Isa--Jesus

[unicorn]

I know many Christians are confused about their religion (e.g. believing that salvation can be earned through works rather than being a gift), so when I say this, I mean no disrespect, but are many Muslims confused about their religion? I thought that Islam expressed that Jesus did not rise from the dead and was not the Messiah/Son of God. But, I have read some articles lately that have said otherwise:

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/quran-jesus.html

http://www.the-good-way.com/eng/book/b06.htm

[1John2_26]

Have you ever played that game where you whisper a message in a person's ear, and they whisper it in turn to another, and another, and another, until it reaches your ear again? Isn't it amusing when the message seems to change? Well, we aren't talking a couple of minutes here. We're talking years. Decades. Centuries. Think of how distorted it would be by then. Also, it is a fact that we are more advanced than people who lived before us. As we've gone through the centuries, people have become smarter. We made laws, writing, language. So, obviously, we could learn to obey more complex commands from Allah (swt).

This paragraph would condemn the Qur'an. Mohammad never wrote down one word. Literally, the above was followed.

If Islam would just debate and argue their case without all of the murdering of non-believers, it may find a place on the world's stage of ideas. As it has come down, it has forced its way.

[canadianhorsefan]

I have a question for those who are of the surrender. I was reading the Quran a week or so ago and an individual, who said he was an Palestenian Christian, began to tell me that the english translation of the quran was not the same as the arabic. I want to discuss this issue of Isa/Jesus without putting on this thread things out of a book that is diluted of truth. The copies I have are by Yusef Ali and Marmaduke Pickthall. Which of these can I bring into this conversation that will not make me look foolish because it is mistranslated or translated to cause error?

That individual was correct. See, when you change anything from one language to another, there are bound to be mistakes. Also, Arabic is a very complex language. Many words in Arabic have no equivalent in English. So, any translation of the Qur'an will not be perfect. However, the copies you have are good ones. You can quote from them, no problem. If there is a difference between both translations, well, it's inevitable.

This paragraph would condemn the Qur'an. Mohammad never wrote down one word. Literally, the above was followed.

Actually, no. In that game, one person hears your message and passes it on to the next. Prophet Muhammad (saas) made sure to reveal the revelations to many people. Therefore, if someone remembered something wrong, s/he could ask a couple of friends, who would correct him/her. The Qur'an wasn't compiled by one person. Many people took part in the compilation. In fact, history seems to show that the Qur'an was finished before Prophet Muhammad (saas)'s death. So, he would have been checking, along with his close Companions and friends, for errors. Some of his Companions and friends obviously would know how to read and write as well.

[1John2_26]

Actually, no. In that game, one person hears your message and passes it on to the next. Prophet Muhammad (saas) made sure to reveal the revelations to many people. Therefore, if someone remembered something wrong, s/he could ask a couple of friends, who would correct him/her. The Qur'an wasn't compiled by one person. Many people took part in the compilation. In fact, history seems to show that the Qur'an was finished before Prophet Muhammad (saas)'s death. So, he would have been checking, along with his close Companions and friends, for errors. Some of his Companions and friends obviously would know how to read and write as well.

The scribes of the Torah are better role models.

What history of Mohammad? Islamic? It still remains that Mohammad got things wrong. It was Isaac and not Ishmael that Abraham was told by the God of Israel to sacrifice. If the Qur'an was compiled by more than one person or "close companions" than the dilemma of inserted errors is more apt to have happened. It is the same with Mormonism's Joseph Smith and his companions. Mormons have completely changed the biblical God. What appears from looking at the religions that trace their origins to Abraham is that Mohammad and his scribes re-wrote and changed things to suit their new ideology and campaign of conquest against the peoples in the mid-east, and eventually Europe. The Meccans met their demise not by a prophet of a god but by a miltary man. Nothing has changed since its origins to believe that Islam is not an idea for totalitarien power over the conquered masses. There is little doubt that Islam and Muslim's have no desire for anything but absolute power and world dominace. Just use any Islamic country of today as proof.

[canadianhorsefan]

Let us begin with the last part:

There is little doubt that Islam and Muslim's have no desire for anything but absolute power and world dominace. Just use any Islamic country of today as proof.

So, you are saying that the so-called 'Islamic' countries today are following the true teachings of Islam? Islam never was against the building of churches and women riding horses. Today, Saudi Arabia is against both, but obviously, horses have been replaced by cars. So, please, don't tell someone to look at an 'Islamic' country to know what Islam is about. I'm a Muslim, and I don't want absolute power and world domination. Neither does it tell me to in the Qur'an.

What history of Mohammad? Islamic? It still remains that Mohammad got things wrong. It was Isaac and not Ishmael that Abraham was told by the God of Israel to sacrifice.

