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Shi Huangdi
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Pittsburgh, PA
Apr 1999
time: 00:19
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Wouldn't I be going to hell then, so why would they want to help out a damned soul like mine, ain't I be the other side at that point?"
You can't be damned while you are on Earth, while on Earth you always have time to repent.
But you know, EvC, I am offended, not that you aren't Christian but that you act in a deliberatly insulting way to your friends. I was a friend of yours earlier. When people here mocked you for fun, I didn't go along and would occasionaly try to defend you. I spent a whole lot of time talking to you on ICQ and AIM, listening to you and trying to help you through your problems. And yet you know I post here and that I am a Catholic, and you post this stuff that doesn't have any argumentative value and is deliberatly insulting. 
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Ancyrean
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Back to Ankara, Turkey
Feb 2003
time: 12:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Heresson
Also, stop demonising crusades. They were in general a defensive movement.
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Just some thoughts on this remark  :
You can argue that crusades were defensive only for those after the first one, namely, to support the newly occupied stretch of Holy Land. But the first Crusade which created the need for all the rest was a blatantly agressive enterprise, sanctified by the established Church.
The reasoning that "Christians had Jerusalem before the Muslims, so European Christians had a right to claim it back" is not a very plausible one, because once you start picking a timeline favourable to provide justification for certain events (eg: Byzantines were there before the Arabs), there's no way you can stop historical selectiveness: For example, before Byzantines and Romans, Persians controlled the Holy Land, so they are more entitled to have it than Byzantines,, before them Egyptians, before them Jews, Kanaanites, Babylonians, Hittites (?) etc etc.
Secondly, defensive or not, Crusades sowed the seeds of centuries of conflict with much loss to Christianity itself in the process. Actually, by the time of the Crusades, Islam had ran out of steam in its expansion and Islamic societies more or less settled in a status quo with Christianity. They had no pressingly negative view of Christianity for Christians local or abroad.
However, after the Crusaders arrived through what was nothing less than a violent and hostile act, committing atrocities and expressing undiluted hatred and despise towards Muslims and Islam all the while being clad in big Crosses all over themselves, Islamic zealotry grew dramatically in angry reaction to Christian zealotry.
The mentality of Jihad was thus irreversibly rekindled. In the following 3 centuries during which the Crusader principalities were gradualy reduced and eventually destroyed, the need to fight Christianity established itself strongly in the Muslim world perspective. Christianity thereafter was seen as a threat to be overcome, with no room for compromise (mirroring the Christian regard of Islam).
Byzantium, the ancient and foremost defender of Christianity in the East, was in fact the most dramatic victim of the Crusades, first being weakened by the Crusades, and then by being the target of all the renewed expansionist energy of the Turks, the new Muslim masters of the region.
Furthermore, during/after the Crusades, local Christians, who got along pretty well up to then in the Middle East, started to be viewed with suspicion, and their lives got much more uncomfortable as a result, to say the least.
Through Crusades, Christianity forever etched its image in Muslim societies as a hostile and despiseful force, one out of which nothing good can come. Almost simultaneously, a mirror image about Islam in the Christian world established itself.
When the time of industrialisation arrived, concepts and technological developments which were results of mostly a secular process in the West were still viewed with genuine suspicion in the East as products of Christianity. The process of colonisation only confirmed these general perceptions.
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Thorn
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Asheville, NC
May 1999
time: 00:19
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quote:
But you know, EvC, I am offended, not that you aren't Christian but that you act in a deliberatly insulting way to your friends. I was a friend of yours earlier. When people here mocked you for fun, I didn't go along and would occasionaly try to defend you. I spent a whole lot of time talking to you on ICQ and AIM, listening to you and trying to help you through your problems. And yet you know I post here and that I am a Catholic, and you post this stuff that doesn't have any argumentative value and is deliberatly insulting. |
I never insulted you, you are the one who decided to bring up old wounds to attack me with. As Ming would say discuss the arguement not the posters. I ask simple questions cause I don't understand and would like a logical explanation so that perhaps I would understand even if I didn't agree.
