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History’s Out of the Ordinary Radicals

Khalid Elhassan June 29, 2020 33 min

Lebensborn - Schutzstaffel — Kidnapping of Polish children for the Lebensborn association. Wikimedia

1. Extorting the Muslim World

The Kaaba surrounded by pilgrims during the Hajj. Encyclopedia Britannica

After the Qarmatians sacked Mecca and Medina, Muslim pilgrimage came to a halt for nearly a decade. It only resumed after the Qarmatians were paid protection money from the region’s states, the Abbasid and Fatimid Caliphates, to lay off attacking the holy cities again.

The tribute payments continued until a defeat in 976 to the Abbasids, which initiated a decline in Qarmatian fortunes. Their radicalism waned along with their power. By 1058, the Qarmatians had abandoned the beliefs deemed heretical by mainstream Muslims and reverted to orthodox Islam. A decade later, the Seljuk Turks inflicted a decisive and final defeat upon the Qarmatians, and brought their republic to an end.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Asian Conference on Asian Studies – Buddhist Terrorism?

Association For Diplomatic Studies & Training – The Assassination of Anwar Sadat

Bouchard, Gerard – National Myths: Constructed Pasts, Contested Presents (2013)

Burman, Edward – The Assassins (1987)

Cambodia Tribunal – Khmer Rouge History

Cracked – 6 Real Life Villains Who’d Be Too Crazy For Comic Books

History Collection – 12 Steps in the Evolution of Historic Terrorist Organizations

Encyclopedia Britannica – Assassin Sect

Encyclopedia Britannica – Kharijite Islamic Sect

Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World – Kharijities, Khawarij

Huffman, James L., Editor – Modern Japan: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Nationalism (1997)

Jewish Virtual Library – The ‘Lebensborn’ Program (1935 – 1945)

Lesser, Jeffrey – Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil (1999)

Lukas, Richard C. – Did the Children Cry? Hitler’s War Against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939-1945 (2001)

Spiegel, November 7^th, 2006 – Lebensborn Children Break Silence

Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation – Egyptian Islamic Jihad

History Collection – Historic Groups that Started Innocent then Took an Evil Turn

Wikipedia – League of Blood Incident

Wikipedia – Order of Assassins

Wikipedia – Shindo Renmei

World Bulletin – The Qarmatians: The World’s First Enduring Communistic Society

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.