are we ready for Crusades 2.0 ?
copied this breif descrtion from wikipedia Crusades
The Crusades were
a series of religious expeditionary wars blessed by Pope Urban II and the Catholic Church, with
the stated goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in
and near Jerusalem. Jerusalem was
and is a sacred city and symbol of all three major Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).[1] The
background to the Crusades was set when the Seljuk Turks decisively
defeated the Byzantine army in 1071 and cut off Christian access
to Jerusalem. The Byzantine emperor, Alexis I feared that all Asia Minor would be
overrun. He called on western Christian leaders and the papacy to come to the
aid of Constantinople by undertaking a pilgrimage or a crusade that would free
Jerusalem from Muslim rule.[2] Another
cause was the destruction of many Christian sacred sites and the persecution of Christians under the
Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim.
The crusaders comprised
military units of Roman Catholics from all over western Europe, and were not
under unified command. The main series of Crusades, primarily against Muslims in the Levant, occurred between
1095 and 1291. Historians have given many of the earlier crusades numbers. After
some early successes, the later crusades failed and the crusaders were defeated
and forced to return home. Several hundred thousand soldiers became Crusaders by
taking vows;[3] the Pope
granted them plenary indulgence. Their emblem was the
cross — the term "crusade" is derived from the French term for taking up the
cross. Many were from France and called themselves "Franks," which became the
common term used by Muslims.[4]
The term "crusade" is
also used to describe religiously motivated campaigns conducted between 1100 and
1600 in territories outside the Levant[a] usually against
pagans, heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication for a mixture of religious,
economic, and political reasons.[b] Rivalries among both
Christian and Muslim powers led also to alliances between religious factions
against their opponents, such as the Christian alliance with the Islamic Sultanate of Rûm during the Fifth Crusade.
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