cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3062545
Important history
The Crusaders didn’t do a fraction of what Muslims did during their actual initial conquest.
The Crusaders killed every man, woman, and child in Jerusalem until the streets were flowing with blood.
Go read something on
what Muslims did during their actual initial conquest
. This was casual for them. The difference is, though, that Crusaders didn’t intentionally destroy books and art.
OK, said one stupid thing. Anyway, this makes them at worst as bad as Muslims.
I know what I’m talking about, but I get furious over Westerners trying to find indulgence for their own ancestors’ actions at the expense of Middle-Eastern native Christians, and I see saying that Crusaders were somehow worse than any Muslim conquest as part of that.
Being furious I may sometimes say something imprecise.
Doesn’t negate the fact that Islam is not native to any place outside of the Arabian peninsula, and those areas it has invaded still have native populations and religions not yet completely exterminated, and those are largely Christian. Saying that Crusaders were the baddies, but the Muslims whom they were fighting were not, is disgusting in that context. It’s like that “Irish were like slaves too”, putting things into American context so that you’d understand better.
Same as that myth of Salah ad-Din being benevolent and honorable, mostly started by German Empire’s propaganda as part of their relations with genocidal Ottoman Empire.
