The Truth About Islamic Crusades

The Truth about Islamic Crusades and Imperialism
November 27th, 2005



Historical facts say that Islam has been imperialistic?and would still like to
be, if only for religious reasons. Many Muslim clerics, scholars, and
activists, for example, would like to impose Islamic law around the world.
Historical facts say that Islam, including Muhammad, launched their own
Crusades against Christianity long before the European Crusades.

Today, Muslim polemicists and missionaries, who believe that Islam is the best
religion in the world, claim that the West has stolen Islamic lands and that
the West (alone) is imperialistic.One hardline Muslim emailer to me said about
the developed West and the undeveloped Islamic countries: ?You stole our
lands? and then he held his finger on the exclamation key to produce a long
string of them.

Thus imperialism, a word that has reached metaphysical levels and that is
supposed to stop all debates and answer all questions, explains why Islamic
countries have not kept up with the West. The emailer did not look inwardly,
as if his own culture and religion may play a role. Instead, it is always the
West?s fault.

Westerners?even academics?accept the notion that the West alone was
aggressive. It seems that Islam is always innocent and passive. It is
difficult to uncover the source of this Western self-loathing. It is, however,
a pathology that seems to strike Westerners more than other people around the
globe. This anti-West pathology shows up in Westerners? hatred for the
European Crusades in the Medieval Age.

It must be admitted that there is much to dislike about the European Crusades.
If they are contrasted with the mission and ministry of Jesus and the first
generations of Christians, then the Crusades do not look so good. But did the
Europeans launch the first Crusade in a mindless, bloodthirsty and irrational
way, or were there more pressing reasons? Were they the only ones to be
militant?

The purpose of this article is not to justify or defend European Crusades, but
to explain them, in part?though scholarship can go a long way to defend and
justify them

In this article, the word ?crusade? (derived from the Latin word for ?cross?)
in an Islamic context means a holy war or jihad. It is used as a counterweight
to the Muslim accusation that only the Europeans launched crusades. Muslims
seem to forget that they had their own, for several centuries before the
Europeans launched theirs as a defense against the Islamic expansion.

We will employ a partial timeline spanning up to the first European response
to Islamic imperialism, when Pope Urban II launched his own Crusade in 1095.
The timeline mostly stays within the parameters of the Greater Middle East.
The data in bold print are of special interest for revealing early Islamic
atrocities, their belief in heroism in warfare, or politics today.

The Islamic Crusades were very successful. The Byzantines and Persian Empires
had worn themselves out with fighting, so a power vacuum existed. Into this
vacuum stormed Islam.

After the timeline, two questions are posed, which are answered at length

The Timeline

630 Two years before Muhammad?s death of a fever, he launches the Tabuk
Crusades, in which he led 30,000 jihadists against the Byzantine Christians.
He had heard a report that a huge army had amassed to attack Arabia, but the
report turned out to be a false rumor. The Byzantine army never materialized.
He turned around and went home, but not before extracting ?agreements? from
northern tribes. They could enjoy the ?privilege? of living under Islamic
?protection? (read: not be attacked by Islam), if they paid a tax (jizya).

This tax sets the stage for Muhammad?s and the later Caliphs? policies. If the
attacked city or region did not want to convert to Islam, then they paid a
jizya tax. If they converted, then they paid a zakat tax. Either way, money
flowed back to the Islamic treasury in Arabia or to the local Muslim governor.

632-634 Under the Caliphate of Abu Bakr the Muslim Crusaders reconquer and
sometimes conquer for the first time the polytheists of Arabia. These Arab
polytheists had to convert to Islam or die. They did not have the choice of
remaining in their faith and paying a tax. Islam does not allow for religious
freedom.

More @ http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5024
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Relevant Pages

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