04-08-2007, 03:25 AM
Every Christian who participated in the Crusades, did so, against the teachings of Jesus.
However, in retrospect, the Crusades probably allowed the western world a thousand years of freedom from the diabolical Islamic religion. The Crusaders stopped the expansion of the Islamic empire. This allowed Christianity to prosper in Europe which preserved the gospel for the rest of the world to receive.
The Crusades were a reaction to the Muslim crusades against the entire world.
In the 7th century, the Muslims took control of Jerusalem, and in the 11th century they began to hassle, kill, molest Christian pilgrims in the Jerusalem area. The Muslim Turks even attacked Rome and Belgrade in 1456 A.D. The Crusades were also in response to the cries of help from the eastern Byzantine Empire, which was very worried about the military threat to it from the Seljuk Turks. So if the Christians did not respond, the Muslims would have conquered all of Europe and wiped out Christianity from the planet. Did this have any significance to Osama bin Laden's sick mind? The Muslim high point in Europe ended when they were turned back from Vienna on September 11, 1683 A.D.
In AD 1009, Kalif Hakem of Egypt ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulcher and all Christian places of worship in Jerusalem. Christians were persecuted cruelly and pilgrims were attacked.
<i>Here is a speech from Pope Urban II to Christians from this Crusader era:</i>
For your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been promised to them. For, as most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania (the Greek empire) as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for a while with impunity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends.
SPAIN UNDER THE MOORS
Neither was Spain under the Muslim Moors the jewel of Islamic tolerance that it is often purported to be. In 920 A.D. all the inhabitants of Muez were put to the sword. Cordova, Zarajoza and Merida were burned to the ground, with all adult males executed and all women and children enslaved. In AD 1066 all the Jews of Grenada were slaughtered. In AD 1126, all the Christians of Grenada were deported to Morocco.
CARNAGE IN CONSTANTINOPLE
Under Mehmet II the Turks conquered the great Byzantine capital, Constantinople. On 29 May, 1453 A.D., waves of Turkish soldiers swept into Constantinople, the greatest city in the world at that time, and put it to the sword. Priceless libraries and irreplaceable works of art were burned, the population slaughtered, even in the Hagia Sophia, the greatest Christian church in the world at that time.
For centuries the Turks demanded an annual “blood levy” of Christian boys. Parents were forced to hand over one out of every five Christian boys for service in the Sultan’s army as janissaries.
In 1860 over 12,000 Christians were slaughtered in Lebanon. In 1876 14,700 Bulgarians were murdered by the Turks. 200,000 Armenian Christians were slaughtered by the Turks in Bayazid in 1877. And in 1915 the Turks massacred over 1.5 million Armenian Christians. As recently as September 1922 the Turkish army destroyed the ancient city of Smyrna with its 300,000 Christian population.