The Eric Metaxas Show - Raymond Ibrahim

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Raymond Ibrahim discusses issues relating to Christianity and Islam with ideas found in his book, "Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam."

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metaxas. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. The Texas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Folks, welcome to the program. We've got a surprise for you today. It's not John Smirak. Yes, John Smirak is like in Paris, hanging out with, you know, other freakish super genius. like Dr. James Tour, David Berlinski, Peter Thiel, three people that we're having at Socrates in the city. Actually, no, we've had Dr. Tour recently. We've had Berlinski some years ago. And Peter Thiel,

no, we did. We've had all of them at Socrates and City. But John Smirich's hanging out with them. And we thought, what are we going to do? A week without John's Mirak is like a week without sunshine. But then John said, Eric, I very, very, very, very highly recommend that you have on someone. Well, actually, he already recommended him many, many times before. And we thought perhaps we would get Raymond Ibrahim on the show. So sitting in for our friend John Smirak is Raymond Ibrahim. Now, let me explain to you, folks. Raymond Eberham. is a really distinguished scholar and spokesperson on issues concerning the Middle East. He has a brand new book called Defend – this is a big deal.

I want to talk to him about this. It's called Defenders of the West, the Christian Heroes who stood against Islam. The forward of the book is written by Victor Davis Hansen. I think that tells you everything you need to know. Raymond Ibrahim, welcome to the program. Hi, Eric. Great to be with you. Thanks.

Don't be nervous that you're sitting. in for Johns Merak. Others have done it before. I'll try. Many of them have died, violent deaths, but I'm just saying, just put that out of your mind. But when John Zmirak raves and raves about someone, it's really not difficult to us, for us to understand we need to get this person. And so we're just really grateful to you for coming on. And tell my audience a little bit about yourself. I mentioned that you're the author of a brand new book called Defenders of the West, the Christian Heroes, who stood against Islam. What is your own background. I know you have an Egyptian background as well. Yeah, so my family's, the Cops,

Coptic, every time I say that word Cops, I have to, you know, people ask me what, you know, precincts I come from, but Cops, Coptic, of course, the indigenous Christians from Egypt. So my parents immigrated to the United States in the mid-60s. I was born and raised here. Because of that background, being coming from a Christian minority sect from the Middle East, surrounded by Islam, I was always interested in, of course, in those issues. But then in college, as you mentioned, Victor Davis-Sanson was my professor for many years. And, you know, I'm proud to say a friend and mentor and so forth. I naturally gravitated towards history, military history. And then, you know, long story short, in 2001 when I was writing my master's thesis with Victor Davis

Davis as my chair, it was actually about the first military encounter between Islam and the West, or really Christianity, Christendom, because I was employing the languages I was studying Arabic and Greek and so forth. And anyway, long story short, and then that's when 9-11 happened and I went to Georgetown University, studied there for a little bit in their contemporary center for Arab studies, which is, as I later found out, it was very ideologically charged. And I left there, despite stellar performance, I might add, straight A's, but I had to leave there just because of the political reasons. And then I got a job with the Library of Congress in the Near East section where I dealt with Arabic materials and other Middle Eastern languages,

found writings by Al Qaeda in the early 2000s. And long story short, that got translated into my first book, The Al Qaeda Reader, which came out 2007 from Doubleday. And since then, I've just really been involved in this nexus of Islam in the West. And I've also gravitated very much, again, to my own personal interests, which is the Christians. you know, how Christians fit into this. And so for the longest time, I write about the persecution that Christians encounter, I did that in my 2013 book, Crucified Again, which I continue because I write monthly reports for the Gatestone Institute,

collating all of the anecdotes of persecution that arise at the hands of Muslims, vis-to-vis Christians. Any of these, of course, if it was the opposite, if it was a Christian or a Western person doing this to a Muslim, would be all plastered all over the media. But, of course, we don't hear about it. I really get it from alternate sources, small websites, Arabic language sources, and so forth. And most recently, as you indicated, I'm going back to my original interest, which is the historical,

