Talk:Crusades

Crusaders vs Mujihadeen
Should anyone point out that effectively, Jihad and Crusades are the same thing? CorruptUser (talk) 17:57, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Please do. FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ﹐ Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 18:58, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Please don't. That's a really awkward comparison that 1. totally overlooks the myriad of meanings that the word "jihad" has and 2. blurs important cultural and historical contexts. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 19:02, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Please don't, you should read up on the concept of jihad. It's not as clear cut as you may think (Tell Me What To Think) and (I'll tell you what to feel) 19:23, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, "offensive-Jihad", the Qutbist philosophy of the "CONVERT OR DIE!" crap that everyone outside of Islam associates with "Jihad" is effectively the same damned philosophy from the Crusades. Quite a bit of irony in that.  CorruptUser (talk) 19:30, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see why it would be relevant to mention this in the article, even though there are some similarities to our Western image of jihad and the Crusades. A few religious nutters in the Modern Era can't be compared to these Medieval events without a lot of shoehorning and wishful thinking, nor do I think that their philosphy is 'effectively the same'. The differences might seem small to us, but I don't think Crusaders or Qutbists would agree (Tell Me What To Think) and (I'll tell you what to feel) 19:37, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) "Jihad of the Sword" predates Qutbism and is the same thing. Waging wars against the "enemies of Allah" is little different than against the "enemies of Christ".
 * 2) "Crusade" also sometimes refers to things like "Moral Crusades" against Rock'n'Roll or gay rights, and trying to spread Christianity, which are effectively "Jihad of the Hand" and "Jihad of the Tongue" respectively
 * 3) Many Salafis refer to all Westerners in the Mid-East as "Crusaders", when they are effectively calling them the same thing as the Mujihadeen that they venerate.
 * 4) Words have power. Lots of it.  Use this power.  Refer to the Islamic terrorists as Crusaders, and perhaps yourselves as the Mujihadeen; let people start questioning what the real difference is between the guy trying to murder people for religion and the guy trying to murder people for religion.  In Afghanistan, you should never refer to the Taliban as "Mujihadeen"; "Mujihadeen" is a good thing, every kid wants to join the guys struggling for a cause.  You refer to them as "Mufsidun" (evil-doers), because few kids want to join up with the bad guys.  CorruptUser (talk) 19:49, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying they are dissimilar, I'm saying it's not 'effectively the same thing', you can't just go about declaring that. I'm not sure what your points 2, 3 and 4 have to with the relevance of including that Jihad and Crusades are the same. If you really can't hold yourself, add a link to Jihad of the Sword at the bottom of the artice. (Tell Me What To Think) and (I'll tell you what to feel) 19:58, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

psuedohistory section
User:Osaka Sun has hidden the psuedohistory section, which is a section that I added, on the grounds that it needed citations. At the very least, the first paragraph does not need citations because we already made its supporting claims earlier in the article.

The second paragraph doesn't really need citations either because it's common knowledge. Any time someone can say, "go Wikipedia it and you'll get long, detailed, and heavily sourced or heavily wikilinked articles" (one, two, and then there are more), all that's really needed are some "citation needed" tags. The problem with hiding content instead of placing CN tags in these circumstances is that it doesn't allow editors who are simply reading the page to see that there is content in it that another editor feels needs citation, and therefore, they don't know to go get the citations if they know something about the topic.

So then you say, "Okay, a third editor may choose to provide citations, that happens all the time. But when an editor places 'citation needed' tags around content, the ultimate responsibility to provide the citation is the editor who added the content." Yes, exactly, and also, we all have user talk pages to, if felt necessary, let fellow editors know, "Hey, that new stuff you added to Article X could really use sources and/or elaboration/clarification." Heck, IP address editors have user talk pages.

And if some article content really seems dubious and an editor comes by and decides, "Okay, that's beyond eyebrow-raising enough that simply applying citation needed tags is not sufficient, but it's not suspicious enough to justify removal, I think I should comment it out and ask for citations as part of the comment," then you definitely should comment on the user page of the editor(s) who added the material. Not to call Osaka Sun out, but they didn't do that.

Having said all this, I think I added the second paragraph anticipating arguments that might be made in reaction to the first paragraph. The edit was well over a year ago, so I don't remember my motivation for sure. But now, I don't think I've actually heard those arguments, so unless anyone else here has, maybe that second paragraph isn't necessary anyway.

So, I'm going to put the first paragraph back in, leave the second paragraph commented for all to examine, and add some more content. Rand0 (talk) 14:48, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

"relatively peaceful and enlightened areas in the Levant"
This was comparing the Levant to Spain, even though Spain was far more advanced and enlightened at the time compared to the rest of the world. Kentuckyball (talk) 01:09, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * That's not really the point. What that section is basically trying to convey is that the Reconquista is far easier to justify than the Crusades, and the simple reason for that is because of the relative continuity of the Reconquista with the invasion of Visgothic Spain. Basically in Iberia there was an on-off holy war for hundreds years before the Crusades were launched. The very name "Reconquista" means "reconquest" and that basically sums up how Europeans viewed the conflict. As far as the Europeans were concerned Iberia was invaded and occupied by a foreign entity and the fact that there was relatively continuous conflict in Iberia since the initial invasion lends credence to that belief. Basically in Iberia, Islamic rule was justifiably seen by the Europeans of the time as imperialism. The reason why the article compares the Crusades in the Levant unfavorably to the reconquista is because even though Islamic rule in the Levant was also imposed by, the religious conflict caused by the invasion had come to an end centuries beforehand. The continuous religious warfare that existed on the Iberian peninsula simply did not exist in the Holy Land and as such the Crusaders, by invading the Levant, disturbed the peace of the region in a way that wasn't really justifiable by any standard. Alsto003 (talk) 13:18, 6 January 2016 (UTC) Alex

Northern crusades
Why are the northern crusades omitted. There us a line saying they are not considered an 'official' crusade, yet the cathar heresy which the article also states as not being 'official' is still included. Whats the deal here? AMassiveGay (talk) 09:41, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Pied Piper
What about mentioning the alternative 'group of theories' - that they were being 'recruited whether or not entirely voluntarily' to settle parts of what is now 'Central and Eastern Europe'? 31.51.114.96 (talk) 10:43, 24 April 2017 (UTC)