The Last Jihad (S A Sumer andNE Kautman 3vols [Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak}) one of the oldest works on the Butlenan Jihad, is still one of the best But the authors were far too competent as historians to believe the title anything more than a statement of hope, as their introduction to this monumental study makes clear Sadly, as all now know, their hope was in vain The Fremen Jihad, ten thousand years after the Butlenaa, was every bit its equal in suffering, destruction, and death Through the Journals of Leto II, Paul Muad'Dib's son, we have preserved the reckoning of the father concerning the crusade he led "Statistics at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others I ve wiped out the followers of forty rebgioas "(RafasRef Cat 55-A89) A record to put the Butlenan Jihad to shame in volume, if not degree The grim shade of die Butknan chief priestess Urania aught well remark that her Jihad had not the advantage of so many inhabited planets, of such a number of their fellows Given this handicap in the number of victims available, the leaders of the Bfltknan Jihad could still point with pnde to their accomplishments Yet, it has been argued, neither of the true leaders of the two Jihads were wiling butchen> Jehanne Butler, we are told, argued against the urgmgs of the priestesses of Komos, and Paul Muad'Dib grieved over the slaughter accomplished by his Fremen It seems less difficult to believe in Jehanne as a reluctant leader of such a horde as hers She was but an extraordinary human being, after all, while Paul was a proven Mahdi How is. it possible that such a man as he prescient and puissant, could be persuaded to such a course against his wilP The question had been posed by many since the end of the Fremen Jihad and ever more frequently since the publication of the archives from Rakis The answer has generally consisted in an attack upon the question that is, in a response which holds that such a query shows an ignorance of the limitations within which even such an emperor as a Paul Muad'Dib must operate Several forces combined to force Jihad upon him The most obvious was the revolt of the Landsraad houses prompted by the overthrow of the House Corrino The Impenum had survived for ten millennia as a balance of tensions The struggle between the Imperial House and the voracious Great Houses-the former staving to survive as the supreme power, the varied latter wishing to end that supremacy-was one of the fundamental ten sions of the Imperium When the Great Houses learned that one of them had finally succeeded, it was only to be expected that the more powerful would take the opportunity to de clare their independence from die new Impenum Believing themselves free of the Sardaukar and unaware of the greater men ace of the Fremen, they saw in the events on Airakis the chance