including military historical setting. And so my recent book, Defenders of the West, the Christian Heroes, who stood against Islam, you know, I look at eight men that identify really, the warriors, identify as heroes because they were. They were understood as heroes. And what's refreshing to me in writing that book, as opposed to to what I've been doing is for once, I'm finally now writing about Christians standing their ground, fighting back, and oftentimes actually becoming victorious vis-a-vis the jihad, as opposed to what I'm normally reading and writing about, which is what's happening today, which is Christians,

just getting annihilated. And Western Christians thinking it's making a virtue out of cowardice and basically, you know, becoming dormats and saying they're not doing anything, they're not judging, because that's their faith. And again, so I wanted to contrast it with how actual, you know, other Christians from the preceding centuries, the preceding millennium, really, how they understood it, especially in the context of just war theory. This is a big deal, and I want to say that it's one of the things that bonds me to John's Mirac is that we both understand that biblically we're supposed to fight. Now, the question of how and when, and that's another issue, but you're quite right that

there is a modern strain of Christianity, which is kind of a feminized, really ultimately heretical idea that we are to be dormats, that we're to be passive, get the jab, do what you're told. There's something in the drinking water that has really destroyed the heart and the muscle at the heart of Christian faith. that we are to be warriors for good. So we don't fight the way the world fights. But somehow, as I'm saying, and as you say, these ideas, these bad ideas have crept in. And we need to reacquaint ourselves with what is the historical faith.

So you are doing that in your book. So the new book is Defenders of the West, the Christian heroes who stood against Islam. Let's talk about that. Who are some of these heroes? What is the context? Well, the context, in many ways, this book is actually a companion book to my previous book from 2018, which is Sword and Cimitar, 14 centuries of war between Islam and the West.

And you may recall, we spoke some time back about that when the War College had invited me to speak about it and then Care, the Muslim Brotherhood wing, the Council on American Islamic Relations, protested and called us Islam. homophobes and races and, you know, pulled the rug from underneath me, the war college capitulated, so forth. Anyway, they redeemed themselves eventually, but then they capitulate again. That's a whole different story. So the first book, Sword and Smitter, looked at decisive battles and really eight of them and looked at the context. It showed you the history of relations between Islam and the West and how it was really anchored in warfare and jihad and conquest. And three quarters of the Christian territory was eventually was conquered and annexed and swallowed.

up. Some of it eventually was reconquered, as in the reconquista in Spain and the Balkans and so forth. In the new book, Defenders of the West, I look again at eight, but this time what I call not decisive battles, eight decisive men. And again, I thought this was important to just show people how Christians understood themselves vis-a-vis Islamic jihad. I can name a lot of them. So basically, and it's really three theaters of war that I look at, really, the crusaders. which is a just war, defensive war, and I get into explaining how, even though it was Europeans traveling to the Middle East, they were actually acting on certain commandments, including Love Your Fellow Man, because the Christians of that region were being completely annihilated and terrorized, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands,

killed and enslaved by the Selgic Turks at the time, especially Armenians, the Greeks and the Balkan region, and so forth. So that's really the context of the First Crusade. then I also have the Reconquista. I have two chapters there, three chapters crusade, and then three chapters, the Balkans. Hang on one second, Raymond. We'll be right back with Raymond Ibrahim, folks. We have him for the whole hour today. I want to remind you, we desperately need your help. The Alliance Defending Freedom. Go to Metaxistocococon.com. Please, folks, metaxisototot.com or dial 855-385-096, 855-5-5-5-5.5.5.5. 385-0-5-9-6. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed and when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes leading the prices of goods to rise. And when we're

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Patriotmobile.com. Eric or call 972 Patriot. Outside the right. Folks, welcome back. Did you contact Alliance Defending Freedom? 855-385-0-5-96, 855-385-0-5-9-6. Or go to Metaxist Talk.com. They need your help.

