The Crusades & Liberal Islam

Jul 5th, 2006, in History, Opinion, by

The “Jaringan Islam Emansipatoris”, or Emancipatory Islamic Network, write about the Crusades and get it all wrong.

The Crusades, they say, starting off on the right historical foot, were begun under the reign of Pope Urban II in 1095 and were meant to recover the holy places of Christianity, above all Jerusalem, for the Christian world. Across the Eastern Mediterranean military operations were launched against Muslim armies. And then:

The war can be seen as the first contact which gave birth to the tension and emnity between the West and the East.

and wer’e assuming that the “East” here refers to the Muslim world.

Further:

Discussions of inter-religious conflicts, above all those between the great religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are often connected with the Crusades.

Liberal Muslim organisations like Jaringan Islam Emansipatoris do a lot of good and this site is generally supportive of them. However at least on this topic they share the prejudices and inability to critically evaluate Islam of their more conservative and orthodox co-religionists. The Crusades were not the beginning of the fight between Islam and the West, they were a second, belated act, by a hitherto sleep-walking Christian world, after centuries of Muslim/Arab aggression, centuries of invasions, conquests, massacres, forced conversions, that reached all the way into the heart of western Europe.

After the birth of Islam, in a small, obscure part of Arabia, in the 7th century, wave after wave of Muslim armies crashed into Christian and Jewish lands, conquered them, usurped them, colonized them, bled them. These armies carried Islam all the way to southern Spain, to Andalusia, and of course to countless, mainly Christian, lands along that bloody way. Conquered peoples were offered few choices – convert or accept the humiliating status of dhimmi. Over three centuries later, after this massive jihad had begun, the European Christians finally and belatedly made some sort of response – the Crusades – and attempted to seize back at least some of the areas lost to Christendom.

The conflict between the West and the “East” can be traced back to the initial, violent, Muslim expansion out of their desert backwater, not to the Crusades.


45 Comments on “The Crusades & Liberal Islam”

  1. Treespotter says:

    I’m not sure if I’m still allowed to comment on this site, but let me drop my two cents:

    Paul: “Islam has been attacking the “west” since its inception. Well, you should add that the west (which is I assume you understand well to have existed for slightly longer than the whole Moslem civilization), have also been attacking everybody else for as long as it ever been. There’s no shortage of examples, from the carving up of Africa, Middle East, shiploads of African as commodities to Asia.

    History is what history is, it’s always written by the ones who survived. I guess you guys can read what you want from any book you read, but one thing for sure is that going around random places telling people what to do is simply no longer fashionable.

    The hundreds of years that many eastern civilization including Indonesia/Mid East and Africa have spent under the western imperalism drive no doubt shaped up many things.

    Forget the crusade, just look at what’s happening now in Jerusalem and tell me where they stand.

    To use the word ‘eradicate’ to describe Moslem conquest in Spain is, well, I don’t know, misleading? For someone who claimed to have read history so much, you clearly got your language mixed up. If it’s the remaining zoroastrian in Iran that you claimed survived Moslem occupation, then obviously you’re a bit twisted in your logic.

    I don’t even know why i bothered with you guys, really.

  2. dec_ryan says:

    who claimed Islam is peace,perfect n’ best way to achive heaven. you maybe blind to say that while riots,murder,suicide keep on in this country just because of the religion as the root of the problem.stop saying a lie while this country almost die by nature to be a lesson.just be good n’ pray and God knows which right and not to be right by say.whatever U said it’s not your ticket to heaven.

  3. Paul Dale says:

    Treespotter, read the threads before posting. Do you understand how this works?

    The historical fact that “Islam has been attacking the “west”” was given in response to someone who basically blames the Christianity and the west for world’s problems. Although I am critical of Islam, I have never stated or even hinted that “Christianity=good & Islam=bad”. . . Don’t take something out of context and argue with yourself?! In addition this point was made in that post?! Read & think before writing . . .

    . . . which leads to your following paragraphs which are barely readable?

    Also, so the inception of Islam in 7th AD century is AFTER the birth of Christ?!? My god man, you broken the code, thanks for that bit of information, now I have a totally different perspective, you are really adding value!!

    And I end this post with great joy because now I am off to a wonderful place called Italy, where I can sample some unique food & wine to my heart’s delight, visit some fairly old battlefields (is 300BC before Christ?), admire 2000 year-old engineering feats that were not surpassed until the renaissance. I will raise a glass to you, at this moment actually, and wish you the best!

