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______________________________________ Al-Mawardi (d. 1058), a renowned jurist of Baghdad, in The Laws of Islamic Governance states the critical connection between jihad and payment of the jizya. He notes that “The enemy makes a payment in return for temporary peace and reconciliation.” Al-Mawardi then distinguishes two cases: Primarily, payment is made immediately and is treated like booty. Secondly, payment is made yearly and will “constitute an ongoing tribute by which their security is established". If the payment ceases, then the jihad resumes. He adds “it does, however, not prevent a jihad being carried out against the infidels in the future for converting them to Islam, in spite of their having paid the jizya.” ________________________________________ Jihad in China Many eyebrows would be raised when we talk of a Muslim Jihad against China. When did that happen? We never hear about Muslim rule in China. Yes, there was a Muslim invasion of Western China. ______________________________ The Dawat-ul-Islam (Invitation to embrace Islam) was sent out by the Muslim gangster-prophet Mohammed-ibn-Abdallah to the kings of the neighboring countries, including China and if they did not submit to one of the two conditions viz: “Embrace Islam or Pay the Jaziya or face a Muslim invasion, then they had to face a Muslim Jihadi onslaught. The Chinese faced a Muslim invasion in 751. __________________________________ The encounter of the Chinese with the Arab Muslims, lasted for no less than one hundred years from 651 up to 751. During this clash, China lost many of the Westernmost provinces of its empire in the 7th and 8th centuries. In fact Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan were once Chinese provinces of the T’ang empire up to 751. Only when they were overrun by the Muslims after the Battle of the Talas river in 751 that they were separated from China and annexed to the Muslim Caliphate. The Kazaks, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kyrgyz and Tajiks are Chinese converts to Islam. Even today inside China the Uyghur constitute the Chinese converts to Islam and are agitating against the Chinese government for secession to form a separate country they call Eastern Turkistan. Before the advent of Islam the peoples of these countries worshipped a god named Teng Ri (God Sky) apart from the Buddha. They practiced an array of religions, of which Tengriism and Buddhism were the two major ones. Clash of Contrasts in China and Central Asia - Buddhism v/s. Islam China is today a Communist nation that is officially atheist. But the undercurrents of Buddhism are very omnipresent. When the Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed by the Taliban, it was the Chinese who immediately began recreating two lifesize replicas of these gigantic Buddhas inside China. They selected a massive rock face of a hillside and set about sculpting massive images of the Buddha which would keep alive the memory of the Bamiyan Buddhas which the Taliban had destroyed. ______________________________ The destruction of its most famous archaeological monuments - the giant stone figures known as the Bamiyan Buddhas - led to global condemnation of the Taleban regime. But now one of the Buddhas is rising again, except this time in western China, where a team of workmen are carving a replica figure into a cliff-face in Sichuan. As more than 300 stonemasons chip away at the rock, the giant figure is gradually emerging into view. The sandstone cliff near Leshan, in the lush green hills of Western China, is redder than the more golden sandstone near Bamiyan. Nonetheless, the Chinese project aims to recreate the Afghan Buddha the way it used to be, before erosion and intolerance destroyed its face and dynamite reduced it to a heap of rubble. The figure will be 37m high - the same as the smaller of the two Afghan statues. It is being carved by hand with mallets and chisels, just like the original figures. The Afghan statue is the brainchild of a Chinese businessman, Liang Simian. Mr Liang runs a Buddha theme park near Leshan, which has its own ancient giant Buddha figure. The 3000 Buddhas in Mr Liang's theme park are all modern replicas, but that does not worry the tourists who come to see them. Although many of China's Buddhas were destroyed during its so-called Cultural Revolution, she said China now liked to protect religion, and while it would be better to be able to see the originals, visiting copies was almost as good. The creators of the Sichuan statue claim that in at least one way, their statue will be better than the original which had their faces disfigured in the 8th century by the first Muslim invaders before the Taliban could arrive to destroy the entire monoliths. In China the Buddhas will have perfect faces as the Chinese are recreating what they believe to be its original face, modelled on the heads of surviving Afghan Buddhas. Professor He Ining, one of the sculpture professors who is advising the project, says the lower part of the face matches the original, but the details had to be recreated from scratch as had the whole upper part of the face, using Afghan Buddha busts of the same period. __________________________________ But unlike its Muslim neighbors like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, China is (unofficially) Buddhist today due to the largely forgotten struggle waged by the Chinese kings against the Muslim Jihadis who began forays in to Western China from the 7th century onwards. After the defeat of the Zoroastrian Sassanid empire of Iran, the Arab Muslim armies reached the borders of Chinese T‘ang empire in the year 651. The Westernmost province of the T’ang empire which bordered the Sassanid empire was inhabited and governed by the Turko-Sino-Mongoloid clans like the Qarluqs and Seljuqs. The Forgotten story of the first Chinese-Muslim clash We know little of the bloodied struggle that these border clans of the T’ang empire of China waged against Islam for one hundred years from 651 up to 751 The first clash of the Turko-Sino-Mongoloid clans (who were subjects of the Chinese T’ang empire) with the surging Islamic Jihad took place when the Muslims in their surge through Persia reached the borders of the Chinese T’ang empire with those of the Persian Sassanid Empire in Khorasan, near Central Asia. In those days the Turks ruled Central Asia as subjects of the T’ang emperors of China. The Turks have been referred to as Turanians by the ancient Persians of Zoroaster’s time. The Turks were so to say a multi-ethnic tribal cluster who were united with the bonds of language with their neighboring clans the Mongols. Before we proceed, we need to get an outline of the complex relations of the Turks with the Chinese and other Mongoloid clans with whom they then shared a related