Yarmuk: The Most Pivotal Battle in Western History

But likewise , many assume that after the last Crusade , which occurred in 1291 , conflict between the two faiths subsided . However , even after the last official Crusade , the conflict didn't really abate . In fact , it is a battle that continues even to the modern day .

As Bernard Lewis writes , we tend nowadays to forget that for approximately a thousand years , from the advent of Islam in the 7th century until the second siege of Vienna in 1683 , christian Europe was under constant threat from Islam , the double threat of conquest and conversion . Most of the new Muslim domains were rested from Christendom .

Syria , palestine , egypt and North Africa were all Christian countries , no less , indeed rather more , than Spain and Sicily . All this left a deep sense of loss and a deep fear . Another reality comes to fore when the true history of Islam is compared to the revisionist history often told today .

Conflict was not caused by an expansionist Christianity that advanced into Muslim territory , but rather just the opposite . The Crusades , among other events , were reactionary and defensive campaigns to stop the invasion of a brutal new religion of tribesmen who didn't play by the same set of moral codes as the Christians did .

In fact , the place where this Muslim aggression is best catalogued is in the writings of Muslim historians and chroniclers themselves . They were proud to have invaded Christian territories and made no effort to hide the barbaric , violent and oppressive practices in their own recorded histories .

They too admit that Crusaders so often marched troops into Asia Minor in an attempt to stop the spread of Jihad into mainland Europe and to defend already Christian territories . Before the Muslim expansion of the 7th century , christian peoples controlled all of North Africa , syria and beyond .

It is important in all of this that we should ask where did this newfound tribal religion of Islam , one marked by bloody Jihad and brutal , violent oppression , come from ? The story begins with Muhammad bin Abdullah . He was a merchant in Mecca who lived from the years 570 to 632 AD .

In 610 AD , he began telling his fellow tribesmen that the angel Gabriel had come to him in a dream and commanded him to become the prophet of Allah . The basis of this new Islamic religion was simple . It revolved around complete submission to every command of Allah . Submit to Allah , and you were known as a Muslim , which means one who submits .

This was the first pillar of Islam , or the Shahada . There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah . Originally , muhammad preached throughout Mecca unmolested , yet without much success . Soon , the elite ruling class of Mecca , known as the Quraish , became weary of his proselytizing and expelled him from Mecca .

He and his followers fled to the Oasis region of Yathrib , later called Medina , which means the radiant . From there he began to launch his raids . After a decade of peaceful but rather fruitless preaching , muhammad had won just over a hundred converts to his new religion and , let's be honest , mostly from his own family .

He decided to reinforce the violent aspects of his religion in an effort to spark a more powerful movement . Where his initial preaching proved futile , muhammad found success with raiding . After ten years of brutal raiding , muhammad had converted nearly the whole of Arabia . Muhammad's Simitar had been successful .

He gave his followers the command fight them , the non-Muslims , until they testified that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger .

Author Raymond Ebrahim writes that Muhammad had only won over some 100 followers after a decade of peaceful preaching in Mecca , but nearly the whole of Arabia , after a decade of successful raiding , in average of no fewer than nine campaigns annually , speaks for itself .

As Edward Gibbon observed , muhammad employed even the vices of mankind as the instruments of their salvation , and the use of fraud and perfidy , of cruelty and injustice were often subservient to the propagation of the faith . In 630 , muhammad marched 10,000 armed soldiers into Mecca . Ultimately , he forged the occupants of Mecca to conform to his religion .

He reclaimed the city from which he had once been infamously cast out . He sent an ultimatum Embrace Islam and you shall be safe . You've been surrounded on all sides . You're confronted with a hard case that is beyond your power . When the Quraish chieftain balked at the converter die-demand , muhammad threatened to cut off his head .

The chieftain Abu Sufyan and his tribe immediately proclaimed the Shahada to cries of Allahou Akbar . Such was the rise of Muhammad from insignificance to immense power .

One of the main attractions of Islam was its high degree of compatibility with the traditional and pre-existing values of Arabian society an emphasis on loyalty to your tribe , enmity against other tribes and raiding to increase wealth . This captured the feelings of Arabs very nicely . They were a tribal people .

To them , tribe was everything To be inside the tribe was to be human . To be outside was to be subhuman . A Muslim philosopher , ibn Khaldun , writing in the 15th century , described the Arabs of his time as quote the most savage human beings that exist . Compared with sedentary people , they are on a level with wild , untameable animals and dumb beasts of prey .

Such people are the Arabs end quote Of their tribal beliefs . Ibrahim says that quote the tribe was what humanity is to modern people . To be part of it was to be treated humanely . To be outside of it was to be treated inhumanely , end quote .

Likewise , muhammad intentionally designed his tribal religion to transcend national and linguistic barriers , as well as blood relatives . According to Ibrahim , islam thus became a kind of super tribe to which loyalty and enmity meant everything .

As the coming centuries would show , muslims had very little regard for any human life that existed outside the boundaries of tribe and would wage endless jihad against them .

To the Muslim , as one researcher has said , non-muslims are described in the Quran as quote vile animals and beasts , the worst of creatures and demons , perverted transgressors and partners of Satan to be fought until religion is Allah's alone . They are to be beheaded , terrorized , annihilated , crucified , punished and expelled and plotted against by deceit . End quote .

