Victor Davis Hanson: The Two Swords of Christ: The History of the Crusades

Summary

Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words – The Two Swords of Christ: The History of the Crusades

Podcast: Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Host: Victor Davis Hanson
Guest: Raymond Ibrahim
Date: November 26, 2025
Episode Theme: A deep historical and cultural discussion on the legacy of the Crusades, the role of the Templars and Hospitallers, and the enduring East-West dynamic. The conversation centers on Raymond Ibrahim’s new book, “The Two Swords of Christ,” exploring Western and Islamic interaction from the Crusades to present-day events, with insights into cultural, religious, and political transformations.

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Episode Overview

Victor Davis Hanson hosts historian and author Raymond Ibrahim to discuss the newly released book “The Two Swords of Christ: Five Centuries of War Between Islam and the Warrior Monks of Christendom.” The discussion explores the historical reality versus the modern mythmaking around the Crusades and Christian military orders, offers context for today’s global tensions, and highlights recurring cycles in Christian-Muslim relations.

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Introduction & Background

• Personal Connection

  • Victor reminisces about meeting Raymond Ibrahim at Cal State Fresno nearly three decades prior.
  • Ibrahim’s scholarly beginnings focused on Greek and Latin, eventually leading to his thesis under Hanson and an academic exploration of East-West conflict.
  • Key early work: Ibrahim’s “Al Qaeda Reader,” sourced from rare Arabic texts discovered at the Library of Congress ([00:59]–[04:35]).

• Quote:

  • “The messages we were being fed by the media from Osama bin Laden was the reciprocal treatment business… But what was significant about the writings I found… was they actually sounded now more like ISIS.” — Raymond Ibrahim ([03:30]).

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The Book: “The Two Swords of Christ” ([07:30]–[11:02])

• Scope & Thesis:

  • Chronicles 500 years of war between Islam and Christian warrior monks—the Templars and Hospitallers.
  • Utilizes the double-meaning of “the Two Swords”: the biblical passage in Luke (spiritual and temporal conflict) and the two military orders themselves.
  • Charts history from the end of the First Crusade (1099) to the fall of Malta to Napoleon (~1800).
  • Emphasizes the medieval fusion of intense piety with military ferocity among Christian warriors.

• Quote:

  • “…it’s called the Two Swords of Christ because I’m referencing the verse in Luke where Christ tells his disciples, ‘…sell your garments and buy a sword.’… For a lot of pre-modern… Christians … what it meant is that … there’s two forms of swords, one to fight spiritual forces… [and] the other … to fight secular, physical, corporeal forces, evil humans.” — Raymond Ibrahim ([09:10])

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Key Historical Insights

Distinction Between the Orders ([11:02]–[14:27])

• Origins and Missions:

  • Hospitallers originated as a charitable hospice; Templars were the first to militarize.
  • Hospitallers gradually shifted to a militant role by the 1170s, both ultimately became elite combatants in the Holy Land.

• Quote:

  • “Their vows were based on serving our lords, the sick. … Before long, they realized… the best way to serve these pilgrims was … preemptively put a stop to [attacks] by actually protecting them and even going on the offensive.” — Ibrahim ([13:05])

Role in the Defense of the Holy Land ([14:27]–[16:08])

• After Jerusalem’s Fall:
  • Following the loss of Jerusalem (1187), Templars and Hospitallers became the main defense of remaining Christian enclaves.
  • Maintained a network of castles; without them “the Holy Land would have been lost much, much earlier.”

Popular and Modern Depictions ([16:08]–[17:53])

• Media Myths:

  • Templars often unfairly lampooned (e.g., Ridley Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven”).
  • Ibrahim notes original sources highlight their heroism, which contrasts modern portrayals.

• Quote:

  • “…he [Reynold] gives this really heroic speech and basically says, I won’t do what you want. And that’s when he [Saladin] cuts his head off. That’s more heroic than the… buffoonery…” — Ibrahim ([17:13])

The Orders Post-Crusades and in the Mediterranean ([23:04]–[24:31])

• Relocation to Rhodes and later Malta after ejection from the Holy Land.
• Transformation into a naval force and persistent antagonists against Ottoman expansion.

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Source Material & Muslim Perspectives ([18:19]–[19:44])

• Primary sources: Latin, Old French, Arabic, “a little bit of Greek.”

• Muslim chroniclers often viewed the Templars and Hospitallers with unique “be grudging respect”—as their “chief thorn” and unlike other Christian monks, could not be bought off.

• Quote:

  • “In many ways, they’re the ones who most underscore how they feared the Templars and the Hospitallers… a kind of nod of respect.” — Ibrahim ([19:06])

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Broader Historical Contexts ([19:44]–[22:46])

• The Middle East as originally a heartland of Greco-Roman Christianity until the 7th-century Islamic conquests.
• The massive demographic and religious transformation of the region is often ignored in modern narratives.

Relations with Byzantium ([21:57]–[22:46])

• Templars and Hospitallers were Catholic, not closely tied to Byzantium, and had little involvement in events like the Fourth Crusade.

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The Barbary Slave Trade and the Orders’ Later Role ([30:06]–[36:34])

• The Hospitallers fought Ottoman and Barbary slavers, defending Europe from Islamic piracy.

• Slavery under Muslim empires included an ideological component (“infidel” enslavement) and was often more brutal than the transatlantic trade.

• Quote:

  • “The Muslim enslavement of the Europeans had an ideological component… always treated in very, very sadistic ways…” — Ibrahim ([35:08])

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Modern Relevance of Historical Patterns ([41:57]–[51:17])

Selective Attention to Atrocities

• Contrasting Western perceptions of Islam and Israel, and different standards for “genocide” or “occupation.”

• Media and academia’s double standards regarding modern Islamic violence and occupation.

• Quote:

  • “When you look at so-called genocide, atrocity, occupation… it’s really shocking.” — Hanson ([43:09])

Demographic Transition and Political Influence

• Immigration from the Middle East is changing Western societies’ perceptions and politics.

• Petrodollars fund university programs, influencing academic analysis of the Middle East.

• Quote:

  • “Most of the Middle East programs in the elite schools are funded by Middle East petrodollars, mostly from Qatar.” — Hanson ([45:03])

The Janissaries and Cultural Memory ([37:43]–[39:33])

• The Janissary system as a “psychological weapon”: white European Christian children indoctrinated into elite Ottoman Islamic troops and used against their own people.
• Modern academia often sanitizes this “as if getting a scholarship to Harvard.”

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Western Self-Criticism & Demographic Shifts ([59:43]–[62:09])

• The West’s unique tradition of self-critique is being weaponized into “self-loathing.”

• Western societies remain the only self-critical civilizations, but risk losing their core identity if assimilation is rejected in favor of multiculturalism.

• Quote:

  • “There’s a fine line between healthy self-criticism… and self-loathing or what a great scholar called oikophobia.” — Hanson ([61:32])

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• On Christian-Muslim Conflict’s Continuity:

  • “What’s happening today… is not its own particular local new development. … 14 centuries between Islam and the West when Israel didn’t exist and Islam was doing the same exact thing.” — Ibrahim ([47:43])

• On Left-Islamist Alliances:

  • “When you dig into it, you find out, well, who are the two primary culprits behind… attacks on churches? One, it said Islamists and two, leftists. So you find they’re always in bed together, even though on the surface they’re so different.” — Ibrahim ([48:47])

• On Assimilation and Multiculturalism:

  • “We have done a very poor job of saying to immigrants, you’re welcome, but you must speak our language, … uphold our culture… integrate within it.” — Hanson ([62:09])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Origins of Ibrahim’s work: [00:59]–[04:45]
• Overview of “Two Swords of Christ”: [07:43]–[11:02]
• Distinction between Templars & Hospitallers: [11:02]–[14:27]
• Templars/Hospitallers after Crusades, in Rhodes/Malta: [23:04]–[24:31]
• Slavery and Barbary pirates: [30:06]–[36:34]
• Modern-day relevance and academic double standards: [41:57]–[45:57]
• Western identity, assimilation, and multiculturalism: [59:43]–[62:09]

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Closing Section: Present and Future

• Book Availability and Publisher:
  • “The Two Swords of Christ” published by Bombardier/Post Hill.
  • Available on Amazon or signed copies via raymondibrahim.com.
  • “It’s got…color pictures in there.” — Ibrahim ([53:26])
• Ibrahim’s Next Project:
  • Considering a book on “lessons for today from this long history,” reclaiming “muscular Christianity.” ([67:01])

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Recurring Themes and Takeaways

• The tension between spiritual ideals and martial necessity in Christian history.
• Persistent distortions of Crusader and Islamic histories in modern media and academia.
• The cyclical nature of civilizational conflict—and its continued relevance.
• The West’s unique self-criticism now exposes it to internal and external challenges.
• Assimilation as a core Western ideal is under threat by multiculturalist paradigms.

