Islam - Byzantium - Vikings - This Day in History

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Byzantine emperors called in special forces as personal bodyguards: Vikings

 Team Mighty

Posted On October 06, 2022 11:29:16

Viktor Vasnetsov, The Invitation of the Varangians: Rurik and his brothers arrive in Staraya Ladoga.

A full 80 % of what anyone needs in a bodyguard is intimidation. Protecting a VIP is easy when no one is attacking them. If you can intimidate any potential assassins from trying to kill you, then you might live a long, full life. The other 20% is having the combat skills to actually fight off anyone who does try to kill you, combined with the loyalty to not actually kill you themselves. With this in mind, the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire (or later, the Byzantine Empire) found the perfect imperial guard by recruiting men from the conquerors of a state to the north: the Kievan Rus. Called Varangians – or “Men of Oath” – the mercenaries who protected the emperor for centuries were descended from Viking warriors.

The ghost blimp mystery of World War II isstill unsolved

The soldiers we call Varangians today came south from Scandinavia in the 9th Century to conquer and rule the Kievan Rus, an area that today encompasses parts of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Despite having settled far from the coastline, the Viking warriors never lost their taste for raiding and plundering. They soon set their eyes on a jewel of a city to the south: Constantinople.

Unfortunately for the raiders, the city’s Theodosian Walls pretty much made any simple raid on the city useless. Even armies with advanced siege technology found it difficult to attack. The Vikings began to raid the countryside instead. The wealthy Byzantines, realizing that all the raiders wanted was to loot and plunder decided to buy them off… and they paid very well. 

They paid so well, in fact, that it earned the empire the Vikings’ loyalty. Once they became an ally, they were allowed into the city of Constantinople itself and quickly fell in love with its beauty and grandeur. They began to call it “Miklagard,” the Grand City. As for the promise of adventure, battle and even more looting, the Byzantines had no shortage of enemies. 

Once the Vikings’ boats were in the seas surrounding the Byzantine Empire, they went to work. The Vikings helped the empire conquer Crete in 945, then took the fight to the Arabs in the 950s. They were soon the elite warriors of the Byzantine Empire and were called upon for the toughest military adventures the empire had to offer. 

When Byzantine General Bardas Phokas rebelled against Emperor Basil II in 988, The Kievan Rus sent 6,000 Norse warriors to Constantinople. When they arrived to meet Phokas in combat, his forces scrambled, the general himself was said to have a stroke, and the Vikings hunted down the rebels and hacked them to pieces. 

Ship burial of a Rus chieftain as described by the Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan who visited Kievan Rus in the 10th century, painted by Henryk Siemiradzki (1883).

In the wake of this victory, Basil formed the Varangian Guard, an Imperial Bodyguard composed of just Norse warriors sworn to protect the Byzantine Emperor at any cost. Since they were the emperor’s personal guard, they rarely left the city, but you can’t keep a good Viking down. If trouble on the frontiers of the empire became more than the regular army could handle, the Varangians were sent in to deal with the situation for good. 

When Norman invaders threatened southern Italy in 1018, the Varangians were sent to remind them who controlled the area. When Arabs threatened Sicily, the Varangians kicked them off the island. The same went for Bulgarians who invaded the Byzantine-controlled area of Thrace. When everything was bleak for the Byzantines in combat, the Varangians refused to surrender. 

Even when Constantinople itself fell to the Ottoman armies of Mehmed the II in 1453, the Varangians fought to the last man to protect the emperor. The Varangian Guard fell alongside the fall of the Byzantine Empire and its final emperor.  

Notice there is never any mention of the thousands of women and girls who were raped and murdered by all sides in these endless wars.

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Islam - This Day in History - How God Saved Constantinople and Western Civilization from 200,000 Muslims

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This Week in History: Constantinople Saves Western Civilization from Islam

08/16/2021 

by Raymond Ibrahim

The siege of 717-718, as depicted in a Bulgarian manuscript

This week in history, a large fleet transporting tens of thousands of jihadists across the Sea of Marmara was either drowned in a vicious sea-storm or engulfed in flames from a volcanic eruption.

