How the West Won--Part 2

This is a second blog dealing with Rodney Stark' s eye-opening book called How the West Won, which dispels lots of modern politically correct ideas about the last 1000 years.

Stark begins by looking at the accomplishments of the Greeks. Their superiority lay in warfare, democracy, economic progress, literacy, the arts, and technology. In addition, the ancient Greeks took the single most significant step toward the rise of Western science when they proposed that the universe is orderly and governed by underlying principles that the human mind could discern through observation and reason. He says these successes were based on many independent, competitive city-states. This progress stagnated as these city-states were submerged beneath new empires. This will be a constant theme of Stark's book – that independence and small government produces far more progress than large, heavily bureaucratic governments. That sounds familiar today with the terrible results of Obamacare, the IRS, Fast and Furious, and other failures of the Obama administration.

Stark then says the idea of progress, so important in the West, was inherent in Jewish conceptions of history and was central to Christian thought from very early days. Add to this the Christian belief in man's rational nature and also in God himself as the epitome of reason. Stark quotes the philosopher John Macmurray, who says," That we think of progress at all shows the extent of the influence of Christianity upon us." To show the uniqueness of the Western approach, Stark looks at life under Islam. Muslims believe strongly in the idea of decline and hold that the universe is inherently irrational – that there is no cause and effect – because everything happens as the direct result of Allah's will at that particular time. Anything is possible. Attempts at science, then, are not only foolish but also blasphemous, in that they imply limits to Allah's power and authority. Later on in the book, Stark will take on the idea that Muslims produced much science and learning. He shows this was only because of the culture sustained by the people the Muslims had conquered.

At the end of chapter 2, Stark points out that throughout the remainder of his book he will demonstrate how the Christian conception of God as the rational creator of a comprehensible universe, who therefore expects the humans will become increasingly sophisticated and informed, continually prodded the West  along the road to modernity.

How the West Won--intro

I just finished a great book dealing with the rise of the West. It's called How the West Won, by Rodney Stark, a noted historian who has impressed me in the past. This one is a keeper too.

He's dealing with what he calls "a flood of absurd, politically correct fabrications, all of them popular on college campuses." For example, he says students are being told that the Greeks copied their whole culture from black Egyptians, that European science originated in Islam, that Western affluence was stolen from non-Western societies.

Stark challenges traditional Western history. He says that the fall of Rome was the single most beneficial event in the rise of Western civilization. In addition, he says the " Dark Ages" never happened (it was actually an era of remarkable progress and innovation that included the invention of capitalism). Furthermore, Stark notes that the Crusaders did not march east in pursuit of land and loot. He claims there was no scientific revolution during the 17th century – these brilliant achievements were part of  long scientific progress that stretched back to the 12th century. He also argues that Europe did not grow rich by draining wealth from its worldwide colonies; in fact, the colonies drained well from Europe.

So, this book challenges a lot of assumptions and a lot of the so-called history that students are receiving these days in school. In the next few blogs I want to go through this book because it's important to know why Western civilization triumphed over other cultures – and why we all should be thankful it did.

A last look at the Crusades

In the past few blogs I've looked at Rodney Stark's book on the Crusades--God's Battalions. It's an important book becuase it tells a far different story than the one we hear from Muslims and critics of our Western world, who have twisted history in an attenmpt to make the West (and Christianity) look as bad as possible. This final blog on the topic is going to be a hodgepodge of various pieces of historical information.

For onething, Stark attacks the idea that Crusaders were interested only in taking more land and money for themselves. He notes that an earlier pope in 1063 A.D. had proposed a crusade to drive infidel Muslims out of Spain. That land, unlike the Holy Land, was extremely wealthy, full of fertile lands, and much closer for crusaders. But the pope interested very few in this request. But just thirty-some years later, tens of thousands of Crusaders set out for faraway Palestine. Why? Spain was not the Holy Land where Christ had walked.

Here's another myth that Stark attacks -- the Crusades were possible only because it was a time of hardship and economic distress. It was not true, he says. The Crusades were possible because it was a boom time of rapid economic growth, which explains why these attempts to re-take the Holy Land were relatively well-funded, not only by participants, but by sympathetic donors.

