Al Haqeeqa
We had written an article (March 2012) in response to the allegation that the Qur’an promotes blood-letting, and pointed out that the history of the Western world is a history of violence, and stated the figure of 55 million killed by Inquisition during the Middle-ages. That article had been sent to an anti-Islamic site by a reader. They responded by saying that no such thing happened and that the Inquisition figures were in mere thousands.
We had also stated in that article that a million Muslims (and quite some Jews) were killed at the end of the 15th century in Spain. They were given two options: Christianity or sword. The Mexican Revolution of the early last century resulted in the death of 250,000 people. During the Belgium-Congo wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, 10 million people (mostly Congolese) were killed. During WW-I, a European war, 15 million Europeans lost their lives. During WW-II, 50 million people were slaughtered. The two atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused the death of 250,000 people. (Compare these figures with the fatalities of wars in the Indian sub-continent. Its population is ten times that of Europe. But the fatalities of wars during the same period have been ten times less. That speaks something about the nature of the Eastern and Middle-eastern peoples). We gave those figures, and a few others, for the Islam-haters to suspend their Qur’an-bashing for a moment and consider whether history would repeat itself.
Before we respond to the point raised, we might state that the allegation that the Qur’an promotes blood-letting, implying that it might be compared to the peaceful attitudes of the West, happens to be a joke. It is a cruel joke: cruel to the victims of West-instigated, present-day turmoil in the Islamic world (since the immediate reference of Qur’an-bashers is to the violence there), although a mere joke for the instigators themselves in that they can provoke it anytime they wish. Violence has been a mere joke for the Western nations in their history. If it has subsided in their region, it is because – apart from other reasons – they have learnt to export it. Look into any large-scale violence in the East, and Western complicity is behind the dust and smoke.
Consider Iraq. Iraqis, as they themselves say, hardly knew of differences between Shi`a and Sunni. Not that they lived like twins. There were differences; but at a low scale, such differences as exist between any two communities anywhere in the world (e.g., Brits and Scots), yet living together peacefully for generations after generations. Then entered the West in 2003. After causing the death of a million Iraqis, they fled, advising the Iraqis: “You are not one people. You are Shi`a, Sunni and Kurd. And you cannot live together. Look how cruel Saddam was to the Shi`a and the Kurd.”
But Saddam’s army was 90% Shi`a. And the Kurds were longtime battlers with not only Saddam’s Iraq, but with all countries where they are in minority: Syria, Turkey and Iran. All these countries have been historically opposed to the formation of a Kurdish state in areas chipped out of their territories. So, what was special about Saddam’s actions against the Kurds? Nothing.He was simply suppressing a revolt, and the three other countries never objected but did the same in their own regions. In fact, reports suggest that his army was not responsible for the Halubja massacre.
Further, although the Kurds have been working for a state of their own for decades, they have always lived in peace with the Arabs or Iranians. Their struggle was against the governments, not against ethnic groups.
Planting division by identifying the Iraqis as Shi`a, Sunni, and Kurd was, in keeping with the character of the West, an act of dishonesty too. Why? Because the Kurds are Sunni.
However, that’s not the end; and there won’t be an end. There was a good amount of in-depth study in the effort to create the division and set the Iraqis against each other. The West’s media often blared into global ears that the Shi`a are 60% of the population. That was, and is, a lie. The Shi`a could be 60% of the non-Kurd Sunni population, but since the Kurds are Sunni, the Shi`a are about 20-30% in comparison to the Arab and Kurd Sunnis in Iraq.
Having worked out the deceit carefully, the West, which had trained Iraqi dissidents for 20 years, planted them in Baghdad, placing the Shi`a in an advantageous position. Aren’t the Shi`a 60%, Bush, Blair, and the rest of the rotten-heads asked. Then they fled, leaving behind enough military bases to assure that if their planned division of Iraq didn’t work, they would always be there to launch an attack on the Iraqi civil population, for the sake of their safety from the violence of the Shi`a, Sunni and Kurd militants. Christopher Hill, Obama’s former ambassador to Iraq said recently,
“What goes through your mind is a trillion dollars in an effort to try and keep Iraq together and build a democracy and that’s not looking like a very good investment at this point.”
He was voicing the state policy. Although the decision to split ME countries into fractions, was taken 40 years ago, Senator Joseph Biden – a self-proclaimed Zionist – opened out only last month. He said,
“Iraq should be divided into three largely autonomous regions – Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shi’ite Arab – with a weaker central government in Baghdad.”
