Edward Said Falsifies History -- But You're Not Surprised, are you?

Lying seems to have come naturally and comfortably to the late Professor Edward Said, a prof of comparative lit at Columbia University, who was somehow able, with the help of the organized American communications media, to change how Americans, especially would-be intellectuals saw Islam and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Here is one of his gems:

p56 ". . . . both [Zionism & Judaism] speak of Palestine as the land of Israel. . . . Zionism sees itself as redeeming the land whose natives [Said means the Arabs] have called it 'Palestine' for over a millenium." [emphasis added, see: Edward Said, Peace and Its Discontents (New York: Vintage Books 1995), p 56]

Said was a professor so he could get away with a Big Lie as long as he delivered it in a very Authoritative manner, allowing no contradiction or nuance. In fact, Jews have traditionally called the Land the Land of Israel. This usage appears in the Christian New Testament [Book of Matthew, chap. 2, vv. 20-22]. So Christians have been aware of the name Land of Israel since the New Testament circulated among them in the first centuries of the Common Era. Indeed, Said was right about what Jews called the Land, and this usage was maintained by Zionists. However, Jews were not the only ones to be aware of it. Christians who read the New Testament were too. The New Testament also calls the country Judea, which was the usual Greek and Roman/Latin name for the whole country up to the Bar Kokhba Revolt [approx 131-135 BCE]. So Said is not lying as to the name that Jews and Zionists used for the country -- Land of Israel. Watch out for the usage in the New Testament. In some places in the NT Judea refers to the whole country. This is the broad Greco-Latin usage. However, in some passages in the NT, the term "Judea and Samaria" is used. In these passages, Judea refers only to the south of the country, including Jerusalem. That is, the former kingdom of Judah. This is the narrow Jewish usage of the term Judea [and Judah], whereas  Greek and Latin writers used the broader meaning of the name.

His lie has to do with what the Arabs and Muslims in the country and beyond generally called it.  After the Crusades, the Mamluk and Ottoman Empires saw the country as an undefined, indistinct part of bilad ash-Sham [variously translated as Levant, Syria, Greater Syria]. The Muslim Arab majority did not call the land Palestine.

Few except for the rare scholars among them [and illiteracy was very high] even knew that once, before the Crusades, the Arab and Muslim rulers had used the term Filastin for the southern part --roughly speaking-- of the country, of the Land of Israel. Filastin did not mean the whole country but only what today we call southern Samaria, Judah [not Judea but Judah, the territory of the southern Israelite kingdom], and the southern and middle coastal plain and coast. The Arabs took the term Filastin from the Roman district of Palaestina Prima which had roughly speaking the same borders. Palaestina Secunda, northern Samaria, the Galilee and Golan as well as territory east of the Jordan River was called Urdunn by the early Arab conquerors.

Judea was in fact in Roman usage the name for --roughly speaking-- what the Jews called the Land of Israel. See an authentic Roman document, a metal military discharge certificate [called a diploma] which attests to a veteran of the Roman legions having served in Judea [IVDAEA in Latin]

Another of Said's lies was calling the Arabs in the country the "natives." The Jews were the indigenous population of the Land, inhabiting it long before the Arab invasion of the 7th century. The Jews were reduced by the Crusader massacres to a small fraction of the population but Jews have always lived in the country since ancient times, for more than 3000 years. So out of three assertions that Said makes in this short excerpt, two are false.

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Historical sketch of the land  and its name [here]

Jewish exile from Jerusalem [here]

The usage of the name Judea or PROVINCIA IVDAEA by Rome [here]

My assertion that the Arabs generally did not call what is today Israel by the name "Palestine"  or "Filastin" is acknowledged by one of Said's professorial Arab friends, none other than Rashid al-Khalidi, who just so happens to be a good buddy of one Barack Hussein Obama, the previous president of the United States. Khalidi acknowledged this, for instance, in an article in the journal International Journal of Middle East Studies in the year 1988 or about then. I do not now have the exact citation but you can check the journal for the years 1988, 1987, and 1989.

Outrageous UNESCO Vote against History -- Craven European Response

The European and Arab countries that denied Jewish history in Israel demonstrated hostility to history in the notorious UNESCO vote that presented Jerusalem as an Arab-Muslim city.  In this case, we are dealing with facts continuously known in both the Arab-Muslim and Western historical traditions. Those who deny the Jewish identity of the city of Jerusalem are inventing a fake history apparently required for political/diplomatic purposes. But a lie. Now Western countries like France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Spain have long traditions of historical scholarship, which includes knowledge about the Land of Israel with which these countries have been in contact since the time when all of these countries plus the Land of Israel itself were part of the Roman Empire.

Since the study of the Latin language has long been part of higher education in those lands and they take pride in their scholars --who exemplify and demonstrate their higher civilization-- there is no excuse for the governments and foreign ministries of these lands not to know the real history as related in Latin [and Greek] ancient books. Even an abstention from voting against the lying resolution proposed in UNESCO bodies by Arab states on Jerusalem is shameful. Yes, it is shameful to let a historical lie go unopposed. To be sure, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy regretted his foreign ministry's vote which he may have been unaware of.