  4. Harry says:

    patung – banu qurayza was sentenced to death due to their treachery at time of war. this is standard penalty for such act in many societies, even until now.
    somehow you “failed” to mention this in your comments, giving a totally different view on the event.

    forced conversion – there’s no such thing in Islam. even when the prophet ruled medina, the Jews were not forced to convert.
    if any Muslim did that, they have committed sin.

    several comments here seems to be unable to differentiate between Muslim and Islam; keeps on attributing things done by Muslim to Islam; even though that’s not always the case.

    re: massacre – Islam defined a very strict code of conduct during war. non-combatants are not to be harmed. even trees are not to be disturbed, unless very necessary.
    if there are Muslims failed to adhere to this code, clearly this is not the fault of Islam, but the fault of the men.

    dhimmitude is much better when we placed it into the proper context – at that time, countries wages war against other countries. the loser then gets massacred.
    the concept of dhimmi protects the loser, and assures their rights.

    in return, they pay jizya – because they do not pay zakat like Muslims. so it’s still very fair.

    I will not reject the fact that many Muslims have committed terrible acts. it happened, happen, and will still happen in the future. as with other religion’s followers.
    but i do try to differentiate between follower and the religion, because they’re not always in sync – therefore blindly blaming one for the other is potentially misleading.

    i sincerely hope this site will become better that just another Muslim-hater website. sorry gotta go now, almost 23:00 and I’m still in the office, yay.

  5. O. Bule says:

    Until the late 18th century Catholic Church either committed or endorsed the committing of various barbaric acts against heretics and nonbelievers, as did the early Protestants churches. Islam was spread in many cases by the sword, and their were forced conversions, as well as barbarity against nonbelievers. The difference is that as time went on (by the late 18th and the 19th centuries) the Christian churches had largely stopped their barbarous acts and were actively preaching against such things, and for tolerance; whereas, in many regions of the world, Islamic leaders have never stopped preaching that nonbelievers have to be at least suppressed, if not outright killed, and that no other religion than a fanatical version of Islam can be allowed to exist.

    It is time for Islam to grow up and become a religion that helps people get along with their neighbors, not want to kill them.

    O. Bule

  6. Jakartass says:

    … “by the late 18th and the 19th centuries, the Christian churches had largely stopped their barbarous acts and were actively preaching against such things, and for tolerance …

    Eh?

    As in the farflung reaches of the British Empire, perhaps, such as in South Africa which first saw the introduction of concentration camps?
    And the Dutch Reformed Church whose adherents were largely responsible for apartheid?
    And as in Northern Ireland?
    As in the born again movement and creationists in the US?
    As in the child molestation charges against mainly Catholic priests in Ireland and the USA?

    Surely, it is time for all religions to grow up in order to “help people get along with their neighbors“, not just Islam.

  7. Harry says:

    O.Bule – you said :

    It is time for Islam to grow up and become a religion that helps people get along with their neighbors, not want to kill them.

    Islam has never endorsed this. There is even verse in Quran that prevent parents from forcing their OWN children to convert to Islam. Much less forcing others. Or killing them.

    Please try to differentiate between Islam and Muslim. Cheers.

  8. S. Strauch says:

    It is useless to argue with these people who villify Islam; they are not here to have an open-minded discussion. You cannot convince them through logical argument. Better to spend your time reading the Qur`an and improving your Islamic knowledge and ignore them. You will not change their opinions: “They are deaf, dumb and blind” (Qur`an 2:18)

  9. Good Gurl says:

    Well said S.Strauch. Your absoulutely right! These people will not listen. If they want to know the right things they should read the translation of the Qur’an and Hadeeths.

  10. Dang Hadi says:

    Hey all the debate about west and east or crusade with muslims? I make it plain and simple. Hitler didn’t do his job well, he did not complete his task. If he did, there will be peace. IT’S THE JEWS !!!

  11. Ihaknt says:

    Dang Hadi, who told you it’s the jews? Do you just believe what you’re told?

  12. Dimp says:

    Hi Dang Hadi,

    According to Spielberg (most probably a jew), its the JAWS that you should be afraid of.

  13. Astrajingga says:

    Yes, I agree. After I watched JAWS, my life can never be the same. I’m afraid of swimming in the open ocean. The Jews don’t scare me that much, may be because there’s not so many jew in Indonesia. Well… Paul Wolfowitz, but has gone back to US decade ago.

  14. Odinius says:

    Hmm…this thread is back from the dead.

    Well, the problem with the Crusades isn’t so much that they happened, but how they happened. The First Crusade, in particular, was a beastly, ghastly orgy of violence. Wasn’t the first violence between Christians and Muslims by any stretch of the imagination, but neither was HItler’s 1941 invasion of the USSR the first example of German-Russian violence. But it, and the Russian counteroffensive, were the most emphatic.

    So think Patung’s 3 year old post misses the point at bit.

    “It’s the Jews” bilge is, simply, bilge.

  15. doelexpress says:

    JIL=Jaringan Islam Laknatullah

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