Foreigners who are aggressive, ignorant, barbaric and unwelcome. Foreigners who are forever advocating their way of life and prepared to advocate it by brawling and fighting; foreigners with embarrassing and uncouth manners. Are we talking of Muslim immigrants as seen by Europeans in the late twentieth century? No. These are Europeans almost a thousand years ago in the Muslim lands of the Middle East. They came as individuals and as armies and as soldiers of fortune.
Muslims were not their only target; local Christians and Jews were also among their victims. In one instance their behavior plumbed new depths. It was in the St. Sophia church in Istanbul. They violated women, drank, and stripped the church bare. An eyewitness of the fourth Crusade was horrified: 'I Geoffrey de Ville Hardouin, Martial of the court of Champagne, am sure that since the creation of the universe, a plundering worse than this has not been witnessed' (Efe 1987: 18). Compare this to Mehmet the conqueror's entry when, with humility and awe, he fell to his knees, taking the dust from the floor and wiping it on his turban as an act of devotion (Efe 1987). Christians here have a saying: 'Better the turban of a Turk than the tiara of the Pope.'
As for the unfortunate Jews, they would be massacred by the Christians on their way to the Crusades and massacred by them on their way back from the Crusades. Not surprisingly Muslims thought that here was a civilization doomed to barbarism and backwardness for ever. The Crusades, especially the Fourth, during which Crusaders killed, cooked and ate the population of a village in their path, convinced Muslims and Orthodox Christians that the Christians of the West were malign barbarians. The privileges for Christians extracted by the great powers early in the 20th century and plans to divide Turkey between Greeks, French and Italiansconfirmed the opinion.
2006-11-27
10:09:22
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6 answers
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whynotaskthemoron
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