Thursday, June 26, 2014

Humiliation!!

This is coolbert:

The ISIL insurgents obviously adept at use of social media and the Internet. The gloating mockery as directed at President Obama having a precedent from over seven hundred years ago in the Middle East.

As extracted from: "THE FLAME OF ISLAM" by Harold Lamb

"A LETTER TO BOHEMUND"

Baibars the great Mameluke Sultan of Egypt during that most latter stages of the Crusades having captured the Christian stronghold of Antioch in the year 1268, Prince Bohemund discovering in the most sudden and abrupt manner he was now a Count, the humiliation most extreme! And all thanks to Baibars!

As recounted by Harold Lamb:

"Two weeks later, at the end of May [1268], a letter arrived at the castle of Tripoli for Bohemund . . .  Bohemund, opening the missive, beheld at the foot of it Baibar's heavy signature. And when he had read it through he sat without moving or speaking, as if stunned by an un-seen blow. When his companions knew the contents of the letter, amazement and sorrow kept them silent. The letter was the masterpiece of the versatile sultan."

"'Greeting to the Count,' it began. 'And commiseration upon his misfortune, inflicted by Allah, who hath deprived him of his princedom and left to him for consolation only his countship. Know, Count, thou who believest thyself to be prince of Antioch art not for WE are lord of Antioch, thy rich and fruitful city.'"

"'Sword in hand, we swept through thy city on the fourth hour of Saturday, the fourth day of Ramadan. If thou hadst seen thy knights rolled under the hoofs of our horses! Thy palaces trampled by the plunderers who filled their bags with booty! Thy treasures weighed out by the heaviest weights! Thy fair women hawked in the streets at four for a dinar and bought with thine own gold!'"

"'If thou hadst seen thy churches broken in, their crosses shattered, their lying gospels tossed from hand to hand in the open under the sun, the tombs of thy noble forefathers overturned, while thy foe the Moslems trod upon thy Holy of Holies, slaughtering monks and priests and deacons like sheep, leading out the rich to misery, and nobles of thy blood to slavery!'"

"'Coulds't thou have seen the flames licking up thy halls thy dead cast into the flames temporal while the flames eter-nal awaited them the churches of the Apostles rocking and going down . . . Then wouldst thou have said,'" "'0 God that I were dust!'"

"'Since no man of thine hath escaped to tell thee the tale, I TELL IT TO THEE!'"

Baibars certainly had a way with the words!!

coolbert.

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