The quatrain XXV has been interpreted as the commencement of jihad:
Le prince Arabe Mars, Sol, Venus, Lyon,
Regne d’Eglife par mer fuccombera;
Devers la Perfe bi en pres d’un million,
Bifance, Egptee, ver. ferp. inuadera

The Arab Price Mars, Sun, Venus, Leo.
The Rule of the Church will succumb by sea:
Towards Persia very nearly a million men,
The true serpent will invade Byzantium and Egypt



The planetary alignment we are told represents August 1998. The language has nothing to do with “jihad” but appears to concern an Arab ruler who fields an army of a million men and attacks Persia or present day Iran. He then apparently attacks Byzantium and Egypt. “Byzantium” does not exist anymore but is Moslem Turkey. If this were jihad there would be no reason to attack Turkey or Egypt, which are already Moslem.

During the Iraqi Iran war in the late 1980’s in which Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the human wave attacks of the Ayatollah’s Iranians there were about a million casualties and a million men were involved in combat on both sides but this has nothing to do with a planetary alignment in 1998 or an invasion of Byzantium and Egypt.

With respect to the Church succumbing by sea, the Church, which is the body of the people of Christ, is no longer a political power to succumb by military action. The Church is severely weakened by moral compromise in these latter days where good is called evil and evil is called good, but there is no apparent danger from the sea. Nostradamus may have been projecting into the far future danger from the Pirates of Tartary which terrorized the Mediterranean during his time.