August 1, 2023 Show with Raymond Ibrahim on “Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this very first day of August 2023.

I'm very intrigued to interview a first -time guest today.

His publisher, Bombardier Books, contacted me and asked me if I would like to interview

Raymond Ibrahim, who is a translator, an author, a columnist, a widely published expert on the

Middle East and Islam, and distinguished senior Shillman Fellow at the

Gatestone Institute of the Judith Friedman Rosen and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

They wanted me to interview Raymond on his new book,

Defenders of the West, the Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam. And when

I saw Victor Davis Hanson's foreword to this book, I was even more intrigued because I have such an extremely high regard for Victor David Hanson from his appearances on Fox News.

He is by far one of my very favorite guests that is interviewed fairly regularly on Fox News.

And Victor Davis Hanson, who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, says of this book,

Defenders of the West is engaging storytelling of fascinating people and forgotten events at its best.

Reads and flows like an adroitly crafted novel buttressed by a scholarship that allows those of the past to speak for the past.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Raymond Ibrahim.

Hello, Chris. Thank you very much for having me. Very happy to be with you today. And am I pronouncing your last name correctly?

Yes, Ibrahim. It's a it's basically an Arabic transliteration of the Hebrew Abraham. Right.

So, yeah, Ibrahim. And I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Raymond Ibrahim, our email address is

Chris Armson at Gmail dot com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at Gmail dot com.

Give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence in your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. One of the reasons I am interested in conducting this interview today is that I have never done an interview on the

Crusades. I have, to my knowledge, rarely has it been mentioned on the program, although we have done a number of programs on Islam.

And as everybody who listens to the show regularly knows that I'm not an ecumenist with Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox or those who espouse a different gospel than the one

I embrace, the gospel of the Protestant Reformation, which I believe is the biblical gospel. But at the same time,

I enjoy interviewing folks that might not see eye to eye with me on occasion on certain areas, even if they're important, if I believe they have something important to say to the body of Christ.

And this is one of those issues. It's a very controversial issue that's highly contested and debated even amongst my fellow

Reformed Protestant Christians on whether to look upon the Crusades favorably or negatively or a combination of both.

But I am very fascinated to step into this discussion because I know very little about this period of history.

And first of all, Raymond, what is it about your own background, perhaps your religious and or ethnic background, that led you to further investigate the topic of your book and pour such time and effort into getting details correct and finding out more about these issues yourself?

Sure, Chris. These the issues that I write about, I've had a very long interest in and both a sort of personal and professional background in it.

And by it, I mean this nexus of study that I focus on, which is really

Islam vis -à -vis the West slash the Christian world. So my own background personally is my family are what's called

Coptic Egyptians, Coptic Orthodox. So they're basically the indigenous inhabitants of Egypt before Islam invaded and conquered it in the year 640.

As you know, the Eastern sort of world was Orthodox, so they were part of that, you know, like the

Greeks and the Russian. Today, they're called Coptic. Coptic is just a word.

It means Egyptian, actually. It comes from the Greek word aegyptos, and the Arabs shortened it to gypt, and that's where we get copt.

Would that also be a part of what is known as the Oriental Orthodox?

Yes. Yes. I was going to say that, though, I eschew that term. I find it kind of strange because Oriental means

Eastern, and they try to distinguish Eastern Orthodoxy from Oriental Orthodoxy, which both means

Eastern. But you're right. Oriental Orthodoxy would be the Coptics, the Armenians, I believe the

Assyrians, Ethiopics, whereas Eastern would be more Greeks and Russians and so forth.

So my family came from Egypt. I was born here in the United States, and they actually did leave the country due to what was at the time not outright persecution, as it is now, actually, in the

Middle East, including in Egypt, often, but more discrimination. And so my family came here where I was born, and so I had that sort of personal background.

I grew up speaking Arabic, so I'm bilingual, and I also formally studied it in college later on.

So I've had an interest, especially in what happens to Christians under Islamic rule in Egypt, in particular, but also, eventually, also the

Middle East in general. And then in college, you mentioned Victor Davis Hanson. He was actually my professor for a number of years.

Yeah, he was the chair of my thesis, my master's thesis, which was also about, actually, this nexus, the first military battle between Islam and the

Western world, the Battle of Yarmouk in 636, which I wrote well over 20 years ago. So even in my academic setting,

I mastered in history. I'm sorry. Well, I got a master's degree in history. I majored in history, and like I said,

Victor Davis Hanson was my professor for a number of courses, so a lot of classics, Greco -Roman history, medieval history later on,

Byzantine, Islamic history, studied various languages, Arabic, can read

Koine Greek, a little Latin, Farsi, other Middle Eastern languages. And actually, soon after 9 -11, that's when

I was writing my thesis with Victor Davis Hanson, and he recommended

I continue my studies because Islam was becoming an important topic again, which

I was already focused on. So I applied and went to Georgetown University in Washington, D .C.,

where I was there for a little bit, and then I got a job at the Library of Congress in the Middle Eastern Division, working with all these

Arabic books and other languages. And while I was there, this is the origin of how

I got into writing. I discovered writings by al -Qaeda in around 2004, because the

Library of Congress gets all the books from all around the world, and they weren't even catalogued. They were actually in a big yellow tub that I would just peruse through, and I found these writings by Osama bin

Laden and Ayman Zawahiri that had never been translated. Long story short, it became my first book project, the first book that came out in 2007 called

The Al -Qaeda Reader, and it basically demonstrated how al -Qaeda and all these other radical groups were saying one thing to the

West in their communiques, basically, we're fighting you because you're the aggressor, you support

Israel, you're a colonial power, you're racist, whatever. And then what they were writing, what

I had found in translated, is what they were writing to whole Muslims, which was the opposite. It was basically, we have to hate and fight them because they're non -Muslims or infidels,

Islam requires jihad, et cetera, et cetera. And so that was the nature of that book. At any rate, after that book came out,

I exclusively focused on researching and writing, increasingly at that time, about the persecution of Christians under Islam.

And then my next book in 2013, Crucified Again, Exposing Islam to New War on Christians, was dedicated to that, the persecution of Christians, which is a horrific story that's unknown and it's ongoing and getting worse, and perhaps we could talk about it.

And then anyway, then I went back to my historical writings, and with my last book, Defenders of the

West, I went back to what I was researching when I was at college, Victor Davis Antony, because as you know, his original claim to fame was basically as a military historian, even though, of course, now he talks about everything and is very influential on everything.

But that's what I was studying, and so now I'm writing more, again, on that topic, the military history, the historic history between Islam and the

West in those books. And the book before it, Sword and Scimitar, 14 Centuries of War Between Islam and the

West, and that's another interesting story. We can talk about the U .S. Army War College, how they had me talk about it, and how

Islamic organizations... Do you know that that's five minutes from where I'm sitting? Oh, really?

