Friday, August 31, 2018

Use of Swearing & Profanity is a Sign of High Intelligence and Honesty!

From here and here and here:




main article image
Jared eberhardt/Flickr

Swearing Is Actually a Sign of More Intelligence - Not Less - Say Scientists

You're damn right.

RICHARD STEPHENS, THE CONVERSATION
2 FEB 2017

The use of obscene or taboo language - or swearing, as it’s more commonly known - is often seen as a sign that the speaker lacks vocabulary, cannot express themselves in a less offensive way, or even lacks intelligence.

Studies have shown, however, that swearing may in fact display a more, rather than less, intelligent use of language.

While swearing can become a habit, we choose to swear in different contexts and for different purposes: for linguistic effect, to convey emotion, for laughs, or perhaps even to be deliberately nasty.
Psychologists interested in when and why people swear try to look past the stereotype that swearing is the language of the unintelligent and illiterate.

In fact, a study by psychologists from Marist College found links between how fluent a person is in the English language and how fluent they are in swearing.

The former - verbal fluency - can be measured by asking volunteers to think of as many words beginning with a certain letter of the alphabet as they can in 1 minute.

People with greater language skills can generally think of more examples in the allotted time. Based on this approach, the researchers created the swearing fluency task. This task requires volunteers to list as many different swear words as they can think of in 1 minute.

By comparing scores from both the verbal and swearing fluency tasks, it was found that the people who scored highest on the verbal fluency test also tended to do best on the swearing fluency task. The weakest in the verbal fluency test also did poorly on the swearing fluency task.

What this correlation suggests is that swearing isn’t simply a sign of language poverty, lack of general vocabulary, or low intelligence.

Instead, swearing appears to be a feature of language that an articulate speaker can use in order to communicate with maximum effectiveness. And actually, some uses of swearing go beyond just communication.




Natural pain relief

Research we conducted involved asking volunteers to hold their hand in iced water for as long as they could tolerate, while repeating a swear word.
The same set of participants underwent the iced water test on a separate occasion, but this time they repeated a neutral, non-swear word. The heart rate of both sets of participants was monitored.
What we found was that those who swore withstood the pain of the ice-cold water for longer, rated it as less painful, and showed a greater increase in heart rate when compared to those who repeated a neutral word.

This suggests they had an emotional response to swearing and an activation of the fight or flight response: a natural defence mechanism that not only releases adrenalin and quickens the pulse, but also includes a natural pain relief known as stress-induced analgesia.

This research was inspired by the birth of my daughter when my wife swore profusely during agonising contractions. The midwives were surprisingly unfazed, and told us that swearing is a normal and common occurrence during childbirth - perhaps for reasons similar to our iced water study.

Two-way emotional relationship

We wanted to further investigate how swearing and emotion are linked. Our most recent study aimed to assess the opposite of the original research, so instead of looking at whether swearing induced emotion in the speaker we examined whether emotion could cause an increase in swearing fluency.
Participants were asked to play a first person shooter video game in order to generate emotional arousal in the laboratory. They played for ten minutes, during which they explored a virtual environment and fought and shot at a variety of enemies.

We found that this was a successful way to arouse emotions, since the participants reported feeling more aggressive afterwards when compared with those who played a golf video game.

Next, the participants undertook the swearing fluency task. As predicted, the participants who played the shooting game were able to list a greater number of swear words than those who played the golf game.

This confirms a two-way relationship between swearing and emotion. Not only can swearing provoke an emotional response, as shown with the iced water study, but emotional arousal can also facilitate greater swearing fluency.

What this collection of studies shows is that there is more to swearing than simply causing offence, or a lack of verbal hygiene. Language is a sophisticated toolkit, and swearing is a part of it.

Unsurprisingly, many of the final words of pilots killed in air-crashes captured on the 'black box' flight recorder feature swearing. And this emphasises a crucial point, that swearing must be important given its prominence in matters of life and death.