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This episode is essential listening for anyone seeking to understand the true historical complexities behind the Crusades, the shifting dynamics of Western and Islamic worlds, and their echoes in today’s social and political landscapes.

Transcript

[A]

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson. And this is the Victor Davis Hanson in his own Word show. We're at the Daily Signal. You can pick us up there at the Daily Signal. We have a YouTube presence, VDHansonX. And you can get everything at VictorHanson, H A N S O N. All1Word.com or our podcast, both. The four. I do a day for the Daily Signal, the shorts, and then our weekly ones we do with Sammy Wink and Jack Fowler. Today I'm doing one of our interviews solo. And my guest, I think you all know him, Raymond Ibrahim. And he's going to talk about the swords, the two swords of Christ. And I should say before we start, Ray, how long have we known each other? 30. What year did you enroll in Cal State? Fresno.

[B]

Yeah, we've known each other. I know I met you in 1998.

[A]

That was your first year at Cal State?

[B]

No, I think I was there in 97, but I think the first semester, like the second semester is when we met. I had a class, several classes with you. So that would put us in 2026. That's 18 years. I mean, I'm sorry, 28 years.

[A]

28 years. Ray was a master's student in Greek and Latin at Cal State Fresno when I met him and he wrote his thesis with me. And you came to prominence with your. Was the Al Qaeda Reader your first book?

[B]

Yeah, my first book came out in 2005. Not soon thereafter, not soon after leaving college, I was at the Library of Congress, working there.

[A]

Yeah, why don't you tell us about that in a couple of minutes. How did you find this and what was it?

[B]

Sure. So I was at the Library of Congress working in the Arabic division with Arabic.

[A]

And you were in graduate school at that time?

[B]

I was at. Yeah. I had just graduated from Fresno and I went on to Georgetown University. I was at the center of Contemporary Arab Studies. And you know, I didn't understand the political dimension of all that at the time and. But I did well in grades. I got A's and whatnot. And I landed an internship at the Library of Congress and then that became a full time job. And then sometime around 2005, I came across writings by Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahri, the Al Qaeda leaders.

[A]

How did you find it? Where did you find it?

[B]

In the Library of Congress, right where I worked. Because as a.

[A]

Tell me how you do it. Where was it? What was it doing?

[B]

Only employees have access to the stacks. And these are humongous stacks, of course, Library of Congress. And there's tons of bins. And as part of my cataloging that. That was part of my job, but I would also peruse through books anyway, just for fun. And I came across these writings by Osama bin Laden, which were in Arabic. I investigated it and found out that, you know, even though the media was, of course, very interested in Al Qaeda and disseminating their communiques to the west, nobody knew about these. And then, as you recall, I mentioned it to you, and you connected me with your agent, literary representative, and.

[A]

Yes, and then we. And Glenn Hartley published it with Double Day.

[B]

With Double Day, we got a. We got. We got a book deal, a Double Day. And it came out in 2007.

[A]

Yeah. And I think I wrote the preface to our introduction forward. And what were the circumstances? He wrote it and someone in Egypt had published it, and the library got a hold of it.

[B]

Yeah, there were some kinds of issues going on, but he had written these back, a lot of them. Osama had written them in the 80s, and it was part of the Mujahideen Afghanistan base that he was part of. But then later writings from him, there was all. These were. These were books that were compilations of writings. And so one chat, one. One part would be Osama bin Laden, one would be Ayman Zawahiri, one would be people no one even recognizes. And what I just found significant is that up until then, the messages that we were being fed by the media from Osama bin Laden was the reciprocal treatment business, which is that we're attacking you because you attacked us. You started it. We're innocent. You're the attackers. You know, the whole nine yards, the grievance mantra. But what was significant about the writings that I found, which were being shared only with Arab speakers and Muslims, was they actually sounded now more like isis. And they were basically saying, no, the war is actually transcendent. It has nothing to do with finite political grievances. This is about jihad. This is about Islam against infidelity, or kufr, et cetera, et cetera. So that's. That was a whole significance and point.

[A]

And you try to show the text. And you found. You found the Arab text, right? Yeah, you translate it. Was it written in colloquially Arabic, or was it more of a formalistic Arabic?

[B]

No, no, it was. It was the formal standard Arabic, Quranic Arabic. Formal standard Arabic is really based on Quranic Arabic, so Islamists are especially apt at that.

[A]

So then after that, you wrote a series of books that. Not all of them, but four more, as I recall, and they all focused on the Intersection, if I could use that academic word, or the collision of the Christian world and the Islamic world. And you, you had an, you had a unique perspective because your parents were Coptic Christian immigrants, is that right? From Cairo, right? Or did they live in Cairo?

[B]

My father was from Cairo, my mother was from Alexandria.

[A]

And you, you still have relatives in Egypt, huh?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I do.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

The, the next book that after it was crucified again, which deal, it's the subtitle is Exposing Islam's New War on Christians. And that, that is the one that deals with the contemporary Muslim, contemporary modern day Muslim persecution of Christians, which the media completely ignores and which, as you indicate, I have a personal interest to due to my own ethnic background being Coptic and whatnot, and my own familial contacts. So that's what that was, that book. And then later on, actually, I started gravitating back towards my academic interests from our days. And I think the next most popular, the really the most popular book at that point was sword and 14 centuries of war between Islam and the west, which came out in 2018. And that was really a continuation of my master's thesis, which I wrote under your direction. You know, chapter one was the Battle of Yarmouk, which was my master's thesis, but I reworked it. And also I was thinking the other day, you know, one of the decisive battles in sword and Scimitars is the Battle of Manzikert. And that reminds me of how, you know, our mutual friend James and I actually did a presentation on that battle in one of your classes.

[A]

Yes, Ray is referring to a student that I had and he was a colleague of Ray, a Greek and Latin student. And he, I think in many ways he was a certified genius as far as languages go. He was absolutely a brilliant student, very eccentric loner, I'm being euphemistic. And then he went to graduate school in Penn State and I lost track of James. That was too bad because he was a very interesting guy and he was absolutely brilliant. But you've kept up with him, haven't you?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we haven't probably spoken in a year, but I have his contact info and I'll probably be in touch with him soon. But yeah, the way you describe him is very apt and you'll be pleased to know he hasn't changed in any.

[A]

Significant way except age. We're all getting older. So let's go to the new book title and give me a brief. All of our readers want to. To have a brief. Just what's it About.

