Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comnenus, humbled
himself and sent ambassadors to beg the Roman Catholic Pope for help. Robert
the Monk recorded in the Medieval
Sourcebook (Fordham University) that Pope Urban II pled at the Council of
Clermont for Europe’s monarchs to help their Byzantine brethren, whom Muslims “compel
to extend their necks and then, attacking them with naked swords, attempt to
cut through the neck with a single blow.”
In 1097, Europe sent help
- the First Crusade. In the next 200 years there were nine major Crusades, notable among them were the 3rd Crusade, led by
Richard the Lionheart, and the 7th and 8th Crusades,
led by Saint Louis, King Louis IX of France, for whom the city of Saint Louis,
Missouri, was named.
Toward the end of the
Crusades, a Muslim warlord arose named Tamerlane (1336-1405). Related to Genghis Khan, Tamerlane killed an estimated 17 million, conquering from
the Black Sea to India. Tamerlane built a grand
mosque at his capital of Samarkand and had a Qur’an so large it had to be carried in a
wheelbarrow. He insisted his troops observe Islamic prayer, even on marches,
which brought complaints from his soldiers.
Tamerlane
captured Moscow and the Afghan city of Isfizar,
building a tower of bricks, mortar and 2,000 prisoners cemented into it.
He destroyed the city of Kartid, massacred 70,000 in Ishfahan
and destroyed Sarai Berke,
one of Eastern Europe’s largest cities with a population of 600,000.
In his memoir “Malfuzat-i-Timuri,” Tamerlane
wrote: “There arose in my heart the desire to lead an expedition against the
infidels and to become a ghazi, for it had reached my ears that the slayer of
infidels is a ghazi, and if he is slain he becomes a martyr.”
“It was on this account
that I formed this resolution, but I was undetermined in my mind whether I
should direct my expedition against the infidels of China or against the
infidels and polytheists of India. In this matter I sought an omen from the Qur’an, and the
verse I opened upon was this, ‘O Prophet, make war upon infidels and
unbelievers, and treat them with severity.’” (Sura
66:9) My great officers told me that the inhabitants of Hindustan were infidels
and unbelievers. In obedience to the order of Almighty Allah I ordered an
expedition against them.”
Tamerlane
slaughtered 100,000 in Delhi, leaving pyramids of skulls. His memoirs record
that at Hardwar his troops: “Displayed great
courage...slaying the foe (during a bathing festival on the bank of the
Ganges).... So many of them were killed that their blood ran down the mountains
and plain, and thus (nearly) all were sent to hell.”
Tamerlane
turned west and captured the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Damascus, leaving 20
towers of skulls. He bombarded the Christian city of Smyrna with decapitated
heads of its fallen defending knights. Tamerlane
buried alive 4,000 Georgian soldiers and forced their
Christian King, Bagrat V, to convert to Islam at
sword point.
French Academy member,
Rene’ Grousset (1885-1952), wrote in his original
edition of L’Empire Des Steppes (p. 513), how in 1403, Tamerlane destroyed all the Christian churches in Georgia’s
capital of Tiflis: “Mongols were mere barbarians who
killed simply because for centuries this had been the instinctive behavior of
nomad herdsmen toward sedentary farmers. To this ferocity Tamerlane added a taste for religious murder. He killed
from Qur’anic piety. (‘Il tuait
par piete coranique’) He
represents a synthesis, probably unprecedented in history, of Mongol barbarity
and Muslim fanaticism, and symbolizes that advanced form of primitive slaughter
which is murder committed for the sake of an abstract ideology, as a duty and a
sacred mission.”
To escape the Islamic
invasion, Byzantine Greek scholars fled west to Florence, Italy, bringing with
them their architecture, art, sculpture and philosophy, fueling Europe’s fascination
with Greek culture.
This was called the “Renaissance,”
which President Obama reminded Europeans they were
indebted to Islam for.
Additionally, as Greeks
fled west with their ancient manuscripts, scholars began translating the Bible not just from Latin, but from
Greek - thus laying the groundwork for the Reformation, - so even Protestants
are indirectly indebted to Islam for the Reformation. In fact, the very concept
of ‘Europe’ was a result of barbaric Islamic invasion, as previously,
Europe viewed itself as innumerable independent kingdoms.
“As a
student of history,” President Obama did indeed
acknowledge “civilization’s debt to Islam...paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance,”
though his lack of detail hints of a little intentional ambiguity, or as it
has been euphemistically called, “obamaguity.”
William J. Federer
is author of the best-selling book, What Every American Needs to Know
About the Qur’an - A History of Islam & the
United States.
