Posted on 05/06/2005 10:24:23 AM PDT by Cool Chick
“Kingdom of Heaven”: Bin Laden’s Slanted Crusade Movie May 5, 2005 By Debbie Schlussel
Mark Twain said, “History tells us that the truth is not hard to kill, but a lie told well is immortal.”
“Kingdom of Heaven,” Ridley Scott’s extremely boring movie version of the Crusades, is Twain’s words in action. Scott is serial killer of truth—giving immortality to 1,000 lies—in this propaganda film.
The wannabe-epic is being panned for its lack of accuracy by a host of Islam experts, like Robert Spencer. Crusades expert Jonathan Riley-Smith says it’s basically “Osama bin Laden’s version of History.”
But the folks at HAMAS-front group CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and ADC (American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee) just love “Kingdom.” That speaks volumes, since both groups never met an Islamic terrorist group they didn’t like.
Perhaps Scott is doing penance for having the chutzpah to make “Black Hawk Down,” about which they still whine incessantly.
But one needn’t be versed in the history of the Crusades to see that this Riefenstahl-esque drama is agenda-laden fiction.
Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:
Christian Crusaders are crass, violent murderers. They lie, sleep around with multiple women, and father multiple illegitimate, abandoned children. They are stupid, foolish, power-hungry, and vengeful. They are boors warring for land, not principles, and kill fellow Christians—even priests—over nothing.
Muslims, especially Saladin, are honorable, devout, decent, peaceful people. They just want to be left alone and only attack when attacked upon. They are wise, honest, kind, generous, and even offer Christians safe passage.
(Excerpt) Read more at debbieschlussel.com ...
Boy doesn't it!? The epics of today really suck. (Troy, Alexander)
Darn. I would have liked to go to see a balanced movie about that era.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Since Gladiator was one of my favorite movies of all time, I really have wanted to see this film. If it is as bad as some say, it will be hard to watch. However, I have sometimes seen movies that had caused a similar uproar which I went on to enjoy. Hopefully this movie will be like that. Or maybe I can go see it as if I was watching pure fiction, like a sci-fi movie..
Here’s a “Kingdom” reality check. The “chivalrous” Saladin was as intolerant and sadistic as they come. His principal secretary and historian, Imad ad-Din (who was gay) describes their view that “while several circles of hell prepared to receive Christians . . . the several ranks of heaven joyously anticipated the Muslim dead.”
Unlike his portrayal in “Kingdom,” Saladin:
Personally beheaded many of the Crusaders living in and around Jerusalem, and watched while his soldiers cut the bodies to pieces to satisfy their lust for revenge;
Sent poisoned wine and flour to a Greek leader to distribute to Crusaders;
Fought violently with rival Shi’ite Muslims, dissecting one of their leaders, and keeping his hands and head as trophies (Saladin, a Kurd, was a Sunni);
Persecuted Jews and Christians, denying them even the basic dignity of riding on horses or mules, requiring they ride in humiliation on donkeys and painful pack saddles. “Kingdom” shows Saladin allowing them to ride on horses. But even his own physician, the scholar Maimonides (a Jew forcibly converted to Islam) was forced to ride a donkey to and from Saladin’s palace. (Saladin stoned and blinded a Jewish doctor for daring to ride a horse, according to “Saladin and the Jews,” by E. Ashtor-Strauss.)
Sowed the seeds for Muslim Crusades, resulting in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews and Christians. That’s the other interesting point “Kingdom” conveniently omits. At the time of Saladin, the 12th Century, there were Muslim Crusades in Spain and North Africa. This century-long massacre of Jews and Christians by the Berber al-Mohad Muslims (or al-Muwahideen), which began in 1113 AD, doesn’t exist in “Kingdom.” Yet it was so bad that “Sephardim” (Oriental Jews, primarily from Arab countries), who were once the majority of the Jews, were almost wiped out and remain a small minority, today. By the end, there were no churches or synagogues (or open Christians or Jews) anywhere in Western Islam.
Where is Ridley Scott’s epic about that?
It was so horrific that Saladin’s physician, Maimonides, wrote, “We were dishonored beyond human endurance. . . . This people, the Arabs . . . never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they. . . . No matter how much we suffer and elect to remain at peace with them, they stir up strife and sedition.”
“Kingdom’s” phony quote about Christian enthusiastically killing infidels? Here’s a real one from Saladin’s time, uttered by a Muslim historian: “It is permitted to kill the unfaithful or reduce them to slavery for opposing themselves to the true faith. . . . There were no Christians to be seen.”
Movies & TV are the propaganda tools targeted at the masses. I know of a church group planning to go to this movie and I'm going to try to stop them from PAYING to be lied to, with this article. Thanks for the post.
Why are you making the generalization? While all muslims weren't peace loving, Salaudin surely was. And he was a great ruler.
And its a historical fact that he allowed the christians safe passage. Was it becuase the city defences forced him to, or his kindness we shall never know. But none the less, he did.
Whatever. Still going to see it. :-)
You're referring to the gay conqueror, Alexander the Fabulous?
This really ticks me off. When Hollywood is so bereft of ideas that it's remaking movies that were dogs decades ago, and there's so much riveting history to choose from, why do they do this? Why do both fact and fiction have to be distorted and butchered with all of this political spin? I guess I'll just stay home and watch Lawrence of Arabia...again.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
did you read the article? you are kidding, I hope. Saladin was ruthless and sadistic.
He didn't the ones that couldn't pay a ransom, where put into slavery.
Of course his decedents are still doing it, can't pay a ransom we will enslaver you.
That's part of the rest of Schlussel's column, but not the whole thing. The reason I haven't posted her whole column is that I've e-mailed and asked her, and she said she wants to drive traffic to her website: debbieschlussel.com. It's not that difficult to go to the link and read the rest. This is a really good column, and one of Schlussel's most important, in my view.
I really enjoy it these days when I'm arguing with the liberals about Christianity, and they bring up the Crusades, expecting me to hang my head and start apologizing, and I look 'em in the eye and say "don't believe everything you read in the revisionist history books."
One of the greatest sins against civilization is the twisting, warping, and revision of history, particularly for some social or political agenda. Accurate history, because of the lessons we can learn from it, is akin to truth in its purest sense. The accuracy of historical events should be protected as nearly sacred. Hollywood, however, either to push an agenda, or to make a buck, constantly perverts history in the movies it produces. Ridley Scott didn't produce a movie here; he apparently produced a lying abomination.
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