As a matter of fact my Brother, his wife and daughter, are Catholic, so I don't appreciate you assuming that I'm here to attack Catholics. I said esp, catholics, in the title cause I don't understand some of your customs.
There are plenty of other customs in different so called Christian sects that I don't understand, like with Mormonism, the remarrying of all dead people (non mormon) to mormon people, the fact that men get to have their own planet when they die...etc....
Or snake handling... in the Pentecostal Church that kind of stuff......
I just don't understand Catholic Communion why you would eat your own god (and drink its blood) while he was still alive* (* thanks for correcting me, but it seems even more eire now). I'm actually trying to figure this stuff out, and all you can do is insult me. I don't appreciate it, if you were my friend you would try to help me understand it, instead of insulting me.
And I think it is morbid to show a crucified god with thorns bleeding his head. Same as I find whatever that old Pagan ritual of bleeding cow blood unto yourself to celbrate the bull god, whatever it was called I forget......
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Heresson
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of frogs
Jun 2000
time: 06:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Ancyrean
You can argue that crusades were defensive only for those after the first one, namely, to support the newly occupied stretch of Holy Land. But the first Crusade which created the need for all the rest was a blatantly agressive enterprise, sanctified by the established Church.
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It depends; the 1st crusade was a reply to pleas of Micheal Dukas (Parakopines) and Alexios Komnenos for help. Eventually, their goal changed, true, but even then, as I've mentioned, Christians held it before Muslims did (and we're returning to the earlier point here).
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The reasoning that "Christians had Jerusalem before the Muslims, so European Christians had a right to claim it back" is not a very plausible one, because once you start picking a timeline favourable to provide justification for certain events (eg: Byzantines were there before the Arabs), there's no way you can stop historical selectiveness: For example, before Byzantines and Romans, Persians controlled the Holy Land, so they are more entitled to have it than Byzantines,, before them Egyptians, before them Jews, Kanaanites, Babylonians, Hittites (?) etc etc.
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Oh, I know. The difference is that Persians never inhabited the lands, and the others inhabited the land no more, and except for Jews, it was not their holy land. Christians still lived in the land at that time,
and it was holy land for them. If it was up to me, I wouldn't give it to crusaders nor to Fatimids or Seldjuks,
but to local population. But it was not possible at that time 
Why would Christians let their holy land be held by infidels who were attacking them anyway? From a rational point of view, the route of Ist crusade was nonsence. If they wanted to fight Muslims, they should've done it in Spain or inner Anatolia. But it was not about fighting infidel Muslims. First it was about helping Byzantium, and later about "liberating" Holy Land. If in the meantime the pagan Chineese took it, they'd be fighting them as well.
Not that it was something really good, but it was still better (except for the massacres) than Muslims taking it in the first time.
Oh and yes, with time, crusades became a general fight against non-Christians or even any action supported by the church (which was the folk interpretion of it from the start, vide massacres of German Jews on the way). Not that Muslims didn't have it before Christianity.
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Secondly, defensive or not, Crusades sowed the seeds of centuries of conflict with much loss to Christianity itself in the process. Actually, by the time of the Crusades, Islam had ran out of steam in its expansion and Islamic societies more or less settled in a status quo with Christianity. They had no pressingly negative view of Christianity for Christians local or abroad.
However, after the Crusaders arrived through what was nothing less than a violent and hostile act, committing atrocities and expressing undiluted hatred and despise towards Muslims and Islam all the while being clad in big Crosses all over themselves, Islamic zealotry grew dramatically in angry reaction to Christian zealotry.
The mentality of Jihad was thus irreversibly rekindled. In the following 3 centuries during which the Crusader principalities were gradualy reduced and eventually destroyed, the need to fight Christianity established itself strongly in the Muslim world perspective. Christianity thereafter was seen as a threat to be overcome, with no room for compromise (mirroring the Christian regard of Islam).
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I disagree. The conflict was around, and while Muslims were losing ground in Iberian Penisula and in Sicily at the time, they recaptured Armenia, part of Georgia and nearly entire Anatolia at this time.