So you're in Pennsylvania by Pittsburgh, was it? Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Carlisle, yeah, that's right. Okay. So are you familiar with what happened?

There was a lot of noise about me and the War College maybe two, three years ago. What was it, three, four years ago, yeah?

No, I was... I can give you the story if you want now or later. Yeah, sure, especially since it's local

Carlisle stuff. I know people who are involved in the War College personally, one of whom is a member of my church where I'm a member.

All right, so you'll probably like this story. The book before the current one, which is called

Sword and Scimitar, 14 Centuries of War Between Islam and the West, came out in 2018, and soon thereafter some folks from the

War College contacted me to come give a lecture on it. And I said I agreed and everything was fine.

And, you know, I booked my ticket and hotel and everything because they contacted me maybe six months or four months before the event.

At any rate, like maybe three, four days before the event, I learned from the

War College that... Are you familiar with the Council on American -Islamic Relations? Yes, yes. Okay.

So that group and all sorts of other activists, leftists and so forth protested to the

U .S. Army War College for having me on. They said I'm an Islamophobe, I'm a bigot.

They called me a white supremacist despite being Egyptian. So, you know, they threw everything they could at me.

They call Larry Elder a black candidate for president of white supremacists. I know,

I know. They do that so much that these words have lost all meaning. That's right, that's right.

And, you know, they cry wolf too much. Yes. Anyway, so sadly the

War College capitulated to the pressure and they rescinded my invitation. Wow. Yeah.

But then, you know, a lot of people learned about it and interviewed me and I got, you know,

I appeared on various shows and a lot of people learned about it. A lot of organizations like the Association of Scholars wrote a letter to Trump who was in the office at the time basically saying this is the

National Association of Scholars and petitioned. Long story short, it made a lot of noise and it made the

U .S. Army War College look really bad because all I was doing was I was invited to give a talk about history.

Right, and you were invited. And they invited me. I didn't reach out to them. And they really put me out because I had to prepare and I told you

I got tickets. It was a little effort and sacrifice on my part and then they just pulled the rug from underneath me about two days before I was supposed to fly out.

Anyway, apparently they got a lot of negative e -mails and angry parents and so forth, so they actually re -invited me and I ended up giving the talk.

I think it was in February of 2020. Wow. Yeah, and CARE, once again, when they learned that I had been re -invited, started their mass campaign and their hysteria and basically saying things like if they invite me to talk

I'm going to incite the military to go and kill more Muslims around the world and just, you know, ludicrous stuff.

I'm just talking about history, documented history. But they went through with it and if anything, thanks to CARE, they had created so much hubbub about this event that it was actually kind of a sold -out event.

It was packed. I think they told me it was the second most packed event after Buzz Aldrin.

Wow. You know, I'm actually upset right now because I know at least two people from the

War College and I don't remember them telling me about this event at all and that was six years after I moved here to Pennsylvania.

Well, you know, to sort of help shed light on that, when they invited me over,

I mean it was clear to me they were doing it because they got so much negative press and they just wanted to kind of redeem themselves. Right.

But they had also told me that they're videotaping it and that they videotape all these lectures and that was one of the main reasons

I wanted to do it, not just for that audience, but to have kind of a record for anyone who wants to see it. And they did videotape it, but they never published it until now.

Wow. As I remember, the last time I spoke to them was maybe their excuse became the famous excuse,

COVID, because COVID hit right after. This is February 2020. And so because of COVID, it's been three years that they haven't been able to upload the video.

So I think in the end, they just wanted to cover their back, but when it comes down to it, they don't want any more controversy by airing this video.

By the way, I don't want to take us on a rabbit trail because I know it's not the focus of our topic today, but I've always been mystified by progressive

Muslims who might even be correctly categorized as liberal

Muslims who are not really following the Koran or the Hadith to the letter, are much more progressive in interreligious relations, egalitarianism with women, possibly even homosexuality, etc.

It always baffles me when I hear people like that and even just your average garden variety of non -Muslim leftist who get so upset about any criticism of authentic Koranic Islam, especially when it comes to the violence associated with it, when folks like them, if they were living in Sharia law, would be the first to either be tortured or executed.

So it's baffling to me. Can you explain this? Why the rush to defend a segment of their religion?

Of course, they don't all do this. There are progressive Muslims who do openly and publicly oppose the violence of those involved in Islam and Sharia law and so on.

But do you have any explanation as to why these people are rushing to so quickly defend the same segment of Islam that would no doubt have them in very serious life -threatening danger if they were living in their nations?

Well, a lot of these groups, if you mean activist groups, let's say like CARE, whose entire being is dedicated to shutting down any criticism and saying it's

Islamophobia under the guise of we want to promote tolerance and we believe Islam is not violent,

Islam is tolerance, and we want to just get along and that sort of thing. Yeah, those people are actually part of the same problem.

They're part of the radical thing. Islam itself has, we can talk about jihad and the doctrines, but it actually has several teachings that encourage

Muslims that when they're in a position of weakness and they can't go all out jihad, they are supposed to do anything possible.

They can even outwardly convert to, let's say, Christianity, and they did this. And there's a whole long chapter of that that we can talk about, especially in Spain during the

Reconquista. And basically they can abjure Muhammad and curse him and take communion, Catholic Spain at the time, and do everything.

But as long as their heart is with Muhammad and they want to re -subvert

Spain, in this example, back to Islam, then they're considered good

Muslims. And the most famous manifestation of these teachings or doctrines is called

Taqiyyah, which is based, and this is in the Quran. I think Quran 328, if I'm not mistaken, basically says do not befriend non -Muslims, and it talks about not befriending

Jews and Christians, and then it says unless you're doing so by way of a precaution.

And there's other verses that talk about how you can't befriend them. I've also heard it pronounced Taqiyyah. Is that also?

Taqiyyah, yeah. In Arabic it's Taqiyyah. But yeah, it's pronounced in all sorts of ways.

Because I remember the first time I heard it, a Christian apologist who's an expert on Islam said that Muslims support

Taqiyyah. And I said, wait a minute, I thought they were against hard liquor. But then

I found out what it meant. Right, right. But it's actually, it's the most notorious of many

Islamic doctrines that essentially support subversion, support lying, support being two -faced.

And so to me, these groups that come up and tell you, you know, Islam is not what you think it means, Islam is peace, bring in more

Muslims, let's say, might let them migrate. But we're, for example, in Europe and Western nations, they're on board with the agenda and they're just, you know, that's there.

The doctrine of jihad, okay, we know the manifestation of it, the physical one, which is warfare.

I'm sure we'll get into that, which happened historically. But jihad, you know, it's funny, a lot of the apologists will tell you, jihad does not mean holy war.

