Islam is Sharia law, and Sharia law is Islam. There is no Islam without Sharia law. Islam is a political legal system as much as a religion, it is not just one or the other. When you allow Islam, you allow both the religion and the laws. You cannot have one without the other. Muslims are committed to Sharia laws over any other, by definition, or they're not really Muslim. Sharia laws are different than Western laws and ethics and morals and norms. You cannot have two different sets of laws. You must pick one or the other. They are generally incompatible. Most Westerners likely support Western laws once they compare the two. It is a clear goal of Islam, with a proven track record, for over a thousand years, of conquering other areas and people and implementing Islam at the expense of the other people. If you import Muslims and people from Islamic based countries, who are not interested in assimilation, over time it will lead to conflict with Islam and Muslims, because they cannot coexist peacefully for the long run. There is no needle to thread or magical solution to make it work after 1400 years of oppression and conquest leading to some of the most barbaric humanity on earth today. People need to face reality.
Very well expressed, Matteo. What you describe indicates the very heart of the problem, and also the potential heart of the solution. If Islam is Sharia and vice versa, it follows that Islam cannot properly subsist in any country that refuses access to Shariah law on the - completely legitimate - grounds that it contradicts the existing rule of law in that place. I mean, two legal frameworks cannot exist together, can they? (Notwithstanding that the UK and other nations seem determined to turn a blind eye to this aberration.)
One of the best, succinct summaries of the correct history & justifications for the Crusades, delivering a much-needed & timely clarification for today's largely historically ignorant populace.
Raymond Ibrahim has delved extensively into these historical records through primary sources in both his 3 main books and his youtube channel for anyone interested in learning more. Highly revommend
He was one of my greatest online "finds" of 2025. Truly a light in the darkness & a breath of fresh, brutally honest air. Travesty I hadn't known of him earlier.
I think all 3 are amazing, with Sword & Scimitar being the most important for understanding the true history of the conflict. Two Swords was both inspiring & tragic, and read remarkably fast for a relatively lengthy book. I left with 1) greater respect for both military orders & 2) historical facts to refute the common but false assertion these days of Crusaders not being "true Christians." But my favorite hands-down is Defenders. It reads like a literal history of superheroes with each successive defender raising the bar in some ways. It is also the 1st book I'd recommend to others.
Why should non-Muslims try to understand Islam? Does it matter?
Let me start by saying: "Islam is unique among the world's major religions at the structural level, that is rarely discussed plainly." it contains, within its own authoritative legal tradition, a framework for governing people who never chose it. What i mean by that is: That those who follow Islam [The house of Islam] are required to govern those who never chose to follow Islam [the non-believers or house of war]. This is not an interpretation from the fringes. It is the mainstream position of classical Sunni jurisprudence. Ibn Kathir, Al-Suyuti, Al-Shafi'i. These are not extremists. They are the tradition's own most respected voices, and they say it plainly.
Every other major religion exists to transform the lives of those who voluntarily embrace it. [Islam does that too]. But Islam also contains a legal architecture that is derived directly from its foundational texts, which divides the world into the house of Islam and the house of war. Islamic doctrine imposes perpetual conflict between Islam and those who do not embrace Islam, until the house of Islam prevails against the non believers. ALL of the Islamic branches and sects across the various Islamic theological and legal schools have codified this. And it has been established by its greatest classical jurists. Mandating ongoing conflict until Islam absorbs the kafirs, and specifies legal conditions under which non-Muslims may be permitted to continue to live, under Islamic authority. And subject to specific taxes, restrictions, and formal ritualized humiliation. This is why Shariah law creeps into our law codes.
There is a second thing non-Muslims need to understand, which is abrogation.
The Quran contains verses of patience, coexistence, and tolerance. It also contains verses commanding perpetual warfare against unbelievers until Islam prevails. These two sets of verses do not coexist as equal options. The Islamic legal tradition has a formal mechanism called naskh. In English we say abrogation. Abrogation is a fancy way of saying that the most recent instructions over ride the older instructions. Like a software update. But it can also help to think of it in a historical seance when looking at the Quran, where later revelations override earlier ones. Because the Quran was not written down all at once, but piecemeal, as it became convenient for Muhammad to receive words from his pet Angel. Al-Suyuti counted more than one hundred peaceful verses abrogated by a single later verse. The peaceful Quran that is typically presented to Western audiences is from the earlier verses. Because the Quran is entirely out of chronological order in an effort to impress the critics by placing the bigger and more impressive chapters at the front of the book and the smaller ones tucked away at the back. This is when Shariah law creeps into our law codes.
