Tuesday, May 10, 2022

A Timeline Leading To Middle-Eastern Crusades

The Crusades against Islam (as opposed to the Crusades against the Albigensians or the Crusades in Northern Europe) are commonly agreed to have occurred between 1095 and 1291.

  • What happened prior to 1095? Well, Islam began it's expansion around 632. In that year, every piece of land which touched the Mediterranean was Catholic.
  • By 647, Islam had begun to conquer North Africa. Crusade was not called.
  • In 674, Islamic armies laid its first siege of Constantinople, capitol city of the Roman Eastern Empire. Crusade was not called.
  • By 711, literally half of the Catholic Roman Empire had been conquered by Islam, and Islam had crossed the channel to invade Spain. Crusade was not called. For the next 600 years, Islamic armies would conquer most of the Iberian peninsula and fight Christian kings for control. Crusade was not called.
  • 782, the Islamic invasion of Asia Minor began. Crusade was not called.
  • 827, Arab Islamic armies attack and conquer Sicily. Crusade was not called.
  • For the next two centuries, Islamic corsairs would raid all along the Spanish, French, Italian, Neopolitan and Asia Minor coast of Christian Europe, kidnapping and enslaving Christians. Crusade was not called.
  • In 846, the Arab Muslims raided Rome. Islamic armies sailed up the Tiber, defiled the Church of St. Peter in Chains and St. Paul Outside the Walls, and attacked Rome itself. The papal response was to raise the wall around Rome, to make it one foot higher. Crusade was not called.
  • The churches in Jerusalem were razed or defiled, with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher turned into a horse stable. Crusade was not called.
  • Only when Muslims forbad Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem did the Popes finally declare that they had had just about enough of this, and declare Crusade.

Now, compare that to the modern situation. Can you imagine foreign armies invading the United States from the East, capturing every scrap of territory between the East Coast and the Mississippi river, laying siege to Los Angeles, raiding American cities all along the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi River, the West Coast and the Canadian border, and we don't respond militarily for four centuries?

That we don't respond even after they turn the Lincoln Memorial into a Chinese takeout, and destroy the Washington Monument? That we only respond militarily four hundred years later, when the stop America tourists from being able to visit Washington DC at all?

If you think the Crusades was unreasonable, then you must also have very serious objections to the US response after 9/11. And the reconquista of all that territory between the Mississippi and Washington DC... you would obviously object to American military force being used for that, right?

1 comment:

  1. Very helpful post Steve. Thank you.

    Maybe you can address the other canard re the Crusades: the millions of innocents massacred by the Catholics?

    ReplyDelete