Also, it should be emphasised that while the first crusade was undoubtly the bloodiest and most agressive one (but fourth), it had little impact on perceivement of Christians but Muslims. I recall one complaint of a Muslim at that time about the crusades, but the author sees in it nothing else than what was happening in Sicily or Spain. Up till the Mamluk times, there were always Muslim rulers willing to ally with Christians, and crusaders willing to ally with Muslims.
Muslim zealotry came into existance somewhat earlier, and reborned later on, it was hardly a simple reaction to crusades. Even late Ayyubids, descendants of Salah ad-Din, found themselves allied with crusader states when one of them grew in power too much,
and in the times of Salah ad-Din it was on the Christian side that a project of interreligious dinasty marriage and of common rule over Palestine borned (which is balanced on the other side by earlier excesses of Renaud de Chatillon).
It was only emergance of neophite soldiers whose rule in Egypt and Great Syria owned to victories over Christians and pagans that Muslims found a sudden need to get rid of Outremer. And even these Muslims were allied with Aragon and Byzantium.
At this time, Outremer was practically defenceless. And even earlier, when Mongols lead by Christian Kitboga under rule of leaning towards Christianity Hulagu, Antioch-Tripoly and Armenia stood on their side, but Acco offered Mamluks an alliance against them.
The last decades of Outremer, a real outlet of Muslim fury with massacres in comparison to which excesses of first crusaders pale, was hardly balanced by anything on Christian side at this time (perhaps it was because Mamluks were Turkish   ).
Anyway, what do You expect? It's not like Muslim behaviour mirrored Christian one. Rather the other way round. Christians haven't captured Mecca or threatened Baghdad several times (well, once Byzantium did).
But again, it's not like it was a simple reply to Muslim agression as well.
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Byzantium, the ancient and foremost defender of Christianity in the East, was in fact the most dramatic victim of the Crusades, first being weakened by the Crusades, and then by being the target of all the renewed expansionist energy of the Turks, the new Muslim masters of the region.
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True, but hadn't the Turks invaded Anatolia, the crusades wouldn't have started at all.
Also, IVth crusade was in fact a result of good relations between Venice and sultan of Egypt...
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Furthermore, during/after the Crusades, local Christians, who got along pretty well up to then in the Middle East, started to be viewed with suspicion, and their lives got much more uncomfortable as a result, to say the least.
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I don't think it's so simple. Christians were treaten with suspicion even earlier - then, Muslims were fighting against Christians as well, just Byzantines, not Latins.
Also, as or more suspicion could cause Christian cooperation with Mongols.
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Through Crusades, Christianity forever etched its image in Muslim societies as a hostile and despiseful force, one out of which nothing good can come. Almost simultaneously, a mirror image about Islam in the Christian world established itself.
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I'm afraid such image existed before, and crusades themselves haven't changed much.
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When the time of industrialisation arrived, concepts and technological developments which were results of mostly a secular process in the West were still viewed with genuine suspicion in the East as products of Christianity. The process of colonisation only confirmed these general perceptions. |
Are You sure it was because they came out of of Christian world, or just that they came out of non-Muslim world in general?
And if a society lives with a grief over temporary invasion from several hungred years ago, it's more a fault of this society than of the events themselves, especially if this society was not better
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Same as I find whatever that old Pagan ritual of bleeding cow blood unto yourself to celbrate the bull god, whatever it was called I forget......
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taurobolium I think. And I think it was not a cow, but bull.
And it is somewhat different. Strange that You do not see it.
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alva
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Republic of Flanders
Sep 2001
time: 06:19
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quote:
Such a weird belief. Lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he's gonna want to see a ****ing cross, man?
"Oaww" May be why he hasn't shown up yet. "Man, they're still wearing crosses. **** it, I'm not goin, dad. No, they totally missed the point.
When they start wearing fishes I might show up again, but... Let me bury fossil heads with you Dad, **** em - Let's **** with them! They're ****in with me now, lets get em. Give me that brontosaurus head, Dad."
You know, kinda like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on, you know.
