crusades???????

Question

do you think the crusades were a medieval type of genocide like the holocaust if you think so please give some reference ,book websites ect.

Answer 1

No, the Crusades were a Western counter-attack designed to push back aggressive Muslin invaders away from Europe. People forget that Islam invaded Christian lands in the West first, not the other way around.

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...As a Crusade historian, I found the tranquil solitude of the ivory tower shattered by journalists, editors, and talk-show hosts on tight deadlines eager to get the real scoop. What were the Crusades?, they asked. When were they? Just how insensitive was President George W. Bush for using the word "crusade" in his remarks? With a few of my callers I had the distinct impression that they already knew the answers to their questions, or at least thought they did. What they really wanted was an expert to say it all back to them. For example, I was frequently asked to comment on the fact that the Islamic world has a just grievance against the West. Doesn’t the present violence, they persisted, have its roots in the Crusades’ brutal and unprovoked attacks against a sophisticated and tolerant Muslim world? In other words, aren’t the Crusades really to blame?...

...Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity—and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion—has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years....

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...It is often said that the roots of the Holocaust can be seen in these medieval pogroms. That may be. But if so, those roots are far deeper and more widespread than the Crusades. Jews perished during the Crusades, but the purpose of the Crusades was not to kill Jews. Quite the contrary: Popes, bishops, and preachers made it clear that the Jews of Europe were to be left unmolested. In a modern war, we call tragic deaths like these "collateral damage." Even with smart technologies, the United States has killed far more innocents in our wars than the Crusaders ever could. But no one would seriously argue that the purpose of American wars is to kill women and children....
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Thomas F. Madden is associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University. He is the author of numerous works, including A Concise History of the Crusades, and co-author, with Donald Queller, of The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople.

Answer 2

No thats a stupid thing to say.

You can't put 20th century ideas like "Holocaust" and "Genocide" into the 12th Century fergawdsake!

The word "Crusade" is basically the same as the Muslim's "Jihad". It means a struggle against something ytou want to change. Go figure.

The Crusades were basically the same sort of thing as the Palestinians and Israelis. The Paliestinians beleive the land is their and they are waging war for it.

Same with the Crusaders. They beleived the Holy City of Jerusalem should be in Christian hands. The Muslims beleived it should be Muslim. Ergo - war.

The benefits to the Crusaders were not dissimilar to modern Muslim terrorists - they may be told they'll go to heaven and get loads of virgins. Medieval Crusaders were told they'd have all their sins pardoned for going on Crusade. Muslim terrorists are told they'll be blessed for every "infidel" they kill. Medieval Crusaders were told the same thing.

Muslims can rant about the Crusades all they want but the fact is Medieval Christian Crusaders were only doing what Al Quaida is telling Muslims to do in 2006. The difference is, we've evolved and grown out of it. They haven't.

Answer 3

i don't think the crusades were an attempt at genocide or a holocaust, though some hysterical, ill informed islamic extremists may have us think so. The crusaders were not all good, by any means however, and did some horrible things. Genocide or holocaust is where a group deliberately sets out to wipe out a complete racial or religious group, such as the nazi's final solution of the jews or the turkish genocide of armenians before world war 1. The crusaders wanted to regain the holy land for christendom, and did not set out to commit genocide.

Answer 4

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns conducted in the name of Christendom[1] and usually sanctioned by the Pope.[2] They were military campaigns of a religious character typically characterized as being waged against pagans, heretics, Muslims or those under the ban of excommunication.[3] When originally conceived, the aim was to recapture Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims while supporting the Byzantine Empire against the "ghazwat" of the Seljuq [4] expansion into Anatolia. The fourth crusade however was diverted and resulted in the conquest of Constantinople. Later crusades were launched against various targets outside of the Levant for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons, such as the Albigensian Crusade, the Aragonese Crusade, and the Northern Crusades.

Beyond the medieval military events, the word "crusade" has evolved to have multiple meanings and connotations. For additional meanings, see usage of the term "crusade" below and/or the dictionary definition.

Answer 5

The crusades was the first attempt at global genocide on a massive scale. King Richard said it himself (in not so many words) in the letters he wrote to the middle eastern kings and chiefs. In it he appologized for the horrors his crusades brought, he thought he was only on a mission of peace and church - then in retrospect he found out he was killing ten times more than he was saving. Also, look at the accounts of the warlords he went against and look at how they describe the almost ritualistic killings of innocent people, women and children, and often times relegious figures as to humiliate their relegion and culture. It was a huge sin against man - but we don't look at it that way cause it is a Christian cause. Amazing how some of the most horrendous things are done against men by people doing it in the name of God. I'm sure he's shaking his head upstairs thinking 'They've got no clue!'.

Answer 6

If you are asking what we think, our opinion, then why do we need a reference. That's subjective. It would be better to ask for published materials comparing the crusades to the holocaust.

Answer 7

No...not even close...it was a war over control over land.

Neither side was out to obliterate the other race from the world.