A problem from the Crusades

So I've gotten through my first week and a half of Graduate school, and so far? I'm LOVING it. A hell of a lot of work? Oh yeah, you bet. I'm reading so much, that I swear I've got thesis statements, primary sources, and commentaries coming out of my ears. I decided however, to check the news today, and found a little something refreshing. A Hollywood star, Mickey Rourke, saying that Bush isn't to blame for everything in the world. Including Islamic Terrorism! What a concept! While whack-jobs like Michael Moore and others tend to blame the United States for terrorism, Mickey Rourke seems to hit the nail on the head. Especially when he says "I don't give a f**k who's in office, Bush or whoever, there is no simple solution to this problem... I'm not one of those who blames Bush for everything. This s**t between Christians and Muslims goes back to the Crusades, doesn't it?"

Indeed. It goes back to before the Crusades actually.

In a day and age when we have nations like Iran rattling a nuclear saber, Muslim extremists willing to suicide bomb buses, planes, trains, and any other mass transit service in the West that they can manage to get on, and even more rumblings from the Middle East, it occurs to me that there are a lot of people asking 'Why?'.

Well, let's examine a brief outline of the conflict between Muslim and Christian and Jew in history.

In the beginning... Wait wait wait. Too far, right? Well not really.

The time? The Roman Empire's hey day. The very first Imperator has been declared as Augustus Caesar has wiped out his enemies including Cleopatra and Marc Antony. The Battle of Actium decided 31 years prior, Augustus is secure in his power.

In a tiny little backwater called Palestine by the Romans, Judea specifically, there's a little child that is born that will shake and crumble the very foundations of the Roman Empire. In His name, wars will be fought, wars will be ended, and a world will be saved from utter destruction and desolation. On the local level? He's going to shake up things for the Rabbis of the Temple of Jerusalem like they've never been shaken up before. The birth of Christ on Earth is one of the biggest fundamental changes in Antiquity, and at first? There was outright war and persecution on this sect. Not originally its own religion for a very, very, very long time, Christianity was considered a sect of Judaism. Indeed, it isn't until Saint Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, that we see non-Jews really take up the Christian lifestyle and faith.

Fast Forward 300 years or so. Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Day before the battle, according to legend, Constantine, outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and having to take a crucial choke point, receives a vision. In the sky, he sees the Greek letter Chi imposed over the Greek letter Rho. A voice echoed out to him, and he heard the phrase "In hoc signo vincit". "In This Sign, You Shall Conquer". Quickly ordering his soldiers to paint their shields with the symbol, Constantine won an insanely impossible victory, securing his dominance of the Roman Empire. Constantine claims that it was the God of Christianity which aided him in the battle. And why not? After all, the word Christ in Greek is spelled with the first two letters, Chi and Rho. And that God has a tendency to help his people in battles. Remember the walls of Jericho? The Ark of the Covenant? See? Watching Indiana Jones IS educational! So Constantine decides later on that he needs something to unify his new empire. What better to do it, than religion? Judaism is too difficult. Too localized, restricted, and would force the Romans to give up WAY too much to be observant of Jewish tradition. Why not stick with paganism then? Well that's too fractious. One city venerates and holds major ceremonies for one god, the next town over is celebrating a totally different one. How can anyone be unified in an empire where they can't even agree what festival to celebrate to honor which deity? Christianity? Ahhhh now there is an idea! Christianity venerates their patrons in a certain manner. By Constantine's time, men like Saint Paul, Saint Peter, Saint Jude, etc. were spoken of reverently. And if Constantine was right? Then it was the Christian God that helped him out at the battle that gave him his power to begin with. So what does he do? Legalizes Christianity. Persecution stops, and the mortar of The Roman Empire is laid down to stop the cracks from forming. Indeed, it helped keep the Roman Empire going long after it should have fallen. Through controversy and heresy, Rome existed because Christianity gave stability to a world where there might be 5 emperors in any given short period, each one assassinated by the ones which came after.

