The Crusades

[Tuco]

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Muslim armies forcibly speading Islam over ever-growing swathes of forcibly conquered lands. Islam was subjugating the infidels by force in a very aggressive manner over centuries. Islam had a long history of violent conquest and of gaining land through war, and subsequently subjugating all non-Muslims in those regions.


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They kind of skipped this in the series. The only thing mentioned was that Jerusalem had been muslim for 400 years.

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The first Crusade was, in my opinion, a good idea in order to drive the aggressive, supremacist, religio-fascist, bent-on-conquering foe back from whence they came.

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The idea of the first crusade (according to the series) was to take back Jerusalem and kill as many muslims as possible. I don't really see how this can be called a good idea. The pope made it clear that killing the enemy would cleanse the soldiers' sins.

Wish they would do a series on how the muslims ruled so I wouldn't have to now do a bunch of readin'.

Tuco.

[MMMMMM]

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The idea of the first crusade (according to the series) was to take back Jerusalem and kill as many muslims as possible. I don't really see how this can be called a good idea. The pope made it clear that killing the enemy would cleanse the soldiers' sins.



[/ QUOTE ] Yes, taking back Jerusalem was a large part of it; driving the Muslim aggressors out of Spain was another part of the whole scenario; there was a lot to the whole picture, more than we have written, and more than the series covered. That said, I thought the series was well produced overall, though I wish they had not neglected to include much on the greater background before the Crusades, which led up to the Crusades. The Crusades in a vacuum look simply awful, but as a belated response to centuries of Muslim conquest by the sword, and the subjugation of non-Muslims, the Crusades are at least somewhat more understandable, although undeniably barbaric in some aspects.