View source for The religion of blood and war - The Story of the Malakand Field Force by Winston Churchill

{{Book quote
|quote title=The religion of blood and war
|book=The Story of the Malakand Field Force
|author=Winston Churchill
|wmdsays=Winston Churchill wrote of Islam “the religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace. Luckily the religion of peace is usually the better armed."

Unfortunately, in this age of proliferating nuclear weapons, who can say if the religion of peace will remain better armed?
|pages=40
|extract=
It is, thank heaven, difficult if not impossible for the modern European to fully appreciate the force which fanaticism exercises among an ignorant, warlike and Oriental population. Several generations have elapsed since the nations of the West have drawn the sword in religious controversy, and the evil memories of the gloomy past have soon faded in the strong, clear light of Rationalism and human sympathy. Indeed it is evident that Christianity, however  degraded and distorted by cruelty and intolerance, must always exert a modifying influence  on men's passions, and protect them from the more violent forms of fanatical fever, as we are  protected from smallpox by vaccination. But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of  lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since,  its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness.  In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis--as dangerous and as  sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among  the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more  material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder  and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier  spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism.  The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. '''The religion of blood and war''' is face to  face with that of peace. Luckily the religion of peace is usually the better armed.

:Quoted in {{Book link|Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations|Richard Langworth|by}} Editor (vice-chairman and editor of the Churchill Centre) pp. 463-4.

:This book is fully authorized by the Estate of Winston S Churchill with a Foreword by Mary Soames and Introduction by Martin Gilbert. 

}}
<noinclude>[[Category:Book Quotes]][[Category:Churchill on Islam]]</noinclude>