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Indeed. In fact, basically all Muslim country north or west of Saudi Arabia were Christian for centuries before being conquered by Muslim invasions. Syria, Isra

Indeed. In fact, basically all Muslim country north or west of Saudi Arabia were Christian for centuries before being conquered by Muslim invasions. Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Balkans, Turkey - all Christian before the armies of Islam came in 632-1683. It's an interesting piece of history that not a lot of people realize. That's why all these places have/had Christian communities. They're the leftover conquered people who were too stubborn to convert of leave under the abuse of their Muslim rulers. It's not like a bunch of Christians have ever immigrated into any Muslim country - lol!

zyngaro 11y ago
Yes. They did. At least one example I know of: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Tunisians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Tunisians - lol
mkaziz 11y ago
And they were Jewish or Pagan before the Christians forced their way in. Check out this article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence#Christian_violence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence#Ch... Those old warrior popes sound a lot like the Mullahs of today. I particular enjoyed this line: "In the 12th century, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: "'The knight of Christ may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently; for he serves Christ when he strikes, and saves himself when he falls.... When he inflicts death, it is to Christ's profit, and when he suffers death, it is his own gain.'""
- DanielBMarkham 11y ago
  Agreed that in general it's an eerie thing. There are some interesting similarities, especially with the First Crusade and ISIS. There are also some striking differences. Aside from the Byzantine, Christianity was mostly monolithic, with secular rulers jockeying for power inside of one Pope. On the other side, the religious and secular authority were both the same person. This led, over time, to the crusades being a way of wielding internal control over Christiandom, because one guy (the Pope) could preach a crusade against any local, domestic opponents and get some kind of traction out of it. Islam has no centralized authority. (Lots of other differences also)
  - maaku 11y ago
    Eh that's only true of Western Christiandom, which was of relatively less importance until the fall of Byzantine. It certainly doesn't describe the various Orthodox sects, which either didn't participate or were sometimes victims in the crusades.
    - DanielBMarkham 11y ago
      Absolutely. As I noted. The Crusades were full of ironies. One of the most prominent was that they ended up sacking Constantinople, which was exactly the opposite intent of how it all started.
  - junto 11y ago
    More striking is the US and Allied invasion of Iraq, and their resemblance to the crusades. I would imagine that US fundamental Christians see that rather obviously?
    - DanielBMarkham 11y ago
      Not at all, actually. The Crusades started off when the Patriarch of Constantinople wrote a letter to the Pope wanting money, basically. He talked about how the Holy Land was in jeopardy and pilgrims couldn't make their pilgrimages anymore. So the Pope preaches a sermon about how bad things are in the Holy Land. Tons of regular people decided to go over there and fight to "take it back" The nobles saw what was happening and ended up more joining in than anything else. (They did not lead it) So here you have this ragtag army of regular citizens making a huge land journey. It must have been like locusts for the poor villages in the way. The nobles that participated, meanwhile, did what they could to try to turn this disorganized mob into some kind of organized fighting force. When they showed up, they simply overwhelmed the Islamic forces that were there. Ended up taking a huge swath of territory. Does any of this sound familiar? Sermons, unintended consequences, common-man-as-warrior, huge victory because nobody was prepared, etc? That's ISIS. It took over a hundred years for the effects of the First Crusade to wear off, and yes, in that time there were many more. But in the end the Crusaders turned out to be really good at being true believers and fighting and dying for their cause. Maintaining a complex series of alliances in a land that was hostile? Not so much. Wonder if ISIS will manage to last that long. Doubtful.
zyngaro 11y ago
"Indeed. In fact, basically all Muslim country north or west of Saudi Arabia were Christian for centuries before being conquered by Muslim invasions. Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Balkans, Turkey - all Christian before the armies of Islam came in 632-1683." We could say the same thing for America, Australia, Africa and even some East European countries none of these populations were Christians before the their lands where conquered by european Christians . Oh and there was no Israel at that time the whole region was referred to as the Levant.
agumonkey 11y ago
It's very telling about how "history" is taught. I believe the nationalistic / isolated view on it is the cause and is very detrimental.
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
> It's an interesting piece of history that not a lot of people realize. I think it's pretty commonly known the Byzantine empire was Christian and did rule in many of the lands you referenced. > all Christian before the armies of Islam came in 632-1683. But to call these countries (to the extent they're even comparable geographical areas) as 'all Christian' is nonsense. For example, Berbers in Morocco in 500 weren't 'all Christian', not even close. Some surely were, and they'd surely been influenced by it like many religions before, but they weren't all Christian anywhere to the same extent they're virtually all Muslim today. > That's why all these places have/had Christian communities. They're the leftover conquered people who were too stubborn to convert of leave under the abuse of their Muslim rulers. It's not like a bunch of Christians have ever immigrated into any Muslim country - lol! Again, take Morocco. A lot of the Christian communities that exist today aren't remnants of settlements that are 1500 years old. Take Volubilis, a place where once Christians lived in Morocco, it's been abandoned for almost 1.000 years. Rather, many of today's Christian communities are remnants of much more recent migration, a few hundred years ago, in a colonial context. e.g. about 100 years ago a quarter million Spaniards lived in Morocco, most of them Christian, and - lol! - they did migrate to a Muslim country. Countless other examples exist, millions of Christians migrated to muslim countries during the colonial era, and indeed they also left their mark, and not all of them left.
empath75 11y ago
Have you never heard of the crusader states?
tim333 11y ago
I guess there was a similar effect in most of those countries with the Arab Spring democracy demonstrations turning to "Arab Winter or Islamist Winter, is the term for the wide-scale violence and instability, evolving in the aftermath of the Arab Spring protests in Arab World countries." (Wikipedia)