Another problem has been the way historians claim that Crusaders attacked Jews along the way to Constantinople. Most of the massacres were actually the work of German knights who were not part of the Crusades themselves. In fact, almost everywhere along the route bishops attempted, sometimes even at the peril of their own lives, to protect the Jews.

The next criticism of the Crusaders involves a massacre that took place after they succeeded in their attack on Jerusalem. This is a horror story that has been used many times to vilify the Crusaders. Stark, however, notes that dozens of Muslim massacres had already taken place, so this is not a case of bloodthirsty barbarians in contrast to more civilized and tolerant Muslims. He also notes that a common rule of war concerning siege warfare was that if the city did not surrender before forcing the attackers to take the city by storm, the inhabitants could expect to be massacred as an example to others in the future. So, Muslims could have surrendered the city before the fighting started; if so, they would have been given terms to prevent a massacre. He notes that it was a cruel and bloody age, but that nothing is gained by imposing some sort of modern convention on those times. He believes the sources may have greatly exaggerated the extent of the massacre since the same writers routinely reported armies of one million men. One historian noted that what happened was probably not much different than what happened to any place that resisted. Stark says there is very credible evidence that most of the Jews were spared during this time.

How did Muslims fare under the rule of the Christians in the Holy Land after the initial successes? Most were peasants who reportedly were quite content under Christian dominance. Why? For one thing, no land-hungry Christians were eager to confiscate their fields or animals. For another, Muslims discovered taxes were lower in their kingdom than in neighboring Muslim countries. Perhaps most importantly, the Christian rulers tolerated the Muslims religion and made no effort to convert them.

Stark says there is a tendency to put down the Crusaders as barbaric and bigoted warmongers and to praise the Muslims as great paragons of chivalry. He says the example that is put forth of this positive view of Muslims is the famous leader Saladin. It is true that he let the defenders of Jerusalem go without slaughtering them, but this was an exception to his usual butchery of his enemies. In most other instances he demonstrated unchivalrous behavior. Following one battle, for example, he personally participated in butchering some of the captured Christians and then sat back and enjoyed watching the execution of many others.

One final charge raised against the Crusaders has to do with their sacking of the city of Constantinople. This has been offered as proof that the Crusades were a shameful episode in the greedy history of the West. However, Stark notes that many are not aware that the city was sacked by Byzantines themselves more than once. He also says no one acknowledges the centuries of Byzantine brutalities against Latin Christians. He also says people need to realize how often there was Byzantine treachery that occurred during each of the first three crusades that cost tens of thousands of Crusaders their lives. For example, members of the fourth Crusade in 1204 A.D. were deceived by a Byzantine emperor who, after the Crusaders helped restore him to the throne, broke promises and launched fire ships against the Crusaders' fleet. Latin residents of Constantinople fled the city and took refuge in the Crusader camp, leaving the Crusaders without food or money, stranded on a foreign shore. That's when they attacked Constantinople.

Stark has a powerful conclusion to his book that is worth quoting here:

"The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The Crusaders were not barbarians who victimize the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God's battalions."

I hope these blogs have helped set the record straight. Were these Crusades a great example of Christian behavior? No, probably not. But they are certainly not as bad as critics and Muslims have maintained. We need to be careful not to jump to conclusions too quickly when confronted with broad attacks on Christianity. They are often motivated not by truth but by anti-religious sentiments.

The Crusades--pilgrimages and persecution

I'm continuing a summary of key parts of a new book by Rodney Stark, God's Battalions. In this book the author presents evidence to suggest our current understanding of the Crusades is incorrect. In fact, he claims much of what we have been taught about these historical events has been manipulated to make the West look bad and to make Islam look much better than it really was. The conclusion we should reach is simple--if history can be twisted, what things are we being told today that are not true? Considering we are in a lengthy war with radical Islam, it's important we consider what we really know about this issue. I would like to continue examining parts of God's Battalions in the hope that we would re-think what the "experts tell us about the past as well as the present.

