Islamic and Christian holy wars

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by dan1123, May 19, 2002.

  1. dan1123 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    302
    I thought with all this talk about Islamic "peace" and a quote in one of the topics about Islamic people learning holy wars from the Christian crusades needed a little perspective.

    Islamic holy wars
    (http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/history/chronology/)

    Islam is argued to have been spread peacefully, separate from the Muslim takeover of territories. Still, Islamic governments pushed Islam on the people of the territories which they took over, and treated Jews and Christians as second class citizens.

    623 AD Muhammad leads 310 men to loot a caravan and got into a battle with the people defending it.

    625 AD Muhammad led his army into the battle of Uhud, but was defeated.

    630 AD Muhammad led an army 10,000 to Mecca, which surrenders after losing 20-30 men

    633 AD Muhammad's sucessors hold military campaigns in Bahrain, Oman, Mahrah Yemen, and Hadramaut. Raids in Iraq. Battles of Kazima, Mazar, Walaja, Ulleis, Hirah, Anbar, Ein at tamr, Daumatul Jandal and Firaz.

    634 AD Muhammad's successors hold battles of Basra, Damascus and Ajnadin.

    635 AD Battle of Bridge. Battle of Buwaib. Conquest of Damascus. Battle of Fahl.

    636 Battle of Yermuk. Battle of Qadsiyia. Conquest of Madain.

    637 Conquest of Syria. Fall of Jerusalem. Battle of Jalula.

    638 Conquest of Jazirah.

    639 Conquest of Khuizistan. Advance into Egypt.

    640 Conquest of Shustar and Jande Sabur in Persia. Battle of Babylon in Egypt.

    641 Battle of Nihawand. Conquest Of Alexandria in Egypt.

    642 Battle of Rayy in Persia.

    643 Conquest of Azarbaijan and Tabaristan (Russia).

    644 Conquest of Fars, Kerman, Sistan, Mekran and Kharan.

    645 Campaigns in Fats.

    646 Campaigns in Khurasan, Armeain and Asia Minor.

    647 Campaigns in North Africa. Conquest of the island of Cypress.

    648 Campaigns against the Byzantines.

    (okay, I have to start skipping to major highlight battles and conquests)

    711: Conquest of Spain, Sind and Transoxiana.

    716: Invasion of Constantinople.

    969: The Fatimids conquer Egypt.

    1082: The A1 Moravids conquer Algeria.

    1194: Occupation of Delhi by the Muslims.

    1245: The Muslims reconquer Jerusalem.

    1327: In the Ottoman Turks empire, The Turks capture the city of Nicaea.

    1352: In Algeria, The Marinids again capture Algeria.

    1371: In the Ottoman Turks empire, Invasion of Bulgaria

    1384: In Amir Temur's empire, Conquest of Astrabad, Mazandaran, Rayy and Sultaniyah.

    1386: In Amir Temur's empire, Annexation of Azarbaijan, Georgea overrun.

    1517: The Ottoman Sultan Selim Yavuz ("the Grim") defeats the Mamluks and conquers Egypt.

    1948: Arab armies attack Israel the instant it is founded


    Christian holy wars
    (http://www.biblia.com/christianity/)

    Crusades are argued to be done out of fear of a Muslim takeover. They still went bad and about 5,000 Jews and Muslims are estimated to have been killed by crusaders.

    1095: The first crusade, sparked by Turks disallowing pilgrimages to what is now Israel

    1098: Capture of Antioch

    1099: The crusaders capture Jerusalem.

    1144 Edessa (one of the states established by the first crusade) falls to the Muslims

    1146: Second crusade captures Lisbon, Portugal

    1190 King Richard sets out on a third crusade and captures Cypress

    1203 fourth crusade recaptures already Christian Constantinople

    1204 revolt causes the crusaders to return to Constantinople to recapture it

    1219 fifth crusade captures city of Damietta in Egypt

    1228 sixth crusade

    1249 seventh crusade

    1270 eighth crusade

    1272 final crusade ends the crusades

    1571 a Holy League defeated the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto
     
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  3. Neutrino_Albatross Legion of Dynamic Discord Registered Senior Member

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    I agree I don't know why everyone says that Islam rose to power so peacefully.

    However Islam on the whole was far more tolerant than christianity

    True but the chrisitan approach was usually to kill the infidel.

    Your list only includes wars between christianity and islam. You should take a look into the wars fought between the different factions of each religion. (The 30 years War is my favorite)
     
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  5. Xev Registered Senior Member

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    Oh PUH-LEEEEZE! You Christians are hardly without sin when it comes to holy wars, and have some stones to be bringing this up.