We're fighting a war on many, many fronts. The Alliance Defending Freedom, they are defending our religious liberties in the court. we have to step up. We're in a battle. I'm talking to Raymond Ibrahim, who is talking about the same battle, but a different part of the battle. He is the author of a book, Defenders of the West, the Christian heroes who stood against Islam. And Raymond, you were just talking about the misunderstanding that a lot of people have fallen into with regard, I mean, just theologically about this idea that we're not supposed to fight. We're supposed to be in a supine position somehow. Somehow that's Christ-like. And there's always truth in every lie. Yes, Jesus allowed himself to be crucified on the cross. And to some extent, that is a model for us. We are to die to self.

There's always truth in every lie. So there is truth here, and we don't want to miss the truth. But to apply this as widely as it has been applied is just devastating. And so you talk about. this. You talk about the moments in our Christian history when people understood it was their duty before God to stand and to fight. And in many cases, literally, so talk a little bit about the Crusades and the background of your book Defenders of the West because so many people, especially evangelicals today, have adopted this kind of liberalized false view of what it means to stand

as a Christian. Oh, absolutely. I agree. I agree. and, you know, it's not just a theoretical point that I'm making or you're making. That's, I think, the whole point that the book shows you, and it brings it out naturally without me trying to do it. It's just there. So, as I was saying, basically, there's eight chapters, eight men, three Balkans, two, three Crusades, two in Spain. And what's significant about all these men, and they include men like Vlad Tepas, okay, Count

Count Dracula, the vampire, and, you know, who's very applicable today since we're approaching Halloween. But the reason I say that is because the book will also show you how these people have been manipulated and mangled in ways that we're familiar with, basically showing the Christians as the bad guy constantly, no matter what. So Vlad, for example, did he do impalement? Yes, he did. And I'm not trying to whitewash any of that. But what you don't understand is he was taught that actually in the Ottoman courts, or Turkish Muslim courts, when he was a hostage to them as a youth. And he was essentially fighting fire with fire when the Muslims were invading his native homeland, Wallachia, modern day Romania.

That's just one example. Wait, so, wait. So one of the eight heroes who stood against Islam in your book is the so-called Vlad the Impaler. Right. Yeah, who's a national hero in Romania. And, you know, they have statues of him and so forth. But to us, thanks to Brian Stoker, who wrote a, you know, fictitious novel and just, you know, took his name and added it on.

He became a blood-sucking denizen of the night flying about in the middle of the night. That's not obviously the truth. Was he cruel? Yes. But again, you have to understand in the context of the time and who he was cruel to and why. You know, he had a very traumatic life. He was thrown, he actually, even though he was the ruler of Wallachia, spent more time in prison than he did on the throne. And, you know, he was betrayed by his own family.

and there's, you know, it's very graphic stories, all of these actually. But what's significant, what I'd like to underline, which, you know, speaks to what you were talking about is all of these men, and this is what I found fascinating, posited and presented their crusade, their fight against Islamic terrorism and jihad as a Christian thing. That was first and foremost what they did, including Vlad. Okay, so even in Vlad's writings and in his speeches and in his logic and fighting, but not just them, all of them, the crusaders, first and foremost, and you don't get this in the secondary histories, okay, was that they saw this as acting on God's commandments, protecting, whether it was the holy sepulture, whether it was pilgrims, Christians who were being mauled and murdered and raped and destroyed. It was seen as fulfilling the two greatest commandments,

loving God and loving your fellow man. I mean, I think we have to, we have to clarify because I just, I know we have such a disparate audience. We want to say, folks, this is part of what we're dealing with now with the cancel culture. And others, when we talk about somebody like Vlad the Impaler, so called, right, we want to acknowledge that some of these heroes in some ways were deeply messed up and did evil. Okay? So if we're talking about George Washington or we're talking about Columbus or we're talking

about Jefferson or they all did wrong. They were human beings. So we're not celebrating everything they did. But what we're trying to do is is trying to clarify. that just because someone did some things that were wrong, in some cases, grievous, horrifying things, it does not negate the good that they did, which must be celebrated. And the reason I have behind me a bust of George Washington is because when I look at this man as a whole, he is one of the greatest heroes who has ever lived in the history of mankind. But there are people to

