Tuesday, March 4, 2014

KAHINA THE QUEEN OF THE BERBERS


The Desert Nomads
Long before recorded history, there was a group of nomads wandering the desert regions. While their earliest history is lost in the sands of time, scholars have been able to trace their origins by reconstructing the language they spoke. They did this by comparing the languages that evolved from out of this ancient prehistoric language. This language is called Afrasian. Several languages developed out of Afrasian. These include the Semitic languages, Berber, Egyptian, and the Chadic and the Cushitic languages. Important Semitic languages include Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and various languages of Ethiopia. In this story we will look at the Berber and Semitic peoples.
The Berbers live in North Africa in the region the Arabs call the Maghreb. They call their language Tamasheq. Berbers, Ancient Egyptians and Coptic Egyptians, and the Semitic peoples, are cousins who are the common descendents of the Afrasians. The Berbers lived in North Africa long before recorded history. It is their ancient homeland.  (When I speak of North Africa, it is spoken of to the exclusion of Egypt, though some Berbers live to the west of the Nile.) North Africa was conquered by the Phoenicians (who became the Carthaginians), then the Romans, the Vandals (one of the Germanic tribes that invaded the Roman Empire), the Byzantines, and finally the Arabs. Other foreigners, notably Greeks and Jews, also lived in ancient North Africa.
The Children of Cain
Cain was a worshiper of the LORD God. He called God by the name Yahu-wah or Yahweh. In his zeal for Yahweh, he struck a man down, his own brother. Yahweh punished him for this sin, but spared his life. As a sign of protection, Yahweh put upon his forehead the Mark of Cain, a cross. Cain’s descendents tattooed this symbol upon their foreheads as a sign of devotion to the God Yahweh. Cain’s descendents were the nomadic peoples. The Arabic Bedouin and Saleb of the Middle East and the Nomadic Berbers of North Africa bore the Mark of Cain and observed the customs of the nomadic Yahweh worshiping Kenites, the Children of Cain. Today, the custom of tattooing is now dying out among the nomadic peoples in the Middle East and North Africa, but continues among the Coptic Christians of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Once I was observing Arab families who were visiting their relatives who had been incarcerated by American forces in Iraq. I noticed that the elderly women wore traditional clothes and bore the tribal tattoos but the younger women did not have tattoos and were dressed in the Western fashion. Certain anthropologists have photographed elderly women with the traditional tattoos so that the custom may be documented before it disappears. Interestingly, Islamic traditions state that Mohammed condemned the practice of tattooing. (Mohammed does not prohibit tattoos in the Koran, but does in the Hadith. The Hadith is considered authoritative in Islam.) Tattooing is an ancient Arabian and Berber custom that Islam wasn’t able to abolish for centuries. (Certain Muslim teachers also teach that Islam condemns singing and dancing- and belly dancing in particular. These proscriptions have been ignored by many Muslims for over a thousand years.)
The Rise of the Kahina
This is the story of Dahi-Yah the Kahina. She is also known as al-Kahinat -meaning "female seer" from the Arabic. (Kahina is derived from  the Arabic word "Kahin" meaning "soothsayer.") Kahina, was a military and religious leader of the Jrawa Zenata tribe of the Berbers. She was the daughter of a Berber chieftain named Tabat, who took the name Mātiya (or Matthew) upon his baptism. Kahina had large dark eyes and very long black hair.  She was tall for a woman of her time, and she was very charismatic. She emerged from among the desert Berber nomads and arose to become one of the greatest leaders of the Berber people. She was the last queen that ruled over the Berbers before the Islamic Conquest. She died in the year 702 A.D.
Before the Islamic conquest of northern Africa began, Africa was a province of the Byzantine Empire. At that time it had been re-conquered by Emperor Justinian after having fallen to Visigoth Barbarians. The entire area thrived under the capital city, Carthage. Peace  in the land brought economic prosperity. Its grain was exported, as well as goods produced by artisans, such as red pottery which had become renowned throughout the Eastern Roman Empire. Africa was rising to become an intellectual center of the world. Kahina's youth had been spent in this time at this time of economic prosperity and growth of education and near to where peoples of different races and religions thrived. There were Romans, Berbers, Visigoth settlers, and Numidians; there were also Catholics, Arians, Donatists, and Jews who lived in the region.
At the time of the death of Mohammed in 632, Muslims ruled only in Arabia. After Mohammed died, the Arabs revolted against Islam and in the “Wars of Apostasy” (the Ridda Wars) the Muslims subdued the Arabs. Then the Muslims began attacking neighboring lands. They conquered Syria (635-636), Palestine (638-640), and Egypt (639-642) from the Byzantines and first Iraq (635-637) and then Persia (637-642). In the 680s the Arabs swept across North Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic. The Byzantines clung to their coastal cities. After the Muslims finally conquered Egypt in 646 AD, the years of peace would come to a close. Islam was quickly approaching, and the Byzantine Empire was suffering defeats on many other fronts, and was further weakened by a great civil war. There was no assistance given as the Muslim armies approached so the Byzantine Exarches of Africa were forced to rely upon what limited resources that could be found locally. Amazingly they were able to hold off the Arabs until 680 AD, when the Muslims finally broke through their defenses. The Byzantine retreated to the coastal cities as the Muslim commander, Oqba led raids along the coast, which reached the Atlantic Ocean in modern Morocco. The Muslim leader Oqba ibn Nafi reached the Atlantic in Morocco and, according to legend, rode into the sea and slashed at the water with his sword in fury that there were no more lands to conquer. However soon he, and his army were soon annihilated by a group of Berber tribes. On his return march in 683, Oqba was defeated and slain by the Berbers. The Arab Conquest paused for a decade but in 698 the Muslims finally took Carthage, evicting the Byzantine Christians completely from Africa.
Now the conquerors faced their last and most stubborn enemy; the Berbers led by Queen Dahi-Yah the Kahina. Dahi-Yah  succeeded Kusaila as the war leader of the Berber tribes in the 680s and opposed the encroaching Arab armies of the Umayyad Dynasty. Kusaila is known as Aksel by the Berbers. Kusaila was a 7th-century leader of the Awraba tribe of the IMAZIGHEN Berber people and head of the Sanhadja confederation. He is known for prosecuting an effective Berber resistance against the Muslim Arab invasion and expansion into North Africa in the 680s. Aksel grew up in Berber tribal territory during the time of the Byzantine exarchate. He led a combined Byzantine-Berber force when he defeated Oqba. On the return march to Kairowan, Kusaila joined with the Byzantine forces and organized an ambush. The Christian-Berber force, about 5000 strong, defeated the Arabs and felled Oqba at Tahudha near Biskra in 683. Kusaila now held undisputed mastery over North Africa and marched to Kairowan in triumph. In 688 Arab reinforcements arrived under Zuhair ibn Kays. Kusaila met them in 690 at the Battle of Mamma. Vastly outnumbered, the Awraba were defeated and Kusaila was killed. And thus Dahi-Yah came to rule.
Dahi-Yah was renown for her beauty. When she was a young woman, she was demanded by another chieftain to become his bride; when she refused he began to terrorize her tribe. Kahina was forced into hiding for a time, but finally she agreed to the marriage, in order to halt the massacres of her people by the vile chieftain. When she surrendered herself to him, he beat her, humiliated and raped her. Then he forced her to wed him.  On the wedding night, she murdered her new husband by smashing his skull with a nail, as Jael the Kenite had done to the tyrant Sisera. The chieftain was a tyrant, and Kahina was greatly praised and thanked for rescuing the people of his tribe from his leadership.
 Dahi-Yah had been born to a noble Berber family. She was graceful and wise and had an inquisitive mind. Her family provided her with the best education. One of her interests was that of exploring the natural world. She bore two sons. Bagay was the son of her first husband, the tyrant. Her other son Khanchla was begotten of one of her royal consorts. Later, she adopted an Arab man who defected to her from the Muslims. Dahi-Yah traveled with an icon bearing the image of Christ Pantocrater, which the Arabs, derisively called an idol. She had it carried with her when she went to war. Dahi-Yah also had scientific interests. She studied the desert birds and wrote of them and drew  pictures of them. An early parchment book with paintings of birds in its pages has been found which may have been the work of Kahina. The paintings were those of the species of birds found in Libya.
The Victory of the Kahina
The Umayyad Muslim leader Hasan ibn al-Nu'man marched from Egypt and captured the major Byzantine city of Carthage and other cities. However, during the siege of Carthage, Kahina had been busy rallying together all the Berber tribes under one ideal; to unite and defeat the Muslims.  She also gathered survivors of the Byzantine army and the remnants of the Visigoths. They were determined to drive out the invaders. They began with guerrilla warfare which turned into a full scale attack against the Muslim army. Searching for another enemy to defeat, Hasan was told that the most powerful monarch in North Africa was "the queen of the Berbers" (Arabic: malikat al-barbar) Dahi-Yah, and accordingly he marched into Numidia, where she reigned.
Hasan sent an envoy to Dahi-Yah to demand that she submit to Islam.
The envoy was brought before Dahi-Yah and she questioned him.
“Why have you attacked my kingdom?”
“We have come to end the period of Jahiliya-of darkness and ignorance-and bring the light of Islam.”
“We are not in darkness and ignorance. It is you who are ignorant. I have learned the traditions of my people from our elders and our ancient lore from our clanswomen. I am fluent in Berber, Punic, Latin and Greek. And I have read widely in Greek and Latin. How many languages do you speak?”
