The First Crusade (1096-1099) spawned horrors the likes of which none of the crusaders had ever experienced. And they were horrors of their own making. Of the massacre in Jerusalem, a contemporary observed, "The knights could hardly bear it, working as executioners and breathing out clouds of hot blood."
Particularly during the sieges of Antioch, Ma'arra, and Jerusalem, whose populations were brutally massacred, the First Crusaders themselves believed that they had exceeded all the norms of medieval warfare, and the evidence supports them. Even the most brutal sieges of the day ended in mass enslavement of city populations, not in mass murder.
The observation is simple enough, but for modern, Western audiences, it inevitably raises a question (one I have gotten several times on these very pages, in fact): What about Muslim atrocities? Weren't the Muslims just as bad? After all, the Holy Land had once been thoroughly Christianized. What became of those Christians? Surely the Muslim conquests were just as brutal as the crusades?
The short answer is, "No." But, let me explain:
The spread of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries C.E. is one of the most astonishing events in history. What started in 622 C.E. (year 1 of the Muslim calendar) as an obscure desert religion on the Arabian Peninsula, 150 years later had established its rule over 5,000,000 square miles of earth. They termed these conquests "jihad," which we often translate as "holy war," though "struggle" would be a more accurate rendering.
Most of these conquests occurred at the expense of two great empires: the Perisan Empire to the east of the Arabian deserts, and the Byzantine (or Eastern Roman) Empire to the west. Not coincidentally, these two powers had been engaged in a long and brutal series of wars against one another. Jerusalem, the eventual target of the crusade, changed hands twice during these conflicts.
The importance of the Byzantine-Persian wars in connection with Islam is twofold. First, at the time of the Islamic expansion Byzantium and Persia were hardly at the height of their powers. Their conquest proved much easier than otherwise would have been the case. Second, given the incredible instability that these two great empires had generated, their subjects had very little reason to be loyal to them. Islam might even bring to these lands greater stability--which, in fact, it did.
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A similar observation might be made about Muslim expansion into Visigothic Spain, plagued by civil wars in the decades preceding the advent of Islam in 711 C.E.
What became of all the Christians in the conquered territories? For the most part, they stayed put. The Muslims established themselves as governmental leaders, but did not try to forcibly convert their subjects, particularly the Christians and Jews who, in Muslim eyes, had received elements of the same monotheistic revelation that had inspired their faith.
Christians and Jews also paid a public head tax from which Muslims were exempt. Thus from a purely mercenary perspective, Muslim rulers had an actual disincentive to try to convert them--let alone kill them. Christians and Jews, the dhimmi as they were known, provided valuable revenue. Conversion to Islam eventually did occur, but it was a gradual process, not as rapid as the growth of Islamic government.
In other words, the spread of Islam was a very different affair from the crusades. The crusaders aimed to recapture a sacred place from a religion that they barely understood and that they viewed as fundamentally evil. Muslims built an empire.
That is what made the crusaders and their scorched-earth piety so shocking. Here were Christian armies who heedlessly slaughtered entire populations, not in spite of their religion but because of it. After the First Crusade ended, and once the Christians began trying to build settlements in the Middle East, their attitudes necessarily changed. But the crusade itself had introduced into the region a sort of total religious warfare that had not been seen since Old Testament days.
And the Muslims did not forget. In 1187, the Muslim general Saladin seriously considered refusing an offer of surrender from Jerusalem. The reason? He wished to apply the same rough injustice to the Christians there that they had meted out to Islam in 1099. He showed mercy only after the Franks threatened to massacre all of their prisoners and to destroy the city's Islamic holy sites.
The earliest stories of Muslim atrocities committed against Christians, comparable to the First Crusade, in fact, did not occur until the end of the thirteenth century. At that time, the Mamluks (a warrior slave class who became rulers of Egypt) drove the crusaders out of the Middle East, destroying their world one city at a time.
Contemporary descriptions of the 1291 fall of Acre ("Akko" in modern Israel) easily rival any of the horrors of the First Crusade. The Mamelukes made grisly displays of prisoners' severed heads. They won offers of surrender from thousands of the besieged and then reneged on their promises--beheading the men and enslaving the women and children. Eventually they destroyed the city altogether, its ruins still being dug out today from beneath the Bedouin city that grew up its place. With an unrelenting and merciless savagery, driven by a fanatical sense of religious mission, the Mamluks sought to purge the Holy Land of all Christians.
In short, they acted like a bunch of crusaders.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1146871

Cc lalasticlala Ishilove

These are two different things.

Crusade was a war to reclaim the holy Land
While
Jihad was a war to convert people to Islam

Vanquay16:
Jihad is worse. Islamic sects still practice it today. Crusades were more like chasing invaders away from one's motherland. The same crusade that might happen in Nigeria if this Northern supremacy nonsense doesnt stop

u are an illiterate u knw ntn about jihad stop talkinq rubbish

Tolexander:
These are two different things.

Crusade was a war to reclaim the holy Land
While
Jihad was a war to convert people to Islam

Still the casualties won't know that... A WAR IS A WAR..

