The Crusades

President Obama recently intimated that Christians had been very bad in the past and had no standing to condemn Islam today.  He brought up the Crusades as an example.  Let us consider that.

At the time of Muhammad's death in 632, Christianity was the dominant religion of the Mediterannean, including what is now Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Armenia, and Turkey.  Then the Umayyad Caliphate arose.  The caliphate spread through the region like wildfire, conquering all the Christian regions in the Levant, sweeping across North Africa, toppling the centuries old Visigothic Kingdom of Spain, and invading France.  Not until Charles Martel defeated them at the Battle of Tours in 732 did the Islamic Conquest begin to recede.  Christendom had been on the brink of being swept away.  This was not because Muslim Imams had won hearts and minds with their preaching but because of fire and sword.

 

Europe was still mired in the Dark Ages and the Caliphate needed time to digest its conquests.  The remains of the Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire, fought an ongoing battle with Islam as it sought to gobble up more and more of Christian Anatolia (Turkey).  Late in the 11th Century, the Byzantines requested aid from the West.  Pope Urban II declared a Crusade in 1095.  By 1099, Crusaders had recaptured a sliver of lands between Egypt and Anatolia.  The vast majority of the territory that had been conquered in the 7th Century remained in the hands of the Fatimid Caliphate or the Seljuk Turks.  By 1300, the Crusader States were gone.  The Byzantine capitol of Constantinople finally fell in 1453.  Greece and the Balkans fell also.  In 1683, an Islamic army attacked Vienna, Austria.

 

The idea that the Crusades were an unprovoked attack is nonsense.  The Crusades were a feeble response to centuries of attacks.  Be it the various Caliphates, the Seljuk Turks, or the Ottoman Empire, Islamic states were at war with Christian states since the 7th Century.  This remains true today though the tactics have changed.

 

While Jesus called upon his followers to turn the other cheek, Muhammad was a warlord who justified attacking caravans to gain wealth and power.  This tells you most of what you need to know about both religions.