And, as these lines are written, the West, having caused the death of a million Iraqis, and displacement of several millions, has fallen in love with the Yezidi minority; and will supply arms to Kurds: in this situation, this is the best way to create trouble for Iraq, Syria, and Iran. And, what could be music to some ears, the peaceful Pope, not having spoken out a word about the on-going ruthless massacre of the Palestinians, has sanctioned use of force in Iraq to stop the IS from advancing.
“Cruelty, as we have seen, is the distinguishing characteristic of the Romish Inquisition.” (Rev. Thomas Timpson, The Inquisition Revealed, London, 1851).
When not bombing hapless people, causing further eruption of violence, the cool but poison-loaded allegation goes: “The Qur’an promotes blood-letting. See what’s happening in Iraq. See what’s happening in Afghanistan. See what’s happening in Pakistan,” et al.
To take up the Inquisition cover up, to say that the figure was in thousands, and not 55 million, and cite the population of Spain as 7 million as proof, is to be so cruel as to make the bones of the tortured and slaughtered wanting to stand upright in their graves.
For forefathers to have been slaughtered but their grandchildren refusing to acknowledge that any such thing happened is disgustingly treacherous. Do those, from whose loins you sprang up, not deserve even an honest acknowledgement?
Inquisition was not a five-year long spell. It lasted hundreds of years. First instituted by the Holy Pope Lucius III in 1184 and abolished in 1834, the length of cold-blooded murders by the holiest of the holy, requires little mathematics to determine.
The figures of the victims are now hotly contested by their progeny; and those who would deny that it ever happened, are bound to win out in the long run. Books on Inquisition are disappearing from libraries. Some researchers complain that the books that could be found in the libraries of the West a decade ago are no more there in the shelves, with the librarians clueless about what happened to them. (That has also been the fate of the The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History by Michael H. Hart).
Internet sites, on the other hand, require a mouse click for the hackers to destroy. So, in the long run, the treacherous would win out: there will be no trace of Inquisition, except in home libraries, which will go along with the rubble, when old homes are demolished.
David Plaisted has for one, conducted an in-depth study of the issue devoting some 70-80 pages to it, citing hundreds of historical records, but could not arrive at a figure that could carry some definiteness because, by the lowest estimates it works out to 50 million, while by the highest to 100 million. The following could be considered as some reliable detail for those who want a new Revelation from the heaven to convince them. It’s not the tip of the iceberg. It is a single byte of 1TB (1,100,000,000,000 bytes).
“In July of 1209 A.D. an army of orthodox Catholics attacked Beziers and murdered 60,000 men, women, and children. The whole city was sacked, and when someone complained that Catholics were being killed as well as ‘heretics’, the papal legates told them to go on killing and not to worry about it for ‘the Lord knows His own.’ At Minerve, 14,000 Christians were put to death in the flames; and ears, noses, and lips of the ‘heretics’ were clipped off.” (Peter S. Ruckman, Ph.D.; The History of the New Testament Church, Bible Believers Bookstore; Pensacola, Florida; USA, 1989).
The book is fairly recent and those who do not feel any obligation towards their predecessors might want to obtain a copy, before it disappears from the bookstores and libraries. It would prove useful when the task of denial of its data is attempted.
As for other data that we cited in our paper, which demonstrates the murderous nature of the Western civilization, and which is dismissed by the anti-Islamic site as unworthy of perusal, they are absolutely right. The issue is not worthy of perusal. The Western world is in no hurry to make amends to its historical character. Just the opposite is true. While the denial of any horrendous wrongs committed in the past is re-attempted by the internet site in question, they might ask themselves:
How come, when the Christian families in the West generally produced a dozen children apiece, right up until WWII, the total population of the West (half of the world including Australia and New Zealand), happens to be so low compared to the population of the East? Something must have gone wrong through and through the centuries of the past. Has it something to do with the Inquisition, and other murderous campaigns?
And, if they have a few lazy moments, like we in the Islamic world have hours, the West might also consider:
Is it true that “those who take up the sword will perish by the sword?” Did Jesus say that? And, isn’t it much worse than direct murder to divide the people and set them against each other’s throats? Is it true that what goes round comes round? Will the violence instigated, make a round and come back to the instigator? Is it true that like the Israeli police shooting down unarmed Palestinian teenagers, the police are now shooting down unarmed black teenagers in USA? Does being complicit in terror tactics on others, bring it back as a habit? Are there any such things as historical truths?
Is it true that, just like the history of the Western civilization, the pre-Islamic world’s history was also no more than the history of wars and violence? Is it true that the Qur’anic influence cut it down to a fraction? Is it possible that if the Western world turned Muslim, the Qur’an would play the same role?
Is it true that human tendencies of loot, murder, rape, homicide, drink, gamble and suicides, cannot be rooted out of human character? Is it true that Islam reduced it to a manageable minimum, which no other system has ever achieved, and will never?