Note that while the Empire has legalized Christianity, persecution didn't necessarily end entirely. Later emperors would rescind Constantine's orders and reopen persecution. During all this time, Jerusalem is in the hands of the Romans, who have given local control over to governors that rule over the Jewish people. Effectively? It's in the hands of the Jews who run most of the day to day operations of the people. The Romans just sit around collecting taxes and occasionally dispensing justice. As with any conqueror, the Romans only ever wanted the Three T's of conquest. Taxes. Tribute. And No Trouble.

Ok. Now to fast forward about another 300 years and simultaneously rewind a bit. Yep. We gotta do both. Out in the desert wilderness, a young pagan Arabic man named Muhammed receives a vision, apparently from the Archangel Gabriel, declaring that Muhammed is the new prophet of Allah, that is to say, God. The new religion? Islam. Now for the slight rewind and the very beginning of the conflict between Islam and the Western religions.

Theologically, it's all about inheritance. In Judeo-Christian theology, God came to Abraham and told Him that Abraham and his wife Sarai would have children and descendants that would be greater than the number of stars in the sky. Sarai, doubting the Lord, and her own fertility, (they were both well into their old age, we're talking REAL old), gives up her slave, Hagar, to sleep with Abraham. A bit later, Hagar turns up pregnant. A bit later than that? Sarai, now known as Sarah, turns up pregnant! Hagar's child, Ishmael, is born first. He is the first born child. Sarah's son Isaac is the second born child, but is the only of the two children to be born within the legitimate marriage of Abraham and Sarah.

Hagar and Ishmael are sent out into the desert while Isaac inherits the covenant with God. Islam traces its theological roots back to Ishmael, claiming that as the first born son, however legitimate, the God made His covenant with Abraham pass to Ishmael. And thus, Judaism basically after the book of Genesis is outside of the Grace of God. Jesus? Although this claim is made, they still hold that Jesus is one of the Prophets or Emissaries of God, and that the 'one who will come after' that Jesus was to prepare the way for? Muhammed.

In the desert, Islam splits as Muhammed dies, and left in the wake of these three religions, is one major city that has had so much blood shed inside of it, it's a wonder that the streets aren't permanently dyed red.

Jerusalem. Revered as the site of the Temple of Solomon, today only to be seen as the Western Wall, or the Wailing Wall. It is an important city for Jews. Revered for the same site, which Jesus, in his later life, cleansed of the moneylenders. As well as being revered for the sites of the Last Supper at the Cenacle, and the "Mount of Skulls" Golgotha, where the crucifixion of Christ is reputed to take place, as well as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre all mark this as a very significant pilgrimage for Christianity. Islam too lays claim to Jerusalem, in 620 A.D., Muhammed was apparently teleported there to the Temple Mount where he ascended into Heaven and met with the prophets of Islam. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, marks this place for Islamic pilgrims. And because of this, it becomes a holy city to Islam as well.