    Hardly substantiated. While 'unbelievers' paid special taxes, I've yet to see an instance of forcible conversion, and I've read the history of this period fairly extensivly. Perhaps you could find me one?

    Hmmm.....I think a comparitive study of the Bible and the Q'ran would make a good topic.

    As for 'second class citizens', you haven't substantiated that. Literature of the 'Islamic Golden Age' describes a culture where Jews and Christians are fairly treated.

    As for your holy wars, correct me if I am wrong, but were not tribal fueds common at the time?

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    You've given no context to these wars. I wonder how many were defensive?

    5,000? The death toll was much higher than that.

    http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#European

    Fear of a Muslim takover? Perhaps. Greed?

    Anyways, I won't argue that Islam is without sin. As an athiest, I get to diss you all.

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    However, comparitive study of the Q'ran and the Bible leads one to believe that Islam is much more humane than Christianity. It is a pity that the religion does not seem ready to adapt to the demands of modern life.

    *Grins*

    Anyways, "My religion killed fewer people than yours!" could be argued as showing the inherent violance of theism.
     
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  7. jjhlk Guest

    I've read that over 150,000 people died in the crusades... However, the source didn't specify which side lost how many...
     
  8. dan1123 Registered Senior Member

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    302
    religious tolerance


    The purpose wasn't to include wars within the religions. Islam has about 30 or 40 listed among its followers. Christians have been associated with terrorism too (the IRA), but to a lesser scale than Islam as well.

    As far as Islam's "tolerance" of other religions, only Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians could get any protection and had to pay a special tax to the Islamic government. However, their rights were still not in-tact even then:

    http://answering-islam.org/NonMuslims/

    * They were not allowed to build new churches, but if a Muslim liked, were permitted to demolish any churches they liked.

    * They were not allowed to pray or read from their holy books out loud.

    * They were not allowed to print any religious books or sell them in public places.

    * They were not allowed to gather in public places for religious rituals.

    * They could not testify against a Muslim in court

    * They were not allowed political office

    * Employers were forced to take Muslim employees over them.

    * If they were rumored to have spoken out against the Islamic state, they were jailed or killed

    * If they were rumored to try and convert a Muslim to their religion, they would be jailed or killed

    * If a Muslim converted away from Islam, his property, wife, and children were taken away, and he was not allowed to remarry.

    In the Ottoman Empire "forcibly took male children of the enslaved Christian families (mainly Greeks. and later also Armenians Bulgarians, Albanians and Serbs), and brought them up in special camps They conditioned them to become fanatic Turks and relentless killers to their own people. These children would grow up to believe that their father was the Sultan and that if they were to die in battle they would go to heaven. Thus, because of this New Army, or Janissaries, (Yeni-ceri in Turkish) the Turks continued to pursue their conquests."

    Until the time of the Great War and their ethnic cleansing in 1915, Armenian Christians dressed their young girls as boys to prevent their rape or kidnap (or both) by Ottoman Muslims.

    In April 24 1915 the Ottoman authorities ordered the deportation of practically the entire Armenian and Assyrian Christian populations of eastern Asia Minor to Syria and Iraq, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and to massacre many of them. The genocide continued throughout the year. By the end of 1915, 1,500,000 Armenians and 250,000 Assyrians had been murdered.

    Yeah, you can really tell they were tolerant.

    And on the Christian side, first of all, for the first 1,000 years of Christianity, there was virtually no persecution of non-Christians by Christians. This started with the first crusade. Muslims were the enemy, and were not converted forcefully (just killed so the crusaders could regain land).

    Before the second crusade, St. Bernard frequently preached that the Jews were not to be persecuted.

    To be fair, another "Saint" continued to speak out against the Jews, until Bernard himself came and ended the Jewish massacres entirely.

    Inquisitions later killed about 200,000 people in 350 years. (the estimate of 200,000 seems reasonable because people on each side contend as little as 2,000 or as much as 6 million)
     
  9. Xev Registered Senior Member

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    10,943
    You quote an blatently anti-Islam site as your source? I don't mean to be ad hominem here, but citing Gene Ray is quite different than citing Steven Hawking.

    Back at ya': http://www.islam101.com/rights/hr_tocM.htm

    Of course, I don't cite biased sources......

    Who was Hypatia, then? Who were the Pagans, then?

    Gee, Christianity is sooo cool, Christians just massacre people so that they can steal their land. Wow, what a nifty religion! I'm going to convert right now!

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    Yeah, St.Paul laid the groundwork for the whole 'Jews killed Christ' business.

