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2019-02-01 Britain
UK Media: Churchill Was ‘Fascinated' With Islam, May Have Been a Muslim
[PJ] The UK’s Express reports: "Winston Churchill was fascinated by the Islamic faith and some of his family believed he might have even converted to the religion after his time in India with the British Army, an uncovered letter reveals."

This is yet another manifestation of the seemingly endless capacity of Western political and media elites for self-flagellation and self-hatred. This Islamization of Churchill is also another example of what we can call the "Jefferson’s Qur’an Tactic": To promote Islam, claim that public figures who had any interest in Islam for any reason -- even if they publicly expressed negative views of the religion -- were actually enthralled by Islam, and may even have been secret converts.

The evidence for Churchill’s "fascination" and possible conversion comes from an August 1907 letter to Churchill from his future sister-in-law, Lady Gwendoline Bertie. She exhorted him: "Please don’t become converted to Islam. I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalise Pasha-like tendencies, I really have. If you come into contact with Islam your conversion might be effected with greater ease than you might have supposed, call of the blood, don’t you know what I mean, do fight against it."
Posted by Besoeker 2019-02-01 07:45|| || Front Page|| [11137 views ]  Top

#1 Well beyond rubbish. Follows is but one example of Churchill's observations:

Churchill's 'The River War.'

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apa­thy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Posted by Besoeker 2019-02-01 07:55||   2019-02-01 07:55|| Front Page Top

#2 The River War was published in 1899
Posted by lord garth 2019-02-01 08:03||   2019-02-01 08:03|| Front Page Top

#3 If you come into contact with Islam you might be effected

Doesn't sound like he was on the way to conversion.

His aversion spilled over into his later writing, The Second World War.
Posted by Bobby 2019-02-01 08:03||   2019-02-01 08:03|| Front Page Top

#4 Churchill converted to Scientology. Or was it Taoism?
Posted by Chereting Pelosi1889 2019-02-01 08:18||   2019-02-01 08:18|| Front Page Top

#5 yah, I can just see Winnie giving up his brandy to knock his head on the ground 5 times a day....
Posted by Clert Gray8371 2019-02-01 08:27||   2019-02-01 08:27|| Front Page Top

#6 Appears to be something of a pattern at The Express:

Churchill would be ‘HORRIFIED’ by Brexit: ‘WW2 PM first to want a United States of Europe’
Posted by Besoeker 2019-02-01 08:33||   2019-02-01 08:33|| Front Page Top

#7 Churchill would be 'horrified' by Brexit? I bet he would have said, 'bugger that'.
Posted by Raj 2019-02-01 09:06||   2019-02-01 09:06|| Front Page Top

#8 The globalists wrapping their wishes around long departed national heroes who, very obviously cannot respond.

A history re-written exercise. Nothing more.
Posted by Besoeker 2019-02-01 09:14||   2019-02-01 09:14|| Front Page Top

#9 Horse shit!
Posted by SR-71 2019-02-01 09:27||   2019-02-01 09:27|| Front Page Top

#10 One can't be too harsh. After all, they are reporters so the last thing you could expect from them is cultural literacy. Well, perhaps with research there at the wire for a photo.
Posted by Cesare 2019-02-01 09:32||   2019-02-01 09:32|| Front Page Top

#11 Excellent point Cesare. Excellent point. The blogosphere depends on them.
Posted by Besoeker 2019-02-01 09:35||   2019-02-01 09:35|| Front Page Top

#12 It's well known he wore a burqa in his private time. Oh wait, that was J. Edgar Hoover
Posted by Frank G 2019-02-01 10:04||   2019-02-01 10:04|| Front Page Top

#13 I see the Department of Truth is hard at work again.
Posted by DarthVader 2019-02-01 10:20||   2019-02-01 10:20|| Front Page Top

#14 The Sufi Sect of Islam seems to have interested some prominent Britons... More "Mystic" than the mainstream Shia or Sunni variety.
Posted by magpie 2019-02-01 11:49||   2019-02-01 11:49|| Front Page Top

#15 But the most famous (or infamous) Brit dabbler in mysticism and foreign religions remains Aleister Crowley...
Posted by M. Murcek 2019-02-01 12:16||   2019-02-01 12:16|| Front Page Top

#16 Ancient Alien theorists assert in Season 10, Episode 4, titled Dark Forces that Churchill was a Druid and that he consulted with Allistair Crowley, supposedly the wickedest man in the world, during WWII on how to defeat Hitler.

