Status Updates From Sword and Scimitar: Fourtee...

After the successful second defense of Constantinople from Muslims, Emperor Leo III wrote a letter in 718 to Caliph Omar II that was basically an apologetic defense of the Christian faith and a refutation of the Islamic faith. Incredibly, it seems that this letter might have brought about Omar’s conversion who ruled much differently afterwards and as a result was assassinated by his fellow Muslims two years later.

While this is slow reading for me, this is extremely well written. I am learning so much and wondering why the history of Islam isn’t taught to all Christians. This seems to me to be a huge failing.

This is slow going but excellently written history. Yarmuk, the first major battle in 636, and the resulting fall of Christendom to Islam throughout the region, shows how all of these areas were strongly Christian-including Egypt. Historians of the time describe the Muslims as “godless savages come to destroy all this is sacred” and state, “It is impossible to describe the horrors the Muslims committed.”