In an earlier video we looked at one of the most egregious examples of fake history—Georgetown University professor John Espazito's famous claim that quote:
"5 centuries of peaceful coexistence elapsed before political events and an imperial papal power play led to centuries long series of so-called holy wars that pitted Christendom against Islam and left an enduring legacy of misunderstanding and distrust."
That's from his book Islam: The Straight Path, page 64.
Espazito is saying that from the very start, Muslims and Christians had always lived in peaceful coexistence—until those pesky medieval Christians decided to ruin it all by launching the first crusade.
In reality, however—and as I discussed more thoroughly in the previous video—those five centuries of peaceful coexistence featured Islam violently conquering three-quarters of the Christian world, with all the usual massacres, mass enslavements, and the systematic destruction of churches—30,000 of them in just one year alone (1009).
The first crusade came in response to all these ongoing attacks against Christianity, which in the decades before it was called for in 1095, had further witnessed the slaughter and enslavement of tens if not hundreds of thousands more Christians—especially Armenians, according to Matthew of Adessa, the chronicler.
At any rate—and as it happens—Espazito offers more outlandish lies on the self-same page where his famous five centuries of peaceful coexistence quote appears.
After mentioning how Pope Urban II called for the first crusade at the Council of Claremont and how all the Christians in attendance eagerly embraced it, crying Deus vult (meaning God wills a crusade be launched), Espazito writes:
"This was ironic because as one scholar has observed God may indeed have wished it but there is certainly no evidence that the Christians of Jerusalem did or that anything extraordinary was occurring to pilgrims there to prompt such a response at that moment in history."
Again, that's from Islam: The Straight Path, page 64. The scholar that Espazito quotes is Francis E. Peters in his essay Early Muslim Empires. Clearly this academic is as delusional or dishonest as our Georgetown professor.
To claim that there is certainly no evidence that the Christians of Jerusalem desired aid against their Muslim overlords who were terrorizing them—or that nothing extraordinary was occurring to Christian pilgrims—is itself extraordinary. Extraordinarily fake.
Here, for example, is what William of Tyre, born around 1130—a near-contemporary chronicler—said of Christian experiences in Jerusalem right before the first crusade:
"Jerusalem's Christians," he writes, "endured far greater troubles under the Turks so that they came to look back upon as light the woes which they had suffered under the yoke of the Egyptians and Persians. Death threatened them every day. And what was worse than death, the fear of servitude—harsh and intolerable."
William is saying that under the Turks—who conquered Jerusalem from the Egyptians around 1071—Christians suffered even worse abuses than under the Fatimids of Egypt and the Abbasids of Persia, which were bad enough. He proceeds to offer a typical example:
"Even while the Christians were in the very act of celebrating the holy rites, the Turkish enemy would violently force an entrance into the churches, which had been restored and preserved with such infinite difficulty since being destroyed earlier under the Egyptians and the Abbasids. Utterly without reverence for the consecrated places, they sat upon the very altars and struck terror into the heart of the worshippers with their mad cries and whistlings. They overturned the chalices, trod underfoot the utensils devoted to the divine offices, broke the marble statues, and showered blows and insults upon the clergy. The Lord Patriarch then in office was dragged from his seat by hair and beard and thrown to the ground. Again and again he was seized and thrust into prison without cause. Treatment fit only for the lowest slave was inflicted upon him in order to torture his people, who suffered with him as with a father."
As for European pilgrims to Jerusalem prior to the first crusade, Michael the Syrian—born around 1126—writes:
"As the Turks were ruling the lands of Syria and Palestine, they inflicted injuries on Christians who went to pray in Jerusalem. They beat them, pillaged them, and levied the pole tax, jizya. Moreover, every time they saw a caravan of Christians, particularly of those from Rome and the lands of Italy, they made every effort to cause their death in diverse ways."
Such was the fate of one German pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1064. According to one of the pilgrims:
"Accompanying this journey was a noble abbess, a headnun of graceful body and of a religious outlook. Setting aside the cares of the sisters committed to her care, and against the advice of the wise, she undertook this great and dangerous pilgrimage. The pagans captured her, and in the sight of all these shameless men, gang-raped her until she breathed her last. To the dishonor of all Christians, Christ's enemies performed such abuses and others like them on the Christians."
Then there is the fact that whichever city the first crusaders liberated on their long trek to Jerusalem, its indigenous Christians regularly hurled themselves at and kissed their feet in gratitude. According to Fulcher of Chartres—born around 1059, a participant and eyewitness of the first crusade:
"When we passed by the villages of the Armenians near Edessa, it was astonishing to see them advance toward us with crosses and standards, kissing our feet and garments most humbly for love of God, because they had heard that we would defend them from the Turks under whose yoke they had been oppressed for a very long time."
In another instance near Bethlehem, Fulcher writes:
"When the Christians—evidently Greeks and Syrians—found that the Franks had come, they were especially filled with great joy."
Christians also turned on the Muslims and sided with the Franks on multiple occasions—most notably the liberation of Edessa. This is further proof that they preferred to be ruled by these strange newcomers from the West rather than by the devil they knew.
In short, the indigenous Christians of Jerusalem—starting with their spiritual leader, the patriarch—were treated horrifically. European pilgrims to Jerusalem, including raped and murdered women and children, were treated horrifically. And wherever the European crusaders passed through, the native Christians—mostly Armenians, Syrians, and some Greeks—threw themselves at their feet in gratitude for rescuing them from the abuses they constantly experienced under Muslim rule.
Meanwhile, and as seen, Georgetown professor John Espazito denies all of that by quoting—not contemporary sources, as I have been—but another academic, Francis E. Peters, who (to remind you) sarcastically claims:
"God may indeed have wished it [the liberation of Jerusalem by the crusaders]. But there is certainly no evidence that the Christians of Jerusalem did or that anything extraordinary was occurring to pilgrims there to prompt such a response [meaning the first crusade] at that moment in history."
Why all this lying? Simple: to prove that the crusades were unprovoked and unjust wars, which—among other travesties—brought an end to five centuries of peaceful coexistence.
Thus, in the very next sentence after quoting Peters’ absurd claim that nothing extraordinary was happening to the Holy Land’s Christians to justify a crusade, Espazito makes his grand point:
"In fact, Christian rulers, knights, and merchants were driven to crusade primarily by political and military ambitions and the promise of the economic and commercial trade and banking rewards that would accompany the establishment of a Latin kingdom in the Middle East."
So there you have it—more flagrantly fake history. All in the usual service of demonizing Christians and making victims of Muslims—even though in reality it was the Muslims who were tormenting and massacring Christians. But since the latter dared fight back, they must forever be condemned—lest their modern-day descendants get any wild ideas.
Incidentally, the importance of all this is less that professors such as John Espazito or Francis Peters distort history to demonize Christians and victimize Muslims, but that theirs is the mainstream narrative.
After all, Espazito's book—where all the aforementioned lies I quoted come from—Islam: The Straight Path was published by the extremely prestigious Oxford University Press, ensuring that countless students of history will read, imbibe, and spread its lies.