language and surprisingly also common religions. Some of the Turks and Mongols practiced various forms of Buddhism mixed with their native religion centered around a god named Teng Ri. ______________________________ Teng Ri (also called Teng’ri, Tengri or Tenri and Tanri) is the god of the old Turkic, Mongolian and Altaic religion named Tengriism. The Mongols called him Tengri, (depicted as Blue Sky) was the highest God of Turks and Mongols. The name "Tengri" (Tana-Gra) means "Ruler, Master of the Land"; In the pre-Islamic Turkish worship of celestial objects, lies the usage of Turkish Muslims of the crescent Moon as their symbol. Incidentally, the crescent moon, was borrowed by other non-Arab Muslims from the Turks. We may note that the Arabs never use the crescent moon as their symbol. __________________________________ The Huns, Bulgars, Ughirs, Seljuks, Qarluqs were some of the different tribes that made up the vast Turkish nation. Of these the Huns and the Bulgars embraced Christianity and the rest of the Turkish clans embraced Islam. Before embracing Islam or Christianity, in the 3rd and 4th centuries the Turks (Huns, also called White Huns) had attacked the Roman empire, the Sassanid and Achaemenian empires in Persia and had also invaded India. They were a warlike race, who would not easily be subjugated and led a nomadic life. They were hardy tribal race who had strains of Caucasoid and Mongoloid ancestry. The pre-Islamic religion of the Turks was centered around their celestial god named Teng Ri (Tengri or Tanri) Tengri is the god of the old Turkic, Mongolian and Altaic religion named Tengriism. The Mongols called him Tengri, (depicted as Blue Sky) was the highest God of Turks and Mongols. The name "Tengri" -(Tana-Gra) means "Ruler, Master of the Land". In the pre-islamic Turkish worship of celestial objects lies the usage of Turkish Muslims of the crescent Moon as their symbol. Incidentally, the crescent moon, was borrowed by other Muslims from the Turks. We may note that the Arabs never use the crescent moon as their symbol. The core beings in Tengriism are Sky-Father (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) and Mother Earth (Eje/Gazar Eej). In history, Chinggis Khan (Gengis Khan), the unifier of the Mongolian nation, based his power on a mandate from Tengri himself, and began all his declarations with the words "by the will of Eternal Blue Heaven." ______________________________ Deep in history neither the Mongols nor the Turks were Muslims, but in fact had waged a bloodied struggle against Islam. The Turks and Mongols were neighbors and had mixed ancestry since antiquity. Both held Central Asia between them as surrogates of the Chinese emperors, when the Arab Muslim invaders appeared on the scene, after over-running the Persian Sassanid Empire in the year 651. Ironically as subjects of the Chinese empire the Turks had to struggle with Islam which came to them through the medium of the Islamized Persians who had been newly converted to Islam at the point of the sword by the Arabs. The conversion of the Turks themselves began after the defeat of the Chinese armies at the Battle of the Talas river, when one clan of the Turks – the Qurluqs had tactically shifted their allegiances to the Arabs to free themselves from the Chinese over lordship. This cost the Turks dear, as this change of allegiance, trapped them in to another allegiance – to that of being Muslims, an allegiance which the Turks have not been able to shake off till this day! __________________________________ In modern Turkish, the word "Tanri" is used as the generic word for "god", and is also often used today by practicing Muslims to refer to their God in Turkish as an alternative to the word "Allah", the - originally Arabic - Islamic word for "God". ”Khan” is pre-Islamic Turko-Mongol royal title title Khan is a typical Turko-Sino-Mongol royal title and is, by default today, considered to be a Muslim name. Incidentally, when Marco Polo, the Italian explorer and traveler visited China in the 13th century, the emperor of China was one named Kublai Khan. The term “Khan” is in fact a title of the Turko-Sino-Mongol. Many of us may not be aware that Genghis Khan and Hulagu Khan were not Muslims, they were in fact inveterate enemies of the Muslims. They laid waste a large swathe of the Islamic crescent in the 13th century, till their descendants were ultimately defeated by the Muslims and were forced to convert to Islam. After this conversion, till today we have come to believe that the name Khan is a Muslim name and that the Turks and the Mughals (Mongols) have always been Muslims. Deep in history neither the Mongols nor the Turks were Muslims, and had waged a bloodied struggle against Islam before their forcible conversion. The Turks and Mongols were neighbors and had mixed ancestry since antiquity. Both held Central Asia between them as surrogates of the Chinese T’ang Empire when the Arab Muslim invaders appeared on the scene, after over-running the Persian Sassanid Empire in the year 651 C.E. The Defeat of Sassanid Persia, opened up the Turkish administered Chinese domains of Central Asia to the Jihadis In the year 637, in the Battle of Qadsiyah, the Arab Muslims attacked and defeated the Zoroastrian Sassanid empire of Persia. After this defeat, the Arabs relentlessly invaded all parts of the vast Sassanid empire and did not stop till they reached the north-eastern border of the empire which touched the South-western border of another huge empire – the T’ang empire of China. At this border, after clearing these pockets of Persian resistance, the Arabs made the main Persian town of Merv the target of attack. Merv was the capital; of Khurasan and here the last Sassanid king Yazdgard had sought refuge with his courtiers who had being fleeing before the advancing Arab Muslims, since the Arab invasion of Persia in 637 after the disastrous battle of Qadisiyah. No resistance was offered and the Muslims occupied the capital of Khurasan without lifting their swords. On hearing of the Muslim advance, Yazdgard left for the town of Balkh which was in the domains of the Chinese empire. The remnants of Yazdgard’s Persian army were now in tatters and in no position to put up any effective resistance to the invading Arabs and so he sought assistance from the neighboring Turks who were the subjects of the powerful Chinese T’ang empire. Now a brush of the Arab Muslims with the warlike and fearsome Turko-Mongols who were governing this border province of the Chinese T’ang empire was inevitable. The only saving grace that prevented an immediate full-scale warfare between these two warlike peoples – the Arabs and the Turko-Mongols was that the Arab commander, Ahnaf decided that discretion was the better part of valor and chose not to advance. The Arab army that had in the year 651 had reached the