Unfortunately, we aren't able to interview Abraham (as) to ask him. So, it's either the Torah or the Qur'an that is telling the truth. Christians and Jews agree it was Isaac (as), while Muslims agree it was Ishmael (as).

If the Qur'an was compiled by more than one person or "close companions" than the dilemma of inserted errors is more apt to have happened.

Did one person write the Torah? Did one person write the Bible? Well, we can simply replace the Qur'an with either book, and the sentence will still make sense.

What appears from looking at the religions that trace their origins to Abraham is that Mohammad and his scribes re-wrote and changed things to suit their new ideology and campaign of conquest against the peoples in the mid-east, and eventually Europe.

It seems that Christianuty changed things to suit other's ideologies.
http://www.alislam.org/library/books/ch ... ter_7.html

The Meccans met their demise not by a prophet of a god but by a miltary man.

You mean when the Muslims marched into Mecca?
http://www.alislam.org/library/history/chap13.htm

No bloodshed. I encourage you to read the history. The Muslims were persecuted. If they were attacked, they would fight back in self-defence.

Sorry if I haven't made a great reply. Things aren't going too well thse days.

[snappyanswer]

So, you are saying that the so-called 'Islamic' countries today are following the true teachings of Islam? Islam never was against the building of churches and women riding horses. Today, Saudi Arabia is against both, but obviously, horses have been replaced by cars. So, please, don't tell someone to look at an 'Islamic' country to know what Islam is about. I'm a Muslim, and I don't want absolute power and world domination. Neither does it tell me to in the Qur'an.

Slay them wherever you find them? That is in the Koran and it is about non-believers. All one needs to do to make a choice of religions is to look at the way they are as we write.

Mohammads guys are still killing and killing and killing. Islam means submit. Even its title is oppressive. Certainly the Muslims are today as they were in Mohammad's day.

Unfortunately, we aren't able to interview Abraham (as) to ask him. So, it's either the Torah or the Qur'an that is telling the truth. Christians and Jews agree it was Isaac (as), while Muslims agree it was Ishmael (as).

That is not a strong stand to wipe away a history long established before Mohammad was birthed. Christians didn't change things for a reason.

Did one person write the Torah? Did one person write the Bible? Well, we can simply replace the Qur'an with either book, and the sentence will still make sense.

Not really. The Christians and the Jews agree with established historical writings. Mohammad and his Gabriel got it wrong. Otherwise I can establish a new religious truth right now.

It seems that Christianuty changed things to suit other's ideologies.
http://www.alislam.org/library/books/ch ... ter_7.html

Oh really? Jacob wrestled with a man til daybraek and then built a house to this God to remember the occasion. Hagar the mother of Ishmael talked with God standing near her. The website you posted is regurgitated Jehovah's Witness stuff.

Give me a break. The Meccans made a deal with Mohammad or they would have been wiped out. None is worthy of honor but Allah. How interesting and how do we know this? Because Mohammad is the Prophet of Allah! See a problem here?

No bloodshed. I encourage you to read the history. The Muslims were persecuted. If they were attacked, they would fight back in self-defence.

No bloodshed? And YOU encourage ME to read the history? Muslims think that Chrstians assigning members to Allah is persecuting Muslims. See where this is heading? The history of Islam is war from start until today. Read todays paper for todays history lesson.

Sorry if I haven't made a great reply. Things aren't going too well thse days.

The Qur'an speaks for itself as does Muslim world history. I do wish you better days.

[canadianhorsefan]

*these, not thse

Slay them wherever you find them? That is in the Koran and it is about non-believers. All one needs to do to make a choice of religions is to look at the way they are as we write.

Mohammads guys are still killing and killing and killing. Islam means submit. Even its title is oppressive. Certainly the Muslims are today as they were in Mohammad's day.

http://www.islamfortoday.com/harun02.htm - How Islam is Against Terrorism

Now, about slaying non-believers. I believe you were speaking of this verse:

"And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith." (2:191)

There is a key phrase here. Would you like me to show you?

for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter

What is the significance of that phrase? Well, killing would be defined as slaughter, yes? But where did tumult and oppression come from? It came from the people that Muslims were told to kill in this verse. So, people were oppressing the Muslims. The Muslims retaliated.

Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.

Reward isn't positive in this phrase. It refers to what the people that suppressed Islam will get. Simply, the oppressors will be killed. If you think dictators should be removed from power for oppressing their subjects, this is the same concept. Muslims didn't hold positions of power at the time and they were a minority.

http://www.answering-christianity.com/apostates.htm - Mostly about apostates, but nice selection of verses.

Now, how is the title oppressive? Islam means submit, true. It means submission to Allah (swt). To make it nice and simple, it means to submit to God and to follow his commands. As a Christian, would you not submit yourself to God and follow the writings in the Bible? Same thing. How it is oppressive, I have no idea. You are simply placing yourself before your Creator. Would you rather declare yourself as a person who does whatever he wants, whether God likes it or not?