"Thinkin' of John, Jackie. We love him. Just tryin to keep that memory alive, baby." [mimes sniper, mimes being shot in the head] Back and to the left, back and to the left, back and to the left, back and to the left.
B.H. |
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Ancyrean
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Back to Ankara, Turkey
Feb 2003
time: 12:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Heresson
It depends; the 1st crusade was a reply to pleas of Micheal Dukas (Parakopines) and Alexios Komnenos for help. Eventually, their goal changed, true, but even then, as I've mentioned, Christians held it before Muslims did (and we're returning to the earlier point here). |
AFAIK, the explicit purpose of the 1st crusade was to capture Jerusalem from the infidels and did not stem from any genuine concern for the well being of the Byzantine Empire. True, the Byzantine Emporors had been appealing for help for some time but Vatican at the time had no grand strategical thinking to realise the importance of Byzantium against the infidels. Their despise of Orthodoxy, their annoyance of the Byzantine Grandeur and the Byzantine habit of making treaties with the infidels all annoyed the Western Church.
What I mean is that the Byzantines would benefit from any enterprise to capture the Holy City was a side-bonus, not the main reason that the Crusade was declared. Their goal was Jerusalem, from the very beginning, it did not become this later on the way to help the distressed Byzantines. Isn't that obvious, or am I misinformed about the origins of the Crusades?
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Oh, I know. The difference is that Persians never inhabited the lands, and the others inhabited the land no more, and except for Jews, it was not their holy land. Christians still lived in the land at that time,
and it was holy land for them. If it was up to me, I wouldn't give it to crusaders nor to Fatimids or Seldjuks,
but to local population. But it was not possible at that time |
There was no concept of nationality at the time, 3000 years ago I mean when the Persians ruled the land (to be able to think of settlement by "your own people to make it yours". It would mean nothing for a Persian satrap if we told him, "your own people, Persians, do not settle this land therefore it's not yours". For a Persian, Palestine was as Persian as it could get.
What I mean is, once you are determined out of your own sympathies for a certain group, say Christians, there's always a way to imagine theirs was the True Way, they had a Truer Reason.
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Why would Christians let their holy land be held by infidels who were attacking them anyway? From a rational point of view, the route of Ist crusade was nonsence. If they wanted to fight Muslims, they should've done it in Spain or inner Anatolia. But it was not about fighting infidel Muslims. First it was about helping Byzantium, and later about "liberating" Holy Land. If in the meantime the pagan Chineese took it, they'd be fighting them as well. |
Once again, the explicit and declared purpose of the Crusade was to capture Jerusalem. Pope issued eddicts of salvation for those who help capture Jerusalem from the very beginning, and nobody took the Cross to "help the Byzantines" instead. People were excited to rescue the Holy Land, and that's why they joined the movement in droves.
Like you say here, since the reason was not to "fight Muslims" per se but to take Jerusalem from them, they did not bother to stop and think their enterprise in strategic terms. That was what I meant above when I said Vatican did not have strategic thinking to genuinely desire real help for Byzantium.
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I disagree. The conflict was around, and while Muslims were losing ground in Iberian Penisula and in Sicily at the time, they recaptured Armenia, part of Georgia and nearly entire Anatolia at this time.
Also, it should be emphasised that while the first crusade was undoubtly the bloodiest and most agressive one (but fourth), it had little impact on perceivement of Christians but Muslims. I recall one complaint of a Muslim at that time about the crusades, but the author sees in it nothing else than what was happening in Sicily or Spain. Up till the Mamluk times, there were always Muslim rulers willing to ally with Christians, and crusaders willing to ally with Muslims.
Muslim zealotry came into existance somewhat earlier, and reborned later on, it was hardly a simple reaction to crusades. Even late Ayyubids, descendants of Salah ad-Din, found themselves allied with crusader states when one of them grew in power too much,
and in the times of Salah ad-Din it was on the Christian side that a project of interreligious dinasty marriage and of common rule over Palestine borned (which is balanced on the other side by earlier excesses of Renaud de Chatillon).
It was only emergance of neophite soldiers whose rule in Egypt and Great Syria owned to victories over Christians and pagans that Muslims found a sudden need to get rid of Outremer. And even these Muslims were allied with Aragon and Byzantium.
