First off, "radical Islam" is a modern term and doesn't have much relevance to describing Islam of the Middle Ages, unless you also view Christianity at the time as "radical" in that it was even willing to be so intimately tied to a conquest. Much about religion, culture, and politics of the Middle Ages seems radical by today's standards.
The Crusades had numerous justifications: the initial justification was Alexios Komnenos' request for aid to his besieged and dwindling Byzantine Empire. The Seljuk Turks were attacking Komnenos' realm and he wished for Western Christians to aid him in fending them off. This justification was bolstered by reports of the Seljuks' attacks on Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land (though news traveled slowly in the Middle Ages and fortunes changed so quickly that by the time the Crusaders arrived in Palestine, the Seljuks were no longer in control of it and the attacks on Pilgrims had largely ceased). Pope Urban II seized on the news of attacks on Pilgrims to turn what was originally primarily a political request for aid into a holy war. At this time the Christian world was fraught with in-fighting: Christians killing Christians. Urban wanted this to end and wanted Christendom to unite and kill infidels (the Muslims). In addition, Urban and other religious leaders promised that sins would be immediately forgiven to any Christian who took up the Crusader cause! Something of course they had no business promising, but this kind of thing was normal in the Middle Ages. And let us not forget the financial motives for the Crusades; immense amounts of riches were brought back from the Holy Land.
So no, to say the Crusades were "saving the world from radical Islam" is projecting a contemporary concern onto a very different historical and geopolitical situation. (What does "the world" even refer to here?) And before anyone praises the Crusaders as freedom fighters, keep in mind they were extremely brutal (the Muslims were too, to be fair; both regularly killed women and children) and extremely anti-Semitic. Jews were slaughtered in Europe and in Palestine during the Crusades.
The Crusades were successful in temporarily taking parts of the Levant for Christendom and preserving the Byzantine Empire for a bit longer (in an extremely weakened state, albeit), but it was all eventually ceded to the Mamluks and the Turks. It could also be argued to have started the fight against Arabs in Spain, but should add that they were the real Muslim threat to Christians and they were largely left alone until the 15th century! If the Crusades were really about stopping Muslim aggression, they would've focused more effort on Spain. Instead they often overplayed their hand and sent foolish attacks into Egypt and other places that were so thoroughly Muslim there was little to no chance of success. The Crusades were more successful for Europe's morale and helping to end the Dark Ages.
@SW-User I'm not blind to recent global facts so you shouldn't be either.
Facts? Facts like Christian purges, hacking off heads, suicide bombings, use of children as human shields, hijacking neighborhoods, mass rapes burning churches, killing their own non violent clerics, rule by religion?
Yeah facts. That's something I should consider except that nobody tells me about it on the criminal news network so I'm too ignorant for that.
@SW-User The Crusades did not "take" a part of the Levant for Christianity. They restored it to its previous owner. Surely you know that?
SW-User
@Abrienda I was just using the language of war. Muslims took it from the Byzantines in the 7th century. Christians took [part of] it back in the 11th century. It was not meant to imply that the land had never previously been in Christian hands. I know that it was.
@Abrienda [quote] Now put back on your burka...your husband has finished sticking his ass up in the air and kissing the floor for the fifth time today and wants to beat you some more, habibti. [/quote]
Please stop proving yourself that you're stupid. I am an ex Christian, not a Muslim. I told here a thousand times my family were forced to be Christians. Your tiny brain must have missed that
@Abrienda [quote] Yes there are many works of propaganda that in the "minds" of people like you pass for history. I have some actual histories I can recommend...do you? [/quote]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_conversion
Yes, please provide the 'actual' evidences that I was wrong.
By taking the fight to them. I have seen some of their castles in Jordan a days drive from where I work in Saudi. It make me sad to see them in ruins...they were magnificent far greater than the Moslem imitations.
Of course the Crusaders were also liberators. All of the Middle East beyond Iraq and Saudi and the entire coast of North Africa had been Christian for nearly 400 years before it was conquered by the Arab Moslems and there were large Christian minorities there who welcomed them ass what they were - liberators from Moslem oppression. This was not an "invasion" but re-conquest and unfortunately it was not permanent.
I look forward to the day when Istanbul regains its former name of Constantinople.
One of the greatest, Kerak castle, which held out for a year against the Moslem hordes and who the ancestors of one of my colleagues helped build when they were Christians.
Muslims provoked the crusades and after the eighth major attack event by them the Papacy put his blessing on what the Christians wanted to do for 460 years.
When they sacked Rome the Christians restrained themselves. 114 years later when they attacked France Christians endured. 17 years later when they conquered Spain we held back. 57 years later when Constantinople was seized by then we resisted our rage. 16 years later when Italy was plundered we begged the holy see to let us raise our swords. Then when Egypt fell ten years later we reminded the Pope. He finally said enough seven years later when Jerusalem was attacked. The Muslims invaded Jerusalem and apparently now someone thinks it's forgotten.
@SteelHands Yes I should have WRITTEN THAT!!!!!!!! It was a REACTION to 400 years of attacks by Islam on the Christian world from the Middle East to Spain.
The Crusades were a counter-attack instigated by Islamic terror visited upon the Christian world.
