I’m just wondering how hard it is for people who follow Islam to accept Catholics when there is a lot of bitterness and confusion about the Crusades.
The media always blames the Catholic Church for the crusades and they always fail to put the blame on the he secular causes of those wars. The more you learn about the crusades the more you realize that it is a good example of how religions can be used by secular institutions to fulfill their selfish desires.
Sadly it appears that the world has not learned its lesson. Christian fundamentalists in the US are using the word of God to justify their war against Islam again. Islamic fundamentalists are doing the same thing.
I am just glad that the Pope made it very clear that the war in Iraq was wrong. The more Catholics distance themselves from these conflicts and the will of corrupt governments the more respect we will have in the long run.
I am just glad that the Pope made it very clear that the war in Iraq was wrong. The more Catholics distance themselves from these conflicts and the will of corrupt governments the more respect we will have in the long run.
I hate to ruin a seemingly good example and the argument you based it on, but the pope did no such thing. You need to do a bit more reading of your own.
As a muslim we dont vilify the crusades as wars . The problem is what the crusaders done when they entered the city . Blood bathes and stuff. I am glad that this hasnt happened when muslims entered the city . It makes me proud .
To say the truth, we as muslims do not by any means believe thet Jesus the Messiah would ever say somthing in the Gospel that Justify the massacres of the crusades.
I Know that the crusades had secular reasons in a big part of it and it wasnt about religion mainly . Even those people who did the massacres i can never ever associate them with christ or his teaching.
I also heared that the crusaders killed everybody . Christians , jews Muslims everybody . I also hear that there were coptic christians who fought alongside the muslim armies against the crusaders . Or may be itw as just a movie. Here the Coptic Pope say that the crusades was about Money and was not in the name of christ and i believe him .
Kev, I’m afraid you have been taken in by the popular antiCatholic misrepresentation of the Crusades. There is no “taint” about the Crusades themselves (though some of the CrusadERS committed sins such as slaughtering civilians, for which the Pope excommunicated them). Catholics should be proud to take the “blame” for the Crusades. The Crusades were NOT a “war against Islam”. Since the Muslim Arabs conquered the Holy Land in the 7th century, the Muslim rulers had allowed Christians and Jews to continue to pilgrimage to the Holy Places, albeit heavily taxing them. But then in the late 11th Century a violently fundamentalist Turkish clan took over, and thousands of unarmed Christian pilgrims were slaughtered. The pope called for an armed guard of Christian knights to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. The First Crusade was the only one that was successful, the subsequent Crusades being merely rearguard actions to hold on to a tiny sliver of territory running from Acre on the coast to Nazareth, Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The Crusaders did not seek to convert Muslims. Both Muslims and Jews freely practised their faith in the Crusader territories. The Crusades are often viewed through the prism of 19th century European colonialism, but in the 11th century it was Christendom which was the Third World, the Muslim countries were far more advanced technologically. It was sheer luck (or God’s grace) that the First Crusade landed just as the Muslims were fighting among themselves. The Crusades were the one short-lived exception to the 1000-year long continuous conquest of traditional Christian peoples by Muslim armies.
Well, if perhaps you’re speaking of the recapture of Jerusalem, Saladin only allowed the Christian inhabitants to depart rather than slaughtering them wholesale because the garrison commander, Balian of Ibrahim, had threatened to kill every Muslim in the city if the Christians were not allowed to go free. Saladin acquiesced, but many of the refugees were sold into slavery all the same.
Give me some time to run through my sources and I can give you other specific examples.
““Well, if perhaps you’re speaking of the recapture of Jerusalem, Saladin only allowed the Christian inhabitants to depart rather than slaughtering them wholesale because the garrison commander, Balian of Ibrahim, had threatened to kill every Muslim in the city if the Christians were not allowed to go free. Saladin acquiesced, but many of the refugees were sold into slavery all the same.””
Hmm if salah ul din left them becasue he was afraid of muslims hostages , why didnt he slay them after they got out of teh city ?!!! I mean why did he only enslave them as you say ? If it was really his aim to slay them !!
I dont even think there were muslims at the city at this time with all teh wars with salahuldin . Here is somthing i found from wikipedia
It doesnt say that salahuldin was afraid for any muslims in teh city at all. and he offered to to ransom people in teh city , and he was extreemly generous. Those ONLY who couldnt pay ransom because of the christians lords were mizers and didnt want to ransom them were taken into slavery and later many were released generously .
The page above really showes that in NO WAY crusaders ahd any chivalry near the Muslims .
Here are some well researched and reliable sources about the Crusades (which were NOT limited to Christian-Muslim interactions). Try Anne Carroll’s Crusades, or the Cambridge History’s What were the Crusades; read Hillaire Belloc, or Warren Crocker’s series. Check out the articles in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
I wish people would stop falling for the latest gnosticism of the month–and that is EXACTLY what the “popular” history, textbook or “study” IS for the most part–breathless, giddy, 21st century “assumptions” presented as gospel-truth, wrapped up in shimmering “new interpretations” and “new understandings” and “new FEELINGS”.
Give me good OLD facts, data, words and actions from people who DID those actions, spoke those words, and knew the “before” and “during” instead of just the “after”.
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