I do not mean that only ancient Latin or Greek writings are authoritative on the history of ancient Israel. Far from it. Jewish works in Hebrew and  Aramaic are important too (as well as writings by Jews in Latin and Greek). But let us approach it this way. The bigot, the Judeophobic ignoramus, including the academic variety, will say that he cannot accept Jewish accounts of Jewish history because Jewish historians are "biased". Parenthetically, the rejection of Jewish historians represents bias too. In this case, challenge this bigot or ignoramus --whichever label you like-- to accept accounts by non-Jews in Latin, Greek and other languages. The Roman historian Tacitus supplied an account of the Roman-Jewish war from 66 CE to 73 CE in his Histories. The Romans took Jerusalem in the summer of the year 70 CE and destroyed the Jewish Temple at the same time. The Roman general Titus Caesar won the war, however, not only with Roman legions but with auxiliary forces including a "strong contingent of Arabs" [various translations vary. See Tacitus' Histories V:1:2 ]. I quoted the Latin original and various translations years ago on this blog. Now I will quote what he wrote farther on in his book which is highly explicit in refuting the UNESCO lies:

V:8:1 --  The greater part of Judea [note that Tacitus calls the country Judea] is divided up into villages. They also have cities. The capital of that people is Jerusalem.

So Tacitus and Romans generally recognized Jerusalem as the Jewish capital. Rivka Fishman wrote a scholarly article about this recognition in Greek and Latin literature for the Jewish Political Studies Review. The key phrase that is important here is, "The capital of that people is Jerusalem." See the Latin original just below.

Now here is the Latin original of  the quote from Tacitus above:
V:8:1 -- Magna pars Iudaeae uicis dispergitur; habent et oppida; Hierosolyma genti caput.
[for full original of V:8:I see here]

The key word in that key phrase is "genti" which can be "of the people" or "of the nation." It is a declined form of the word gens meaning people or nation. Since Tacitus calls the country Judea and since the whole text, the whole context, furthermore, is about the Jewish revolt in Judea, we see that the "people" or gens (genti) in the phrase means the Jewish people or nation.

Full disclosure: While I write these lines I am translating from an Italian translation since I do not have an English translation available. The study of Latin is still important in Italy and the Italian translations from ancient Latin texts are fully as reliable as the English and American  translations of those works. Here is my source for the Latin and Italian texts: Tacito, Le Storie a cura di Francesco Nenci. Here is his Italian translation:

V:8:1 -- Gran parte della Giudea e' suddivisa in villaggi; hanno anche citta'; la capitale di quel popolo e' Gerusalemme. [for full original of V:8:I see here]

One of the reasons that this line from Tacitus is not more widely known in the English-speaking world may be that some translators into English of Tacitus' Histories have chosen not to translate the Latin word genti into English, for whatever reason.

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UPDATINGS/ADDITIONS AS OF 31 October 2016

Here is one of many good commentaries on the UNESCO disgrace -- [here]
Here is  a commentary by Herbert London -- here.
Rivka Fishman on the relevant line:
"Tacitus, Historiae V, 8:1, in Menahem Stern, Greek  and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Vol. II, No. 281,1980), 21,28. The Latin reads: “Hierosolyma genti caput.” The term “gens” refers to the people of Judea, the Jews, mentioned in the first part of the sentence." [here]
Tablet online mag [here] on Arab accusation that Israel is trying to destroy the al-Aqsa  Mosque, built on the Temple Mount and effectively usurping it.
The Boston Globe ran a good editorial on the issue of the shameful UNESCO vote [here]

More than 900,000 Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands

Given the general state of ignorance of history worldwide, it is no surprise that most people, even many Jews, are not aware of the  Jewish refugees from Arab lands. Of those who know something of this forgotten history, few know that these Jewish refugees outnumbered the Arab refugees who fled the Arab-initiated war on the not yet born Jewish State of Israel which started on 30 November 1947. Last year, Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed a law that every 30 November is to  be a day to commemorate the Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran. Arab attacks on Jews on Arab lands accelerated after that date, which was the date, by Middle Eastern time, that the UN General Assembly  recommended partitioning the Land of Israel ["palestine" in Western parlance] between a Jewish state, an Arab state, and and international enclave in and around Jerusalem [corpus separatum]. After more than 1000 years of oppression, inequality, humiliation and recurrent persecution and pogroms in Arab/Muslim lands in the inferior status of dhimmis, the Arab states wanted to get rid of the local Jews, since they could not tolerate Jews sharing an equal status with Muslims.

Ashley Perry and Lyn Julius have written separately on this day of commemoration, a day to remember what has been too long forgotten and relegated to the periphery of discussion of Arab-Israeli issues, of Arab-Israeli diplomacy.

Here is Lyn Julius:
The date chosen was 30 November - to recall the day after the UN passed the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine. Violence, following bloodcurdling threats by Arab leaders, erupted against Jewish communities. The riots resulted in the mass exodus of Jews from the Arab world, the seizure of their property and assets and the destruction of their millennarian, pre-Islamic communities. In 1979, the Islamic revolution resulted in the exodus of four-fifths of the Iranian-Jewish community.

Refugees are much in the news these days. Until the mass population displacement caused by wars in Iraq and Syria, however, the world thought that 'Middle Eastern refugee' was synonymous with 'Palestinian refugee.' Yet there were more Jews displaced from Arab countries than Palestinians (850, 000, as against 711,000 according to UN figures.)

The majority of Jewish refugees found a haven in Israel. For peace, it is important that all bona fide refugees be treated equally, yet Jewish refugee rights have never adequately been addressed. The 30 November commemoration is first and foremost a call for truth and reconciliation.

The Jewish refugee issue is more than simply a question to be resolved at the negotiating table. It is a symptom of the Arab and Muslim world's deep psychosis - an inability to tolerate the non-Arab, non-Muslim Other.