“I speak Arabic alone. But it is the language of God. The Arabic Koran is glorious and none can imitate it.”
“Why would anyone want to imitate such a rambling and incoherent diatribe? I have read many books far superior to your Koran. Since your people began attacking my people, I have mastered your language and read your Koran. There is nothing new in it. Only the repetition of certain religious truths of the most rudimentary level, nothing to the level of the sublime as we see in the teachings of the Messiah found in the Bible. I found your Koran to be disjointed and confused and lacking in any new spiritual truth and indeed regressive, especially in regards to the relations between men and women. I ask you as a Muslim, would you submit to my rule as queen?”
“It is not fitting for a woman to rule over men, for the Glorious Koran states that Allah has made men a degree above women and Allah is Mighty, Wise. (Koran 2:228). Allah has commanded saying, “Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely God is most high.” (Koran 4:34)”
“I once had a husband who beat me. I crushed his skull. Allah is indeed mighty and wise, but your false prophet, may he name be cursed forever, was an ignorant and unlearned man and it is obvious that he was fed tales from a Jewish man, a man far wiser than he, tales he used to compose his Koran. I have also been told the story of this false prophet. He was an illiterate beggar who married an older woman so he could take her money.  It is obvious that he couldn’t read. If he had been able to read he wouldn’t have made so many errors when he attempted to retell stories from the Bible in his Koran. Though he despised woman, without Khadijah, his wife, he would have been nothing. He dared not take another wife while she was still living, lest she cast him out. Tell me, what does your Koran tell you about how a woman should act?”
“A woman should cover her breasts and wear a veil. The Koran says, "And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the male servants not having need of women, or the children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women; and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known." (Koran 24:31) and tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them..."(Koran 33:59). The Koran teaches that only an aged woman may put aside the veil (Koran 24:60). In his teachings of the Hadith, the prophet, peace be upon him, stated with clarity that women must cover their faces with veils.”
“In the custom of my people, it is the men who veil their faces and women who uncover theirs. And we Berbers have no use for the customs of the Arabs. I will not avert my eyes from you, you savage. Why should I? I am not inferior to you and you are not my equal! It is you who should fear to look upon me! Nor will I cover my face or my breasts. Look upon them! This body your right hand shall never possess. If you attempt to do so, I will kill you. Look upon my body and see that I bear the sign of the cross, the tribal emblem of my ancestors and the sign of my savior the Christ. Tell me, have you heard of Augustine of Hippo?”
“No.”
“He was a Berber like myself. His writings are profound. In contrast to his writings your Koran is like the vulgar scribblings of the graffiti seen in the streets. Have you read any book besides the Koran?”
“No, and I vowed to read no other. It is the final and perfect word of God.”
“That is why you are a fool and why you shall remain one. The Koran is the product of an unlearned mind. While your prophet had knowledge of Judaism, his understanding of Christianity was limited. He confused the Trinity as “Allah, Jesus, and Mary” instead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and incorrectly called the Messiah Esau, when his name was Jesus (Koran 5:73-74, 116-117). The Jews substitute the name of Esau, whom they perceive to have been a villain, for the name of Jesus, as a way of mocking the Messiah. Yet your prophet didn’t have the wit to see this.”
“I invite you to accept Islam, or to pay the Jizya, if not submit to execution or fight us!”
“I am a free woman! I will not allow myself or my people to be enslaved by you and your barbarous customs. Your Koran is at variance with the teachings of the true Messiah. Let it be known that it was a North African, one of my people, who carried the cross of Jesus Christ. To this cross I cling. We will not leave the path of God’s Messiah to follow another. I know what you are. You come to kill our men, ravish our women, enslave our children and rob us of our property. You use your religion as a pretense to commit crimes against my people. I reject your religion, I reject your false prophet as a liar, and I reject your unholy book. I will never submit to the teachings of your accursed teacher, who was a liar and no true prophet.”
“And you are not a true queen! You are a witch and a sorceress. In insolence you speak against Allah and his prophet. Your kingdom shall fall before the armies of Islam.”
 “That remains to be seen, but I shall fight you and I will personally lead my warriors into battle. Soldiers, take this insolent swine and give him ten lashes and cast him from my presence!”
One of her advisors cautioned against this.
“He is an envoy. Should we cause offence?”
“His profligate phony prophet and perverse book of lies offends me. If we convert to Islam, the Arab armies will come and take our lands, our wealth and enslave us. If we are defeated, the same fate awaits us. It is better to fight. Yahweh granted me the throne of my ancestors. It is my duty to honor the legacy of my fore-fathers, to seek the good of my people, and create a better future for our descendants. Let us have war!”
The armies met near Meskiana in the present-day province of Oum el-Bouaghi, Algeria. Kahina completely defeated the Moslems  and pushed the invading army all the way back into Egypt, all the way to the Nile . She defeated Hasan so soundly that he fled Ifriqiya and holed up in Cyrenaica ( now known as Libya) for five years. Kahina won five years of peace and independence for the Berbers.
Dahi-Yah then reclaimed the ruins of Carthage, and became the unquestioned leader and heroine of northern Africa. She was now joined also by deserters of the Muslim army, including an apostate who became a lieutenant and her adopted son. Her fame as a seer and a prophetess who could read minds and foresee what would come to pass grew.  It was at this time she gained the name al-Kahinat. She ruled as a great military and administrative leader over her transformed army which now had disciplined army that was capable of being maintained, all while holding off the Muslims.
The Fall of the Kahina
Due to her foresight, Kahina knew that the Muslims would attempt to conquer their lands again, and so she began preparing in the best way she knew how. “I see that the Moslems shall return,” she said, “We must fight them as we can. Perhaps human innovation can challenge fate. If not, let history record that we challenged evil with all our might.”
She declared that the Arabs wished to conquer North Africa because of its wealth. She ordered Berbers who were still nomadic to destroy the cities, orchards, and herds of sedentary Berbers, to make North Africa a desert. She said, “What is it that attracts to our land these Arab spoilers? The wealth of our cities; the treasures of silver and gold dug from the bowels of the earth; the fruits of our gardens and orchards; the produce of our fields. Let us demolish our cities; return these accursed treasures to the earth; fell our fruit-trees; lay waste our fields, and spread a barrier of desolation between us and the country of these robbers!” According to Ibn-Khaldun, this savage policy of city burning and scorched earth cost the Kahina the support of city-dwelling Berbers. Instead of discouraging the Arab armies, her desperate decision hastened defeat. Her actions caused her to lose support of the settled population who were terrified by the destruction. They began to believe that even if they were defeated and enslaved by the Moslems, at the least they might survive.
Hasan eventually returned and, aided by communications with the captured officer adopted by Dihyā, he amassed an army at a locality in present-day Algeria.
As Dahi-Yah prepared for battle, she sent for her sons. She said to her servants, “Bring my sons Bagay and Khanchla before me.” Then she spoke to them in private saying, “Now is the time for dissimulation. I send you ahead of me to serve as my ambassadors. They will take you hostage. Then I shall fight and fall in battle. When you hear of my death, feign conversion to Islam. Pretend to join their cause. Remember, the survival of our Berber people is to be your primary goal. Make a pretense of fighting for Islam, but subvert the Muslims rule from within. I have looked into the future. While God is just and good, for some mysterious reason God has decreed that Islam shall prevail for a time. Maybe God is punishing mankind for his sins.  I foresee an age of Islam. An age of darkness, ignorance, slavery, disease, famine and despair. For many years there shall be warfare and brigandage, backwardness and decline. And yet, in the end Islam shall fall, and the Berbers will cast aside the bondage of Islam and the yoke of the Arabs and be a free people again. And at that time, the Berbers will become one of the great peoples of the earth. Pretend to be a Muslim, but make the survival of your people your highest goal. I sacrifice my life for my people. May my memory speak to generations yet unborn, our remote posterity, that I may speak to them through my actions, and thus inspire them to act, when the day of our liberation arrives at last.” Her sons wept before her but then obeyed.
Before the battle, foreseeing the outcome, she sent her two real sons over to the Arab army under the care of the adopted son, whom she knew to be a traitor. She then put on her armor, assembled her army, and rode before them, leading them into battle against the Muslims.
Al-Kāhinat died fighting the invaders, sword in hand, a warrior's death. Many of the Moslems fled before her. Those who opposed her lay in mounds of corpses surrounding her body. Though pierced with many arrows and many blows, she lived.  Knowing the Islamic law, that grants Moslems to rape “infidel” women taken in the field of battle (Koran 33:50, Koran 4:24, Koran 8:69-71), she took out a vial of poison she had hidden under her armor. She drank it and perished. Finding her corpse in the battlefield, the Muslims beheaded her. Her head was mummified and sent to the Caliph who had it nailed to the entrance of his favorite mosque. No one after her was able to organize effective resistance to the Islamic armies. North African had fallen to Islam.