borders of the T’ang empire had marched some two thousand Kms., from Arabia. A march of this distance had been covered by the truculent Arab Muslims in a stunning military campaign across the Sassanid Empire in a period of a mere fourteen years starting from the invasion of Persia in the year 637 when they had defeated the Persians at the Battles of Qadsiyah on the southern borders of the Persian Empire and later at Nehavend inside Iran. The Arabs had crisscrossed the entire Sassanid Empire from the southern border of that empire to its northern border in only a decade and a half. This was no mean feat that was made possible by the power crazed zeal which the Arabs had found in Islam. But now with another empire staring them in their face, the Arab Muslims decided to take a breather and put off the invasion of China for some time. The Sassanid emperor had sought refuge with the Turks at Merv who were the subsidiaries of the Chinese Empire. Many Persian nobles had also fled to China and the Persian Crown Prince Firuz had in fact sought refuge in China and had joined the Chinese as the head of a Persian contingent which he had placed under the command of the Chinese commander. In face of these developments, the Arab commander Ahnaf who had led the Arab armies to the border town of Merv decided to call off any pursuit of the fleeing Persians by launching an incursion in to China. Such an incursion would have involved another series of battles with the Chinese army and with their surrogates the Turko-Mongols which the Arabs were told are fierce fighters. Ahnaf decided that he would have nothing to do with the Turks further straining his war weary army that had moved two thousand Kms., from their homeland Arabia. But before withdrawing from the borders of the Chinese empire, one swift clash of the Arabs with the Turks could not be avoided. The Arab commander Ahnaf stayed at Merv for some time to reorganize the administration and to await further reinforcements from Kufa. In the meantime the Persian forces gathered in considerable strength at Balkh. Yazdgard sought aid from the neighboring Turkish state Farghana and the Khan of Farghana personally led a Turkish contingent to Balkh. ______________________________ When the Arabs first invaded Turkish governed provinces of the Chinese empire, it was reported to the Arab commander Ahnaf that the practice with the Turks was that the war commenced at dawn and before the war could start three heralds blew bugles and then the Turkish force marched to the battle. To subvert the Turks, before the night of the war, Ahnaf hid himself in a safe place outside the Turkish camp. As soon as the Turkish herald came out of the Turkish camp to blow the bugle, Ahnaf overpowered him and killed the Turk with his sword. When the second herald came he met the same fate. The third herald also met the same fate. So on that day the bugles did not blow for the Turkish army. When the bugles did not blow the Khan of Farghana came out of the camp to see what had happened to the heralds. When he saw that all of them were dead he regarded this as a bad omen. At the spur of the moment he decided that the Turks should not involve themselves with the Muslims. He ordered his force to withdraw and march back to Farghana. This is how the Arab Muslims deceived the Turks into retreating. The Islamic Jihad had drawn the first Turkish blood thru subterfuge. __________________________________ Having received reinforcements, Ahnaf led the Muslim forces to Balkh. The Muslims had experience of battling with the Persians but they had little experience of war with the Turks. Ahnaf wanted to avoid war with the Turks, and in this connection he thought of devious ways whereby the Turks should abandon the cause of Yazdgard. So when the Arab Muslims first invaded Turkish lands, the Muslims decided to use subterfuge. It was reported to the Arab commander Ahnaf that the practice with the Turks was that the war commenced at dawn and before the war could start three heralds blew bugles and then the Turkish force marched to the battle. To subvert the Turks, before the night of the war, Ahnaf hid himself in a safe place outside the Turkish camp. As soon as the Turkish herald came out of the Turkish camp to blow the bugle, Ahnaf overpowered him and killed the Turk with his sword. When the second herald came he met the same fate. The third herald also met the same fate. So on that day the bugles did not blow for the Turkish army. When the bugles did not blow the Khan of Farghana came out of the camp to see what had happened to the heralds. When he saw that all of them were dead he regarded this as a bad omen. At the spur of the moment he decided that the Turks should not involve themselves with the Muslims. He ordered his force to withdraw and march back to Farghana. This is how the Arab Muslims deceived the Turks into retreating. The Islamic Jihad had drawn the first Turkish blood thru subterfuge. ______________________________ In the space of a century from 651-751 C.E. a number of events of importance transpired in Central Asia. These four hundred years were the fiercest in the Turko-Sino-Mongol struggle against the Islamic Jihad. The next four hundred years were to see the gradual transformation of the Turks into Muslims. The Turks shed their blood fighting the Jihad for four hundred years but finally gave up and embraced Islam, to later become Jihadis themselves to carry the bloodied tradition of aggression and forcible conversion into Anatolia (modern Turkey) and through the Balkans up to Austria and Poland. __________________________________ The next three hundred years witnessed the untold story of the Turko-Mongol resistance to Islam. Ironically the Turks and Mongols had to struggle with Islam, which came to them through the medium of the Muslim Persians who had been newly converted to Islam at the point of the sword by the Arabs! As in China, the people of Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan also once were overwhelmingly Buddhists, before they were overrun by Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries. In fact, what are today the Shanghai Five countries had, up to the 7th century, one religion (a mix of Buddhism-Tegriism-Animism) and one culture. Central Asia was once a land of many Buddhist monasteries and many clusters of monks worshipped the innumerable images of Buddha, as were till recently the Bamiyan Buddhas. In Persian the word “Butt” which denotes any image or idol, is derived from the term “Buddha”. Before the 7th century when they were overrun by Islam, the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz and Turkmen people did not look upon themselves as different nationalities. A large part of today’s Central Asia was then at times a part of the Chinese empire. And before that they were semi-independent clans ruled in a