INTRODUCTION
On September 11, 2001, America suddenly discovered the Islamic world.
The wordjihadbecame commonplace in the spoken American lexicon.
An unknown people with unusual customs and even more unusual ideas
struck at the American heartland and secured our undivided attention. Yet,
despite the thousands of words spoken by the media since September 11
the history of the Islamic world has barely been exposed to our view. And
we are even less aware of what has motivated this attack on our peace
and tranquility.
Many in the Islamic world see the events of September 11 as a military
operation. Surely Osama bin Laden did. Many will be surprised to dis-
cover that this is not the first blow struck by the Islamic world against the
Christian world or the West, nor the worst blow. It is merely the latest.
Indeed, a large part of the Islamic world’s history revolves around armed
conflict, much of it with the Christian and Western worlds. War has been
part of the Islamic world since the Archangel Gabriel first spoke to Mu-
hammad, and it is the principal process by which Islam spread throughout
the world.
It is the intent of this work to explore that ancient and rich military
history. It begins with Muhammad, the first Muslim warlord, and follows
the first world superpower, the Ottoman Empire, as it rose from the ob-
scurity of the central Asian steppes and vanished at the stroke of a pen in
- It explores the history of suicidal religious zealots that fought the