That's how they translated it, orientalists did, into English. They'll tell you jihad means struggle.

And they're absolutely right, jihad does mean struggle. And therein lies the point. The struggle can take any form.

So the most prominent historic form was violence and warfare. But you can struggle on behalf of Islam, and the whole point is to spread

Islam and bring the entire world under its rule, Sharia law, Sharia rule, and you can do this struggle any way.

So there's classifications such as jihad al -mal. I won't give you the

Arabic. Basically, jihad of money, jihad of the tongue. This is propaganda. Jihad of money is funding and sponsoring and disseminating radical ideas and so forth.

There's jihad of the womb, which is the demographic jihad, which means having as many babies as you can,

Muslim women and men, so you can outnumber the infidel. So all of these are ongoing by people who will tell you

Islam means peace, you have a wrong understanding. So they are, in fact, engaging in jihad. One of the most famous is jihad of the tongue.

This is propaganda. That's what CARE does. CARE, to just underscore what I'm saying, was actually busted maybe 15 years ago, and I can send you the official letter, court letter, and they're an unindicted co -conspirator of the largest terrorist funding case in U .S.

history. And yet here they are dictating to the U .S. Army War College who they can listen to and who they can't listen to.

So there are those Muslims, of course, who they actually think Islam means peace, and they preach these sorts of things.

But they're really in the minority, the ones who sincerely believe this. The majority are actually part of the larger issue that we're discussing, and to me they're the more dangerous ones because they're more surreptitious and basically clandestine, whereas the

ISIS, Islamic State, al -Qaeda types are in your face. At least you know who they are and what they're all about, whereas the others are really dedicated to this long program of internal suppression.

Now, one more question off topic before we go to our first commercial break. One of the mysteries to me that is related to my earlier question, or should

I even say two of the mysteries to me, are Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the two first Muslim women sworn into Congress in the

United States. One of them, which Omar, wears the headdress and so on, giving the appearance of her being a strict

Muslim. But what baffles me is that these are leftists. These are people who support feminism and homosexuality.

Is this a masquerade, their association with Islam? Would they survive in a nation under Sharia law, even just because they're so vocal and outspoken and are women in the public square?

Is that kind of thing tolerated? It'll all come down to sort of what I was saying, is what they're doing, can it be seen by the strict radical

Muslim as benefiting Islam? And I think it can. And so, again, throughout history,

Muhammad himself told his followers, you can deny me, you can curse me, you can eat pork, you can do all the things that you're not supposed to do, as long as you're doing it to help

Islam. So if these women, for example, are paying lip service or whatever, or allying with the leftist cause, if that is helpful to Islam, and I think it is, because it's the left that totally sponsors and supports

Islam and Muslims, especially in America and all throughout the world, really, if it is helping, then it is legitimate, and they would actually be congratulated for what they're doing.

They would be considered heroic Muslim women, even if they take off their hijab, and, you know,

I mean, to a limit, obviously, what they can do. And, again, even what I'm saying, there are some Muslims will tell you, no, that's not acceptable, but I do know for a fact that there are those, including scholars, and it's something that's manifested throughout history, who would sponsor them and support them and say they're good

Muslims, even though they are espousing seemingly leftist views and positions.

But you don't know personally whether these are two charlatans who are intentionally coming by stealth by pretending to be leftists, or if they're just being shills.

They're duped into being a benefit to Islam, even though they would never survive physically if they were to hold these positions in Sharia law.

I think a little of both is perfectly understandable. So they come from an

Islamic background, especially Omar. You know, she comes from Somalia. If you study that nation, if you know anything about it, it is one of the most radical

Islamic nations in the world. So, for example, I follow closely the persecution of Christians throughout the world, most of which happens in Islamic nations.

But the absolute worst Muslim nation, which comes in second in the whole world after North Korea, which has its own issues and it has cults going on there, but the first and absolute worst

Muslim nation is Somalia. And if they even know you're a Christian, you're immediately killed, just on principle.

So that's the background and the culture she comes from. I know she knows that. So obviously she's going to tell you, no, that's not true

Islam, and she's going to play the nine yards. But I do believe that both of them know what

Islam is about. And on the other hand, you know, they're humans, they're women, they live in this society. And so on the one hand, they know that by allying with the left, as long as they're doing it to help

Islam, they're okay with Muslims. But on the other hand, I don't know how much of their heart and mind has become infiltrated truly by leftist ideology.

So they're sort of trying to, I would think, play a balancing game to make both sides happy. And are the aforementioned

Coptics the most victimized and persecuted group by Muslims?

And how does that rank actually with Muslims persecuting other Muslims? Is there far more people who are murdered and persecuted by Muslims who are themselves different kinds of Muslims?

Or would the Coptics be a higher number of casualties? Well, you know, to the latter point,

Muslims killing and fighting other Muslims on the basis of not being Islamic enough or the wrong sort of Islam, Shia versus Sunni, sure, that happens.

I don't think it's anywhere near as prevalent as the persecution of Christians throughout the Muslim world.

You know, organizations like Open Doors, it's a well -known human rights organization that follows, tracks the persecution of Christians.

Its last report, it publishes annual reports, I believe they're called the World Watch List, followed by whichever year, so 2023.

It said 360 million Christians are experiencing severe persecution around the world. And then when you look at it, that's where you have the chart.

It lists the top 50 nations, and I usually count them out, something like 38 to 40 are

Muslim nations, okay? And then when you read about the country profile, so the Copts in Egypt, they,

I mean, if they're the most persecuted throughout history, quite possibly, because if you know their history, which

I do, and I've studied it. Remember, Egypt, people don't know this, you know, most people today, if you mention

Islam in the Middle East, they just think, and I'll underscore it by saying, people ask me, and they say, well, you guys are

Christians. Why are you being, why would your parents become Christians in Egypt?

Well, they don't realize that the Christians were there first, and Egypt was actually a very Christian nation, more so than Europe, just like Syria was, and it makes sense, because that's where Christianity came from, the

Middle East. So when Muslims entered it in the 7th century and conquered it, you had a, the population was

Christian. And so today, now it's down to 10%. And if you look at the history, you'll see, you know, constant upridings and Muslim persecution, this sultan's a radical, this one's not.

When he's radical, you see Christians being killed, churches burned, and so forth, and that went on, so that Egypt went from being almost 100 %

Christian to being 10%. So until today, the laws against them, and what

I'm saying, you know, while I'm happy to talk about the cops at any length, it's really applicable to Christians all throughout the

Islamic world. I think the Christians in Pakistan have it really bad. I think the ones in Nigeria, in Nigeria, there's a full -fledged genocide of Christians going on that nobody even knows is happening.