loose alliance under one chieftain. The clash of the hardy Buddhist and animist ancestors of the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz and Turkmen with the violent Arab Muslims was then a clash of contrasts. This is so as there is no greater contrast than that between Buddhism and Islam. While Buddhism is intrinsically and universally non-violent, Islam is a violent, cruel and murderous paranoia as we witnessed in 9/11, 7/7, 3/11 and numerous other events in recent history. The 14 century long history of Islam has been equally violent and bloodied and cruel. ________________________________ A horseman. The face-off between Islam and Buddhism is a study of extremely stark contrasts; contrasts like, actions followed by queer reactions followed again by counter reactions. Confusing is it? Let us explain. Read on. The universal non-violence of Buddhism pitted against the depraved Cruelty of Islam The Buddhists teach their adherents to be extremely non-violent whatever the provocation, while Islam teaches its adherents to be extremely cruel, murderous, deceptive (Taqiya)and sadistic. When the Buddhists first encountered the Muslims in Central Asia and Afghanistan (remember the Bamiyan Buddhas?), the Buddhist reaction was no reaction at all. The Buddhists tamely submitted to the Muslims. No they did not embrace Islam en masse; they just gave themselves up for being slaughtered en masse by the Muslims. The Buddhists were one of those few who accepted the “Death Option” from the Muslims’ offer of “Islam or Death”. Hence the Buddhists simply perished in the first flush of Muslim onslaught against them. Many of the Buddhists never learned to resist the Muslims. Even when the Muslims raided famous Buddhist Universities like Nalanda in India’s Bihar province, the Buddhists died en masse when the Muslim swordsmen slaughtered them like hyena would devour a clutch of rabbits in a cage. The Buddhists also did not make any attempt to escape from their murderers. They accepted death with an air of fatalism and destiny. And hence they are not around today to tell their story! But their mindless slaughter evoked another and extremely opposite reaction from another set of Buddhists. This was also the most dramatic one so far – the Mongol invasion of Iran and Iraq by Chengiz Khan and his son Hulagu Khan. These Mongols were Buddhists by faith, whose homeland had been suffering the depredations of the Muslims for six centuries (from 651 C.E. to 1200 C.E.) when the Buddhist Mongols decided that enough was enough and decided to pay back the Muslims with their own coin – with due premium added! The Mongols slaughtered the Muslims of Iran and Iraq with unremitting cruelty. The Mongols laid waste the countryside, burnt down cities slaughtered the Muslim population en masse, including the Caliph himself!. It was only this unexpected reversal of attitudes of the Mongol Buddhists, that resulted in the ravaging Muslims being ravaged themselves by a force that was infinitely more barbarous than the Muslims. And only this could lead to the defeat of the Muslims. This folks is the moral of our story when we try to understand the Muslim attacks on the Buddhists of China and the erstwhile Chinese provinces in Central Asia and how the Muslims can finally be defeated in the ongoing War on Terror. _____________________________________ The face-off between Islam and Buddhism is a study of extremely stark contrasts; contrasts like, actions followed by queer reactions followed again by counter reactions. Confusing is it? Let us explain. Read on. Physical science tells us that whenever there is an action, there is also an equal and opposite reaction. In the world of human psychology, this rule generally becomes skewed depending on the ethical-moral mindset of the parties involved. The Muslims have encountered varying levels of resistance in their history of rampage spread across three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa up to the 20th century. A rampage which spread in a dramatic manner to America (9/11) and Australia (Bali attacks) in the 21st century. The Muslim marauders started their rampage (Jihad) by measuring their theologically inspired murderous mentality against the military valor of the Zoroastrian Persians in the 7th century followed by the military valor of the Byzantine Christians. Note here that it was the military valor of the Persians and Byzantines that was pitted against the theologically inspired murderous mentality of the Muslims. This match itself was unequal as theologically inspired murderous mentality can and did easily overcome military valor. The inspiration of the Muslims was to destroy their enemies, while that of the Persians and Byzantines was only to defeat and roll back the Muslim invasion. It was in this battle of objectives itself that the Persians and the Byzantines lost out to the Muslims. To defeat the Muslims, our primary objective should be to destroy Islam. Only then can victory over Muslim be the result! The Muslim mindset of unremitting violence, cruelty and murder finally defeated the military valor of both the Zoroastrian Persians and the Byzantine Christians. Both the cultures fell before the advance of the murderous Muslim marauders. The Zoroastrian Persians perished and disappeared from history altogether. But the Christians responded differently. After four centuries of unremitting barbarism from the Muslims who overran the Christian nations of the Middle East (known today as Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Turkey) and the Christian nations in Africa (Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia) as also in Europe (Spain for 800 years) France (for 30 years) Italy (for 8 years) the Christians finally decided that enough was enough and determined to return the barbarism of the Muslims with even greater and more effective barbarism, tinged with determination to liberate the Holy Land from its infidel occupiers, singed as the Christians had been with four centuries of Muslim horrors across three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe. ________________________________ Traditional Warriors The Chinese resisted the Muslims, for one hundred years from 651 up to 751. The clash of the Chinese with the Muslims Arabs started in 651 wen the Arabs reached the South-Western borders of the Chinese empire after overrunning the Persian Sassanid empire. This clash culminated in 751 with the Battle of the Talas river. The result of this century long struggle was the loss of Westernmost provinces of the Chinese empire to the Islamic Caliphate. These lost provinces are what we call today the nations of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, whose people are Mongoloid like the Chinese, but profess the Islamic faith (tempered by a century of Communism in the 20th century) _____________________________________ On the other hand because of the change of strategy while fighting the murderous Muslims, the Crusaders were stunningly successful, and in their first rush itself overwhelmed the barbarous Muslim with even greater barbarism. The Crusaders not only slaughtered the Muslims, but went further to roast and eat the Muslims in a gruesome barbecue. An exercise that can today be termed as recycling the adversary! Mind you, these Crusaders were not Head Hunting cannibals when the left Europe. They came from established civilizations in France, England, Germany, Spain, Italy in Mediaeval Europe. But the relentless barbarism of the Muslims had built in the Christians an urge to put an end to it all, once and forever. The result was – The Crusades. and the corollary of cannibalism that was compelled upon the Crusaders by four centuries of near fatal depredations of their countries, culture and civilization. It was only this unexpected reversal of attitudes on part of the Crusaders of the ravaging the ravager Muslims with a force that was more barbarous than the Muslims, could lead to the defeat of the Muslims. This folks is the moral of our story when we try to understand the Muslim attacks on the Buddhists of China. The universal non-violence of Buddhism pitted against the depraved Cruelty of Islam The Buddhists teach their adherents to be extremely non-violent whatever the provocation, while Islam teaches its adherents to be extremely cruel, murderous and sadistic. When the Buddhists first encountered the Muslims in Central Asia and Afghanistan (remember the Bamiyan Buddhas?), the Buddhist reaction was no reaction at all. ________________________________ A Samurai When attacked and massacred by the Muslims, the Buddhists initially did not make any attempt to escape from their murderers. They accepted death with an air of fatalism and destiny. And hence they are not around today to tell their story. But their mindless slaughter evoked another and extremely opposite reaction from another set of Buddhists. This was also the most dramatic one so far – the Mongol invasion of Iran and Iraq by Chengiz Khan and his son Hulagu Khan. These Mongols were some sort of Buddhists by faith, whose homeland had been suffering the depredations of the Muslims for six centuries (from 651 to 1200) when the Buddhist Mongols decided that enough was enough and decided to pay back the Muslims with their own coin – with due premium added! The Mongols slaughtered the Muslims of Iran and Iraq with unremitting cruelty. The Mongols laid waste the countryside, burnt down cities slaughtered the Muslim population en masse, including the Caliph himself!. The Mongols were matched in their reaction to Muslim Barbarism, only by the Crusaders. And interestingly it was only the Mongols and the Crusaders who defeated the Muslims in their own homeland in the last 1400 years of the existence of the Muslims since 622 CE. _____________________________________ When attacked savagely by the Muslims, the Buddhist monks tamely submitted to the Muslims. No, they did not embrace Islam en masse; they just gave themselves up for being slaughtered en masse by the Muslims. The Buddhists were one of the few who accepted the “Death Option” from the Muslims’ offer of “Islam or Death”. Hence the Buddhists simply perished in the first flush of Muslim onslaught against them. Many of the Buddhists never learnt to resist the Muslims. Even when the Muslims raided famous Buddhist Universities like Nalanda in India’s Bihar province, the Buddhists died en masse when the Muslim swordsmen slaughtered them like a pack of famished hyenas would devour a clutch of rabbits inside a cage. The mindless Muslim slaughter of the Buddhist monks evoked another and extremely opposite reaction from another set of Buddhists – the lay tribal followers of Buddhism of Turko-Mongol extraction! When attacked and massacred by the Muslims, the Buddhists initially did not make any attempt to escape from their murderers. They accepted death with an air of fatalism and destiny. And hence they are not around today to tell their story. But their mindless slaughter evoked another and extremely opposite reaction from another set of Buddhists – the lay tribal followers of Buddhism of Turko-Mongol extraction! This was also the most dramatic one so far – the Mongol invasion of Iran and Iraq by Chengiz Khan and his son Hulagu Khan. These Mongols were a sort of hybrid Buddhists by faith, whose homeland had been suffering the depredations of the Muslims for six centuries (from 651 to 1200) when the Buddhist Mongols decided that enough was enough and decided to pay back the Muslims with their own coin – with due premium added! The Mongols slaughtered the Muslims of Iran and Iraq with unremitting cruelty. The Mongols laid waste the countryside, burnt down cities slaughtered the Muslim population en masse, including the Caliph himself!. The Mongols were matched in their reaction to Muslim Barbarism, only by the Crusaders. And interestingly it was only the Mongols and the Crusaders who defeated the Muslims in their own homeland in the last 1400 years of the existence of the Muslims since 622 CE. Other minor aberrations that turned the tide of the Muslims were the Franks at Tours,the Spanish Re-conquistadores, the Hindus under their king Sivaji, the Nubian marksmen and the Thai reconquest of the Sultanate of Pattani late in the seventeenth century from the Arab-Malay Muslim occupiers. Similarly the Chinese resistance to Islam for a not so short period of one hundred odd years from 651 C.E. up to 751 C.E. Today we have forgotten this chapter of Chinese history and many eyebrows would indeed be raised when we talk of a Muslim Jihad against China. The forgotten fact is that there was fill-fledged Muslim invasion of Western China in the 7th and 8th centuries. As there was of Persia, India, Byzantium, Spain, Balkans, etc. None of these countries had ever attacked a Muslim nation to bring about a retaliatory Muslim invasion. They had all been invaded by Muslims to compel the inhabitants to embrace Islam. The same happened with China. The Dawat-ul-Islam (Invitation to embrace Islam) was sent out by the Muslim gangster-prophet Mohammed-ibn-Abdallah to the kings of the neighboring countries, and if they did not submit to one of the two conditions viz: “Embrace Islam or Pay the Jaziya or face a Muslim invasion, then they had to face a Muslim Jihadi onslaught. China was one of those countries which had been sent an invitation by the founder of Islam himself Mohammed-ibn-Abdallah to embrace Islam. This invitation had also been sent to three other kings of Zoroastrian Persia, of Christian Byzantine and to a Hindu king of Kerala in India. The Chinese emperor did not quite understand the meaning of the ultimatum sent in the year 629 by Mohammed, and thought that these