who just want to point out what it is that he did wrong or the fact that he owns slaves, which I think we all agree was wrong. So when we're talking about the defenders of the West, the Christian heroes who stood against Islam by my guest, Raymond I want to be really clear about that, folks. When somebody's a hero, if we say somebody's a hero, it doesn't mean we agree with everything they did. And that penchant in our own day to only find people who are perfect, it's preposterous. Only Jesus was perfect.

And I really think in a funny way, Raymond, this is the battle of our time, is to try to, to try again to do what you're doing in your book and what I've done in some of my books is to try to make the case for these people as heroes who were imperfect. I mean, we could be talking about Andrew Jackson. There's so many people that in many ways were tremendous heroes, but their history. is checkered enough that modern scholars can't bear to hold them up as heroes. They have to just throw them away. Yeah, I would agree with that wholeheartedly. I'd also emphasize that in many ways that's being exploited. It's a pretext to do precisely that. It's a self-righteous kind of, oh, well, look at them when in fact, them were in many ways more virtuous than the people today who are condemning them in different ways. Yeah. So I agree with you. And yeah, this, I,

I'm not trying to, I personally don't even celebrate these men. I'm trying to do a historical, you know, delineation of who they were, what they did, and how, and how to compare and contrast it. And certainly, they engage in what we would call today atrocities, but what's left out in the vacuum, and this is the whole point. You hear about what they did, the violence, but you don't understand the background and what provoked and prompted it. So, you know, let's go back quickly to the Crusades, which is, again, when you talk about, you know, Muslims and Christians fighting, historically, it's the only thing that ever comes up in the Western conscious. Because here you finally have Christians marching onto Islamic territory. But really, that was a drop in the bucket of the overall warfare, which features Muslims invading Christian lands. And of course, in the

crusaders' minds, they weren't marching into Muslim lands. They were going back to Christian territory that was conquered, which it was in reality. But right before the Crusades, as I was, you know, to give you a little more context, the Armenians and the Greeks, of Asia Minor. According to the contemporary sources, literally hundreds of thousands were killed, burned alive, crucified, many, of course, enslaved. In Armenia alone, thousands of churches were intentionally desecrated and burned. One Arab recorded that he went to the capital of Armenia at the time, Ani, and he couldn't even walk because of all the corpses laying around. So that's the, that's the context of what provoked and brought out the ugly side of these Christian warriors.

When you mentioned Armenia and what century are you talking about now? I'm talking about the 11th century, starting from right around 1020 up until, well, you know, the famous battle of Manzacurt in 1071, which really after that allowed the Turks to completely penetrate Asia Minor Anatolia, today Turkey, until the Crusades in 1095, because they were now at the point of reaching Constantinople. And that's who called for the aid of the West, really the emperor. Alexius. Because I grew up in the Greek Orthodox Church and the Greek community, I know much of this. And it is very tempting for us, you know, to forget about this history. It's just as tempting for us to become tribalist, right? In other words, the idea that I would say, I'm Greek and I hate the Turks and I'm a Greek Christian and I hate the Turk. It's like, no, no, no. If you know the Bible and you know Jesus personally, you don't have that at it.

but we've strayed so far in the other direction. And your book I see and what you're talking about is a corrective against this that we need to really understand the breadth and depth of what we're talking about folks. We're talking about people who endured horrors at the hands of Muslims. You need to understand it's like talking about those who were tortured by the Native Americans in the United States. We've got to see both sides of this. Otherwise, you cannot see clearly when you when you hold one up as a noble savage or you hold one up as a Christian conqueror or whatever. It's more complicated. And if you don't want to see that, you're being intentionally sloppy and careless. And that's why we're talking to Raymond Ibrahim. The book is Defenders of the West.