After the Death of the Kahina
After the battle, Hasan gave one of the sons of Kahina charge of a section of his forces. Her sons Bagay and Khanchla led the Berber army to Iberia.
The Islamic historian Ibn-Khaldun complained that the Berbers were given to rebellion and heresy. He said, “They continued to rebel and apostatized time after time. The Muslims massacred many of them. After the Muslim religion had been established among them, they went on revolting and seceding, and they adopted dissident opinions many times. Ibn Abi Zayd said that the Berbers in the Maghrib revolted twelve times and that Islam become firmly established among them only during the governorship of Musa ben Nusayr and thereafter. That is what is meant by the statement reported on the authority of 'Umar, that "Ifriqiyah [Africa] divides the hearts of its inhabitants." The statement refers to the great number of tribes and groups there, which causes them to be disobedient and unmanageable. The Berber tribes in the West are innumerable. All of them are nomads and members of groups and families. Whenever one tribe is destroyed, another takes its place and is as refractory and rebellious as the former one had been. Therefore, it has taken the Arabs a long time to establish their dynasty in the land of Ifriqiyah.”
The Berbers are beginning to assert their independence from the Arabs. They have revived their ancient script and are using it to write their own language. The use of the Berber language and alphabet or the public display are Berber symbols (such as letters from the alphabet) could result in arrest. (The Berber writing system is called Tifinagh. The Berbers called themselves Imazighen in plural, and Amazigh in singular. meaning "free people" or "free and noble men". The word has probably an ancient parallel in the Roman and Greek names for some of the Berbers, "Mazices". There are several important Berber clans such as the Tuareg and the Kabyle. (There are various dialects as well such as Riffian and others.) The Tuareg are the “Blue Men of the Desert” who are nomads. Tuareg men often wear blue turbans and veils and generally keep their faces covered. Berbers are scattered across north-west Africa with important groups in Algeria, Morocco, Niger and Mali.
One day in the course of my travels in the deserts of the Middle East, I came across a Berber man. He was friendly. He wore a shirt that bore a Berber letter. I showed him a scar between my first and second knuckle on my left hand that resembled the letter. I fell and struck a rock as a child and it left the symbol upon my hand as a scar. He was amused to see that by some strange chance an American bore a Berber letter upon his hand! He told me how the Arabs repressed the Berbers and attempted to keep them from speaking the Berber language or writing with the Berber alphabet. However, the Berbers continued to assert their distinctive culture. There were also rumors I had heard of tribes of Berbers secretly returning to the Christian faith of their ancestors. The Kabyle community in Algeria has a decent-sized recently constituted Christian minority, both Protestant and Roman Catholic.

How Good and Pleasant it is when Brothers Dwell together in unity


 

We are often reminded how Jewish people were often mistreated under Christian rule. We must remember this past-however, I think that it is also important to remember Jewish and Christian unity in ages past. First, Christians preserved Jewish literature-such as the Book of Maccabees. This is literature that the Jewish people did not preserve. In Ethiopia, other important Jewish texts were preserved such as the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubliees. These books are a part of the Ethiopic Canon of Scripture, and the Ethiopic Coptic Church has a strong Jewish flavor-in fact, many Ethiopian Christians believe that they are of Jewish descent. (Some anthropologists believe that the Bene Israel Falasha “Black Jews of Ethiopia” are actually descendents of a “Judaizing” sect that went all the way to reject Jesus.)  Christians led the way in Old Testament Scholarship. Origin often consulted with Rabbis-and was familiar with a discovery of scrolls in the Dead Sea. He produced an important edition of the Old Testament called the Hexapla. Unfortunately, this is lost except for fragments such as a Syriac edition called the Syro-Hexapla. The Latin Vulgate was translated from the Hebrew-and not from the Greek Septuagint version. Jerome learned Hebrew and Aramaic from rabbis in the Holy Land.  The Syriac Peshitta was also translated from the Hebrew-possibly by Jewish Christians in the late first and early second centuries. We also have an early Jewish Christian hymnbook from the same era preserved in Syriac and entitled “The Odes of Solomon.” There was contact between the Aramaic Christians and the Jews during the Middle Ages. The Assyrian Patriarch Timothy the Great consulted with the Jews about a discovery of scrolls found in caves near the Dead Sea. Some of the Church Fathers wrote with an interest in what could be viewed as Jewish matters. Eusebius wrote on Old Testament prophecy and the Geography of the Holy Land.

There have been “Jewish Roots” movements in Christian circles. This is probably why Catholics use unleavened bread for Holy Communion-unlike the Orthodox who use leaven bread. In Russia there was the Molokan Jewish Roots Sect that arose in the 18th century (Encyclopedia Judica, Fourth Printing, Volume 10, 1978, Israel. Columns 397-401).

It was Christians who produced the The Complutensian Polyglot Bible in 1514, and other polyglot Bibles (such as the London Polyglot) that included the Jewish Aramaic Targum translations and the Samartian version as well. The earliest printed Hebrew Bibles were a joint effort of Christians and Jews. Many Christians studied the form of Jewish mysticism called “The Kaballah.” Christian Kabbalah fully arose during the Renaissance as a result of continuing studies of Greek texts and translations by Christian Hebraists. Among the first to promote the knowledge of Kabbalah beyond exclusively Jewish circles was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) a student at Florentine Academy. When there were attacks upon the Jews, it was often church leaders who intervened to put an end to the attacks. The story of Anti-Semitism is often told, but the story of cooperation between Christians and Jews is a story that needs to be told as well.

See: Living Together, Living Apart: Rethinking Jewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages by Jonathan Elukin.

