Shadow Of A Bloody Past Summary

The article, Shadow of a Bloody Past, written by Tom Holland, explains the relationship between the recent events concerning ISIS & Islamic radical groups, and the faith’s long-lasting feud with sinister disbelievers of the Koran’s holy message, the Christians (and more broadly the entirety of Western Civilization itself). Holland begins by using a direct quote from Osama bin Laden, in which he states “that the people of Islam have always suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusader alliance.” In this quote, he addresses the entirety of people against his people’s message as either ‘Zionist’ (Jewish, in support of Israel becoming a state in the late 1940s) or ‘Crusader’, which we know to be

a Christian defender of their faith. Fundamentally Tom analyzes that the landscape from which bin Laden’s cause in centered, isn’t today’s society (where religions aren’t the major ruling force of nations in western civilizations), but the times of the prophet Muhammad. This viewpoint inferred further when even ISIS stated that France was the location they attacked because it was the ‘capital of the Cross.’ Nevertheless, Holland moves through the history of Muslim civilization and it rise.

He describes how the Arabs of the time felt it their duty to attain global power over all, beginning with capturing the holy city of Jerusalem itself. However, they were opposed by what they would go on to call the ‘House of War’, which were the Christians. Before, during, and after the Crusades Christians were the evident opposition to the globalization of Islam. Holland cites the Byzantine Empire as an example of refute against these ideals, seeing as it was unsuccessfully sieged twice by Islamic forces, and had been seen by the Muslims as the ‘grinding stalemate’ to their cause. Over the years this hatred grew, colonization of America by the Christians and global trade markets cropped into place by the Christians were what Muslims saw, and they did not care for it. Though their efforts to claim the world shifted, as they saw the their dominance lessen, reverting from ruler to subordinate to Christian and western civilization, they looked to earlier times as a reference for their

cause. Over time, encouraged by the origin story of a sovereign faith rising from the desert and taking the Mideast by storm, Islam has found itself at the peak of their battle against the Crusaders, yet that time passed long ago. Tom Holland touches the important notion that Muslims are resurfacing the age of violence that came with those times, and that those time’s rebirth is now much “less a fantasy as [it once was].”
This article, which dictates a select population of Muslims, brings to light a dismal viewpoint of exemplar Islamic radical groups which has long since outstayed its time.

During the time of the Crusades, piety was understood to a level that we today aren’t even capable of comprehending. When we learn about these times it is scary to believe that warriors of a God could bring themselves to harming their fellow man. In those times the Middle East was ground zero for this conflict, spawning out of it the deaths of many innocent people at the hands of faith itself. Over time this connection grew, civilizations were built in their God’s names and eventually the Muslims were the rulers of those holy lands. The idea was that in Allah or Christ’s name this faith must be protected and sought after with the blood of infidels on your hands. It has culminated the Middle East into a region which uses these ideals against the outside world. Through countless battles to the death for both sides a legacy of martial violence was born. What remains frightening is the resulting factors of this tragedy: though the Christian cause had dramatically shifted away from the brute violence which once served the people, the Islamic world used these times horridly as a reminder of how to regain their power, dominion, and drive their holy cause. It is not a question of whether or not we should consider these barbaric times as a thing of the past, rather it is that we must now understand the

totality of chaos concerning “the dangerous nature of the memories ISIS is playing with.”