You know, we hear all these groups screaming about Black Lives Matter, but in Nigeria and other sub -Saharan nations, let's just stick with Nigeria, something like every month, and I follow this very closely, 300, 400

Christians are butchered, massacred, chopped to pieces with machetes for the sole reason that they're

Christians. And, but of course the media will not mention it, and when it does mention it, it won't even bring religion into it.

They'll say, you know, that the persecutors or the murderers are one tribe, and the Christians are another tribe, but that's really not what's going on.

If you read again what they say, the Nigerian Muslims, it's all about religion for them.

They're infidels, we have to kill them, we have to take their land. And so you have a full -fledged genocide going on right now, and most people don't even know about it, even though they'll scream and whine and cry about how supposedly

Black Lives Matter, but not when they're Christian, apparently, and being killed by Muslims. So we can get into, you know, why

Islam does this to Christians, it's, you know, the doctrines and the teachings and the history and so forth, but yeah, it's not an enviable lot to be a

Copt in Egypt or to be a Christian in any Muslim nation by any stretch of the imagination. All right, we're going to our first commercial break.

Again, if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for my guest, and his name is

Raymond Ibrahim, and we are discussing his book Defenders of the West, the Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam.

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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We'll be right back with Raymond Ibrahim right after these messages from our sponsors.

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soon and mention Iron Trip and Zion Radio. We're now back with our guest today Raymond Ibrahim and the discussion of his book

Defenders of the West, the Christian heroes who stood against Islam. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least city and state and country of residence. I'm going to read one more endorsement for this book written by a former guest on Iron Trip and Zion Radio Dario Fernandez Moreira, associate professor emeritus at Northwestern University.

He writes this exciting and very well -researched book introduces us to the lives and heroic deeds of courageous men who against great odds defended their people and their culture from an implacable enemy and I am very intrigued by this subject already and I would look forward to also hearing from you the listeners and we have some listeners already waiting to have their questions asked and answered by my guest

Raymond but I just wanted to have him answer a few more of my own before we begin reading those questions.

First of all Raymond, what era in history does your book focus upon?

Tell us about the span of years that the wars in discussion in this book are considering.

Sure Chris, basically the book starts at the very beginning so Islam the the global jihad really begins in the year 636 two years or four years after Muhammad dies in 632 and the

Arabian Peninsula has been consolidated under the banner of Islam and now they have no one else to fight except the so -called infidels and the surrounding infidels of course were

Christians at the time namely the Eastern Roman Empire what's known as the

Byzantine Empire which was in Greater Syria so the Muslims had consolidated the

Arabian Peninsula and now they started invading into Greater Syria which of course was a whole entirely

Christian region again this is where Jerusalem was at the time located as well as other modern states such as Lebanon and Iraq and also they attacked at the same time the

Persian Empire the the traditional enemy of the Eastern Roman Empire the Sassanid Empire which was

Zoroastrian and they conquered them all so anyway the book starts from that and it

I have to actually speak of the other book before it because they really complement one another and the way

I wrote Defenders of the West is sort of based on what I did sort of scimitar that's the book that came out in 2018 and the subtitle it's called sword and scimitar 14 centuries of war between Islam and West so that book really went from the very beginning all the way up until the colonial era and it goes into detail of the decisive battles this book which

I refer to as in sword and scimitar I did eight chapters on eight decisive battles in Defenders of the

West I look at what I call eight decisive men and the first one is God free to God free so I talk about the conquest of the

Holy Land by the Muslims and then why the Crusades began so he's really the first of the defenders and it goes all the way down to I think the last one is

Vlad Tepes Vlad the Impaler where we get Dracula right right and he's you know he dies right around close to 1500 late 14 maybe 14

I remember age 79 I think so I really I call that era those about 500 years the high the high age of Christian resistance to Islamic encroachments because along with the struggle for the

Holy Land you also had the Reconquista in Spain where Spain was conquered by Muslims in the 8th century people forget that you know

Islam had a presence in Spain centuries finally being expelled out in as late as the 17th century and you had really those were

Crusades as well the Reconquista it was basically Christians who were holed up in the north of Spain that there was one little area in the northwest was never conquered the

Asturias the mountains the Northwest Peninsula and for being a again a

Christian nation Spain and everyone was holed up in that little left that little quadrant and century after centuries what you had the

Reconquista where Christians such as El Cid and you know Ferdinand the

Great or I'm sorry Ferdinand the third also known as st. Ferdinand and then you and then the book goes into the

Balkans you had again the Ottomans the Turks under the same rationality out of rationale invading

Eastern Europe and you had various you know defenders such as John Hunyadi in Hungary and like we mentioned

Vlad Tepes Dracula from Romania or Wallachia at the time and also probably the most famous historically the most famous defender of all the one that actually was celebrated as a major hero all throughout

Europe is a man few people have ever heard of he's known as Skanderbeg is the real name was

John Castrioti Albanian and he's basically it's like the it's a story of Braveheart he was defending you know the small kingdom a small tiny region of Albania with you know outnumbered men against this massive

Islamic terror group basically the Ottomans but but not just him like I mentioned it was all

Eastern Europe and they were conquered eventually so it's the start so that's anyway that's a long long way of talking about it's basically from 1100 to 1500 sorry about that oh so you extend the

Crusades all the way to the 16th century I was well I see

I see all of these is interrelated I think that's what I try to do in these books to show you these are not distinct phenomena but they're actually all interrelated and yes the the

Eastern Europeans themselves called their battles with the Ottomans centuries after the Crusades they called them crusades because that's what it was it was a battle against them what what they saw as a non -christian enemy dedicated to destroying and subjugating their land and civilization so I guess

I guess you are speaking to some extent about the diversion or the distraction of the

Roman Catholic Church away from persecuting Protestants was largely because by necessity they had wars with Islam to tend with in the earlier part of the 16th century well not really the book like I said it ends before 1500 okay yeah right well yeah but what was going on I've heard in history that there was something that distracted in regard to Islam the

Church of Rome from their focus on purpose persecuting Protestants and I can't remember exactly what that was but perhaps ah yeah yeah because that's that's more recent history

I don't I really don't look at that I'm not I'm not holding it back for you I'm not sure what the what would be called what the distraction was with Islam but I do know

I mean we do we did even after so in my other book sort of scimitar that does go past the or into the

Protestant Reformation but and you still have major battles so the Battle of Lepanto and then there's also the siege of Vienna that's in 1683 and Vienna the city in Austria was actually surrounded by 200 ,000 jihadists and so there was definitely a crusade that the

Pope called for but I don't think that's what you're referring to because that was actually a serious and existential crisis for Vienna mm -hmm yeah the the the whole subject of the

Crusades as I said in the very beginning of the program is a subject that evokes a pretty heated debate amongst even my fellow