And so the foundation of this super tribe was jihad , which means holy war . Muhammad saw all the world as two tribes there were the followers of Allah and there were the infidels . The goal of the Muslim religion was to bring every other tribe under Allah . Hence the birth of jihad , which is the violent undertaking of that mission .

In the opinion of Ibrahim , one of the most lasting contributions of Muhammad was his deification of tribalism , with jihad at its center . The Quran itself portrays jihad as the noblest of all endeavors . Quote lining up in battle in the path of Allah , muhammad said , is worthier than 60 years of worship .

This deified raid , or jihad , led to a newfound fanaticism precisely because it promised temporal and eternal rewards . Not only were victors promised the usual spoils of war , such as slaves , concubines and plunder , but they were promised eternal paradise and total forgiveness simply for dying as a martyr , or Shahid . Put another way , salvation was attained through jihad .

And yes , one of the eternal rewards promised was copulation with 72 virgins . That's not made up . That's not propaganda . There were also eternal torment for those who refused to participate in jihad . Such vile creatures would , muhammad said , be tortured like no other sinful human being . What was the effect of paradise-laden promises of salvation for jihadists .

Well , quite naturally , it created radical soldiers willing to do anything on the field of battle . As one Byzantine official said , quote it is almost as if they are driven by the very demons of hell itself . End quote .

As for Christendom , which originally had included much of Europe , north Africa , Syria , egypt and Asia Minor , it had lost nearly three-fourths of its territory to the advance and violent expansion of Islam . As such , resistance to Islam came to define European existence , as did the Christian religion .

By the time 634 AD had rolled around , heraclius who served as Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641 , had been long in fighting the Persians and then Arabs flooding into Syria , which then included Israel , jordan and Palestinian territories .

The main reason the Roman Empire was vulnerable to a Muslim invasion was because its strength had been depleted from a lengthy conflict it had been waging with the Persian Empire . This decades-long conflict was known as the Last Great War of Antiquity . One of the fiercest of those Arabs was Khalid bin Al-Walid .

His path with Heraclius would eventually cross an all-out warfare . Brutal in combat , muhammad had given Khalid his eagle a black flag with a shahada on it and nicknamed him the Sword of Allah . One story captures Khalid's temperament . Ibrahim writes . Modern-day Muslims often have nothing but praise for Khalid's commitment to the jihad .

But he had a darker side In the Ridah Wars . Khalid accused Malik bin Nuwira , a well-liked Arab chieftain , of apostasy from Islam . The Sword of Allah slaughtered him and that same night raped Islamic chronicles called it married his wife Layla .

Not content , he decapitated Malik , soot his head up between two stones , set it aflame and cooked his evening meal in a cauldron above it . And Khalid ate from it that night to terrify the apostate Arab tribes and others , writes Muslim historian in Al-Kathir , it was said that Malik's hair created such a blaze as to thoroughly cook the meat .

By 636 , muslim and Christian forces had met for battle . Heraclius led a multi-ethnic mix of Christians , armenians , georgians , greeks , christian Arabs , slavs and Franks . Their forces numbered around 30,000 , accompanied by priests reciting prayers over the troops and parading relics before them .

It was a distinctly Christian procession that sought to defend its faith in a way of life . The Muslim contingent was astonished by what they saw Once they had set camp . The Christian procession measured some 17 miles long . Khalid's forces , meanwhile , swelled to 24,000 after Caliph Omar had sent reinforcements from Arabia per Khalid's request .

Muslim sources say that to see Christendom fall was Omar's delight and his meat was their humiliation , his very breathing their destruction . One Muslim jihadist and a companion of Muhammad said we have tasted blood and find none sweeter than the blood of Romans .

Khalid himself made no illusions about why he and his Muslim army had gathered Quote it is neither hunger nor poverty that has driven us from our land in Arabia . We , the Arabs , are drinkers of blood and we know there is no blood more tasty than that of the Greeks . That is why we have come to spill and to drink your blood .

Parties from both sides met to discuss a diplomatic solution . After Christian forces refused to confess the Shahada , 8,000 Muslims quote marched before the Roman camp carrying the heads of 4,000 Christian soldiers mounted atop their spears .

These were the remains of 5,000 reinforcements that had come from Amman to join the main Christian army at Yarmouk , only to be ambushed and destroyed . End quote . This horrific practice was in keeping with verses in the Quran , to strike terror into the hearts of the infidels by decapitating them .

After parading the piked heads before Christian forces , the jihadists pushed 1,000 more living Christian captives to the front . There they forced them to kneel and began to savagely hack off their heads , to the utter shock and horror of the Christian army .

In preparation for battle , christian priests prayed death prayers over the kneeling Christian forces who had just washed , as their brethren were ignominiously beheaded . Vahan , an Arab Christian commander , told his men quote these Arabs who stand before you seek to enslave your children and women . End quote .

The Romans were fighting for the defense of nothing less than their land , life , family and faith .

Meanwhile , abu Sufyan , once an enemy of Muhammad but now leading the Prophet's tribal armies , pranced around on his horse , waving his spear and exhorted the Arabs to jihad in the way of Allah , so that they might seize their Christian lands and cities and enslave their women and children . The battle was upon them . It would last for six grueling days .