"This book offers a much-needed corrective to nearly every treatment of medieval European Jewish history. Instead of an emphasis on persecution and different theories about its sources in church or state policies or in popular anti-Semitism leading to the expulsions of 1290, 1306, and 1492, Elukin proposes a paradigm shift that stresses the everyday convivencia of Jews and Christians who lived side by side most of the time. This book seeks to overturn a dominant view about Christian persecution of Jews in the Middle Ages, reinforced for over fifty years by the Holocaust."--Ivan G. Marcus, Yale University

"This book analyzes the circumstances of Jewish life in medieval Europe in such a way as to explain how Jews managed to survive in Europe at all. Elukin argues that when all the evidence is considered, Jews and Christians did not live in a state of continuous hostility, nor were Jews constantly in danger of annihilation by their Christian neighbors. He really challenges the master narrative of a continuous Christian persecution of Jews whose logical and inevitable conclusion was the Shoah. Elukin will also irritate a lot of people who believe this, but he will be right and they wrong."--Edward Peters, University of Pennsylvania
KAHINA THE QUEEN OF THE BERBERS

The Desert Nomads

Long before recorded history, there was a group of nomads wandering the desert regions. While their earliest history is lost in the sands of time, scholars have been able to trace their origins by reconstructing the language they spoke. They did this by comparing the languages that evolved from out of this ancient prehistoric language. This language is called Afrasian. Several languages developed out of Afrasian. These include the Semitic languages, Berber, Egyptian, and the Chadic and Cushitic languages. Important Semitic languages include Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and various languages of Ethiopia. In this story we will look at the Berber and Semitic peoples.

The Berbers live in North Africa in the region the Arabs call the Maghreb. They call their language Tamasheq. Berbers, Ancient Egyptians and Coptic Egyptians, and the Semitic peoples, are cousins who are the common descendents of the Afrasians. The Berbers lived in North Africa long before recorded history. It is their ancient homeland.  (When I speak of North Africa, it is spoken of to the exclusion of Egypt, though some Berbers live to the west of the Nile.) North Africa was conquered by the Phoenicians (who became the Carthaginians), then the Romans, the Vandals (one of the Germanic tribes that invaded the Roman Empire), the Byzantines, and finally the Arabs. Other foreigners, notably Greeks and Jews, also lived in ancient North Africa.

The Children of Cain

Cain was a worshiper of the LORD God. He called God by the name Yahu-wah or Yahweh. In his zeal for Yahweh, he struck a man down, his own brother. Yahweh punished him for this sin, but spared his life. As a sign of protection, Yahweh put upon his forehead the Mark of Cain, a cross. Cain’s descendents tattooed this symbol upon their foreheads as a sign of devotion to the God Yahweh. Cain’s descendents were the nomadic peoples. The Arabic Bedouin and Saleb of the Middle East and the Nomadic Berbers of North Africa bore the Mark of Cain and observed the customs of the nomadic Yahweh worshiping Kenites, the Children of Cain. Today, the custom of tattooing is now dying out among the nomadic peoples in the Middle East and North Africa, but continues among the Coptic Christians of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Once I was observing Arab families who were visiting their relatives who had been incarcerated by American forces in Iraq. I noticed that the elderly women wore traditional clothes and bore the tribal tattoos but the younger women did not have tattoos and were dressed in the Western fashion. Certain anthropologists have photographed elderly women with the traditional tattoos so that the custom  may be documented before it disappears. Interestingly, Islamic traditions state that Mohammed  condemned the practice of tattooing. (Mohammed does not prohibit tattoos in the Koran, but does in the Hadith. The Hadith is considered authoritative in Islam.) Tattooing is an ancient Arabian and Berber custom that Islam wasn’t able to abolish for centuries. (Certain Muslim teachers also teach that Islam condemns singing and dancing- and belly dancing in particular. These proscriptions have been ignored by many Muslims for over a thousand years.)

The Kahina

This is the story of Dahi-Yah the Kahina. She is also known as al-Kahinat -meaning "female seer" from the Arabic. (Kahina is derived from  the Arabic word "Kahin" meaning "soothsayer.") Kahina, was a military and religious leader of the Jrawa Zenata tribe of the Berbers. She was the daughter of a Berber chieftain named Tabat, who took the name Mātiya (or Matthew) upon his baptism. Kahina had large dark eyes and very long black hair.  She was tall for a woman of her time, and she was very charismatic. She died in the year 702 A.D.

Before the Islamic conquest of northern Africa began, Africa was a province of the Byzantine Empire. At that time it had been re-conquered by Emperor Justinian after having fallen to Visigoth Barbarians. The entire area thrived under the capital city, Carthage. Peace  in the land brought economic prosperity. Its grain was exported, as well as goods produced by artisans, such as red pottery which had become renowned throughout the Eastern Roman Empire. Africa was rising to become an intellectual center of the world. Kahina's youth had been spent in this time at this time of economic prosperity and growth of education and near to where peoples of different races and religions thrived. There were Romans, Berbers, Visigoth settlers, and Numidians; there were also Catholics, Arians, Donatists, and Jews who lived in the region.

At the time of the death of Mohammed in 632, Muslims ruled only in Arabia. After Mohammed died, the Arabs revolted against Islam and in the “Wars of Apostasy” (the Ridda Wars) the Muslims subdued the Arabs. Then the Muslims began attacking neighboring lands. They conquered Syria (635-636), Palestine (638-640), and Egypt (639-642) from the Byzantines and first Iraq (635-637) and then Persia (637-642). In the 680s the Arabs swept across North Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic. The Byzantines clung to their coastal cities. After the Muslims finally conquered Egypt in 646 AD, the years of peace would come to a close. Islam was quickly approaching, and the Byzantine Empire was suffering defeats on many other fronts, and was further weakened by a great civil war. There was no assistance given as the Muslim armies approached so the Byzantine Exarches of Africa were forced to rely upon what limited resources that could be found locally. Amazingly they were able to hold off the Arabs until 680 AD, when the Muslims finally broke through their defenses. The Byzantine retreated to the coastal cities as the Muslim commander, Oqba led raids along the coast, which reached the Atlantic Ocean in modern Morocco. The Muslim leader Oqba ibn Nafi reached the Atlantic in Morocco and, according to legend, rode into the sea and slashed at the water with his sword in fury that there were no more lands to conquer. However soon he, and his army were soon annihilated by a group of Berber tribes. On his return march in 683, Oqba was defeated and slain by the Berbers. The Arab Conquest paused for a decade but in 698 the Muslims finally took Carthage, evicting the Byzantine Christians completely from Africa.

Now the conquerors faced their last and most stubborn enemy; the Berbers led by Queen Dahi-Yah the Kahina. Dahi-Yah  succeeded Kusaila as the war leader of the Berber tribes in the 680s and opposed the encroaching Arab armies of the Umayyad Dynasty. Kusaila is known as Aksel by the Berbers. Kusaila was a 7th-century leader of the Awraba tribe of the IMAZIGHEN Berber people and head of the Sanhadja confederation. He is known for prosecuting an effective Berber resistance against the Muslim Arab invasion and expansion into North Africa in the 680s. Aksel grew up in Berber tribal territory during the time of the Byzantine exarchate. He led a combined Byzantine-Berber force when he defeated Oqba. On the return march to Kairowan, Kusaila joined with the Byzantine forces and organized an ambush. The Christian-Berber force, about 5000 strong, defeated the Arabs and felled Oqba at Tahudha near Biskra in 683. Kusaila now held undisputed mastery over North Africa and marched to Kairowan in triumph. In 688 Arab reinforcements arrived under Zuhair ibn Kays. Kusaila met them in 690 at the Battle of Mamma. Vastly outnumbered, the Awraba were defeated and Kusaila was killed. And thus Dahi-Yah came to rule.

Dahi-Yah was renown for her beauty. When she was a young woman, she was demanded by another chieftain to become his bride; when she refused he began to terrorize her tribe. Kahina was forced into hiding for a time, but finally she agreed to the marriage, in order to halt the massacres of her people by the vile chieftain. When she surrendered herself to him, he beat her, humiliated and raped her. Then he forced her to wed him.  On the wedding night, she murdered her new husband by smashing his skull with a nail, as Jael the Kenite had done to the tyrant Sisera. The chieftain was a tyrant, and Kahina was greatly praised and thanked for rescuing the people of his tribe from his leadership.

 Dahi-Yah had been born to a noble Berber family. She was graceful and wise and had an inquisitive mind. Her family provided her with the best education. One of her interests was that of exploring the natural world. She bore two sons. Bagay was the son of her first husband, the tyrant. Her other son Khanchla was begotten of one of her royal consorts. Later, she adopted an Arab man who defected to her from the Muslims. Dahi-Yah traveled with an icon bearing the image of Christ Pantocrater, which the Arabs, derisively called an idol. She had it carried with her when she went to war. Dahi-Yah also had scientific interests. She studied the desert birds and wrote of them and drew  pictures of them. An early parchment book with paintings of birds in its pages has been found which may have been the work of Kahina. The paintings were those of the species of birds found in Libya.