Protestants even to be more specific some who are my fellow

Calvinist brethren and of course one of the reasons why it's a more difficult issue is that although Protestants were gruesomely persecuted by the

Church of Rome the Crusades took place before the Protestant Reformation they took place centuries before the

Council of Trent where the Church of Rome officially and dogmatically became according to a

Protestant an apostate religion because of their anathemas against the

Protestant understanding of salvation and other things so we have to recognize as Protestants that there there was a world that existed with professing

Christians before the Reformation and not that I am saying everyone who identified themselves as a

Christian was indeed truly regenerate but at the same time there were battles and things going on to protect geographically a certain areas of the world from being overrun what was the initial catalyst

I'm assuming provoked by the the

Muslims that started these wars within Christendom to begin with yeah

I think you introduced Chris a very important topic and one that I'm very interested in and I'd like to actually yeah there's so much to unpack here first I'm familiar with I wouldn't even just call it the

Protestant I'd call it the general Western denunciation or condemnation Crusades in general and I think it's really based on a complete misunderstanding and a distortion of what really happened historically yeah it's usually said in the very same sentence as the

Spanish Inquisition which is a totally different right yeah exactly so okay what what were the

Crusades and what happened and how did they come about so as I was mentioning earlier briefly I you know the if you looked at what was the

Christian world you know this is of course 15 centuries before or let's go let's go to the dawn of Islam 7th century 600s if you looked at what was then the

Christian world which of course was our Protestant it was all it was most of Europe southwest of the

Danube and the Rhine and all of North Africa and Asia Minor or Anatolia with today we call

Turkey and the Middle East okay so that was the Christian world it was basically imagine the

Mediterranean and then everything around it everything north of it east of it and south of it and the more the older and sort of more developed

Christian region of course was the east and it was Alexandria Antioch Jerusalem Constantinople later on along with Rome these were the major centers this is where the church fathers were and so forth now in the seventh century

Islam came and completely swallowed up three -quarters of that so from the from the date of Muhammad's death in 632

AD to 732 that century witnessed the absolute conquest of all of North Africa Egypt to Morocco and I guess

I really have to emphasize a lot of people misunderstand they think these regions were always if not

Muslim already they were somehow pagan or something no I mean the Nicene Creed which

I think everyone professes was formulated in Egypt by Egyptians at the Council of Nicaea in Asia Minor and st.

Athanasius who defended the you know against the Aryan heresy of course was what we would call today a

Coptic Christian Orthodox in fact can you pick up can you pick up right where you left off we have to go into our midway commercial break sure and if you have any questions for our guests please submit them to Chris Arnson at gmail .com

you'll have to get in line there are others waiting before you and please be patient with us this is the longer break than normal in the middle of the show don't go away we'll be right back after these messages with more of Raymond Ibrahim and our email address is

Chris Arnson at gmail .com Chris Arnson at gmail .com

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James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of iron sharpens iron radio and I are heading down to Atlanta Georgia again for the g3 national conference that's

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Raymond Ibrahim and that is chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

you were right in the middle I believe you were discussing a major theological controversy in Christendom it may have been involving

Arianism but I can't remember right now before I had to interrupt you to go to the break do you remember where you left off yeah yeah no

I think we were going to talk about the Crusades and I was just given a backdrop and I was I was going to talk about I think it's important I'm sure to your audience specifically when

I talk about and I say Christians there's a lot of pausing and wondering because you know some apparently you know there were no

Christians before 1517 so I think we should kind of and we need to clear that up before I continue and I'd like to do that by first saying

I'm not here to make any theological argument because that's not my interest I'm not a Catholic I'm not here to defend Catholicism but I do think it's a that any

Protestant who doesn't who sorts who does not see that there were Christians before 1517 does a disservice to themselves because they create a discontinuity in their understanding of history and they really don't know how so much of what has happened that brought us here and I'm specifically talking about Islam and Islam's impact on the

Western world's development okay so in that sense you know and I oh

I was talking about the Church Fathers and I was I was emphasizing that again to a lot of people especially in America when you say that the

Middle East and North Africa these regions were Christian before Islam you know there's just you know people get them founded they don't buy into that but yes they were and that's like I said where the

Church Fathers come from including Augustine of Hippo who came from Algeria or Tunisia and the formulators of the

Nicene Creed many of them who were from Alexandria Egypt and so forth so yeah you know

I'm not here to say who was a Christian in their heart or who wasn't and that sort of thing but in the context of the lives of the men that I would we will be discussing the men in the book

Defenders of the West they seem Christian to me I mean they were defending their homelands in keeping with just war theory they were being altruistic the

Crusaders and so let's get into that let's talk about the Crusades so after three -quarters of the

Christian world had been conquered and swallowed up by Islam in the seventh century as I mentioned from the death of Muhammad 632 to the

Battle of Tours when France was right in the middle of I'm sorry when Muslims were right in the middle of France in Tours or Poitiers and they had the big battle with Charles Martel and so forth and and the goal believe it or not was to actually conquer all of Europe which almost happened on several occasions again people aren't aware that Islamic jihadist raids went on deep long after that in the 16th century

Iceland Muslim raiders from North Africa reached Iceland and brought back hundreds of slaves also they invaded

Denmark they had an island I think it's called I forget his name I can tell you later but they had a small island off the coast of England where they launched slave raids into England so this was a serious thing and like I mentioned in 1683 at Vienna again another central or important European capital surrounded by jihadists at any rate the

Crusades so now we go back in time 732 three -quarters of the Christian world is conquered then excuse me right around the turn of the 11th century or the

Turks start pouring into the Middle East to become Muslim and they become the new standard bearers of the jihad and basically long story short especially after the

Battle of Manzikert in the year 1071 they start taking over Asia Minor now Asia Minor of course was another bastion of Christianity this is where st.