On day one , a large phalanx of Byzantine forces marched ahead through a shower of Arab arrows that were said to blot out the sun . Taking heavy losses , they pressed forward , hitting the Arab front with ferocity such that a bloodbath of close proximity fighting ensued .

On day four , jabal's Christian Arab cavalry broke through the Muslim center and met Khalid's horse and camel . Large fighting killed many on both sides , but eventually the Christians were forced to retreat . Christian archers sent volley after volley of arrows into the Muslim pursuers .

So fierce was the barrage from Roman archers that , it is said , some 700 Muslims lost an eye , and thus it was called the Day of Lost Eyes . On the final day of battle , muslim chroniclers say much about the Christian right flank , whom they deemed the mightiest of the Romans .

These warriors tied themselves together with chains , displaying their determination , and vowed by Christ in the cross and the four churches to fight to the last man . Khalid was astounded and concerned by their valor . In response , he sent his troops to attack the left flank and , unfortunately for the Romans , a dust storm kicked up , confounding their movements .

Amidst the confusion , the Roman cavalry broke off and headed north . This action left the right flank exposed and vulnerable . Ibrahim writes realizing that they were forsaken by the rest of the imperial army , the Christian infantry , including the chained men , maintained formation and withdrew westward . But only place open to them .

They were soon trapped between an Islamic hammer and anvil . A crescent of Arabs spreading from north to south continued closing in on them from the east , while a semi-circle of the Wadi-Rakad's precipitous ravines lay before the Christians . To the west , khalid had already captured the only bridge across the Wadi .

As darkness descended on this volatile corner of the world , the final phase of war took place on the evening of August 20th . The Arabs , whose night vision was honed by desert life , charged the trapped Romans who , according to Muslim sources , fought valiantly . Soon the terrain echoed with the terrifying din of Muslim shouts and battle cries .

Shadows suddenly changed into blades that penetrated flesh . The wind brought the cries of comrades as the enemy stealthily penetrated the ranks among the infernal noise of cymbals , drums and battle cries . It must have been even more terrifying , because they had not expected the Muslims to attack by dark , which was one of Muhammad's strategies .

Crowded and blinded as they were , the Christians could not properly maneuver and even lacked elbow room to utilize their weapons . Muslim cavalrymen continued pressing on the Roman infantry , using the hooves and knees of their steeds to knock down the wearied fighters , pushed finally to the edge of the ravine .

Rank after rank of the remaining forces of the Imperial Army , including all of the chained men , fell down the steep precipices to their death . Several other soldiers , including officers , knelt , uttered a prayer , made the sign of the cross and waited for the onrushing Muslims to strike them down . No prisoners were taken on that day .

The Byzantine army , which Heraclius had spent a year of immense exertion to collect had entirely ceased to exist . There was no withdrawal , no rearguard action , no nucleus of survivors .

There was nothing left as the moon filled the night sky and the victors stripped the slain cries of there's no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger and Allahou Akbar rang throughout the Yarmouk Valley . The Kings Hall podcast exists to make self-ruled men who rule well and win the world .

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In this episode particularly , we're talking all about learning how to read history in a covenantal way , learning how to read history the way a Christian ought to read history , especially to understand how to live our part in the story faithfully . We're not just doing this as an academic exercise .

We want to learn from our brothers and sisters in the 6th , 7th , 8th , 9th , 10th , 11th , 12th centuries and say what lessons can we learn from them , of their courage , of the battles that they fought and won , and also how can we learn from the sin and how can we learn from the failures of our forefathers ?

And in this episode particularly , we want you to make eye contact , if you will , with one of the more sobering parts of reading history , which is learning how to see God's chastisement on his people when an enemy comes and routes us and we flee before him . If we know our Bibles , if we know how to read the covenant , we should be learning something .

Then we should be asking some questions . When we see that happening , when a hundred cause a thousand to flee and we're the ones fleeing , that should make us ask why did God let this happen ? It's not as if his arm was short . It's not as if he couldn't have prevented it . So this episode is about a significant battle .

It is a very significant battle in history , one of the most significant battles in the history of mankind , I would argue . It's also about the rise of a great enemy .

But underneath all of that , we really want to make eye contact with sin and righteousness and repentance and discipline , because these have a huge bearing , I think you guys would agree , on our lives today and on the state of Christianity today .

It didn't take hundreds of years even for it to develop in power and scope and what it was able to conquer with Christendom I think we're reading this it's like three-fourths of the Christian empire is gone within a hundred years of Islam .

It's just routed , coming on the scene , I think also , as you're reading these stories , especially in Muslim chronicles , they are the ones telling the story of how brutal Islam is . Oh yeah , they're proud of it . I think , as we're reading this , we're researching for the season . It's one of those things , dan .

You just see the brutality and it's overwhelming to us , I think in our world . I've watched the Last Kingdom . I've seen some brutality on TV , but the stuff of reality is so much more severe , it seems , than even fiction .

They thought you could march an army , and so it's a very different style of combat . But there's some other factors too that I want to ask you guys . Why was it so effective at spreading the way that it did ? What made it so dangerous and lethal ?

There are cults today that , through similar means just proselytizing and that sort of thing have had more success than Muhammad did in that decade . Jim Jones , you know how many people were poisoned at Jonestown Way ? More than a hundred , and he only gathered a hundred people .

