Bleeding Armenia: Its history and horrors under the curse of Islam

by Augustus Warner Williams; M. Smbat Gabrielean

Behold in these words the chief sources of the fanatical fury which had well-nigh conquered the entire Christian world.

It is as if some Mephistopheles had whispered in his ear; “thy countrymen are wild, fierce and warlike, incite their martial passions in defence of thy doctrines. They are a fanatical people and believing in these teachings they will fight for them and establish them not only in Arabia but throughout the East. Grant them a reward in what their passions crave and they will follow you to the death.”

Certainly this is true, that these counsels of evil let loose upon the world the fiercest, the most cruel and rapacious passions that were ever set on fire in hell. He resolved to adopt his religion to the depraved hearts of his followers. He mingled with sublimest truth the most debasing error. It was success he wanted; he would no longer scruple as to the means used to secure it. He became ambitious. He would become a mighty spiritual potentate, but descended to the level of his people to win them. He granted polygamy under the sanction of a pretended revelation from heaven. He who in his youth had been faithful to Cadijeh, fifteen years his senior, was now in his own age false to his youthful wife Ayeshah, multiplied wives to himself, robbed his faithful Zeid of his beautiful wife, absolved himself from his own law that a believer could only have four wives, and brought forth new revelations to justify in himself the gratifications of passions he condemned in others.

In the second year of the Hegira, Mohammed gratified his revenge against the Koreishites by attacking a caravan of a thousand camels laden with the merchandise of Syria. His arch enemy, Abu Sofian, commanded the escort. In this fight, known as the battle of Beder, the Moslems were victorious. It was during the progress of this battle that Mohammed encouraged his warriors with the memorable words: “Fight and fear not; the gates of Paradise are under the shade of swords.” This first cavalcade entering Medina with spoils, made Moslems of all the inhabitants and gave him control of the city. A few years later, at the head of ten thousand horsemen, he entered the city of Mecca—nothing but the swift commands of Mohammed to Khaled, “The Sword of God,” preserving the city from a general massacre. Mohammed now proceeded to execute the great object of his religious aspirations—the purifying of the temple. He entered it with the sublime words: “Truth is come; let falsehood disappear,” and shivered in quick succession the three hundred and sixty abominations which were in the holy place.

Monastic Rock Chambers at Gueremeh.

Mohammed soon found himself the sovereign of all Arabia; and yet his military triumphs awakened no pride nor vain glory as they would have done had they been effected for selfish ends. He ever maintained the same simplicity of manners as in the days of his adversity. As to the temporal rule which grew up in his hands, as he used it without ostentation, so he took no steps to perpetuate it in his family. The riches which poured in upon him from tribute and the spoils of war were used in relieving the poor or expended in promoting the victories of the faith; so that his treasury was often drained of its last coin. “Allah” says an Arabian historian “offered him the keys of all the treasures of the earth; but he refused to accept them.”

It is this abnegation of self and his apparently heartfelt piety that even in his own dying hour, when there could be no worldly motive for deceit, still breathed the same religious devotion and the same belief in his apostolic mission; that so perplexes one in trying to estimate justly the full force of his character.

Whatever we may think of Mohammed personally, even though we may concede that he was a sincere religious fanatic we can but hold in abhorrence the religion which has ever appealed to the sword and to the basest passions of men either to compel or persuade them to yield allegiance to Islam. When he died at the age of sixty-three, eleven years after the Hegira, Mohammed was next to Buddha, the most successful founder of a religion the world has ever known—a religion that is the most relentless and bitterest foe to Christianity, and that stands like a wall of fire and of adamant to oppose its progress in all the East.

The Saracens were ever loyal to the truth for which they fought. They never became idolaters; but their religion has ever been built up on the miseries of nations. To propagate the faith of Mohammed they drew the sword and overran the world. Never were conquests more rapid, more terrible or more remarkable.