Today, both Muslim sects and non-Muslim minorities are being persecuted in the Middle East, but people are apt to forget that the Jews were one of the first. As the saying goes, 'First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.' And it does not stop there. A state that devours its minorities ends up devouring itself.
This Arab/Muslim psychosis is the product of fundamentalist ideologies, many of them Nazi-inspired, which took root in the first half of 20th century. These ideological forces left a legacy of state-sanctionedbigotry and religiously-motivated terrorism. That legacy is with us today, in the atrocities in Paris, in Mali and in the stabbings on Israel's streets.

. . . .

The Israeli government is telling the Jewish refugee story at the UN on 1 December. From Amsterdam to Sydney, Toronto to Geneva, Liverpool to New York, San Francisco to London, Jewish organisations worldwide - my own (Harif) included - are organising lectures, film screening and discussions.

Read article in full 
Same article in The Algemeiner 
It's time to remember the other refugees on 30 November (Jewish Weekly)

here is Ashley Perry:

Making 2016 the Year of the Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries
. . . . . .
One of the issues I was able and proud to raise during my time in Government was the issue of the ethnic cleansing of almost a million Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, many of these communities massively predating Islam and the Arab conquest of the region in the Seventh Century, and the appropriation of their assetsestimated in today’s prices to be many billions of dollars.
. . . . . . . .

Growing up in a thriving Jewish community, attending a Jewish school and being involved in the Jewish community and Zionist organizations, I am amazed now, thinking back, how little was taught about the long and illustrious history of the Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa and their subsequent expulsion.

How many are taught about the Jewish communities of Algeria, Egypt, Syria and Yemen, to name but a few of many nations now completely without a Jewish presence?

We often raised this issue on the international stage and at the Foreign Ministry under the leadership of then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, and even initiated a now annual event at the United Nations solely devoted to the issue of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries with our partners in the World Jewish Congress and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

However, the more we pressed the issue, which by international and Israeli law must be part of any resolution to our conflict, the more I understood that Jews in Israel and abroad are not even aware of it.

. . . . now more than ever, it is vitally important that the issue of the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa is studied and discussed in Jewish schools and educational and communal institutions across the Diaspora.
. . . . . .
In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly recommended that 2014 [be] a year of solidarity with the Palestinian people and called on people around the world to recognize their “inalienable rights”. Perhaps 2016 should become the Jewish year of solidarity with the Jewish refugees from Arab countries and there should be greater recognition, understanding and education of the inalienable rights of these people to rights and redress.

 We should not allow the suffocation and extinction of these historic communities to be erased from the pages of history. We should share their stories, and keep their memory alive, especially their destruction which was largely ignored around the world.

Let’s make 2016 the year where this changes.
[See full article here]
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Report on the upcoming commemoration on the News1 web site [in Hebrew]:
נתניהו: להרחיב לימודי יהודי המזרח
תישקל הצעת השרה גמליאל לתת פרס 
 ראש הממשלה לחוקרים ובאקדמיה על 
מחקרים בתחום מורשת היהודים יוצאי 

ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו הורה להרחיב את לימודי מורשת היהודים יוצאי ערב ואירן במערכת החינוך וכן לשקול את הצעת השרה לשוויון חברתי גילה גמליאל לקיומו של פרס שיינתן מטעמו של ראש הממשלה לחוקרים ובאקדמיה על מחקרים בתחום מורשת היהודים יוצאי ארצות ערב ואירן.  השרה גמליאל סקרה לפני הממשלה את נושא היציאה והגירוש של יהודים מארצות ערב ומאירן וזאת לרגל ציון יום מיוחד לנושא זה שיחול ב-30.11.15.  במסגרת סקירתה, מסרה גמליאל נתונים על מספר היהודים שעזבו את ארצות מוצאם והבהירה כי כשני שלישים מהם הגיעו למדינת ישראל והשתקעו בה.  היא הציגה גם את החלטות האו"ם בעניין פליטים והחלטות הכנסת באמצעות חקיקה לגבי השמירה על זכויות היהודים לפיצוי על רכושם. כן ציינה השרה את הפעולות הנעשות בארץ ובעולם לציון מורשתם של היהודים יוצאי ארצות ערב ואירן לרבות פעולות שצריך להמשיך ולנקוט בהן בעיקר במערכת החינוך ובאקדמיה.

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More Articles on This Subject
Jewish refugees from the Farhud in Baghdad [here]
A commemoration in Australia [here]
Dr Edy Cohen on Ynet news [here]
Elderly Jewish refugees remember their experiences [here]
Report on the commemoration in Jerusalem [here]
Review by Elliott A Green of a book on this subject compiled by Malka Hillel Shulevitz [here]
Excerpt from the aforementioned book, by Bat Yeor [here]
"Forgotten Oppression of Jews under Islam" by Elliott A Green [here]
Report on the commemoration event at the UN in New York [here]

Do the West & the Arabs Have the Right to Set Up a State to Be Called "palestine"?