[B]

Sure, Victor. So it's, it's called the Two Swords of Christ and the subtitle is the Five. Five Centuries of War between Islam and the Warrior Monks of Christendom. And here it is and it's basically so, you know, I just mentioned Sword and Scimitar where I looked at the long war between the west and Islam via decisive battles. Right. So the Battle of Yarmouk Manzikert as I mentioned, and then my, the other book between Sword and Scimitar and this Defenders of the West, I looked at what I call decisive men. So Western warriors who fought against Islam, most of people, and most people don't have any idea about these guys and, or they don't understand how their actual significance. So anyway, one book was about, you know, decisive battles, one was about decisive men. This book is kind of in between. It's really a long history and it came out to be really a history mostly of the Crusades because I'm writing about the Templars and the Hospitallers, the two primary military orders. And if you're going to talk about them, you're obviously going to talk about the Crusades because they were literally the backbone of the Crusades. But it also spills past the Crusades, as you know, the Knights of St John in Rhodes and then later in Malta. So really the book covers from right at the end of the First Crusade, where the Holy Land is now secured under Crusader rule, all the way until the Siege of Malta in 1565. I actually go further. I go until Napoleon basically conquers Malta and evicts the Knights of the hospital, the Hospitallers. So it's a long history and I think it's very eye opening because like Defenders of the west, it truly underscores heroism. And the re. The reason for the title is a kind of like a two, two pronged pun because it's called the Two Swords of Christ. Because I'm referencing the, the verse in Luke where, you know, Christ tells his disciples, sell your garments and buy a sword. And they say, look Lord, here are two swords. And he says, that's enough. Now that has been allegorized into absolute meaninglessness today by Christians. It just means nothing really. But for a lot of pre modern and especially medieval Christians, and I quote a lot of them, what it meant is that, you know, Christ was saying there's two forms of swords, one to fight spiritual forces, which modern day Christians I think will agree with. But the other was to fight secular, physical, corporeal forces, evil humans. Right. And so that's how it was preached and that's what gave rise and that's. That's what actuated the military orders. Because on the one hand, it's ironic when you look at them, the way they come out in the book, they're so immensely pious, they're essentially monks, but at the other, on the other hand, they're so immensely ferocious and militant. So it's kind of a strange fusion that occurred back in that era and one which of course, to modern day Christians is wholly an anachronistic, if not, if not blasphemous, I'm sure. But that's why I think it's very interesting to look at the theological underpinnings which. And it goes all the way back to St. Augustine, just war theory. But I also called it the two Swords of Christ because I realized quickly that these two military orders were really the ascendant ones, the Templars and the Hospitallers. So my argument is by, by really believing in the concept of the two Swords of Christ, that there's a war against spiritual and physical. They themselves became the two swords of Christ. So as you can see, the Pommels, 1, 1. One of the Pommels of the Two Swords is the Templars and one's the Hospitallers. Okay, so. Yeah, that's it. It's just a long history.

[A]

Yeah. Why don't everybody, I think is curious, make the distinction in the size of the orders chronologically. Do they overlap? Which was first, which was more prominent, which was what? What separates them both in faith or actual performance on the battlefield or their legacy?

[B]

Well, so the Hospitallers are older, but kind of new, newer. So it's hard to explain, but they existed as an order first. And what they were was they were just. It was a hospice for pilgrims traveling from Europe to the Holy Land. And they needed obviously someone there, a Christian, to provide them with some relief, a place to live, a place to sleep, and oftentimes medical aid. So it was a hospice formed around the Holy Sepulcher, the Church of the Holy. Where of course, the primary destination for. For pilgrims. But they were not militant at all. So actually it's right around maybe 260s or 270 is when this hospital by an Amalfi Italian merchant group actually is the. Is who they laid the foundations of it back then. This was then. So the first military group is really the Templars. And right after the First Crusade, after Jerusalem and the Holy Land has been secured, it's obviously still a. It's still a small island of Christianity in a sea of hostile Islam. And so what would happen is, even though lots of Europeans started going there on pilgrimages, but they would still be attacked and savaged and mauled in really horrific ways. Okay. I mean, just very shocking, atrocious, rated R ways, let's just say. And so eventually something needed to be done and a small group of knights decided they were going to commit them, their lives to just they. To becoming monks, essentially, on the one hand, and on the other hand protecting pilgrims, and that they became the Knights of the Temp, the Templars, because they were giving Baldwin, I think the second gave them the temple, Al Aqsa Mosque, but they understood it as Solomon's Temple. And that became the residence. And they were essentially, they were founded around 1119, but they became formally recognized at a major council 10 years later in 1129. And at that point, you know, they really started growing. Now, the Hospitallers were still at this time functioning as a hospice and. And providing medical aid and relief for pilgrims. But they slowly followed suit and became militarized, and they've fully become militarized right around maybe 1170 or late mid mid 1170s. But it's interesting to see the logic of both groups because they both start off very pious and they become immensely militant, as I was saying, which seems like a strange contradiction. But if you look especially at the case of the Hospitallers, these are people whose entire vows were based on serving our lords, the sick. That was actually part of one of their prayers, which is to give their beds to the poor and needy and etc. And before long, they realized, you know, the best way to serve these pilgrims was instead of just sitting back and waiting until they get savaged and mauled, as they inevitably did by surrounding Muslims, we will preemptively put a stop to it by actually protecting them and even going on the offensive. And so that's why before long, both groups, in as much as they still maintained their primary duties of protecting pilgrims and serving them via hospices, became, in the end, more just seen as the ultimate crack troops of Christendom versus Islam in Jerusalem.

[A]

Is this the last generation of the Christian domain in Jerusalem before Saladin takes it? When they. What. What happened after they. Did they go to the lesser fortresses in the Holy Land?

[B]

Oh, you're talking about after, when Saladin takes Jerusalem.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. So what I was describing is before that, and they still have Jerusalem and all these other Christian kingdoms after Jerusalem is taken in 1187 by Saladin, they actually become, even as time goes by and Muslims become stronger Salad and post Saladin less and less aid comes from Europe and more and more secular native Christians who need, you know, the Franks that had been there for generations sell or donate their properties and go back to Europe. And so what happens is they really start taking charge. That's why I say they're really the backbone of the Crusades, the Templars and Hospitallers, especially as the years go by. So after Jerusalem is conquered, most of them, they're now. They had a series of castles all over the place and fortifications which were very important. And in fact it's. It's well known and I document this but without them, they don't get this kind of credit. But without them, the Holy Land would have been lost much, much earlier. So they really, you know, they were the. The primary reserve group that just kind of kept Sal and Salad. And there's all these anecdotes where he was so frustrated with them. This is why, by the way, after the Battle of Hattin in 1187, even though Saladin the Great Magnanimous Saladin is known to ransom, you know, Christians and whatnot, when it came to them, both groups, he said, no, there's no ransom for them. It was either convert to Islam and renounce Christianity or die. And you had something like 300 of them ritually beheaded at the field.

[A]

Why did they have such a popular imagination? Ridley Scott, remember Ridley Scott's I'm just doing it by memory. But Kingdom of Heaven, where they're almost portrayed as buffoonish, aren't they? That's just.

[B]

That's just par for the course. Victor, Any movie I watch about the Crusades, it's like the more mil. The more. The more really involved in the crusade and serious and taking the religion, the more buffoonish they appear and comical and that, you know, for. And the best one you're mentioning is, you know, you're talking about the Kingdom of Heaven is Reynold, who's this crazy. You know, he's a loose cannon and he's such a hypocrite and he just uses.

[A]

Yeah, I think he played in the actor praved and bright. Braveheart.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that guy. I don't know his name, but yeah, that he's like Scottish or Irish.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And kind of rotund larger fellow. Anyway, he's. I like him, he's a good actor. But if you actually look at the sources and I talk about it in the book, he actually. The real Reynold Saladin, when he killed him, because he does kill him, actually offered him Islam or renounce Christ And Reynold gives this really, you know, heroic speech and basically says I won't do what you want. And that's when he cuts his head off. That's a little more heroic than the.

[A]

Sort of buffoonery that ice water or something.

[B]

He drank ice.

