Terrorism today, and Madden's "A Concise History of the Crusades"

By Jan Ireland

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," warned philosopher George Santayana.

Islamic jihad or terrorism occurred a thousand years ago, and is often erroneously portrayed as a response to unprovoked Christian intent to wipe out the Islamic religion. Many list the Crusades as a root cause of Islamic terrorism today, as did Bill Clinton in his apologetic Georgetown University speech shortly after 9/11.

In "A Concise History of the Crusades" Thomas F. Madden corrects a multitude of misinformation that has crept into the culture. The exhaustively researched treatise is vital reading about the true history of Islam and Christianity. It is time for the world to shed political correctness and remember its past. Four heinously beheaded innocent human beings have already been condemned to repeat it. There should be no more.

It is illuminating to read the beginning history of so many of the places which are in the news today — France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Baghdad, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and more. Madden competently interweaves the complicated history of each of these places, and states that his "overriding objective is to relate the history of the crusades in a way that focuses on the events most important to Europeans at the time."

In the book, names from dimly-recalled history classes come alive — Antioch, Constantinople, Byzantine Empire, Council of Clermont, Knights Templar, and Holy Roman Empire.

"Usama, an Arab writer and courtier," describes the Muslim attitude toward women which extends to this day.

The American idea of a Melting Pot is mirrored by Fulcher of Chartres. "We have already forgotten the places where we were born; many of us either do not know them or have never even heard of them. ... one joins faith with men whose forefathers were strangers."

Recently in the Spanish elections, the Socialist party surprisingly swept to power. They had made clear their opposition to the Iraq War, and their intention to remove Spanish troops from the field. Shortly before the elections were due, Islamic terrorists bombed public transportation. Reexamine those events in light of these passages from the book.

"Much of Europe's crusading energy was also devoted to removing Muslims from Spain" and "Thus, it was in dealing with the Muslim presence in Spain that Western soldiers and theologians first cut their teeth on the idea of holy war."

Many aspects of the Crusades are surprising. They were made up of men, but also of women, children, and the elderly. To equip themselves, many sold all their worldly goods. There was no central government providing uniforms and arms. They knew that embarking on a Crusade was almost certain death — and still they willingly went.

Why?

"For medieval men and women, the Crusade was an act of piety, charity, and love, but it was also a means of defending their world, their culture, and their way of life."

It was to recover the Holy Land from Muslims. And later, with the rise of the Ottoman Turks, "crusades were no longer wars to expand Christendom but desperate attempts to slow the advance of Islam. Crusading had become a matter of simple survival."

But that simple reasoning is reasoning that many "scholars" have demeaned. They point to Europe's burgeoning population, decide they needed more land, and recast the Crusades as colonialism.

Enlightenment scholar Edward Gibbon "saw medieval Christianity as a vile superstition, and those who fought for it as ignorant or deceived."

"The post-Enlightenment and positivist view of religiosity too often presumed that medieval men and women could not possibly take seriously the pious words they uttered and wrote. For scholars of these schools, religion was not an impetus but a diversion, a ruse for those who spoke of the next world while profiting in this one. Unfortunately, this mistaken view is still dominant in popular works and even in many otherwise fine textbooks."

Fortunately, we have Madden's excellent book to correct that misinformation.

Consider one last passage from the book.

"...The crusades lost their appeal when Christians no longer identified themselves first and foremost as members of one body of Christ. By the sixteenth century, Europe was dividing itself along political rather than religious lines. ..."

Reexamine the state Europe is in today. Do we want that for America?

© Jan Ireland