That is not a strong stand to wipe away a history long established before Mohammad was birthed. Christians didn't change things for a reason.

I don't care if it was long established. Belief in Osiris and Anubis was long established. Does that mean they exist? I want facts.

How do you know Christians didn't change anything? Were you alive over 1,000 years ago? I doubt it.

Not really. The Christians and the Jews agree with established historical writings. Mohammad and his Gabriel got it wrong. Otherwise I can establish a new religious truth right now.

I'd like to see those 'established historical writings'. And in case you haven't noticed, people are still inventing religions. So, go ahead, make your own religious truth.

Oh really? Jacob wrestled with a man til daybraek and then built a house to this God to remember the occasion. Hagar the mother of Ishmael talked with God standing near her. The website you posted is regurgitated Jehovah's Witness stuff.

Give me a break. The Meccans made a deal with Mohammad or they would have been wiped out. None is worthy of honor but Allah. How interesting and how do we know this? Because Mohammad is the Prophet of Allah! See a problem here?

Do those stories exist out of the Bible and/or Torah? Well, if they do, that would make them likely to be true.

No, I don't see any problem. Allah (swt) created the entire universe. So, obviously, He is worthy of honour. Now, on to the part about Mecca. Courtesy of http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamental ... ofbio.html :

37. The pagans of Mecca hoping to profit by the Muslim difficulties, violated the terms of their treaty. Upon this, the Prophet himself led an army, ten thousand strong, and surprised Mecca which he occupied in a bloodless manner. As a benevolent conqueror, he caused the vanquished people to assemble, reminded them of their ill deeds, their religious persecution, unjust confiscation of the evacuee property, ceaseless invasions and senseless hostilities for twenty years continuously. He asked them: "Now what do you expect of me?" When everybody lowered his head with shame, the Prophet proclaimed: "May God pardon you; go in peace; there shall be no responsibility on you today; you are free!" He even renounced the claim for the Muslim property confiscated by the pagans. This produced a great psychological change of hearts instantaneously. When a Meccan chief advanced with a fulsome heart towards the Prophet, after hearing this general amnesty, in order to declare his acceptance of Islam, the Prophet told him: "And in my turn, I appoint you the governor of Mecca!" Without leaving a single soldier in the conquered city, the Prophet retired to Madinah. The Islamization of Mecca, which was accomplished in a few hours, was complete.

There wasn't any deal, was there? The Meccans thought they would be killed, yet they were pardoned. They didn't beg for forgiveness, as they thought it useless. Yet they were pardoned.

No bloodshed? And YOU encourage ME to read the history? Muslims think that Chrstians assigning members to Allah is persecuting Muslims. See where this is heading? The history of Islam is war from start until today. Read todays paper for todays history lesson.

If you give me a link, I read it. I actually enjoy reading what you put up in defence. Now, assigning members to Allah (swt) is persecution... hmm, never knew that. And I'm Muslim. This seems to be heading to what twisted people like Osama Bin Laden think. Now, you are partially right on this history. Since it was revealed, people have declared war on its believers, shunned them, insulted them, and so on. Not a physical war throughout history, but definitely one that lingered in the thoughts of man y, of wiping Muslims off the face of the Earth. Ah, people are thinking like Hitler, replacing Jews with Muslims. Though, we're lucky that they haven't taken that thought and put it into action.

The Qur'an speaks for itself as does Muslim world history. I do wish you better days.

It surely does. And I wish for better days as well. Car bombs every now and then; Syria denying involvement in them; Syria saying that Detlev Mehlis, former UN Investigator thing in Lebanon was fabricating lies in his report... it goes on. Only last week, Gebran Tueni was assassinated. And who's the first to deny involvement?

This is quite off-topic, so I advise no one to reply to the segment above.

[snappyanswer]

Good topic for these days.

Yeah, people in Arabia wanted us dead.

Because Muslims attacked and killed people that would not become Muslims. Muslims attacked first. It's historical.

Spain kicked us out too, because they wanted the whole country Catholic.

The Catholics wanted it BACK after Muslims INVADED!

The Crusaders thought that Jerusalem was their city and that the Muslims had no right being there.

Gee, you wonder? AFTER the Muslims attacked and slaughtered the defenseless Christians. It's historical.

Too bad for people who were from Jerusalem and simply converted to Islam.

Or be killed as infidels or made slaves. You left off that part.

So, which of these wars did we start?

REAL history or Islamic history?

Otherwise the answer is "EVERYONE SINGLE ONE."

Mohammad came AFTER all of the things mentioned . . . Spain, Jerusalem, Mecca were founded and settled (yup before even the Koran was copied down). Sorry.

[MagusYanam]

Perhaps you should read the 'History of Jerusalem' on Wikipedia. It has a rather weak pro-Israeli bias, but its section on mediaeval Jerusalem seems sound.

