What Prompted the crusades?

Originally posted by black beetle
Out of the Arabic desert they evolved during the 7th century, swords in hands. Islam came to stay. And when we are talking about Islam one has to be thick as a brick to imagine hordes of barbarians aiming to destroy and kill. Of course in the beginning these men fought hard, but when they conquered Persia, Asia Minor and North Africa and they passed in ...[text shortened]... ing good. Methinks the Crusaders were a bunch of bandits hidden behind the sign of the Cross
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i think that initially this was very true beetle, absolutely, for when the beheld Byzantium, their greed and ardour for the gold was imbibed and they became as if drunk men for the gold. however, was it not also the case that some may have been influenced by altruistic motives? Ah how the knight of the seventh seal returns, fatigued by the futility of war, disillusioned from the carnage and wanton disrespect for life, yet even the maddening horror could not dispel his belief in virtue.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
i think that initially this was very true beetle, absolutely, for when the beheld Byzantium, their greed and ardour for the gold was imbibed and they became as if drunk men for the gold. however, was it not also the case that some may have been influenced by altruistic motives? Ah how the knight of the seventh seal returns, fatigued by the futility ...[text shortened]... wanton disrespect for life, yet even the maddening horror could not dispel his belief in virtue.

Some were indeed influenced by religious motives, but the vast majority of the leading brains were corrupted😵

It is of course not nearly as simple as anyone has put it so far.
If you look it up on wikipedia you will see that there were at least 9 crusades to do with Jerusalem and many others to do with other areas/issues and the causes for each were different and complex.
Your question is almost like asking "Why did the US engage in its last 10 wars?"
Even if you took one of them, say the Vietnam war or the Iraq war, you could not answer it in one thread even if you could find the information in the first place.

The crusades involved political and/or religious figures from throughout Europe and the middle east and I am sure that every one of them had their own reasons for the Crusade just as nearly every political figure in the world today has a political reason for either supporting Israel or being against it. In addition, there were and still are many religious reasons too and many people take advantage of those religious reasons to persuade people to one side of the cause.

Originally posted by twhitehead
It is of course not nearly as simple as anyone has put it so far.
If you look it up on wikipedia you will see that there were at least 9 crusades to do with Jerusalem and many others to do with other areas/issues and the causes for each were different and complex.
Your question is almost like asking "Why did the US engage in its last 10 wars?"
Even if ...[text shortened]... people take advantage of those religious reasons to persuade people to one side of the cause.

On November 27, 1095, Urban II declared the “holy war against the infidels” and according to Robert the Monk he stated amongst else:
-- “Most beloved brethren, today is manifest in you what the Lord says in the Gospel, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them." Unless the Lord God had been present in your spirits, all of you would not have uttered the same cry. For, although the cry issued from numerous mouths, yet the origin of the cry was one. Therefore I say to you that God, who implanted this in your breasts, has drawn it forth from you. Let this then be your war-cry in combats, because this word is given to you by God. When an armed attack is made upon the enemy, let this one cry be raised by all the soldiers of God: It is the will of God! It is the will of God!!”
Indeed, the battle cry of the Crusaders was “Deus vult” (The will of God). But feel free to check on your own the sources regarding Urbans’ speech at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-5vers.html.

The Catholic Church offers that the idea of the crusades corresponds to a specific political conception, according to which the union of all peoples and sovereigns was possible under the papal direction. This is in my opinion BS big time; in fact the papacy gained the most out of the Crusades, and at the same time the power of the European kings increased whilst the people were suffering. Methinks we are talking about a brutal and unprovoked expedition regardless of the miscellaneous papal excuses; you name it “political reasons”, I name these so called political reasons “lust for power regardless the consequences”. It's that simple.

And the First Crusade was just another unprovoked war because there was not any problem with Jerusalem. The so called “pilgrimage obstacles” were the cheapest excuse. Even Muhammad was aware of the fact that he was not founding a new religion that cancelled the previous faiths; he was convinced he was simply bringing the old religion of the One God to the Arabs, who had never been sent a prophet before. This means that back then Jerusalem played a central role in the spirituality of the Islam too. Caliph Umar, one of Muhammad's successors and the conqueror of Jerusalem of the Christian Byzantines in 638, pushed very hard in order to ensure that the three Abrahamic religions would coexist. In fact the Muslim rulers of Jerusalem treated the Jews better than the Byzantines, which they never allowed them to reside permanently in the city and in addition they left the Jewish Temple in ruins and they were using the Temple Mount as a garbage dumb. Umar worked with his own hands in order consecrate again the platform and he built a simple wooden mosque on the southern end. Armstrong notes also regarding this matter that “…Caliph Abd al-Malik built in 691 Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, the first great building to be constructed in the Islamic world. It symbolizes the ascent that all Muslims must make to God, whose perfection and eternity are represented by the circle of the great golden dome. Other Islamic shrines on the Temple Mount, which Muslims call al-Haram al-Sharif, the Most Noble Sanctuary, were devoted to David, Solomon and Jesus. (&hellip😉 When Saladin reconquered Jerusalem for Islam in 1187, the Jews, barred from the city by the Crusaders, were invited to return, and even the Western Christians, who had supported the crusading atrocities, were allowed back.”…

This is how the “infidels” treated the city and its defenders. Feel free to compare Saladins’ attitude with the actions described by Raymond of Agiles during the fall of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099…
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Originally posted by twhitehead
It is of course not nearly as simple as anyone has put it so far.
If you look it up on wikipedia you will see that there were at least 9 crusades to do with Jerusalem and many others to do with other areas/issues and the causes for each were different and complex.
Your question is almost like asking "Why did the US engage in its last 10 wars?"
Even if ...[text shortened]... people take advantage of those religious reasons to persuade people to one side of the cause.

The US engaged in the Vietnam war to keep world Communism in check.

LOL I think I understand at least it was more complex than could be answered simply.
I find it interesting that it seems when Europe was in the dark ages so to speak Muslims were an advanced culture. I was reading that the modern Islamic movement really did not acknowledge Saladin or kinda of forgotten about him.




Manny

Originally posted by menace71
LOL I think I understand at least it was more complex than could be answered simply.
I find it interesting that it seems when Europe was in the dark ages so to speak Muslims were an advanced culture. I was reading that the modern Islamic movement really did not acknowledge Saladin or kinda of forgotten about him.




Manny

It might be because he was a Kurd.

Originally posted by menace71
LOL I think I understand at least it was more complex than could be answered simply.
I find it interesting that it seems when Europe was in the dark ages so to speak Muslims were an advanced culture. I was reading that the modern Islamic movement really did not acknowledge Saladin or kinda of forgotten about him.




Manny

The Arabs got a whole boat load of their ideas from the Indians.