At this time, Outremer was practically defenceless. And even earlier, when Mongols lead by Christian Kitboga under rule of leaning towards Christianity Hulagu, Antioch-Tripoly and Armenia stood on their side, but Acco offered Mamluks an alliance against them.
The last decades of Outremer, a real outlet of Muslim fury with massacres in comparison to which excesses of first crusaders pale, was hardly balanced by anything on Christian side at this time (perhaps it was because Mamluks were Turkish ). |
Lots of things to answer here, but let me clarify myself on my point in general instead of answering each example you made above.
I didn't mean there was not a state of conflict between forces of Islam and those of Christianity before the Crusades. There sure was, as you give a few examples here. What I mean is, the conflict was at the fringes of both civilizations before and it did not have the overtly, intensely and forceflly religious overtones it had during and after the crusades (so I'm comparing the after with the before).
With the Crusades, the conflict was carried right in the midst of Islamic lands, and the unprecedentedly explicit religious zeal involved in it created a shock in the Muslim world, it embittered the fight in a way that was not there before.
Furthermore, there is a marked increase in the quantity and tone of anti-Islamic literature over centuries, much bitter and intense than before. There was a certain counterpart in the Muslim world for this, but it was not as intense as it was in the West.
Of course, there were occasional treaties or even limited alliances between the Crusader principalities and Muslim rulers, but these were always seen as a necessary evil, something to be endured until whatever reason that urged the alliance was gone. But the bitterness was there as never before the Crusades all the time.
Do you really think the dynamics of conflict between Islam and Christianity were the same or only marginally different before or after the Crusades? If so, this is simply not true at all.
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Ancyrean
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Back to Ankara, Turkey
Feb 2003
time: 12:19
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quote:
Anyway, what do You expect? It's not like Muslim behaviour mirrored Christian one. Rather the other way round. Christians haven't captured Mecca or threatened Baghdad several times (well, once Byzantium did).
But again, it's not like it was a simple reply to Muslim agression as well. |
When the Crusades began, it was almost 5 centuries since Jerusalem was captured by the Muslims. All that time no major movement took place from the West to reverse the situation. For the Muslims in 1099, Palestine was as Muslim as it could ever be, and references about the claims of another religion (Christianity) and the memories of its ownership meant nothing.
I'm trying to describe why it was perceived as blatant and violent agression by the Muslims at the time and ever since. You can still go on and say well it sucks to be them at the time, it was a Christian land before (400-500 years ago) and it was their Holy Land. But then you also have to accept that your point of view is Christian, and that's the only prism you are using to look at the Crusades.
That's why there's such a grand gap of communication between Christianity and Islam. I mean, a general unwilingness to consider events/concepts from the position of the other...Muslims do this too oftentimes... But saying that the Crusades were a "defensive act" is clearly subjective even selective.
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True, but hadn't the Turks invaded Anatolia, the crusades wouldn't have started at all.
Also, IVth crusade was in fact a result of good relations between Venice and sultan of Egypt... |
Once again, the real concern of the Crusades was Jerusalem, and that from the very beginning. That's why they never cared to destroy the Turkish powerbase in Anatolia on the way.
On the IVth Crusade, your reference to Egypt is only partially true. The Crusade was called out yet again to save Jerusalem, but later decided to be diverted to Egypt on the ground that it was the weaker and richer spot of the Muslims. The participating barons were not happy with the diversion, and Venice fostered the discontent (it had extensive trade deals with Egypt).
In the mean time, the Crusaders discovered that they did not have the money they promised to Venice to transport them to the East, so muc so that even the sack of Zara on the Adriatic did not suffice to close the debt. At that juncture, the Western Emperor, who had under his protection a contender to the throne of Byzantium, accepted to pay for the expedition if the Crusaders instead headed for Constantinople and placed his protege on the throne. That's why it headed for the City. Ah, the politics of Holy Wars
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I don't think it's so simple. Christians were treaten with suspicion even earlier - then, Muslims were fighting against Christians as well, just Byzantines, not Latins.