The fact is that the size of your vocabulary of swear words is linked with your overall vocabulary, and swearing is inextricably linked to the experience and expression of feelings and emotions.

The Conversation
Richard Stephens, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Keele University
This article was originally published by The Conversation. Read the original article.


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Study finds links between swearing and honesty

January 16, 2017, University of Cambridge
Study finds links between swearing and honesty

It's long been associated with anger and coarseness but profanity can have another, more positive connotation. Psychologists have learned that people who frequently curse are being more honest. 

Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science a team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be associated with lying and deception.

Profanity is obscene language which, in some social settings is considered inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms. It's usually related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration or surprise. But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over audiences.

There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine. Nowadays our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for the most part, we are more tolerant of them.

As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are often viewed as evidence of low moral standards. On the other hand, profanity can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to express unfiltered feelings and sincerity. The researchers cite the example of President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of his speeches while campaigning in last year's US election and was considered, by some, to be more genuine than his rivals.



It's long been associated with anger and coarseness but profanity can have another, more positive connotation. Psychologists have learned that people who frequently curse are being more honest. Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science a team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be associated with lying and deception.


Profanity is obscene language which, in some social settings is considered inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms. It's usually related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration or surprise. But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over audiences.

There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine. Nowadays our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for the most part, we are more tolerant of them.
As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are often viewed as evidence of low moral standards. On the other hand, profanity can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to express unfiltered feelings and sincerity. The researchers cite the example of President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of his speeches while campaigning in last year's US election and was considered, by some, to be more genuine than his rivals.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-links-honesty.html#jCp



Study finds links between swearing and honesty



January 16, 2017, University of Cambridge


Study finds links between swearing and honesty
Credit: debaird
It's long been associated with anger and coarseness but profanity can have another, more positive connotation. Psychologists have learned that people who frequently curse are being more honest. Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science a team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be associated with lying and deception.
Profanity is obscene language which, in some social settings is considered inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms. It's usually related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration or surprise. But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over audiences.
There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine. Nowadays our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for the most part, we are more tolerant of them.
As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are often viewed as evidence of low moral standards. On the other hand, profanity can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to express unfiltered feelings and sincerity. The researchers cite the example of President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of his speeches while campaigning in last year's US election and was considered, by some, to be more genuine than his rivals.
Credit: University of Cambridge
Dr David Stillwell, a lecturer in Big Data Analytics at the University of Cambridge, and a co-author on the paper, says: "The relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one. Swearing is often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is telling you their honest opinion. Just as they aren't filtering their language to be more palatable, they're also not filtering their views. "
The international team of researchers set out to gauge people's views about this sort of language in a series of questionnaires which included interactions with social media users.
In the first questionnaire 276 participants were asked to list their most commonly used and favourite swear words. They were also asked to rate their reasons for using these words and then took part in a lie test to determine whether they were being truthful or simply responding in the way they thought was socially acceptable. Those who wrote down a higher number of curse words were less likely to be lying.
A second survey involved collecting data from 75,000 Facebook users to measure their use of in their online social interactions. The research found that those who used more profanity were also more likely to use language patterns that have been shown in previous research to be related to honesty, such as using pronouns like "I" and "me". The Facebook users were recruited from across the United States and their responses highlight the differing views to profanity that exist between different geographical areas. For example, those in the north-eastern states (such as Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and New York) were more likely to swear whereas people were less likely to in the southern states (South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi).
More information: Gilad Feldman et al "Frankly, we do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty" DOI: 10.1177/1948550616681055, PDF: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/gsb/files/publication-pdf/profanity.pdf



Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-links-honesty.html#jCp



Study finds links between swearing and honesty

January 16, 2017, University of Cambridge



Study finds links between swearing and honesty
Credit: debaird
It's long been associated with anger and coarseness but profanity can have another, more positive connotation. Psychologists have learned that people who frequently curse are being more honest. Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science a team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be associated with lying and deception.
Profanity is obscene language which, in some social settings is considered inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms. It's usually related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration or surprise. But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over audiences.
There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine. Nowadays our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for the most part, we are more tolerant of them.
As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are often viewed as evidence of low moral standards. On the other hand, profanity can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to express unfiltered feelings and sincerity. The researchers cite the example of President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of his speeches while campaigning in last year's US election and was considered, by some, to be more genuine than his rivals.
Credit: University of Cambridge
Dr David Stillwell, a lecturer in Big Data Analytics at the University of Cambridge, and a co-author on the paper, says: "The relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one. Swearing is often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is telling you their honest opinion. Just as they aren't filtering their language to be more palatable, they're also not filtering their views. "
The international team of researchers set out to gauge people's views about this sort of language in a series of questionnaires which included interactions with social media users.
In the first questionnaire 276 participants were asked to list their most commonly used and favourite swear words. They were also asked to rate their reasons for using these words and then took part in a lie test to determine whether they were being truthful or simply responding in the way they thought was socially acceptable. Those who wrote down a higher number of curse words were less likely to be lying.
A second survey involved collecting data from 75,000 Facebook users to measure their use of in their online social interactions. The research found that those who used more profanity were also more likely to use language patterns that have been shown in previous research to be related to honesty, such as using pronouns like "I" and "me". The Facebook users were recruited from across the United States and their responses highlight the differing views to profanity that exist between different geographical areas. For example, those in the north-eastern states (such as Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and New York) were more likely to swear whereas people were less likely to in the southern states (South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi).
More information: Gilad Feldman et al "Frankly, we do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty" DOI: 10.1177/1948550616681055, PDF: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/gsb/files/publication-pdf/profanity.pdf



Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-links-honesty.html#jCp



Study finds links between swearing and honesty

January 16, 2017, University of Cambridge



Study finds links between swearing and honesty
Credit: debaird
It's long been associated with anger and coarseness but profanity can have another, more positive connotation. Psychologists have learned that people who frequently curse are being more honest. Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science a team of researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong Kong report that people who use profanity are less likely to be associated with lying and deception.
Profanity is obscene language which, in some social settings is considered inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms. It's usually related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration or surprise. But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over audiences.
There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine. Nowadays our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for the most part, we are more tolerant of them.
As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are often viewed as evidence of low moral standards. On the other hand, profanity can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to express unfiltered feelings and sincerity. The researchers cite the example of President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of his speeches while campaigning in last year's US election and was considered, by some, to be more genuine than his rivals.
Credit: University of Cambridge
Dr David Stillwell, a lecturer in Big Data Analytics at the University of Cambridge, and a co-author on the paper, says: "The relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one. Swearing is often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is telling you their honest opinion. Just as they aren't filtering their language to be more palatable, they're also not filtering their views. "
The international team of researchers set out to gauge people's views about this sort of language in a series of questionnaires which included interactions with social media users.
In the first questionnaire 276 participants were asked to list their most commonly used and favourite swear words. They were also asked to rate their reasons for using these words and then took part in a lie test to determine whether they were being truthful or simply responding in the way they thought was socially acceptable. Those who wrote down a higher number of curse words were less likely to be lying.
A second survey involved collecting data from 75,000 Facebook users to measure their use of in their online social interactions. The research found that those who used more profanity were also more likely to use language patterns that have been shown in previous research to be related to honesty, such as using pronouns like "I" and "me". The Facebook users were recruited from across the United States and their responses highlight the differing views to profanity that exist between different geographical areas. For example, those in the north-eastern states (such as Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and New York) were more likely to swear whereas people were less likely to in the southern states (South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi).
More information: Gilad Feldman et al "Frankly, we do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty" DOI: 10.1177/1948550616681055, PDF: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/gsb/files/publication-pdf/profanity.pdf



Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-links-honesty.html#jCp


Dr David Stillwell, a lecturer in Big Data Analytics at the University of Cambridge, and a co-author on the paper, says: "The relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one. Swearing is often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is telling you their honest opinion. Just as they aren't filtering their language to be more palatable, they're also not filtering their views. "

The international team of researchers set out to gauge people's views about this sort of language in a series of questionnaires which included interactions with social media users.