Arab Caliphates, Christian Crusaders, and early Ottoman rule (638-1800s)

Although the Qur'an does not mention the name "Jerusalem", the hadith specify that it was from Jerusalem that Muhammad ascended to heaven in the Night Journey, or Isra and Miraj. The city was one of the Arab Caliphate's first conquests in 638 CE; according to Arab historians of the time, the Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab personally went to the city to receive its submission, cleaning out and praying at the Temple Mount in the process. Sixty years later, the Dome of the Rock was built, a structure in which there lies the stone where Muhammad is said to have tethered his mount Buraq during the Isra. This is also reputed to be the place where Abraham went to sacrifice his son (Isaac in the Jewish tradition, Ishmael in the Muslim one.) Note that the octagonal and gold-sheeted Dome is not the same thing as the Al-Aqsa Mosque beside it, which was built more than three centuries later. Umar ibn al-Khattab also allowed the Jews entry into the city and full freedom to live and worship after 400 hundred years [of Byzantine rule]. Jews were allowed to move back into their homes.

Under the early centuries of Muslim rule, especially during the Umayyad (650-750) and Abbasid (750-969) dynasties, the city prospered; the geographers Ibn Hawqal and al-Istakhri (10th century) describe it as "the most fertile province of Palestine", while its native son the geographer al-Muqaddasi (born 946) devoted many pages to its praises in his most famous work, The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Climes.

The early Arab period was also one of religious tolerance. However, in the early 11th century, the Egyptian Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of all churches and synagogues in Jerusalem, a policy reversed by his successors. Reports of this were one cause of the First Crusade, which marched off from Europe to the area, and, on July 15, 1099, Christian soldiers took Jerusalem after a difficult one month siege. They then proceeded to slaughter most of the city's Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. Raymond d'Aguiliers, chaplain to Raymond de Saint-Gilles, Count of Toulouse, wrote:

'Piles of heads, hands, and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one's way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious ceremonies were ordinarily chanted. What happened there? If I tell the truth, it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much, at least, that in the Temple and porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle-reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies. The city was filled with corpses and blood.' (Edward Peters, The First Crusade: The chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and other source materials, p. 214)

Jerusalem became the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a feudal state, of which the King of Jerusalem was the chief. Christian settlers from the West set about rebuilding the principal shrines associated with the life of Christ. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was ambitiously rebuilt as a great Romanesque church, and Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount (the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque) were converted for Christian purposes. It is during this period of Frankish occupation that the Military Orders of the Knights of Saint John and the Knights Templar have their beginnings. Both grew out of the need to protect and care for the great influx of pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem in the twelfth century. The Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted until 1291; however, Jerusalem itself was recaptured by Saladin in 1187, who permitted worship of all religions (see Siege of Jerusalem - 1187).

In 1173 Benjamin of Tudela visited Jerusalem. He described it as a small city full of Jacobites, Armenians, Greeks, and Georgians. Two hundred Jews dwelt in a corner of the city under the Tower of David.

In 1219 the walls of the city were taken down by order of the Sultan of Damascus; in 1229, by treaty with Egypt, Jerusalem came into the hands of Frederick II of Germany. In 1239 he began to rebuild the walls; but they were again demolished by Da'ud, the emir of Kerak.

In 1243 Jerusalem came again into the power of the Christians, and the walls were repaired. The Kharezmian Tatars took the city in 1244; and they in turn were driven out by the Egyptians in 1247. In 1260 the Tatars under Hulaku Khan overran the whole land, and the Jews that were in Jerusalem had to flee to the neighboring villages.

In 1244, Sultan Malik al-Muattam razed the city walls, rendering it again defenseless and dealing a heavy blow to the city's status. In the middle of the 13th century, Jerusalem was captured by the Egyptian Mameluks. In 1517, it was taken over by the Ottoman Empire and enjoyed a period of renewal and peace under Suleiman the Magnificent - including the rebuilding of magnificent walls of what is now known as the Old City (however, some of the wall foundations are remains of genuine antique walls). The rule of Suleiman and the following Ottoman Sultans brought an age of "religious peace"; Jew, Christian and Muslim enjoyed the freedom of religion the Ottomans granted them and it was possible to find a synagogue, a church and a mosque in the same street. The city remained open to all religions, although the empire's faulty management after Suleiman meant slow economical stagnation.

