Ever Wonder If or Why the Crusades Were Justified?
How many years of killing, destruction, enslavement of Christians, and the overrunning of Christian Lands were Christians supposed to stomach, before fighting back?
Is it possible it was a long overdue response to four centuries of Islamic conquest?
This is a chronological Timeline listing some of the MAJOR Islamic battles and conquests starting in AD 622 until the First Crusade in 1099.
There are at least 548 known battles between Muslims and Christians recorded BEFORE the Crusades. Thus, bringing the “peace” of Islam to everyone they killed.
For the first 93 years, Christians LOST every battle and won just a few after that! It seems like fighting an army that is convinced that the only assured way to Heaven and Allah's celestial brothel is to kill or be killed, causing the fighters to be much braver and bolder in their fighting abilities.
SEE: “Why We Are Afraid, A 1400 Year Secret”, by Dr. Bill Warner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y
There have been only 12 decades in almost 1400 years that have been Jihad-free, only 9% has been “Peaceful”!
Not including the many millions that were captured and enslaved or forcibly ‘converted’ by the “Religion of Peace”! Islam has killed 60 million Christians, 10 million Buddhists, 80 million Hindus, and 120 million Africans! For a total of TWO-HUNDRED and SEVENTY MILLION non-Muslims killed by Islam. PLUS, all the many Millions of Muslims that other Muslims have killed from a different Sect!
The Jihadis first attacked Christendom in A.D. 629 at the battle of Mu’ta, it was without any provocation, and they have continued attacking Christians, as they still do. The Crusade was to roll back in some measure these unprovoked Moslem attacks. The Jihadis were aggressors, while the Crusaders were defenders. We should remember this difference!
NOTE: This listing is primarily the events occurring within Christendom itself, the Muslims were also remarkably busy conquering as far to the East as the Hindu Nations.
NOTE: Some of these battles involved Muslims of one sect attacking or conquering Muslims of another sect.
Year ---- Event
613 (Persians capture Damascus and Antioch)
614 (Persians sack Jerusalem)
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622 Hejira - Mohammed’s flight from Mecca to Medina, executes all older Median boys and men, and enslaves young boys, women, and girls as slaves and sex slaves.
624 Jihad - Mohammed and his followers subdue Mecca.
628 Muhammad signed the ten-year Treaty of Hudaibiyya with the people of Mecca, which he broke less than two years later with a sneak attack.
629 The battle of Mu’ta, the first attack of Christians by Islam.
630 Muhammad conquers Mecca from his base in Medina.
632 Muhammad died in Medina, the place of his burial in the Green Dome Mosque is well known. Islam controls the Hijaz. (West coast of Saudi Arabia, covering the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif, and Baljurashi.)
633 Muslims invade Syria and Iraq.
635 Muslims begin the conquest of Persia. Arab Muslims capture the city of Damascus.
636 Muslims conquest of Syria, and the surrounding lands, all had been mostly Christian – including Israel and Iraq.
637 Muslim Crusaders conquer Iraq (though some date it to 635 or 636). Arabs occupy Ctesiphon. Jerusalem was captured and fell to Muslim forces.
638 Muslim invaders conquered and annexed Jerusalem, taking it from the Byzantines. Caliph Umar I enters Jerusalem. Muslims invade Iran.
639 Muslims invade Egypt. Muslims conquer Persia.
641 Islam spreads into Egypt. Muslims conquer Alexandria and burn the Library of Alexandria. Muslim Crusaders control Syria and Israel.
642 Muslims conquer Egypt.
643 Muslims invade North Africa – Taking many Black Africans as slaves.
644–650 Muslim Crusaders conquer Cyprus, and Tripoli in North Africa, and establish Islamic rule in Iran, Afghanistan, and Sind.
649 Muawiya I lead a raid against Cyprus sacking the capital Salamis-Constantia.
650 Muslim Crusaders conquer Iran, except along the Caspian Sea.
652 Sicily is attacked by Muslims.
653 Muawiya I leads a raid against Rhodes.
654 Muawiya I conquers Cyprus.
655 Battle of the Masts.
661-680 Muawiya moves capital from Mecca to Damascus.
662 Egypt falls to the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates.
667 Sicily is attacked by Muslims.
668 First siege of Constantinople.
669 Muslim conquest reaches Morocco. Muslims were halted by Byzantines at Constantinople.
672 Muslims capture the island of Rhodes.
673–678 Arabs besiege Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.
