Andrew Bostom Islamic Jihad Lord Cromer

ANDREW BOSTOM: WHY THE LATE LORD CROMER IS STILL HATED IN EGYPT…….

It’s because the man knew what he was talking about and not afraid to speak it. Andy Bostom reflects upon the wise words of the late British Consul-General in Egypt, Lord Cromer. No doubt, if Lord Cromer were alive today and caught voicing the very same thoughts Andy talks about in his article at Big Peace, the late Lord would be smeared, tarred and feathered with the label of bigot and Islamophobe draped around his neck and quickly called back to London for a stern dressing down followed by a disgraceful forced resignation.
ANDY: Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer (1841-1917), served as British Consul-General in Egypt for almost a quarter century, from 1883 to 1907. As noted by the London Telegraph’s Andrew Roberts, in February, 2004,

…despite all the multifarious benefits he bestowed during his time there, he is cordially loathed in Egypt today.
cromer
Given past and present sentiments for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt among Egypt’s Muslims (“…the Brotherhood has become the most important representative of the Egyptian masses”), this contemporary hatred of Lord Cromer is consistent with his adamant opposition to such retrograde “Islamic revivalist” movements. Cromer elucidated his objections to early 20thcentury “Pan-Islamism” identifying the genuine aims and character of this modern transnational incarnation of jihadism. He also underscores the impotence of the movement’s select, Western-leaning Muslim opponents, who were compelled to adopt its irredentist message or forfeit popular support from the Muslim masses.
Lord Cromer’s prescient words, are as relevant to contemporary Islam, as they were to the Islamic movements he described a century ago. We would be wise to heed Cromer’s assessment when contemplating the ultimate aims of “moderate” Imam Feisal Rauf, champion of Sharia.
Pan-Islamism almost necessarily connotes a recrudescence of racial and religious animosity. Many of its adherents are, I do not doubt, inspired by a genuine religious fervor. Others again, whether from indifference verging on agnosticism, or from political and opportunist motives, or—as I trust may sometimes be the case—from having really assimilated modern ideas on the subject of religious toleration, would be willing, were such a course possible, to separate the political from the religious, and even possibly from racial issues. If such are their wishes and intentions, I entertain very little doubt that they will make them impossible of execution. Unless they can convince the Muslim masses of their militant Islamism, they will fail to arrest their attention or to attract their sympathy. Appeals, either overt or covert, to racial and religious passions are thus a necessity of their existence in order to insure the furtherance of their political program.
Pan-Islamism almost always connotes an attempt to regenerate Islam on Islamic lines—in other words, to revivify and stereotype in the twentieth century the principles laid down more than a thousand years ago for the guidance of a primitive society. Those principles involve recognition of slavery, laws regulating the relations of the sexes which clash with modern ideas, and, what is perhaps more important than all, that crystallization of the civil, criminal, and canonical law into one immutable whole, which has so largely contributed to arrest the progress of those countries whose populations have embraced the Moslem faith.

NOTE: Here’s a comment to the article that the TT thought worth republishing here. It captures the very same thinking the TT espouses on a daily basis, that being, without a total rejection of the violent jihad and the literal interpretation of the Koran and hadiths, as well as the rejection of political portions of the sharia, Western society will continually be assaulted by the international jihad. Every time ISlam believes its in a place of ascendency, the jihad will resume. KGS

Islam’s gone through this cycle over and over again. The original spurt of jihad, conquest and forced conversion that started with the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates tapered off around the ninth century, when a resurgent Byzantine Empire started making gains in Anatolia and Syria, and the Reconquista started gaining steam in Spain. It was only the arrival of newly converted Turks that heralded a resurgence of Islamism, and also led to a severe setback for the Byzantines after Manzikert.

The success of the First Crusade and the rise of the Comneni kept the Turks and the Fatimid Caliphate at bay for a time, until the incompetence of Guy of Lusignan and treacherous Crusaders led to the fall of Jerusalem and Constantinople respectively.

This period we’re going through is nothing new, and how we weather it will depend on the unity and discipline of what remains of the Western, Christian world right now.

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