The people of Israel, later called Jews, have lived in and been connected to the Land of Israel for about 3450 years since the going out from Egypt. From the time of Alexander of Macedon [died 323 CE] till Roman Emperor Hadrian, Greeks and Romans called the country Judea, that is, the Jewish land, the land of the Jews. The name is also spelled Judaea and IVDAEA in Latin. The name is confirmed in the Greek and Latin writings of that long period. It was not a land inhabited by Arabs, although there were some there and in the vicinity, no doubt. It was Hadrian who changed the country's name to Syria Palaestina [in 135 CE]. This was an act of hostility to the Jews who had rebelled against the Empire three times. Changing the name was meant as a punishment for the Jews and a way of obliterating the Jewish identity of their country. The Jews also suffered in that many were sold as slaves and otherwise driven off their lands, although Jews remained the predominant population in the country. Today, in a way not far different from Hadrian's, world empires use the name "palestine" in order to deny the Jews rights in their own homeland. The empires and much or most of the West, as well as the Arab and Muslim world, demand that Israel, the national state of the Jews, allow establishment of an Arab state to be called "palestine" in the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland. They follow in the footsteps of Emperor Hadrian.

Yet there never was a "palestinian people" in all history. Such a people is a modern invention of psychological/cognitive warfare, probably by British psywar experts. The notion that Israel was fighting not Arabs but a "palestinian people" came to world attention in 1964 with foundation of the Palestine Liberation Organization. At that time, the PLO declared to the king of Jordan, Hussein, that the land that they wanted for a state was NOT any land under his rule, not the "West Bank" of Jordan, but the part of the ancient Land of Israel under Jewish control, that is, the State of Israel within its 1949 armistice lines, since Israel had no land borders at that time. But if we examine this newly minted people, "the palestinians," we may ask how they differ in essential ways from the Arabs east of the Jordan? Or from the Arabs in Syria? Do they speak a different language? The PLO's declaration of a state of Palestine in November 1988 in Algiers expressed loyalty to the general Arab culture and cultural legacy. Indeed, the PLO has long been a member of the Arab League, another Arab state waiting to take power, as it were.

Today, now that Israel won in 1967 --in the face of Arab genocidal threats-- the lands of Judea-Samaria, formerly under Jordanian rule, and now that the PLO collaborates diplomatically with major world powers supposedly with the aim of setting up an Arab state in Judea-Samaria to be called "palestine," the Powers, the UN, the EU, and just about everybody overlook the basic refusal of the PLO/PA to make peace with Israel in any boundaries. Abu Mazen published an op ed [ghost written] in the NYTimes the other day in which he said that if the UN would recognize a PLO/PA state, the PLO/PA would use this status to prosecute Israel, to delegitimize Israel in world legal forums, such as the World Court at the Hague, the Int'l Criminal Court, the misnamed UN "Human Rights Council," etc. So no peace can come out of concessions made to the PLO/PA or out of negotiations with the PLO/PA. Actually, Abu Mazen has refused to negotiate with Israel for more than 2 1/2 years, since September 2008 when olmert was still prime minister. Further, the PLO/PA has made a pact with the Hamas for a joint govt of the territories already ceded by Israel to the racist, anti-Jewish PLO/PA. And the Hamas is brutally frank in its aim of genocide against the Jews. This aim appears in Article 7 of the Hamas charter. Obviously, Israel should not negotiate with a Nazi-like body such as Hamas. Hitler, to be sure, was never as frank in his genocidal purposes as the Hamas now is. But Obama may demand in today's speech that Israel negotiate with the Hamas Nazis nevertheless. He is part of the problem today.

Now let us return to the Jews' ties to the Land of Israel. Jews were a substantial part of Israel's population until the Crusader conquest. Between the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and 1112 or 1113, a dozen years later, the Crusaders massacred the bulk of the Jews in the country [according to historian Moshe Gil & others]. The Jews were ground down between two millstones, Islam and militant Christendom. Even after the Crusader massacres had subsided, the Jews were still a noticeable part of the population. After the Crusades, of course, the Jews returned to their pre-Crusades status of subjects of the Islamic state, dhimmis. And the Mamluk Empire, succeeding the Crusaders probably treated the worse Jews than they had been treated before, if that were possible. The flow of Jews to the Diaspora continued. Those who want to deny that Jews in the Dispersion were of Judaic descent, should bear in mind that the pagan Roman Empire had begun to forbid conversion of non-Jews to Judaism and this prohibition was made more severe under the subsequent Christianized empire. The prohibition served to preserve the original Jewish stock over the centuries. The genetic ties between Jews in the Diaspora from Minsk to Marrakesh and from Berlin to Baghdad have been confirmed by modern DNA studies, which even show a genetic affinity to some of the Arabs and other Mediterranean peoples, albeit there is not much affinity in cultural or moral terms between Jews and Arabs.

In recognition of --among other things-- the preservation of Jewish ethnicity since Roman times, the international community at the San Remo Conference [1920] and in the League of Nations [1922] recognized the Land of Israel --which they unfortunately called "palestine"-- as the Jewish National Home. Britain accepted the League's mandate to foster development of the National Home, including fostering "close settlement" of Jews on the land [Article 6 of the Mandate]. Needless to say, Britain betrayed its commitment to the Mandate, and in fact prevented Jews from finding refuge in the Jewish National Home when the Jews most needed a home, that is, during the Holocaust. Today, the National Home as a legal entity binding on the international community is largely forgotten, certainly at the UN, and by Britain in particular. This teaches us that Jews cannot trust Britain or the international community in general. Unfortunately, the United States is now following the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel path earlier trod by the United Kingdom. The Powers cannot be considered morally competent to judge Israel or to determine its future. The Jews cannot rely on the promises of the Powers.

Obama's speech can only be awaited with suspicion at best.