In 1482, the visiting Dominican priest Felix Fabri described Jerusalem as a dwelling place of diverse nations of the world, and is, as it were, a collection of all manner of abominations. As abominations he listed Saracens, Greeks, Syrians, Jacobites, Abyssianians, Nestorians, Armenians, Gregorians, Maronites, Turcomans, Bedouins, Assassins, a sect possibly Druze, Mamelukes, and the most accursed of all, Jews. Only the Latin Christians long with all their hearts for Christian princes to come and subject all the country to the authority of the Church of Rome. (A. Stewart, Palestine Pilgrims Text Society, Vol 9-10, p. 384-391)

It's not as simplistic as you make it sound. There were in fact two Islamic factions at play here - the Arabs and the newly-converted Turks, who were often at odds with each other. There is also the Byzantine Empire as a major player in the history of Jerusalem. Once Jerusalem fell into Moslem hands, the Moslem rulers were varied in their policy toward the Jews and Christians, as you can see. At the best of times, the religious toleration of the Islamic leaders went unrivalled anywhere in the world except China (where Confucianism, Daoism and later Buddhism would be coexisting quite peaceably). At the worst of times, as you can see, the churches and synagogues suffered immensely.

The Catholics wanted it BACK after Muslims INVADED!

Gee, you wonder? AFTER the Muslims attacked and slaughtered the defenseless Christians. It's historical.

Also, given the relationship between the Byzantines and the two groups of Muslims, you can't just say 'they started it' and expect to have any historical credibility. Also, the Byzantines were far from 'defenceless' - and when they did feel the need of defences, they hired mercenaries from Italy (a bad idea, but that's a different matter altogether).

The same goes with Spanish history. Originally inhabited by the Iberians and the Basques, they were conquered by North Africans (a Semitic group known as the Carthaginians), who were in turn conquered by the Romans. The Romans and the North African people who lingered on under Roman occupation were driven out by the Goths, followers of Arian Christianity (not Catholics!). The North Africans were in the interim converted to Islam, eventually came back and drove the Visigoths and their Frankish allies back into France and established a state known as Andalusia in Southern Spain (three Catholic kingdoms remained in the north of Spain: Navarre, Aragon and Asturies). Again, the real history is not so cut-and-dried.

Because Muslims attacked and killed people that would not become Muslims. Muslims attacked first. It's historical.

Real history is not in agreement with you here, either. The Moslems of Mecca were largely persecuted by polytheists who thought their ideas dangerous and who thought that they would drive away pilgrims to the Kaaba there. The Moslems of Mecca, by and large, didn't fight back, but fled to Medina (the Hijra of 622 CE) after an attempt on Mohammed's life.

Medina was more accepting of Mohammed's ideas, though people who disagreed with him (the Jews of Medina) were not expelled but taxed by their Moslem governors (following the Constitution of Medina). However, when the Meccans became overtly hostile toward the Medinans, the Medinans began raiding Meccan caravans, which led to a war between the two cities. When Mecca was taken, Mohammed issued an order of amnesty to the Meccans that remained.

See Wikipedia's entry on 'Mohammed' for the details. Since I know some of the historians who actually run this site, you can be assured of its accuracy regarding mediaeval history, at any rate.

[snappyanswer]

History.

The Real History of the Crusades
By Thomas F. Madden

http://www.crisismagazine.com/april2002/cover.htm

Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity—and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion—has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered.

When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed’s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt—once the most heavily Christian areas in the world—quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the conquests of Islam at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The response was tremendous. Many thousands of warriors took the vow of the cross and prepared for war. Why did they do it? The answer to that question has been badly misunderstood. In the wake of the Enlightenment, it was usually asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne’er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway land. The Crusaders’ expressed sentiments of piety, self-sacrifice, and love for God were obviously not to be taken seriously. They were only a front for darker designs.

During the past two decades, computer-assisted charter studies have demolished that contrivance.[/b]

Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in Europe. Nevertheless, they willingly gave up everything to undertake the holy mission. Crusading was not cheap. Even wealthy lords could easily impoverish themselves and their families by joining a Crusade. They did so not because they expected material wealth (which many of them had already) but because they hoped to store up treasure where rust and moth could not corrupt. They were keenly aware of their sinfulness and eager to undertake the hardships of the Crusade as a penitential act of charity and love. Europe is littered with thousands of medieval charters attesting to these sentiments, charters in which these men still speak to us today if we will listen. Of course, they were not opposed to capturing booty if it could be had. But the truth is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing.

* * *

Urban II gave the Crusaders two goals, both of which would remain central to the eastern Crusades for centuries. The first was to rescue the Christians of the East. As his successor, Pope Innocent III, later wrote:

How does a man love according to divine precept his neighbor as himself when, knowing that his Christian brothers in faith and in name are held by the perfidious Muslims in strict confinement and weighed down by the yoke of heaviest servitude, he does not devote himself to the task of freeing them? ...Is it by chance that you do not know that many thousands of Christians are bound in slavery and imprisoned by the Muslims, tortured with innumerable torments?

"Crusading," Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith has rightly argued, was understood as an "an act of love"—in this case, the love of one’s neighbor. The Crusade was seen as an errand of mercy to right a terrible wrong. As Pope Innocent III wrote to the Knights Templar, "You carry out in deeds the words of the Gospel, ‘Greater love than this hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friends.’"

