Posted on 04/02/2011 1:57:40 PM PDT by NYer
“far from being unprovoked, then, the crusades actually represent the first great western Christian counterattack against Muslim attacks which had taken place continually from the inception of Islam until the eleventh century, and which continued on thereafter, mostly unabated.”
Even my second grader knew that. But then, he had been home schooled, unlike the First Black President, Clinton.
It’s true, the article does not address the atrocities against the Jews during the Crusades. Sadly, the article talks about this but as a different aspect.... Indefensibly, the Jews were “massacred by out-of-control troops. This was apparently an act of indiscipline... To imply—or plainly state—that this was an act desired by the entire crusader force, or that it was integral to crusading, is misleading at best.”
:(
Bump
This is a keeper!
I like good historical dramas but I will not see THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, even on dvd.
I would rather watch Cecil B DeMille’s version.
*** but I didn’t see any mention of the crusaders destroying any Jewish communities they encountered on the way to the Holy Land.***
That is because, in the Holy Land, the first village destroyed was a Paulician village of heretics.
***the Greeks transported them across the Straits where they were slaughtered by the Turks.***
Wasn’t that Peter the Hermit’s group?
“how many times Christian forces have attacked either Mecca or Medina. The answer, of course, is never”
That’s a money shot if i ever read one !
Thank you for this wonderful piece. They’ve been trying to kill us off for 1500 years. It’s even worse to contemplate when we’re financing the attacks.
ping Crusades
I hope some of the people who commented up above take the time to go back and read through the article, as it is clear they have some of the misconceptions that are cleared up in the article.
additional from the FRchives:
Islam: Real History of the Crusades
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/661560/posts
Islam: Real History of the Crusades (2nd thread, msg 24)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/691603/posts?page=24#24
Islam: Politically incorrect facts about The Crusades
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1210827/posts
the crusaders should have used bigger bombs and more of them.....just as we should now be doing in Afghanistan..in fact, in my opinion, we should use a few REAL big ones..it drives me nuts when I read that a tribe comes out of the mountains and slaughters U.S. or U.N. troops and then retreats to hide in their mountains.......Level the mountains and there will be no tribe and no mountains . you would be able to drive in with your Chevy volt (if they had a place to plug it in)!!
Still sounds like a tall tale to me. How could several feet of blood just sit on the top of a hill?
The Jews were the men in the middle. Unfortunate in that their livelihoods depended on the making of money. Shylock being the stereotype. They were bused and abused by both sides in this long war. However, driven from Europe, they gravitated to the Muslim side, where they had a little more security. But the point to remember is that there was a war from the 7th to the 19th Century between Christianity and Islam, of which few Westerners seem aware. Especially do they seem not to know that during much of this time, Christendom was in mortal peril. Ask the average Ivy League graduate what the name Lepanto” signifies, and observe the blank look. This would include Bill Clinton, I guess, and Barack Obama.
You’d accuse a pious Christian of telling whoppers?
Said the chronicler:
“Piles of heads, hands, and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one’s way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are ordinarily chanted. What happened there? If I tell the truth, it will exceed your powers of belief.
“So let it suffice to say this much, at least, that in the Temple and porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins.”
“Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies. The city was filled with corpses and blood.”
The “Temple” and “Porch of Solomon” refer to the Dome of the Rock shrine, a much more limited space with tunnels underneath. The Temple Mount is actually a platform rather than a rocky crag.
Actually, this was the time of separation between the European “Ashkenazi” Jews and the Jews from Muslim lands (Sefaradim). Limited interaction resulted in distinct differences between the two groups.
Lending money, by the way, was many times a precondition for Jews being allowed to live in Christian lands.
“You’d accuse a pious Christian of telling whoppers?”
I didn’t pronounce a judgement, I just said it sounded fishy to me. Could be I misunderstood, or was operating under a bad assumption, or even that the account was embellished by someone else. Besides which, I have no idea if he was a “pious Christian” or not, since I can’t judge his heart, and didn’t even know him.
“The “Temple” and “Porch of Solomon” refer to the Dome of the Rock shrine, a much more limited space with tunnels underneath. The Temple Mount is actually a platform rather than a rocky crag.”
That makes a lot more sense. I was thinking by “Temple of Solomon” he was referring to the summit of the Temple Mount, as I think one poster implied. If the account is referring to an enclosed building, or some limited space on the summit, that sounds a lot more plausible.
Nice post!
I am often surprised that so few Americans know that not ,only were then Turks a European power but that they were by far the greatest Power, that their empire was as large as the old Roman Empire, that even the Barbary Pirates were a very significant military power who more held their own against the Western Powers down to the 19th Century.
Well, then Greeks were no more greedy and grasping than the Venetians, who, were perhaps the prime heavies inn this tragedy. But the pope did not acquit himself well, either. Anyway, why there are more crusader castles in Greece than old pagan ruins. Incidently, I learned on my first trip to Athens that the Parthenon was in good repair until about 1696 when a shell from a naval vessel ignited a store of ammunition in the building. The present ruin is the result of restacking all the pieces they could find afterwards.
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