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Jackson Diehl explains why suspicion is justified [here]

The Arab Invaders Practiced Population Transfer

Tripoli in Lebanon has been in the news lately as the nearest city to the battles going on at the Nahr al-Barad refugee settlement between the Lebanese army and jihadist fanatics, calling themselves Fatah al-Islam [Islamic Conquest]. When the Arab-Muslims originally captured Tripoli --which they now call Trablus-- around the year 640 CE, its previous population abandoned it or may have been forced to leave by the commander of the conquering army, Mu`awiya. Some may have fled before the actual conquest, apparently fearing the terror meted out to other cities that had been captured by or had surrendered to the Arab conquerors. This previous population was predominantly Greek Orthodox in religion, probably spoke both Greek and Aramaic [Greek for the upper classes and Aramaic for the poorer, most probably bilingual to some extent], and were loyal to the Byzantine Empire. Since this empire actually called itself Roman and was a continuation of the Roman Empire in the East, the Arabs called these people Rumis, that is, Romans.

Milka Levy-Rubin points out that the people of Tripoli fled or abandoned or were driven out of the city and went to territory that was securely Byzantine at that time. Then, she points out, Jews were brought in to take the place of the previous population. Her article [Cathedra (September 2006), see here] is largely based on a book by the early Arab historian, Al-Baladhdhuri. He wrote:

Mu`awiyah made it [Tripoli] a dwelling place for a large body of Jews
[Al-Baladhuri, The Origins of the Islamic State (New York 1924), p 195]

Note that whereas the original Byzantine Christian population of Tripoli had fled before the conquerors, the Jews were transferred into the city from their previous homes. We are not told how the Jews felt about being forced to move in this manner. However, it is likely that the Arab conquerors preferred Jews in a coastal city like Tripoli since the Jews were unlikely to make common cause with the Byzantine Empire for which Jews felt a great antagonism in those times. And the feeling was mutual. Hence, the Arab conquerors seem to have viewed Jews as suitable for repopulating abandoned localities. Note that the Arabic title of al-Baladhdhuri's book is: Kitab Futuh al-Buldan, which means The Book of the Conquests of Cities [or "countries"]. The Arabs in those days were frank about having conquered many cities and frankly took pride in these invasions, conquests, and occupations.

Levy-Rubin argues that the conquerors were concerned to rid the Levantine coast from Gaza north to Antioch of population that might be loyal and/or sympathetic to the Byzantine Emperor. Whereas the people of some coastal towns fled, the people of others were driven out. In the case of Tripoli and other places, a new population was brought in. In some places that surrendered, much of the earlier population remained, but houses and real estate had to be given up to accomodate new settlers, usually Arabs in places where much or most of the previous population remained. For instance, Jews in Tiberias had to surrender some of their homes to Arab invaders. Speaking of Tripoli today, it is not likely that the present population is descended from either the Christians who fled to safer Byzantine territory or from the Jews who were brought in to take their place.

It is of interest that al-Baladhdhuri's book was translated into English precisely by Prof. Philip Khoury Hitti as early as 1924. Hitti testified for the Arab side before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on "palestine" in 1946. That is, Hitti was an Arab nationalist at that time, although the 1924 edition is dedicated to Prof. Richard Gottheil, also a specialist in Middle Eastern history and languages, a Jew and a Zionist. [Hitti's version spells the author's name al-Baladhuri].

Ira Lapidus writes about that early period of the Arab-Muslim conquests:

the Arab Conquerors [were transformed] into an elite military caste
[A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge: CUP 1988), p 44]

This observation by Lapidus fits in with al-Baladhdhuri's account of the conquests and is amply confirmed by Joseph Schumpeter's acount of Arab imperialism in his work Imperialism [see earlier posts on this blog; search for Schumpeter].
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Coming: love & admiration in the UK for the walt-mearsheimer propaganda tract, Jews in Jerusalem, etc.

The Arab Conquest -- Massacre, Enslavement, Population Transfer, and the like

Descriptions written nowadays of the Arab/Muslim conquest of the Fertile Crescent lands [633-642] often paint a benign, mild picture of the conquest, which supposedly did not cause major inconvenience or disruption in the daily lives of the inhabitants and made few changes. Even a respected historian like Bernard Lewis leaned towards this edulcorated or embellished view in his The Arabs in History. Carl Brockelmann, the German, does likewise, writing:

Emperor Heraclius [of the Byzantine Empire]. . . In 632. . . installed Cyrus . . . both as patriarch of Alexandria and head of the civil administration at the same time. His ecclesiastical policy and his tax demands weighed so heavily on the Copts that they necessarily greeted the Arabs as emancipators, just as their Syrian fellow [monophysite] believers had done. . . In return for the promise of a fixed payment of tribute [jizyah] the Muslims bound themselves to leave the Christians in possession of their churches and not to interfere in the administration of their communal affairs. . . [C Brockelmann, History of the Islamic Peoples (New York: Capricorn 1960), pp 56-57]
In Egypt, as in the other provinces, the Muslims took over the substance of their predecessors' administrative system; they even left all their functionaries at their posts, which were generally administered by Copts later also. [This seems generous, but the Arabs, nearly all of them illiterate, were not fit for administration] [p 57]
. . . `Umar dispatched Khalid ibn-Thabit to conquer Jerusalem, which soon surrendered; `Umar himself approved the rather mild terms [p 55]
The cities and rural areas which had submitted to the Muslims without a struggle retained their freedom and their property. . . Localities which had had to be taken by force of arms fell to the victors as booty [p 61]

Brockelmann rightly points out that Muslims placed the conquered cities in two classes, those that had surrendered and those taken by force. However, despite what Brockelmann says, even those who surrendered might be dispossessed, as we shall see below.

