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Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West by [Raymond Ibrahim, Victor Davis Hanson]

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Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West Kindle Edition

by Raymond Ibrahim (Author), Victor Davis Hanson (Foreword) Format: Kindle Edition

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A sweeping history of the often-violent conflict between Islam and the West, shedding a revealing light on current hostilities

The West and Islam -- the sword and scimitar -- have clashed since the mid-seventh century, when, according to Muslim tradition, the Roman emperor rejected Prophet Muhammad's order to abandon Christianity and convert to Islam, unleashing a centuries-long jihad on Christendom.

Sword and Scimitar chronicles the decisive battles that arose from this ages-old Islamic jihad, beginning with the first major Islamic attack on Christian land in 636, through the Muslim occupation of nearly three-quarters of Christendom which prompted the Crusades, followed by renewed Muslim conquests by Turks and Tatars, to the European colonization of the Muslim world in the 1800s, when Islam largely went on the retreat -- until its reemergence in recent times. Using original sources in Arabic and Greek, preeminent historian Raymond Ibrahim describes each battle in vivid detail and explains how these wars and the larger historical currents of the age reflect the cultural fault lines between Islam and the West.

The majority of these landmark battles -- including the battles of Yarmuk, Tours, Manzikert, the sieges at Constantinople and Vienna, and the crusades in Syria and Spain--are now forgotten or considered inconsequential. Yet today, as the West faces a resurgence of this enduring Islamic jihad, Sword and Scimitar provides the needed historical context to understand the current relationship between the West and the Islamic world -- and why the Islamic State is merely the latest chapter of an old history.

Length: 334 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

An accessible and well-researched examination of extremely important but often neglected cultural phenomena and historical events that have impacted several civilizations up to the present day.

-- "Dario Fernandez-Morera, author of The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise"

Enlightening for readers unfamiliar with the long history of war between these two faiths.

-- "New York Journal of Books"

Impressively informative, Sword and Scimitar is an exceptional work of outstanding scholarship that is so well written, it reads more like a deftly crafted novel than a non-fiction history.

-- "Midwest Book Review"

With passion, Raymond Ibrahim offers an edgy and eye-opening introduction to a millennium of warfare between the Muslim and Christian worlds before the modern age.

-- "Thomas Madden, author of Concise History of the Crusades"

Raymond Ibrahim has the humility to take seriously the voices and opinions of history's Christians and Muslims; the result is a refreshingly honest account of Islamic expansion and Christian reaction.

-- "Paul F. Crawford, Crusades historian, California University of Pennsylvania" --This text refers to the audioCD edition.

About the Author

Raymond Ibrahim is a scholar of the Middle East and Islam and author of The Al Qaeda Reader and Crucified Again. He has contributed to the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Weekly Standard, and the Chronicle of Higher Education; appeared on C-SPAN, Al-Jazeera, CNN, NPR, and PBS; guest lectured at several universities; briefed governmental agencies such as US Strategic Command; and testified before Congress. Ibrahim has been a fellow at several think tanks, including the Hoover Institution, and is currently at the Middle East Forum.

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. His many books include A War Like No Other and Between War and Peace. He is a syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services and is the current codirector of the group on military history and contemporary conflict at the Hoover Institution.

John McLain is an actor, professional voice talent, and Earphones Award-winning narrator. He has been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. On stage, he has appeared in The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Amahl & the Night Visitors, and The Music Man.

--This text refers to the audioCD edition.

Product details

File size : 35006 KB
Publication date : August 28, 2018
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 334 pages
Publisher : Da Capo Press; Illustrated edition (August 28, 2018)
ASIN : B0785MRSPN
Language: : English
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Lending : Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #76,547 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2 in Islamic History
- #9 in History of Turkey & the Ottoman empire
- #10 in Religious Intolerance (Kindle Store)

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8 imporant Islamic jihad battles against the West

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2018

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"Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West" By Raymond Ibrahim (Aug. 2018) w/ 16 pages of b/w drawings of discussed battles. [This review by Col. William Garrison, USA (Ret.)]

The subject matter of this book is pretty well encapsulated by Victor Hanson who wrote the Foreword to this book:

"Sword and Scimitar is a much-needed history of landmark battles between Islam and the West. Ibrahim offers eight representative engagements … from France to the Middl East, and over a millennium from 636 to 1683.