Far from dying in anguish, one year earlier, in August 717, these selfsame jihadists were part of one of the largest (200,000 fighters) and most confident Islamic armies ever to invade and seek to conquer Constantinople, the capital of Eastern Christendom.

Although the caliphs had conquered thousands of square miles of Christian territory—from Syria in the east to Spain in the west—they were discontent; for their prophet, Muhammad, had, in the guise of a “prophecy,” personally called for the conquest of Constantinople—promising paradisiacal rewards beyond imagination (which is saying much) for the one who would accomplish it.

While headed towards Constantinople, and devastating every other Christian village on the way with, to quote a chronicler, “both sword and fire,” emir Maslama, the caliph’s brother, vowed that he would “enter this city knowing that it is the capital of Christianity and its glory; my only purpose in entering it is to uphold Islam and humiliate unbelief.”

Due to a succession crisis and the jihadist storm approaching Constantinople, the people acclaimed Leo the Isaurian, a seasoned war veteran, as emperor.  For a while, this proved to be a smart move; the emperor—who knew Arabic and Muslims well, having fought them for years along the frontier—ably defended the city.  But the determined Muslims would not let up and bombarded Constantinople’s walls day and night.

One year later—after its walls were much crumbled, and after Maslama’s vast fleets had completely blockaded the city through the Bosporus—the emir began to make preparations for a final, all-out assault.

But then, right before he could do so, on August 15, delivery came—and from the least expected source: the crews manning the caliphate’s fleets were not Arab Muslims but Egyptian Christians (Copts). Because the caliphate’s fighting men had been spread thin, with many dying including from starvation over the past year of the siege, the caliph had no choice but to rely on forced infidel conscripts.

Much to Maslama’s chagrin, these Egyptian sailors “took counsel among themselves, and, after seizing at night the skiffs of the transports, sought refuge in the City and acclaimed the emperor; as they did so,” the chronicler continues, “the sea appeared to be covered with timber.”

Not only did the Muslim war galleys lose a significant amount of manpower, but the Copts provided Leo with useful information concerning Maslama’s imminent plans and formations. With this new intelligence, Leo ordered the ponderous chain that normally guarded the harbor cast aside, and before long, “the ministers of destruction were at hand”: the emperor had sent forth the “fire-bearing ships” against the Islamic fleet, which was quickly set “on fire,” writes the chronicler: “some of them were cast up burning by the sea walls, others sank to the bottom with their crews, and others were swept down flaming.”

Before long, Maslama had no choice but to lift the siege and flee aboard the remainder of his fleet with the remainder of his men.  But, as seen, the Muslims’ troubles were far from over: a terrible storm swallowed up many ships in the Sea of Marmara; and the ashes from a volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini set others aflame.

Indeed, of the 2,560 ships retreating, only ten survived—and of these, half were captured by the Christians, leaving only five to reach and tell the tale to the caliph.

Having failed to subdue the infidels across the way, the vindictive caliph was quick to project his wrath on the infidels under his authority. According to another chronicler, he “set about forcing the Christians to become converted; those that converted he exempted from tax [jizya], while those that refused to do so he killed and so produced many martyrs.

That Constantinople was able to repulse the hitherto unstoppable forces of Islam—which six years earlier had conquered Spain and were planning on reaching Constantinople from the west, thereby placing it in a pincer movement—is one of Western history’s most decisive moments. As historian John Julius Norwich once explained, “Had the Saracens captured Constantinople in the seventh century rather than the fifteenth, all Europe—and America—might be Muslim today.”

The earliest chroniclers knew this and referred to August 15, the day the siege was lifted, as an “ecumenical date”—that is, a day for all of Christendom to rejoice.

Muslims also knew this and never forgot the disgrace.  More sieges were forthcoming, until May 29, 1453, when Muhammad II, the Ottoman sultan, finally conquered Constantinople, for long, eastern Europe’s bastion against Islam.

As an inspiring reminder of Islam’s destiny to rule the world, that  supreme jihadist victory—which, as a reflection of how Islam bides its time, came more than seven centuries after Leo and his people were confident they had seen the last of the jihad—continues to be celebrated in Turkey till this day.