674 Arab conquest reaches the Indus River. (Hindu Kush ranges, and then flows along the entire length of Pakistan)
691 Dome of the Rock Mosque is completed in Jerusalem, only six decades after Muhammad’s death.
698 Muslims capture Carthage.
700 Muslims raid the Island of Sicily.
707 Muslims conquered North Africa.
710-713 Muslim Crusaders conquer the lower Indus Valley.
711 The Muslim conquest moves into Europe. Moors (Muslims) invade Spain and impose the kingdom of Andalusia. (Spain was fought over for seven hundred years, with over 150 battles fought. There was an order by the Khalif from North Africa for 3,000 blonde virgins to be sex slaves in the harems.
711 Muslims conquest of Sindh in Afghanistan. Battle of Guadalate. (Christian Visigoths of Hispania under their king, Roderic, versus the invading forces of the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate, comprising Arabs and Berbers under the commander Ṭāriq ibn Ziyad.)
712 Conquest of Andalusia.
715 Muslim conquest of Spain.
716 Muslims captured Lisbon.
717 Cordova becomes the capital of Andalusia. (Spain)
718 Conquest of Spain complete.
719 Muslims attack Septimania in Southern France.
721 Muslims cross the Pyrenees.
722 Battle of Covadonga, was the first defeat of Muslims by Christians, after 93 years of losing battles!
724 Muslims raid southern France and capture Carcassone and Nimes.
725 Muslim forces occupy Nimes, France.
730 Muslim forces occupy Narbonne and Avignon.
732 Muslim invasion of France is stopped at the Battle of Poitiers and the Battle of Tours (Christian Victories). The Franks, under their leader Charles ‘The Hammer’ Martel (the grandfather of Charlemagne), defeats the Muslims and turn them back out of France. He defeated the invading Muslim armies and halted northward expansion.
735 Muslim invaders capture Arles.
750 Abbasids move capital to Baghdad
Map of the extent of conquest at this point.
http://www.worldmapsonline.com/images/Cram/History/islamicconquests.jpg
756 The Emirate of Cordova is established
Another map of the conquered territory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Age-of-caliphs.png
759 Pippin III ends Muslim incursions in France.
762 The foundation of Baghdad, which becomes the center of Arab/Muslim golden age.
785 Foundation of the Great Mosque of Cordova.
789 Rise of Idrisid amirs (Muslim Crusaders) in Morocco; Christoforos, a Muslim who converted to Christianity, is executed.
792 Hisham I calls for a Jihad, thousands heed his call to cross the Pyrenees to subjugate France. Many cities are destroyed.
800 Autonomous Aghlabid dynasty (Muslim Crusaders) in Tunisia.
807 Caliph Harun al-Rashid orders the destruction of non-Muslim prayer houses & the church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem.
809 Aghlabids (Muslim Crusaders) conquered Sardinia, Italy.
813 Christians in Israel are attacked; many flee the country. Muslims attack the Civi Vecchia, near Rome.
816 The Moors support the Basques against the Franks.
827 Sicily is invaded by Muslims.
831 Muslims capture Palermo, Sicily, and make it their capital. Raids in Southern Italy.
837–901 Aghlabids (Muslim Crusaders) conquered Sicily, raided Corsica, Italy, and France.
838 Muslim raiders sack Marseille.
840 Muslims occupy much of Southern Italy.
841 Muslim forces capture Bari, Italy.
846 Muslim raiders attacked areas near Ostia and Rome. Some enter Rome and damage the Churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. The Leonine Wall is built around Rome for protection and to discourage further attacks.
849 Battle of Ostia (Christian Victory)
850 Perfectus, a Christian priest in Muslim Cordova, Spain is executed, one of the first of many others.
851 Young Christians are executed for insulting the false “prophet” Mohammad.
858 Muslim raiders attack Constantinople.
859 Muslim invaders capture Castrogiovanni slaughtering several thousand.
869 Arabs capture the island of Malta.
869–883 Revolt of Black slaves in Iraq.
870 Muslim invaders capture Syracuse.
876 Muslims pillage Campagna in Italy
879 The Seljuk Empire unites Mesopotamia and a sizable portion of Persia.
884 Muslims invading Italy burn the monastery of Monte Cassino to the ground.
900 The Fatimid Dynasty assumes control of Egypt.
902 The Muslim conquest of Sicily is completed when the Christian city of Taormina is captured.
909 Rise of the Fatimid Dynasty Caliphate in Tunisia; these Muslim Crusaders occupy Sicily and Sardinia. Assumes control of Egypt. Muslims control all the passes in the Alps between France and Italy cutting off passage between the two countries.