[A]

And Jeff, the, the other. In Kingdom of Heaven, was it Jeffrey that I'm trying to remember in the film? The. The other evil person who was married.

[B]

Oh, I think it's King Ghee.

[A]

Yeah. And he, he ended up in Cyprus, I think.

[B]

Yeah, he did.

[A]

He did, didn't he? He survived. Yeah. So. So they, after the Crusade, say after the fourth Crusade they. They're attrit and they start to disperse into the eastern Mediterranean. These two.

[B]

Well, no, after the fourth Crusade you have the fifth crusade which was almost successful. It's one of the least known and it's the one that targeted Egypt. Yeah, you know, they conquered Damatia and then they went to Mansura by Cairo. But they, you know, there's all kinds of reasons. I have several chapters on the fifth Crusade and again the Templars and the Hospitallers really shine out. Especially again. And I, I quote a lot of primary sources to show you what, how they were seen.

[A]

Where if I. If are they. Are the primary sources in Arabic, Latin, Greek and Old French or what, what are they in English?

[B]

Yeah, exactly. It's Latin, Old French, Arabic, a little bit of Greek, but most of them I would say in Latin and old French. William of Tears chronicles of course, indispensable, you know, the Rothlin Chronicle, the Templar of Tyr or is that his name? Yeah, I think the Templar of Tyr who wasn't a Templar. And these are all eyewitness chronicle sources. The Itinerarium Peregrineorum by an anonymous chronicler who, you know, that's the primary third Crusade chronicle. So we're lucky to have a plentiful supply of primary sources. And again, yeah, a lot of them are from the Muslim Arabic side, which I know and as usual I like to use both. So everyone knows how both. In fact, I conclude the book by quoting from Arabic sources because in many ways they're the ones who most underscore how they feared the Templars and the Hospitallers. And in a way it's almost like a begrudging kind of nod of respect that they give to them. They always regularly portray them as their chief thorn. The ultimate problem, they talk about other monks and clergy as being hypocrites. You can buy them off, but not the Templars and the Hospitallers. And these are Internal dialogues between Muslim strategist, strategists.

[A]

I think people forget sometimes, because of the contemporary narratives that come out of the Middle east of settler colonialists, that you can make the argument that that area of the world, Asia Minor and then the Middle east as well, was settled by Westerners. You can argue the Ionians were there from the 7th to 8th century BC, but in terms of, you know, there were Persian inroads and occupations in Lydia and then down in the Holy Land. But you can argue that after the Alexandrian conquest of the Persian Empire, that area remained Western and then Roman, or I should say eventually Roman and then Hellenistic and then Roman and then Christian under the Byzantines. And it wasn't lost really to the 7th century A.D. was it?

[B]

And that's the great irony. You know, most people today, you mention, you know, Mena, the Middle east and North Africa, and it's in everyone's mind. It's, of course it's Muslim, but it's almost always been Muslim, always been Eastern. Okay. When in fact, at the seventh century during the Islamic conquest, when they were first. When they first begin right around 636, that was really the heart of the Graco. Roman Christian world.

[A]

Yes, it was.

[B]

I mean, think about. There were five.

[A]

There's five was at Hippo and.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, Augustine of Hippo, Alexandria. And just from a Christian point of view, you had five major seas. Only one was in the West, Rome. That's the one that never got conquered. All the other four, and they were equally as important. Some arguably were more important in the earlier, like Alexandria especially. These were all conquered and absorbed and swallowed up. So if you look at a map, actually Islam swallowed up literally somewhere between 66 to 75% of the original Christian world. And later Anatolia, Asia Minor was taken Turkey. And people are not aware of this. They just think as if really Europe was the final bastion of Christendom. It wasn't always, you know, Europe is Christian and, you know, the Middle east is Muslim. It was. People forget that long, painful, traumatic annexation of the majority of the Christian world, which is now Muslim.

[A]

Did. Did the two orders find them their way into Byzantine Constantinople before 1453? Didn't. Were they traveling through. They weren't based in. Do they have the protection of the Byzantine Empire at any point?

[B]

Not really. And you know, to their credit, both orders. And this is good for me, this was a happy coincidence for me because as I mentioned earlier, the book, I cover the Crusades in detail, but I don't talk about the fourth Crusade because the book is about these two groups. And they had nothing to do with the Fourth Crusade because they were localized in the Holy Land. That was their primary interest, which was securing the Holy Land. And they didn't really get involved in all of these Byzantine, literally Byzantine labyrinth kind of machinations and whatnot.

[A]

But they were Western Christians rather than Orthodox Byzantines.

[B]

Yeah, they were Catholic, yes.

[A]

And then tell us a little bit how they got into. Or these orders established a center in Rhodes and then later in Malta.

[B]

All right, well, and I don't want to give too, too much away, because this is actually, if you. When you read the book, it's almost like a dramatic movie. You know, there's so many ups and downs. But, you know, I think everyone knows the part that they get evicted out of the Holy Land. You know, the Crusades end right around 1291, and everyone's out. And that's where. That's when the knights of the hospital eventually land in Rhodes, the island of Rhodes. And that's very interesting.

[A]

Their hospital there now, today.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're familiar with it and I'm sure you're familiar with the Dragon slayer.

[A]

Yes, yeah.

[B]

And I have a whole chapter on that, because that's also interesting. But so they land in roads, and again, it really underscores how dedicated they were to getting the Holy Land. The roads, as you can see, is very close to the Middle east, and it's right off, you know, the western coast of. Of Turkey. And they chose it intentionally. It was actually they. They landed there and settled it right when the Ottoman Turks were beginning. Their eponymous founder, Ottoman or Osman, was actually contemporary with the Knights of St. John when they settled roads, and so he even attacked them. But my point is they chose that location because unlike other Christians or crusaders who wanted the safety, they always put themselves in the most dangerous area so they can provide sucker and aid for fellow Christian who were pilgrims or even more like, they actually became a naval force at this point. So The Knights of St. John, right around the 14th century, when they leave the Holy Land, now, they're really a naval force. And they're considered.

[A]

Who are their precursors in the terms of the Templars or the Hospitallers, who were their founders, kind of. Yeah, I mean, which strain of these Christian militant orders do they emerge from?

[B]

Okay, so the Templars, it was a knight named Hugh, Hugh of Pines, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. French knight. And he was the one who came up with the idea that we have to create a band of knights to help protect pilgrims when they come to the Holy Land. And initially something like. According to William of Tyre, for the first decade, there was just nine knights and they shared a horse. Two. Two knights shared one horse. That's how impoverished they were. That's why their emblem. One of their emblems was, you see a knight, two knights on one horse. That's a reference to that. But they were very much championed by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and he was a Cistercian. So much of their rule was based on the Cistercian rule, which is sort of fortuitous because it was the most masculine and the most austere of all the rules at the time. So that's what I would say is their background, the Cistercian rule and the knights of the hospital were more. I think they were. They. They followed the Augustinian rule more. And their founder is. It's a funny. It's in the book. There's a story. His name is Gerald of Sasso, and he was some. He was the. He was the main abbot, I think, working at the hospice during the First Crusade when the Crusaders came and were besieging Jerusalem in 1099. And when they found him, he would. He was being tortured by the Muslims, but they kept him around because he was a hospice worker. So he was serving the Muslim warriors by taking care of their wounds and whatnot. But he became. And he was. He's. You know, he's. The thing is, when you look at their lifestyles, these are like saints. They're not. You don't think of them as militant at all. And then you. And this is what I think. So interesting, because on the one hand, they're just, you know, very pious saints who are crawling on their hands and knees and praying and serving the sick. And then on the other hand, you see just, you know, the degree of militancy that they also had, which, again, you know, flies in the face of the movies that we watch all the time. Time when you watch, you know, cool Viking raiders, and they're always attacking these wimpy, weeping, crying monks who never fight back. You know, was it. I mean, I'm sure there were instances of that, but it was more often than not, you know, they had a very militant mindset, which, by the way, it brings an interesting thought. I'd like to hear what you think about it. But going back on this idea of, you know, if you watch these movies, they always show you the Vikings and these pagans are presented kind of cool. You know, they're like us. They're they're, they don't take a religion seriously. They just want to have a good time, you know, but then somehow, you know, they, they end up becoming Christian. And the Christians are also always presented as weak and feeble and, you know, screaming and crying. So my question is, if that was the case, then why did the Vikings become Christian? Because they were actually beaten. Those weak Christians actually beat them on the field of battle, didn't they? I mean, even when you talk about, well, the Norman Conquest, they were. Hardrada was already Christian. But my point is it doesn't make sense. This Gibbons, this Gibbons, you know, this Edward Gibbon theory where, you know, to be a Christianity weakened the pagans because really some of the most ferocious fighters were the Franks, the Normans, and they were Christian and they were beating the pagans. So what do you think?

