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Was the First Crusade really a war against Islam?

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Was the First Crusade really a war against Islam?


It is widely believed that the Crusades were a clash of civilisations. But a closer examination, writes Nicholas Morton, reveals a complexity that has eluded many historians.

After more than a month of intense fighting, the armies of the First Crusade broke into Jerusalem on July 15th, 1099. Perhaps 3,000 of the city’s Muslim and Jewish population died in the bloody onslaught and further massacres took place in the follo wing days. It was an act of holy war, a symbolic cleansing of the Holy City, later remembered in medieval chronicles, which describe the victorious Franks wading in the blood of the fallen.

These gruesome events are counted among the cruellest acts of war. They are also offered as unequivocal proof that the First Crusade instigated a clash of civilisations between Christianity and Islam, which would last for centuries. Commentators from many backgrounds, addressing a variety of audiences, have treated this verdict as fact, characterising the First Crusade as the quintessential Christian versus Muslim conflict. It continues to fuel hatred nine centuries on. Yet how far is it borne out by the evidence? Was the First Crusade a war against Islam?

To answer that question it is necessary to go back a century before the campaign and hundreds of miles east, to the great grass sea of the central Asian steppe. It was a region long traversed by nomadic tribes, grazing their herds and fighting clan wars. Various religious influences moulded their beliefs, though most practised some form of shamanism.

Continued: http://www.historytoday.com/nicholas-morton/was-first-crusade-really-war-against-islam
 
They are also offered as unequivocal proof that the First Crusade instigated a clash of civilisations between Christianity and Islam, which would last for centuries.
The "instigation" was the Muslim conquest of north Africa, the invasion of Europe and conquest of Spain, and the conquest of the Christian kingdoms of the near east. The crusades were a response to the expansion of Muslim rule through conquest.
Therefore, the "initiation" was done by the Islamic hordes which attempted to conquer the world and were prevented from taking all of Europe by Europe's military response at the Battle of Tours in 732, the naval battle of LePonto in 1571, and the defeat of the Turks at Vienna in 1683.
IT was the Muslims who initiated the conquest of North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. The Crusades were Europe's early responses to the threat of Muslim conquest and subjugation under Islam.
Islam has finally successfully invaded and occupied Europe in the last few years using alleged "refugees." They will outnumber Europeans withing a generation or two and control their democratic governments thus accomplishing their goals from the 8th century.

iakov the fool
 
To answer that question it is necessary to go back a century before the campaign and hundreds of miles east, to the great grass sea of the central Asian steppe.

What has this to do with islam or with Christianity.
Yes there was a mixing of culture from the nomadic hordes and the settled civilisations found in the middle east, but islam which came from the middle east and not the steppes was the dominant influence.

Equally the crusades did not take place in a vacume, there was a historical political and militarey reasons for the crusades as well as religous reasons.

Interestingly the author fails to account for the major reason of the military world conquest motive in islam.

I wonder why?
 
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