The next section of Stark's book deals with pilgrimages and persecution: were the crusaders responding to atrocities by Islam in the Holy Land? His answer is yes. He gives a background of the history of pilgrimages to the Holy Land. In 638 A.D. Jerusalem surrendered to Muslim attackers. They immediately set up a ban which refused to allow any Jew to live in the city. Eventually this prohibition was dropped, but Christians and Jews had to accept a subordinate role in the society, known as "dhimmi." They lived with contempt and occasional persecution. Mass murders of Christian monks and pilgrims were common, and Stark gives a lengthy list of specific times when these atrocities happened. Despite such horrors, the number of pilgrims who wished to visit the Holy Land increased over the years.

In the 10th century a new Muslim dynasty was established in Egypt and seized control of the Holy Land. One of the following rulers of this dynasty ordered the burning or confiscation of all Christian churches in the area. He also ordered the stripping and complete destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Word of this outrage sent an enormous wave of anger all across Europe. A later ruler of this dynasty permitted reconstruction of the church although Muslim attacks on Christian pilgrims had become more frequent and bloody. Here again Stark supplies a list of specific attacks.

In the 11th century things changed; unfortunately for Christians, they didn't change for the better. Seljuk Turks began to move west, seized Persia, and set themselves up in Baghdad. Eventually they took over what today is modern Turkey. They were orthodox Sunni Muslims, but the Muslims in Cairo who were in control of the Holy Land were Shi'ites. So the Turks invaded Palestine to punish what they considered as Islamic heretics. These Turkish rulers persecuted pilgrims viciously. This set the scene for the start of the Crusades.

God's Battalions--Western Ignorance and Muslim Enlightenment?

Much of the next section of Rodney Stark’s book God’s Battalions, which deals with the Crusades, looks at Christianity's attempts to stop the onslaught of the Muslims over a thousand years ago. Due to victories at Constantinople, Spain, Sicily, and southern Italy, Islam was beaten back from Europe. I won't spend time on the history that he recounts other than to say it's fascinating. The main purpose for my series of blogs about this book is to highlight the politically correct thinking that has attached itself to the Crusades and to show the true story behind them. For example, Stark has one chapter called "Western Ignorance Versus Eastern Culture."

The author says current thinking claims that while Europe slumbered through the “Dark Ages,” science and learning flourished in Islam. Stark says this story is "at best an illusion."

The key point for this chapter is that whatever sophisticated culture the Arabs picked up, they learned from their subject peoples. So, the sophisticated culture so often attributed to Muslims was actually the culture of the conquered people -- the Judeo-Christian-Greek culture of Byzantium, the remarkable learning of several Christian groups, extensive knowledge in Persia, and mathematical achievements of the Hindus, where Muslim armies had invaded.

He gives many examples of this. In one case, Muslims used ships designed, built, and sailed by conquered peoples within Arab territories. What about highly acclaimed Arab architecture? It too came from captive peoples, this time in Persia and Byzantium. Then there is the supposed contributions of the Arabs to science and engineering. Very little of this can be traced to Arab origins. Their best scholars were Persians, Syrians, Christians, and Jews. People have been misled because these early contributors to science and philosophy were given Arabic names and their works were published in Arabic. In another case, people may think of Arabic numbers, but they were entirely of Hindu origin and brought into the Arabic world due to Muslim attacks into Hindu lands. Then there are those who have credited Arabs with sophisticated medicine. Not so. Their medicine was in fact of Christian origin.

It is true that Arabs possessed much classical writing from the ancients. But this actually had a negative impact on their society. Muslim intellectuals read the ancients and decided these early Greeks must be read without question or contradiction. Greek ideas, such as those of Aristotle, were seen as complete and infallible. In contrast, knowledge of Aristotle's work prompted experimentation and discovery among Christian scholars in the West.

Stark then shows Muslim disregard for education by how they treated libraries. Early Muslims record the fact that it was Arabs who burned the huge library at Alexandria. Saladin, the famous 12-century Muslim hero, closed the official library in Cairo and discarded the books.