The Umayyad Muslim leader Hasan ibn al-Nu'man marched from Egypt and captured the major Byzantine city of Carthage and other cities. However, during the siege of Carthage, Kahina had been busy rallying together all the Berber tribes under one ideal; to unite and defeat the Muslims.  She also gathered survivors of the Byzantine army and the remnants of the Visigoths. They were determined to drive out the invaders. They began with guerrilla warfare which turned into a full scale attack against the Muslim army. Searching for another enemy to defeat, Hasan was told that the most powerful monarch in North Africa was "the queen of the Berbers" (Arabic: malikat al-barbar) Dahi-Yah, and accordingly he marched into Numidia, where she reigned.

Hasan sent an envoy to Dahi-Yah to demand that she submit to Islam.

The envoy was brought before Dahi-Yah and she questioned him.

“Why have you attacked my kingdom?”

“We have come to end the period of Jahiliya-of darkness and ignorance-and bring the light of Islam.”

“We are not in darkness and ignorance. It is you who are ignorant. I am fluent in Berber, Punic, Latin and Greek. And I have read widely in Greek and Latin. How many languages do you speak?”

“I speak Arabic alone. But it is the language of God. The Arabic Koran is glorious and none can imitate it.”

“Why would anyone want to imitate such a rambling and incoherent diatribe? I have read many books far superior to your Koran. Since your people began attacking my people, I have mastered your language and read your Koran. There is nothing new in it. Only the repetition of certain religious truths of the most rudimentary level, nothing to the level of the sublime as we see in the teachings of the Messiah found in the Bible. I found your Koran to be disjointed and confused and lacking in any new spiritual truth and indeed regressive, especially in regards to the relations between men and women. I ask you as a Muslim, would you submit to my rule as queen?”

“It is not fitting for a woman to rule over men, for the Glorious Koran states that Allah has made men a degree above women and Allah is Mighty, Wise. (Koran 2:228). Allah has commanded saying, “Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely God is most high.” (Koran 4:34)”

“I once had a husband who beat me. I crushed his skull. Allah is indeed mighty and wise, but your false prophet, may he name be cursed forever, was an ignorant and unlearned man and it is obvious that he was fed tales from a Jewish man, a man far wiser than he, tales he used to compose his Koran. I have also been told the story of this false prophet. He was an illiterate beggar who married an older woman so he could take her money.  It is obvious that he couldn’t read. If he had been able to read he wouldn’t have made so many errors when he attempted to retell stories from the Bible in his Koran. Though he despised woman, without Khadijah, his wife, he would have been nothing. He dared not take another wife while she was still living, lest she cast him out. Tell me, what does your Koran tell you about how a woman should act?”

“A woman should cover her breasts and wear a veil. The Koran says, "And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the male servants not having need of women, or the children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women; and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known." (Koran 24:31) and tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them..."(Koran 33:59). The Koran teaches that only an aged woman may put aside the veil (Koran 24:60). In his teachings of the Hadith, the prophet, peace be upon him, stated with clarity that women must cover their faces with veils.”

“In the custom of my people, it is the men who veil their faces and women who uncover theirs. And we Berbers have no use for the customs of the Arabs. I will not avert my eyes from you, you savage. Why should I? I am not inferior to you and you are not my equal! It is you who should fear to look upon me! Nor will I cover my face or my breasts. Look upon them! This body your right hand shall never possess. If you attempt to do so, I will kill you. Look upon my body and see that I bear the sign of the cross, the tribal emblem of my ancestors and the sign of my savior the Christ. Tell me, have you heard of Augustine of Hippo?”

“No.”

“He was a Berber like myself. His writings are profound. In contrast to his writings your Koran is like the vulgar scribblings of the graffiti seen in the streets. Have you read any book besides the Koran?”

“No, and I vowed to read no other. It is the final and perfect word of God.”

“That is why you are a fool and why you shall remain one. The Koran is the product of an unlearned mind. While your prophet had knowledge of Judaism, his understanding of Christianity was limited. He confused the Trinity as “Allah, Jesus, and Mary” instead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and incorrectly called the Messiah Esau, when his name was Jesus (Koran 5:73-74, 116-117). The Jews substitute the name of Esau, whom they perceive to have been a villain, for the name of Jesus, as a way of mocking the Messiah. Yet your prophet didn’t have the wit to see this.”

“I invite you to accept Islam, or to pay the Jizya, if not submit to execution or fight us!”

“I am a free woman! I will not allow myself or my people to be enslaved by you and your barbarous customs. I know what you are. You come to kill our men, ravish our women, enslave our children and rob us of our property. You use your religion as a pretense to commit crimes against my people. I reject your religion, I reject your false prophet as a liar, and I reject your unholy book. I will never submit to the teachings of your accursed teacher, who was a liar and no true prophet.”

“And you are not a true queen! You are a witch and a sorceress. In insolence you speak against Allah and his prophet. Your kingdom shall fall before the armies of Islam.”

 “That remains to be seen, but I shall fight you and I will personally lead my warriors into battle. Soldiers, take this insolent swine and give him ten lashes and cast him from my presence!”

One of her advisors cautioned against this.

“He is an envoy. Should we cause offence?”

“His profligate phony prophet and perverse book of lies offends me. If we convert to Islam, the Arab armies will come and take our lands, our wealth and enslave us. If we are defeated, the same fate awaits us. It is better to fight. Let us have war!”

The armies met near Meskiana in the present-day province of Oum el-Bouaghi, Algeria. Kahina completely defeated the Moslems  and pushed the invading army all the way back into Egypt, all the way to the Nile . She defeated Hasan so soundly that he fled Ifriqiya and holed up in Cyrenaica ( now known as Libya) for five years. Kahina won five years of peace and independence for the Berbers.

Dahi-Yah then reclaimed the ruins of Carthage, and became the unquestioned leader and heroine of northern Africa. She was now joined also by deserters of the Muslim army, including an apostate who became a lieutenant and her adopted son. Her fame as a seer and a prophetess who could read minds and foresee what would come to pass grew.  It was at this time she gained the name al-Kahinat. She ruled as a great military and administrative leader over her transformed army which now had disciplined army that was capable of being maintained, all while holding off the Muslims. Due to her foresight, Kahina knew that the Muslims would attempt to conquer their lands again, and so she began preparing in the best way she knew how. “I see that the Moslems shall return,” she said, “We must fight them as we can. Perhaps human innovation can challenge fate. If not, let history record that we challenged evil with all our might.”

She declared that the Arabs wished to conquer North Africa because of its wealth. She ordered Berbers who were still nomadic to destroy the cities, orchards, and herds of sedentary Berbers, to make North Africa a desert. She said, “What is it that attracts to our land these Arab spoilers? The wealth of our cities; the treasures of silver and gold dug from the bowels of the earth; the fruits of our gardens and orchards; the produce of our fields. Let us demolish our cities; return these accursed treasures to the earth; fell our fruit-trees; lay waste our fields, and spread a barrier of desolation between us and the country of these robbers!” According to Ibn-Khaldun, this savage policy of city burning and scorched earth cost the Kahina the support of city-dwelling Berbers. Instead of discouraging the Arab armies, her desperate decision hastened defeat. Her actions caused her to lose support of the settled population who were terrified by the destruction. They began to believe that even if they were defeated and enslaved by the Moslems, at the least they might survive.

Hasan eventually returned and, aided by communications with the captured officer adopted by Dihyā, he amassed an army at a locality in present-day Algeria.

As Dahi-Yah prepared for battle, she sent for her sons. She said to her servants, “Bring my sons Bagay and Khanchla before me.” Then she spoke to them in private saying, “Now is the time for dissimulation. I send you ahead of me to serve as my ambassadors. They will take you hostage. Then I shall fight and fall in battle. When you hear of my death, feign conversion to Islam. Pretend to join their cause. Remember, the survival of our Berber people is to be your primary goal. Make a pretense of fighting for Islam, but subvert the Muslims rule from within. I have looked into the future. While God is just and good, for some mysterious reason God has decreed that Islam shall prevail for a time. Maybe God is punishing mankind for his sins.  I foresee an age of Islam. An age of darkness, ignorance, slavery, disease, famine and despair. For many years there shall be warfare and brigandage, backwardness and decline. And yet, in the end Islam shall fall, and the Berbers will cast aside the bondage of Islam and the yoke of the Arabs and be a free people again. And at that time, the Berbers will become one of the great peoples of the earth. Pretend to be a Muslim, but make the survival of your people your highest goal.” Her sons wept before her but then obeyed.