920 Muslim forces cross the Pyrenees, enter Gascony, and reach as far as the gates of Toulouse, France.
928–969 Byzantine military revival, they retake old territories, such as Cyprus (964) and Tarsus (969).
937 The Church of the Resurrection (aka Church of Holy Sepulcher) is burned down by Muslims; more churches in Jerusalem are attacked.
945 Persian Muslims capture Baghdad.
960 Conversion of Qarakhanid Turks to Islam.
969 Fatimids (Muslim Crusaders) conquered Egypt and found Cairo.
972 The Fatimids of Egypt conquer North Africa.
973 Israel and southern Syria are again conquered by the Fatimids.
981 Ramiro III, King of Leon, is defeated at Rueda.
985 Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir sacks Barcelona.
994 The monastery of Monte Cassino is destroyed a second time by Muslim Arabs.
997 Under the leadership of Almanzar, Muslim forces marched out of the city of Cordova and headed north to capture more Christian lands. Muslim forces burn Compostela to the ground. (Northwestern Spain)
1003 First persecutions by al-Hakim; the Church of St. Mark in Fustat, Egypt, is destroyed.
1004 Arab raiders sack the Italian city of Pisa.
1009 Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah orders the Holy Sepulcher and all Christian buildings in Jerusalem be destroyed, and the destruction of the Church of the Resurrection (See year 937).
1012 Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah orders the destruction of all Christian and Jewish houses of worship in his lands. Beginning of al-Hakim’s oppressive decrees against Jews and Christians. Berber forces capture Cordova and order that half the population be executed.
1015 Arab Muslim forces conquer Sardinia.
1050 Islamic Berber dynasties were established in the Sahel. (Africa, extending from Senegal eastward to Sudan. Transitional zone between the arid Sahara Desert to the north and the savannas to the south.) Creation of Almoravids (Muslim Crusaders) movement in Mauretania; Almoravids (aka Murabitun) is a coalition of western Saharan Berbers; followers of Islam, focusing on the Quran, the Hadith, and Maliki law.
1055 Seljuk (Islamic) Turks capture Baghdad.
1064 The Seljuk Turks conquer Christian Armenia.
1070 Seljuk Turks capture Jerusalem and begin persecuting Christian Pilgrims
1071 Battle of Manzikert, Seljuk Turks (Muslim Crusaders) defeat Byzantines and occupy much of Anatolia.
1071-1085 Seljuk Turks conquer most of Syria and Israel.
1073 Seljuk Turks conquer Ankara. Conquest of Jerusalem by Turks (Muslim Crusaders).
1075 Seljuk Turks capture Jerusalem. Seljuk (Muslim Crusaders) captured Nicaea (Iznik) and make it their capital in Anatolia.
1076 Almoravids (Muslim Crusaders) (see 1050) conquer western Ghana.
1078 Seljuk Turks capture Nicaea.
1084 Seljuk Turks conquer Antioch.
1085 Kingdom of Castile re-conquers Toledo, Spain from the Moors.
1086 Almoravids (Muslim Crusaders) (See year 1050) send help to Andalusia, Battle of Zallaca.
1088 Patzinak Turks begin forming settlements between the Danube and the Balkans.
1090 Granada captured by Yusuf Ibn Tashfin.
1090 – 1091 Almoravids (Muslim Crusaders) occupy all of Andalusia except Saragossa and the Balearic Islands.
1091 Cordova is captured by the Almoravids.
1094 Spanish knight El Cid takes Valencia, Spain from the Moors.
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1095 Launch of the First Crusade. Wasn’t this about time?
Talk about Christians “turning the other cheek”!
For much of this time since 637, Muslims were continually attacking pilgrims to the Holy Land and holding them for ransom, enslaving them, or killing them.
They had also been raiding everywhere they could reach from the Mediterranean to as far north as the Scandinavian countries for booty, slaves, and sex slaves.
It took over four hundred years of losing most battles, millions of lives, Christian Cities, and Lands for the remaining Christian Nations to respond as an alliance to Islamic aggression and conquest. This was a military expedition by European Christians to regain the Holy Lands taken by the Muslim conquest of the Levant, which resulted in the re-capture of Jerusalem.
