English Muslims

IT Loser

Wibbs wrote:

We all should.
Again there are two sides to this; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Spain#Non-Muslims_.28Dhimmi.29_under_the_Caliphate


Not quite. He only agreed to terms of surrender and give quarter to the crusaders in Jerusalem after Balian threatened to kill the Muslims inside the gates and destroy the Muslim holy sites(Notice there were 1000's of Muslims inside the christian held city and their sites were left alone). Even then he asked for ransom for the release of many of the Christians. Many of those (over 10,000)who couldn't pay were sold into slavery. Slight different slant there I think you'll agree.

Balian explicitly threatened to "break your Army....the like of which you will never raise again"

Salahadin could not hope to win a war of attrition against Balian,so long as Balian resided behind Jerusalems walls- his Agrarian army would desert sooner rather than later to reap the Autumnal harvests on the understanding that they could always try again to take Jerusalem. For Balian to destroy Islamic sites would be to destroy Jewish sites and he was not of that persuasion at all.

Interestingly, in the run up to the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the resident Caliph expelled ALL Christians from Jerusalem to avoid what he regarded as their potential complicity in the inevitable siege, and of course to preserve food stocks for the Muslim population. In 1080 the Caliph Hakim had burned the Church of The Holy Sepulchre to the ground.

IT Loser

Wibbs wrote:

Not really TBH. "Reasons were fine"? Much has been justified by many on the grounds of "fighting against oppression/freedom of religion" etc. That old chestnut is well polished with use. George Dubya Bush rehashes the same rhetoric so the irony is pointed.

Now Islam may have set down more particular "rules of engagement" and rules for organising a religious empire, which was good but it also laid down more specifics of empire building for God/Allah. Indeed more than most other faiths you care to mention. The expansion of both Christianity and Islam(others too) was pretty much done for the same reasons, aquisition of lands, resources and spreading of the faith. While some Muslim communities in the far East grew on the back of missionary work, most of the Muslim world grew on the back of force of arms. Just like Christian Rome. Two sides, same coin. To suggest otherwise would be naive in the extreme.

New topic maybe.

Christian Rome?

Rome wasn't Christian for long, and did precious little expanding. Constantinople maybe, Rome never. Christian Romes biggest claim to fame is smashing Atill at Chalons, 453 AD

Wibbs

IT Loser wrote:

Christian Rome?

Rome wasn't Christian for long, and did precious little expanding. Constantinople maybe, Rome never. Christian Romes biggest claim to fame is smashing Atill at Chalons, 453 AD

Point taken. I should have said "Rome" style Christianity if anything.

I should have been more particular about the sites that Balian threatened to destroy, specifically the Dome of the Rock and a mosque I believe whose name escapes me.