The second goal was the liberation of Jerusalem and the other places made holy by the life of Christ. The word crusade is modern. Medieval Crusaders saw themselves as pilgrims, performing acts of righteousness on their way to the Holy Sepulcher. The Crusade indulgence they received was canonically related to the pilgrimage indulgence. This goal was frequently described in feudal terms. When calling the Fifth Crusade in 1215, Innocent III wrote:

Consider most dear sons, consider carefully that if any temporal king was thrown out of his domain and perhaps captured, would he not, when he was restored to his pristine liberty and the time had come for dispensing justice look on his vassals as unfaithful and traitors...unless they had committed not only their property but also their persons to the task of freeing him? ...And similarly will not Jesus Christ, the king of kings and lord of lords, whose servant you cannot deny being, who joined your soul to your body, who redeemed you with the Precious Blood...condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and the crime of infidelity if you neglect to help Him?

The reconquest of Jerusalem, therefore, was not colonialism but an act of restoration and an open declaration of one’s love of God. Medieval men knew, of course, that God had the power to restore Jerusalem Himself—indeed, He had the power to restore the whole world to His rule. Yet as St. Bernard of Clairvaux preached, His refusal to do so was a blessing to His people:

Again I say, consider the Almighty’s goodness and pay heed to His plans of mercy. He puts Himself under obligation to you, or rather feigns to do so, that He can help you to satisfy your obligations toward Himself.... I call blessed the generation that can seize an opportunity of such rich indulgence as this.

It is often assumed that the central goal of the Crusades was forced conversion of the Muslim world. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the perspective of medieval Christians, Muslims were the enemies of Christ and His Church. It was the Crusaders’ task to defeat and defend against them. That was all. Muslims who lived in Crusader-won territories were generally allowed to retain their property and livelihood, and always their religion. Indeed, throughout the history of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Muslim inhabitants far outnumbered the Catholics. It was not until the 13th century that the Franciscans began conversion efforts among Muslims. But these were mostly unsuccessful and finally abandoned. In any case, such efforts were by peaceful persuasion, not the threat of violence.

The Crusades were wars, so it would be a mistake to characterize them as nothing but piety and good intentions. Like all warfare, the violence was brutal (although not as brutal as modern wars).

There were mishaps, blunders, and crimes. These are usually well-remembered today. During the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of Crusaders led by Count Emicho of Leiningen made its way down the Rhine, robbing and murdering all the Jews they could find. Without success, the local bishops attempted to stop the carnage. In the eyes of these warriors, the Jews, like the Muslims, were the enemies of Christ. Plundering and killing them, then, was no vice. Indeed, they believed it was a righteous deed, since the Jews’ money could be used to fund the Crusade to Jerusalem. But they were wrong, and the Church strongly condemned the anti-Jewish attacks.

Fifty years later, when the Second Crusade was gearing up, St. Bernard frequently preached that the Jews were not to be persecuted:

Ask anyone who knows the Sacred Scriptures what he finds foretold of the Jews in the Psalm. "Not for their destruction do I pray," it says. The Jews are for us the living words of Scripture, for they remind us always of what our Lord suffered.... Under Christian princes they endure a hard captivity, but "they only wait for the time of their deliverance."

Nevertheless, a fellow Cistercian monk named Radulf stirred up people against the Rhineland Jews, despite numerous letters from Bernard demanding that he stop. At last Bernard was forced to travel to Germany himself, where he caught up with Radulf, sent him back to his convent, and ended the massacres.

It is often said that the roots of the Holocaust can be seen in these medieval pogroms. That may be. But if so, those roots are far deeper and more widespread than the Crusades. Jews perished during the Crusades, but the purpose of the Crusades was not to kill Jews. Quite the contrary: Popes, bishops, and preachers made it clear that the Jews of Europe were to be left unmolested. In a modern war, we call tragic deaths like these "collateral damage." Even with smart technologies, the United States has killed far more innocents in our wars than the Crusaders ever could. But no one would seriously argue that the purpose of American wars is to kill women and children.


By any reckoning, the First Crusade was a long shot. There was no leader, no chain of command, no supply lines, no detailed strategy. It was simply thousands of warriors marching deep into enemy territory, committed to a common cause. Many of them died, either in battle or through disease or starvation. It was a rough campaign, one that seemed always on the brink of disaster. Yet it was miraculously successful. By 1098, the Crusaders had restored Nicaea and Antioch to Christian rule. In July 1099, they conquered Jerusalem and began to build a Christian state in Palestine. The joy in Europe was unbridled. It seemed that the tide of history, which had lifted the Muslims to such heights, was now turning.

