re: The Crusades were justified

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The Christian West had made peace

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100% False. Every Caliphate would sign Truces....in essence, temporary ceasefires. They refused to sign peace treaties as a matter of policy, for the goal was always Global Jihad.

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If the Bysantine emperor had left the Turks alone on the frontier as they were moving south towards other Muslim held lands Anatolia would not have been invaded which scared the Pope and Western rulers at the time.

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False again. Tughril and Alp Arslan were very duplicitous. They always wanted Armenia and the Caucasuses first. And after that, they wanted the world

They never had any plans to take the lands of the Arab caliphates. Tribes would move in, but rarely try to take it over. At the most, they would raid/sack Arab cities on behalf of the Romans, who would pay them to raid Arab-held lands. Often they would settle there for a generation or so, but then return to the main Seljuk horde, and fight and conquer new Roman lands.

On one side, they would declare peace, but on the other, they would allow other Turkic tribes within their horde, to do what ever they wanted (raid/rape/slaughter into the Roman Empire). They would claim they couldn't control all their tribes, but primary sources indicate that this was entirely false, it was all part of the greater plan.

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Forced conversion for them was largely a rare thing.

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Also quite false. They simply chose strategic places to convert instead of an Empire-wide policy

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Ottomans did not frick with Jews or Christians in terms of religion all that much.

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Oh man, you get worse and worse.

Ottomans would close down the vast majority of Churches. They would regulate Christians, force the tax on them, kidnap their children and turn them into Jannissaries (who they would then forcefully convert them to Islam), and they would send pirates to raid into Europe to enslave those they captured, then convert the slaves.

Gtfo with your revisionist history.

You're correct about the Jews however. They didn't constitute much of a threat, and they needed a group of people who allowed Usury (which Christianity and Islam didn't allow at the the time)

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Christianity mainly because their new Arab rulers were not nearly as corrupt as their old Roman rulers

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More anti-Christian Enlightenment BS. The Roman Empire was constantly fighting corruption and avarice. It had a tax system, and as a matter of policy, Arabs would wait a generation before they would implement harsher tax measures on Christians.

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Everyone likes to throw shade on Christians for fighting the Crusades.

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What?

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They're treated as blood thirsty monsters attacking innocent Muslims.

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No they aren't.

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The Dark Ages in Europe coincided with the Islamic invasions of the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe.

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The fact is that the 'Dark Ages' refers to a lack of sources, not an intellectual decline.

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Islamic piracy destroyed much of Mediterranean trade that the Christian Romans had created. By the 9th century, the struggle between Byzantines and Arabs had turned the eastern Mediterranean into a no man’s land for merchant activity.

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This is absolutely not true. The reason why Asia Minor and the Levant was still contested was due to the value of trade routes.

The area had been contested by Romans and Persians for around 681 years. That conflict played a large part in the formation of Islam, as pre-Islamic Arabia was at the epicenter of long trade routes from West Africa to China. Muhammed wasn't even the first Arab to try to unite the Arab tribes, some of whom were proxies of the Romans and Sasanians respectively, while others were mostly Bedouin.

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Within 35 years, Islamic Turks and seized control of Christian territories in Anatolia, larger than the entire region of Germany and threatened France & Italy.

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Yes, Central Asian Turkic groups upset the balance of power in the region, which is the prevailing cause of the Crusades. Both the Muslims and the Byzantine Romans of that era were comfortable enough with the balance of power in the region.

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In response to the muslim invasion, Pope Urban II gave a speech that united an international group that included French, Flemish, English & German peasants, knights, and kings who all came together to defend and take back the lands that had been taken. This was something unique in human history.

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What? Multi-ethnic groups came together quite often in human history.

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So many Europeans being united by on religion and engaging in a civilization wide fight had not happened before and has not happened since. The Crusades achieved what other religions and ideologies could not.

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What? What did the Crusades achieve that other religions could not?

Yes.

Unequal violence against a genocidal force is normally the only proper response.

Western society has forgotten that rule. We always try to do the right thing, morally. How do you fight a moral war? Very poorly that how. And you lose. Just look at recent history going blanch to Vietnam. If you’re not willing to be more brutal than your enemy you will lose. Just look at the cartels in Mexico and South America. Now they operate freely within our own borders.

Violence is a basic animalistic trait necessary for survival. Claiming morality and civility doesn’t change that.

The 4th Crusade was definitely mess up. On the way to recapture Jerusalem they sacked Christian Constantinople.

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This is absolutely not true of Mesopotamia and pre-Islamic Arabia. Christianity and Judaism were minority religions in the area.

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That has been found to be false in recent years. as discoveries have been made into the history of the Lakhmids, Ghassanids, and Himayarites.

Axum (Ethiopia made major plays in Himyar and converted much of the Jewish population to Christianity.

Sources: not wikipedia

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That is what is said, but the Romans and the Persians had been fighting from 54 BCE to after the Hijrah. What changed in that dynamic?

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BCE

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What was the name of this policy and can you give me an example of where it was employed?

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The tax, called the Jizya

The Policy doesn't have a name, because unlike in modern times, they didn't write legislation down. I'm talking about a small-p policy, that is inferred.

Caliphates would first conquer, then bide their time before imposing the jizya and additional taxes. This was because early Islam lacked superior numbers. So instead, they would pacify conquered peoples by simply not taxing them for awhile

Later, starting in the 9th, but much more so in the following centuries, they would place harsher and harsher taxes and policies on non-muslims

It was very rarely instituted right away

Just read some books, you dolt

Nothing like starting big ole wars and killing a bunch of people in the name of your religion…

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BCE

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Soooooooooo edgy......

There he is.

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BCE

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Christian apologists: "Just look how everyone uses BC/AD!"

Also Christian apologists: "Hey! You can't use BCE!"