Hate pamphlets distributed in US Mosques?

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Plus, the article [about Islamism] gives a number of references to study further (Darkwolf inquired about that possibility). I find it great that in my student years, whilst commuting, I can actually find time to read books.

 

Without meaning to sound like a smartarse, Christians learned the hard way in the Crusades. And there are still some who take the "convert or be destroyed" perspective, though thankfully they seem to be losing influence. The marriage of conservative Christianity and economic power, however, lends itself to a more insidious form of repression than insurgency or terrorism.

No-one's hands are clean in this - some of the blood is a little older or harder to see, but that's all. That doesn't mean anyone is justified in killing, terrorising or inciting hatred and violence, though, and as I said earlier, people like that should be stopped.

@ Darkwolf: Would "megalomaniacal Islamists" be a useful term to describe the people you want to single out? "Fundamentalists" is a bit too general, and you can usually negotiate with them a little better.

@ toughluck: People bastardise words all the time. My father's an organic and physical chemist, and he's sick to death of hearing about "organic spring water" or some such nonsense.

 

I'm sure that there is some law somewhere by which you can lock these jackasses up. Isn't solicitation of a criminal action (like murder or vandalism) a crime in and of itself?

 

NonSequitur -- you've opened a can of worms with the Crusades:
-- Muslims have captured 2/3 of the entire Christendom (Iberia, North Africa* and Middle East -- all were Christian and part of either the Roman or the Byzantine Empires);
-- Muslims were advancing towards Constantinople.
In that case, the Byzantine Emperor has pleaded the Pope for succour, and the response was the Crusades. It worked, but not to full success -- Crusades were expensive, and still unable to reclaim much more than the Holy Land. Then, after four major crusades, Europeans had to fall back, which led to the fall of the Byzantium.

So if you're saying "convert or be destroyed" approach, as in conversion at the tip of the sword, in relation to Christians, they experienced it on the receiving end of the sword in the era of the Crusades. 2/3 of the entire Christian population, in fact.

*) N Africa had been captured as early as by Alexander the Great, and Greek colonies succeeded in hellenising the population so that Romans were able to then take over. Subsequently, Christianity started spreading over them. In fact, North Africa was in many ways better developed and christianised than Northern Europe. Many early Christian saints come from North Africa, including St. Augustine, which only proves that point (early European saints were mostly kings, which went to prove a political point, as opposed to hellenic cultures).

 

Just in case someone is missing this point, North Africa and parts of Levantine were conquered on the break of the 7th and 8th century, which now looks like ages ago, but it surely didn't in 1095 when the crusades started. Bear in mind also that the Byzantine empire had been struggling for survival since 1024 when they lost the great battle with the Seljuks at Manzikert, which was already after a period of heavy fighting, including Constantinople being besieged. No matter how you put it, that wasn't a friendly entry on the part of the Muslim world. Plus, I doubt the West would have taken such a great effort if there had been safe access to holy places for the Christians. Imagine if someone conquered Mekka and blocked Muslim pilgrims from entering.

Really? I thought Muhammad said:

http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/charter1.html

Including Muhammad?

From the Qoran:

However, another verse says:

Contradiction? Who knows. But the whole is surely ambiguous enough to warrant different positions.

One of such positions is:

In fact, it's extremists who want a holy war with Christians or Jews, and their interpretation of the Muslim scripture is somewhat dented.

[ February 05, 2005, 12:56: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Sounds about right. The Palestinians do the same thing about the Jews. I have no doubt the East Indians and the Pakistanis play this game with each other.

Not sure about China and Japan. I know some of the more...prominent Japanese men celebrate their domination over China, each year. In October, I think. But most of the Asian nations are still pissed at each other, for various attrocities.

Brainwashing is an artform. There are people working on the scientific "precision" aspect.

 

It's just standard tactics if you want to mobilise a population against something. It's a lot easier to get people to fight if they don't see the average enemy as remotely "human" or redeemable. The Devil is a lot easier to shoot than another human being who does almost exactly the same things you do every day.

@ toughluck: Touche - I must admit that I don't know a great deal about that topic, only that the Crusaders went in after the Holy Land fell with the express intention of driving back "the infidel invader".

However, my point was that both sides have grievances, have been invaded and have fought wars initiated at least in part by religious differences and the concept of the "infidel", and the question of who has been worse is moot. The actual history is irrelevant when a selective slice is enough to fire old hatreds fuelled by current policies and perceived injustices.

 

It was the Crusaders themselves who attacked Byzantium. I don't know if I would call that a success. What do you mean by: "Still unable to reclaim more than the Holy Land?" What else was there? World conquest?

 

True but you forgot to mention that the christians of North Africa, who were considered heretics by the byzantine church, welcomed muslims as liberators.

The emperor Alexios Komnenos did not pleaded the pope for succour , he sent a letter to the count of Flanders where he asking to help him in recruiting mercenaries. The medieval western historians in order to justify the problems of the first crusade blamed Alexios for them and created the theory of perdifia Graecorum, which supports that the Byzantine emperor asked for the crusade and when the Crusaders denied to help him to achieve his aims, he tried to cause them as much harm as he could.

Also, I would say that the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 by the fourth crusade and the continuous military and economic attacks by Genova and Venice and other franks are more responsible for the fall of the empire than the failure of the crusaders in Holy Land.

 

Actually, no, the Turks attacked Byzantine. The Turks were Muslims.

 

@Warrior

Chandos means the conquer of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204, which has as result the division of the empire in many small greek and latin states. Byzantines took the city back in 1261 and managed to restore the empire but of course it was much weaker than before.

 

Nah, its dead!

Just realized that we need a :rip: (rest in peace) graemlin to go with that :nuke: one that Tal is working on.

Seriously,

We have probably pretty much exhausted discussion on the topic, but if we want to discuss the history and historical impact of the various campaigns of the region, we should probably start a new thread, but lets not, that is just a little too involved for a forum!

Then again, this is a lot more than just a normal forum, so if someone thinks they can give us a micro Cliffs notes version, I would read it.