Karen's chapter 11 offered me a look into something I had never really heard before: the beginning of the Muslim religion. I guess it seemed a religion that always was...I hadn't thought about it....it what her book prompts...thoughts! It was interesting reading the details about Muhammad's journeys and the impact he made on the various areas he traveled to and through... and where his ideas went and how they grew after his death. The map spoke loudest to me: Muslim Jerusalem from 638-1099. Almost four hundred years of rule in Jerusalem? I hadn't realized this either. And the 1099 cried out loud from the page: 1099...I have a hard time getting past the crusades. Reading Karen's chapter 12 about the Christian attitude of the crusades, the slaughter of 30,000 souls in three days, by HAND, one at a time...30,000 people...and crying tears of joy as they sang hymns to God, comparing themselves to the Exodus...in the name of religion?? Hatred and massacre, death of men, women, and children...blood that ran knee deep in Jerusalem? I struggle with the mentality and wonder why so much is accepted today without question of the past? How can it be considered pleasing to God, because men deemed other men (Jews and Muslims) unacceptable to God? It is really sickening reality.....
You bring up a very interesting point. I agree, that the reality is sickening. Everyone argues that they are fighting for Jerusalem, the holy city, the city in which they are closest to God. Yet Biblical teachings also teach us not to murder. Yet the sheer amount of deaths in this city over the years is sickening. If people really thought that this was the holy city, and if people were really God-fearing as we believe them to be, and as they have been in the Bible, would this reality really be so sickening and deadly?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Barb. Learning about the beginning of the Muslim religion was something that I found interesting as well. It was enlightening to learn about this religion and how it came about, and also how willing they were to work with the Jews and the Christians.
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