21 January 2015 A.D. Post-Charles Hebdo Attack in Paris—Crusades in
Perspective
Martin, Rod D. “The Crusades
in Perspective.” RodMartin.org. 17
Jan 2015. http://rodmartin.org/the-crusades-in-perspective/.
Accessed 20 Jan 2015.
The Crusades in Perspective
Facebook is again filled with defenders of Islamist
“feelings” in the aftermath of the Paris attacks. Eventually but invariably
they invoke that favorite liberal trump card, the Crusades.
But I have to marvel at the tendency of
these people to focus so heavily on a handful of European invasions of a
tiny part of the western Levant (primarily modern Israel, which is the size of
a postage stamp), all of which happened 800 to 900 years ago anyway, without a
thought to:
1. The Muslim conquest and forced conversion of that same
area just a few centuries earlier.
2. The Muslim conquest and forced conversion of all of
Christian Egypt
3. The Muslim conquest and forced conversion of all of
Christian Libya
4. The Muslim conquest and forced conversion of all of
Christian Tunisia and Algeria (as they are called today)
5. The Muslim conquest and forced conversion of all of
Christian Morocco (as it is called today)
6. The Muslim conquest and forced conversion of all of
Christian Spain and Portugal, resulting in a 700 year war of liberation which
was only won by the conquered native inhabitants a month before Columbus sailed
to the New World.
7. The attempted Muslim conquest of France
8. The Muslim conquest (later reversed) of Sardinia and of
Sicily
9. The Muslim conquest and forced conversion of all of
Christian Asia Minor (now Turkey)
10. The Muslim conquest of “the city of the world’s
desire,” Constantinople (now Istanbul), the seat of the Patriarch (rough
equivalent of the Pope for the Eastern church; and thus the city’s fall was
roughly the same as if an American army were to conquer and then forcibly
convert Mecca), barely a generation before Columbus
11. The Muslim conquest of all of the Christian Balkans,
literally to the gates of Vienna as late as September 11, 1683, just 100 years
before American independence and half a millennium after the Crusades.
12. The Muslim conquest and forced conversion of all of
Zoroastrian Persia
13. The Muslim conquest and forced conversion of all of
what we now call Central Asia
14. The Muslim conquest of and genocide in Hindu India, which
took place after Columbus and at a time when that area had three times the
population of all of Western Europe.
Sadly, I’m not even addressing the Muslim conquests and
forced conversions of large parts of the rest of Africa or Southeast Asia. And
you may draw whatever conclusions you will (if any) about the nature of Islam.
My point is simply that in even so much as mentioning the
Crusades, you might as well just say that Hitler was right when he blamed
Poland for World War II. The concept is utterly ignorant of history at best,
pure propaganda at worst. Indeed, you might as well blame a massacre on
the publication of a cartoon.
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