Doing some research this morning for this blog, I came across this very well written article from Raymond Ibrahim of Jihad Watch. The full article is worthy of being read. Click here to read the full article. Here are a few snips from it, worthy of thought.
Nonetheless, history attests that these Crusades were violent and bloody. After breaching the walls of Jerusalem in 1099, the Crusaders slaughtered almost every single inhabitant of the Holy City. According to the Medieval chronicle, the Gesta Danorum "the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles." Moreover, there is the 1204 sack of Constantinople, wherein Crusader slew Christian.
In light of the above-one a prime example of "Hebraic" violence from the Bible, the other from Christian history-why should Islam be the one religion always characterized as intrinsically violent, simply because its holy book and its history also contain violence? Why should non-Muslims always point to the Koran and ancient history as evidence of Islam's violence while never looking to their own scriptures and history?
While such questions are popular, they reveal a great deal of confusion between history and theology, between the temporal actions of men and what are understood to be the immutable words of God. The fundamental error being that Judeo-Christian history-which is violent-is being conflated with Islamic theology-which commands violence. Of course all religions have had their fair share of violence and intolerance towards the "other." Whether this violence is ordained by God or whether warlike man merely wished it thus is the all-important question.
