Islam—Spread by the Sword?You Bet.
Itwas the unhapp y task ofSophionius,the patria rch of Jerusal em,so
handoverthe city to the conque ring Umar. The caliph stood happi lyan
the site of Solomon's Temple , from which he may have believe d thatthe
Prophet Muhammad, his old master, once ascended into Paradise (cf.
Qur' an 17: 1, a vers e that has insp ired cent urie s of deba te as to its pre-
cise meanin g). Sophr onius, watchi ng in deep sorrow nearb y, recalled a
Bibleverse; "Behold the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel
the prophet."'
PC Myth: The native Christians of the Middle East
and North Africa welcomed Muslims as liberators
Many modern analy sts of the Crusad es and Chris tian-Musli m relations
In general seem to think that Sophronius said, "Welcome, liberator!"
According to conventional wisdom, By2antine rule was so oppressive on
the Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, and Egyptians in par-
ticular, that they couldn't wait to give them the bum's rush and open their
armsto the Musli ms who libe rate d them from this oppr essio n. But, in
fac t,the Mus lims conq uer edand hel d Egyp t onl y in the fac e of grea t
res ist ance .In Dece mber 639, the gene ral "Amr bega n the inv asi on of
Egypt; in November 642, Alexandria fell and virtually all of Egypt was in
Mus lim han ds.But thi s swi ft con que st was not unc ont est ed, and the
Muslims met resistance with brutality. In one Egyptian town they set a
patternof behavior that they followed all over the country. According to
a contemporaryobserver:
Then the Muslims arrived in Nikiou. There was not one single
soldier to resist them. They seized the town and slaughtered
eve ryo ne the y met in the str eet and in the chu rch es—men ,
women and children, sparing nobody- Then they went to other
plac es, pill aged and kille d all the inha bita nts they foun d. „.
But let us now say no more, for it is impossible to describe the