    Look, the whole 'Islam is a religion of peace' rhetoric is overblown, yeah, but that hardly makes it as viscous as you point out.

    You are yet unable to respond to my objections.
     
    Last edited: May 19, 2002
  10. dan1123 Registered Senior Member

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    302
    I took modern world history from a Muslim, and these facts were all stated--although sugar-coated--in the class as true.

    And as far as your "unbiased source", your source states, "As far as my knowledge goes the Westerners had no concept of human rights and civic rights before the seventeenth century."

    That's about as biased as you can get. Maybe you think it's unbiased because you share the author's bias?

    Ah, you completely overlook that the Muslims took it over with an army in the first place and act as it it were really the Christians who were the only evil ones, coming into some land unprovoked. I don't doubt that the people who decided to slaughter Jews and Muslims in the crusades were evil. But the intent was to take back territory taken over by the Muslims in their military expansion.

    These acts were taken on by the Roman government in the face of angry condemnation by the christian leadership of the time.
     
  11. dan1123 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    302
    By the way, your quote from Titus was not about Jews, but a spinter sect of Christians who were trying to have Christians follow all of Jewish law and discount Jesus.
     
  12. Xev Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,943
    Dan:

    "I took modern world history from a Muslim, and these facts were all stated--although sugar-coated-- in the class as true. "

    Uh huh. Gee, I'm convinced.

    "And as far as your "unbiased source", your source states, "As far as my knowledge goes the Westerners had no concept of human rights and civic rights before the seventeenth century." That's about as biased as you can get. Maybe you think it's unbiased because you share the author's bias?"

    It's called sarcasm.

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    *Waits for realization to dawn*

    Or rather, sar-chasm.

    "Ah, you completely overlook that the Muslims took it over with an army in the first place and act as it it were really the Christians who were the only evil ones, coming into some land unprovoked. I don't doubt that the people who decided to slaughter Jews and Muslims in the crusades were evil. But the intent was to take back territory taken over by the Muslims in their military expansion."

    Actually, recapturing Jeruslum was the stated aim.....

    "These acts were taken on by the Roman government in the face of angry condemnation by the christian leadership of the time."

    Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob......

    Angry condemnation? The Catholics canonized the man who incited her murderers. Give me a fucking break! You obviously haven't the first clue what you are talking about.

    "By the way, your quote from Titus was not about Jews, but a spinter sect of Christians who were trying to have Christians follow all of Jewish law and discount Jesus."

    Source? Preferentially one that isn't biased?
     
  13. dan1123 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    302
    I was talking about the non-Christian death penalty instated by Rome. This goes along with the other widely instituted religious bigotry and murder in the other examples.

    Hypatia was a different issue, where a jealous bishop incited the killing of her as an individual, not as a general rule. Still, the different stories of her gruesome murder 400 years after Jesus taught to turn the other cheek shows a straying from His original teachings. If you like, we could shorten it to 400 years without Christians taking over countries or forcing their religion on anyone. This is much better than the first 400 years of Islamic expansion.

    I am not trying to argue here that Christians are blameless through history. I am trying to argue that Christians began in a peaceful manner, and I am juxtaposing it with Islam, which from the same area, had a very different beginning. This is merely in response to some people's opinions I have seen on this forum. I am not trying to say all Muslims are bad here either--just that the state-imposed restrictions and conquering of territories is not the "Golden Age" of humanity some here seem to believe.

    Oh, I understand now. Sorry for my implication about you being biased in favor of Islam. Actually, I was hoping you would find an unbiased source that would tackle the issue. All the ones I have found (including my modern world history instructor) are biased greatly or ignore the issue altogether. You either have that the Islamic people murdered most "infidels" upon the capture of a country from one source, or you have that Muslim countries showed an unparalleled tolerance for non-Muslim people.

    I think the truth lies somewhere in between. In the same way that there were probably not 6 million people killed in the crusades, but probably more than 2,000 as some claim.

    Some of the sources called certain events in Muslim history "genocides" and then described something far less brutal. Others simply took passages from the Quaran in response to allogations of Muslim brutality. I think that's the same thing as quoting Jesus' "love your neighbor as yourself" when approached with the atrocity of the Inquisitions, or the like.

    Further, I tried to find a middle ground with all of these, and refused to parrot the rhetoric spoken by some of the sites that I came across.

    As for the Titus quote and my answer. I only found Christian sites that would talk about that part of Titus, and they talked about a group that was falsely mixing the Christian and Jewish beliefs. If you know of somewhere else I could attempt to get an opinion from a non-Christian or better yet Jewish source, I would be happy to see it.
     