This book "is first and foremost riveting military history. It offers blow-by-blow concise accounts of the eight battles, and interprets them in the context of the times -- or rather, takes seriously what contemporary leaders claimed were their intentions and how they worked out their strategies..... the book advances larger cultural and religious arguments"

..."he has selected four exemplary Western defeats (the fall of Constantinople, Hattin, Manzikert, and Yarmuk) balanced by four victories (second defense of Constantinople, La Naas de Tolosa, Tours, and Vienna). ...Ibrahim's evidence reveals certain recurring themes about the interaction between Islam and the West....

"First, in most cases Islamic armies saw themselves as expansionary and messianic.... Second, while there were localized and intramural political and tribal rivalries, Muslim armies went to war against the West more often as religious rather than as national or ethnic forces.... Third, Ibrahim sees continuity between past and present; that is, Muslim religious leaders and jihadists have characteristically seen Christianity as both antithetical to the Islamic world and inherently ripe for conquest or conversion" (p. viii - ix).

This book is much more than just some military-school analysis of various Middle Age battles that will be appreciated only by infantry officers attempting to discover some obscure, medieval envelopment movements and apply them to the Vietnam War or the current "War On Terrorism" battles occurring throughout the Middle East today.

What is unique and informative about Ibrahim's important book is that he analyzes "that there [is] a much larger but wholly forgotten backstory to this … military history, the recollection of which can revolutionize the way the West understand its past, and thus its present, with Islam" (p. xiii).

Ibrahim notes how many (leftist) commentators today whitewash jihad terrorism as legitimate warfare against modern states that were birthed from European colonialism. Ibrahim observed: "Even among less ideologically charged historians, the macrocosmic significance of the aforementioned millennium, when "Christian Europe was under constant threat from Islam," is unintelligible. They talk of "Arab," "Moorish," "Ottoman," or "Tartar" -- rarely Islamic -- invasions and conquests, even though the selfsame rational -- jihad -- impelled those otherwise diverse people to assault the West."

Ibrahim offers "the most timely aspect of this book. It definitively answers one of the most pressing questions of our time: Are militant Muslims -- aka "terrorists," "radicals," "extremists" -- being true to Islam, as they insist, or are they "hijacking" it for their own agendas, as we are told?"

Ibrahim contends that this book "unlike most military histories -- which no matter how fascinating are ultimately academic -- this one offers timely correctives: it sets the much distorted historical record between the two civilizations straight and, in so doing, demonstrates once and for all that Muslim hostility for the West is not an aberration but a continuation of Islamic history" (p. xvii).

Besides discussing the relevance to today of his selected medieval battles, Ibrahim also briefly discusses the Muslim Ottoman attacks in the Balkans during the 1870s.

Ibrahim also opines that the attacks upon Europeans today by Muslim "refugees" fleeing from war-torn Muslim lands are less about fleeing than actually spearheading a new Islamic-jihad invasion of an essentially ignorant European populace to the menace of the Muslims' "right or straight path" (sirat al-Mustaqim) of wanting to convert Europeans to Islam rather than integrate themselves with the liberal and permissive West.

[For a more expansive view of the great multitude of Muslim battles against non-Muslims see: "The History of Jihad: from Muhammad to ISIS" by Robert Spencer (Aug. 2018), and "The Islam in Islamic Terrorism: The Importance of Beliefs, Ideas, and Ideology" by Ibn Warraq (May 2017).

220 people found this helpful

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bubba1526

Raymond Ibrahim's best work yet...OUTSTANDING!!

Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2018

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Mr. Ibrahim is a foremost authority on Islam and its history. He pulls no punches with this one.
He goes into gory detail regarding the many atrocities committed by Islam from Muhammad down to the present.

8 major conflicts are outlined: Yarmuk, The Siege of Constantinople in 717, Tours, Manzikert, Hattin, Las Navas de la Tolosa, The Final Siege of Constantinople in 1453, The Siege of Vienna, and more.

It would be safe to assume that most have never heard of these pivotal battles. It could easily be argued that the victories at Tours and Vienna saved Western Civilization from currently being Islamic.
Mr. Ibrahim goes into some unsettling detail about the horrible and ghastly tortures the Turks and other Muhammadans used against Christendom. Here are some excerpts:
Did you know that skinning alive was a popular method of execution that was used on the commander of Famagusta in Cyprus in 1571 and the Serbian Orthodox bishop?.
Did you know the army that invaded Europe during the siege of Vienna in 1683 numbered 300,000?. This was an incredible army to muster in the late 17th c.
That blonde-haired and blue-eyed women were the most valued prize in the Arab slave markets, and Viking raids were elicited by this demand?.
That in 1785, the Mahometan Barbary pirates captured two American ships, the Dauphin and Maria, and enslaved and paraded the crew through the streets?.
That the Muslims knew about the New World since the 1500's and had "pious hopes that it would, in due course, be illuminated by Islam and added to the Ottoman realm"?