The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam. We'll be right back. I like knowing exactly where my meat comes from. And with Moink, that place is from small family farms all across the country. You can help save the family farm and get access to the highest quality meat on earth when you join the Moinck movement today. Moink delivers grass-fed and grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured pork and chicken and sustainable wild-caught Alaskan salmon straight to your door. Moink farmers farm like our grandparents did,

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code Salem 10. Vinia, better blood flow, better life. Vinia.com slash Salem. Folks, welcome back talking to Raymond I-I-B-A-B-R-A-H-I-M-I-B-R-A-H-I-M-I-B-R-A-H-I-M-E-R-A-E-R-A-E-R-E-R-M-A-R-M-E-R-M-E-R-M-E-R-E-B-R-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E- want to give too much. I don't want to make a spoiler because a lot of this book actually is written in a very exciting narrative to just show you their life and adventure. But anyway, what was what's interesting about Godfrey is oftentimes you hear the Crusaders. They were the second sons, okay, who were denied land or whatever. And so they decided to go and carve out whatever territory and get money and become rich and landholding in the Middle East. Okay. Well, he was a second son, but as it happened, he actually was a landowner.

a noble and he was a Duke. He's known as the Duke. He actually sold everything to fund the crusade and then the rest of the money he gave to charity to monasteries and so forth. He gave up everything, essentially, to just spend several years of torture and fighting and warfare. And when you look at why he did it, it's again for his faith. It's for helping Christians and so forth. And I understand what you're saying. You know, we have to counterbalance, you know, the love with the whole idea of just war. But I think many of these men actually did that, at least in the context of the times as much as you could. People forget just how wild and savage, you know, the pre-modern world was.

That's the point is people, people act as though you're living in America in the 21st century. No, ladies and gentlemen, the world has been unbelievably brutal and painful. And we need to get that. We need to understand the context. So tell us, when did Godfrey of Bouillon live again? What was the context? Yeah, he's one of the first leaders of the First Crusade. He's born, I think, I have his date.

I want to say 1040 AD. He actually dies very young. He becomes the, so this is one little spoiler, but he becomes the first king of Jerusalem. And he didn't even want to be the king. And it's interesting because when they offered him the crown, he said, I refused to wear a crown where my lord wore the crown of thorns. So he wouldn't even take the title king and he became the defender of the sepulture, basically. But he didn't even want to do that.

because his goal was to help liberate Jerusalem from Islamic control, which at the time was very suffocating and full of atrocities against Christians in the Holy Land. He wanted to go back home. But, and he knew he wouldn't last. And he actually just, and he spent one year surrounded by obviously a hostile sea of Islamic terrorism and eventually died from it. But he's just one of so many. And, you know, just to give you a quick breakdown, the second chapter deals with the famous El-Sid. Okay. Rodrigo or Roderick Dave Avar

Roderick, I always confuse his Spanish name with his anglicized name, Rodrigo V.S. Dave Avar from Burgos. Anyway, he's we know him, of course, is Charlton Heston from the 1960s movie. And again, you know, you see the political correctness going way back to that time because they portraying him

as a very sort of, you know, ecumenical man who just, you know, he likes smugglings just as, much as he fights against Christians and so forth. And there's a, you know, a kernel of truth to that based on the real politic of the time. But again, you dig in the sources as I do, and you find out he was an avowed crusader vis-à-vis the Islamic jihad, which was, again, very atrocious. One of the battles in his times, you know, features about 2,400 decapitated Spaniard Christian heads with Muslims standing on top, calling the faithful to prayer, you know, screaming Allaho-Aubar,

and so forth. And his fight again, it was in a context of just war because he's trying, and the other Spaniards, to reconquer their territory in Spain, which was taken very violently, beginning in the 8th century, by Muslims. And then the third chapter, of course, is the famous King Richard, Richard the Lionheart. And, you know, he's a very, now, you know, if you read that chapter, I didn't really appreciate why he got the name Lionheart, but when you read that chapter, you will. I mean, this is, his chapter is one that could, you know, you hear that truth is stranger than fiction. That's the case. You want to make a very exciting movie and you don't want to exaggerate. You know, the script is right there. And then, anyway,