Vanquay16:
Jihad is worse. Islamic sects still practice it today. Crusades were more like chasing invaders away from one's motherland. The same crusade that might happen in Nigeria if this Northern supremacy nonsense doesnt stop

Jihad is not all about war as you people think....

muhyeenisce:
u are an illiterate u knw ntn about jihad stop talkinq rubbish

I believe the vulgar vocabulary is irrelevant..

muhyeenisce:
Jihad is not all about war as you people think....

Educate us Mate..

Freemanan:


Still the casualties won't know that... A WAR IS A WAR..

but different motives!

Tolexander:
but different motives!

Hitler's motives were first the Development of Germany and it's hagemony... Things went south and now he is a villain...

In War, motives are irrelevant... It's bad... No war needs to be fought.

Freemanan:

Hitler's motives were first the Development of Germany and it's hagemony... Things went south and now he is a villain...

In War, motives are irrelevant... It's bad... No war needs to be fought.

I never said any form of war is good regardless of the motive(s).

What is ur question sir?
War is bad? Or difference between jihad and crusade?

The Muslim conquest of Spain sounds a bit like what Israel has done today. They took over a desperately poor area, fought and drove out those who wanted to resist, and tolerated the indigenous people who did not resist (20% of Israel's population is Arab today). And like Muslim Spain, they took an area that was essentially undeveloped and poor and transformed it into a highly developed civilization. Yes, those people who resisted the Israelis are still present, and Israel still has to fight them occasionally, like the rulers of Muslim Spain had to do with the poor uncivilized Christian kingdoms. And, like modern-day Israel, Muslim Spain was quite tolerant of gays. Some of their rulers were even openly homosexual. Quite a few parallels there.

Vanquay16:
Jihad is worse. Islamic sects still practice it today. Crusades were more like chasing invaders away from one's motherland. The same crusade that might happen in Nigeria if this Northern supremacy nonsense doesnt stop

Calm down, please specify o. Have it at the back of your mind that neither ISIS nor BokoHaramm or their cohorts are fighting Jihad because they aren't Muslims. So let's compare the First Crusades and the Khalifah Umar's War with the Byzantine in which Jerusalem was captured. OK?!

Tolexander:
I never said any form of war is good regardless of the motive(s).

What is ur question sir?
War is bad? Or difference between jihad and crusade?

You were justifying the crusade.... I Just want time be clear.

Freemanan:

You were justifying the crusade.... I Just want time be clear.

never justifying any crusade.

Never did I say one is better than the other. Just stated their motives.

Both jihad and crusade are senseless

Demmzy15:

Calm down, please specify o. Have it at the back of your mind that neither ISIS nor BokoHaramm or their cohorts are fighting Jihad because they aren't Muslims. So let's compare the First Crusades and the Khalifah Umar's War with the Byzantine in which Jerusalem was captured. OK?!

both ISIS n boko haram are islamist ... call a friggin spade a spade

At-Tariq ibn Shihab reported: A man asked the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, as he put his foot in the stirrup, “What is the most virtuous struggle (jihad)?” The Prophet said, “A word of truth in front of a tyrannical ruler.”

Source: Musnad Ahmad 18449


The idiotts here think that jihadists is all about what the media tells them.

And btw, you can't even compare crusades to holy Islamic wars, the casualties are not even close. Crusades are amongst the worse events that ever happened to mankind. And crusaders did not take slaves or save children or women, they just wiped out civilizations in the name of their zombie sun god.

anicheibo:

both ISIS n boko haram are islamist ... call a friggin spade a spade

My own is that they ain't Muslims, call them anything!

Demmzy15:

My own is that they ain't Muslims, call them anything!

All the members of both sects are muslim... both sects take only muslims. I have never heard , read or seen anything that suggests otherwise. And the leader of ISIS, bagdadhi (is dat d spelling?) declared himself leader of all muslims worldwide

anicheibo:

All the members of both sects are muslim... both sects take only muslims. I have never heard , read or seen anything that suggests otherwise. And the leader of ISIS, bagdadhi (is dat d spelling?) declared himself leader of all muslims worldwide

This morning, I declared myself to be your father,

Using your logic, I am your father!

RagnarLodbrok:


This morning, I declared myself to be your father,

Using your logic, I am your father!

Lol

@ragnar what your saying isn't really parallel.... the sect is an islamic sect with islamic visions and everyone except you has seen that. Its extremist YES. Its not d best representation of islam YES. But whether you like it or not it is an islamic sect with exclusive muslim membership.

RagnarLodbrok:


This morning, I declared myself to be your father,

Using your logic, I am your father!

Bruv... you're savage af... You just did a FINISHING on that nigga...
.
.
P.S: by savage... I don't mean you to eat people ooO... I mean you're wicked... more like you're mean... Lol... You get the point...

the crusade was a campaign to reclaim the holy land (which the muslima of arabia had greedily claimed as their own) for the jews back..... The jihad one the other hand is a persistent rugged (military) evangelical campaign that will only stop if the entire globe is islamised..
Both concepts are devastating weapons of mass destruction