were messengers from a far away land were bringing a spiritual message and welcomed them honorably. But unfortunately, the Chinese had to come face to face with the real danger of Islam a couple of decades later, when in the year 651, they had to march to the borders of their empire in Western China to unsuccessfully repel an Arab Muslim invasion launched from Persia. This was followed by a century of skirmishes between the Muslims and the Chinese which culminated in the seminal war between the two forces at the battle of the Talas river in 751. After losing land early in these skirmishes to the Muslim Arabs, subsequently for much of the early 700s, the Chinese Empire, under the T'ang dynasty, was successful in regaining the lands they had lost. They recovered many of the crucial lands they had previously lost to the initial Muslim Arab forays from Persia in to the Central Asian provinces of the Chinese empire and had stabilized the Western frontier with the Islamic Caliphate. The Chinese also secured trade routes through central Asia and contained threats from the Turkic Khitan and Hsi peoples. In the late 740s, Chinese troops claimed lordship over Balkh and Merv that had been lost to the Muslim Arabs a few decades earlier. But their string of victorious campaigns could not last forever, as China discovered at Talas River in 751. Islam's widespread aggression through Persia and Central Asia came into collusion with China's Westward re-conquest through Central Asia. This led to the meeting of the Arab Muslim invaders and the Chinese defending their homeland which finally erupted into open warfare at the Battle at Talas River, the only major battle between Arab Muslim forces and the army of the Chinese Empire. ______________________________ The Arab attack on China did affect Chinese history in the forgotten past. After the defeat of the Chinese in the Battle of the Talas river, the Arabs rounded up tens of thousands of Chinese prisoners and their non-Qarluq Turkish allies and took them to Samarqand from where Abu Muslim sent them to Baghdad and Damascus to be sold as slaves, each worth a dirham. This Abu Muslim was originally a Zoroastrian named Behzadan who had converted to Islam and had assumed the name Abu Muslim after his conversion. One Chinese survivor of the Talas campaign mentions being kept as cattle in the Arab prison camps. Abu Muslim and Ziyad made huge financial gains out of this slave trade and used it to pay their armies. More importantly the Arabs forced the Turkish and Chinese prisoners to teach them the art of making siege trains and catapult machines, which later the Islamized Turks were to use successfully in their attacks on the Byzantine cities. __________________________________ The Chinese troops were led by Kao Hsien-chih, who had been successful in battles in Gilgit and in the Ferghana region. The Muslims were led by Ziyad ibn Salih, who was deputy to Abu Muslim (a Persian convert to Islam), with a band of 40,000 Ghazis (warriors crazed by Islam’s promise of wealth, women or martyrdom in heaven where the accursed Ghazis would be served by the many houris that the Terrorist Manifesto – the Quran falsely promises). These Ghazis came to China to wage a Jihad against the Chinese. When the Arab army marched from the south towards Talas. River, the Chinese general Kao (of Korean origin), decided to resist the Muslim invasion and marched towards Aulie-Ata on the Talas river with 100,000 Chinese troops in cavalry and infantry divisions. In the Battle of the Talas river, the Qarluq Betrayal led to the defeat of the Chinese at Arab hands On July 10th 751 AD the Arab and Chinese armies took to the field in Aulie-Ata on the backs of the Talas river. The Chinese cavalry seemed to initially overwhelm the Arab cavalry, but the Arabs had worked out a deal with one of the many Turkish contingents of the Chinese army viz., the Qarluq Turks, by promising them wealth and freedom in return for embracing Islam and betraying their Chinese masters. The Qarluqs who held a grudge against the Chinese for having reduced them to vassalage, viewed this as an opportunity to throw off the Chinese yoke by using the Arabs and had planned to later throwing off the Arab Islamic yoke as well and regaining their freedom from both the Chinese and the Arabs. The Qarluqs later played the main role in converting other Turkish tribes notably the Seljuks to Islam. At the Battle of the Talas river, the Qarluqs betrayed their own people the Chinese and went over to the Arabs At the battle of the Talas river where the Arab and the Chinese armies clashed, the Qarluqs who were a part of the Chinese army, opened a breach in their own ranks and allowed the Arabs to ford the river and helped them to encircle a part of the Chinese infantry butchering it to a man. ______________________________ The sordid chapter of the Arab Muslim aggression against China is least well known. And with the secretive policies of the Chinese Communist administration, news of the Han Chinese Muslim sedition against China rarely filters out to the West. __________________________________ The Qarluq archers then surrounded their paymaster, the general of the Chinese army Kao and shot him down. Now the Arabs followed their heinous practice of sticking the severed head of an enemy and parading it before the enemy army. The Chinese not being used to such grisly war tactics, fell into confusion and disarray, not knowing who had betrayed them, and their General Kao. They broke ranks and fell into confusion, shaking the Chinese center, which was rapidly assaulted by the Arab heavy cavalry and destroyed. Thus due to Muslim subterfuge and savagery the infallible Chinese war machine gave way under combined assault of the Arabs and the traitor Qarluqs, and the Chinese faced a heavy rout. From behind, the treacherous Qarluqs fell upon the Chinese supply and baggage trains and looted all they could and receded back into the steppe. The Arabs rounded up tens of thousands of Chinese and their non-Qarluq Turkish allies and took them to Samarqand from where Abu Muslim sent them to Baghdad and Damascus to be sold as slaves, each worth a dirham. This Abu Muslim was originally a Zoroastrian named Behzadan who had converted to Islam and had assumed the name Abu Muslim after his conversion. One Chinese survivor of the Talas campaign mentions being kept as cattle in the Arab prison camps. Abu Muslim and Ziyad made huge financial gains out of this slave trade and used it to pay their armies. More importantly the Arabs forced the Turkish and Chinese prisoners to teach them the art of making siege trains and catapult machines, which the Islamized Turks were to later use successfully in their attacks on the Byzantine cities. The Qarluq Turks aimed at playing the Chinese and the Muslims against each other to gain their own independence The