and then the fourth chapter would go back to Spain with Ferdinand, the third Castile, also known as St. Ferdinand. And he and chapter five, who's his cousin, which is King Louis of France, the ninth St. Louis. So you got two sainted kings. And I think each, one's the only sainted king in their countries who were at the same time wild warriors, fighting Islam. So again, that sheds a little light on the thinking of the time. And people today, of course, will say that's insane. And it just shows you how bad the Catholic Church is, that they would saint men who actually fought and killed. But again, it really underscores this different and much older and longer lasting kind of Christianity than what we have today,

which is very capitulating and, you know, built on, you know, not judging and turning the other cheek and so forth. And I'd add, you know, this turning the other cheek thing, the one recorded instance where Jesus actually was slapped, he did not turn his other cheek. So there is obviously some symbolic significance to this. He actually challenged the man who slapped him, why he slapped him and, you know, he put him on the spot. He was assertive with him. And, you know, to go back to this just war here, because I think it's very important, you know, when the one man that Jesus were really praised and did not tell him to repent and said he was a great man of faith, it was a centurion.

And this man was responsible for, you can imagine how many people being killed constantly, but did he tell him to repent? Did he say quit the Roman army? No, because it was understood that there is, you need justice to ensure peace and tranquility. It's so important, folks, that we get this right. And we're only beginning, really, to see these problems and to begin to undo. the bad thinking that has led us to this horrifying place. I am talking to Raymond Ibrahim, the book, Defenders of the West,

the Christian Heroes, Who Stood Against Islam. We'll be right back. With the overturn of Rovi Wade, lots of companies are coming out saying they'll pay for employee abortion travel and expenses. Most of you've heard about some of these companies. You've decided to stop shopping or doing business there, but did you know that you most likely own stock in those companies through your 401k's IRAs and other investment accounts. Folks, this is a huge problem, and we need to do something about this to send a message

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tissues providing you with improving physical energy and mental alertness. So order your vina today and get 10% off using Salem 10 at vina. or call 800 450850850. That's vina.com slash Salem using promo code Salem 10. Vinia, better blood flow, better life, vina.com slash salem. Folks, this is our final segment with Raymond Ibrahim for now, because obviously there's so much more to talk about. We're talking about undoing decades of misunderstanding Raymond. about what it means to be a Christian, how we're to be in our faith, whether we're to fight,

how we're to fight. And I feel books like yours are helping us really undo the deep misunderstanding and heresy by showing us the other side. The book is Defenders of the West, the Christian heroes who stood against Islam. I'm thinking a lot of homeschoolers should read this book, Defenders of the West by Raymond Ibrahim. So you were talking about Richard the Lionhearted. These are figures from history. These figures are lost to history today. In other words, even when we were kids, people would know who these folks were.

But in latter decades, in a sense, this history has been ignored these heroic figures. What it would mean to be lionhearted, David, of course, was lionhearted. and we don't think of David as, well, you know, that's before Jesus came and we praise David for his heroism and there are figures in Scripture. And we need to understand when that is right, when that is wrong. And even when it's wrong, why, given the context. And of course, that's what you do in your book Defenders of the West. Talk a little bit about Richard the Lionhearted. Give us his story.

Sure. So Richard Lyinghard, he's, I think, the great grandson of William the Conqueror of the Norman Conquist of England. And, you know, it's interesting because, and I talk a little bit about this in the conclusion of the book, but Richard is interesting because he's of the eight men that I talk about. He's one of the more famous. We kind of know his name. We've seen some movies and so forth. But it's, you know, it's so kind of now, it's almost like what I want to say is today they've taken, let's say, these eight men.