Also, as or more suspicion could cause Christian cooperation with Mongols. |
Once again, I'm making a comparison between the before and the after. Comparatively, the suspicion of local Christians were much stronger with the advent of the Crusades.
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I'm afraid such image existed before, and crusades themselves haven't changed much. |
It is true that a certain degree of apprehension existed before, a certain dislike of each other. But saying that crusades themselves haven't changed much is blatantly false. The Crusades brought about an intensity and bitterness on both sides that was in no way in place before.
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Are You sure it was because they came out of of Christian world, or just that they came out of non-Muslim world in general?
And if a society lives with a grief over temporary invasion from several hungred years ago, it's more a fault of this society than of the events themselves, especially if this society was not better. |
What I mean is that Crusades are directly related to the general perception of the Muslims about the West. I'm not saying that the Crusades are responsible for the backwardness of the Middle East, or for lack of material progress in the Muslim world, but rather that they helped solidify an image of enmity and hostility which were later reinforced by other proceses like colonisation.
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BlackCat
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quote:
Originally posted by Whaleboy
It was either the Angles or the Saxons that occupied southern Denmark and parts of Northern Germany, the other were entirely within modern day Germany. Big parts of Denmark... indeed that is true, but he is talking about history affecting the validity of people's claims to land today in which case it would be Germany. |
I agree that this "we were there first" arguing is silly, but since germany as an entity isn't more than a bit over 100 years old, I have some problem to see them have any claims on what happened 800 - 900 years before.
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Heresson
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of frogs
Jun 2000
time: 06:19
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My original answers were lost, because my mum turned off the computer. here goes a new version 
quote:
Originally posted by Ancyrean
When the Crusades began, it was almost 5 centuries since Jerusalem was captured by the Muslims. All that time no major movement took place from the West to reverse the situation.
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The West was far away...
Byzantium wanted to capture Holy Land, and in fact under the reign of John Tzimiskes, Byzantines recaptured northern part of it
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For the Muslims in 1099, Palestine was as Muslim as it could ever be, and references about the claims of another religion (Christianity) and the memories of its ownership meant nothing.
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Did they ment anything when they were just capturing it?
Christians were still a majority there and still had their holy places there, which were taken care of by Christians from the west and the east.
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But then you also have to accept that your point of view is Christian, and that's the only prism you are using to look at the Crusades.
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Oh, surely. But is any Muslim conquest bad from Muslim perspective? Muslim conquests and crusades against pagans over Baltic Sea were directed against grounds without any or any significant fellow presence and (except for Palestine) without any holy places there, and without any earlier political presence.
That's why while You can condemn Levantine crusades, crusades over Baltic and Muslim conquest demand much heavier criticisement.
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Once again, the real concern of the Crusades was Jerusalem, and that from the very beginning. That's why they never cared to destroy the Turkish powerbase in Anatolia on the way.
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They did help to limit it though (even Konya and Kayseri were temporily back under Byzantine rule), and it doesn't change the fact that the crusades originated from byzantine letters.
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Once again, I'm making a comparison between the before and the after. Comparatively, the suspicion of local Christians were much stronger with the advent of the Crusades.
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Had the crusades been successful, there wouldn't be many Christians under Muslim rule to be suspicious of
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It is true that a certain degree of apprehension existed before, a certain dislike of each other. But saying that crusades themselves haven't changed much is blatantly false. The Crusades brought about an intensity and bitterness on both sides that was in no way in place before.
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I disagree. Relations between crusader states and local Muslim amirates were often cordial. Edessa duchy hadn't fallen if it haven't attempted to help its Muslim ally and left its capital defenceless for example (and that dumb II crusade instead of liberatiung it attacked its damascenian ally, it's another case)...
I don't say crusades haven't changed anything. But they were just a part of a long Muslim - Christian conflict.