  14. Xev Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    10,943
    Dan:
    400 years...and how many of those years were Christians persecuted for? They didn't persecute others because they couldn't! The second they gained power, the persecutions started. Constantine springs to mind.

    Same area, different cultures. Muslims merely fought their persecuters and won better than the Christians did. Christianity may have begun in a peacefull manner, but they did not spread in a peacefull manner, and neither did Islam.

    *Shrugs*

    I'm willing to cede Titus, although I think it applies to Jews. My stance is not diminished.
     
  15. Markx Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    970
    Well, I am not going to argue you sincerity and I am not going to assume that you are anti Islam and Muslim, which is the case with many Christians. I like to assume that you are a neutral person and have got some information and trying to assume a lot from a single link. You are and to me it seems like that you are blaming a lot to the religion of 1400 years old and currently with more then billion people on a Link of history which is very likely written by some CHRISTIAN or BAHAI or some no Muslim. And that is your source. Are you willing to take it as the final authority? Are you willing to believe all that it offers? Or you think there could be the other side of coin? If you answer is Yes. Then I would only feel sad for your ignorance and if your answer is No then we can talk about it. And I am not talking about crusaders I am talking about wars during the time of Mohammed. Really lack of knowledge there. Let me state something else for you, and it could be your ignorance or under education, you satated and I am not sure where did you get that number from that 5000 Jews and Muslims killed in crusaders?.. Now it is a joke. If that number is produce by some writer then it shows the intelligence of that writer and the knowledge he posses. The exact number is something that we will never find out, but majority of historian based it along 150,000 to 300,000. Now think logically wars that lasts for more then a century......and only sweet Christians killed 5000 Jews and Muslims? That many people just dies from getting wounded in wars like that. Now come and get real here.
    let me start with basics for you.




    THE CRUSADERS:

    To Arab historians, the Crusaders were a minor irritant, their invasion one more barbarian incursion, not nearly as serious a threat as the Mongols were to prove in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

    The First Crusade began in 1095 after the Byzantines - threatened by Seljuk power- appealed to Pope Urban II for military aid. Pope Urban, hoping to divert the Christian kings and princes from their struggles with each other, and perhaps also seeing an opportunity to reunite the Eastern and Western churches, called for a "Truce of God" among the rulers of Europe and urged them to take the Holy Land from the Muslims.



    Considered dispassionately, the venture was impossible. The volunteers - a mixed assemblage of kings, nobles, mercenaries, and adventurers - had to cross thousands of miles of unfamiliar and hostile country and conquer lands of whose strength they had no conception. Yet so great was their fervor that in 1099 they took Jerusalem, establishing along the way principalities in Antioch, Edessa, and Tripoli. Although unable to fend off the Crusaders at first - even offering the Crusaders access to Jerusalem if they would come as pilgrims rather than invaders - the Muslims eventually began to mount effective counterattacks. They recaptured Aleppo and besieged Edessa, thus bringing on the unsuccessful Second Crusade.

    In the meantime the Crusaders - or Franks, the Arabs called them - had extended their reach to the borders of Egypt, where the Fatimids had fallen after two hundred years. There they faced a young man called Salah al-Din (Saladin) who had founded still another new dynasty, the Ayyubids, and who was destined to blunt the thrust of the Crusaders' attack. In 1187 Saladin counterattacked, eventually recapturing Jerusalem. The Europeans mounted a series of further crusading expeditions against the Muslims over the next hundred years or so, but the Crusaders never again recovered the initiative. Confined to the coast, they ruled small areas until their final defeat at the hands of the Egyptian Mamluks at the end of the thirteenth century.



    Although the Crusades achieved no lasting results in terms of military conquest, they were important in the development of trade, and their long-range effects on Western society - on everything from feudalism to fashion - are inestimable. Ironically, they also put an end to the centuries-old rivalry between the Arabs and Byzantines. By occupying Constantinople, the capital of their Christian allies, in the Fourth Crusade, the Crusaders achieved what the Arabs had been trying to do from the early days of Islam. Although the Byzantine Empire continued until 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, it never recovered its former power after the Fourth Crusade, and subsisted only in the half-light of history during its remaining years.

    For the West, however, the Crusaders' greatest achievement was the opening of the eastern Mediterranean to European shipping. The Venetians and Genoese established trading colonies in Egypt, and luxury goods of the East found their way to European markets. In the history of the Middle Ages, this was far more important than ephemeral conquests. Control of the Eastern trade became a constantly recurring theme in later relations between the European countries and the East, and in the nineteenth century was to lead to widespread Western intervention..

