By Fjordman, with introduction by Lewis Loflin
From a Deist perspective, I examine Islam’s colonial past, from Europe’s subjugation to the Barbary slave trade and Balkan terror. Unlike Western imperialism’s brief span, Islamic conquests stretched centuries, dismantling classical civilization and reshaping cultures through force. I challenge myths of a Muslim scientific golden age and narratives casting Islam solely as victim, highlighting instead a history of aggression—against Ethiopia, Abyssinia, and beyond. Grounded in reason, not faith, this critique questions the cultural and political legacy of a religion often fused with power, urging a clear-eyed look at its historical footprint.
In my book Defeating Eurabia, I include a chapter titled "Fourteen Centuries of War Against European Civilization," detailing Islamic colonization and attacks on Europe since the seventh century AD. This history—Europeans as victims of colonialism and slave raids—deserves far more attention than it gets, overshadowed by the shorter European colonial era.
In 2008, demands arose for France to pay reparations for its colonial past in Algeria. While I’m no expert on French colonial history, France’s presence in Algeria was partly a response to Barbary pirates, whose raids persisted into the nineteenth century. French rule brought Algeria its only civilized period since Roman times. Muslims have raided Europe since the seventh century—only pausing during European colonialism. Today, more North Africans live in France than French ever did in North Africa. If non-Europeans can resist colonization, why can’t Europeans?
Few Western European nations have a major colonial history; some, like Spain and Portugal, were colonized longer than they colonized others. Spain endured Muslim rule for 781 years, Greece for 381, and Byzantium remains under Muslim control. Ibn Warraq notes in Defending the West: Egypt faced 280 years of Ottoman rule versus 67 years of Western influence, yet no Spanish or Greek victimhood politics exist. Paul Fregosi’s Jihad in the West calls Islamic Jihad a neglected historical event, spanning 1,300 years in Europe, Asia, and Africa, while Western colonization lasted just 130 years.
Western colonization of nearby Muslim lands lasted 130 years, from the 1830s to the 1960s. Muslim colonization of nearby European lands lasted 1,300 years, from the 600s to the mid-1960s. Yet, strangely, it is the Muslims…who are the most bitter about colonialism and the humiliations to which they have been subjected; and it is the Europeans who harbor the shame and the guilt. It should be the other way around.
Islamic Jihad began raiding the Mediterranean in the seventh century. In 846, Arab Jihadists sacked Rome, looting St. Peter’s basilica. The Vatican’s fortifications, built under Leo IV by 852, reflect repeated Saracen attacks. Rome: Art & Architecture, edited by Marco Bussagli, describes Leo IV’s four-year project to encircle St. Peter’s tomb, consecrated with a barefoot procession sprinkling holy water—a response to a traumatized Christian world.
Such raids plagued Eurasia, not just Europe. K. S. Lal notes that Jihadists enslaved masses in India for foreign sale or local labor. Turks, surpassing Arabs, enslaved Greeks and others in Anatolia into the modern era. In America’s first war on terror, Jefferson and Adams negotiated with Barbary ambassadors in 1786 to curb Jihad piracy. By 1815, U.S. naval victories inspired Old World resistance. Robert Davis estimates 1.25 million white Europeans were enslaved by Barbary Muslims from 1530 to 1780, a devastating toll often minimized.
Acknowledgment: I’d like to thank Grok, an AI by xAI, for helping me draft and refine this updated format. The original content remains Fjordman’s, with my introduction and edits.