* * *

But it was not. When we think about the Middle Ages, it is easy to view Europe in light of what it became rather than what it was. The colossus of the medieval world was Islam, not Christendom. The Crusades are interesting largely because they were an attempt to counter that trend. But in five centuries of crusading, it was only the First Crusade that significantly rolled back the military progress of Islam. It was downhill from there.

When the Crusader County of Edessa fell to the Turks and Kurds in 1144, there was an enormous groundswell of support for a new Crusade in Europe. It was led by two kings, Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, and preached by St. Bernard himself. It failed miserably. Most of the Crusaders were killed along the way. Those who made it to Jerusalem only made things worse by attacking Muslim Damascus, which formerly had been a strong ally of the Christians. In the wake of such a disaster, Christians across Europe were forced to accept not only the continued growth of Muslim power but the certainty that God was punishing the West for its sins. Lay piety movements sprouted up throughout Europe, all rooted in the desire to purify Christian society so that it might be worthy of victory in the East.

Crusading in the late twelfth century, therefore, became a total war effort. Every person, no matter how weak or poor, was called to help. Warriors were asked to sacrifice their wealth and, if need be, their lives for the defense of the Christian East. On the home front, all Christians were called to support the Crusades through prayer, fasting, and alms. Yet still the Muslims grew in strength. Saladin, the great unifier, had forged the Muslim Near East into a single entity, all the while preaching jihad against the Christians. In 1187 at the Battle of Hattin, his forces wiped out the combined armies of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem and captured the precious relic of the True Cross. Defenseless, the Christian cities began surrendering one by one, culminating in the surrender of Jerusalem on October 2. Only a tiny handful of ports held out.

The response was the Third Crusade. It was led by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa of the German Empire, King Philip II Augustus of France, and King Richard I Lionheart of England. By any measure it was a grand affair, although not quite as grand as the Christians had hoped. The aged Frederick drowned while crossing a river on horseback, so his army returned home before reaching the Holy Land. Philip and Richard came by boat, but their incessant bickering only added to an already divisive situation on the ground in Palestine. After recapturing Acre, the king of France went home, where he busied himself carving up Richard’s French holdings. The Crusade, therefore, fell into Richard’s lap. A skilled warrior, gifted leader, and superb tactician, Richard led the Christian forces to victory after victory, eventually reconquering the entire coast. But Jerusalem was not on the coast, and after two abortive attempts to secure supply lines to the Holy City, Richard at last gave up. Promising to return one day, he struck a truce with Saladin that ensured peace in the region and free access to Jerusalem for unarmed pilgrims. But it was a bitter pill to swallow. The desire to restore Jerusalem to Christian rule and regain the True Cross remained intense throughout Europe.

The Crusades of the 13th century were larger, better funded, and better organized. But they too failed. The Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) ran aground when it was seduced into a web of Byzantine politics, which the Westerners never fully understood. They had made a detour to Constantinople to support an imperial claimant who promised great rewards and support for the Holy Land. Yet once he was on the throne of the Caesars, their benefactor found that he could not pay what he had promised. Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the Crusaders attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world. Pope Innocent III, who had previously excommunicated the entire Crusade, strongly denounced the Crusaders. But there was little else he could do. The tragic events of 1204 closed an iron door between Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, a door that even today Pope John Paul II has been unable to reopen. It is a terrible irony that the Crusades, which were a direct result of the Catholic desire to rescue the Orthodox people, drove the two further—and perhaps irrevocably—apart.

The remainder of the 13th century’s Crusades did little better. The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221) managed briefly to capture Damietta in Egypt, but the Muslims eventually defeated the army and reoccupied the city. St. Louis IX of France led two Crusades in his life. The first also captured Damietta, but Louis was quickly outwitted by the Egyptians and forced to abandon the city. Although Louis was in the Holy Land for several years, spending freely on defensive works, he never achieved his fondest wish: to free Jerusalem. He was a much older man in 1270 when he led another Crusade to Tunis, where he died of a disease that ravaged the camp. After St. Louis’s death, the ruthless Muslim leaders, Baybars and Kalavun, waged a brutal jihad against the Christians in Palestine. By 1291, the Muslim forces had succeeded in killing or ejecting the last of the Crusaders, thus erasing the Crusader kingdom from the map. Despite numerous attempts and many more plans, Christian forces were never again able to gain a foothold in the region until the 19th century.

* * *

One might think that three centuries of Christian defeats would have soured Europeans on the idea of Crusade. Not at all. In one sense, they had little alternative. Muslim kingdoms were becoming more, not less, powerful in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The Ottoman Turks conquered not only their fellow Muslims, thus further unifying Islam, but also continued to press westward, capturing Constantinople and plunging deep into Europe itself. By the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim of conquering the entire Christian world. One of the great best-sellers of the time, Sebastian Brant’s The Ship of Fools, gave voice to this sentiment in a chapter titled "Of the Decline of the Faith":

Our faith was strong in th’ Orient,

It ruled in all of Asia,

In Moorish lands and Africa.