    Above is from one of the Islamic websites. It may not be relevant but just a little prespective form muslim side.


    Also let me give you little insight on Islamic view of story,

    http://islamicity.com/education/ihame/default.asp?Destination=/education/ihame/1.asp

    Please read above if you like. It might help to undersantd what western writers failed to present to their public.



    Also for your website answering islam.com, let me throw you a one site and please don't be upset about it just see how your answering Islam website people are creating pathetic lies and how they fail to answer and then even send hate mails to the web admin of this web site.. It is a perfect counter site for answering Islam people but with more facts then fiction.

    http://www.answering-christianity.com/

    The above site will give you inside out of so called peaceful Christianity.

    Enjoy.

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  16. Markx Registered Senior Member

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    Last edited: May 20, 2002
  17. Xev Registered Senior Member

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    10,943
    Markx: Thank you, refreshing to hear from a Muslim on this one.

    All:

    Let's dig a little deeper, shall we?

    Now, Muhammed (Mark, do I have to do the 'PBUH' thing or not?) - anyways - was a member of a society in which various nomadic tribes often fought with one another.

    So, it is quite possible, even without research, to claim that he participated in defensive wars, not offensive.

    Now, the Q'ran truely earns its epithet of 'noble' when it comes to the treatment of POWs. They are to be ransomed, and innocent civilians are not to be harmed.

    There are other verses, should you contest this.

    You claim that the murder of Hypatia was unChristian, Dan? That may be, but Jesus also said to slay his enemies.

    Perhaps it wasn't.

    Now, while I doubt that Islam's history is one of utter peace, I also don't think this invalidates Islam.

    Do the Crusades invalidate Christianity? Does the fact that Hitler won the '33 election fair and square mean that all Germans evil?

    Using the history of Islam to attack Islam is not only doomed to failure (shall I go into Arabic contributions to science?), it is ad hominem.
     
  18. Markx Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    970
    Thank you Xev, Here is a history link and I did give you couple other above

    http://www.angelfire.com/ny/dawahpage/hist.html

    And you are right it is true that Mohammed did participate in wars and as far as i know only one was offensive and it was to take over the medina back from Quraish. After that there weren't any wars in his life time. I also recomend to check out this link, it has a lot of history from pre Islamic arabia to Islamic era.

    http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook.html
     
  19. dan1123 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    302
    Good discussion. I was wanting to put Christianity and the Crusades in perspective, and it has been done very well.

    Xev
    There is only one time Jesus is recorded to have said
    "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

    Luke 19:27

    But, if you look at the context, Jesus was telling a parable. I will quote it here:
    Luke 19:11-27 (NIV for ease of comprehension)

    Jesus was telling a story about a king--who obviously was a metaphor for God--and some people given money--a metaphor for their abilities. The time was when the king came back after a journey(symboliziong Jesus' return), and asked what they had done with their abilities (metaphor for the judgement). The "king's slaying of enemies" would have been immediately understood as "God casting unbelievers into hell". A person would have to stretch symbolisms pretty far to take it to mean that all unbelievers should be killed... especially after Jesus opened his arms to the traditional unbelievers of the time.
     
  20. Godless Objectivist Mind Registered Senior Member

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  21. ismu ::phenomenon::. Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    468
    Re: For Ismus...

    Islam is the most rational religion I ever knew. Some part of Qur'an are ununderstood by people. And then because the lack of their understanding, and their assumption that their intellegence is better, they're judge it too soon. I see on the link you've provided shows they haven't found basic philosophy of Qur'an.

    The idea in it about creation of universe perhaps not make sense to people several hundreds years ago. But now it was proven as truth according to science. Those parts we haven't understood yet may leads us to further discoveries.

    Everybody, I'm sorry we're out of topic.
    Godless, We're better go back to the thread where we're came from. I don't want to mess this thread up out of topic.
     
  22. Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

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    I've only read a few bits of the Koran, but some of what I saw had nice ideas. Such as passages saying we should not harm or kill people. Nice idea. Most religions I think have a few nice ideas in them.
     
  23. Active8 Spokesman for the obvious Registered Senior Member

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    That is quite amazing

    How interesting to see that this argument will probably never end due to your biased points of views. These so called "HOLY WARS" should at least teach you a lesson. And here we go again still waring by words. Here is a clue....Get over it. You're not Muslim...You're not Christian...You're human. And I would assume that you are adults. Do you think God or Allah wants you fighting in his or her name if in fact they exist? Anything for a fight I say...
     

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