Writing in The Telegraph, Douglas Carswell finds the reason the UK faces increasing restrictions on free speech is fear: ‘Fear of Islamists who insist that their right not to be offended trumps your right to speak freely.’

The likelihood is that the Labour government will pass legislation based on the definition of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, which sees Islamophobia as ‘rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’. This is so vague that it can operate as a catch-all definition forbidding any criticism of Islam: in effect a modern blasphemy law.

Crusade questions

Whilst we are still free to do so, I would like to look at what is quite possibly the most misunderstood event in European history, the Crusades of the Middle Ages. Most of what passes for public knowledge about this period is either misleading or plain wrong.

But was the first Crusade really launched in a mindless, bloodthirsty and irrational way?

Progressives’ assertions of a supposed moral equivalence between radical Islam and Christianity happen with boring frequency. ‘Terrorists are all bad, and Christianity has had as many victims as Islam,’ runs the usual accusation. This is then followed by the obligatory, ‘What about the Crusades’?

The Crusades are commonly seen as imperialistic invasions of otherwise peaceable Islamic countries with consequent mass slaughter, all committed in the name of Christ. Compared with the mission of Jesus and the life of the early Christians, the Crusades don’t look good. But was the first Crusade really launched in a mindless, bloodthirsty and irrational way? Was it the Crusaders who introduced warfare to the Holy Land?

If we look at the Crusades in context, we find that they were not a savage, rapacious assault launched upon a peace-loving, sophisticated culture. The Crusades were a response to five centuries of violently aggressive, imperialistic Islamic Jihad which had conquered, annihilated or forcibly converted more than two thirds of what had formerly been the Christian world.

Holy war

From its inception, Islam was imperialistically aggressive in the face of lack of provocation from the surrounding Byzantine and Persian empires. Islamic imperialism had nothing to do with justified wars of self-defence, rather it was based on the Islamic concept of a holy war.

In contrast Muslims who subjugated other peoples, destroyed their cultures and forced conversion, did not wander from the teachings of Islam: they followed them closely.

The Crusaders may have wandered far from the teachings of Christ in their conduct of war. Jesus never called Christians to violence. In contrast Muslims who subjugated other peoples, destroyed their cultures and forced conversion, did not wander from the teachings of Islam: they followed them closely.

In the ten years during which he lived in Medina (622-632), Muhammad participated in or launched a great many raids, expeditions or full-scale wars. These ranged from sending out assassination hit-squads to the Tabuk expedition, in which he led 30,000 jihadis against a non-existent threat from Byzantine Christians.

Muslim armies marched throughout the Middle East into what is now Turkey and the Balkans, subjugating Christians and others as they went. Islam conquered the Iberian peninsula (c720) and marched into France until repelled by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours (732). They conquered Sicily (827) and raided Italy. Islam is a fighting faith with a lengthy history of imperialist conquest.

Far from the benign rule of popular myth, Muslim domination could be cruel. In 772, the Calipha al Mansur ordered the hands of all Christians and Jews in Jerusalem to be branded. Even when violence did not occur, the presence of vast Muslim armies in the background carried an explicit threat. If Muslims invaded a city or region whose people did not want to convert to Islam, they had to pay a jizya tax. If they converted, as new Muslims they had to pay a zakat tax. Either way, money flowed to the Islamic treasury in Arabia or to the local Muslim governor.

... the holy war, or jihad, was something foreign to Christians until unfortunately they learned it from Islam.

Expansionist Islam

Fred M Donner, professor at Near Eastern History at Chicago University and author of the principal work on early Islam, cites three main factors for the Islamic jihad.

1. First, and most importantly, the message of Islam itself legitimised the Muslim ruling elite to follow the example of Muhammad and violently conquer other peoples; Islam had a divinely ordained mission to conquer in the name of Allah.
2. This was followed by the economic necessity to secure trans-Arab commerce.
3. Finally, there was political control. The Muslim elite wished to maintain their own place in the political hierarchy by having aggressive Arab tribes migrate into newly conquered territories.

Expansionist Islam was a consistent aggressor in its own holy wars for centuries before Europeans responded defensively with the Crusades. For its first three centuries, Christianity spread by preaching, kindness and example. As pointed out by Jacques Ellul, the holy war, or jihad, was something foreign to Christians until unfortunately they learned it from Islam. Regrettably, the Crusaders learned the lesson too well and sometimes acted with a brutality equalling that of the Muslims.

The Crusaders were called to remove the Islamic invaders from the lands that had previously been Christian and to restore the freedom of pilgrims to visit the shrines of the Holy Land.

Restoring freedom

The Islamic conquest of Jerusalem occurred in 638; it was not until 1095 that Pope Urban II called the first Crusade. During that time Christians were in a precarious position and lived under threat and persecution throughout the Middle East. When the Sunni Seljuk Turks swept into Jerusalem in 1077 and replaced the Shia Fatimid Caliphate, they murdered more than 3,000 people, including many Christians. It was at this point that the Christian Emperor of Byzantium, Alexius Comnenus, appealed for help to the Western churches.

When Pope Urban II responded by calling for Europe to help the embattled Christians, it was not a call for either conquest or conversion. The Crusaders were called to remove the Islamic invaders from the lands that had previously been Christian and to restore the freedom of pilgrims to visit the shrines of the Holy Land.

Multiculturalism teaches that all cultures are of equal value and worthy of equal esteem. Reality teaches otherwise.

The Rev. Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack is a retired Church of Scotland minister; now a member of the Free Church of Scotland. Check out his many incisive articles on his blog, A Grain of Sand.