But then all of a sudden , something happens where , a decade later , he's got most of Arabia converted . What was the change ? It's not , there's no question what the change was . The change was that all of a sudden he said oh , you know what ?

Actually , god's telling me that what we really need and what he really desires , what his will is , is that we would bring everybody into the tribe through raiding and through violent means .

And so , all of a sudden , these tribal peoples are faced with , basically , the idea of would you like to die and have all of your family killed and everything you've ever worked for taken from you , or would you like to convert and follow this guy and they were like we'll follow that guy .

By the way , you get the 72 virgins , and so there are other religions that actually mirror some of this .

So , instead of this Christian gospel , which includes the forgiveness of your sin , but it also includes deny yourself , take up your cross and follow the crucified Lord . Deny your flesh , crucify your passions and desires , have them rightly ordered and stop being a lustful , greedy , selfish .

All you know vainly ambitious beast and be a true man again , whereas Islam comes in and basically says no , to be a beast is to be a true man . To be a beast is to be the disciple of Allah . Here let's let's give you multiple . You know , any man can have as many women as he wants .

Let's say that take violent like what are the two basis urges of the male flesh Violence and sex and both of those are turned into the fruits of the spirit in Islam . Rating and violence and sexual debauchery are both valorized in Islam . You see this in other religions too . Mormonism and its early founding is very similar .

I think that's probably what you were . Yeah , that's where it was going . Yeah , take us there .

So , like you said , when you valorize or virtue eyes some form of debauchery , it becomes more attractive to the carnal man .

Muhammad married , I think , a nine-year-old girl at one point , didn't consummate the marriage until she was a whopping 11 or something like that , and so he married multiple , even very young girls . You just see the play that's being run , even to the point where there's debate . There's kind of . I see two possibilities with these sorts of things .

One , you just have a demon that's genuinely appearing to these men and then telling them you know , hey , by the way , god said this and oh guess what , all of your wildest fantasies of your flesh can be played out . Or they lied and made it up and they could have been different . One could have lied and one could have had a genuine demonic encounter .

But it's hard to tell the difference , because the world of flesh and the devil ultimately all preached the same false gospel which is , instead of my life for yours , it's everyone else's life for mine , right ? That's Islam , that's Mormonism , that's fill in the blank .

So we're talking about the seventh century , but fast forward to 2013 , in the United States , Jokar Tsarniev and his brother , I believe , blow up a bomb at the Boston Marathon . They're citing Islam , they're quoting all these Islamic texts , and so you see , these same things are still on display .

That's why the terror tactics , that's why they do what they do , and so I think for us today it's especially important as we're combating the narratives that we're told this is a religion of peace , right , and so we need to know . I think so much of this . If you read Sun Tzu in the Art of War , you need to know who your enemy is .

So when I read a lot of the early history about Islam and how they took over , to me it's a warning to know thy enemy . I mean , and it could be that we're dealing not just with Islam but with Wokeness and CRT and stuff like that , but I think a lot of times . Christians can be very naive about not taking their enemies seriously , Absolutely so .

Correct me if I'm wrong , but that would be one of the key things to learn from this .

It's kind of like the equivalent of , maybe , drug smuggling at the Mexican border , but no one thinks that Mexicans are invading America . Wait , that's a different episode . Okay , so Dan's looking at me like I hope they delete that .

And then all of a sudden , the next thing they know they're big , scary armies been completely wiped out and now , too late , they realize that they're about to get put to flight for quite a while and routed .

Similar thing happens to us all the time when the enemies come in and we think that I think we underestimate the effectiveness of the shrewd worldly tactics that they will take and we think that we're going to be able to kind of kumbaya them away and just be like , well , good Christians , don't fight , we're just , christ said to turn the other cheek .

And what they do is they infiltrate us and then they weaponize our softness and porousness to being conquered . And then , all of a sudden , the next thing , you know , behind the lines , in your ranks , you have just an army that's already occupying you and they've conquered you , they've taken all this ground from you , they've won and you're now put to flight .

I think similar things have happened . The Muslims obviously it was literal military conquest , whereas in our case it was much more like propaganda , war and war for the mind and defeating us without a shot .

In many ways even more impressive today the infiltration of , I think , some of modernism and leftism into the Christian ranks and Christian nations and things like that . But I absolutely agree with you .

I think that's a huge lesson from Yarmouk and from the early Islamic history is like Christians need to be shrewd , they need to be wise to serpents and innocent as doves , and they need to be willing to present strength and fight hard against these enemies and understand that the same things are at stake today that were at stake then . Our children , yeah .

He said just remember , the first people who always open the gates to the barbarians are people on your team at the gates , like that's who's going to let this stuff in .

And so I think , being aware of that , being aware of church leaders who are actually , the last couple of years , encouraging us not to fight , that sort of thing , that would make me very leery . Yeah , and then saying , okay , who is going to fight ?

Actually speaking , as we've pointed out , you'll see that God defends his people by raising up leaders who are fighters , and so those are some things that we're looking for . One of the other things that's really interesting about Yarmouk , dan , is the Brian mentioned this but maybe the most pivotal battle in Western history .

That seems like a big statement , but I think and help me do this , but I think we can actually substantiate that claim . So three quarters of Christendom is lost would be one of the arguments . But why was this battle so pivotal .

There would not have been the absolute route .

