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brutality and savagery of modern times. These worshippers of the Most Merciful Allah
proved to be the most merciless killers, whose atrocities surpassed the scenes of torture
described in the books of the Old Testament. The romances of chivalry have, however,
been created from these tales of abomination, which please and tease readers according to
their aesthetic taste and psychological leanings.
Abdur Rahman came face to face with Charles Martel at the junction of the Clain
and the Vienne between Tours and Poitiers. Charles, the illegitimate son of the elder
Pepin seems to be one general, who had studied not only the military tactics of the Arabs
but was also aware of their psychology, and the factors that motivated it. He knew that
the Muslim zealots fought for booty; they called it Jehad, the most sacred fighting,
because all their moral outrages were reckoned as acts of piety by Allah, who, instead of
punishing them with hell-fire rewards them with the luxuries of paradise. Considering the
unusual nature of the Islamic ethics, which treats vice as virtue in the guise of Jehad -- a
process fully committed to robbing and murdering non--Muslims, Charles adopted a very
shrewd policy to beat the Muslims with their own stick.
Though half of his country had begun to suffer from domination of the Saracens,
he betrayed no symptoms of panic associated with haste and fear. Historians have not
paid proper respect to Charles's tactful delayed preparations for the Battle. Judging by his
military genius, it is not difficult to conclude that it was all intentional on his part: he
wanted the Saracens to plunder as much as they could. This pillage had the in-built cover
of protection for two reasons: firstly, he wanted their greed for booty to reach the point of
saturation so that they had no further desire of looting and secondly, he planned to make
them immobile under the burden of their plunder.
Added to the military genius of Charles was his personal courage and zeal of
patriotism. The series of engagements called the Battle of Tours, lasted for seven days.
During the first six days, the Saracens held the upper hand but, on the last day, the
fortunes of the combatants were reversed. There was Edes along with his men to avenge
his honor; voluntary German allies of Charles displayed their proverbial fighting skills
and the chivalrous thrust of Charles and his Frenchmen, whose country's destruction had
made them wild, became oblivious of the word: retreat. The Saracens started losing
ground, yet their retaliatory pugnacity showed no abatement; their cries of 'Allah-O-
Akbar' (God is Great), which still radiated their usual terror and tenacity, could have
routed the European forces, but the Lord Jehova seemed to have come to the aid of his
Christian worshippers. As evening was about to spread its murky net, Abdur Rahman
received a fatal blow and the Saracens became leaderless. There appeared a disorder in
their rank, but they did not take to a cowardly flight. The black curtain of night acted as a
barrier between the deadly foes.
Strange as it may seem, now the same spirit of Jehad rose to shatter solidarity of
the Muslim combatants, which had acted as their uniting force. In fact, the wisdom of
Charles that he had displayed with regard to satiating the plundering greed of Allah's
soldiers, asserted itself in the form of Christian victory that was to seal the Arab fate in
Europe and save civilization from infinite regression.