Hadn't the Muslims invaded Roman Empire, Visigoths and Franks several hungred years earliers, hadn't the Turks conquer other Muslim grounds, hadn't the Golden Horde terrorised Eastern Europe, I'm sure the relations would have been much better
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What I mean is that Crusades are directly related to the general perception of the Muslims about the West. I'm not saying that the Crusades are responsible for the backwardness of the Middle East, or for lack of material progress in the Muslim world, but rather that they helped solidify an image of enmity and hostility which were later reinforced by other proceses like colonisation. |
Muslim world held a great deal of hostility towards Christian world without crusades and still does. Not without reasons, but Muslims are generally oversensitive. And crusades are just an excuse for this hostility. What long-lasting harm did the crusades cause to Muslims?
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AFAIK, the explicit purpose of the 1st crusade was to capture Jerusalem from the infidels
Isn't that obvious, or am I misinformed about the origins of the Crusades?
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You forget about that after all, the letters from Cople caused the all mess. That's what I'm referring to.
Also, the religious link between Rome and Constantinople was not completely broken, and papacy wanted union with it - on its conditions, of course. And military assistance could be one of the means of achieving it.
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There was no concept of nationality at the time, 3000 years ago I mean when the Persians ruled the land (to be able to think of settlement by "your own people to make it yours". It would mean nothing for a Persian satrap if we told him, "your own people, Persians, do not settle this land therefore it's not yours". For a Persian, Palestine was as Persian as it could get.
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Nationality did not exist in modern-day sense, but it doesn't mean people did not distinguish between races and languages.
Of course, Even in IV century AD, Persian considered everything that once belonged to Persia as rightfully theirs. But it's we who're judging them, and that's why we're using modern concepts anyway. We're not discussing if crusades felt that what they're doing is right, but if it was acceptable according to us, taken into account the realities of the time.
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What I mean is, once you are determined out of your own sympathies for a certain group, say Christians, there's always a way to imagine theirs was the True Way, they had a Truer Reason.
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If Christian commenced a Holy War in order to capture and destroy Mecca, my sympathy would not necessarily be with them.
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What I mean is, the conflict was at the fringes of both civilizations before and it did not have the overtly, intensely and forceflly religious overtones it had during and after the crusades (so I'm comparing the after with the before).
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The crusades weren't completely religious, and the further, the less religious they got. Nor was the Muslim reaction to them completely based on religion. And caliphate's conquests were religiously inspired as well.
Syria, Egypt, Africa, Palestine, Anatolia, Constantinople, Italy were hardly fringes of Christian civilisation.
Where was in your opinion the center of Christianity?
Practically every Christian country was attacked by Muslims in VII century, from Aethiopia to Franks.
I remind You that Saxons, Slavs and Scandinavians were not Christian yet.
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With the Crusades, the conflict was carried right in the midst of Islamic lands
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During their fights against Muslims, Byzantines attacked ports of Egypt, operated in Syria (captured Damascus, the ex-capital of caliphate), Palestine, Mesopotamia (prepared for an attack on Baghdad even)...
Crusaders moved further into Egypt, Palestine, Renaud de Chatillon was making raids on Red Sea, but it's about that.
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there is a marked increase in the quantity and tone of anti-Islamic literature over centuries, much bitter and intense than before. There was a certain counterpart in the Muslim world for this, but it was not as intense as it was in the West.
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What do You expect? First translations of Al-Qur'an are about that time, I think. Western Christianity was just getting to know Islam, while Islam knew Christianity from the very beginning.
Also, I don't think Muslim scholars even knew what Europeans were writing about Islam at this time.
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but these were always seen as a necessary evil, something to be endured until whatever reason that urged the alliance was gone. But the bitterness was there as never before the Crusades all the time.
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Alliances were temporary also thanks to Muslim law which prohibited treaties with infidels longer than 10 years (10 months, 10 days...) - and they were allowed for such a long time only when Muslim were the weaker side.
quote:
Do you really think the dynamics of conflict between Islam and Christianity were the same or only marginally different before or after the Crusades? If so, this is simply not true at all.
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Do You think your fellows wouldn't be attempting to finish the conquest of Anadolu and move further if not the crusades?
If there's a Muslim bitterness over the crusades, it's a bitterness of a class bully when his victim punched him 
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24-03-2005 10:27
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