The ones that we don't know about who are from the Balkans, you know, and I'll talk about them, Skanderberg, from Uniadi and so forth, they don't even talk about them because, you know, it's better let, you know, let sleeping dogs fly. The ones that are sort of famous in our minds a little bit, like Richard, they've completely devastated and turned him into just, you want to talk about toxic masculinity and patriarchy. Okay, it's him and it's actually the rest of these guys. And so if anything, they are now the bad guys, they are intolerant. They're just, you know, womanizers or murderers and so forth, but there's zero context in it.

So Richard, anyway, goes to the Holy Land. He spends only about two years. He could have actually done a lot more progress, you know, very impressive progress. He already did anyway. But if it wasn't for he got betrayed by his brother, John, of course, and we all know the famous stories of Richard and John, and King Philip also, stealing his lands and so forth and trying to, you know, take over power. So there's a lot of machinations in that as well. And the book really also shows you the disunity of Christians and how they oftentimes undermine each other and ally with the common enemy and so forth. So that, you know, there's a lot of continuity with that as well.

Anyway, because each of these chapters, by the way, is about 40 pages. And, you know, it's a dense book. But at the same time, I think the narrative is pretty quick pace. So I'm just trying to go fast as well. So after him, you have. St. Louis, who I call, you know, Christ's tragic hero. Because this is a man who had everything. He's considered probably, you know, he was probably, he's considered the king of France at its most glorious point. You know, I think he was behind the building of Notre Dame. And this, and now you want to talk about piety. I mean, this man, the way he lived and the things that he did. So this man would take, would not eat his, he would first feed beggars and lepers with his own hand and then eat the leftovers because he didn't want to waste the money. This is a might King, okay? And he sold so much and he gave away so much just to fund two crusades. Okay. And, you know,

I don't want to get into the details, but if you read the book, you'll see why he's the tragic hero. But at the same time, he was engaged in warfare. And he would tell you he loves Muslims. So when he would meet them, he would actually preach Christ to them because he was even more concerned, as he said, about their souls than about, you know, what was happening in the current political climate. And it's just, I know it's so hard for modern-day Christians understand this, you know, but it's, I think, significant to bring it out. And it makes sense, you know, how a man like that thought. And that's why he became a saint. And even until today, in scornfully secular France, when they do polls about who's their greatest kings, he often

comes up in the very top is very well liked. After him, however, the last three chapters, the old Balkans. And there I look at John Huniati, the Hungarian governor, and eventually the regent. And then the most famous of them all, really, and probably the one that no one's ever heard of, George Castriotti, Scanderbeg. And then we mentioned Vlad. Hunei, of course, is very interesting his story. It's actually, it has parallels today, as you'll see. He was a very self-made, wealthy nobleman who fought constantly and was loved by the people. And his enemies were actually the elites who continuously would side with the enemy, the church just to see him fall. And, you know, that obviously that reminds me of someone,

reminds me of Trump and, you know, what's been going on with the elites and so forth and how he's a populist. So you had that going on with someone like John Huniati. And again, I don't want to get it to too much detail because they're just very impressive and I don't want to spoil her, but how he dies and how he lived. And then Scanderberg, because so this is an Albanian man, a nobleman who was abducted by the Turks as a youth and was trained to become a janissary. which is basically they would take the strongest, healthiest, best-looking, whatever, Christians in their youth, force them into becoming Muslims, and then trained them to be jihadist extraordinaire, and then unleash them on their former kin and continue this cycle of depopulating the Christians of their best and bravest

and augmenting the ranks of Islam. Anyway, they did that with him, and he rose to the highest echelons of the Ottoman army, and he was loved by the Sultan. But the moment he had a chance, he actually broke free and ran back to Albania, and chose a life living as a fugitive and leading a rag-tag band of Albanians, which his army at most with number 10,000, vis-a-vis 100 and 150,000 Ottomans that would continuously come, wave after wave attacking his land. He's known actually as the Albanian Braveheart.