This picture purports to show:

Young Winston Churchill arrives for his Druid initiation ceremony. Was Churchill taught the true, occult meaning of the fiery and destructive "V" hand sign that he later made so famous it became used around the world? (Photo: from the book, The Druids, by Peter Berresford Ellis)



The only reference I've ever seen regarding Churchill's feelings toward Islam is what Besoeker cites from The River War. But I must have obtained an abridged version of that book because I read the whole thing and could not find the cited quote. Maybe that's what I get for buying it from Barnes & Noble.

OTOH, there is a great deal of evidence that Hitler was at least sympathetic to Islam and some of its practitioners. But I think Hitler was only capable of worshiping himself.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2019-02-01 12:41||   2019-02-01 12:41|| Front Page Top

#17 Churchill was fascinated with Islam in the same way drivers are fascinated with bloody mangled car wrecks.
Posted by rjschwarz 2019-02-01 13:36||   2019-02-01 13:36|| Front Page Top

#18 Churchill’s quotations are from “The River War,” Volume II, pages 248-250, published by Longmans, Green & Company, 1899.
Posted by Besoeker 2019-02-01 13:58||   2019-02-01 13:58|| Front Page Top

#19 Yes, B, I'm fairly certain the version I read was pretty severely edited by another publisher, Konecky & Konecky. As I said, that's what I get for buying it from Barnes & Noble. The only version of Their Finest Hour I could get from them was a cheap paperback with text so small and faint I could barely read it. I'm reluctant to do business with Amazon because Bezos and WAPO and good old fashioned brick and mortar bookstores seem to have gone out of fashion.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2019-02-01 14:11||   2019-02-01 14:11|| Front Page Top

#20 The above-quoted passage did appear in The River War when it was first published as a two-volume set in 1899, but the selection was removed when the book was condensed into one volume and republished in 1902. While the one-volume abridged edition of The River War is still readily available, as of January 2015 the original two-volume 1899 version is much harder to find, a condition which may have led to confusion about the origins of the quote in question. However, the Churchill Centre has confirmed these words were indeed written by Winston Churchill.
Snopes. Sorry.
Posted by Bobby 2019-02-01 15:47||   2019-02-01 15:47|| Front Page Top

#21 In 1902 Churchill had become a member of parliament. It was thought that the commentary about some of the people mentioned had better be excised in a revised edition. The book was thus edited down to one single volume, removing approximately one third of the total.

Much of the removed content included passages where Churchill recounted his own experiences, as he had done in other works, such as The Story of the Malakand Field Force. This removal gave the revised book a somewhat different feel to these others, and to its original form. Other removals included discussions on the ethics of warfare, Churchill's own opinions of events, and his assessment on Islam. The revised book was described as an authoritative history of the war.[2]:133

Abridgements were published numerous times over the twentieth century, with increasing excisions.

A "definitive" new edition of the book, restoring it to the original two-volume text, edited and annotated by Professor James W. Muller is in preparation. Wikipedia
Posted by Bobby 2019-02-01 15:51||   2019-02-01 15:51|| Front Page Top

#22 The more I read about Churchill, the more I wish I knew the man personally. His story of captivity and escape from the 'State Model School' in Pretoria (now a library and museum, free to visit) during the British invasion of South Africa is legendary.
Posted by Besoeker 2019-02-01 16:01||   2019-02-01 16:01|| Front Page Top

#23 Muller's super-duper neato-keen reproduction of the original edition has been in production for at least ten years now, maybe longer.

About three years ago I read that Muller had the final galleys and printing would begin within six months. And...nothing.
Posted by Cochiti 2019-02-01 17:15||   2019-02-01 17:15|| Front Page Top

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