In the first questionnaire 276 participants were asked to list their most commonly used and favourite
swear words. They were also asked to rate their reasons for using these words and then took part in a lie test to determine whether they were being truthful or simply responding in the way they thought was socially acceptable. Those who wrote down a higher number of curse words were less likely to be lying.

A second survey involved collecting data from 75,000 Facebook users to measure their use of swear words in their online social interactions. The research found that those who used more profanity were also more likely to use language patterns that have been shown in previous research to be related to honesty, such as using pronouns like "I" and "me". The Facebook users were recruited from across the United States and their responses highlight the differing views to profanity that exist between different geographical areas. For example, those in the north-eastern states (such as Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and New York) were more likely to swear whereas people were less likely to in the southern states (South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi).

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Swearing Is A Sign Of Honesty, Says Science

Image via Shutterstock

New study shows that swearing is associated with honesty

Let’s start with the obvious: parents fucking swear. We swear in our heads. We swear out loud. We swear when we’re out with friends, on social media, and sometimes in front of our kids. We all do at some point or another. In fact, if  you’ve never uttered a profanity in your shiny pristine life, you’re a lying liar. Sweary people are honest people.  Science says so.

Science already told us that swearing is a sign of intelligence, and we’re not fucking our kids up if we drop a dammit in front of them now and then. We’re tired of being told to talk like a lady, and our love for a well-placed eff bomb is just who we are. We might not have needed another reason to embrace our sweary sides and let go of some guilt, yet here we have it. Because science kicks ass.

In a two-part study titled “Frankly, we do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty,” – which is just about the best name for a study ever – researchers from the Universities of Hong Kong, Stanford, Cambridge and Maastricht looked at the swearing habits of 276 participants and assessed how honest they were in various situations. They found that while liars typically prefer third-person pronouns and negative words in their speech, honest people are more likely to swear. In other words, the most honest people in the study also cussed the most.

The second part of the study involved testing these findings in a real life social context. Enter Facebook. After looking at the Facebook status updates of more than 73,000 people, they came to the same conclusion: honesty was associated with swearing.

“The consistent findings across the studies suggest that the positive relation between profanity and honesty is robust, and that the relationship found at the individual level indeed translates to the society level,” said the study.

According to The Independent, the researchers also found that people were much more likely to swear as a way of expressing themselves and their emotions, instead of swearing to be anti-social or harmful to other people. In other words, we swear because this is who are, not because we want to piss anyone off.

Last year, science told us it’s okay if we swear in front of our kids. A few years ago, science also told us that swearing is a sign of intelligence, and we all know swearing is the only appropriate response to the myriad shitastrophes that come along with parenting and life in general. Because when the shit hits the fan, a goshdarnit or jerkface just doesn’t come close to a dammit all to hell or douchey asshat. Not to mention swearing is empowering AF, and few mantras are as motivating as a boldly stated as Fuck. This. Shit.

We didn’t need another reason to give the pearl clutchers the middle finger and embrace our sweary badassery. Swearing is reward enough. It feels great and it’s fun as hell. A few weeks ago, my son asked me if he could give me the middle finger “just to see how it feels.” Sure, I said, and he cautiously flipped me off.

“This feels so GOOD!” he giggled. Of course it does. I agreed with him and our entire family spent ten minutes giving each other the middle finger and laughing our asses off. It was the most fun we had all week, because sometimes swearing is just what you need.

So while not everyone embraces their inner swearyness, those of us who do cuss like a motherfucker can rest assured that it’s not only a sign of intelligence, but also a sign of honesty.

