Jihad: Islam's 1,300 Year War On Western Civilisation

ISLAM’S 1,300 YEAR WAR 

ON WESTERN CIVILISATION

Arthur Kemp

Ostara Publications

Jihad: Islam’s 1,300 Year War on Western Civilisation

Ostara Publications

The Skull Tower is a monument to nineteenth century Serbian rebels against the Muslim invaders of that country. On 31 May 1809, on Cegar Hill, a few miles northeast of Niš, Serbian insurrectionists suffered their greatest defeat in the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire (1804–1813). The insurrectionists’ advance towards Niš was stopped here, and when the far stronger Muslim forces attacked. The battle was ended when the Serbian commander, Stevan Sindelic, sacrificially fired at his gunpowder depot in order to avoid surrendering to the Muslims. The resulting explosion caused the death of Sindelic, his men, and hundreds of Muslim soldiers. After the retreat of the Serbian rebel army, the Muslim commander of Niš, Hurshid Pasha, ordered the heads of the killed Serbians to be mounted on a tower to serve as a warning to any other would-be revolutionaries. In all, 952 skulls were included, with the skull of Sindelic placed at the top. The scalps from the skulls were stuffed with cotton and sent to Istanbul as proof for Sultan Mahmud II. The tower stood in the open air until the liberation of Niš in 1878. By that time, much of the tower had deteriorated from weather conditions or from the removal of skulls for burial by relatives of killed rebels. In 1892, the chapel was built to enclose what was left of the tower. Today, only 58 skulls remain, including Sindelic’s.

In 1833, on his way back from Constantinople, French poet Alphonse de Lamartine stopped for a moment in front of Skull Tower. He was shocked at the sight of it and wrote down in his book, later published as his travel accounts Journey to the East, the famous words: 

“My eyes and my heart greeted the remains of those brave men whose cut off heads made the corner stone of the independence of their homeland. May the Serbs keep this monumen