Your source Please?

Is there a date or an event you do not agree with?

Just use the dates and the event described to do a little historical digging for yourself. Its illuminating, honestly.

Happy Sallah.

tiarabubu, uhn-uhn-uhn. This your Winston Churchill approach to history is quite something.

You are at the very least a poor student of history. The operative maxim throughout history has been: "Conquer or be conquered". The Muslims simply won against their enemies who did their best to win but lost.

You make it seem as if the Christians or non-Muslims kept getting attacked before they got tired and retaliated.

The more correct version is that they had been expanding and only got stuck with the emergence of Islam in Arabia.

A look at stories that don't follow the western rhetoric proves my point:

Eighth century Asia was an ever-shifting
mosaic of different tribal and regional powers,
fighting for trade rights, political power and/
or religious hegemony. The era was
characterized by a dizzying array of battles,
alliances, double-crosses and betrayals.

The battle of Talas is pivotal in world history and this report supports my position which is if the ancient Muslims did not conquer their rivals, they would have been overwhelmed and subjugated.

Read more http://asianhistory.about.com/od/centralasia/a/BattleofTalas.htm

maclatunji:

You make it seem as if the Christians or non-Muslims kept getting attacked before they got tired and retaliated.

The more correct version is that they had been expanding and only got stuck with the emergence of Islam in Arabia.

Thats an interesting pov.

However, i'm not sure its entirely correct since the roman empire had actually fallen by that time.


The early arab tribes werent known to be christians either, i stand corrected if wrong.

Maybe you mean just the non-muslims, ie the non-christian non muslims.

Topic

I'm not sure what the op is on about ( why not ask whoever gave you your impression, are they on nl?), but i do remember the english primer in nigeria had a chapter on saladin, who was highly respected by his foes during the crusades.

I think it was in the english primer, hope i remembered correctly.

tpia@:


Thats an interesting pov.

However, i'm not sure its entirely correct since the roman empire had actually fallen by that time.


The early arab tribes werent known to be christians either, i stand corrected if wrong.

Maybe you mean just the non-muslims, ie the non-christian non muslims.

The crusades were fought by Christians. Yes, the early Arab tribes weren't Christians but they had access to and interactions with them.

maclatunji: tiarabubu, uhn-uhn-uhn. This your Winston Churchill approach to history is quite something.

You are at the very least a poor student of history. The operative maxim throughout history has been: "Conquer or be conquered". The Muslims simply won against their enemies who did their best to win but lost.

You make it seem as if the Christians or non-Muslims kept getting attacked before they got tired and retaliated.

The more correct version is that they had been expanding and only got stuck with the emergence of Islam in Arabia.

Perhaps those still sore over the crusades should note your observation that the Crusades were part of the prevailing maxim of "conquer or be conquered" at the time and not bore us with this pained reference to it. The crusades happened ions ago as a reaction to an action. Afterall, as you say, the situation then was "conquer or be conquered" .

maclatunji: A look at stories that don't follow the western rhetoric proves my point:

Eighth century Asia was an ever-shifting
mosaic of different tribal and regional powers,
fighting for trade rights, political power and/
or religious hegemony. The era was
characterized by a dizzying array of battles,
alliances, double-crosses and betrayals.

The battle of Talas is pivotal in world history and this report supports my position which is if the ancient Muslims did not conquer their rivals, they would have been overwhelmed and subjugated.

Read more http://asianhistory.about.com/od/centralasia/a/BattleofTalas.htm

Incidentally, western historical writeups are actually very harsh on the crusades. This is mainly arising from the west's penchant for critical self study. I dont know of many authoritative self critical sources of the Islamic conquests from 650 AD to 1099AD from Islamic scholars. You are more likely to get details of battles from historians from the west no matter how unpalatable. Form the east, its not that easy.


While it is true that there were conflicts in the ancient world at the time, the main motivation was not the maxim of "conquer or be conquered".

The motivation for conquest was quite clear from Islamic scholars of those times past, and here are three of them from several:

Ibn Khaldun, The Muqudimmah 15th Century Tunisian Scholar

In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force... The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense... Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.

In the Hidayah, vol. II. p. 140

It is not lawful to make war upon any people who have never before been called to the faith, without previously requiring them to embrace it, because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith, and also because the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war… If the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax, it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do."

Ibn Taymiyya (14th century),
Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is
Allah’s entirely and Allah’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all
Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.

So you see the motivation was to spread religion and not the fear of being conquered, for if it were so, the invasions would not have been so relentless, so long and so far spread eg as far as China and India.Or as late as the one by Usman Dann Fodio in Northern Nigeria.

So, I see no justification for the unwarranted reaction to those crusades in this day and age. It was carried out as a result of sustained action by the growing Islam (compelled to spread its religion) and posed a significant threat to Europe. They were forced to react - belatedly. And by your own submission, they reacted under the prevailing maxim of "conquer or be conquered". So, I thereby posit that there is no justification for putting up a pained facade about the crusade by anybody. End of Discussion.

How was your Sallah?

^My Sallah was good. How have you been? You hardly post these days.

Back to the issue, you have applied knowledge in quoting Islamic sources in terms of their comments on battles fought by Muslims. However, the wisdom behind it remains the same, which is: if you don't actively promote and pursue your interests, you will get consumed by others. Islam is very pratical, its concepts aren't far removed from the mundane realities of human beings.

Muslims do have a right to be sore if atrocities that defy humane conventions on the rules of war were broken in the crusades by Christian armies. In addition, I believe a lot of Muslims reactions to the crusades is just a reaction to the persistent attempts of Christians to portray themselves as the long suffering victims throughout history. That is highly debatable.