Meanwhile, in the West, which suffers from an acute bout of historical amnesia—particularly concerning those things that demonstrate continuities it seeks to deny—Constantinople’s victory against the jihad in 718 is at best a footnote in a meaningless history.

The above account was excerpted from and is documented in Raymond Ibrahim’s book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.  

Search this blog for "Hagia Sophia" for more stories on Islam and Constantinople.

'Arabs, Not Jews, Founded and Built Jerusalem' - Well, Actually...

Paper by Jordan's Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought claims

Old Testament proves "Jerusalem was always an Arab city." 

Palestinian official: Paper debunks the exclusive Israeli narrative used to negate Palestinians' rights in Jerusalem.

In the past, PA President Abbas also claimed Jesus was Palestinian.

By  ILH Staff  

A Muslim worshipper prays outside Jerusalem's Old City amid the coronavirus restrictions,

May 8, 2020 | File photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad

A Jordanian institute presented a new spin on regional history over the weekend, claiming that it was the Arabs – not the Jews – who founded Jerusalem in biblical times.

According to Saudi daily Arab News, a position paper by the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, an Amman-based think tank, asserted that Arabs were the first inhabitants of Jerusalem and have lived there for at least 5,000 years.

Jerusalem is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

According to the report, the institute is an Islamic NGO headed by Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, who has been serving as a special adviser to Jordan's King Abdullah since 2000.

The institute states in the paper that it "seeks to correct the misperception that Arabs are newcomers to Jerusalem" using unpublished documents, archaeological discoveries, and the Biblical record to assert its claims.

Among its many references, the paper sites the Amarna Correspondence, a series of diplomatic letters between Canaanite kings and Egyptian overlords dating back to the 14th century BCE, which mention Jerusalem.

"The Arabs founded and built it [Jerusalem] in the first place – and have been there ever since," the paper states, noting that Islam has been dominant in Jerusalem for 1,210 out of the last 1,388 years.

Moreover, the 108-page paper argues that the Old Testament itself "shows that the Arabs, Hamites, Canaanites, and Jebusites were the original inhabitants of the land of Palestine, including the area of Jerusalem," thus allegedly proving that "Jerusalem was always an Arab city."

"The Palestinian Arabs of today are largely the direct descendants of the indigenous Canaanite Arabs who were there over 5,000 years ago. Modern-day Arab Muslim and Christian Palestinian families are the oldest inhabitants of the land," the paper argued

Palestinian National Council member and former Bethlehem Mayor Vera Baboun told Arab News that the Jordanian institute's position paper "articulates the diverse historical realities away from the exclusive narrative that Israel is adopting to deny the cultural, human, historical and religious rights of the Arab Palestinians whether we're Christians or Muslims.

"It puts the readers face to face with their own misconceptions and lack of knowledge, thus debunking the exclusive Israeli political or Biblical narrative which is used to negate the right and the existence of the Palestinian rights in Jerusalem or the Palestinian land at large," she said.

This, however, would not be the first time the Palestinians have tried to rewrite history.

In a 2013 Christmas message, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas claimed that Jesus Christ was a "Palestinian messenger of hope."

The move was immediately labeled a Palestinian attempt to brace the link between the Palestinian and Christian narratives in global public opinion and was met with scathing criticism, as few scholars dispute that Jesus was raised as a Jew.

In my study of Genesis, it became obvious that Jerusalem was built by Canaanites while the Israelites were in Egypt. Jerusalem was not a city worth mentioning when Jacob journeyed from Bethel to Bethlehem, though he would have passed right through it. Also, though Rachel was buried very close to where it would be, again it was not mentioned. Extra-Biblical literature from Egypt mentions Jerusalem about 100 years before the Israelites returned to the Promised Land. So, it was certainly built while the Jews were in Egypt. 

But if you are going to use the Bible to prove that Arabs built the original Jerusalem, then you should probably not ignore the fact that God gave that land to Abraham and his descendants. It was God who enabled Joshua to conquer the land. Those Arabs still in the land were slaves for at least 1500 years, so to say that it was always an Arab city is absurd and wishful thinking.

Furthermore, if building and being the first occupiers of a city mean entitlement thousands of years later, then we Christians have a very good claim on Constantinople. Would you agree President Erdogan?

