Since Sept. 11, 2001, there have been two basic explanations of what lay behind the attacks.

There are those who believe that 9/11 was part of a historic continuum, the beginning of another round in the "clash of civilizations" that began with the birth of Islam in the seventh century.

"Not so, argues a vast cohort of academics, journalists, writers and retired diplomats" who believe that "the attacks were a misguided, if not wholly inexplicable, response to America's arrogant and self-serving foreign policy by a fringe extremist group, whose violent interpretation of Islam has little to do with the actual spirit and teachings of this religion."

The quote is from a new book by Efraim Karsh, professor and head of the Mediterranean Studies Program at King's College, University of London. His book Islamic Imperialism: A History (2006) details Islam's imperial tradition that goes back well over a thousand years. Sept. 11 was indeed part of a historic continuum, the beginning of another period of Islamic expansionism or imperialism.

Note the following quotes from prominent Muslims down through the centuries.

The prophet Muhammad in his farewell address in March 632 said: "I was ordered to fight all men until they say 'There is no god but Allah.'"

Saladin, who drove the Europeans out of Jerusalem in the 12th century, proclaimed in January 1189: "I shall cross this sea to their islands to pursue them until there remains no one on the face of the earth who does not acknowledge Allah."

More recently, note the words of the leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: "We will export our revolution throughout the world… Until the calls 'there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah' are echoed all over the world."

Two months after Sept. 11, Osama bin Laden said: "I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad."

Perhaps more chilling are the words expressed by seventh-century Byzantine officials in Egypt of the Arab invaders: "We have seen a people who love death more than life, and to whom this world holds not the slightest attraction" (quoted by Karsh, p. 23).This description was penned by people who represented the superpower of their day—the Eastern Roman Empire. The same words could be written of today's suicide bombers.

A biblical prophecy about the Arabs, the descendants of Abraham's other son Ishmael, says something very similar: "He shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren" (Genesis 16:12).

"The great Muslim historian and sociologist Abdel Rahman Ibn Khaldun (died 1406) expressed the same idea in a somewhat more elaborate form: 'When people possess the right insight into their affairs, nothing can withstand them, because their outlook is one and they share a unity of purpose for which they are willing to die" (Karsh).

Clash of civilizations through history

It should be noted that four of the six quotes cannot be blamed on U.S. foreign policy since the United States did not exist as a nation. Islamic imperial expansion in the seventh century had nothing to do with any of the Western powers since the West was in disarray at that time following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West two centuries earlier.

It wasn't until 732, exactly 100 years after the death of Muhammad, that advancing Muslim forces were halted at the gates of Paris by Charles Martel. He was the grandfather of Charlemagne, who was crowned by the pope in A.D. 800 in an attempt to revive a united Western empire.

Three centuries later, it was another pope, Urban II, who called on Europeans to launch a crusade against encroaching Islamic forces. Four crusades followed lasting over 200 years.

In the 16th and 17th centuries there were more clashes between Islam and Catholicism, as Europeans at the heart of Catholic Europe tried to halt Islamic expansion under the Ottoman Turks. It wasn't until after World War I that the Ottoman Empire was finally driven out of almost all of Europe, leaving a sliver of modern Turkey on European soil, enough to give the Turks grounds to apply for European Union membership.

Clearly, there has been a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West throughout the centuries. This explains the current state of international relations better than simply blaming everything on U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, the Bible suggests that a time is coming when there will be another clash between these two civilizations, Islam and Europe, led by the kings of the North and South, the modern successors of the Roman Empire and ancient Egypt. You can read about this in Daniel 11 beginning in verse 40.

"At the time of the end the king of the South shall attack him; and the king of the North shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, horsemen and with many ships." An understanding of the United States' identification in prophecy (see our free booklet The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy) makes it clear that the United States is not mentioned in this passage. So this final clash is not provoked by American foreign policy. There is a seismic fault line between Islam and the West that will still be there even if the United States is taken out of the equation.

The "vast cohort of academics, journalists, writers and retired diplomats" will likely continue to deny the reality of a clash of civilizations, for the simple reason that they themselves do not take religion seriously, so how can they understand those in the Islamic world who do?

It is often said that generals are always fighting the last war. This is even more so with the intellectual elite, which has a collective mind-set frozen in Cold War time. WNP