It took 466 years from 629 to 1095 when Pope Urban II was at the Council Clermont, in response to the appeal from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus for support against the invasion of the Seljuk (Moslem) Turks. On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II made perhaps the most influential speech of the Middle Ages, giving rise to the Crusades by calling all Christians in Europe to war against Muslims to reclaim the Holy Land, with a cry of “Deus vult!” or “God wills it!”.
1099 First Crusade begins under Godfrey of Bouillon and re-takes Jerusalem.
1272 The last Crusade (Ninth) ended.
From: https://sites.google.com/site/islamicthreatsimplified/a-religion-or-political-ideology/islam-has-done-it-before (With some additions from other sources, and editing out duplicates)
-- All these Islamic military invasions and conquests of previously Christian lands that Europeans were supposed to ignore?
The Crusades began only after centuries of Church burnings, rapes, killings, enslavement, and forced ‘conversions’ of Christians.
By the time the Crusades finally began, Muslim armies had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world.
So much for Islam always being the victim.
The Crusades were caused by the reaction of European leaders to the Islamic armies having overrun and conquered the lands of Christian and Jewish people in the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa.
See for further study: https://www.americanthinker.com/2005/11/the_truth_about_islamic_crusad.html
Is Religion Really Responsible for Most Wars?
Atheism has been responsible for more deaths proportionally than religion.
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/is-religion-really-responsible-for-most-wars
Companions of Muhammad lived to see Islam declare war on every major religion in the world in just the first few decades following his death - pressing the Jihad against Christians, Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, and many others.
The Crusades were in response to all of this.
By the time of the Crusades (when the Europeans began fighting back as an alliance), Muslims had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world by the sword, including Spain and parts of Italy and France to Syria, and across North Africa. The Arab slave-trading routes would stay open for another 1300 years until pressure from Christian-based countries forced Islamic nations to declare the practice illegal. (In theory, but not in practice!).
How Islamic Atrocities Provoked the Crusades
This video discusses the Islamic violence against Eastern Christians in the Syrian region during the Middle Ages, and how it provoked the Crusades as a defensive response. The idea that the Crusades were an unprovoked act of violence against Islamic civilization is simply nonsense and not historical. https://www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DimTY5izhTDo&h=65395
The Knights Templars came into being sometime around 1100. Employed by the Pope, they were headquartered in the Temple Mount in Jerusalem — a city that had recently come under Christian control in 1099, thanks to the First Crusade (led by the Franks). The newly conquered Holy Land attracted pilgrims, and the knights were tasked with protecting believers on what could be a perilous journey. The Knights Templar are largely responsible for our modern image of knights as virtuous heroes — before the Knights Templar, the best-known knights would have been little more than privileged local nobles and warlike bullies.
The Muslim Game:
Muslims love talking about the Crusades… and Christians love apologizing for them. To hear both parties tell the story, one would believe that Muslims were just peacefully minding their own business in lands that were legitimately Muslim when Christian armies decided to wage holy war and “kill millions”.
The Truth:
Every part of this myth is a lie. By the rules that Muslims claim for themselves, the Crusades were justified, and the excesses (though beneath Christian standards) pale in comparison with the historical treatment of conquered populations at the hands of Muslims.
Crusades - Here are some quick facts…
The first Crusade began in 1095… 460 years after the first Christian city was overrun by Muslim armies, 457 years after Jerusalem was conquered by Muslim armies, 453 years after Egypt was taken by Muslim armies, 443 years after Muslims first plundered Italy, 427 years after Muslim armies first laid siege to the Christian capital of Constantinople, 380 years after Spain was conquered by Muslim armies, 363 years after France was first attacked by Muslim armies, 249 years after the capital of the Christian world, Rome itself, was sacked by a Muslim army, and only after centuries of church burnings, killings, enslavement and forced ‘conversions’ of Christians.
Europe had been harassed by Muslims since the first few years following Muhammad’s death. As early as 652, Muhammad’s followers launched raids on the island of Sicily, waging a full-scale occupation 200 years later that lasted almost a century and was punctuated by massacres, such as that at the town of Castrogiovanni, in which 8,000 Christians were put to death. In 1084, ten years before the first Crusade, Muslims staged another devastating Sicilian raid, burning churches in Reggio, enslaving monks, and raping an abbey of nuns before carrying them into captivity and assumed slavery, some of which must have also become harem girls (sex-slaves).