And if you say otherwise, well, you’re probably lying.


h/t Medical Daily
More information: Gilad Feldman et al "Frankly, we do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty" DOI: 10.1177/1948550616681055, PDF: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/gsb/files/publication-pdf/profanity.pdf



Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-links-honesty.html#jCp

Monday, August 27, 2018

Was Jeff Sessions Compromised by the Mueller Coup?

From here:

Opinion: Is Jeff Sessions a Player in the Mueller Coup?

Thursday, August 23, 2018

The Battle of Yarmuk: History’s Most Consequential Muslim/Western Clash

From Raymond Ibrahim at BreakingIsraelNews:

On this date, August 20, in 636, the first major military clash between Islam and the West was fought. The Battle of Yarmuk is now little remembered, but its outcome forever changed the face of the world, with ripples felt even today.
Four years earlier, in 632, the prophet of Islam had died. During his lifetime, he had managed to rally the Arabs under the banner of Islam. On his death, some tribes that sought to break away remained Muslim but refused to pay taxes, or zakat, to the caliph, Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s successor. Branding them all apostates, the caliph initiated the Ridda (“apostasy”) Wars, which saw tens of thousands of Arabs beheaded, crucified, or burned alive. In 633, these wars were over; in 634, so was the life of Abu Bakr. It would fall to the second caliph, Omar bin al-Khattab (r. 634–44), to direct the full might of the once feuding Arabs — now one tribe, one umma — against “the other.”
Almost instantly, thousands of Arabs flooded into Christian Syria, slaughtering and pillaging. According to Muslim historians, they did that in the name of jihad — to spread Allah’s rule on earth. Emperor Heraclius, who had just experienced a decade of war against the Persians, proceeded to muster his legions and direct them to Syria, to quash these latest upstarts. Roman forces engaged the invaders in at least two significant battles, Ajnadayn (in modern-day Israel, in 634) and Marj al-Saffar (south of Damascus, 635). But “by Allah’s help,” writes Muslim chronicler al-Baladhuri (d. 892), “the enemies of Allah were routed and shattered into pieces, a great many being slaughtered.”
Heraclius had no intention of forsaking Syria, for centuries an integral part of the Roman Empire. He had recently recovered it from the Persians and was not about to abandon it to the despised Saracens, So, by spring 636, the emperor had managed to raise a large multiethnic army, recruited from all over Christendom, according to al-Waqidi (747–823), a Muslim chronicler and the author of Futuh al-Sham, the only detailed (though often suspect) account of the Arab conquest of Syria. (Unless otherwise indicated, all direct quotes that follow are from Futuh and translated by me.) Some 30,000 Christian fighters began their march south. Muslim forces, numbering approximately 24,000 — with women, slaves, children, camels, and tents in tow — withdrew from their recently conquered territories and congregated by the banks of the Yarmuk River in Syria. The landscape was dominated by two ravines, one along the Yarmuk and the other along the Wadi Ruqqad, each with a vertical drop of 100 to 200 feet — a deadly prospect for anyone fleeing in haste.
The Arabs dispatched a hurried message to Caliph Omar, complaining that “the dog of the Romans, Heraclius, has called on us all who bear the cross, and they have come against us like a swarm of locusts.” Given that “to see Christendom fall” was Omar’s “delight,” to quote from the Shahnameh, that “his meat was their humiliation,” and that “his very breathing was their destruction,” reinforcements were forthcoming.
Heraclius appointed Vahan, an Armenian and a hero of the Persian Wars, as supreme commander of his united forces. The supreme leader of the Arabs was Abu Ubaida, but Khalid bin al-Walid, whom Muhammad had dubbed the “Sword of Allah,” commanded thousands of horsemen and camel riders behind the infantry and influenced military decisions.
Before battle, Vahan and Khalid met under a flag of truce to negotiate. The Armenian commander began by diplomatically blaming Arabia’s harsh conditions and impoverished economy for giving the Arabs no choice but to raid Roman lands. Accordingly, the empire was pleased to provide them with food and coin on condition that they return home. “It was not hunger that brought us here,” Khalid responded coolly, “but we Arabs are in the habit of drinking blood, and we are told the blood of the Romans is the sweetest of its kind, so we came to shed your blood and drink it.
