Failing By Their Own Central Standard

“The difficulty for fundamentalist Muslims is that the need for warlike violence toward Christians and Jews is grounded in their sacred text, w hile at the same time success on the battlefield has eluded them for centuries. In the early centuries, they were on a roll and their theology matched what was actually happening. But since the siege of Malta, the battle of Lepanto, the siege of Vienna, and down into our century, they have had a theology of violence that has been consistently bested at violence . . . The outbreak of nonconventional violence in modern politics (terrorism) has to be seen as a sign not of militant strength but of a deep and profound frustration” (Five Cities, pp. 27-28).