The first jihadist assault conquered Spain in the 8th Century AD.

From Spain the Muslims launched a campaign to defeat France, and then the rest of Europe. But French and other allies stopped the Muslim armies at Tours in 732 AD. Without Charles Martel as the defending commander, Europe almost certainly would have been lost.

In 1683 the Muslims again assembled an army big enough to attack all of Western Europe, this time from the East. Vienna would be gateway in. Vienna was besieged, outnumbered, and near defeat and capture.

But another military hero, John III Sobieski, the Polish Christian king, rallied the militaries of several European kingdoms and routed the Muslims, who fled in retreat. Europe was saved again. But was Sobieski honored for this? Almost. A 26-foot high statue commissioned to memorialize the hero, and the need to confront Islam. But for years the statue has been hidden in storage in Poland. Why? Because Viennese politicians fear that honoring a man who prevented the Muslim conquest of their city might come off as “Islamophobic.”

In April 2025, City Councilor for Cultural Affairs Veronica Kaup-Hasler (SPÖ) finally gave the monument a definitive rejection … [saying] that Vienna would “not erect a stage that could be instrumentalized for xenophobic incitement as well as Islamophobic or anti- Turkish sentiments.”

See the book, Sword and Scimitar by Raymond Ibrahim