And then there is taqiyya. The doctrine that grants permission, under subjectively convenient conditions, to be deceptive. To an enemy, to your wife, or to further the goals of Islamic domination. According to the judgment of the deceiver. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is a documented feature of Islamic jurisprudence, debated and defined by the tradition's own scholars. And agreed upon by the top schools of Islamic studies. This is precisely how shariah law creeps into our institutions and law codes.
None of this means every Muslim is your enemy. It means that understanding Islam from its own authoritative sources, not from its most marketable presentations, is not optional for anyone who wants to think clearly about the world they are living in.
Excellent essay. Concise but comprehensive, accurate and analytical. I will send this article to a man who is a credible candidate to be elected Florida’s next governor.
Thank you for writing this. And I just sent the article to Paul Renner. He is also the former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. (2022-24).
Accurate, moderate and factual. Excellent. Now, what are we going to do about the invasion we have permitted in the west? When and how will we take back our cultures and countries?
Better yet, Bill Warner's battle map (and this does not touch the even greater number of assaults to the east, with an estimated 80 million dead in India alone):
I have nothing but respect for Bill Warner. His work is excellent and im pleased to find somone promoting his work. Keep it up. The need is great and the workers are few.
This is the kind of slogan spoken by people who want to avoid history.
Yes, early Muslim armies conquered territory. No serious person denies that. But conquest spread political rule first, not instant belief. Large Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, and other communities remained inside Muslim-ruled lands for centuries. If Islam had simply spread by the sword, that fact would make no sense.
The deeper problem with this article is the fake contrast: “conquest, not peace.” Civilizations do not spread through one clean mechanism. They spread through war, trade, law, migration, marriage, scholarship, patronage, and spiritual conviction. Islam reached much of Southeast Asia and large parts of Africa through merchants, scholars, and Sufi networks, not Arab armies marching across every island and coast.
And if conquest automatically discredits a religion, then Christianity, Buddhism, secular liberalism, nationalism, and almost every major civilization in history must be reduced to armies too.
Rome had legions. Byzantium had armies. Spain and Portugal had empires. Britain ruled oceans. France carried civilization with cannons.
So saying early Islamic empires conquered. That is history. But saying Islam spread by conquest, not peace is a bumper sticker for people who confuse conquered territory with converted souls.
But the point of the conquest was eventual conversion. No Muslim jurist has ever ruled otherwise. In fact, to not do so is the gravest of all sins. Your duty as a Muslim is to bring people to God and conquest is the easiest way to do so. So conversion was not what “just happened” after the conquest of territory: it was the very purpose for the conquest in the first place! For People of the Book, the convention was peaceful conversion whenever possible, but that principle was never followed to the letter. For idolaters, (polytheists like the Hindus, for example) it was acceptable, in many documented cases, to force convert since they were so lost in darkness they could not probably find their way out otherwise. Alas, there were so many resistant Hindus that eventually (and retroactively) accommodations had to be created.
Once People of the Book were conquered they were put under the protection of the Muslim authority and allowed to practice their religion (with restrictions) but they could never forget that they were allowed to exist because their Muslim overlords showed them mercy. From an Islamic perspective, this was fine, because in the end the House of Islam will be victorious anyway so these dhimmi were just Muslims-in-becoming. Meanwhile, you had to pay the head tax, never carry arms, never try to convert a Muslim, never build new houses of worship, and never have your head higher than a Muslim (so no tall hats and no riding within the vicinity of a Muslim) among other humiliations. Again, all this is fine since you are bringing unbelievers to God.
The only comparable analogue with Christianity might be the conquest of the Americas by the Iberian powers. There too the record was mixed between forced conversion, coercion, and persuasion and we can certainly discuss the details. But the difference here is that none of what happened in the New World was official Church policy and in fact many members of the Church were vocal in their criticism of the Conquistadores (Bartolome de las Casas as the most famous example).
