The Real History of the Crusades

So islamism has been the scourge of civilization for centuries!

Now we are well into the Final Crusade!

bump

I think many of the Crusaders were heroes.

Same here --- they saved Europe and so saved all of us from having to live like muslims. We wouldn't be here having political debate, there'd be no election coming up, we'd be under strict total control of the mullahs if the Crusaders hadn't have saved civilization.

I agree with you that the Crusades were a response to Islamic imperialism. However, I do not agree that everything that happened during the Crusades was commendable.

The wrong things that happened during the Crusades was done because some of the defenders of civilization and Christianity had been influenced themselves by Islam. They had suffered Islamic domination and learned how to torture, burn, slaughter and they irony is they used what they learned from the Muslims when figthing them.

Wow. It's amazing to me how one-sided some of these statements are. I am fully aware of the atrocities committed by the Muslims, then and now, but it seems like in this discussion, we are unable to examine elements of history without either wholesale discarding or blindly praising them. I know most of the facts that you all are discussing. I am a humanities professor,(at a conservative Christian university), and I am not blinded to the truth about Islam, or Islamic civilization. It is true that Islamic civ transmitted much information from India, and from Greek civilization, but that doesn't in any way negate it's contribution to the West. The fact is that much of this information WAS "forgotten" by the West (or at least most of the West), and Islamic civ was able to transmit it (long before Byzantine civilization had the opportunity). That is not theft, it's a natural part of communication and interaction between civilizations (For example, the Greeks were influenced by the Egyptians via the Minoans. They took what they learned, made it better, and thankfully, we have incredible Greek sculpture as a result). In addition, they were able to expand upon some of the information which they learned from these other civilizations. It is true that Islamic civilization spread violence, and was quite destructive to the cause of Christianity throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. But I don't think that it is wise or prudent to dump the entire civilization into this collective "Muslim scum" pot. This limited thinking is a thinly veiled type of bigotry. Sure, these people are doing absolutely terrible things today, and they did then. But to say (because we dislike them and their deeds)that they have no true culture or heritage of their own, no contribution to world history, is to take an extremely narrow view of reality.
The approach that I've seen here oversimplifies the Crusades beyond all reason. There are many views out there about the Crusades, and there are the historical facts which did occur within a very real context. Someone made a comment earlier that I was viewing the period through my modern lense, and therefore missing the reality of the situation. However, it seems to me that this wholesale hatred of Islam (seemingly based primarily on current events) has caused many here to interpret history through THAT lens, making them unable to see beyond the evil, and recognize anything good connected with this civilization. That is unfortunate. (I know that some will probably say "That's because there IS NOTHING good about it!"), but if this is your response, I don't think that you're allowing yourself to view the situation beyond the lens of your offense.)

Also, I think that this statement:

"The wrong things that happened during the Crusades was done because some of the defenders of civilization and Christianity had been influenced themselves by Islam. They had suffered Islamic domination and learned how to torture, burn, slaughter and they irony is they used what they learned from the Muslims when figthing them."

is an oversimplification of the facts. Western Europeans had experienced and practiced their fair share of violence long before the Muslims came along. This doesn't really seem to be a valid argument. The Islamic forces were violent, to be sure, but come on, so were the Europeans.

On another note, did anyone have any observations regarding my comments about the Crusades and their effect upon Eastern Christians and Jews, or the fact that this was a major focus of the Reconciliation Walk? This was actually a primary focus of my posts (Islamic civ being a peripheral issue), and I'd like to hear responses to the Walk in light of this additional information.

There have been six, so far, AFAIK, this link being the oldest:

The Real History of the Crusades
Crisis Magazine | 4/1/2002 | Thomas Madden
Posted on 04/07/2002 10:35:39 PM EDT by traditionalist
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/661560/posts