That had happened with the continuing pursuit that the Islam forces continued throughout all of Christendom , really , I mean almost all of it , all the way into Europe , into central Europe , and so I think that's why it's one of the most pivotal battles in Western civilization is because this battle decided the trajectory of Islam in Christendom .

So one of the narratives you'll hear frequently is that , wow , the Muslims were so advanced , they were religiously pluralistic , they would allow other religions to practice in their area . You could be a Christian and a Jew and you would have legal protection as a demi under these Islamic regimes . Wasn't that great ?

But what happened was often , if Christians came and attempted to liberate or reconquer a Christian area that had been taken , they would just slaughter all the Christian inhabitants very quickly .

So when you're talking about the conquering of Christian lands , we're talking about areas where for centuries , longer than the history of America , christians had and I mean the only part of American history that matters , 1776 , I'm just kidding , I feel like a boomer right now with one of those shirts with the crazy font that's like .

You start to understand some even more of the motivation later for the Crusades , when they come up a few centuries later , the stories that are coming out of these areas and the types of things that were happening .

So Yarmulke , yes , a gate led to the conquering of huge swaths of Christian territory but even , humanly speaking , absolute oppression of a horrible scale of the Christians who had lived there .

I mean starts to see that it's a real problem but they get annihilated and then they say for a good portion of the rest of his career he's kind of wounded by this .

He had attempted , as a good general , tactically to keep his force intact and wage smaller battles and defensive battles and kind of hold the line and not make it so simple where one battle could decide it all , because you never know , sometimes in history battles with five to one odds have turned against the five in favor of the one , and he knew this , he

wasn't a fool , but got outmaneuvered and ended up having to risk his whole army .

Unharkening to see the severe judgments doled out in the Old Testament and in the book of Revelation , the vast majority of Christians at the time described Muslims not even as men but as godless savages come to destroy all that is sacred . They were barbarious , tribal and bloodthirsty .

Likewise , the widespread Muslim practice was to target and destroy churches , crosses and Christian symbols and sacraments . Anastasius of Sinai said that the Saracens were perhaps worse than the demons . After all , the demons are frequently much afraid of the mysteries of Christ I mean his holy body , the Eucharist , the cross .

But these demons of flesh trample all under their feet , mock it , set fire to it and destroy it . Interestingly , even the oldest Muslim sources say that Christians saw these Arabs as demons .

A natural question arose in the minds of Christians after the sorrow they endured at the Battle of Yarmouk why did God allow Islam to have such success against the cause of Christ ? Christian philosophers , leaders and priests at the time of the Muslim victories all wrestled with that question .

On the military defeats that Christians endured , there had also been radical destruction of households , infrastructure and institutions at every level of society . Following the battle , many Christian men had died in vain to defend their homes , while their women and children were raped and enslaved .

Many of the once great churches of the Eastern Empire had been flung down and trampled , one converted into Muslim mosques . And the natural question was why ? The influential Greek patriarch Sophronius , who lived during this upheaval , raised these same questions in a sermon shortly after the Battle of Yarmouk .

He clearly recognized how pivotal and devastating the moment was for Christendom . His questions illustrate how devastating the Muslim victories and barbarous conquests had been . Why are the troops of the Saracens attacking us ? Why has there been so much destruction and plunder ? Why are there incessant outpourings of human blood ?

Why are the birds of the sky devouring human bodies ? Why have the churches been pulled down ? Why is the cross mocked ? Why is Christ blasphemed by pagan mouths ?

The vengeful and God-hating Saracens , the abomination of desolation clearly foretold to us by the prophets , overrun the places which are not allowed to them , plunder cities , devastate fields , burn down villages and set fire to the holy churches , overturn the sacred monasteries , oppose the Byzantine armies arrayed against them and , in fighting , raise up the trophies of war

and add victory to victory" . Among Christians , including Sophronius , there was one central explanation as to why devastation had come God was judging the church for its toleration of vile practices .

Just as he had used pagan cultures to punish the Hebrew tribes when they went astray in the Old Testament , god was now using Islam to punish them for their sins , which raises another important question which sins were to blame ? Which sins would warrant God bringing this level of devastation and judgment upon his people ?

If the book Apocalypse is to be believed , it was a severe set of sins . Written in the late 7th century and for hundreds of years to believe to be prophetic , the Apocalypse details the sin that was thought to have caused the dramatic Christian fall .

That document says Thus not because he loved them , the Muslims , did the Lord God give them power to seize the land of the Christians , but because of the lawlessness of Christians . The likes of it had never occurred , nor may it occur in the entire generations of the earth .

For why did men put on the clothes of adulterous women in prostitutes , adorn themselves as women and openly stand in the squares and markets of towns and change their natural practice for an unnatural one ? Likewise , women did the same things as the men had done . Father , son and brother had intercourse with one woman , who touched every kinsman .

For this reason , god delivered them into the hands of the barbarians . That is because of their sin and stench . The women will pollute themselves for the men who are already polluted , and the sons of Ishmael will cast lots for them , as the Apocalypse describes .

Many Christians believe the cause of their downfall was the toleration of sexual sin in their midst , which was a mix of cross-dressing , homosexuality , prostitution and , yes , what we today call transgenderism . Men would dress as female whores and perform lewd acts with men . Men dressed up as men and committed sexually indecent acts with women .

