For decades, politicians have debated and posed solutions for the troubled region we know as the “Middle East” to no avail. Professor Saleem Abdulrauf, a world-renowned American neurosurgeon with ancestral roots in the Arabian Peninsula has developed innovative solutions in his field, and in this book, he applies his expertise to solve the mystery that is the “Middle East.” Professor Abdulrauf has operated on hundreds of patients with complex brain tumors and aneurysms; the process of treating such life-threatening conditions involve a review of published data and critical analysis of available treatment options. In some cases, Professor Abdulrauf has had to think outside the box to develop new surgical techniques and instruments to cure his patients. He has learned to systematically and scientifically break down a problem to come up with effective solutions. In Three Invaders, Professor Abdulrauf employs this strategy to evaluate the situation in the “Middle East” and present novel solutions. He shares with the reader omitted historical facts and provides insights into previously undisclosed geopolitics of popular culture—in particular, the 2,000-year cultural, military, and political history of the interaction among the peoples of the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), with a special focus on the past 100 years.
In Three Invaders, Dr. Abdulrauf provides the answers to the following questions and many others:
· How did a people with a glorious civilization (the Islamic civilization), the people who built the first-ever university for higher education in the history of the world (University of Al-Karaouine) in the city of Fez, Morocco, in AD 859, under the direction of a woman no less (Fatima al-Fihri), end up in their current unenviable position?
· Back to the Future, about time travel set in America’s 1950s, is one of the most iconic movies of a generation. Why did Steven Spielberg, in this science fiction movie, choose to make the bad guy an Arab character? In a recent survey, a Pittsburgh-based research firm posed the question “Should Americans, as part of their school curriculum, learn Arabic Numerals?”; 56% of the 3,200 respondents said no, and 15% had no opinion. Perhaps many among the respondents did not know that Arabic numerals are the numbers 0 to 9 which we use every day, reflecting a deep bias. How is this bias connected to the movie Back to the Future?
· In the fifteenth century, the German-born Chief Rabbi of Edirne, in an effort to convince Jews to move to the Ottoman Empire in order to escape persecution in Christian Europe, wrote a message circulated to European Jewish communities: “Is it not better for you to live under Muslims than under Christians?” Thousands of Jews were welcomed into the Muslim Ottoman Empire once they were expelled from Spain in 1492. How did we go from the time in which the Muslims were saving Jews from Christian persecution in Europe to the current situation in which the world sees Muslims and Jews as enemies?
· The dominant perception is that Islam is more associated with terrorism than Christianity or Judaism; is that based on facts or is it a created alternative reality, a myth?
· How did the most antagonistic president toward the Islamic faith in US history, Donald Trump, become the closest and most trusted US ally to the leader of Saudi Arabia, the country which claims to be the protectorate of the Islamic faith?
· Spanish Christians call God Dios, French Christians call God Dieu, Arab Christians call God Allah, and Muslims call God Allah or Elah. In the US, while Dios and Dieu would be considered the same as God in English, many in the media and the public consider the term Allah to be a different entity than what they define as God. Why is that? Especially since Jesus, the son of Mary, who spoke Aramaic and not English, used the word Elaha for God, which is akin to the Arabic Allah or Elah. Jesus would not have even recognized the English word God.
· The term Judeo-Christian is commonly used by politicians and the media when addressing issues of values and morals. There are clear biblical connections between Judaism and Christianity. However, the only two religions in the world that believe that Jesus, the son of Mary, was the Messiah are Christianity and Islam, and these are the only two religions which hold the Virgin Mary as their most important female figure. Judaism regards Jesus as a false prophet and Christianity a false religion. Judaism and Islam are the only religions to prohibit the eating of pork. The Qur’an calls Jews and Christians “People of the Book,” and the only two religions that Islam permits Muslims to marry are Jews and Christians. So, why is the term Judeo-Christian used rather than Judeo-Christian-Islamic?
· Have Christians or Muslims killed more Jews?
· Terrorists planted a bomb in the basement of a church, and in the ensuing explosion, four young girls—11-year-old Denise McNair, and three 14-year-olds, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley—were killed. This occurred on September 15, 1963, in the city of Birmingham, Alabama. The four girls who died that day were African American. The terrorists who committed the bombing were White Christian extremists belonging to the KKK, for whom this was the third terrorist bombing in Birmingham in 11 days. Why did the mainstream media never label these men terrorists and the KKK a terrorist organization?
· For over a thousand years, Islam’s holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, were ruled by descendants of the Prophet Muhammed, during which there were no suicide attacks and no terrorism. Winston Churchill, during the British colonization of the “Middle East” in the early 1920s, came across a Bedouin chieftain, Abdulaziz ibn Saud, from the deep deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. Churchill, in a speech to the House of Commons on June 14, 1921, stated that Abdulaziz and his followers “kill all who do not share their opinions” and “make slaves of their wives and children. Women have been put to death in Wahabi villages for simply appearing in the streets. . . . Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and bloodthirsty . . . very dangerous to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and to the whole institution of the pilgrimage.” After that honest account, Churchill financially supported Abdulaziz to topple the rule of the descendants of the Prophet Muhammed. Abdulaziz ibn Saud did so by invading Mecca in 1924 and Medina in 1925. Why would Winston Churchill support this? Why did the takeover of Islam’s holy places by the Al-Saud family push the Islamic world toward a more extremist direction?
· Let me quote a young man who wrote the following on a wall: “Then there came to our places a large army, who killed many men and took me and brought me to the great sea and sold me into the hands of the Christians, who bound me and sent me on board a great ship and we sailed upon the great sea a month and a half . . . I reside in this our country by reason of great necessity. Wicked men took me by violence and sold me to the Christians.” This was written in Arabic on the wall of a jail cell in North Carolina by Omar ibn Said, who had been captured in Western Africa in 1807 and sold as a slave in the United States. Is slavery in the US yet another flashpoint in the interaction between Christianity and Islam? Were there forced conversions to Christianity? Why was the Bible used for proselytizing slaves, known as the Slave Bible, so heavily edited? Are there millions of Christian African Americans in the US today who are descendants of proud Muslim families from Western Africa?
· The concentration camps for Muslims in China, the genocide of Muslims in Burma, the targeting of Muslims by Prime Minister Modi in India, the apartheid system for Muslims in the occupied territories of Israel—none of these would be tolerated singularly, let alone in combination, by world powers if the victims were Christians or Jews. Such a question was asked by Edward Luce of the Financial Times in January of 2020: “Imagine if China had incarcerated upwards of a million Christians. Or India said it would take all refugees except Christian ones. The west would be in a state of frenzy.” So why are these egregious acts tolerated by the world’s civilized societies and governments?
“As a surgeon and scientist, I believe in the principle of controlled experiments,” Dr. Abdulrauf says. “Jerusalem was invaded more than once by each of the three Abrahamic faiths: Jews, Christians, and Muslims. This provides a unique setting for a controlled experiment! How did each of the three treat the local population of Jerusalem? And what can we learn from that. I hope Three Invaders will give readers a deep insight into these important eras of history, and how it affects who we view each culture and religion today.”