Paul wrote many of his epistles to churches in Asia Minor very old Christian region that was swallowed up in the jihad and the accounts just are horrific of what was happening especially to Armenians who of course are from Eastern Asia Minor but also the

Greeks who were living there the sort of atrocities the Muslims were committing against them mass massacres the burning and destroying of thousands of churches women and children sexually abused and slaved by the tens of thousands okay then that is what caused the

Eastern Roman Emperor Emperor Alexius at the time to call on the Pope in Rome for aid and so that snowballed in 1095 at the

Council of Clermont where Pope Urban II called for what became known in history as the first crusade so it was fundamentally about helping

Eastern Christians who were being mauled by Muslims as well as liberating the as they call it the

Holy Sepulchre that the church built atop Christ's tomb they believed in that in Jerusalem which was also pilgrims who had been going to that to Jerusalem from Europe European pilgrims were also being attacked and killed and slaughtered and raped by Muslims right up right before the first crusade so that's what the first crusade was about and actually a lot of nobles and kings and emperors through the years gave up so much and sacrificed so much of their lands and men both of them died going there so it was actually understood as an altruistic affair in keeping with just war theory so this is the only area

I'll get into theology and basically I'm just saying that even just war theory which I believe transcends all the different denominations

Catholic Protestant Orthodox yeah was what motivated these men it was basically these were

Christian lands they were conquered you are currently abusing Christians we are coming to help liberate them and that's basically what they did the

Crusades of course ultimately failed and they were overwhelmed by Muslim armies about two centuries later but these wars were fundamentally about were definitely in keeping with just war theory because the

Muslims were the aggressors the Muslims had conquered ancient Christian territories and the Muslims were then persecuting

Christians so that's really the true story of the crusades now did the Crusaders do what we would call atrocities by today's standards of course but it really do compared to what the

Muslims were doing before and during the crusades it really pales in significance and that's the problem there's so much animosity towards the crusades that people will highlight and emphasize what happens in the crusades while completely ignoring and just you know what

Muslims did to provoke that sort of response so that's a little bit on the crusades which perhaps you have some questions yeah yeah before I take listener questions

I'll just ask one more of my own the as far as the atrocities are concerned that you mentioned was that an exception to the rule or was that the rule was there a gruesome persecution of Muslim women and children was there a torture that was unnecessary all that kind of thing well no

I mean again the best standard is whatever the Christians did was often in response to what the

Muslims are doing which was fundamentally worse so for example move a little forward into the

Mediterranean right around 1500s and you have the Knights Hospitallers who used to be in Jerusalem and now they're st.

John's Knights and they're in Malta and they were known to actually enslave

Muslims all right and a lot has been written about that and you know how horrible that is but when you dig into it as I have and I show in the book the

Muslims were were the ones who were actually enslaving Christians and this was seen as a response to basically defame them and kind of try to dissuade them from doing that in fact what

I have one historian in mind I can quote but he basically says that you know what what the

Christians were doing was that was a small percent or a drop in the bucket what the Muslims are doing in terms of slavery so in the 16th century there were 1 .25

million Europeans enslaved in the north of Africa North North Africa Barbary Coast as it became known and by the way most people forget this timeless jihad

I'm referring to was of such a quality that the very first nation the United States of America found itself in the very first war

I'm sorry that the newborn nation of the United States found itself in after independence from Great Britain was with Muslims acting on the same exact rationale and I'm referring to the

Barbary Wars when Muslims from the North Africa again started enslaving this time

American sailors prompting Thomas Jefferson and Adams yeah that was where the

Marine Corps song came from the halls of Montezuma exactly so I'm just trying to show you how multi tentacled and far -reaching

Islam was that even in America's own history its earliest history you you have these echoes and wars of jihadist violence okay we have a listener

Robert in Westchester County New York and Robert says I am a thoroughgoing reformed

Protestant and as your host Chris Arnson I am NOT an ecumenist but the way that I see what your guest is saying that this war or wars plural more accurately known as the

Crusades were something necessary just as we view either the Revolutionary War or World War one or World War two where even though every participant may not have been a truly born -again believer in Christ at the same time they were being used of God for a necessary quest to make sure that there was freedom for Christians to live and believe as they chose so I think

Robert makes a good point what do you think about what he said yeah I mean I'm in agreement with what he's saying

I think that's a that's ultimately what I'm trying to say I mean it seems far -fetched but believe it or not if it wasn't for these sorts of fighters and defenders and stalwart crusaders

Europe would likely be a Muslim nation I mean it's gonna be a Muslim nation anyway now yeah right demographics and whatnot even even just for procreation the yeah exactly non

Muslims are not breeding yeah exactly so but it just like three -quarters of the older Christian territory was conquered it was an aim of Muslims to conquer

Europe and as I said they went so far they went into Iceland and all around there wasn't hardly an area that wasn't raided and we've seen whole portions of Europe Spain in Eastern Europe the

Balkans under Islamic rule Russia as well people know the Tatar yoke the

Mongol yoke that was actually also fits into the Muslim Christian paradigm because the Tatars were

Muslims and they were enforcing Islamic draconian laws on the Christians of Russia who would be

Orthodox in this case so it's a really to me it's a fascinating history that just isn't as well known and again it's not for any theological reasons that I would emphasize it but just for historical accuracy and an appreciation of what

Western civilization and Christians in general went through at the hands of Islam and are still going through that's a whole different topic we can eventually sometime touch on yeah and I understand the

Tartar is also a raw steak is that true I don't know if that's where that comes from let's see here oh by the way

Robert you have won a free copy of this book that we are giving away this beautiful hardback very substantially sized book defenders of the

West the Christian heroes who stood against Islam by our guest Raymond Ibrahim and please give us your full mailing address in Westchester County New York so that CV bbs .com

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship that out to you at no cost to you to us and we want to thank

Bombardier books for supplying us with a limited number of giveaway copies for our guests who submit questions we have

Joseph and South Central Pennsylvania who says I know that your guest started the program by saying he had a background in Coptic Orthodoxy and also later said he is not a

Roman Catholic I wonder if he could care to explain in a little more detail what his current religious positions are so that we can more clearly understand the lenses through which he has studied and written on history right well

I think as I mentioned my background is Coptic Orthodoxy and that's a that's the very the the sect if you will of Christianity that I formally subscribe to but when it comes to what lens

I wear I try to wear a very objective lens when I write about history and this is why I can be neutral or even sometimes favorable towards Catholicism even though I have nothing to do with Catholics and I'm at variance with much of what they believe as well so I don't think

I bring my own personal religious views into my writing on history well I'm sure when you said you have nothing to do with Catholics you love them over for a barbecue or something

I am vehemently opposed to the

Roman Catholic gospel of the Council of Trent but I have Catholic friends we have

Oh Joseph you've also won defending defenders of the

West by my guest Raymond Ibrahim and so please make sure we have your full mailing address in South Central PA so that CVBBS .com

can ship that out to you we have BB in Cumberland County Pennsylvania and she said or actually could be he

I never found out if BB is a he or a she BB says that earlier

Chris Arnes and the host said that there was a stark contrast if I'm not mistaken between the

Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition can you care to expound upon that yeah that's true because the

Spanish Inquisition was not a group of Christians defending geographical territory from an invading army the

Spanish Inquisition for lack of a better comparison they were like the

Roman Catholic Gestapo and they were gruesomely torturing and murdering both

Jews Protestants and Muslims even when these people were living in peaceful harmony with Roman Catholics including the

Muslims in Spain and so on so am I correct on that that this is one of the ways not only and also a time reference that Spanish Inquisition would have been from the 15th century and believe it or not all the way in till nearly the middle of the 19th century the