Today in History: The Sword of Islam Conquers Ancient Christian Capital

by Raymond Ibrahim 
American Thinker

Today in history, on May 29, 1453, the sword of Islam conquered Constantinople. Of all Islam’s conquests of Christian territory, this was by far the most symbolically significant. For not only was Constantinople a living and direct extension of the old Roman Empire and current capital of the Christian Roman Empire (or Byzantium), but its cyclopean walls had prevented Islam from entering Europe through its eastern doorway for the previous seven centuries, beginning with the First Arab Siege of Constantinople (674-678). Indeed, as Byzantine historian John Julius Norwich puts it, “Had the Saracens captured Constantinople in the seventh century rather than the fifteenth, all Europe—and America—might be Muslim today.”

When Muslim forces failed again in the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople (717-718), conquering the ancient Christian capital became something of an obsession for a succession of caliphates and sultanates. However, it was only with the rise of the Ottoman sultanate—so named after its eponymous Turkic founder, Osman (b.1258)—that conquering the city, which was arguably better fortified than any other in the world, became a possibility, not least in thanks to the concomitant spread of gunpowder and cannons from China to Eurasia. By 1400, his descendants had managed to invade and conquer a significant portion of the southern Balkans—thereby isolating and essentially turning Constantinople into a Christian island in an Islamic sea.

Enter Sultan Mehmet, or Muhammad II (r. 1451-1481)—“the mortal enemy of the Christians,” to quote a contemporary prelate. (Note: “Mehmet” is simply an English transliteration of the Turkish pronunciation of “Muhammad.”) On becoming sultan in 1451, Constantinople sent a diplomatic embassy to congratulate him; the 19-year-old responded by telling them what they sought to hear. He “swore by the god of their false prophet, by the prophet whose name he bore,” a bitter Christian contemporary retrospectively wrote, that “he was their friend, and would remain for the whole of his life a friend and ally of the City and its ruler Constantine [XI].” Although they believed him, Muhammad was taking advantage of “the basest arts of dissimulation and deceit,” wrote Edward Gibbon. “Peace was on his lips while war was in his heart.”

What was in his heart soon became apparent. Throughout the spring of 1453 the city watched helplessly as Ottoman battalion after battalion made its way to and surrounded Constantinople by land and sea. One contemporary remarked that Muhammad’s “army seemed as numberless as grains of sand, spread . . . across the land from shore to shore.” In the end, some one hundred thousand fighters and one hundred warships came.

Few Western Europeans came to Constantinople’s aid. In the end, less than seven thousand fighters, two thousand of whom were foreigners, made ready to protect fifteen miles of walls, while only twenty-six Christian ships patrolled the harbor.

Muhammad commenced bombardment on April 6. Although he tried to go over, through, and under the walls, he made little headway. Some six weeks after he had started bombarding Constantinople, he was no nearer his goal. At his wit’s end, the sultan held council with his senior officers. Although there was some discussion of withdrawing, in the end, Muhammad decided on vomiting forth every last man he had against the walls in one last-ditch effort.

But first he would need to inflame his men.

So he assembled and exhorted them: “As it happens in all battles, some of you will die, as it is decreed by fate for each man,” he began. “Recall the promises of our Prophet concerning fallen warriors in the Koran: the man who dies in combat shall be transported bodily to Paradise and shall dine with Mohammed in the presence of women, handsome boys, and virgins.”

Notice: Islam's version of Paradise is all about sex, gay-sex, and paedophilia. Apparently, this is the pinnacle of reward from Allah. The Bible reveals a very different reward for people who like little boys and virgins.

Even so, Sultan Muhammad knew that rewards in the now were always preferable to promises in the hereafter. As Sheikh Akshemsettin had earlier told him, “You well know, that most of the soldiers [particularly the dreaded Janissaries] have in any case been converted [to Islam] by force. The number of those who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the love of Allah is extremely small. On the other hand, if they glimpse the possibility of winning booty they will run towards certain death.”