[A]

There were two reasons. One was they were very impressed with the Roman legacy. So in terms of writing, aqueducts, roads, architecture, especially the Scandinavians, they did not have that. They were too far on the other side of Germany to have a direct contact with the Western and then later Christian experience. And the other one was, as, you know, people talk about Islam as being ecumenical, but Christianity, then once you were converted, then you were as much a Christian as somebody from another nation had been for centuries. So this Christian missionary zeal had said to the Scandinavians and the Vikings, if you can convert, not only will you have exposure to this superior culture that will improve your lives, but more importantly, you're just as important as we are. You're Christians.

[B]

It puts an end to tribalism, which is good.

[A]

Yes, it put an end to tribalism. Although there are people who have suggested in Gibbon terms that after their conversion they were not as ruthless or combative as they had been before.

[B]

Well, that's the chivalric culture, right?

[A]

Yes, if people are interested. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, he makes this argument that it doesn't quite work very well because he says that they were, I don't want to use colonized or civilized or the Sermon on the Mount was not the same as if you want peace, prepare for war, then Marshal Credo of the Romans. But it doesn't really explain. And remember, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire goes all the way to 1453. So somehow from 470 to 1453, one millennium, Christianity in the Roman, the Greek, Byzantines never called themselves Byzantine. That's a 19th century word. They were called Romaioi, and they were Christian. And they were very formidable, fierce warriors. And so that's something to keep in mind. Then I get to Malta when they're expelled from Rhodes.

[B]

Yeah. So after they're expelled in Rhodes, you know, I call them the homeless Hospitallers and they're just kind of living on the Mediterranean. And this is also coincides with the high age of Islamic piracy, the Barbary raids, because they get evicted in 1480. So, you know, right around that time you have the Barbarossa brothers who are. And again, it's just funny to me when you hear, when you. The Barbarossa and, and, and the piracy thing, it's today now, Al almost presented almost like in a funny, clownish way. But when you read what these pirates were doing, I mean, they literally were terrorizing all of Europe. The kind of. It wasn't the, the sadism involved in the atrocities that they would, would engage in biting some guy's throat out and eating his tongue and twisting someone's head until his eyes bulge out. Really graphic stuff. It's also the high age of slavery, like I said. So in just in one century, they've estimated, it's a very conservative estimate estimate by an American professor, where it's 1.2 million white slaves just in Barbary were being sold. And this doesn't take into consideration the Ottomans, which was even bigger, the Ottoman slave trade or the Crimean, the Tatars, which were Muslim slave trade of basically European flesh. And so one of, one of their chief duties at this point when they're now in Malta is to. Is to try to defend against these slave raids by the Ottomans, by the Mamluks as well, who are in Egypt.

[A]

And people should remember that there's been a lot of studies on the ethnic background of the harem in Constantinople. And most people believe that half of the people in the harem were from southern Russia or the Black Sea. And they are from Europe, the Balkans. And if you think about it, you know, once the mother the sultan married had his various concubines, but he picked one to produce an heir. Usually the others were liquidated and then the sultan was half European. And if you keep doing that again and again and again. People have argued that many of the sultans by the 15th or 16th century were European. And Erdogan and his arrogance got very angry when the Greeks said that they not only had been there since the 7th century BC in Asia Minor, but that the Byzantine Empire DNA still existed. So he, he commissioned 23andMe to run a study of Turkish rural people. And they found out that the vast majority of Them had more Greek blood than Turkish slaves. Yes, slaves. And then the elite were from the harem as well.

[B]

The issue that you're talking about, this elite thing, it's even worse. It's not that they were half. Actually. There's a Spanish scholar who looked at the Umayyads in Spain.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And he determined that the very last caliph had something like only 5% Arab blood and 95% European blood, because it was, like you say, it was always split in half because they would always mate with Europeans.

[A]

There's a very. There was a scholarly study done maybe eight or nine years ago that pointed out that a lot of Ottoman foreign policy as it was focused on the Balkans, that is not so much conquest, but occupation and control. Certain villages were exempt. And he studied these villages. These would be places in Greece, what is now Albania, Turkey, parts of Yugoslavia. And the ones that were treated the best were the homes of the mother of the sultan over two or three hundred years. She had that influence because she was captured as a young girl, put in the harem, and then ended up, luckily, as the queen bee, so to speak. The. Do you have the heroic siege of Malta, where they. Where they stop?

[B]

I think I probably have the most comprehensive account because I went through all the primary sources, and it's something like 40 pages in my book. But there's also, you know, everyone knows about the siege of Malta. It is very heroic, but lesser known, and no less heroic is the. The 1480 siege of Rhodes. And I might have misspoken. I think I said they were evicted in 1480. Actually, in 1480, the largest Ottoman armada came to evict them and they lost. So they were actually evicted in 1522 from Rhodes by Suleiman the Great.

[A]

But they said was another tragedy, too, the siege of Hamagusa, where they.

[B]

Oh, there's a lot. And another especially important is the siege of. What's that?

[A]

They stuffed him, remember, with straw. Marcantonio.

[B]

Oh, yeah. You're talking about right before Lepanto.

[A]

Yes, right before was.

[B]

Yeah, that's that. These are the things that, you know, never show up in the Hollywood movies that are, you know, intent on always showing how magnanimous the Muslims are.

[A]

Yeah. They had been given terms and then they broke the deal and slaughtered the Venetians.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It was horrific.

[B]

But the slavery part, I think, I think you like the slavery part. I think every. I think not you, but I think everyone, every American will really benefit from looking at the slavery data. Because what else comes out in. In this book? Because I. I talk A lot about the slavery of Europeans was that there was a, unlike the transatlantic slave trade of blacks, which was really cold business. It was, you know, the way it comes off, it's just cold business. The Muslim enslavement of the Europeans had an ideological component to it because you're the enemy, you're the infidel, you're the Christian. So they were always treated in very, very sadistic ways which comes out in the book. And also speaking of the black slave trade, whereas blacks in America and this again here's a reflection of something today that we can talk about that reflects on the past. So today America still has a significant black population because they continue to exist. Slavery, the enslavement of black Africans during, by Muslims and Arabs was even more widespread. But if you look in the DNA.

[A]

Yeah, it was about 30% larger than they.

[B]

But if you look at the DNA of those regions, they have zero black blood. And that's because they would castrate them all and, and oftentimes just kill them. So they never had a chance to assimilate. So this is what I'm saying. Islamic slavery, all slavery is bad obviously, but the Islamic slavery came with all these different really sadistic components that, that most historians overlook.

[A]

We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with Raymond Abraham and he is the author of a new book that is coming out. What's the pub date?

[B]

It comes out November 25th.