In short, there is a common tendency to whitewash the Arab conquest. These mild portrayals of the Arab Conquest often serve the policy needs of 21st century empires, just as today's "neo-colonialism theory" and anti-Zionism often serve those same interests.

The edulcoration notwithstanding, documents from the early period of Arab rule often depict a brutal murderous conquest. Now, Milka Levy-Rubin, an Israeli historian has thoroughly examined Arabic and non-Arabic sources, as well as archeological findings, to show that whereas in some places --typically inland and hilly areas-- the conquest was relatively rather mild, along the coastal plain of the Levant, from Ashqelon to Antioch, there were population transfers, enslavement and massacres of recalcitrant cities and towns, flight by masses of inhabitants, especially Christians, but others as well, induced emigration of non-Arabs soon after the conquest, the takeover by Muslims of homes abandoned by the refugees, who had often hoped to return if the Byzantine Empire had succeeded in retaking their cities, confiscation of homes for the sake of Arab warriors, new populations replacing the old ones, etc. She cites one case where Jews were brought in to replace Christians. One can imagine that these Jews had also been forcibly uprooted from their homes and brought to a coastal city for the conquerors' purposes.

Levy-Rubin makes clear that the reason why inland areas suffered less change in their daily lives and less oppression is that the conquerors feared that if the Christian population --Greek and Aramaic-speaking-- stayed in place in the coastal cities and towns, they might aid a future Byzantine attempt at reconquest. The Jews on the other hand could be trusted more by the Arabs since they had their own resentments of Byzantine anti-Jewish policy. Nevertheless, Jews too suffered from the conquest as in this Syriac account which depicts Jews being massacred along with Samaritans and Christians east of Gaza. Levy-Rubin writes that even after conquest of a town or city had been completed, the conquerors might try to induce the native population to leave. This policy succeeded in several places and in some places freed up the homes formerly housing the departed natives for Arab settlement. We know that many Jewish homes in Tiberias --for example-- were taken over by Arab settlers, although it is not certain that the Jews had left before their homes were taken over.

Here are some passages quoted from Milka Levy-Rubin's article. It represents important, thorough research:

We learn from the words of al-Baladhdhuri [Muslim historian writing in Arabic, died ca. 892] that the northern coastal strip was mostly evacuated of its inhabitants. . . Among the cities of which many of the inhabitants left, he counted. . . Gabala [not to be confused with Gbal = Byblos], Antarados (Tartus), Trablus (Tripolis), Beirut (Berytos), Tyros (Tyre, Sour [= Tsor]), Sidon. [M Levy-Rubin, "The [Arab] Conquest as a Shaper of the Map of Settlement in the Land of Israel in the Early Muslim Period," Cathedra (September 2006; Jerusalem, Yad Ben-Zvi, in Hebrew), p 56]

Meanwhile, Antioch [Antiochia, Antakiya] and Laodicea [Latakiya],

were partially abandoned [p 56]

However,

Caesarea was conquered by the sword [that is, it did not surrender] and its inhabitants were taken captive [and sold as slaves], and it seems that `Akko and Ashqelon too were mostly evacuated of their Christian inhabitants in the end. At the end of the process, the coastal strip was emptied of the overwhelming majority of its previous inhabitants, and the latter were replaced by a new population. [p 56]

What can we learn about the way in which the Christian population was evacuated from the coastal cities? At which stage of the conquest and in which way was it evacuated? . . . In many cases, the city was conquered first and only afterwards abandoned by its inhabitants. [p57]

Milka Levy-Rubin continues her article with details illustrating what happened in particular cities. We will return to her picture of events which vitiates much of Brockelmann's mild depiction, and the claims of other embellishers and edulcorators as well. And her main source is al-Baladhdhuri, a Muslim historian.

At a time, when charlatans like the late Edward Said have demanded adherence to an embellished picture of Arab and Islamic culture in the name of "leftist" political correctness --in the name of "anti-imperialism," God save us-- yet often serving the contemporary policies of empires, the ugly truth is a necessary corrective.
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Coming: more on James Baker and US Middle East policy, more from Milka Levy-Rubin on the Arab conquests, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, propaganda, peace follies, etc.

Arab Conquests Finished Off the Ancient East, according to the Louvre

Link added 1-14-2010

The famous Louvre Museum in Paris admits that the Arab Conquests, the coming of Islam, represent a discontinuity --a breach, a sharp turning point-- in the history of Oriental civilization. In fact, the Arab Conquests finished off, wrecked, in plain English, the ancient East. Here is how the Department of Oriental Antiquities of the Louvre describes itself in its galleries[first English, then French original].

Collections of the Louvre - Department of Oriental Antiquities
"The Department of Oriental Antiquities is devoted to the ancient civilizations of the countries of the Near and Middle East, from the birth of villages more than 10,000 years ago until the arrival of Islam. Starting with the IIIrd Millenium, the same written culture, the cuneiform, was spread throughout the ancient East, including Egypt."

Collections du Louvre - Antiquités Orientales
“Le département des Antiquités orientales est consacré aux civilisations anciennes des Pays du Proche et Moyen-Orient, depuis la naissance des villages il y a plus de 10.000 ans jusqu’à l’arrivée de l’Islam. A partir du IIIe millénaire, une même culture écrite, celle du cunéiforme, est répandue dans l’ensemble de l’Orient ancien, y compris l’Egypte.”