In the case of Islam, conquest was (and remains) always the easiest and most acceptable path to gain converts. From the Prophet’s Constantinople prophecy onwards, conquest is the necessary first step towards conversion. And conversion brings all to God.
Thank you for sharing an excellent post on the spread of Islam and its relationship with Christianity. Challenging the conventional wisdom on this topic is critical in light of historical anti-Catholic propaganda and modern hindsight bias.
I agree with everything you say about Islam; in fact, it's not even a religion as much as a supremacist ideology. But let's also be frank about one fact: of the 3 religions that arose in the Middle East - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in that order - only Judaism is non-proselytysing. Both Christianity and Islam are aggressive - if Islam has converted large masses across the Middle East, northern Africa, and Asia so has Christianity - all of the bottom half of Africa and all of South America. In India, in very recent years, aggressive American protestant churches have converted large numbers of people in Punjab, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. In fact, about 70% of tribals in the North Eastern states have been converted. They copy all the symbols of Hinduism and go about it in a systematic way, funded by American churches just as Islam has continued to do so with Middle Eastern money. That's the simple fact. Westerners now find cause to write about it because Islam is coming home - in Europe and the US and Canada.
Islam is Sharia law, and Sharia law is Islam. There is no Islam without Sharia law. Islam is a political legal system as much as a religion, it is not just one or the other. When you allow Islam, you allow both the religion and the laws. You cannot have one without the other. Muslims are committed to Sharia laws over any other, by definition, or they're not really Muslim. Sharia laws are different than Western laws and ethics and morals and norms. You cannot have two different sets of laws. You must pick one or the other. They are generally incompatible. Most Westerners likely support Western laws once they compare the two. It is a clear goal of Islam, with a proven track record, for over a thousand years, of conquering other areas and people and implementing Islam at the expense of the other people. If you import Muslims and people from Islamic based countries, who are not interested in assimilation, over time it will lead to conflict with Islam and Muslims, because they cannot coexist peacefully for the long run. There is no needle to thread or magical solution to make it work after 1400 years of oppression and conquest leading to some of the most barbaric humanity on earth today. People need to face reality.
You hit the nail on the head, Matteo
The only good Muslim is a bad one
Very well expressed, Matteo. What you describe indicates the very heart of the problem, and also the potential heart of the solution. If Islam is Sharia and vice versa, it follows that Islam cannot properly subsist in any country that refuses access to Shariah law on the - completely legitimate - grounds that it contradicts the existing rule of law in that place. I mean, two legal frameworks cannot exist together, can they? (Notwithstanding that the UK and other nations seem determined to turn a blind eye to this aberration.)
One of the best, succinct summaries of the correct history & justifications for the Crusades, delivering a much-needed & timely clarification for today's largely historically ignorant populace.
Raymond Ibrahim has delved extensively into these historical records through primary sources in both his 3 main books and his youtube channel for anyone interested in learning more. Highly revommend
I've read all of his books, Raymond is a dear friend of mine
He was one of my greatest online "finds" of 2025. Truly a light in the darkness & a breath of fresh, brutally honest air. Travesty I hadn't known of him earlier.
Now you know both Raymond and The Western Spirit, haha.
Feel free to check out my previous articles — some (though not all) are behind a paywall.
Just subscribed to support you. God Bless & keep up the great & needed work. Tony
Tony, I to just realized how amazing his books were. I just read "Two Swords of Christ" and "Defenders of the West" is next!
I think all 3 are amazing, with Sword & Scimitar being the most important for understanding the true history of the conflict. Two Swords was both inspiring & tragic, and read remarkably fast for a relatively lengthy book. I left with 1) greater respect for both military orders & 2) historical facts to refute the common but false assertion these days of Crusaders not being "true Christians." But my favorite hands-down is Defenders. It reads like a literal history of superheroes with each successive defender raising the bar in some ways. It is also the 1st book I'd recommend to others.
Okay please give me about 10 mins. 😊
He is a wonderful resource.
Why should non-Muslims try to understand Islam? Does it matter?