Qarluq Turks wanted independence from the Chinese so they made a pretence of embracing Islam to obtain Arab support to defeat the Chinese. The Qarluqs had planned to later throw off the Arab yoke as well by repudiating Islam and regaining their freedom from both the Chinese and the Arabs. ______________________________ The tryst of the Chinese with Islam was the result of an invasion. The simmering discontent of the Muslims against the non-Muslim Chinese rule continues. But Chinese Communism, has since 1949 kept the Han Chinese Muslims under strict state control. The Muslim Ghazis (Islamic Holy – actually utterly beastly - Warriors) came to China to wage a Jihad on the Chinese. When the Arab army marched from the south towards Talas. River, the Chinese general Kao Hsien-chih(of Korean origin), decided to resist the Muslim invasion and marched towards Aulie-Ata on the Talas river. On July 10th 751 AD the Arab and Chinese armies took to the field in Aulie-Ata on the backs of the Talas river. The Chinese cavalry seemed to initially overwhelm the Arab cavalry, but the Arabs had worked out a deal with one of the many Turkish contingents of the Chinese army viz., the Qarluq Turks, by promising them wealth and freedom in return for embracing Islam and betraying their Chinese masters. __________________________________ But little did the Qarluqs realize that in working out a deal with the Arabs, while they would succeed in throwing off the Chinese yoke, they would have to bring themselves into the fold of Islam, from which there was no escape! The Qarluqs were forced to remain Muslim and whenever any of them reneged their Islamic faith, they were put to death while the luckier among them were enslaved by the Arabs and Persian Muslims. The later history of the Qarluqs was as Muslims who resigned themselves to remaining as satellites of the Arabs after having thrown off the Chinese yoke and with it also the only possibility of liberating themselves from the grip of Islam. ______________________________ The Han Chinese are the result of China’s defeat at the battle of the Talas river when the Arab Muslims attacked Western China Islam's widespread aggression through Persia and Central Asia ultimately reached the borders of China. This led to the meeting of the two powers in Central Asia which finally erupted into open warfare at the Battle at Talas River, the only battle between Arab Muslim forces and the army of the Chinese Empire. __________________________________ Unfortunately, it was this devious conversion of the Quarluqs, that was actually a pretense to throw off the Chinese yoke on the Turks, that led to the conversion of the greater Turkish nation to Islam in the next three centuries from 750 to 1050. The Turks who had aggressively retained their freedom from their neighbors the Chinese, and the Zoroastrian Persians for more than a millennium, finally began succumbing to Islam due to this tactical pretense of the Qarluqs, one of their important clans to pretend to embrace Islam for securing Arabs support and throwing off Chinese suzerainty. A deal that proved costly for Turkish independence that was now permanently enslaved into the prison of Islam! The fallout of the Battle of the Talas river While the battle in itself was of minor importance, its ramifications on the future were very significant. As the Arabs did not follow-up on their victory, they lost out on an opportunity to extend their Islamic influence throughout China and make China a Muslim country. On the other hand the T'ang (in China) lost a good amount of power and their westward advance was halted. But the Muslim success at the Talas river did not carry over, although the Muslim armies were victorious. But the more significant fallout of the defeat at the battle of the Talas river was the arousal of the Sino-Mongol anger against the Muslims. The gradual bitterness that was planted among the Mongoloid peoples (Turks, Mongols and Chinese), since the first Muslim attacks on Turkish lands of Ferghana and Samarqand from the middle of the seventh century (650 C.E.), and which were taken to the border of China proper in 751 at the Battle of the Talas river, provoked a violent backlash of the Mongols against the Muslims. ______________________________ A Chinese Hui Muslim. The Muslim victory on the Talas river also had its negative fallout in the conversion of the Chinese border population to Islam, the Qarluq Turks were followed by the Ughirs and the Hui Chinese (a branch of the Han Chinese) into accepting the faith imposed on them by the Arabs. The Chinese who converted to Islam gradually gave up their rich Chinese heritage and became Arabized, although they continued to look Mongoloid like the Chinese. Today the descendants of the Hui, Ughirs, and Qarluq populate the Westernmost Chinese province of Xinjiang and are agitating for a separate Islamic state called Eastern Turkestan. Many of them are sympathetic to the Al Qaeda but their attempts to secede from China have been so far successfully resisted by the Chinese Communist regime. __________________________________ After the victory at the Talas river, the Muslims faced increasing resistance from the Chinese and their Turko-Mongol allies. So the Muslims decided to concentrate on consolidating their position in Central Asia and converting the Turks to Islam. Hence they postponed their eastward invasion into China proper. This decision of the Arabs in 751, was to save China from Islam, as in the following centuries, the Mongol who belonged to the wider Chinese (Mongoloid) nation gathered sufficient strength to launch a fierce counter attack against the Muslims from 1200 onwards that culminated in the sack and destruction of Baghdad in 1258 C.E., by Hulagu Khan, the leader of the Mongols. Incidentally, Kublai Khan, the emperor of China who is mentioned by Marco Polo was a relative of Hulagu Khan and Chengiz Khan. China’s Lost provinces The Muslim victory on the Talas river also had its negative fallout in the conversion of the Chinese border population to Islam. In this encounter with the Arab Muslim invaders, China lost many of the Westernmost provinces of its empire in the 8th century. In fact Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan were once Chinese provinces of the T’ang empire up to 751. These provinces were like the rest of China overwhelmingly Buddhist. Their Buddhist character was lost and the population slaughtered and the rest forcibly converted to Islam from the 8th century onwards after the defeat of the Chinese at the Battle of the Talas river. And only when these provinces were overrun by the Muslims after the Battle of Talas in 751 that they were separated from China and annexed to the Muslim Caliphate. The Kazaks, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, and Tajiks are Chinese converts to Islam. Even today