Vahan’s diplomatic mask instantly dropped and he launched into a tirade against the insolent Arab: “So, we thought you came seeking what your brethren always sought” — plunder, extortion, or mercenary work. “But, alas, we were wrong. You came killing men, enslaving women, plundering wealth, destroying buildings, and seeking to drive us from our own lands.” Better people had tried to do the same but always ended up defeated, added Vahan in reference to the recent Persian Wars, before continuing:
As for you, there is no lower and more despicable people — wretched, impoverished Bedouins. . . . You commit injustices in your own nation and now ours. . . . What havoc you have created! You ride horses not your own and wear clothes not your own. You pleasure yourselves with the young white girls of Rome and enslave them. You eat food not your own, and fill your hands with gold, silver, and valuable goods [not your own]. Now we find you with all our possessions and the plunder you took from our coreligionists — and we leave it all to you, neither asking for its return nor rebuking you. All we ask is that you leave our lands. But if you refuse, we will annihilate you!
The Sword of Allah was not impressed. He began reciting the Koran and talking about one Muhammad. Vahan listened in quiet exasperation. Khalid proceeded to call on the Christian general to proclaim the shahada and thereby embrace Islam, in exchange for peace, adding: “You must also pray, pay zakat, perform hajj at the sacred house [in Mecca], wage jihad against those who refuse Allah, . . . befriend those who befriend Allah and oppose those who oppose Allah,” a reference to the divisive doctrine of al-wala’ wa al-bara’. “If you refuse, there can only be war between us. . . . And you will face men who love death as you love life.”
“Do what you like,” responded Vahan. “We will never forsake our religion or pay you jizya.” Negotiations were over.
Things came to a head, quite literally, when 8,000 Muslims marching before the Roman camp carried the severed heads of 4,000 Christians mounted atop their spears. These were the remains of 5,000 reinforcements who had come from Amman to join the main army at Yarmuk. The Muslims had ambushed and slaughtered them. Then, as resounding cries of “Allahu akbar” filled the Muslim camp, those Muslims standing behind the remaining 1,000 Christian captives knocked them over and proceeded to carve off their heads before the eyes of their co-religionists, whom Arabic sources describe as looking on in “utter bewilderment.”
*****
So it would be war. On the eve of battle, writes historian A. I. Akram, “the Muslims spent the night in prayer and recitation of the Quran, and reminded each other of the two blessings that awaited them: either victory and life or martyrdom and paradise.”
No such titillation awaited the Christians. They were fighting for life, family, and faith. During his pre-battle speech, Vahan explained that “these Arabs who stand before you seek to . . . enslave your children and women.” Another general warned the men to fight hard or else the Arabs “shall conquer your lands and ravish your women.” Such fears were not unwarranted. Even as the Romans were kneeling in pre-battle prayer, Arab general Abu Sufyan was prancing on his war steed, waving his spear, and exhorting the Muslims to “jihad in the way of Allah,” so that they might seize the Christians’ “lands and cities, and enslave their children and women.”
The battle took place over the course of six days. (For a more detailed examination of Yarmuk, see my master’s thesis, 2002, The Battle of Yarmuk: An Assessment of the Immediate Factors behind the Islamic Conquests.) The Roman forces initially broke through the Muslim lines and, according to colorful Muslim sources, would have routed the Arabs if not for their women. Prior to battle, Abu Sufyan had told these female Arabs that, although “the prophet said women are lacking in brains and religion” (a reference to a hadith), they could still help by striking “in the face with stones and tent poles” any Arab men who retreated from the battle to camp. The women were urged to persist until the men returned to battle “in shame.”