Let me start by saying: "Islam is unique among the world's major religions at the structural level, that is rarely discussed plainly." it contains, within its own authoritative legal tradition, a framework for governing people who never chose it. What i mean by that is: That those who follow Islam [The house of Islam] are required to govern those who never chose to follow Islam [the non-believers or house of war]. This is not an interpretation from the fringes. It is the mainstream position of classical Sunni jurisprudence. Ibn Kathir, Al-Suyuti, Al-Shafi'i. These are not extremists. They are the tradition's own most respected voices, and they say it plainly.
Every other major religion exists to transform the lives of those who voluntarily embrace it. [Islam does that too]. But Islam also contains a legal architecture that is derived directly from its foundational texts, which divides the world into the house of Islam and the house of war. Islamic doctrine imposes perpetual conflict between Islam and those who do not embrace Islam, until the house of Islam prevails against the non believers. ALL of the Islamic branches and sects across the various Islamic theological and legal schools have codified this. And it has been established by its greatest classical jurists. Mandating ongoing conflict until Islam absorbs the kafirs, and specifies legal conditions under which non-Muslims may be permitted to continue to live, under Islamic authority. And subject to specific taxes, restrictions, and formal ritualized humiliation. This is why Shariah law creeps into our law codes.
There is a second thing non-Muslims need to understand, which is abrogation.
The Quran contains verses of patience, coexistence, and tolerance. It also contains verses commanding perpetual warfare against unbelievers until Islam prevails. These two sets of verses do not coexist as equal options. The Islamic legal tradition has a formal mechanism called naskh. In English we say abrogation. Abrogation is a fancy way of saying that the most recent instructions over ride the older instructions. Like a software update. But it can also help to think of it in a historical seance when looking at the Quran, where later revelations override earlier ones. Because the Quran was not written down all at once, but piecemeal, as it became convenient for Muhammad to receive words from his pet Angel. Al-Suyuti counted more than one hundred peaceful verses abrogated by a single later verse. The peaceful Quran that is typically presented to Western audiences is from the earlier verses. Because the Quran is entirely out of chronological order in an effort to impress the critics by placing the bigger and more impressive chapters at the front of the book and the smaller ones tucked away at the back. This is when Shariah law creeps into our law codes.
And then there is taqiyya. The doctrine that grants permission, under subjectively convenient conditions, to be deceptive. To an enemy, to your wife, or to further the goals of Islamic domination. According to the judgment of the deceiver. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is a documented feature of Islamic jurisprudence, debated and defined by the tradition's own scholars. And agreed upon by the top schools of Islamic studies. This is precisely how shariah law creeps into our institutions and law codes.
None of this means every Muslim is your enemy. It means that understanding Islam from its own authoritative sources, not from its most marketable presentations, is not optional for anyone who wants to think clearly about the world they are living in.
That is what my work is about.
Very helpful, thanks.
Excellent essay. Concise but comprehensive, accurate and analytical. I will send this article to a man who is a credible candidate to be elected Florida’s next governor.
Woah. That means a lot, Brad. Thanks!
Thank you for writing this. And I just sent the article to Paul Renner. He is also the former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. (2022-24).
To use a simple narrative, Judaism is a religion of exclusion, Christianism is a religion of conversion and Islam is a religion of conquest.
Accurate, moderate and factual. Excellent. Now, what are we going to do about the invasion we have permitted in the west? When and how will we take back our cultures and countries?
PM me and lets brainstorm.
You can follow me on substack too
Better yet, Bill Warner's battle map (and this does not touch the even greater number of assaults to the east, with an estimated 80 million dead in India alone):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo
I have nothing but respect for Bill Warner. His work is excellent and im pleased to find somone promoting his work. Keep it up. The need is great and the workers are few.
Dr. Warner is a good introduction for the novice; I refer people often.
Then to Robert Spencer, then to Raymond Ibrahim.
By that point they're usually ready to go on Crusade and take back Constantinople. :)
I've been ready since reading books on the monastic military orders as a teen.
Raymond Ibrahims books have just solidified my zeal for a new crusade, ha!
Islam, the religion of death, slavery, and child raping.
Muhammad was a known pedophile.
Thank you for being succinct
This is the kind of slogan spoken by people who want to avoid history.
Yes, early Muslim armies conquered territory. No serious person denies that. But conquest spread political rule first, not instant belief. Large Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, and other communities remained inside Muslim-ruled lands for centuries. If Islam had simply spread by the sword, that fact would make no sense.