So the “Sultan swore … that his warriors would be granted the right to sack everything, to take everyone, male or female, and all property or treasure which was in the city; and that under no circumstances would he break his oath,” wrote a Catholic prelate who was present. “He asked nothing for himself, except the buildings and walls of the city; all the rest, the booty and the captives, would be theirs.”

Any Muslim still uninspired by the boons of the here or hereafter was left with a final thought: “[I]f I see any man lurking in the tents and not fighting at the wall,” warned the sultan, “he will not be able to escape a lingering death,” a reference to Muhammad’s favorite form of punishment, impalement (which Vlad the Impaler—“Dracula”—was introduced to while a “ward” in the sultan’s court). Muhammad’s “announcement was received with great joy,” and from thousands of throats came waves of thundering cries of “Allahu Akbar!” and “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet!”

“Oh! If you had heard their voices raised to heaven,” wondered a Christian behind the wall, “you would have been struck dumb with amazement… We … were amazed at such religious fervor, and begged God with copious tears to be well disposed towards us.” All this “most terrible shouting,” echoed another eyewitness, “was heard as far as the coast of Anatolia twelve miles away, and we Christians were very fearful.”

The all-out assault was set for May 29. Atonement, ablutions, prayers, and fasting, “under penalty of death,” were ordered for the Ottoman camp the previous day. Fanatics of all sorts were set loose to inspire the men to jihad. Wandering “dervishes visited the tents, to instill the desire of martyrdom, and the assurance of spending an immortal youth amidst the rivers and gardens of paradise, and in the embraces of the black-eyed virgins [the fabled houris],” writes one modern historian. Criers swept throughout the camp to horn blasts:

Children of Muhammad, be of good heart, for tomorrow we shall have so many Christians in our hands that we will sell them, two slaves for a ducat, and will have such riches that we will all be of gold, and from the beards of the Greeks we will make leads for our dogs, and their families will be our slaves. So be of good heart and be ready to die cheerfully for the love of our [past and present] Muhammad.

Finally, on May 29, around two a.m., Muhammad unleashed all hell against Constantinople: to blasting sounds of trumpets, cymbals, and Islamic war-cries, cannon fire lit the horizon as ball after ball came careening into the wall. Adding to the pandemonium rang church bells and alarms. After the initial wave of cannon fire, the sultan implemented his strategy: “to engage successively and without halt one body of fresh troops after the other,” he had told his generals, “until harassed and worn out the enemy will be unable further to resist.”

On and on, wave after wave, the hordes came, all desirous of booty or paradise—or merely of evading impalement. With ladders and hooks, they fought, clawed, and clambered onto the wall. “Who could narrate the voices, the cries of the wounded, and the lamentation that arose on both sides?” recollected an eyewitness. “The shouts and din went beyond the boundaries of heaven.”

After two hours of this, thousands of the Ottomans’ most expendable raiders lay dead beneath the wall. Having served their purpose of wearying the defenders down, Muhammad—now mounted near the wall and directing traffic with a mace in his hand—ordered another wave of fresh Anatolian Turks to crash against the wall. They built and clawed atop human pyramids of their own dead and wounded, all while cannon balls careened and crashed— to no avail. Having the high ground, the Christians slew countless. “One could only marvel at the brutes,” conceded a defender. “Their army was being annihilated, and yet they dared to approach the fosse again and again.”

By four a.m. nonstop cannon fire had made several breaches, which the Ottomans’ elite shock troops, the Janissaries—composed of abducted Christian boys indoctrinated in jihad—charged, even as their former coreligionists held firm. An eyewitness offers a snapshot:

[The defenders] fought bravely with lances, axes, pikes, javelins, and other weapons of offense. It was a hand-to-hand encounter, and they stopped the attackers and prevented them from getting inside the palisade. There was much shouting on both sides—the mingled sounds of blasphemy, insults, threats, attackers, defenders, shooters, those shot at, killers and dying, of those who in anger and wrath did all sorts of terrible things. And it was a sight to see there: a hard fight going on hand-to-hand with great determination and for the greatest rewards, heroes fighting valiantly, the one party [Ottomans] struggling with all their might to force back the defenders, get possession of the wall, enter the city, and fall upon the children and women and the treasures, the other party bravely agonizing to drive them off and guard their possessions, even if they were not to succeed in prevailing and in keeping them.