Sure enough, whenever broken ranks of Muslims fell back, Arab women hurled stones at them, struck them, and their horses and camels, with poles, taunting them: “May Allah curse those who run from the enemy! Do you wish to give us to the Christians? . . . If you do not kill, then you are not our men.” Abu Sufyan’s wife, Hind, is said to have fought the advancing Romans while screaming “Cut the extremities [i.e., phalluses] of the uncircumcised ones!” On witnessing her boldness, the Arab men are said to have turned and driven back the advancing Romans to their original position.
On the fourth day, the Muslims managed to reverse the tables and advance against a broken line of retreating Christians. No women were present to chastise the retreating Romans, and a multitude of archers unleashed volley after volley on the rushing Arabs. “The arrows rained down on the Muslims. . . . All one could hear was ‘Ah! My eye!’ In heavy confusion, they grabbed hold of their reins and retreated.” Some 700 Muslims lost an eye on that day.
Concerning the sixth and final day of battle, Muslim sources make much of the heavy infantry of the Roman army’s right flank, referring to its soldiers as the “mightiest.” These warriors reportedly tied themselves together with chains, as a show of determination, and swore by “Christ and the Cross” to fight to the last man. (The Arabs may have mistaken the remarkably tight Roman phalanx for fetters.) Even Khalid expressed concern at their show of determination. He ordered the Muslims at the center and left of the Arab army to bog down the Christians, while he led thousands of horsemen and camel-fighters round to the Roman left faction, which had become separated from its cavalry (possibly during an attempt at one of the complicated “mixed formation” maneuvers recommended in the Strategikon, a Byzantine military manual).
To make matters worse, a dust storm — something Arabs were accustomed to, their opponents less so — erupted around this time and caused mass chaos. The Romans’ large numbers proved counterproductive under such crowded and chaotic conditions. Now the fiercest and most desperate fighting of the war ensued. Everywhere, steel clashed, men yelled, horses neighed, camels bellowed, and sand blew in the face of the confused mass. Unable to maneuver, most of the Roman cavalry, carrying along a protesting Vahan, broke off and withdrew to the north.
Realizing that they were alone, the Christian infantry, including the “chained men,” maintained formation and withdrew westward, to the only space open to them. They were soon trapped between an Islamic hammer and anvil: A crescent of Arabs spreading from north to south continued closing in on them from the east, while a semicircle of the Wadi Ruqqad’s precipitous ravines lay before the Christians to the west. (Khalid had already captured the only bridge across the wadi.)
As darkness descended on this volatile corner of the world, the final phase of war played out on the evening of August 20. The Arabs, whose night vision was honed by desert life, charged the trapped Romans, who, according to al-Waqidi and other Muslim historians, fought valiantly. The historian Antonio Santosuosso writes that
soon the terrain echoed with the terrifying din of Muslim shouts and battle cries. Shadows suddenly changed into blades that penetrated flesh. The wind brought the cries of comrades as the enemy stealthily penetrated the ranks among the infernal noise of cymbals, drums, and battle cries. It must have been even more terrifying because they had not expected the Muslims to attack by dark.
Muslim cavalrymen continued pressing on the crowded and blinded Roman infantry, using the hooves and knees of their steeds to knock down the wearied fighters. Pushed finally to the edge of the ravine, rank after rank of the remaining forces of the imperial army, including all of the “chained men,” fell down the steep precipices to their death. Other soldiers knelt, uttered a prayer, made the sign of the cross, and waited for the onrushing Muslims to strike them down. No prisoners were taken on that day. “The Byzantine army, which Heraclius had spent a year of immense exertion to collect, had entirely ceased to exist,” writes British lieutenant-general and historian John Bagot Glubb. “There was no withdrawal, no rearguard action, no nucleus of survivors. There was nothing left.”
As the moon filled the night sky and the victors stripped the slain, cries of “Allahu akbar!” and “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger” rang throughout the Yarmuk valley.
