I hope this article by an undoubted expert helps to correct prior misinformation.
You can get his book on the crusades here.
still waiting...
Good read, though. Thanks.
What the author says is correct but not complete - his reference to "Crusades" seems to end with the Fourth Crusade, wherein the Franks and Venetians plundered their Greek buddies in Constantinople. There were more, including the infamous Children's Crusade (which populated the Muslim slave markets nicely) and a number of "Crusades" that never left Europe and weren't pointed at the Holy Land or even the Muslims anyhow. A Crusade in this sense is simply the Church offering holy dispensation to its members in exchange for military activities on the Church's behalf - they "take up the Cross," hence "Crusade."
Furthermore, while the Muslims "won" the Crusades, the Arabs did not. It was during this period that political control of the Islamic peoples was wrested from the Arabs by first the Seljuk Turks, then the Ottomans. This control didn't leave Turkish hands until the secularization of Turkey and the fall of the Ottoman empire in 1917, at which time the Arabs marched into the Holy Land behind a fellow named Lawrence. Part of the Arabic grudge against the Christians and the Crusades is that the latter helped the Turks in this regard. It's a grudge half a millennium old, but it doesn't seem to have faded much. To us they're all Muslims, but they don't see it quite that monolithically.
There used to be caliphs (religious leaders) and sultans (political/military leaders); the former remained Arabic much longer than the latter, which term was actually invented to disguise Turkish suzerainty. Now the sultans are gone, and the return of total control to the religious wing in the form of mullahs and ayatollahs (a fairly new term) hearkens back to the earlier, bloodier era of Islam.
Only by the Mass Murder Muslim/Arabprop Tag Team (MMMATT) and their useful idiots.
just call it jihad.
Well, who would have thunk that writing comedy skits anout killer sheep and dead parrots didn't make one an expert historian?
From Lebanese Forces:
5. The rise of Islam (7' century)
1st quarter of the 7th century: A new religion appeared In the Arabian Peninsula: Islam. It united the Arab tribes who launched their famous campaigns "the Fatah" (conquest), seeking to conquer new territories, in the name of God "Allah", and bring the whole mankind to the true faith (Islam).
636 AD: The Muslims defeated the Byzantine army on the Yarmuk river near Jerusalem and overran the imperial provinces of Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Egypt. The Byzantine withdrew to Minor Asia, leaving the fate of Christianity, in the eastern side of the Mediterranean up to the Taurus Mountains, in the hands of the Muslim conquerors.
The coastal and suburban cities of Lebanon were seized and the victorious march toward the West and the North went on, shying away from Mount Lebanon, the rugged terrain of the Maronites' homeland where a new and large population gathered, fleeing the conquered cities. Later, the conquerors were swift to bring Muslim tribes to the area to neutralize Christian predominance and monitor potential rebellions.
At a time when the cities and plains of the Christian East fell prey to the Muslim onslaught, the mountains became the repositories of the Christian resistance to Islam. In Lebanon, Armenia, Assyria, the Christians dug their heels in and awaited the revival of Christendom.
6. The First Mardaite State (676-685)
For a decade, this Christian entity managed to preserve its independence until 685 AD when the Byzantine and the Muslims reached an agreement to crack down on the new independent state. When the Maradas or Mardaites (Christian warriors) warlords were fighting the Muslims they refused the orders of emperor Justinian to leave Lebanon. So he summoned them to a meeting in the Biqaa Valley, to the east of Mount Lebanon, and treacherously had them slain. As a result 12,000 Mardaite warriors left Lebanon for Asia Minor, while the others stayed back and merged with the predominantly Maronite population of the country.
7. A Christian Entity in Lebanon - The Second Mardaite State (685-758)
Following the Byzantine betrayal, the Christians were unable to hold their ground and withdrew North from Palestine to Mount Lebanon. Around the same time, the Muslims launched an offensive against the Mardaites living in Mount Arnanus in Northwest Syria, forcing them to abandon their villages and settle in the Muslim plain. At the beginning of the 8th century, Lebanon remained the only independent Christian entity South of the Taurus Mountains and West of the River Tigris and the sole refuge for the Maronite community to preserve its physical, religious, social and economic status. This small Christian entity extended from the Shuf (east of Sidon) to the Akkar (northeast of Tripoli).
8.Islam Reaches Lebanon - The Third Mardaite State (758-1305)
From the middle of the 8th century onwards, the Abbasid Caliphs implemented a plan to quell the Christian resistance by sending Orthodox Sunni Muslim tribes to Lebanon.
Under this military and demographic pressure, the Christian entity shrank further to the North, leaving the whole Gharb and Shuf areas (east and southeast of Beirut) to the newcomers. The Dog River (nahr el-kalb), 8 miles north of Beirut, became the border between the Christian entity and what had now become a Muslim part of Lebanon.
In the 10th century, the "great divide " between Sunni and Shiite Islam took place and led various heterodox sects (Druzes, Alawites) to seek refuge in Lebanon. As a result of this heterodox influx, the Orthodox Sunni character of Muslim Lebanon faded away, and the Southern part of the mountain became a land of predilection for those rejecting the central authority.
Around the same time, Maronites and other Christians who were being persecuted in Northern Syria fled to Lebanon, and the Maronite Patriarchate established its See in the Lebanese mountain, thus underlining the historical image of Lebanon as refuge for the oppressed.
9. The Crusades (1095-1291)
In the 11th century, the Christian entity in Lebanon was under increasing pressure. As soon as the first Crusade reached Syria, the Maronite warriors came down from their mountains and joined the Frankish armies which had already welcomed Greek and Armenian contingents on their way from Constantinople toward Jerusalem.
The fortifications edified by the Crusaders along with the existing monasteries made Lebanon an integral part of the Western Christianity line of defense. The Maronites were renowned for their military value as well as for their archery skills. Cooperation between the Crusaders and the Christians of Lebanon went beyond the military activities to social, economic and cultural relationship.
DEUS LO VOLT!!! (God Wills It)
LOL! That means then by definition, that WWI was defensive and that England was merely taking back from the Ottoman Empire that which it had lost 1300 years previous. WWI was really part of the Crusades!
No moral ambiguity there.