Spanish Inquisition was going on and it reached beyond Spain into the

Americas and so on but give us in your own words how you think it was different yeah the

Inquisition actually in its origin is fundamentally rooted to everything I'm talking about so it starts in Spain obviously because Spain had a massive presence

Muslims conquered Spain there were massive wars and what you would call atrocities committed or Christians of Spain the

Catholics over the centuries so Spain was conquered in 711 and this goes on and you have what's called the reconquista which is the reconquest so the

Christians start battling fighting back and eventually taking the whole of Spain now in 1492 there was only one last bastion of Islam Granada the very southern tip of the

Spanish Peninsula even though before the whole of Spain was Islamic and they permitted the

Ferdinand and Isabella this is their time allowed Granada to maintain its Islamic presence and so forth and they give them lots of freedom but they constantly rebelled and fought back and so they were given two options either convert

Christianity or leave and go back to North Africa which is where the Muslims had come from and the reason for the conversion wasn't because you know they were fanatical

Christians and you have to be like us or we hate you it was because the Spanish crown understood that as long as you maintained an

Islamic mentality you would have you would have that jihadist tribalistic animosity for Christians so the only way was to become a

Christian so what happened is the Muslims got a decree from a leading Islamic shift which said you can engage in what's called the

KIA which is stay a Muslim in your heart but convert get baptized didn't go to church to the

Eucharist all that be a Christian but in your heart try to re -subvert Spain back to Islam and that's what half a million

Muslims in Granada did they all converted though and this went on for generations to the point that Christian priests in Spain were complaining saying these people are better Christians than we are in their punctuality in church and all and maintaining all the

Catholic rites but at home they would go and preach undying hatred for Christians and work with the

Ottomans and Barbary pirates into re -subverting Spain and that is the origin of the

Inquisition the Christians in order to decide if you're really a Christian or if you're part of this to KIA crowd which was half a million that's where the

Inquisition actually began now I'm not talking about all its manifestations down the centuries but you know the

I think the caller was talking about Muslims and Jews and Christians living in harmony and that is just you know absolutely not the case then again these are the lies of history you dig in the sources like I did and I documented in my book you're gonna see an exact different story you see

Muslims torturing terrorizing Christians burning them at stake and so forth you see

Christians fighting back and the Inquisition like I said it's a culmination of Spain's reconquest and then having this basically fifth column of Muslims who are insisting they had converted but were still actually involved and whenever they had a chance there would be massive upright uprisings in one case they sewed all like a priest inside of a pig and barbecued in and went on this kind of mass gang rape of Christian women so that's the problem people never hear that side they just hear what in this case the

Catholic Church did and they don't get the full picture of what they were fighting against or what they were up against but at the same time a very crucial distinction here is that the

Spanish Inquisition was satanically gruesome towards Jews and the

Protestants who posed no physical threat to Roman Catholics so there was not just an exclusively targeting of Muslims there were no

I'm talking about in its in its origins this is what it was right around you know soon after 1492 this is what no like I said how it morphed and spread and went against non -muslims

Jews and Protestants that's a different that's a different story and by myself I'm not exactly some expert in but yeah yeah well there were tens of thousands of Jews and Protestants murdered by the

Spanish Inquisition and had nothing to do with their threat of overthrowing any kind of Roman Catholic nation or anything like that BB thank you so much you will also receive

Defenders of the West by my guest Raymond Ibrahim and this is compliments of our friends at Bombardier books who have donated a limited number of copies of this wonderful book and CV BBS Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will be shipping it out to you at no cost to you or to us let's see here we have

Thomas in West Islip New York and Thomas says how far into our

I'm sorry I'm misreading this how far closer to our current day did the

Crusades continue was this something that was going on during the

Protestant Reformation etc well actually you already said earlier that it didn't did they not cease before no that they couldn't have ceased before because the because well actually you want to you answer the question when it when did the

Crusades cease to occur well it depends on what one means by a crusade if you mean the proper historic

Holy Land Crusades which is what most historians mean and they give them numbers for a second third

Crusades and so forth like I said they start right around 1095 and the end the usual date is 1291 right so not even 200 years but having said that the fights between Muslims and Christians in Spain and in the

Balkans were also seen and validated as bona fide crusades because it was the same kind of principle

Christians defending their lands in this case against the infidel the heathen this case

Muslim invaders so yeah it's kind of a semantic point I suppose thank you

Thomas you've also won a copy of the book make sure we have your full mailing address we have

Arnie in Perry County Pennsylvania and Arnie says what involvement if any did your branch of Christendom have in the

Crusades and I'm speaking of the Coptic Orthodox Oh none the

Coptic Orthodox indigenous Orthodox inhabitants of Egypt were quickly conquered in the year 640 this is about almost four centuries before the first crusade and basically swallowed up and subjugated by Muslims and you know just like I was talking about the persecution

Christians were going through right before the Crusades they experienced the same exact thing for centuries up until the

Crusades as well in fact some of the Crusades were centered in Egypt they and and you have some but then there was no serious kind of you know cooperation or the

Coptics as a people were basically a cowed and sort of subjugated people who are not a warrior people and they have been conditioned into that subjugated status for centuries so when the

Crusades started they were just not really part of anything we have Grady a very loyal and faithful listener to iron trip and Zion radio and also a very generous supporter of this program

Grady in Asheboro North Carolina greetings brothers were the Muslims united during the

Crusades or as today were they divided into two groups I think there are more than two groups aren't they that Muslims are divided but but perhaps you could answer that well yeah by two groups

I assume he means the Sunnis and Shias which is the majority the main two groups and then there's some subgroups mostly under the

Shias but the Sunnis account for 90 % of the Muslim population yeah they were that you had the

Sunnis and Shias but whenever they were they were and they would they were constantly fighting each other in fact during the

Crusades as well the Fatimids were in Egypt and they were a Shia caliphate versus the

Abbasid Sunni caliphate with Shia echoes itself in Baghdad at any rate but when the

Crusaders did come yeah they often did the Shias and the Sunnis often did ally together against them and was this like a recognized ceasefire between the two groups or were the groups much more conciliatory than they are now no

I would say it was more of a ceasefire it was basically you know that you know the enemy of my enemies my friend right and and the dangerous enemy right now is the

Crusader just like we were in World War II with the Soviet Union right right he has a follow -up question was one group fighting the

Crusades and one resisting war I guess since you've already kind of answered that were any

Muslims resisting the Crusade the not not the Crusades but were they resisting their war against Christendom no

I don't know instance of any Muslim Shia or Sunni who was if I understand the question you know a pacifist or somehow against violence against the invading

Crusaders all right Grady thanks a lot and you're gonna also receive a book in the mail compliments of Bombardier press and also compliments of CVBBS .com

and this is a gift from us and Bombardier press and CVBBS .com

so though there will be no charge for this book we're going to our final break right now if you have a question please submit it to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com give us your first name at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA don't go away we're going to be right back the Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents the future of Christendom 2023 the gospel at war

September 15th to the 16th in Lancaster County Pennsylvania featuring dr.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries we are excited to be including a formal debate in this year's conference dr.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating dr. Gregory Coles author of single gay

Christian a personal journey of faith and sexual identity the debate topic is gay

Christian a biblically acceptable identity for a member of Christ Church so come join us for the sixth future of Christendom conference the event will take place at spooky nook sports in Mannheim Pennsylvania and will run from Friday evening through all day

Saturday with an invitation to the Sunday morning worship service of the Independence Reformed Bible Church this will be a weekend packed with practical teaching with a theme of the gospel at war in many areas of our culture including government schools the

Supreme Court missions feminism and even the church pulpits head to future of Christendom org

I'm dr.