Fast forwarding a wee bit further, though not too much, to the 11th century. The West is starting to come into its own. The East under the Byzantine Empire, is a fraction of what it once was, comprising a bit of Western Turkey, much of the Balkans, and several of the larger islands of the Aegean Sea. A very benign Arab ruler, Omar Ebno 'L Alchitab stated that regarding religious privileges of pilgrims, "They shall be protected and secured both in their lives and fortunes, and their churches shall neither be pulled down nor made use of by any but themselves.". This sort of 'peace' was kept for hundreds of years, until closer to the end of the 11th century. With the fall of the city of Jerusalem to the far more vehement and savage Seljuk Turks, thousands were massacred, and heavy taxes were levied upon Christian pilgrims attempting to visit holy sites in the city. Those pilgrims who could not pay the tax? They were beaten or killed. Back in the West, Pope in exile, Urban II declared "Deus Vult!" "God Wills It!", opening the First Crusade in 1092. Armies all over the Christian West, and even in the Byzantine East, mobilized to fight the Islamic Seljuk Turks. The Byzantines had been fighting them for years, and were fairly relieved that their Western brethren were mobilizing to come to their aid. England, France, and the Holy Roman Emperor marched to war. Stephen, Count of Blois, and Hugh of Vermandois represented France. From England, the elder brother of King William the Conqueror, Robert of Normandy marched. Other major barons and lords took part in the successful Princes' Crusade. Antioch was sieged first, in 1097. By 1099? Jerusalem fell after an apparently miraculous vision led a priest, Peter Desiderius, to recreate the marching around the walls of Jericho. The holy land came into Christian hands at a bloody cost. Muslims, Jews, and Eastern Byzantine Christians alike were slaughtered. Nearly everyone in Jerusalem. According to Fulcher of Chartres? "Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared." Such is the brutality of medieval warfare. We must remember however, that a similar slaughter took place when the Seljuk Turks had taken over Jerusalem, and the killings of pilgrims over the years until the First Crusade were also held in the minds of the Crusader Knights.

Throughout the years following, until 1291 with the Siege of Acre, it was really a matter of coincidence who's hand various parts of the Holy Land remained in. By 1291 however, the Crusades were effectively ended, as the main region of Judea and Palestine remained in Muslim hands until 1918. The Ottoman Turks had picked the wrong side in World War 1, and as a price? Paid for their mistake with their Empire. The Empire which lasted from around 1299 to the years following 1918, was destroyed and handed over, much of it at least, to British hands, including the Holy City. In 1922, the League of Nations at the Conference of Lausanne gave the British, the Palestine Mandate. Were things quiet? Not particularly, no, but they weren't violent either. The British, after all, were very good, historically, at keeping people in check. We see in India that it's only a short time after the British left, that massacres between Hindus and Muslims began. The same occured in Jerusalem. When the United Nations in 1947 moved for the creation of an International Regime to rule over the city of Jerusalem. In 1948 however, the British pulled out of the Palestine region, and war erupted. In 1949, the citizens of the declared Independent Israel had reached an armistice agreement with Jordan, dividing the city of Jerusalem much like Berlin was divided after 1945. Jordan's actions of annexing East Jerusalem have only ever been recognized officially by Pakistan. No other nation has ever recognized that as valid.

During the ensuing 6 Day War of 1967, where Israel fought Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, the city of Jerusalem was unified, and modern Israel as we know it was created, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip being under Jewish Israeli rule.

By the end of 1967, we'd come full circle in about as many years. From a tiny Roman province mostly under the control of Jewish people who paid their taxes, to a modern Israeli state, we see that Judaism, Islam, and Christianity have all fought, killed, and died for the city that all three religions consider holy. The question we must ask ourselves is this, ladies and gentlemen. We know that Israel has opened up pilgrimages for people of ALL faiths to visit their respective shrines and the city. Is this something that we can afford to lose to radical Muslim domination? The kind which is exhibited by Iran? Or the Taliban? It seems to me that it would be far better to leave the city in Jewish hands and just forget the whole thing. To be content with visiting our sites freely, and enjoying the religious freedom afforded by Israel's current rulership is a far better thing than to fight over it and ruin it for everyone. Muslims today are claiming that Israel has no right to claim Jerusalem, and that Muslims where there since 1299. I have news for those Muslims. Christianity and Judaism have had claim for far longer than Islam. Live and let live. While not the case in the historical past of the Crusades? It is the case now. And who is it that is constantly suicide bombing plazas? restaurants? etcetera? Christians? Jews? No. Radical Islam. The only religious child born of the same cradle of the world in that same general region that cannot be content to live and let live with its brothers.

You're right Mickey Rourke. It has been going on since the Crusades, and a whole heck of a lot longer. And honestly? If Radical Islam doesn't whip itself into shape, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new round of modern Crusades start up.