(Many people have heard about the Crusades, but know little about them; especially what really caused them to happen; and the history and outcome of each one. For your edification, below I have chronicled what really caused them, and then a brief history of each one. Do read it and become informed.)
What happened Palm Sunday 937 AD that led Europe to respond with the Crusades.
Palm Sunday, 937 A.D., Caliph al-Radi ordered the destruction of Jerusalem’s Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.
What was the background of that?
Jerusalem had been a Jewish city since the time of King David, around 1000 B.C. It had been a Christian city since Emperor Constantine, circa 325 A.D.
Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt, which had previously been Christian lands, were conquered by Islamists. Then Muslim warriors under Caliph Umar took Jerusalem away from the Christian Byzantine Patriarch Sophronius in 637 A.D. “Caliph” is the title of Islam’s supreme religious, political and military leaders.
Caliph Umar forced Christian and Jewish inhabitants to live as second-class citizens under “Jim Crow” style laws called “dhimmi.”
In the 700’s, Christians were banned from giving religious instruction to their children and displays of the cross were banned in Jerusalem. Pilgrims to the Holy Land began to be harassed, massacred and even crucified.
In 772 A.D., Caliph al-Mansur of the Abbasid Caliphate ordered Jews and Christians to be branded on the hand.
In 846 AD, 11,000 Arab Saracen Muslim warriors invaded Rome, Italy, and damaged the Basilica of St. Peters and the Church of St. Paul Outside the Walls, desecrating the graves of St. Peter and St. Paul. In response, Pope Leo IV built a 39 foot wall around the Vatican.
In 923 A.D., Caliph al-Muqtadir of the Abbasid Caliphate began enforcing sharia in Jerusalem, inciting Muslim rioters to destroy churches in Jerusalem.
In 937A.D., on Palm Sunday, Abbasid Caliph al-Radi ordered Muslim rioters to plunder the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.
1004, Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah of the Fatimid Caliphate, known as the “Mad Caliph” or the “Nero of Egypt,” began a ten year persecution of Christians and Jews. Thousands were forced to convert or die. 30,000 churches were destroyed.
1008, Mad Caliph al-Hakim forbade Christians from having their annual Palm In Sunday procession from Bethany.
In 1009, al-Hakim ordered frenzied rioters to use picks, hammers and fire to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, considered the holiest site in Christendom.
In Egypt, al-Hakim demanded everyone speak Arabic. Those caught speaking the traditional Egyptian language of Coptic had their tongues removed.
In In 1958, Egypt, President Gamal Nasser told a gathering: “I met with the head of the Muslim Brotherhood and he made his requests to make wearing the hijab mandatory in Egypt. I told him, if I make that a law they will say that we have returned to the days of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who forbade people from walking at day and only allowed walking at night.”
1075, Seljuk Turkish Muslims captured Jerusalem from Arab Muslims. Travelers returning from pilgrimages to the Holy Land shared reports of Islamic persecution of “dhimmi” Christians.
The Italian city-states of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonia fought the Muslims who were raiding Italy’s coasts, Majorca, Sardinia, and Italian Catalonia.
By 965, Muslim forces had succeeded in their 130 year conquest of Sicily.
Nearly a century later, in 1057, the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard fought against the Islamic warriors of Sicily and gained control of Calabria in the “toe of Italy.”
In 1071, the Seljuk Turkish Muslims inflicted a major defeat on the Byzantine Christians at the Battle of Manzikert and took control of all but the coastlands of Asia Minor.
Cries for help were carried back to Europe. Europe sent help, it was called The Crusades.
Europeans had just two centuries of crusades compared to Islam’s fourteen centuries of jihad crusades which are still continuing, killing an estimated 240 million.
The Europeans’ nine major Crusades lasted from 1095 till 1291, when Acre was finally recaptured by Islamic forces. The First Crusade began when, in desperation, the proud Byzantine Emperor Alexius the First Comnenus humbled himself and sent ambassadors to the Council of Piacenza in March of 1095, appealing for aid from his religious rival, the Roman Catholic Pope.
The seriousness of this call for help is underscored by the fact that it occurred just a few years after the Great East-West Schism of 1054, where the Byzantine Church and the Roman Catholic Church split.
Pope Urban II gave an impassioned plea at the Council of Clermont in 1095 for Western leaders to set aside their doctrinal differences and come to the aid of their Byzantine Christians brethren.
Pope Urban described how Christians were treated by Islamists, who “compel (them) to extend their necks and then, attacking them with naked swords, attempt to cut through the neck with a single blow,” as recorded by Robert the Monk in Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University.
(Please now go to Part Two)
Ron
True Texan Tales 