[A]

November 25th, you should get it right before Thanksgiving. The Two Swords of Christ. And we'll be right back. And we're back from our sponsors and we're here with Raymond Abraham. And I, I, I think because slavery is such a hot button topic 1619 project, people don't even realize the word Slavic, you know, slave. It comes from the idea these are originally white captives from the Balkans who were Slavic and there were 3 or 4 million of them enslaved by the Ottomans. And some of it's pretty, I don't know, the whole psychology of the Janissaries is kind of sick. You know, they would go into a recruitment village and pick, pick out a blond haired, blue eyed, big child and say, you know, we'll only take one of your sons, but he'll have a great career. Then they segregate him and make him into a zealot Islamic.

[B]

If I may elaborate on that because you're really touching on an important topic. And the worst part isn't even what it was, it's how it's being presented today. So it's, it is what you Say, which was basically they conquer a subject. And the Janissaries first of all were all white, they were all Europeans. That was, that was the case. So they would go, they'd conquer whatever some, some Europe, Balkan nation, and then they would go and take like you're saying, the healthiest, the strongest, the handsomest boys and then they would find what they're good at. If they're big and strong, they would turn them into warriors, janissaries. If they were just handsome or smart, they would use them as administrators. But they would also go through a systematic Islamic indoctrination process. And they would get them pretty young. Okay. So a lot of them would really become Muslim. And then the sick psychology is that, you know, it was a perpetual cycle. So they would radicalize these guys who were originally Christians and then unleash them on their former kin to take, to conquer more land and take again that. So they were literally bleeding them of their best and strongest.

[A]

We have a lot of, we have some Byzantine sources about that, about the shot.

[B]

But now, as you know, in the academic sources today, you know how they describe Janissaries, it's like getting a scholarship to Harvard.

[A]

No, I mean there's something, the Dervisham. It's something about this recruitment when you're a Balkan peasant and an Islamic army comes in and you see these big European looking soldiers and they have a particular distinctive, you know, feather, I mean, on their cap and their helmet, everything about them. And they're the best trained and the most equipped and yet they're one of you. And in some cases we even have anecdotes where people recognize families, recognizing the Janissary, and yet they're the most bloodthirsty anti Christian.

[B]

And they were also. Here's an interesting point that goes along with one of your theses from way, way back. They were always infantry. And I think that's because the Ottomans understood that Europeans made for good decisive shock troops. So there you go. The Western way of war.

[A]

Yeah, they were sort of the Ottoman ss.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where does, where does the book end?

[B]

It ends. The major scene, major ending scene is the siege of Malta in 1565. And I start it right around the First Crusade, 1100. But I have like a chapter that kind of summarizes what happens all the way until really the present. But mostly with Napoleon's conquest of Malta on his way to Egypt right around 1800.

[A]

Tell us, what did Napoleon do with, with the, the order when he got that? When he disbanded it?

[B]

It's. Well, it's really funny. You Know, the whole thing is it just shows you how things had changed because a lot of, as you know, most of the crusaders historically including of the military orders, were Franks, which means they were French. So it's ironic today when you think of France is so secular and you know, all this sort of thing, but they were actually, they, they created most of the till today in Arabic, if you say ifrangi, which means Frankie, it means a white guy, or you can, if you say it about an Arab guy, he's a fruni, means he acts white, he acts Western. Okay, so that's how, that's the impact that Franks had on. So it's ironic that a Frenchman, you know, this military order, The Knights of St. John, lasted for what, you know, almost a thousand years. And it was actually a French man who put an end to them. And he had a Quran in his possession, which he was reading because he was on his way to Egypt and he was trying to diplomatically annex it, which he kind of did. So he didn't kill them, he just basically evicted them and they continued. They still live till today The Knights of St. John still exist.

[A]

I was giving a lecture, I think it was in Vienna or it was in Vienna or it was in Geneva where somebody came up to me and said he was a European aristocrat and he was from the Order of St. John and he had this kind of, he opened a little case and he had a red stash and everything. And.

[B]

But they've been demilitarized. So you know, their hallmark thing that made them impressive is no longer they're more, you know, they're involved in charity and you know, earthquake relief, all of which is great.

[A]

Of course, it's very funny. It's the value of going back. I think all of our listeners and viewers understand is really puts today's particular views in a larger context. If you look what's going on with Boko Haram in Nigeria, 2 million refugees, 160,000 Christians slaughtered, and you look at the world's attention on the so called settler colonialist Israelis in Gaza compared to what's going on in the occupation of Nigeria or Northern Cyprus, where a whole, a whole demographic in 1973, 74 was ethnically cleansed. And I don't know how Islam has been able to achieve this euphemistic, both in vocabulary and the way that we look at it. I guess I don't know if it's out of fright of terrorism or the chauvinism came from the power of oil in the 70s and 80s with the boycotts, but people have not applied the same standards of evaluation. When you look at so called genocide, atrocity, occupation, all of these buzzwords that we associate with Israel and the Middle east, it's really shocking.

[B]

The worst part for me that I'm noticing and I haven't heard anyone say this, but it really complements what you're saying is that there's this weird seesaw between Israel as a nation and Islam as a religion. And it seems to me that for the longest time there was, it's like an either or exclusive kind of thing, which is one is if one's bad, one's good. If one's good, one's bad. And for the longest time I think the idea was Islam is bad, is violent, it's tolerant, therefore Israel is good. Now, as Israel comes under increasing criticism, all of a sudden Islam is now the good guy. And it's kind of like, okay, you know, what's happening in Israel and the Palestinians, that's a very localized thing. But for some reason now people are just giving a blank pass to Islam anywhere and everywhere. So in Africa with this jihad, in Europe with the migrants, and it's kind of like it's become this weird seesaw. So yeah, just because Israel now is under criticism, Islam has been lifted up and it's above reproach, weird.

[A]

I think a lot of it is to do with the 250, 000 students and universities from the Middle east here in the United States and in Europe. And then the immigrant population of Germany is 15.5, France is about 9%, and Britain is up to 8 or 9 and even higher in some of the cities. And so you're getting a huge influx of immigrants from the Middle East. And in consensual societies they vote and they have a lot of influence. And then there's always the fear of terrorism. We remember the cartoonist in Paris and we've known as writers, Van Gogh, all these people who were threatened for Salman Rushdie. So there was always a sense that a Christian militant, no matter what the left said about, you know, pro lifers, they were pretty calm. But there was the idea that there are more and more Islamic peoples in the west now in the last 30 years. And we always have to be careful how we talk because we can get in, you know, we can have a terrorist incident in a way that will not happen with other groups. And there's a lot of wealth now, petrodollars in the Middle East. Qatar, I think, gave $50 million the last 10 years to universities. Most of The Middle east programs and the elite schools are funded by Middle east petrodollars, mostly from gutter.

[B]

I found that out the hard way when I went to Georgetown. Yeah, I bet they've gotten more money than I think anyone. I think it's last. I looked like, I don't know, 50 million since the early 2000s.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it definitely colors.

[A]

Yeah, it definitely colors right next to the Capitol. It's a university. It's the best University in Washington, D.C. and it affects everything, and it affects where I work. And it's hard to speak. Another thing is that the Jewish population in the United states is about 7 million. And the Arab population used to be a fraction of that. It's about three and a half to four million. And by 2030, it's supposed to surpass it. But more importantly, the secularization of the Jewish Diaspora in the United States is really. Almost half of Jews are not observant and 30 or 40% are not particularly fond of Israel. And that's not true of the Islamic Muslim population. They do not abandon or secularize or intermarry to the same frequency as Jews. So I think we're going to get in a situation, a situation very soon that the lobbying in the Middle east is going to flip in the United States, there's going to be more adherence and more student and political activism on the behalf of Hamas or Hezbollah or the Houthis or Iran than there is Israel. I can already feel it. In a democracy, you'll feel that people will make the necessary adjustments. In politics, they already have the Democratic Party, 40% of them support Israel. 40%, and it's almost 72 or 73 in the Republican side. So it's this ancient strife that you're talking about in your series of books, but especially this one, it's very relevant today.

