Islam at War
By Beth Peltola
In the year 711, Islam invaded Southern Europe.
North African kingdoms, Christian and pagan, had fallen. Libraries, schools and Churches destroyed. Tribes who chose Christ over Islam, wiped out. Enslaved girls and women became victims of sexual trafficking, their men, husbands, fathers, brothers, died, or survived as slave-warriors. That was over 1300 hundred years ago. It was the beginning of Islam’s engagement with what became the ‘Western World’. It was also the beginning of Islam and the development of its theology - Evolving as it interacted with the religions of the peoples it conquered.
Few books outline the details of Islam’s early invasions as well as Dario Morera’s: The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise. I can’t emphasis enough, the importance of this book. In it we read of eyewitness accounts, both Muslim and Christian, of the speed and brutality of Islam’s spread through Arabia, into Africa, pushing into Spain and finally France.
For 400 years people on the ground tried to resist. They protected their families and kingdoms, sometimes they failed, sometimes they succeeded.
Internal divisions began early on in Islam. It was not just interested in conquering other nations, it warred within itself. As different tribal groups fought for supremacy, different forms of Islam developed. It was no monolithic religion, it never has been, but it has always had war and conquest at its heart.
Islamic tradition does not hide its lust for war, nor do eye-witness accounts of local families and tribes fighting back over 400 years until the final Reconquista. Those accounts come from Southern Europe, through Israel to the Middle East and Central Asia; to the beginning of the Crusades in the 12th century.
The dawn of the Ottomon Empire brought no relief. Nations became deeply Islamic, sexual slavery increased with depraved harems, filled with European and African women. People had been categorised according to colour and ethnicity, and labelled valuable or less, depending on skin colour; the Ottomans continued the practice. Boys were raped. Men disappeared off the coast of East Africa, the trans-Saharan slave trade expanded into the trans-Atlantic slave trade; furthering the atrocity of human-traficking into the West and Northern Europe.
We do not know how this new Taliban regime will be. A Taliban spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, speaking to BBC’s Yalda Hakim on 16th August, 2021, spoke of wanting a peaceful transfer with no revenge on its people. In his words, the Taliban “are the servants of the people and of this country.” Seeking to establish the 'Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ he believes there were mistakes in the past, especially of girls education and stoning of women. Admitting he is no Islamic scholar, he sees the later as incredibly difficult to support. Not being an Islamic scholar may hinder his ability to speak for the Taliban who are scholars of Islamic texts and the life of Muhammad. Shaheen’s beliefs may be welcomed by the West, and those wanting more freedom inside Afghanistan, but they may not be upheld if Islam’s texts are taken seriously.
For the sake of those inside Afhganistan we hope Shaheen has some clout, but Islam’s texts will need to be ignored, if girls, women and men who disagree with the Taliban are to live in safety.