@SteelHands Indeed. I don't mean to minimize it. I meant from the time the Cult of Mohammed (aka Islam) was vomited out of Arabia until the Crusaders pushed back. Yet Spain was nearly conquered even before they were overwhelmed and as you know it went on until 1700 when finally the Christian (specifically the Catholic and Russian Orthodox) armies began driving these savages back into their caves and freeing the enslaved peoples of Eastern Europe and the Balkans from the Moslem Turkish pederasts.
Odd... from their perspective, Crusaders were Radical Christians.
Organized religions invariably draw power hungry folks who brand themselves as this or that as a tool for power. Myanmar's Buddhists killing people was diametrically opposite of Siddhartha's teachings.
My dear you should read about what Christianity did your ancestors in Africa. There's a fact to support it.---- King Leopold of Belgium sending Christian missionaries to Congo said.---- Your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty, like “Happier are the poor because they will inherit the heaven” and, “It's very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
I encourage you to read the entire letter. Enter the following into Google search.
@Abrienda Christians crusaders got a taste of their own medicine. After the Council of Nicea Christianity expanded expanded by preaching and brute force. If they had to fight the Muslims Invaders centuries later it was just normal. Muslims copied the Christian Conquests playbook. You have no idea why South America and Sub Saharian Africa are underdeveloped? Well the answer is Christianity. Its doctrines of kindness, love and poverty induce severe naivete into the mind of the believer. Leaving him/her vulnerable to extortion. It was the intention. That's why most colonial expeditions had a missionary. Research on the subject and let me know if I'm wrong.
@eMortal You have no idea what you are taking about. None. You are a bigot so there is no use trying to have a rational discussion with you,
Also your arguments are intellectually infantile - literally. It's called a tu quoque argument which as the kind little children or those with the sophistication of children like yourself use. To quote you, Google it.
May I also recommend in your never ending list of authors you never heard of the French writer Camus? He nicely explains why someone else doing something wrong is no moral or intellectual justification for doing the exact same thing.
So...if Africa and South America are underdeveloped because of Christianity, then all Europe and the USA are highly developed because of...Zoroastrianism! I always thought those places I saw I Europe with the beautiful architecture and peaceful interiors were built by CHRISTIANS! Now I see I was wrong ..they were built by Persian FIRE-WORSHIPPERS!
BTW if your latest asinine argument is true, then why are MOSLEM countries in Africa also undeveloped and oppressive beyond belief? Why was China a third world country for all the modern era?? Why is India one of the filthiest places on earth? Of course! CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES!
Look it's now just too easy to make you look ridiculous. I am not sure if it is stupidity or ignorance or simply hated that makes you make such juvenile and a historic arguments However you are living proof of the idea that a little education is a bad thing.
@Abrienda So character assassination intellectualism is your forte? I didn't attack you personally. The point I'm trying to make is, there's a correlation between Intense devotion to a religion and material poverty. All those regions of the world you mentioned have that in common. I don't deny that there are good Christians. What I'm saying is that Christianity has its share in the afflictions the world has suffered. The author of the question shouldn't be painting Christian Crusaders has heroes.
They didn't. The crusades were attacks by barbaric Europeans against what was then an enlightened and civilized Islamic world. The only benefit that came out of the crusades is that they opened up Europe to a lot of the elements that eventually led to the Renaissance.
They didn’t. It was a complete failure with the Middle East in almost entirely Muslim hands until the formation of Israel in the 20th century. If anything the Crusades united the Muslim world against the West for the first time.
Of course I understand that not every single Muslim united against the Crusaders, but part of the reason the First Crusade was a success was because the Muslim world was so divided. That changed afterward and helped unite formerly warring factions against the Crusaders. That doesn't mean it was completely successful and it doesn't mean they didn't go back to fighting each other once the Crusades were over.
@SW-User I just explained to you Moslem states allied with the Crusader states while they were there and in existence.
As for you snarky little comment about the time the Crusades delayed an attack on parts of Europe which they began attacking as soon as the Crusader kingdoms were destroyed, I have dealt with that with all the respect you deserved by making it.
Thus it was not a "complete failure" as anything that exists for 200 years, or saves parts of the world from conquest, can be called. You sound like that boob Sean Hannity who keeps using the word "literally" with the same accuracy as you use "complete".
SW-User
@Abrienda And I didn't deny that. I'm not sure what you mean by "snarky little comment", I've made no "snarky little comment". Perhaps you should learn how to read because you obviously lack even the most basic reading comprehension skills. If you need advice on how to comprehend what people who disagree with you write, you can ask me for advice.
It was a failure in its long-term objectives, which were to retake the Holy Land for Christians and it failed to do so as Outremer was eventually taken over by Muslim forces, what little they did take over was under constant attack and no part of could be considered stable.
@IamBack Yes...he had people like you in mind. The number of books you have read on the Crusades? Zero. The Number of visits to the region? Zero. I suppose then both you and Goethe had you in mind.
It's pathetic to see faux intellectuals like yourself who have never read Goethe in their life him and other people they have never read because they think it will somehow make them look "profound" instead of just banal. In fact if you knew anything about Goethe then you would have known he was an Islamic apologist, which makes you quoting him the way you do appropriate though of course your ignorance was shown to be in action by doing so.
@Abrienda "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."...mahatma Gandhi 😊
@Stereoguy It was actually if you happened to live where they would have attacked had they not been busy with the Crusader kingdoms...Greece for example, a time period about as long as the USA has been in existence, but so what, right?
