Today, June 15, 1389, a pivotal military encounter between Islam and the West took place: the battle of Kosovo.  In its wake, Islam became a dominant force in Eastern Europe, subjugating much of the Balkans 'til the early twentieth century.  The story of that battle — and why Eastern Europe's modern-day descendants remain wary of the religion of Muhammad — follows: As he lay dying in 1323, the Turkic founder of the Ottoman empire, Osman Bey — whose then small emirate was centered in westernmost Anatolia (or Asia Minor) — told his son and successor, Orhan, "to propagate Islam by yours arms" into Eastern Europe. This his son zealously did; the traveler Ibn Batutua, who once met Orhan in Bursa, observed that, although the jihadi had captured some one hundred Byzantine fortresses, "he had never stayed for a whole month in any one town," because he "fights with the infidels continually and keeps them under...(Read Full Article)