Posted on 09/09/2004 1:45:13 AM PDT by NotchJohnson
• Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword.
• With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed's death. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt -- once the most heavily Christian areas in the world -- quickly succumbed.
• By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul.
• The Byzantine Empire was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.
• The end of the medieval Crusades did not bring an end to Muslim jihad -- Islamic states like Mamluk Egypt continued to expand in size and power, and the Ottoman Turks built the largest and most awesome state in Muslim history.
• Under Suleiman the Magnificent the Turks came within a hair's breadth of capturing Vienna, which would have left all of Germany at their mercy. At that point Crusades were no longer waged to rescue Jerusalem, but Europe itself.
• It is often asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne'er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway land. Recent scholarship has demolished that contrivance. The truth is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing.
• The Ottoman Turks conquered not only their fellow Muslims, thus further unifying Islam, but also continued to press westward, capturing Constantinople and plunging deep into Europe itself. By the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim of conquering the entire Christian world.
• In 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Vienna. If not for a run of freak rainstorms that delayed his progress and forced him to leave behind much of his artillery, it is virtually certain that the Turks would have taken the city.
• Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. Without the Crusades, Christianity might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam's rivals, into extinction.
The Real History of the CrusadesMisconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins... [T]he Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.
by Thomas F. Madden
9 May 2002
Thank you for the reminder and the pingarooni
Joking or not....I think you may have something! Crusades!!
Three strangers strike up a conversation in the airport passenger lounge
in Bozeman, Montana, while awaiting their respective flights.
One is an American Indian passing through from Lame Deer.
Another is a Cowboy on his way to Billings for a livestock show
and the third passenger is a fundamentalist Arab student, newly
arrived at Montana State University from the Middle East.
Their discussion drifts to their diverse cultures. Soon, the two
Westerners learn that the Arab is a devout, radical Muslim and the
conversation falls into an uneasy lull.
The cowboy leans back in his chair, crosses his boots on a magazine
table and tips his big sweat-stained hat forward over his face. The wind
outside is blowing tumbleweeds around, and the old windsock is flapping;
but still no plane comes.
Finally, the American Indian clears his throat and softly he speaks, "At
one time here, my people were many, but sadly, now we are few."
The Muslim student raises an eyebrow and leans forward, "Once my people
were few," he sneers, "and now we are many. Why do you suppose that is?"
The cowboy shifts his toothpick to one side of his mouth and
from the darkness beneath his Stetson says in a smooth drawl . .
"That's 'cause we ain't played Cowboys and Muslims yet,
but I do believe it's a-comin'."
Pingarooni... kinda neat soundin'... "Franco-American Pingarooni..."
"The Crusades was just one of those parties that got out of hand."
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
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