Now some might want to soften the picture by saying that the arrival of Islam was a new departure. Indeed, the Louvre's Department of Oriental Antiquities itself softens the picture by saying "the arrival of Islam." Maybe it merely arrived, just like a letter in the mail. In fact, it was a brutal conquest which wrecked the Ancient East, putting an end to ancient Oriental civilization in the cradle of its birth. Nevertheless, despite the Louvre's use of a euphemism announcing "the arrival of Islam," it recognizes that the East has never been the same since the Arab-Islamic conquest, which submerged the pre-existing cultures, peoples, religions, and languages of the ancient East, wrecking whole civilizations. Edward Sa`id, arch-propagandist that he was, could not recognize this truth, or did not want to recognize it.

For contemporary views of the Arab Conquest, see the two preceding posts on this blog. For Spanish readers, the post of 4-26-2007 includes the Spanish version of an important passage from a contemporary account [in Syriac] of the Arab Conquest of Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, along with two English versions of the same passage.
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Here is the Louvre's official Spanish-language version of the text quoted above in English & French:

El departamento de Antiguedades orientales esta dedicado a las civilizaciones de los paises de Oriente Medio y Proximo, desde el nacimiento de las aldeas hace mas de 10.000 anos hasta el advenimiento del Islam. A partir del III milenio, una misma cultura escrita, de caracteres cuneiformes, se expande por todo el Antiguo Oriente, incluido Egipto.

UPDATING- 18 June 2008
Here's an example of what is said above. A wonderful lighthouse was built at Alexandria in Egypt during the period of rule of the Ptolemies, a Macedonian dynasty descended from one of Alexander's generals, called Lagos.
Here is a partial description of the lighthouse and an admission by an Egyptian archeologist that it was wrecked at the time of the Arab conquests. The quote is taken from here.

The lighthouse used to have a huge mirror, which according to myth, reflected the whole of the city. The mirror and the brazier at the top created the large[st] amount of light ever produced by a lighthouse. As such the lighthouse of Alexandria influenced man's initial thinking about the uses of lenses. According to Dr. Hawass the lighthouse remained functioning until the Arab conquest in 641 AD.

An admission by the foremost archeologist in Arab Egypt. Some attempts to partly restore the lighthose were relatively briefly successful.
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Link Added 1-14-2010 John J O'Neill concurs with me that the Arab/Muslim conquests finished off classical civilization. Whereas I focus on civilizations in the Middle East [the Orient in Roman geographical terminology], O'Neill looks from the point of view of Europe [here & here]
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Coming: More on James Baker, Jews in Jerusalem & Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.

More on the Arab Conquest as an Act of Love & Generosity

Here is another account from Andrew Palmer's West Syrian Chronicles about the kind, loving, and generous Arab conquests of the seventh century.

This account is from the year 637 CE:

. . . and in January they took the word for their lives, (did) [the sons of] Emesa, and many villages were ruined with killing by [the Arabs of] Muhammad and a great number of people were killed and captives [were taken] from Galilee as far as Beth . . . . . and those Arabs pitched camp beside [Damascus?]. . .
[Andrew Palmer, ed. & tr., The Seventh Century in the West Syrian Chronicles (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press 1993), p 1]

A depressing series of events. But Edward Sa`id doesn't like the way Western travelers, writers, and scholars have depicted the noble Arab. However, this and the previous post on this blog present accounts from Palmer's book that were written by native Middle Eastern folk, by Orientals. I wonder what Sa`id said about this book, or would have said about it had he been aware of it. Emesa, located in central Syria, is now called Homs or Hims. Apparently the manuscript was in poor condition, forcing Palmer to try to infer which word or words may have originally been in places where the manuscript was defective. In the account quoted from Palmer here, the brackets and words in them are from Palmer, not me, although on other posts the brackets and their contents are mine.

UPDATING: Readers of Spanish can find on the previous post [of 4-26-2007], as an updating, a Spanish version of the passage from the ancient Syriac chronicle of 640CE given in two English versions on that post.
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Coming: The Louvre on Islam as replacing the ancient East, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.

The Arab Conquest of the Ancient East, the Orient -- Not All Fun & Kisses

The Islamomania so prevalent today in Western academia, following the lead of the mendacious Edward Sa`id of Columbia University --in particular-- often depicts the spread of Islam and the Arabs as a peaceful process welcomed by the native peoples. According to this rosey-colored view, it was not really a conquest but an excursion of love, no more aggressive than the poetry competitions called the jocs florals of the medieval troubadours of Provence in southern France, and of Catalonia.

Here is an account of the Arab conquest of the Land of Israel. The account or chronicle, composed in the year 640 CE, was translated from a Christian form of Aramaic, widely spoken in the Levant and Fertile Crescent countries before and after the Arab conquest, but becoming increasingly extinct as its speakers flee from Arab/Muslim brutality in their homelands.

On Friday, 4 February, at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans [= Byzantines] and the Arabs of Muhammad in Palestine twelve 'miles' east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrikos the son of YRDN [בר ירדן בסורסית], whom the Arabs killed. Some 4,000 village people of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews, and Samaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region. . .
The Arabs invaded the whole of Syria and went down to Persia and conquered it; the Arabs climbed the mountains of Mardin [now in southeastern Turkey, formerly considered part of Syria in the broad sense] and killed many monks there (in the monasteries of) Qedar [= קידר?] and Benotho. . . "
[Andrew Palmer, ed. & tr., The Seventh Century in the West Syrian Chronicles (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press 1993), pp 18-19]

Here's another translation of the same passage:

In the year 945, indiction 7, on Friday 7 February (634) at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the Arabs of Muhammad (tayyaye d-Mhmt) in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrician bryrdn, whom the Arabs killed. Some 4000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews and Samaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region.
[Robert Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. . .]