The book also has 8-pages of pictures, photos, and notes in the center as an added bonus.

I could go on and on with the fascinating history in this book. It is difficult to put down. Get this book and you will not be disappointed.

For those with libraries on Islam and its true history, Robert Spencer's latest very popular work and Paul Fregosi's oldie but goodie "Jihad in the West" are volumes that complement Mr. Ibrahim's latest book, which I would give 6 stars if I could.

134 people found this helpful

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Jcubed

Islam's jihad in 8 major historical battles

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2018

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It will make you sick what mankind has suffered due to Islam's jihad as decreed by Mohammad. This book documents jihad through 8 major battles from 632 AD through 1683 at the gates of Vienna. Killing, torture, raping, etc. are the result of Islam's following the Koran's command to kill or oppress the infidels.

Read it and open your eyes. Then read "The History of Jihad" by Robert Spencer to fill in the gaps.

83 people found this helpful

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Matt

Powerful read.

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2018

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Alarmingly apposite and engaging. Raymond Ibrahim hits the proverbial nail on the head with this strikingly important work. His writing style is palatable and ripe for mass consumption. I’d strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding Christian-Islamic relations throughout history.

Too many in the West remain perilously ignorant about true Islamic principles such as taqiyya, law of abrogation, etc. I’d recommend this book to anyone high school age older. If I could give it a six-star rating I would.

72 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Constans

Powerful and Necessary Warnings from a brilliant Raymond Ibrahim

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 26, 2018

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This seriously disturbing thesis on Islam's massive history of violence exhorts liberal and complacent Westerners to understand better what fundamentalist Islam has always been about. Premeditated and sin free sexual violence on a vast scale against non Muslim women has always followed Islamic expansion in the past, the most recent but thankfully short lived example being Isis. Even in peacetime predatory gangs of Muslim men have been all too evident in sexual assaults on hundreds of women and girls in Cologne, Rotherham and elsewhere. Christians, secularists, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Yazidis and Jews are all targets. With some areas of Western cities ever more resembling Islamic mini states where sharia law is promoted through increasing intimidation, further and larger conflict on the streets of our towns between the hitherto over tolerant West and committed Islamic fanatics looks unavoidable.

33 people found this helpful

Engineer

Reveals the true nature of Islam through a study of its history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 11, 2019

Verified Purchase

For those who think that Islamic terrorism has only been around for the last few decades, this well-researched book will show that violent Jihad has been a part of Islam from its very beginning 1400 years ago, and was the main method for the expansion of Islam throughout the ages. We can also see that present-day Jihad terrorism is driven by the very same ideas and theology. Indeed Muhammad, the so-called prophet of Islam boasted - “I have been made victorious with terror”, there is also a verse in the Quran which goes – “We will strike terror into the hearts of the unbelievers”. Scary stuff! But it is better to be informed than to remain ignorant.

16 people found this helpful

John

Should be mandatory reading for journalists and commentators

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 3, 2019

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Should be mandatory reading for journalists and commentators who are so woefully religiously illiterate, not to mention the majority's ignorance about basic facts of history.

17 people found this helpful

ManFriday

Covers with drama and urgency a wide spread of Islamic expansionist of history & in context

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 30, 2018

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A generally great book, with a good deal of context to some of the major battles in the past 1500 years and the reasons why the fires of jihad spread to the extent they did and were prevented from spreading further. It is mainly ME (Arab/Roman) and European focused, so I would have liked to see some more examples of how the jihad affected the rest of the world who came into contact with it. Also I find it tends to gloss over some areas of controversy, such as the argument that the Coptic population of Egypt were generally well disposed to the Arab invaders is much disputed by contemporary sources such as John of Nikou and the Chronica. For such an account, I would probably recommend the book "The Arab Conquest of Egypt and the Last Thirty Years of Roman Rule".

12 people found this helpful

irishpropheticart

Eye opener! Needs to be on all required reading courses for History/Poly Sci Majors!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 17, 2019

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What a pack of lies we have been fed for centuries about this history.This book uses all types of different source material(Pagan,Christian and Islamic) for the history told.Without a doubt this is the Opus Magnum of the History of the conflict between the Islamic world and the world(most covered here the Christian world) since the founding of Islam up through the wars before the Crusades,the Crusades,Spain and then the Battle of Vienna.I think as someone who has a History degree,this book should be required reading at all universities for History/Political Science/Foreign Affairs majors.

10 people found this helpful