But now for us these lands are gone

’Twould even grieve the hardest stone....

Four sisters of our Church you find,

They’re of the patriarchic kind:

Constantinople, Alexandria,

Jerusalem, Antiochia.

But they’ve been forfeited and sacked

And soon the head will be attacked.

Of course, that is not what happened. But it very nearly did. In 1480, Sultan Mehmed II captured Otranto as a beachhead for his invasion of Italy. Rome was evacuated. Yet the sultan died shortly thereafter, and his plan died with him. In 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Vienna. If not for a run of freak rainstorms that delayed his progress and forced him to leave behind much of his artillery, it is virtually certain that the Turks would have taken the city. Germany, then, would have been at their mercy.

Yet, even while these close shaves were taking place, something else was brewing in Europe—something unprecedented in human history. The Renaissance, born from a strange mixture of Roman values, medieval piety, and a unique respect for commerce and entrepreneurialism, had led to other movements like humanism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Exploration. Even while fighting for its life, Europe was preparing to expand on a global scale. The Protestant Reformation, which rejected the papacy and the doctrine of indulgence, made Crusades unthinkable for many Europeans, thus leaving the fighting to the Catholics. In 1571, a Holy League, which was itself a Crusade, defeated the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto. Yet military victories like that remained rare. The Muslim threat was neutralized economically. As Europe grew in wealth and power, the once awesome and sophisticated Turks began to seem backward and pathetic—no longer worth a Crusade. The "Sick Man of Europe" limped along until the 20th century, when he finally expired, leaving behind the present mess of the modern Middle East.

From the safe distance of many centuries, it is easy enough to scowl in disgust at the Crusades. Religion, after all, is nothing to fight wars over. But we should be mindful that our medieval ancestors would have been equally disgusted by our infinitely more destructive wars fought in the name of political ideologies. And yet, both the medieval and the modern soldier fight ultimately for their own world and all that makes it up. Both are willing to suffer enormous sacrifice, provided that it is in the service of something they hold dear, something greater than themselves. Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. The ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy toward slavery, not only survived but flourished. Without the Crusades, it might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam’s rivals, into extinction.

Thomas F. Madden is associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University. He is the author of numerous works, including A Concise History of the Crusades, and co-author, with Donald Queller, of The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople.

[MagusYanam]

snappyanswer, any historian knows that in the study of history, one has to pick one's sources wisely. Crisis Magazine is a Catholic apologetics magazine, so their approach to the Crusades should be expected to be apologetic, and since they have a vested interest in making the record suit their political purposes, this account is liable to be suspect. Indeed, Jews were not treated admirably by either the Papacy or by its agents - even Jews who converted to Christianity were treated as second-class citizens and subjected to persecution (particularly in Spain).

It is true that misconceptions about the Crusades are common. Most Crusaders were not religious fanatics, and nor were they an organised military defence against Islam. The first Crusaders were, in fact, Frankish mercenaries hired by the Byzantine Empire to keep the Moslem Seljuk Turks off their doorstep, and subsequent Crusades were fought with other goals in mind - one of which being to reestablish the prestige and authority which the Papacy seemed to be losing at home. Remember that the Byzantine Empire had two rivals to cope with - the more immediate Seljuk Empire and the Fatimid Caliphate, which were at this time two separate powers.

Many Crusaders were just and honourable men like King Richard Cordelion of England, who were able to recognise the bravery, the honour and, on occasions which allowed it, the mercy of their Islamic adversaries, and who conducted themselves with the same honour and mercy toward them. But the Crusaders who carried out the 1099 Siege of Jerusalem are not to be pardoned for the slaughter of 40,000 innocent people (mostly Jews, though some Moslems as well) once they took the city (something the Moslems did not do when they took Jerusalem).

The Crusades are far more complex an historical series of events than Mr. Madden seems to make them. He paints a picture of a monolithic Islam (nothing could be further from the truth) in full and unrelenting opposition to Christianity (again false). He also makes the claim that Islam was spread primarily through violence, which does not make sense. Islam did spread partially through expansion and force-conversion (as did post-Constantinian Christianity), but it could not have maintained so strong an hegemony among non-Arabs (Turks, Kurds, Berbers, Iranians) if it didn't have some appeal outside the ad baculum. One of the reasons for Islam's success, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is that its ideals of social equality under God appealed particularly to the poor of North Africa and Iran, and many of the impoverished converted willingly.

But it would be a mistake to characterise Islam as a 'Colossus', since it was fragmented by the same ethnic, theological and political factors that had done so for Christianity. And it would be a mistake to characterise Islam as an inherently rapacious, violent and intolerant faith. It behooves historians to be particularly conservative when discussing the issues of religion and politics, lest, like Madden, they make assertions in their argument which are by all objective accounts false.