Notes: "The year 945" refers to the Seleucid era which began in 312 BCE. The name "tayyaye" refers to an Arab tribe, the Tay. This name is often used as a name for Arabs in the documents excerpted by Bat Ye'or in her books The Dhimmi and The Decline of Oriental Christianity. . . The name "bryrdn" is בר ירדן explained in Palmer's translation.

Now, this is not the usual rosey colored peaceful, or sometimes chivalrously glorious, depiction of the Arab conquest that academic Islamomaniacs are pleased to favor the literate public with today. Note that the chronicle mentions Jewish villagers killed along with Christians and Samaritans. Unfortunately, the author used the name "palestine" to refer to the Land of Israel. The P word had been introduced by Emperor Hadrian after suppressing the Jewish Bar Kokhba Revolt circa 135 CE. The P name replaced Judea as the official Roman name for the country. The purpose was to punish the Jews for the revolt by no longer calling the country after them. It also meant to make any future Jewish revolt more difficult.

This passage helps answer the question of the impact of Islam on the Orient. Was it constructive or destructive? In our view, the Arab-Islamic conquests wrecked the ancient East, which was a center of civilization in ancient times. The Arabs submerged the pre-existing cultures, peoples, religions, and languages. The East has never recovered, although it did not totally decline all at once. Its light continued to shine brightly enough into the Middle Ages so that it gave honor to the Arabs/Muslims --its wreckers-- to whom a high civilization is attributed for that period, but which now seems to have been the mere embers of the ancient East, embers that became dimmer over the centuries and were extinguished for good with the death of Ibn Khaldun, Arab civilization's last notable representative, in 1406. Sa`id, as a base propagandist, could not recognize this. Was Sa`id justified in identifying the East tout court with the Arabs and Islam?

UPDATING: here is another version of the passage above, in Spanish translation, with some significant differences in detail.

“Y en el año novecientos cuarenta y cinco [se entiende, de la era de los griegos], en la séptima indicción, en el mes de Shebat, en el día cuarto, feria sexta, a la hora de nona, hubo una batalla de los romanos con los árabes de Mahoma en Palestina, a doce millas al oriente de Gaza. Los romanos huyeron, y abandonaron al Patricio, hijo de Iardan, y a éste lo mataron los árabes. Allí murieron unos cuarenta mil campesinos pobres de Palestina: cristianos, judíos y samaritanos. Y los árabes devastaron toda la región. Y en el año novecientos cuarenta y siete, en la novena indicción, los árabes invadieron toda Siria, y descendieron a la región de los persas y la sometieron. Y subieron al monte de Mardæ, y los árabes asesinaron a muchos monjes en Qedar y en BnÅtå...” [Francisco Javier Martinez, Archbishop of Granada, in a lecture before the Royal Historical Academy (Real Academia de la Historia), 29 April 2002]

The most significant difference is the number of local civilian victims among Christians, Jews and Samaritans. This translation gives the number of "40,000 poor peasants of Palestine," whereas the versions quoted above give the number of 4,000. This translation also identifies the month as Shebat rather than February. Shebat is one of the months of the Hebrew calendar. It usually overlaps January and February. The date is given as the 4th of Shebat, whereas Hoyland's version gives 7 February and Palmer's version gives 4 February.
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Coming: more on James Baker, on propaganda, Jews in Hebron & Jerusalem, peace follies, etc.

Sociology of Arab Imperialism (according to Schumpeter) -- Part Seven

This is the last excerpt from Schumpeter on Arab imperialism. Here he explores psychological and religious motives for holy war, jihad.

[p 42]
This does not, of course, mean that we deny the signifigance of religious commandments in the consciousness of the people. Had an Arab been asked why he fought, he might, as a born warrior, on proper reflection have countered with the question as to why one lived. That is how self-evident, how far above all rational thought, war and the urge for expansion were to him. But he would not have given such a reply. He would have said: "I fight because Allah and his Prophet will it." And this reply gave him an emotional prop in his struggle, provided him with a mode of conduct that preserved his character as a warrior. Religion was more than a mere reflex, certainly within the body social. It is not my intention to pursue this approach to the extreme, particularly since we here touch on problems that reach far too deeply to be disposed of within the framework of our topic. It was for that reason that I emphasized just now the possibility of the religious idea's taking on a social life of its own, in the example of Christianity. But the imperialism of a people or a state can never be explained in this fashion.

Arab imperialism was, among other things, a form of [p 43] popular imperialism.

Here we have it. Arab imperialism was an imperialism of the people. Democratic no doubt. The people wanted it. The Arabs seem to have enjoyed living off the labor of others, the dhimmis who paid tribute. To sum up Schumpeter's views on Arab imperialism: 1) the warlike, conquest-seeking nature of Islam flows from the warlike nature of the pre-Islamic Arabs; 2) the early Arab-Muslim empire was concerned with living as a superior, parasitic warrior caste ruling over non-Muslim subject peoples and exploiting their labor and economic productivity.
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coming soon: oppression of Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Land of Israel