*****
Following this decisive Muslim victory, the way was left wide open for the domino-like Arab conquests of the seventh century. “Such a revolution had never been,” remarks historian Hilaire Belloc. “No earlier attack had been so sudden, so violent, or so permanently successful. Within a score of years from the first assault in 634 [at the Battle of Ajnadayn], the Christian Levant had gone: Syria, the cradle of the Faith, and Egypt with Alexandria, the mighty Christian See.”
Without the power of hindsight afforded to historians living more than a millennium after the fact, even Anastasius of Sinai, who witnessed Muslim forces overrun his Egyptian homeland four years after Yarmuk, testified to the decisiveness of the battle by referring to it as “the first terrible and incurable fall of the Roman army.” “I am speaking of the bloodshed at Yarmuk, . . . after which occurred the capture and burning of the cities of Palestine, even Caesarea and Jerusalem. After the destruction of Egypt there followed the enslavement and incurable devastation of the Mediterranean lands and islands.”
Indeed, mere decades after Yarmuk, all ancient Christian lands between Greater Syria to the east and Mauretania (encompassing parts of present-day Algeria and Morocco) to the west — nearly 4,000 miles — had been conquered by Islam. Put differently: Two-thirds of Christendom’s original, older, and wealthier territory was permanently swallowed up by Islam. (Eventually, and thanks to the later Turks, “Muslim armies conquered three-quarters of the Christian world,” to quote historian Thomas Madden.)
But unlike the Germanic barbarians who invaded and conquered Europe in the preceding centuries, only to assimilate into the Christian religion, culture, and civilization and adopt its languages, Latin and Greek, the Arabs imposed their creed and language onto the conquered peoples so that, whereas the “Arabs” were once limited to the Arabian Peninsula, today the “Arab world” consists of some 22 nations across the Middle East and North Africa.
This would not be the case, and the world would have developed in a radically different way, had the Eastern Roman Empire defeated the invaders and sent them reeling back to Arabia. Little wonder that historians such as Francesco Gabrieli hold that “the battle of the Yarmuk had, without doubt, more important consequences than almost any other in all world history.”
It bears noting that if most Westerners today are ignorant of that encounter and its ramifications, they are even more oblivious as to how Yarmuk continues to serve as a model of inspiration for modern-day jihadis (who, we are regularly informed, are “psychotic criminals” who have “nothing to do with Islam”). As the alert reader may have noticed, the continuity between the words and deeds of the Islamic State (ISIS) and those of its predecessors from nearly 1,400 years ago are eerily similar. This of course is intentional. When ISIS proclaims that “American blood is best and we will taste it soon,” or “We love death as you love life,” or “We will break your crosses and enslave your women,” they are quoting verbatim — and thereby placing themselves in the footsteps of — Khalid bin al-Walid and his companions, the original Islamic conquerors of Syria.
Indeed, the cultivated parallels are many. ISIS’s black flag is intentionally patterned after Khalid’s black flag. Its invocation of the houris, Islam’s celestial sex-slaves promised to martyrs, is based on anecdotes of Muslims dying by the Yarmuk River and being welcomed into paradise by the houris. And the choreographed ritual slaughter of “infidels,” most infamously of 21 Coptic Christians on the shores of Libya, is patterned after the ritual slaughter of 1,000 captured Roman soldiers on the eve of the Battle of Yarmuk.
Here, then, is a reminder that, when it comes to the military history of Islam and the West, the lessons imparted are far from academic and have relevance to this day — at least for the jihadis.
Reprinted with author’s permission from Raymond Ibrahim
WHEW! THEN IT'S SUCH A GOOD THING THAT THE UN JUST RESOLVED TO "PROTECT" THOSE POOR SWARTHY VICTIMALS-OF-COLOR "PALESTINIAN" PEOPLE, EH?

This is the report of the shitter general on how 2 protect the Falestinians.

Media reports indicate a great deal of 💩

It seems the pdf is 13 pages long, BUT OUR FAVORITE DAJJAL RIPS IT ALL A NEW ONE ANYWAY, HERE:


NJOI!

;-)