No Croissant Without Islam

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:02]Noons without Islam. How can this be the case? This will shock many Frenchmen to his core. Well, there's a fascinating chapter in this book which I've been reading from quite a lot. Hidden history, 30 untold stories of Islam in the West by Jean Van Cleveran. Link in the description below. And he has a chapter called Noas without Islam. One of the largest and most famous battles between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe took place in 1683.

[00:00:35]The so-called siege of Vienna. Now this siege by the way has get got a lot of attention from the far right. They see this is somehow a very clear indication of the dividing line between invading Muslims and Christian Europe. And of course the Christians won. So it's such an important battle in 1683.

[00:00:54]But as Joro Clever says, it's a bit more complicated than that. Now, various historians argue that this battle prevented Europe from becoming Islamic at the time. The war, however, was far less black and white than many people assume. The interesting, you know, the devil's in the detail, as they say.

[00:01:15]Muslims fought on the side of the Christians. And guess what? Christians fought on the side of the Muslims. Now, what what's going on here? Well, for example, the Lipkar Tartas from Poland had centuries earlier been granted refuge by the Polish king after facing persecution in their homeland. According to their scholars, the the Ulma, it was their Islamic duty therefore to defend the country Poland, which had become their new home, that had become their own and had never hindered their religious practice. This is standard in the Sharia. They thus became an elite unit within the Polish division of the European army. An extraordinary fact.

[00:02:00]Now, the irony is that many modern supporters of anti-Islam political parties praise someone called Jan Sobies, the Polish commander of the European forces for defeating the Osman Muslims. Yet few know that this victory was achieved with the help of a Muslim division. In fact, Jan Sobies even granted the Lipkart Tatars land and funds to build a mosque which still stands today. Amazingly, is the oldest mosque in Poland as a token of gratitude for their support. Isn't that amazing?

[00:02:46]Real history is not as black and white as later propagandists would have us believe, it seems. What about on the Ottoman side? On the Muslim side. Well, on the Ottoman side, Protestant Christians uh to from Hungary fought alongside the Muslim forces. Now, why why would Protestant Christians for fight alongside with the Muslim forces against the Christians? Can you can you think of a reason why? Well, we got to go back in time. There's a different mindset then because then Protestants were very often motivated by their fear of domination by the Catholic Church by other Christians and drawn by their religious and they were also drawn and attracted to the religious freedom that existed in the Ottoman Empire because the Ottoman Empire was genuinely pluralist. uh they had different sets of Jews could live safely protected by Islamic law, practice their own faith, do their own rituals. Their religion was practiced by law. Christians as well, they could drink wine. Uh they could eat their pork protected again by Islamic law. It was real genuine pluralism, something we don't actually have in Europe. Interesting enough, power, territory, and personal interest often weighed more heavily than the simplistic idea of Christian Europe versus Islamic Ottomans.

[00:04:16]As mentioned earlier, the battle was ultimately won by the European powers.

[00:04:23]After the Ottomans were defeated, bakers, oh, this is going back now to the quason story, which is the headline of the story. So, after the Ottomans were defeated, bakers in Vienna are said to have celebrated by baking cresant shape shaped rolls, a direct reference to the cresant moon symbol on the Ottoman flag itself, which in the popular imagination was associated with Islam.

[00:04:53]tearing into the pastries symbolized the breaking of the Ottoman army and by extension the Islamic threat.

[00:05:03]The pastry eventually made its way to France via Marie Andrelet, famous wife of course of King Louis V 16th and the daughter of Austrian emperor Francis I in France. The curved roll was translated which translates literally as cresant. That's what kaso means cresant.

[00:05:26]And that's how that particular delightful bit of food came into existence. So we have this is the uh the chapter there and there's a picture of a um there'll be no quas without Islam. I think it's time we share this good news uh with our uh our French brothers and sisters. Till next time.