zyngaro 11y ago

Yes. They did. At least one example I know of: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Tunisians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Tunisians - lol

mkaziz 11y ago

And they were Jewish or Pagan before the Christians forced their way in. Check out this article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence#Christian_violence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence#Ch... Those old warrior popes sound a lot like the Mullahs of today. I particular enjoyed this line: "In the 12th century, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: "'The knight of Christ may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently; for he serves Christ when he strikes, and saves himself when he falls.... When he inflicts death, it is to Christ's profit, and when he suffers death, it is his own gain.'""

DanielBMarkham 11y ago
Agreed that in general it's an eerie thing. There are some interesting similarities, especially with the First Crusade and ISIS. There are also some striking differences. Aside from the Byzantine, Christianity was mostly monolithic, with secular rulers jockeying for power inside of one Pope. On the other side, the religious and secular authority were both the same person. This led, over time, to the crusades being a way of wielding internal control over Christiandom, because one guy (the Pope) could preach a crusade against any local, domestic opponents and get some kind of traction out of it. Islam has no centralized authority. (Lots of other differences also)
- maaku 11y ago
  Eh that's only true of Western Christiandom, which was of relatively less importance until the fall of Byzantine. It certainly doesn't describe the various Orthodox sects, which either didn't participate or were sometimes victims in the crusades.
  - DanielBMarkham 11y ago
    Absolutely. As I noted. The Crusades were full of ironies. One of the most prominent was that they ended up sacking Constantinople, which was exactly the opposite intent of how it all started.
- junto 11y ago
  More striking is the US and Allied invasion of Iraq, and their resemblance to the crusades. I would imagine that US fundamental Christians see that rather obviously?
  - DanielBMarkham 11y ago
    Not at all, actually. The Crusades started off when the Patriarch of Constantinople wrote a letter to the Pope wanting money, basically. He talked about how the Holy Land was in jeopardy and pilgrims couldn't make their pilgrimages anymore. So the Pope preaches a sermon about how bad things are in the Holy Land. Tons of regular people decided to go over there and fight to "take it back" The nobles saw what was happening and ended up more joining in than anything else. (They did not lead it) So here you have this ragtag army of regular citizens making a huge land journey. It must have been like locusts for the poor villages in the way. The nobles that participated, meanwhile, did what they could to try to turn this disorganized mob into some kind of organized fighting force. When they showed up, they simply overwhelmed the Islamic forces that were there. Ended up taking a huge swath of territory. Does any of this sound familiar? Sermons, unintended consequences, common-man-as-warrior, huge victory because nobody was prepared, etc? That's ISIS. It took over a hundred years for the effects of the First Crusade to wear off, and yes, in that time there were many more. But in the end the Crusaders turned out to be really good at being true believers and fighting and dying for their cause. Maintaining a complex series of alliances in a land that was hostile? Not so much. Wonder if ISIS will manage to last that long. Doubtful.

zyngaro 11y ago

"Indeed. In fact, basically all Muslim country north or west of Saudi Arabia were Christian for centuries before being conquered by Muslim invasions. Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Balkans, Turkey - all Christian before the armies of Islam came in 632-1683." We could say the same thing for America, Australia, Africa and even some East European countries none of these populations were Christians before the their lands where conquered by european Christians . Oh and there was no Israel at that time the whole region was referred to as the Levant.

agumonkey 11y ago

It's very telling about how "history" is taught. I believe the nationalistic / isolated view on it is the cause and is very detrimental.

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

> It's an interesting piece of history that not a lot of people realize. I think it's pretty commonly known the Byzantine empire was Christian and did rule in many of the lands you referenced. > all Christian before the armies of Islam came in 632-1683. But to call these countries (to the extent they're even comparable geographical areas) as 'all Christian' is nonsense. For example, Berbers in Morocco in 500 weren't 'all Christian', not even close. Some surely were, and they'd surely been influenced by it like many religions before, but they weren't all Christian anywhere to the same extent they're virtually all Muslim today. > That's why all these places have/had Christian communities. They're the leftover conquered people who were too stubborn to convert of leave under the abuse of their Muslim rulers. It's not like a bunch of Christians have ever immigrated into any Muslim country - lol! Again, take Morocco. A lot of the Christian communities that exist today aren't remnants of settlements that are 1500 years old. Take Volubilis, a place where once Christians lived in Morocco, it's been abandoned for almost 1.000 years. Rather, many of today's Christian communities are remnants of much more recent migration, a few hundred years ago, in a colonial context. e.g. about 100 years ago a quarter million Spaniards lived in Morocco, most of them Christian, and - lol! - they did migrate to a Muslim country. Countless other examples exist, millions of Christians migrated to muslim countries during the colonial era, and indeed they also left their mark, and not all of them left.

empath75 11y ago

Have you never heard of the crusader states?

tim333 11y ago

I guess there was a similar effect in most of those countries with the Arab Spring democracy demonstrations turning to "Arab Winter or Islamist Winter, is the term for the wide-scale violence and instability, evolving in the aftermath of the Arab Spring protests in Arab World countries." (Wikipedia)