Before the battle, foreseeing the outcome, she sent her two real sons over to the Arab army under the care of the adopted son, whom she knew to be a traitor. She then put on her armor, assembled her army, and rode before them, leading them into battle against the Muslims.

Al-Kāhinat died fighting the invaders, sword in hand, a warrior's death. Many of the Moslems fled before her. Those who opposed her lay in mounds of corpses surrounding her body. Though pierced with many arrows and many blows, she lived.  Knowing the Islamic law, that grants Moslems to rape “infidel” women taken in the field of battle (Koran 33:50, Koran 4:24, Koran 8:69-71), she took out a vial of poison she had hidden under her armor. She drank it and perished. Finding her corpse in the battlefield, the Muslims beheaded her. Her head was mummified and sent to the Caliph who had it nailed to the entrance of his favorite mosque. No one after her was able to organize effective resistance to the Islamic armies. North African had fallen to Islam.


After the Death of the Kahina

After the battle, Hasan gave one of the sons of Kahina charge of a section of his forces. Her sons Bagay and Khanchla led the Berber army to Iberia.

The Islamic historian Ibn-Khaldun complained that the Berbers were given to rebellion and heresy. He said, “They continued to rebel and apostatized time after time. The Muslims massacred many of them. After the Muslim religion had been established among them, they went on revolting and seceding, and they adopted dissident opinions many times. Ibn Abi Zayd said that the Berbers in the Maghrib revolted twelve times and that Islam become firmly established among them only during the governorship of Musa ben Nusayr and thereafter. That is what is meant by the statement reported on the authority of 'Umar, that "Ifriqiyah [Africa] divides the hearts of its inhabitants." The statement refers to the great number of tribes and groups there, which causes them to be disobedient and unmanageable. The Berber tribes in the West are innumerable. All of them are nomads and members of groups and families. Whenever one tribe is destroyed, another takes its place and is as refractory and rebellious as the former one had been. Therefore, it has taken the Arabs a long time to establish their dynasty in the land of Ifriqiyah.”

The Berbers are beginning to assert their independence from the Arabs. They have revived their ancient script and are using it to write their own language. The use of the Berber language and alphabet or the public display are Berber symbols (such as letters from the alphabet) could result in arrest. (The Berber writing system is called Tifinagh. The Berbers called themselves Imazighen in plural, and Amazigh in singular. meaning "free people" or "free and noble men". The word has probably an ancient parallel in the Roman and Greek names for some of the Berbers, "Mazices". There are several important Berber clans such as the Tuareg and the Kabyle. (There are various dialects as well such as Riffian and others.) The Tuareg are the “Blue Men of the Desert” who are nomads. Tuareg men often wear blue turbans and veils and generally keep their faces covered. Berbers are scattered across north-west Africa with important groups in Algeria, Morocco, Niger and Mali.

One day in the course of my travels in the deserts of the Middle East, I came across a Berber man. He was friendly. He wore a shirt that bore a Berber letter. I showed him a scar between my first and second knuckle on my left hand that resembled the letter. I fell and struck a rock as a child and it left the symbol upon my hand as a scar. He was amused to see that by some strange chance an American bore a Berber letter upon his hand! He told me how the Arabs repressed the Berbers and attempted to keep them from speaking the Berber language or writing with the Berber alphabet. However, the Berbers continued to assert their distinctive culture. There were also rumors I had heard of tribes of Berbers secretly returning to the Christian faith of their ancestors. The Kabyle community in Algeria has a decent-sized recently constituted Christian minority, both Protestant and Roman Catholic.


 

persecution of aramaic christians


Syrian Islamists Defecate in Church, Light Christian Man on Fire

By Raheem Kassam on Brietbart http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/02/10/VIDEO-Syrian-Islamists-defecate-in-Church-light-Christian-man-on-fire

A new documentary short by the Journeyman.TV company operating out of the United Kingdom shows evidence of the targeting of Christians in Syria, and apparent fighting back in the north of the country.

The video sheds light on recent incidents in the war-torn country, which include Islamists defecating in a Church, tearing Bibles to shreds, and pouring gasoline over a Christian man and lighting him on fire.

The video (below) is just eight minutes long, but goes some way to explaining how "Christians, who make up one tenth of the population, are being driven out." The documentary claims that "in the Northeast, hand-in-hand with the Kurds, one group [is] beating back the Islamists' advance."

The news comes on the heels of recent news that over 450,000 Christians have been displaced since the start of the country's civil war in 2011.

Mahjoub Abdulahad, an elderly Christian, said, "The extremists said the Christians and the Kurds were infidels and had to be killed!"

Abdulahad explained how he was trying to repair a church damaged by extremists: "The windows were broken, too. They made a mess of the church, even defecated on the floor... There were books on the floor, they ripped them apart, even the Bible."

However, he also explained how a few towns are developing Christian militias to fight back against the Islamist terror.

"We have checkpoints around the town to protect it from strangers," he said.

When asked about leaving the country, Abdulahad replied, "No, we must stay. We must stay and defend our land and, God willing, this crisis will be resolved."

Early on in the video, Mohammed Jelloud, a local Arab man, told the filmmakers, "They said they'd chop our heads off if we stayed. They said we were supporting the regime and they burnt one of my cousins. They poured gasoline over him. But he is alive, and with the help of the Kurds we managed to get him to a hospital".

Fadi, a young Christian, echoed Jelloud's statements, telling the film crew, "I have came to work with [the Kurds] because they are working to secure, to keep my way and my style of life, not to let people from outside like Jabhat al Nusra [jihadis] to come and force me to change my style of life, force me to change the way I live."

"Don't wear pants, don't do this, don't do that, be a Muslim. I just wanna be like I was before and better, and have freedom."

The film ends on a pessimistic note, explaining that the situation is not likely to improve at any point soon. "The Syrian civil war", the narrator claims, "may be just another step in [Christianity's] slow decline in the Middle East."

 

Is Religion the Cause of Most Wars?

Posted: 04/10/2012 3:52 pm by Rabbi Alan Lurie

 

" In their recently published book, "Encyclopedia of Wars," authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of 1763 wars only 123 have been classified to involve a religious cause, accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare. "

There are many common misconceptions about religion that are often taken as unquestioned facts, such as the idea that religious people are inherently anti-science, that a literal reading of holy texts is the "true" religious stance, that faith is incompatible with reason, and that all religions claim to posses sole and absolute truth.

While all these ideas are true for a minority of the population, they do not describe normative religious beliefs and practices for the majority of believers. It is understandable that these misconceptions persist, though, because they come from the loudest voices on the extremes, and like other polarizing positions in politics and culture are simplistic ideas that promote easy "us vs. them" thinking. But there is one common misconception about religion that is voiced often and consistently as an obvious truth -- often by educated, thoughtful people --that is just not factually true: The idea that religion has been the cause of most wars.

In his hilarious analysis of The 10 Commandments, George Carlin said to loud applause, "More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason," and many take this idea as an historical fact. When I hear someone state that religion has caused most wars, though, I will often and ask the person to name these wars. The response is typically, "Come on! The Crusades, The Inquisition, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, 9/11. Need I name more?"

Well, yes, we do need to name more, because while clearly there were wars that had religion as the prime cause, an objective look at history reveals that those killed in the name of religion have, in fact, been a tiny fraction in the bloody history of human conflict. In their recently published book, "Encyclopedia of Wars," authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of 1763 wars only 123 have been classified to involve a religious cause, accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare. While, for example, it is estimated that approximately one to three million people were tragically killed in the Crusades, and perhaps 3,000 in the Inquisition, nearly 35 million soldiers and civilians died in the senseless, and secular, slaughter of World War 1 alone.