[B]

That's exactly it. It's the continuity that I've always found eye opening. People treat what's happening today as if it's, you know, it's its own particular local new development. But it's not because you, you know, you. So, for example, going to this point about now that Israel's criticized Islam is good. Well, how do we explain the previous 2000 years or 14 centuries between Islam and the west when Israel didn't exist and Islam was doing the same exact thing against the west and conquering and, you know, and people don't realize that America's very first war as a nation is with the Muslims. Not just Muslims, you know, Barbary Wars. But when Jefferson and Adams asked them why are you attacking our vessels and enslaving our people? The. The ambassador from Barbary said, because our Quran says you're infidels and it's our duty to terrorize and kill and enslave you. He literally said that. And Jefferson wrote it to Congress and we have the letter. So that's why it's. I just find it interesting because what's happening today in political developments really haven't. Don't really shed light the way people think they do on Islam's relationship with the West. But as far as your point about the left and Islam, in fact, just last week I looked at a really important report, and it was about the rise of anti Christian sentiment throughout Europe, and it's also happening in North America as well. Attacks on churches especially. And you know, when you dig into it, you find out, well, who are the two primary culprits behind this, these attacks on churches? One, it said Islamists and two, leftists. So you find they're always in bed together, even though on the surface they're so different.

[A]

Yeah. It's very funny how on the new binary, that neo Marxist binary that we've, I think since Obama, we've divided the country to oppressed, oppressor, victim, victimizer. Under that DEI paradigm, it's not just gender and race or ethnicity, it's religion. And somehow a. Somehow. And has nothing to do with class. Because take Mondami, as I pointed out on this show before, he's Indian Americans, that is Americans whose legacy comes from the Indian subcontinent or the wealthiest immigrant group in the United States. And yet he talks about taxing affluent and white neighborhoods. But my point is that somehow very prosperous young students from the Middle east, fueled by petrodollars, and they're the elite of their society, they get over here and then they become part of the DEI coalition. Intersectional. And you can be a middle class Jewish kid, and then you're demonized as a settler colonialist oppressor. And it has nothing to do with history or class or money or anything. And it's just stunning. And then when you look at the LGBT community and what would happen if any of these people in that coalition were to go back to the Middle east and live there. I can tell you that as somebody who's visited Israel a lot and visited the west bank and even Gaza, I can tell you that if you were openly LGBTQ with a pride flag and you had a choice between walking on a corner in Tel Aviv or in Ramada, excuse me, I would say probably Gaza City, Bethlehem, anywhere in the West, Banker, Gaza, you would be in dire trouble.

[B]

Are you familiar with what happened in Hamtramck, Michigan, lately?

[A]

Yes, I was. That's near Dearborn, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it's lately, but it really goes to what you're saying because it. Finally, the leftist, the LGBT crowd, really supported the Muslim migrant community there in many ways until they became literally the majority. And once they became the majority of the city council, the first thing they did is ban pride. And the. And the LGB people felt so betrayed and upset and. But that, to me, I think, is the modus operandi move moving forward for any leftist who wants to work with.

[A]

Them, I don't think. I mean, I'm not suggesting they're not moderate Muslims, but to be a moderate Muslim in Muslim orthodoxy is not to be a Muslim.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because it doesn't. It doesn't have the liberalizing evolutionary strains and sex that Christianity has.

[B]

A moderate Muslim is just an assimilated Muslim who's more American than he is Muslim, you know? Yeah, he's a nominal Muslim.

[A]

That can happen, but not to the same degree as a Christianity. Let's. Before we go, Ray, if somebody wants to buy the book, you go to Amazon. You can get it. But what's your website? So they can go there?

[B]

Sure. Thanks, Victor. My website is raymond ibrahim.com R A Y M O N D I B R A H I M and links to all my books to Amazon. But also, if you want to get a signed copy, you can get it through my website. And also I got my little YouTube channel, which I've been growing, goes under my name.

[A]

What is that under?

[B]

Raymond Ibrahim's Holy War Channel.

[A]

Holy War Channel.

[B]

It seems applicable.

[A]

I'm surprised you weren't under the previous administration. Surveilled by the.

[B]

Well, I made it.

[A]

Afterwards, the f. The FBI. And what's the publisher? Where they could go?

[B]

The publisher of the Two Swords of Christ is Bombardier Post Hill.

[A]

Oh, good. Bombardier is a new imprint by Adam Bellow. The son of Saul Bellow, isn't it? He was my editor for eight books. Yeah, he was a very good guy. So he. He's got his own imprint now, Bombardier Books.

[B]

It's. By the way, it's got. Really. I'm very happy with the. Not only the maps, but the color pictures.

[A]

Wow, that's amazing.

[B]

There's a lot of nice color pictures in there.

[A]

That's a lot of work to get all the pictures.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Permissions and everything.

[B]

So here's the, there's a, There's a Templar charge. There's the, you know, the two knights I was talking about on one horse.

[A]

And you can, everybody, you can buy it tomorrow. Tomorrow.

[B]

You can buy it now. And you'll probably get it tomorrow.

[A]

And are you going to be appearing anywhere, Ray? At book signings or. I know you're traveling a lot in the next few weeks.

[B]

Yeah, not necessarily book signings, but yeah, maybe I'll do one. Maybe you'll do. Maybe I can do a local one.

[A]

Yes, you can. And you're on your way to Europe, is that right? Pretty soon.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to Europe. I'm going to be there for a little bit. For a while, possibly.

[A]

Where are you going to be?

[B]

I'm going, I'm going to be at the. Or must I say? Because people might come try to kill me.

[A]

Oh, I want. You don't have to say.

[B]

Yeah, I'm a hunted guy. Yeah.

[A]

Well, I have people showing up my house as well.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Yeah, I've had that problem. I've have. As I told my.

[B]

But you know what, I'll say this. It'll be in Hungary.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Which is relatively safe, I guess.

[A]

I needed some Knights of Malta when people, they swatted our home. You know this. They called up and said there was an arm intruder. All these armed sheriffs came and then I walked into. I won't tell you the branch I walked in or the bank and I was going to take money out. And they said, we're sorry, Mr. Hansen, you have no savings and you have no checking account. They drained it. So who are they? Who are they? As they say in the wild Bunch, I don't know who they are, but I can tell you one thing, that they're not on the conservative side.

[B]

I've been, you know, I've been to your ranch many times and it's. It looks increasingly like a beleaguered night fortress surrounded by hordes.

[A]

Yeah, well, I had a local law enforcement officer that not too long ago gave me a oral map. I mean, he delivered a little discourse on the incidents of gang violence, murder, theft, assault. And he said, unfortunately for you, the intersection closest to you is the most heavily crime ridden in my area of southwest Fresno County. And one day, not too long ago, I was driving into town and all of a sudden I saw maybe 15 people. Some were ICE and they did have the mask, but some were DEA, Drug Enforcement Agency, some were FBI and they all had mask. And then they had about 15 people in Boxer Shorts and they were all handcuffed with plastic and they were all sitting there. And it's funny because we didn't know what was going on. We were getting. You can go on Google. And we were getting things like a person would come and say, senor, donde estar la casa de putas? And I said, no, say. And it was. There was a house of prostitution on a Google map, but they unfortunately gave the wrong coordinates to our house. So we had everybody showing up in our barnyard. And then we've had one where you could get quote unquote, car parts and things like that that people have asked me for, where do I get the car parts.

[B]

And where you live was originally settled by Swedes, right?

[A]

Well, Kingsburg was my father's family, but this was more people from. But it was considered, if you. Or as one ethnic group in Selma. It was Danish and this was a Danish town and Kingsburg was more Swedish. But when I was growing up, all of these houses around me were. All the Fanucci's were Italian. We had Japanese, two Japanese families, we had a Dutch family. We had a person from India, a person from Mexico, and two Armenian families. It was really a natural diversity. And they were all.