Sophanaris and others recognized that such practices were forbidden in Deuteronomy 225 , which says A woman shall not wear a man's garment , nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak , for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord , your God .

It was a natural conclusion at the time for Christians to assume that God was punishing them for the atrocious sins they had allowed to go on in their own camp . Such evil was seen as the sole reason behind the Arab conquest . Arabs also believed God to be on their side , but for different reasons .

They believed that the Christian religion had committed the sin of polytheism by teaching Trinitarian doctrine . Muhammad had rejected the teaching that Christ died and rose from the grave . They thought that Allah was pleased with them and so would deliver the Christian infidels to their cemetery .

As to the practical reasons why Islam was successful , there are at least three plausible reasons given by Raymond Ibrahim . First , he notes that Islam was notorious for , and quite successful with , his employment of terror-driven tactics .

Muhammad specifically gave instructions to his commanders to instill fear in the enemy through the use of decapitation , as seen at the Battle of Yarmouk . They were brutal and beastly in their devices . Such things are known to cause fear , and fear is detrimentally paralyzing the humans . This seems to have worked .

The second reason Islam was successful is because of its employment of trickery and deceit . The Chronicle of 754 says Saracens , influenced by their leader Muhammad , conquered and devastated Syria , arabia and Mesopotamia more by stealth than manliness , and not so much by open invasion as by persisting in stealthy raids .

Thus , with cleverness and deceit , and not by manliness , they attacked all of the adjacent cities of the empire . The third reason for Islam's success is the religious zeal they possessed , aided by the promise of sensual pleasures , and described at length in the cold open .

Is it unrealistic to think that Christianity was judged by God for allowing heinous sexual sins in its midst , and thus , as he did with the Assyrians in Jeremiah and Isaiah's day , he raised up an enemy to chastise them . And if that is possible , we might ask in our own day , is God going to bring similar judgments against us ? Is that judgment already upon us ?

However , we answer these questions . This much about the historical record is clear the Islamic jihad had taken Christendom by storm and would remain a thorn in western civilization's side for centuries .

Gibeah in the book of Judges is identical , where God is bringing fiery judgment and there's always some vile sexual sin and traniism seems to be in the mix in the even pre-Crescade times in Yarmulke Surprised .

We were just talking about this at lunch today , that historical cycles they're not identical but they do rhyme , where you have this kind of like tendency in late stages of civilizations to see rampant sexual promiscuity , and not just promiscuity , but really strange sexual deviances .

And you know , one of the things we do need to be aware of those God definitely brings judgment . Yes , and the Muslims were a fierce , I think a fierce judgment .

I think it's important to ask when you see societal destruction happening in Christian societies , when you see a place that is dominantly Christian and then you see decline and you start to see internal fracturing but then especially external enemies coming in and successfully routing it , routing that Christian culture , you need to understand that you're seeing the same

covenantal pattern unfolding , because this is one of those things . It's like a law of reality in the same .

In the same sense that you have economic laws and you have physical laws and scientific laws and mathematical laws , there are simply covenantal laws that play in the world all the time , in the sense that if a people blaspheme God , particularly if a people outwardly name God and say , yes , he's our God , we love him , we worship him , elaborate external displays of

religion and worship , but internally their hands are full of blood , they're committing gross sexual sins , they're harboring lies and filth and they're not inwardly regenerate , god hates that . I mean God hates . God will not tolerate that .

It's one of the things that I found really interesting about the history of the Islamic conquering of the East and then of many Christian lands is that when they took an area , the Muslims would go to great , great lengths to sacrilegiously destroy any vestige of Christian symbolism , which makes total sense because they're coming in and they're saying we're getting rid

of all these infidels and we're setting up our society . So they would destroy altars , churches , iconography , communion like the Eucharist , religious leaders . They would rape nuns and priests , murder them on the altar . They would stable horses and churches .

They would even say I won't be satisfied until I see churches stabled in this basilica or in this Christian church . That , to me , sparked a few thoughts that if God is chastising his people and he often says as he's chastising his people that he hates their worship , he hates their external display , while they inwardly harbor idolatry and sin .

So he hates their singing , he hates their sacrificing , he hates their external displays . In the Old Testament , god hates this has not changed . God hates hypocritical externalism .

And so it makes total sense to me that God would , as he did in the Old Testament when he allowed all the gold to be stripped away from the temple and the temple knocked down and the priests to be sent into exile , that he would permit an enemy to utterly desecrate all of their external displays . To me that just makes total sense .

When I read the history I say that is a one-to-one similarity in my mind as I read those two things . Do you guys agree ? Do you think the new covenant has fundamentally changed that reality or removed it ? Am I misreading ? Because it was immediate in my mind as I'm reading this .

I'm like look , the exact things you would expect for God to go and knock down with an enemy he knocked down .

Knowing the sins that they were committing , and as you were going through the list of all the things that the Muslims did to different churches and everything , it reminded me so much of some of the beautiful church buildings , even here in Utah , as you drive by them , and they're being desecrated by pagan idolaters and being destroyed as places of .

They've got their gay flags and they've got a gay priest or priestess .

If you build a cathedral with a graveyard and you build a Christian society , If the soul of that Christian society is eaten away in apostasy , unbelief and idolatry , God will not hesitate If that's what he needs to do to chastise his people . He chastises his true sons , right . If he loves his people , he will chastise them .