A small detachment of Turks entered the city through a minor doorway which the defenders had left open during the chaos. They quickly planted the Islamic flag, causing consternation among the defenders.

Playing on their worst fears, the sultan cried aloud, “The city is ours!” and ordered his best Janissaries to charge. One Hassan—“a giant of a beast”—slew all before him and inspired other Turks to press in behind him. When a well-aimed stone took him down, he continued swinging his scimitar on one knee until riddled and “overwhelmed by arrows” he was welcomed into paradise by the houris. “By then, the whole host of the enemy were on our walls and our forces were put to flight.” Thousands of invaders flooded in and slaughtered the outnumbered defenders; others were trampled underfoot and “crushed to death” by the press of men.

Crying, “The City is lost, but I live,” Emperor Constantine XI stripped and flung off his royal regalia and “spurred on his horse and reached the spot where the Turks were coming in large numbers.” With his steed he “knocked the impious from the walls” and with “his drawn sword in his right hand, he killed many opponents, while blood was streaming from his legs and arms.” Inspired by their lord, men shouting “Better to die!” rushed into and were consumed by the oncoming throng. “The Emperor was caught up among these, fell and rose again, then fell once more.”

Thus “he died by the gate with many of his men, like any commoner, after having reigned for three years and three months,” wrote a chronicler. And on that May 29, 1453, the 2,206-year-old Roman state died with him, and “the saying,” observed another contemporary, “was fulfilled: ‘It started with Constantine [the Great, who founded Constantinople in 325] and it ended with Constantine [XI].’”

Note: The above account was excerpted from the author’s book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes come from contemporary eyewitnesses and primary sources documented therein.

Kiev Proclaims Its Own Orthodox Church, Hails ‘Unification’ After Holding ‘Schismatic’ Council

©  Global Look Press

Ukraine has created an Orthodox church of its own, proclaiming “independence from Moscow.” While the majority of its hierarchs represented schismatic “churches,” Kiev authorities have hailed a supposed “unity” they have achieved.

The so-called “unity council” took place on Saturday in Kiev, with the country’s president Petro Poroshenko and other top officials in attendance. The overwhelming majority of participants represented two non-canonical entities – the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the self-styled ‘Kiev Patriarchy’ and the so-called Ukrainian autocephalous Orthodox Church. The two unrecognized entities have announced voluntary dissolution ahead of the event.

Just two hierarchs from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchy participated in event, metropolitan bishops Simeon and Aleksandr. The Church as a whole refused to partake in the gathering, denouncing it as schismatic.

Metropolitan bishop Simeon even ran for the post of the head of the new entity, yet lost to ‘metropolitan’ Epiphany, who had been a hierarch within the unrecognized Kiev Patriarchate.

The head of the schismatic entity –self-styled ‘patriarch’ Filaret– has received the lifetime title of ‘Honorary Patriarch’ within the new structure. The title appears to be not without clout, since it’s established in the charter of the new church, which was adopted at the gathering as well.

It was not immediately clear what exact wording the document contains, since it was reportedly being actively negotiated until the last minute. The draft variant, however, which was unveiled earlier this month, made the new church fully subordinate to the Constantinople Patriarchate, regardless of all the talk about “independence.”

Constantinople has already expressed its support for the new religious entity, confirming it will recognize it officially in early January, which likely means the adopted charter suits Patriarch Bartholomew well.

The Russian Orthodox Church had, consequently, cut ties with Constantinople in the biggest split in modern Orthodox history.

The gathering, however, was swiftly denounced by the Russian Orthodox Church, which branded its decisions to be “void.”

“The non-canonical gathering … under general the guidance of a layman and the country’s head, as well as a foreigner, who doesn’t know the local language, has picked a non-canonical ‘bishop’ to become an equally non-canonical ‘primate,’” deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate, Protoiereus Nikolay Balashov, said, adding that the whole event meant “nothing” to the Church.

A similar opinion was voiced by the Belarusian Orthodox Church – subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate – which ruled out any official contacts with the new Ukrainian entity, calling it “evidently schismatic.”