[B]

It's much more homogenous, huh?

[A]

Yeah. There's no such thing as diversity, but it's all corporate. So when I. I walk every night and it's funny, on my property, afford what's left of it. It's 40 acres. I'm just a tessera and a mosaic. So I see the tractor of my landlord who owns, I don't know, over 10,000 acres. He's a good guy too, and his tractors just go on one property and then another property and they're all lined up. So when I get to my little 40 acres, I wave to the tractor. But all the houses that used to be the places where kids were raised, they're all rented out from people. Not all, but a lot illegally. And you should see them. They're not farmhouses anymore, they're compounds. So there's Winnebagos, there's Lean Tos, Romex Corrals. There's 30, 40 people living in a compound that once had a family. And it's. Nobody knows who they are. I try to keep on good terms. I've had a couple of film crews come here. They've heard about this area. They wanted to film about gang activity and meth and fentanyl. And I said, please do not go to that house. That house, that house, that house. At least not in My company because I have to live here. But we do have kind of a Ashler wall, no turrets, but I built it with a good friend of mine and it's 700ft. Anyway, it's kind of isolated. I feel like. Not that I'm going to compare myself to Augustine, but I'm sort of like at the siege of Hippio Regius or something or maybe the siege of New Carthage. Carthage and not the Vandal. Those were vandals, but that was pretty bad.

[B]

Can I make, do we have time for. If I make a quick relevant observation and get your reaction to it?

[A]

Yes, yes.

[B]

So I've been noticing, you know, a lot of people when they. People living in the West, Europe, America and so forth, the majority are still white European. And so when they see minorities around them, I think they still think of themselves as in having the upper hand. But that's only a microcosmic view because if you look at the whole world, it seems to me, I think the white population's like 6, 7, 8%.

[A]

I think it's 6, 7%, 6%.

[B]

So what I'm trying to figure out is. And that's the, that's the demographic, that little tiny 6% is the one that's being convinced from cradle to grave that they have to suppress their culture, their religion, their civilization, they have to give up land to the other because they're horrible people and somehow they still think they're in the majority but in the big. And the people who, who they're giving everything up to land and territory and conceding would never of course do that if it was, you know, vice versa and whites went to their country. So I'm just trying to understand, is this a purely suicidal situation?

[A]

There's a lot of books called the Suicide of the west, obviously.

[B]

Literally.

[A]

Right, yeah, there's three or four, but. Or the dawn and Decadence by Jacques Barzon. I think part of it is the unique nature of Western civilization. It's the only one that's self critical. When you go back to the plays of Aristophanes or the dry comments of Thucydides or Tacitus in the Roman sphere, Suetonius, I can't think of an Islamic author or Chinese author who would say, you know, we make a desert and call it peace. As antacidous, as annals, our histories. So I don't see any of that self criticism. And the west is very self reflective. The Enlightenment, that's one line.

[B]

And it's being weaponized against it though.

[A]

Yeah, it is. There's A fine line between healthy self criticism and self critique and self loathing or what one of a great scholar is called oikophobia, hating your own house or fearful of your own culture. And that's taken root partly because of the emphasis on race. The other thing people forget is Western culture. Never while it was born in Europe, it was a little bit different.

[B]

In.

[A]

The sense that Japanese is. The Japanese culture is Westernized. It's a strong ally of the United States. It's democratic. South Korea is. So we've had this propensity to be able to incorporate people in the west who were originally either not a part of it or antithetical ideas. So when the founders said, you know, all men are created equal, they allowed everybody to come to the United States. It wasn't like the Spanish empire that said you had to be Spanish and Christian to be admitted into Latin America or South America or Southern North America. So it's. The problem with that is that I think multiculturalism misinterpreted what the idea was behind America. The idea behind America was you come from all over the world, but you have to surrender your prior identity and you have to accept a Western and particularly American identity. And you can enrich us, our culture with your food, your clothing, your music, your art, but you do not dare tamper with the core beliefs. And we have people who are coming here and they know nothing about the history of America or they know nothing about the Constitution and they think they can operate on the premises of where they came from. But you know, in a brutal bargain, nobody asked anybody, nobody asked any of us to come here. We all came here with the idea that it was better than the alternative and certainly better than our own homeland. And once we get here, we should keep that in mind. I keep going back to this crazy metaphor. I wrote about it in Mexifornia, but I think I had a student, I won't mention his name. He was contemporaneous with you and he was really brilliant. And one day I saw him burning under that Prop 187 that was going to cut off state support for illegal aliens, that he was burning the American flag and they all had Mexican flags. So I said to my student, why are you doing this? You're waving the flag. Under no circumstances you want to go back and you're burning the one under every circumstance you want to stay. And he said, I don't know, I'm just angry. I said, who are you angry at? He said, well, they don't want me here. I said, no, they want you here if you're illegal and you get citizenship, but they don't want you to come if you're. He was illegal. So I guess what I'm saying is that we have done a very poor job of saying to immigrants, you're welcome, but you must speak our language, you must be acquainted with our culture, you must assimilate, acculturate, integrate within it. We would welcome your literature and your restaurants and all that enriches us, but don't dare try to change our constitutional system and our Western legacy. And if you got somebody on the left that doesn't believe that, then the moment you set foot in the United States, you can be living in Oaxaca, Mexico, and come up here illegally. And you take one inch inside the United States and the left says, oh, you're eligible for DEI for historical racism and oppression toward your people in the United States. And you want to say, well, he was never in the United States. He just was here a nanosecond ago. But that's, that's. I think that's going to stop. Because if it doesn't stop, we know where it is. The Suicide of the West So. And you, who do you. I know that I was at a Christian bookstore not long. That, that is a. A lot of Christian bookstores carry your books, don't they?

[B]

I've seen, yeah. Yeah, I'm surprised a lot. These books, which are really a trilogy, Sword and Scimitar, Defenders of the west and now the Two Swords of Christ are, you know, the other day they were in early. In the bestseller Early Christian History, Amazon list. They were in the top five, 1, 4 and 5. So that's great.

[A]

Are they all published by Bombardier or just two?

[B]

Bombardier is Defenders of the west and the new one, the Two Swords of Christ and the Sword and Scimitar was da capo hashit, huh?

[A]

Yeah, you should try to. That would be a good thing, Ray, if you could get them in a box set, you know, as a trilogy, Volume one, two and three, that would be nice. Yeah, a lot of authors do that. Donald Kagan wrote separately his four volume history of the Peloponnesian War. Then Cornell Press reissued it as a box set. That would be good. Anyway, we're going to leave now, Ray Ibrahim, Two Swords of Christ. It's out. Former student of mine, but also companion and friend over the last three decades. And what's final comment? What are you working on now? What's the next project?

[B]

Thanks very much, Victor. I'm right now trying to recover, but as far as books go, But I think I'm actually considering writing a book that. And this is a lot of this comes from people reacting to these books, but it would be sort of lessons for today from these books, from this long history and sort of an attempt to articulate and reclaim muscular Christianity as it was understood back then and which is now, of course, under extreme, you know, attack. Christianity today is, of course, just the most emasculated religion.

[A]

It's.

[B]

I call it doorstep doormat Christianity for a lot of denominations anyway. So I just want to, you know, recapture that spirit, re. Articulate it, show the theological underpinnings behind it. Because there's a lot like the two swords verse that I mentioned that most people don't understand and try to see, you know, how it can be applied to modern teachers. So they stop being doormats.

[A]

Yeah. For students to get a more disinterested and fair view of the Crusades or the fall of Constantinople. Yes, absolutely. Well, anybody. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis Hansen in his own words, the show and our guest has been Raymond Ibrahim. And we're going to finish and we'll see you in a few days. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own [e-mail] and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.