After dispelling the idea that the Muslims had a sophisticated culture, Stark turns his attention to those who suggest the West was terribly ignorant during this same time. He says the claim that Muslims possessed the more advance culture rests on an illusion about the cultural backwardness of Christendom in the so-called "Dark Ages." Those who discredited Western learning had a special agenda: they wished to indict Christianity as a backward way of thinking.

The heart of his message here is that these so-called “Dark Ages” were actually a great era of innovation with technology being developed and put into use on a scale not previously known. In fact, it is during these times that Europe began its great technological leap forward to put it way ahead of the rest of the world.

Stark spends the rest of the chapter talking about various innovations that Europeans came up with during this time. For example, they were the first to develop a collar and harness that would allow horses rather than oxen to pull heavy wagons. Their wagons had front axles that swiveled as well as adequate brakes. In addition, food production per capita rose dramatically in this time. Better plows were developed, a three-field system of agriculture was established -- all leading to bigger, healthier, and more energetic people than elsewhere on the globe. Other areas of improvement included armor, crossbows, and ships.

So, it appears that the traditional picture of Western and Muslim advances is far from the truth. Keep that in mind the next time you hear of the enlightened Arab culture of long ago.

Background to the Crusades

This is a second blog covering a fascinating book called God's Battalions, in which the author, Rodney Stark, dismantles incorrect assumptions about the Crusades. In his opening chapter, Stark shows that the history of the Crusades really began in the seventh century when armies of Arabs, newly converted to Islam, seized huge areas that had been Christian.

It all started with Mohammed. In his farewell address he told his followers, "I was ordered to fight all men until they say 'there is no God but Allah.'" Stark says this is consistent with the Koran (9:5): "slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them [captive], and beseige them, and prepare for them each ambush." With this as their marching orders, Arabs set out to conquer the world. So much for the "peaceful" religion of Islam.

The conquests started even before the death of Mohammed. His forces went into Syria and Persia, but much more was to follow. The Arabs attacked their neighbors at this particular time because they finally had the power to do so. The most important reason for expansion was to spread Islam.

Other conquests followed. After taking over Persia, Muslim forces went north to subdue Armenia and also moved east, eventually occupying the area of modern Pakistan. In addition they swept over the Holy Land, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, Sicily, and southern Italy. Their use of camels made the Arabs the equivalent of a mechanized force so that they could travel quickly. On the battlefield they used this mobility to attack an inferior enemy force and destroy it before reinforcements could arrive.

What was life like for the conquered peoples? Stark says much nonsense has been written about Muslim tolerance. This claim probably began with Voltaire, Gibbon, and other 18th-century writers who used it to make Christians look bad. It is true, he states, that the Koran forbids forced conversions. But this didn't mean much in the real world considering that many subject peoples were "free to choose" conversion as an alternative to death or enslavement since that was the usual choice presented to pagans as well as often times to Jews and Christians. In theory, Jews and Christians were supposed to be tolerated and allowed to follow their faiths. But repressive conditions abounded -- death was (and still remains to this day) the faith of anyone who converted to either Judaism or Christianity. In addition, no new church or synagogue could be built. Add to that the fact that Jews and Christians also were prohibited from praying or reading their scriptures aloud even in their homes, churches or synagogues. Then add one more thing. Jews and Christians who refused to convert to Islam (known as dhimmis) were, according to official policy, made to feel inferior and to know their place. This played out in the kind of animals they were allowed to ride, marks they were forced to carry on their clothing, a prohibition from being armed, and an incredibly severe tax rate compared with Muslims.

But it gets worse than that. For example, in 705 the Muslim conquerors of Armenia assembled all the Christian nobles in the church and burned them to death. There were indiscriminate slaughters of Christians as Arabs moved into other lands. Mohammed himself let Arabs know how to treat Jews when he had all the local adult Jewish males in Medina (approximately 700) beheaded after forcing them to dig their own graves. As time went on, massacres of both Christians and Jews became increasingly common. Stark mentions Morocco as one example where more than 6000 Jews were killed in the years 1032-1033. So, efforts to portray Muslims as enlightened supporters of multiculturalism are, in Stark's words, "at best ignorant."