History simply does not support the hypothesis that religion is the major cause of conflict. The wars of the ancient world were rarely, if ever, based on religion. These wars were for territorial conquest, to control borders, secure trade routes, or respond to an internal challenge to political authority. In fact, the ancient conquerors, whether Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, or Roman, openly welcomed the religious beliefs of those they conquered, and often added the new gods to their own pantheon.

Medieval and Renaissance wars were also typically about control and wealth as city-states vied for power, often with the support, but rarely instigation, of the Church. And the Mongol Asian rampage, which is thought to have killed nearly 30 million people, had no religious component whatsoever.

Most modern wars, including the Napoleonic Campaign, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the American Civil War, World War I, the Russia Revolution, World War II, and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, were not religious in nature or cause. While religious groups have been specifically targeted (most notably in World War II), to claim that religion was the cause is to blame the victim and to misunderstand the perpetrators' motives, which were nationalistic and ethnic, not religious.

Similarly, the vast numbers of genocides (those killed in ethic cleanses, purges, etc. that are not connected to a declared war) are not based on religion. It's estimated that over 160 million civilians were killed in genocides in the 20th century alone, with nearly 100 million killed by the Communist states of USSR and China. While some claim that Communism itself is a "state religion" -- because it has an absolute dictator whose word is law and a "holy book" of unchallenged rules -- such a claim simply equates "religion" with the human desire for power, conformance, and control, making any distinctions with other human institutions meaningless.

Of course the Hebrew Bible chronicles many wars -- most notably Moses' conflicts in the desert and Joshua's conquest of the nations of Canaan -- and we may see these as examples of religiously sanctioned violence. Here, though, we must recognize that archeological evidence points to the conclusion that these conquests never occurred, or at least not as dramatically as described in the Bible. As one who reads the Bible for spiritual truths, not historical facts, I am, of course, quite happy that no such slaughters occurred. The ancient Rabbis also understood these stories not as celebrated victories, but as warnings about the dangers of warfare.

Judaism has always taught that war may only be considered when there is a clear threat, and only after every other option has been exhausted. Avoiding war must be the goal. Deuteronomy states, "When you approach a city to do battle with it you should call to it in peace." In other words, even when threatened, seeking peace must be the first course of action. The ancient Rabbis took this teaching so far as to flatly state, "In God's eyes the man stands high who makes peace between men. But he stands highest who establishes peace among the nations."

To be clear, this is not to say that religion is not a cause of conflict. Obviously it is, has been, and no doubt will continue to be. Clearly there are those who have committed horrendous acts based on religious zeal, and we must be alert to these threats and respond forcefully. But in a world with billions of people who are self-defined as religious, those who believe that violence is the will of God and that the murder of innocents is a holy act are a small, insane minority.

Peace is the highest religious aspiration for which we must work. As he envisioned a future where the world is perfected by the conscious acts of human beings, the ancient Hebrew prophet Isaiah wrote, "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." While religions have often fallen well short of this utopian vision, we must recognize that greed, unbalanced power, and causeless hatred - not religion - are the causes of most wars, and eliminating these should be our focus.

James the Just and the Ebionites

Early Jewish Christians placed James, the brother of Jesus, in a place of high honor. Paul describes James as one of the “pillars” of the church and went to report to him when he arrived in Jerusalem (Galatians 2: 9-10, Acts 21:18) . According to ancient sources, including the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, Jesus placed James in a position of authority, and stated that he was to lead the church after the ascension (Thomas 12). In the New Testament, James is depicting as making decisions for the whole church, such as his decision to admit Gentiles into the church at the Counsel of Jerusalem  (Acts 15). We see in the New Testament that James, not Peter, was the “head” of the church.

Stories of the “Acts” of James were preserved in ancient sources. Josephus wrote of the martyrdom of James. An early Jewish Christian named Hegissipus also wrote a more expanded account of the martyrdom of James. James was stoned  to death by the High Priest. Eusebius preserved Hegissipus’s account in his “Antiquity of the Jews.” Hegisipus describes James in the following manner, “After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made head of the Church at Jerusalem. Many indeed are called James. This one was holy from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, ate no flesh, never shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed. He alone had the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies, since indeed he did not use woolen vestments but linen and went alone into the temple and prayed in behalf of the people, insomuch that his knees were reputed to have acquired the hardness of camels' knees.

An early group of Jewish Christians were called the Ebionites. This name is derived from the Hebrew word for “the Poor.”

We have fragments of “Hebrew Gospels.” In one verse quoted by Jerome, the resurrected Jesus appears to James, his brother. This seems to be a more complete account of the appearance of the resurrected Jesus than we find in 1 Corinthians 15. And when the Lord had given the linen cloth to the servant of the priest, he went to James and appeared to him. For James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he had drunk the cup of the Lord until he should see him risen from among them that sleep. And shortly thereafter the Lord said: Bring a table and bread! And immediately it added: he took the bread, blessed it and brake it and gave it to James the Just and said to him: My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of man is risen from among them that sleep. (Jerome, Vir. ill. 2) Several fragments of Hebrew Gospels and other Jewish Gospels such as the Gospel of the Ebionites have survived.

The Ebionites were very diverse. It seems that they were vegetarian and rejected the temple sacrificial system. Some rejected Paul and the deity of Jesus. All kept the Sabbath although some did also worship on Sunday. The “Ascents of James” an Ebionite “Acts of the Apostles” (which is mostly a collection of abridged sermons attributed to the apostles) was been preserved in what is called “Clementine” literature.

It is important to consult the Church Fathers when exploring the “Jewish Roots of Christianity.”

The Problem with Camels in the Bible

However,  most scholars believe that Camel were domesticated sometime around  3000-1500 BC. As beasts of burden and transport, camels occupy an important place alongside horses and donkeys. Two small members of the camel family, the llama and the alpaca of south America, are domesticated first - probably before 3000 BC. At that time both species appear to have been on the verge of extinction. Domestication by the American Indians saves them. Neither the llama nor the alpaca exists now in the wild. The larger of the two, the llama, is primarily a beast of burden, while the shaggy alpaca is valuable for its wool. Neither animal is strong enough to pull a plough or drag a cart - two important steps in the story of civilization which are denied to the early Americans. In the parched regions of north Africa and Asia two different species of camel become the most important beasts of burden - the single-humped Arabian camel (in north Africa, the Middle East, India) and the double-humped Bactrian camel (central Asia, Mongolia). Both are well adapted to desert conditions. They can derive water, when none is available elsewhere, from the fat stored in their humps.  It is probable that they are first domesticated in Arabia some time after 1500 BC. By about 1000 BC caravans of camels are bringing precious goods up the west coast of Arabia, linking India with the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia.