He's familiar, of course, with William Wallace and his story. Scandarbeg is, to me, actually, if you read from the primary source, is even more impressive and he spent about a quarter of a century doing this, and he just sacrificed everything. But then again, you dig in, and it's interesting because Albania today is a Muslim nation, majority. And the reason for that is because he was a staunch Christian, and he gave up everything to maintain his Christian identity. And he so irked to the Ottomans that after he died, everything was done to Islamize that nation, more so than any other European nation. We're out of time, but just for today, Raymond Ibrahim. Thank you, folks. The book is, Defenders of the West, the Christian heroes who stood against Islam.

I think we need to be familiar with these stories. So we will have Raymond Ibrahim Beck again. The book is Defenders of the West. Get a copy. I'm going to read it soon. Defenders of the West. Raymond, thank you so much. God bless you.

Thanks very much for having me, Eric. God bless you. Hey, folks, welcome back. You know that we're kind of in an emergency spot with our campaign for the Alliance Defending Freedom. These folks are heroes. And I actually, I say this emphatically. You need to stand with these people because they're defending you.

They're defending your American liberties in a way that no one else is doing. And that's why we partner with them this month. So it's the Alliance Defending Freedom to give to them. There's two ways. There's a phone number, but I will give you the website. It's metaxis talk.com. That's our radio website. Metaxistalk.com.

You'll see when you go to metaxis talk.com what you can do. I know that everybody can give something. And for some reason, the giving is way, way down when we do a campaign like this. So I don't know what is happening. But I got to tell you, there is nobody like the Alliance Defending Freedom. They go to the Supreme Court. They fight battles. They win battles.

It is vital that we take this serious. So one thing you can do is give to the Alliance Defending Freedom. Tell your friends, put this on social media. We need your help. Alliance Defending Freedom is at MetaxusTalk.com. If you just go there, you'll see it. There's a banner. It says, Protect Your God-Given freedoms against unconstitutional government overreach.

I know these people. I will say it again. These are the real thing. They are heroes. They're fighting for you and for me. And we need them to do that. This is not a luxury. So we're in a tough spot.

Metaxistalk.com. dot com and you'll see the banner there. I also want to mention, speaking of this month, our friends at Nutrimetics this month are giving 30% off. That's a big deal. If you use the code Eric, you've got to use the code Eric. That's the key. If you use the code Eric at nutrometics.com,

they give 50% of all their profits to missions organizations. I know these folks, these are heroes as well. We want to partner with people like this. Neutrametics. whatever you get, vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, melatonin. There's a million things that you're probably buying from some satanic corporation that you maybe want to buy from a non-Satanic corporation. Like nutrimetics.com, 30% off if you use the code, Eric.

That's only this month, 30% off, everything. And, Alvin, you know what? Yes. It just dawned on me. Yeah. We should mention salemnow.com. Oh, great movies there. SalemNow.com.

As you know, we are on the much vilified Salem Media Network. Vilified because Salem believes in things like, oh, I don't know, free speech, religious liberty, all that crazy right-wing stuff that's in the Constitution. SalemNow.com. If you go to SalemNow.com, you'll see there are a couple of films. There's a film with Dean Kane and Sean Young. It's called No Vacancy. We recommend No Vacancy. But also, there's a series on the border.

It's called Border Battle. We've had folks on the program talking about border battle. SalemNow.com. When you go there, you can see all this stuff. But people are looking for good stuff to watch. So let me recommend. Yeah, one's a feature film and the other one's a documentary, so a documentary series.

So there's plenty of good stuff there, Salem now.com. Plenty. Now, we want to remind you again that we, for some reason, we're very far behind, disturbingly far behind in our campaign with the Alliance Defending Freedom. If you haven't given something, folks, let me just say I believe it's your responsibility to step up. Nobody's going to tell you how much to give, but to go and to give something. At metaxis talk.com, you'll see the banner. I'll give you the phone number, if that's what you prefer to do.

The phone number is 855-385-0-5-96. Some people don't like to give online, so you can call 855-385-096. Again, 855-385-0-596. I want to stress how vitally important this is. This is about Your Liberty, My Liberty, 855-385-0-596.