Did the conquered peoples turned to Islam when they found out how wonderful the new religion was? No, answers Stark. It was a very long time before the conquered areas were truly Muslim in anything but name. For a long time very small Muslim elites ruled over non-Muslim populations. He points out this runs contrary to the widespread belief that Muslim conquests were quickly followed by mass conversions to Islam. Despite terrible conditions of second-class citizenship, conquered peoples only slowly converted to Islam.

Here's a key point to remember -- most of what has been regarded as Muslim culture and said to have been superior to that of Christian Europe was actually "the persistence of pre-conquest Judeo-Christian-Greek culture that Muslim elites only slowly assimilated, and very imperfectly." This will be discussed in more depth in a future blog.

Muslim invaders were bitterly resented in Europe as they took over many lands and actually invaded Europe itself. Most Christians believed during this time that war against the Muslims was justified partly because the Arabs had usurped lands by force where once Christians had lived and had abused the Christians over whom they ruled. There was a feeling it was time to strike back.

A new look at the Crusades

Rodney Stark, a professor at Baylor University, has written 30 books on religion, including The Rise of Christianity, For the Glory of God, Discovering God, and The Victory of Reason. Last year his book God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades was published. Of course, in a period of political correctness regarding the history of Islam, his book created quite a controversy. I read it recently and would like to report on some of his major points. A disclaimer at the beginning--I really like Stark for his clarity and willingness to challenge a leftist academic view of history and religion.

For one thing, the title may be a bit misleading. Yes, he does discuss a defense for the Crusades in an attempt to set the record straight. We hear so much today about the evil West, so Stark wanted to establish a better understanding of what really happened during the Crusades. But there is more to the book than simply a defense for this action of Christendom; he spends a great deal of time discussing the historical and cultural background to this pivotal series of events. I'm not complaining that he spent the time doing this. I just want the reader to understand that the book is more complex than simply a defense of Christian activities then.

The author starts by explaining what has gone on in recent times regarding the Crusades. He notes that shortly after the destruction of the World Trade Center by Muslim terrorists, many people blamed the Crusades as the basis for Islamic fury. The Crusades were explained as the first extremely bloody chapter in a long history of brutal European colonialism. He says people have charged that the crusaders marched east not because of idealism, but to pursue land and treasure. The image is one of power-mad popes seeking to expand Christianity through conversion of Muslim masses and knights of Europe as barbarians brutalizing everyone in their path, leaving an enlightened Muslim culture in ruins. He quotes the chair of Islamic studies at American University in Washington, D. C. as suggesting, "the Crusades created a historical memory which is with us today -- the memory of a long European onslaught." Keep in mind this is a person teaching at a university in our nation's capital. You probably won't be surprised to find out he is giving students an incorrect view of history.

This is where it gets good. Stark challenges these anti-Western beliefs about the Crusades. Here is the heart of his book. He wrote God's Battalions to show the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations -- centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West and by sudden new attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places. The pope had no hope or plan of converting Muslims. The Crusades were not organized and led by surplus sons, but by the heads of great families fully aware that they would be spending far more money crusading than any modest material rewards they might gain. In addition, the Crusader kingdoms established in the Holy Land were not colonies sustained by local taxation. In fact, they required immense subsidies from Europe.

He also says a couple of other things that are not very popular today. Stark claims it is utterly unreasonable to impose modern notions about proper military conduct on medieval warfare, which clashes today with the pacifism that is so widespread among academics. In addition, he says that it is nonsense to believe that Muslims have been harboring bitter resentments about the Crusades for over one thousand years. Instead, Muslim antagonism about the Crusades did not appear until about 1900, in reaction to the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the start of actual European colonialism in the Middle East. Anti-Crusader feelings did not become intense until after the state of Israel was founded in 1948.

So, this is the book that I would like to summarize for you in the next few blogs. Rodney Stark has done us a big favor by showing that talking heads on TV shows and academics in ivy-towered universities don't necessarily tell us the true story. We need to be far more critical when we hear academics throw around negative statements about our country's history, its leaders, or Christianity.