God will not hesitate to knock it all down , to give it to the gays , to give it to whoever and say I would rather them have it , I would rather the gays have it , than to let the hypocritical externalism continue . I think that's a very sobering warning .

That we always have to remember is that you , fundamentally , you better worship the true and living God in spirit and truth .

But seldom do we actually see true repentance and I think that's . You know , doug Wilson pointed this out years ago . I thought it was really helpful . He said you can tell what a nation worships when catastrophe comes . So catastrophe came to America and you know you'd have a hurricane or something and the people all say the government .

You know our podcast . We're talking about rebuilding Christendom . When God raised up Gideon , the first thing he had him do is he go to your father's house , yeah , your father's house , and go destroy that idol ?

It was a very long road to get to those places . It was fornication , it was pornography , it was the decline of sexed piety in society . A million different small sins , harvard , that grow up and turn gangrenous . And so lesson one , and this is why this is actually really practical for us . You know , it's not just interesting history .

Who would have thought Yarmulke was practical ? It's practical , I did , it's deeply practical . There's another lesson , though , here that I think is important to note , and it's kind of on the other side of the issue , and it's that Christians .

Christians often get played in a way that I think Jesus laments when he talks about the sons of the age , this age being wiser than the sons of life . You guys are just dumb . He's like you guys are just dumb . Like you get played constantly .

One thing the Muslims understood is that if they were going to win , they had to get rid of all of those symbols of worship . Those were powerful . And here we are .

Christians will unironically defend religious pluralism today and think that we're being good Christians by saying well , of course we should defend the Muslims right to do whatever they want and , to me , any society that allows the free exercise of Islamic worship is foolish and extreme , particularly one that's in any way desires to not ultimately be conquered by it .

But it seems like the and I agree with you and fill in the blank . Islam just can be fill in the blank with any virulent false religion .

I mean , like these are the same people who wrote this that are in favor of Sabbath laws and you're trying to tell me they were in favor of religious pluralism .

They're like , oh , yeah , yeah , let's talk about this French , French philosophy , political philosophers , and let's say like maybe they were right and maybe that's what's going to . Yeah , they're like reading Rousseau Right , like as if Rousseau knew anything at all about any . The Rousseau ?

I can't get in trouble for that , because I said , in the words of Dr Glenn Sunshine , you didn't say it . No , but that's the kind of the stupidity I think that we're faced with , this idea that you can have a politically neutral or a religiously neutral public square and ultimately have that not end up with one God winning the fight .

One God is going to win .

They assumed a just war theory , a place for a Christian violence , but they also all assumed fundamentally that it was right for Christian nations to be Christian .

I mean , there was like I don't think that they would have been asking questions like Christians , pietist Christians today , do yeah and say like no , no , no , we want this thing called democracy and you know , I think democracy is written on the back of the constitution . I don't think you would even see .

We're going to vote and let everybody kind of decide whatever , like how many of the Ten Commandments they really want to care about , and let's just kind of vote a little bit and come on guys , come on , guys , come on , don't .

When you have sensuality in the churches and in the Christian populace as they continue to name the name of Christ and then commit all sorts of debauchery and you know , like you , like God says , you pay lip service to me , but your hearts are far from me , yeah , and so enemies come in as a judgment on God's people and then everybody unites .

Right , the Christians unite . Yeah , often I don't see that . I mean , and I don't know what stage we're in , because I mean the Crusades happen . If you backdate the Crusades to say Yarmouk was actually the beginning of this battle , I mean , it's been 1400 years . You know that this has been going on and so I can't say where we are in the battle .

But what's really frustrating to me is the I would say the vast majority of Christians are blind to and refuse to fight these sorts of battles that are happening , and a lot of the time we spend or to repent .

fighting against the PCAers , who are all conservative Presbyterians , and then they're all fighting against the Reformed Baptists who are these things matter . The fighting that used to be done in the church , though , is like hey , yeah , you can't .

Homosexual sexual attraction is a sin in itself , like , yes , and , by the way , we can't just openly flaunt God's law and say , lady pastors , and all the Like . Those are the fighting we need to do in the church .

And then number two , I would say , is the church today , and all those things in America is a reflection of its leadership . So the problem is you have leaders who have gone really soft on wokeism and CRT , and then they end up on the pages of a , you know , let's say , like a New York fashion magazine , looking pretty gay .

Well , those two things are tied together . So you have bad theology that is , speed racing off a cliff with sexual sin . So I think , when you look at that , one of the things that I pray for is we need courageous men . Yeah , and you know , we need men who are not effeminate , they're not gay , they're not prone to those sins .

They're putting those sins to death , and we need to . Again , it's to me it's a thing of what are the issues of the day . We need to make sure that we're fighting at that beachhead .

Later , in the crusades history we will see that much of the Christian energy went into infighting between Christian regimes in Europe and in the and , to a larger extent , the East West , between Byzantine and European forces . And we have issues like that where we have analogues to that today .

And you're right , we need to understand what are the real beachheads where we need to gather and fight and defend and win back . And then , and the most important one I think for today , as we sort of come to the end of this episode , is to remember back .