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I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron radio and I are heading down to Atlanta Georgia again for the

G3 national conference that's Thursday September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching teaching writing about and defending in live public debates for most of my life the sovereignty of God I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel and Josh Bice founder of G3 ministry and there's more great news

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That's liyfc .org. Welcome back.

If you could, Raymond, start highlighting some of the actual specific individuals that you view as heroes of this period of time in history.

Sure, Chris. Basically the book, it's eight chapters, but you can say it covers three different faders of war.

Three chapters are in the Crusades, two chapters are the reconquest or reconquista in Spain, and three chapters are the

Balkans. And so the Crusaders, and this was no easy task, I mean there are so many characters whose lives were fascinating and who have a good, a really fascinating story to tell through their lens.

So I had no dearth of people to pick, but I ended up with, the first one is Godfrey from Buyan, Duke Godfrey, and he was a first Crusader.

The second one is El Cid, who we know as Charlton Heston. Also known as Ben -Hur, and also known as Moses.

Yeah, exactly. He makes it into the book, he's the second. The third one is King Richard Lionheart.

The fourth one is Ferdinand III, who goes on to become a saint in the

Catholic Church. The fifth one is Louis IX of France. The sixth is

John Hunyadi, a Hungarian nobleman who fought the Ottomans. The seventh one would be

Skanderbeg, I think I spoke about him a little bit, and his story is amazing when you read it, the

Albanian Braveheart. And the last one of course is Count Dracula, Vlad the

Impaler. By the way, I don't know if you're familiar with this or aware of this, but there are many people ignorant of history who confuse

Vlad the Impaler with John Calvin. John who?

John Calvin, the forefather of what is known as...

Yes, I have heard people mix up history and claim that John Calvin's front yard was replete with people, the heads of his victims on stakes and so on, and I said no, no, no, that's not

John Calvin. There was only one martyr of the anti -trinitarian cause that is associated with John Calvin, and that is

Miguel Cervito, Michael Cervitus, and John Calvin did not personally have anything to do with his execution other than submitting to the decision of the

Genevan government. But anyway, I don't want to go off on a rabbit trail there. So tell us about Vlad the Impaler.

Is he a hero? Well, okay, so he definitely is in Romania, and again, his story, a lot of what we know about him is actually he became a villain to the

King of Hungary right around the time when the Gutenberg press came out, and he's actually, I argue, one of the first victims of fake news, because the

Hungarian King had received a lot of money from the Papacy, in fact, to help fund a crusade which

Dracula was supposed to spearhead. The Hungarian King never helped Dracula and basically swallowed the money, and so when the time came, he basically accused

Vlad, Dracula, of being a traitor and so on and so forth, and he was jailed, and during this time, the printing press, they tried to depict him in order to exonerate the

Hungarian King, what he had done as a monster who had impaled and so forth.

Now he did do all that, but once again, it appears in the vacuum. What most people don't know is he was abducted and held as a hostage in his youth by the

Muslims, the Turks, and he learned impaling from them. They actually were the ones who were really good at it, and then he eventually fled and became the ruler of Wallachia, modern -day

Romania. The Muslims, the Turks, came after him there, and they entered his land, devastating it, and anyway, he began resorting to impaling people as a sort of terror tactic, tick for tack, to reciprocate and terrorize and frighten the

Ottomans, because he was vastly outnumbered. Maybe for each one of his men, there were like 20 Ottomans invading, fully armed.

So it was a terror tactic, and he created the forest of the impaled, and it actually worked in the story that I narrate based on the sources.

Eventually, of course, Romania also was conquered. He was killed. But so, you know, to Romanians, yeah, he's a hero, and by the way, he's not

Catholic. He's, I think, the only character in my book who's an Orthodox. But yes, certainly by our standards, mass atrocities he committed, but we must not see it just in a vacuum and understand that this was a reciprocal, desperate response to what the

Muslims were doing to his people. Now, I know that Bram Stoker based his character

Dracula on Vlad the Impaler, but did people actually call Vlad Dracula? Yeah, Dracula actually was his surname, and it just means son of the dragon, and the dragon was his father, because he was a member of the

Order of the Dragon, which was an order dedicated to a crusading ideal against the

Turks. It was just called the Order of the Dragon. So Dracula was basically almost his moniker.

He signed his name as Vlad III Dracula, son of the dragon. Oh, wow. And, of course, that doesn't help your reputation.

Yeah, that's been blackened. In a minute, can you summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners regarding your book?

Basically that it's an objective retelling, or accurate telling, of history about something that, and what

I get from a lot of Americans, especially Protestants, it's a history we've never kind of encountered, never known, and I think it helps fill in the gaps.

It's not an apology for Catholicism or anything like that. In fact, I don't get into religion. The only time

I get into religion is in the concept of just war theory, and to show that these men were working in that construct.

But anyone can decide what they are, but it's more important for me as a historic understanding of where the

West came from vis -a -vis Islam and its brutal wars, because I think it helps fill a vacuum in how we understand

Islam today. And I would argue that it's because Islam is so misunderstood due to this whitewashing of history that so much of the problems that we're having now in Europe and so forth, migration, is a product of that.

So I think this book is a contribution in helping to ameliorate that misunderstanding by showing you the continuity of hostility.

Well, I want to thank again Bombardier Books for providing us with the books that we gave away today. If anybody wants more information about this book we've been addressing,

Bombardier is an imprint of Post Hill Press, so go to posthillpress .com, posthillpress .com.

I want to thank you so much, Raymond, for being such a fascinating guest. I would love to have you back on the program, and I want to thank everybody who listened today to our discussion.

And by the way, I want to make sure also that Raymond Ibrahim's website is known to our listeners, raymondibrahim .com,

and that's spelled I -B -R -A -H -I -M, raymondibrahim .com.

I want to thank everybody for listening, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater