Preaching the Gospel
With Steel
You lost me there. I'm glad that was at the beginning before I read all that tripe.
Crusade - Jihad. Jihad - Crusade. What came first Jihad or Crusade? I guess when you attack people they will usually attack you back.
Alas, the crusaders had the will, but we have the way.
You lost me right there, pilgrim.
Not in the eyes of any people, generally educated, that I have ever met in my life, 90% of whom were Christians.
I had to stop reading right there.
Contrary to the rantings of leftists, it is primarily the Crusades, and not modern capitalism and media portrayals of barely clothed women, that is responsible for the entrenched view across Arab/Islamic lands, that the Christian/Western world is the enemy.
Good post!
Background information:
The Battle of Tours, 732 AD.
"Although it took another two generations for the Franks to drive all the Arab garrisons out of what is now France and across the Pyrenees, Charles Martel's halt of the invasion of French soil turned the tide of Islamic advance, and the unification of the Frankish kingdom under Charles Martel, his son Pepin the Short, and his grandson Charlemagne prevented the Umayyad kingdom from expanding over the Pyrenees."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Martel
Where's the history of the brutal acts of the Muslims that helped bring on the crusades. They were evil and cruel, 'convert or die'. Not much different than today.
Matthew.
"Forever" is a long time. Like the soothsayer who warned Julius Caesar that "although the Ides of March have come, they have not yet passed" I should point out that we have not reached the end of forever yet.
Excellent piece.
Jews were also exterminated during the Crusades. There was another crusade before and during WWII, and too many people are ready for yet another one.
Bump for later reading.
Pure trash.
To put the origin of the cruscades in historical perspective they are what would be termed today a "war of religious liberation". The fanatical Muslims spread rapidy
from Arabia, across northern Africa (which in the 7th century was largely Christian), into Spain and even into France. Christians saw themselves threatened by forced conversion, extinction, or the status of tributory serfs. It was in 732 that Charles Martel defeated their advance at Tours. It was later that a French pope (Urban II) proclaimed the First Cruscade in France in 1095. It was only after Spain was united under Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille that the "reconquista" began in 1492 which finally eventuated in the liberation of the Spanish Christians from Muslim domination. Yes, as in any great historical movements there various other motives - commercial, political, etc. But it cannot be gainsaid that
without the crusades we possibly would be speaking Arabic today. It's an oversimplification but I'd say this is more bashing of Western civilization by not remembering the very real threat that existed --- and guess what? IT'S BACK!!
BFL
bttt
Crusades: Stopping the Xenomorph invaders at the gates of Venice many hundreds of years ago.