The first beachhead to win is your own heart , your own home , your own church , your own worship before God , internally , in secret , in truth , and then go from there . All right . So let's , let's close it out and let's let's actually just answer the question of what happened in the aftermath of Yarmouk . Here's this big battle what happened in the aftermath .

So we're going to tell that story and then draw things to a close with a conclusion here for you to consider . After the battle of Yarmouk , christians as a whole were depressed and fearful , while the victory only added to the confidence of the Muslim invaders . Islam swept through the old Christendom like a plague of locusts , devouring civilization in its wake .

After Yarmouk , islam consumed 3,700 miles of Christian territory in just 73 years . It's estimated that two thirds of Christendom fell to the Islamic conquest in those 73 years . Jerusalem was besieged and captured by Muslims in 636 AD . Quote .

Within a score of years from the first assault in 634 , the Christian Levant had gone Syria , the cradle of the faith , and Egypt with Alexandria , the mighty Christian sea . All the important centers of Christianity had fallen Jerusalem , antioch , alexandria and Caesarea , to name a few . Never before had an invading army move so swiftly and efficiently and so permanently .

Cities that once used to be a bastion of Christian faith and learning . Places like Carthage , which gave birth to Augustine of Hippo , were reduced to no more than rubble by the unlearned and barbaric Muslims . Elsewhere , christians were martyred , as in Gaza . After 60 Christian soldiers fought valiantly against the Saracens , they were eventually captured .

Amir bin al-Az was the Saracen commander who , though impressed by their valor , tried to force them to submit to Islam and renounce Christ . When they wouldn't , amir sent them to dungeon prisons in Jerusalem . After 10 months still refusing to submit to Islam , amir had their commander and nine others brutally beheaded before their fellow soldiers .

Amir confronted the remaining 50 soldiers , exasperated that they would not say the shahada . After charging them one final time to submit and hearing their indignant refusal , an enraged commander ordered the men to be wickedly killed by means of various tortures on account of their faith in Christ , as Ibrahim records .

Despite the popular claim that Islam bans forced conversions , the martyrdom of early Christians who refused to convert to Islam permeates by the Muslims and Christian sources . It is still a very real phenomenon today and was one of the chief reasons that pre-modern Christians saw only the spirit of Antichrist in Islam .

When Islam invaded North Africa , it was firmly Christian . North Africa was a very firmly Christian . North Africa was as firmly Christian as any other area of the empire . Cities in countryside were adorned with graceful churches .

The Muslims subdued Tunisia and the rest of North Africa with a force of about 10,000 men , slaughtering Berbers and Christians and destroying churches en masse . They ravaged cities and countries like Libya and Algeria , the evidence of which lies in the crumbling ruins which can still be found today .

The Muslim historians at the time were very proud of their exploits and made sure that their readers understood that fact . One historian said he , that is Uqba , went to Africa and besieged its cities , conquering them by force and putting the people to the sword .

A number of Berbers converted to Islam at his hand , and Islam spread among them until it reached the lands of Sudan . Then Uqba gathered his companions and addressed them saying the people of this country are a worthless lot .

If you lay into them with the sword , they become Muslims , but the moment your back is turned , they revert to their old habit and religion" . Contrary to popular opinion , muslims were not at all tolerant of other religions . They forced conversion on Christians and Jews .

If a Christian declined to convert to Islam , they were either killed or forced to pay jizya , which was a tax imposed on non-Muslims in the Islamic world that acted as a source of revenue and a tool of oppression for non-Muslims . Thus the Battle of Yarmouk is considered by almost all historians as one of , if not the most consequential battles in world history .

If the Eastern Roman Greek Empire had defeated the Islamic army at Yarmouk , the history of the world would look quite differently than it does . The consequences of the battle were immense . Mass destruction of the church was followed by the rape of women and often young boys , and many children were enslaved .

After their victory at Yarmouk , the Muslims immediately burned the cities of Palestine , caesarea and Jerusalem . Actions like these , including the Muslim tradition of burning libraries , committing profane , sexually immoral acts in churches , and their desire of white-skinned women for the purpose of sex slavery , only further demonized Islamic people in the eyes of Christians .

The Christian loss at Yarmouk opened the door for all of these atrocities , and the world is never recovered . Christians must strive to be like the men of Isikar , men who understand the times . One of the surest ways to fall short of this kind of wisdom is to fail to understand the times that led to our time , to fail to read the story of history rightly .

What lessons can we draw from the rise of Islam ? What must we learn from the destruction of so much Christian progress ? What sins within the camp allowed the enemies of God such devastating effectiveness in their wicked onslaught ? Are we repeating the errors of the past ? One thing is sure no sin is safe .

Start with your own soul , your own hands your own heart , your own homes , your own churches , schools and communities . What sins are ? Given free reign ? Put them to death . Give your sin no quarter . Daily bear the cross of our Lord , daily trust in His grace to cleanse , forgive and protect .

There will be other lessons as we continue telling the story of Christendom , certainly , but it seems fitting that the first and gravest lesson be one not pointed outward at the enemies at the gate , but inward at the enemies within . Make no peace treaties with that which will only destroy , make no friendship with the world , the flesh and the devil .

And remember Winkit quees , a Winkit he conquers , who conquers himself . And so , in the name of the Father , son and Spirit , fight the good fight of the faith with courage and watchfulness Until next time . We hope you've enjoyed this visit to the King's Hall and we'll see you then .