In 1095, Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comnenus began begging the Pope in Rome for help in turning back the Muslim armies which were overrunning what is now Turkey, grabbing property as they went and turning churches into mosques. Several hundred thousand Christians had been killed in Anatolia alone in the decades following 1050 by Seljuk Muslim invaders interested in ‘converting’ the survivors to Islam.
(Anatolia is the peninsula of land that today constitutes the Asian portion of Turkey. Because of its location at the point where the continents of Asia and Europe meet, Anatolia was, from the beginnings of civilization, a crossroads for numerous peoples migrating or conquering from either continent.)
Not only were Christians losing their lives in their own lands to the Muslim advance but pilgrims to the Holy Land from other parts of Europe were being harassed, kidnapped, molested, forcibly converted to Islam and occasionally murdered. (Compare this to Islam’s justification for slaughter based on Muslims being denied access to the Meccan pilgrimage in Muhammad’s time).
Renowned scholar Bernard Lewis states, “Unlike the jihad, it [the Crusade] was concerned primarily with the defense or reconquest of threatened or lost Christian territory… The Muslim jihad, in contrast, was perceived as unlimited, as a religious obligation that would continue until all the world had either adopted the Muslim faith or submitted to Muslim rule… The object of jihad is to bring the whole world under Islamic law.”
The Crusaders only invaded lands that were originally Christian. They did not attack Saudi Arabia (other than a half-hearted expedition by a minor figure) or sack Mecca, as the Muslims had done (and continued doing) to Italy and Constantinople. Their primary goal was the recapture of Jerusalem and the security of safe passage for pilgrims. The toppling of the Muslim empire was not on the agenda.
The period of Crusader “occupation” (of its own former land) was stretched tenuously over about 170 years, which is less time than the Muslim occupation of Sicily and southern Italy alone - to say nothing of Spain and other lands that had never been Islamic before falling victim to Jihad. The Arab occupation of North Africa and Middle Eastern lands outside of Arabia is almost 1400 years old.
Despite popular depiction, the Crusades were not a titanic battle between Christianity and Islam. Although originally dispatched by Papal decree, the “occupiers” quickly became part of the political and economic fabric of the Middle East without much regard for religious differences. Their arrival was largely accepted by the local population as simply another change in authority. Muslim radicals even lamented the fact that many of their co-religionists preferred to live under Frankish (Christian) rule than migrate to Muslim lands.
The Islamic world was split into warring factions, many of which allied themselves with the Frankish princes against each other at one time or another. This even included Saladin, the Kurdish warrior who is credited with eventually ousting the “Crusaders”. Contrary to recent propaganda, However, Saladin had little interest in the holy war until a rogue Frankish prince began disrupting his trade routes. Both before and after the taking of Jerusalem, his armies spent far more time and resources battling fellow Muslims.
For its part, the Byzantine (Eastern Christian) Empire preferred to have little to do with the Crusader kingdoms and went so far as to sign treaties with their Muslim rivals on occasion.
Another misconception is that the Crusader era was a time of constant war. Extraordinarily little of this overall period included significant hostilities. In response to Muslim expansion or aggression, there were only about 20 years of actual military campaigning, much of which was spent on organization and travel. (They were from 1098-1099, 1146-1148, 1188-1192, 1201-1204, 1218-1221, 1228-1229, and 1248-1250). By comparison, the Muslim Jihad against the island of Sicily alone lasted 75 grinding years.
Ironically, the Crusades are justified by the Quran itself, which encourages “Holy War” to “drive them out of the places from whence they drove you out” (Koran 2:191), even though the aim wasn’t to expel Muslims from the Middle East, but more to bring an end to the molestation of pilgrims. Holy War is not justified by New Testament teachings, which is why the Crusades are an anomaly, the brief interruption after centuries of relentless Jihad against Christianity that began long before and has continued well after.
SEE: “THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE BARBARY PIRATE WARS”
The greatest crime of the Crusaders was the sacking of Jerusalem, in which at least 3,000 people were said to have been massacred. This number is dwarfed by the number of Jihad victims, from India to Constantinople, Africa, and Narbonne, but Muslims have never apologized for their crimes and never will.
What is called ‘sin and excess’ by other religions, is what Islam refers to as duty willed by Allah.
You have my permission to copy and use this document as long as you retain this entire statement and credit the source, with this link:
Why the Crusades Were Justified (common-sense-science-and-religion.org)