The deeper problem with this article is the fake contrast: “conquest, not peace.” Civilizations do not spread through one clean mechanism. They spread through war, trade, law, migration, marriage, scholarship, patronage, and spiritual conviction. Islam reached much of Southeast Asia and large parts of Africa through merchants, scholars, and Sufi networks, not Arab armies marching across every island and coast.
And if conquest automatically discredits a religion, then Christianity, Buddhism, secular liberalism, nationalism, and almost every major civilization in history must be reduced to armies too.
Rome had legions. Byzantium had armies. Spain and Portugal had empires. Britain ruled oceans. France carried civilization with cannons.
So saying early Islamic empires conquered. That is history. But saying Islam spread by conquest, not peace is a bumper sticker for people who confuse conquered territory with converted souls.
Thank you for this comment - you said it much more eloquently than the response in my head.
But the point of the conquest was eventual conversion. No Muslim jurist has ever ruled otherwise. In fact, to not do so is the gravest of all sins. Your duty as a Muslim is to bring people to God and conquest is the easiest way to do so. So conversion was not what “just happened” after the conquest of territory: it was the very purpose for the conquest in the first place! For People of the Book, the convention was peaceful conversion whenever possible, but that principle was never followed to the letter. For idolaters, (polytheists like the Hindus, for example) it was acceptable, in many documented cases, to force convert since they were so lost in darkness they could not probably find their way out otherwise. Alas, there were so many resistant Hindus that eventually (and retroactively) accommodations had to be created.
Once People of the Book were conquered they were put under the protection of the Muslim authority and allowed to practice their religion (with restrictions) but they could never forget that they were allowed to exist because their Muslim overlords showed them mercy. From an Islamic perspective, this was fine, because in the end the House of Islam will be victorious anyway so these dhimmi were just Muslims-in-becoming. Meanwhile, you had to pay the head tax, never carry arms, never try to convert a Muslim, never build new houses of worship, and never have your head higher than a Muslim (so no tall hats and no riding within the vicinity of a Muslim) among other humiliations. Again, all this is fine since you are bringing unbelievers to God.
The only comparable analogue with Christianity might be the conquest of the Americas by the Iberian powers. There too the record was mixed between forced conversion, coercion, and persuasion and we can certainly discuss the details. But the difference here is that none of what happened in the New World was official Church policy and in fact many members of the Church were vocal in their criticism of the Conquistadores (Bartolome de las Casas as the most famous example).
In the case of Islam, conquest was (and remains) always the easiest and most acceptable path to gain converts. From the Prophet’s Constantinople prophecy onwards, conquest is the necessary first step towards conversion. And conversion brings all to God.
*activate ad hominem*! Ur lame
A good book every Catholic (and protestant) should read about this topic:
The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain from the author Darío Fernández-Morera
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20256480-the-myth-of-the-andalusian-paradise
Congratulations for the amazing essay lad.
Im glad i caught it around my feed.
Dominus Vobiscum
https://lufuoldenglish.substack.com/p/slavery-in-africa-and-the-islamic?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1rgb4n
Thank you for sharing an excellent post on the spread of Islam and its relationship with Christianity. Challenging the conventional wisdom on this topic is critical in light of historical anti-Catholic propaganda and modern hindsight bias.
Islam spread with less violence than Christianity did.
I agree with everything you say about Islam; in fact, it's not even a religion as much as a supremacist ideology. But let's also be frank about one fact: of the 3 religions that arose in the Middle East - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in that order - only Judaism is non-proselytysing. Both Christianity and Islam are aggressive - if Islam has converted large masses across the Middle East, northern Africa, and Asia so has Christianity - all of the bottom half of Africa and all of South America. In India, in very recent years, aggressive American protestant churches have converted large numbers of people in Punjab, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. In fact, about 70% of tribals in the North Eastern states have been converted. They copy all the symbols of Hinduism and go about it in a systematic way, funded by American churches just as Islam has continued to do so with Middle Eastern money. That's the simple fact. Westerners now find cause to write about it because Islam is coming home - in Europe and the US and Canada.
Great article. I believe I'll join your paid sub now ))
Well done. True to history. Thank you.