inside China the Uyghurs do not consider themselves to be Chinese. They constitute the Chinese converts to Islam, but are agitating against the Chinese government for secession from China to form a separate country they call Eastern Turkistan! After the Chinese defeat at Battle of the Talas river, the conversion of the Qarluq Turks to Islam was followed by the conversion of the Uyghur (Ughirs). Later the Hui Chinese (a branch of the Han Chinese) were also forced into accepting the faith imposed on them by the Arabs and by the other Chinese converts to Islam. These Chinese who converted to Islam gradually gave up their rich Chinese heritage and became Arabized, although they continued to look Mongoloid like the Chinese. These are the Kazaks, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and Tajiks who today do not even consider themselves Chinese or a part of the great Chinese nation. Even inside China proper, the descendants of the Hui, Ughirs, and Qarluqs who populate the Westernmost Chinese province of Xinjiang want to secede from China and are agitating for a separate Islamic state to be a part of a resurgent Muslim Caliphate. Many of them are sympathetic to the Al Qaeda but their attempts to secede from China have been so far successfully resisted by the Chinese Communist regime. Off late the animosity of the Muslim Uyghurs against the Chinese has spilled over outside China across to Afghanistan and Pakistan where before the siege of the Red Mosque, the Uyghurs instigated the local Pakistani Muslims to abduct Chinese ladies and humiliated them for being un-Islamic. There have been instances of Chinese engineers being abducted and murdered in NWFP (North West Frontier Province) of Pakistan and around Gwadar port where the Chinese have a major involvement in helping the economic development of Pakistan. Many non-governmental agencies in Pakistan such as the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) have co-opted the Uyghurs in their strategy of a global Jihad which is also aimed at China to complete the task they consider unfinished, of converting all the Chinese to Islam. A task which was initiated when the Muslim prophet Mohammed sent his invitation to the Chinese emperor to convert to Islam in 629 and which almost came to be a reality after the Chinese defeat at the Battle of the Talas river in 751. In the coming years China would be on the radar of the global Islamic Jihad movement, as the HUT (Hizb-ut-Tahrir) has sunk its claws inside Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan. The HUT and the Al Qaeda has many Uyghurs members and have grown tentacles inside China. News from China rarely filters out, but there have been reports of bus bombings, bomb blasts and stabbings in Western China and also some stabbing cases in Beijing the Chinese capital. The Uyghurs may try to create attention grabbing disturbances before, during and after the 2008 Olympic Games. Already slogans like “Osama bin Laden Hao (Osama bin Laden is good) Saddam Hao, Arafat Hao are heard often in Western China. The Chinese authorities need to be extra vigilant and take pre-emptive action against these agitators and terrorists. We wish the Chinese all the very best in their coming struggle against Islam. _____________________________ * For those uninitiated, PBUH expands to Perpetual Battle Upon Hagarism (Islam) – founded by the mass-murderer and pedophile pretender prophet Mohammed-ibn-Abdallah (Yimach Shmo – May his name and memory be obliterated). ________________________________________ ______________________________________ Select Bibliography Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam) by David Cook Why I Am Not a Muslim by Ibn Warraq Onward Muslim Soldiers by Robert Spencer Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye'Or Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeor What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commentary by Ibn Warraq Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict, by Obadiah Shoher Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries (Hardcover) by Paul Fregosi The Sword of the Prophet: History, Theology, Impact on the World by Srdja Trifkovic Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer Islam and Terrorism: What the Quran Really Teaches About Christianity, Violence and the Goals of the Islamic Jihad by Mark A. Gabriel, Mark A. Gabriel A Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) by Robert Spencer The Great Divide: The failure of Islam and the Triumph of the West by Marvin Olasky The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims by Robert Spencer Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer, David Pryce-Jones The Koran (Penguin Classics) by N. J. Dawood Don't Keep me Silent! One Woman's Escape from the Chains of Islam by Mina Nevisa Christianity And Islam: The Final Clash by Robert Livingston Holiest Wars : Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden by Timothy R. Furnish The Last Trumpet: A Comparative Study in Christian-Islamic Eschatology by Samuel, Ph.D. Shahid Unleashing the beast: How a fanatical islamic dictator will form a ten-nation coalition and terrorize the world for forty-two months by Perry Stone Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature (Religion and Politics) by David Cook Islam and the Jews: The Unfinished Battle by Mark A., Ph.D. Gabriel The Challenge of Islam to Christians by David Pawson The Prophetic Fall of the Islamic Regime by Glenn Miller, Roger Loomis Prophet of Doom : Islam's Terrorist Dogma in Muhammad's Own Words by Craig Winn The False Prophet by Ellis H. Skolfield The Approach of Armageddon: An Islamic Perspective by Muhammad Hisham Kabbani The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God by George Weigel Infiltration : How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington by Paul Sperry Unholy Alliance : Radical Islam and the American Left by David Horowitz Unveiling Islam : An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs by Ergun Mehmet Caner Perfect Soldiers : The Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It by Terry McDermott Islam Revealed A Christian Arab's View Of Islam by Anis Shorrosh Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out by Ibn Warraq The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam's Holy Book by Ibn Warraq ________________________________ Unfortunately for humankind, the end of the death-seeking fiery cult of Islam can only come about through a fiery death-giving weapon. Ironically such nuclear mushroom clouds would be the blazing hell-fire that the Quran talks about and acknowledges will bring about an end to Islam such that there will be no one across the globe to say “Lah ilah il Allah, Mohammed ur Rasoolallah” (There is no god but allah and Mohammed is his prophet). _____________________________________