The domestication of camels does have important consequences for the Bible. This problem has existed for some time-but has recently gotten media attention. (See Will camel discovery break the Bible's back? Opinion by Joel Baden, special to CNN and Camels Had No Business in Genesis By JOHN NOBLE WILFORDFEB. 10, 2014  in the New York Times.) Camels do not seem to have been known in Ancient Egypt or North Africa until after the dawn of Islam. This seems incredible, because desert Arabs did domesticate camels earlier. While there are pictures of exotic animals in ancient Egypt-no depictions of camels or references to camels have yet to be found (but I would not be surprised if such evidence eventually is discovered). The problem is the dating of Abraham. If camels were domesticated in the year 1500 BC, then camels were not used by people in the year 2000 BC, the time period to which Abraham is usually dated. However, what if Abraham lived 1500-1400 BC and the Exodus occurred around the year 1200, as many Bible scholars believe? Another issue is that we do not know exactly when camels were domesticated. The year 1500 is an educated guess, it may have been earlier. They may have been domesticated several decades, at least, perhaps even centuries before people started drawing them or leaving records of them. This would especially be true if the camels were domesticated by people who lived outside the cities of “civilization.” With These new discoveries these “experts” try to prove that camels were unknown in Israel until well after the rule of King David. This means what they were saying is that, yes, Abraham may have lived in 1500 when camels were domesticated-however, even as late as the time of King David, who died around 970 BC, there were no domesticated camels in Israel. (It is hard to precisely date anything in the Bible that is before the time of David, Saul and Samuel.) If you read the research by these new “experts” you will notice how much of it is mere speculation motivated by a desire to “disprove” the Bible. They found camel bones that were early but they say they don't think they were domesticated-but they don't know. They looked at the leg bones and said they thought that they weren’t used as a beast of burden. What if the camel bones they found were used for riding and not for carrying burdens? These so-called scholars had an agenda. We know that camels were domesticated much earlier than what they are saying-but their caveat is "in Israel." I think these so-called scholars set out with an agenda to try to "disprove" the Bible and make news. Another fact of the matter is that we don't know for sure exactly when Abraham lived. It may be later than many suppose-and remember-Joseph's brothers went to Egypt several times-on donkeys-not camels. I think it is very interesting that in this story it is stated that the patriarchs most often rode donkeys. New discoveries could soon refute these new proposals by these so-called archeologists who are trying to get in the news.  Personally, to me Jesus is Lord and the eternal Word of God. I think the Patriarchs had a limited understanding of God. I feel very uncomfortable with the efforts of people to elevate Abraham over Jesus Christ in order to find common ground with Muslims and Jews. Abraham was the friend of God but Jesus is God Incarnate. Abraham did not die for our sins or rise again. Abraham wasn’t sinless the way Jesus is. Also, Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Muslim. (Jews will concede that Abraham was not Jewish, but Muslims do view Abraham as a Muslim. To Muslims, Jesus was a Muslim too, and is inferior to Muhammad-the so-called “seal” of the prophets. Of course, Abraham wasn’t a Christian either.) As I have stated, Abraham’s understanding of God was partial and limited. God chose to give a more fuller revelation of himself to Moses than he had the Patriarchs. And then, in Jesus the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily.  Jesus Himself said, “For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it” (Matthew 13:17).  The Book of Hebrews says, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:1-2). My faith is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. It isn’t built on camels bones! (as important as they may be).

There are two species of quadruped animal of the deserts of the world known as camel, both of which have implications for archaeology. The Bactrian (Camelus bactrianus) (two humps) resides in central Asia, while the dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) (one hump) is found in North Africa and the Near East. Camels were (and are) used for transportation, but also for their milk, dung, hair and blood, all of which were used for various purposes by nomadic pastoralists of the deserts. Dromedaries were probably domesticated in coastal settlements along the southern Arabian peninsula somewhere between 3000 and 2500 BC. The earliest reference to camels in Arabia is the Sihi mandible, a camelid bone direct dated to ca 7100-7200 cal BC, or about 8200 RCYBP. Sihi is a Neolithic coastal site in Yemen, and the bone is probably a wild dromedary. The earliest camels in Africa are from Qasr Ibrim, Nubia, 9th century BC. Evidence for the domestication of Bactrian camels has been found as early as 2600 BC at Shar-i Sokhta (also known as the Burnt City), Iran.

Sources


This article is part of the Guide to Animal Domestication.

Compagnoni, B. and M. Tosi, 1978. The camel: Its distribution and state of domestication in the Middle East during the third millennium B.C. in light of the finds from Shahr-i Sokhta. Pp. 119–128 in Approaches to Faunal Analysis in the Middle East, edited by R.H. Meadow and M.A. Zeder. Peabody Museum Bulletin no 2, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, New Haven, CT.

Grigson, C., J.A.J. Gowlett, and J. Zarins 1989 The Camel in Arabia: A Direct Radiocarbon Date, Calibrated to about 7000 BC. Journal of Archaeological Science 16:355-362.

Zeder, M.A., E. Emshwiller, B.D. Smith, and D.G. Bradley 2006 Documenting domestication: the intersection of genetics and archaeology.

Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=bor#ixzz2tUopAdZn

Trends in Genetics 22(3):139-155.

Syria's Christians face new threat -- "convert, submit to Islam or face sword"


By Lela Gilbert Published February 28, 2014 FoxNews.com

“Convert. Submit to Islam. Or face the sword.” In recent days, the besieged Christian community in Raqqa - a city in northern Syria – has faced those three stark alternatives. The terrorist group known as ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – made their demands after seizing control of the region. They required the local Christians to renounce their faith and embrace Islam, assent to extreme subjugation, or face death. On February 27, ISIS published a statement that an agreement had been signed by 20 of Raqqa’s Christian leaders. Faced with losing their lives or denying their Christian faith, the community opted for dhimmihttp://global.fncstatic.com/static/v/all/img/external-link.png status – suppression as a “protected” minority – which requires them to submit to an array of demands, including the notorious jizya tax, which can be compared to Mafiosi protection money: purchasing their safety, but under strictly enforced regulations. Raqqa’s Christians are now subject to an extreme version of Islamic Shariah law, which among other things forbids them to repair their war-torn churches, worship or pray in public, ring church bells, or wear crosses or other symbols of their faith. Bearing arms is, of course, forbidden, as are alcoholic beverages. Even before the agreement was signed, on February 22 Lebanon’s Daily Star reportedhttp://global.fncstatic.com/static/v/all/img/external-link.png, “ISIS has imposed a strict form of Islamhttp://global.fncstatic.com/static/v/all/img/external-link.png in Raqqa, enforcing the veil and banning cigarettes. They have doled out harsh punishments under Shariah courts for religious crimes, including beatings and executions. In Al-Bab, Aleppo, pictures showing ISIS fighters burning tons of cigarettes were recently published.” The Christians of Raqqa chose “to sign the dhimma treaty over war,” the ISIS statement explained, and in return received a commitment by local ISIS commander Ibrahim Al-Badri – also known as Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi – that they would not be subjected to physical harm or religious targeting once the treaty was approved. ISIS made the case for signing the treaty clear: "If they reject, they are subject to being legitimate targets, and nothing will remain between them and ISIS other than the sword." This subjection of Christians and Jews to dhimmitude has a long history in the Middle East and throughout the greater Muslim world. Although it officially ended after the demise of the Ottoman Empire, its humiliating and unequivocal demands have never been erased from the behavior patterns of communities that suffered under it. And in various ways it is still enforced de facto in some modern Muslim states. But in today’s Syria, where warlike militias compete to wield power, enhance prestige and impose piety, the command to convert or die is a familiar threat. And although dhimmi status may save lives temporarily, it is null and void if protection money isn’t paid or if the local authorities are somehow offended. And although Syria’s Christians face exceptional dangers, they aren’t alone in their misery. In recent days, other Christians have also been violently attacked in the Middle East.

On February 16, three Korean pilgrims and an Egyptian Christian bus driver were killed, and more than a dozen injured in a suicide bombing as they drove across the Sinai Peninsula. Korea’s New Straits Timeshttp://global.fncstatic.com/static/v/all/img/external-link.png reported, “The bus was carrying 31 parishioners from Jincheon Jungang Presbyterian Church, which is south of Seoul, and was attempting to travel from Egypt into Israel…the church had long saved money to commemorate the 60th anniversary of its founding with a trip to Biblical sites.” Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, an organization affiliated with al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for the attack. In Libya, on February 24, terrorists went door to door in a Benghazi apartment building, asking residents whether they were Muslim or Christian. Seven Egyptian Coptic Christians were seized, taken to a beach and summarily executed – each one shot in the head. An eighth Christian escaped and reported the crime. The outraged Coptic Church in Egypt has demanded further information, and the arrest of the terrorists.

In Syria and in Egypt, in Libya and beyond, Islamist attacks on Christians happen every day: rapes and kidnappings, maiming and murders, houses burned down; churches blown up. Recently in Nigeriahttp://global.fncstatic.com/static/v/all/img/external-link.png, Christians have been massacred by the hundreds.

It’s so pervasive and so constant that our minds struggle to believe it.

Can you imagine a gang of hateful, heavily armed terrorists showing up at your door? Your terrified family is with you, and maybe a few friends. An angry spokesman orders all of you to choose – at gunpoint, then and there – to convert to Islam, surrender, or die.

Believe it or not, it’s an ever-increasing scenariohttp://global.fncstatic.com/static/v/all/img/external-link.png.

In fact, in some form or other, it’s probably going on somewhere right now.

Lela Gilbert is author of "Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner" and co-author, with Nina Shea and Paul Marshall, of "Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians." She is an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and lives in Jerusalem. For more, visit her website: www.lelagilbert.com. Follow her on Twitter@lelagilbert.