Overrunning towns, pillaging, plundering, setting fire, torture, burning at the stake, rape, burning children alive, enslaving, beheadings, sacking places of worship, taking body parts for trophies, destroying libraries, cannibalism, crucifixions, opening bodies for swallowed treasure. A special place in paradise for warriors. Justice for infidels. Slaughter of their own. Robbing and keeping the riches.
These heinous acts committed by 50-100,000 fighters saying prayers before battle on middle eastern soil in such places as Nicaea, Urfa, Aantakya, Aleppo, Ma' Arrak, Ascalon, Antioch, Edessa, Caesarea, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tyre, Sayda and countless other towns. Mass slaughtering of innocents numbering 2,700, 100,000, 7,000 and tens of thousands of nameless others.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it. Sounds like ISIL.
Only, it isn't. This is narrative from historical research on the 13 crusades perpetrated by Christians, in the middle east alone, targeting mostly Muslims over a two hundred year period. Also targeting Jews and other Christians who did not swear allegiance to Rome. Hundreds of thousands slaughtered. Whole cities laid to waste. Middle easterners are thought to have long memories and a huge appreciation for history.
All the atrocities endorsed by Pope Urban II and several successors over this horrific period during the european dark ages and the middle east's period of enlightenment. Soldier recruits, led by kings and nobility, were granted huge financial favors and tax exemptions, the right to pillage and guaranteed a special place in heaven by the reigning Popes. That sounds familiar too, doesn't it? And led in prayer before battle by clerics. Familiar too? Much of it taking place in what is now Iraq, Syria and the "holy lands".
Not much of a battle plan needed by ISIL. It is all pretty well laid out in the tragic historical documentation of this region and period between 1095 and 1298. For a detailed account, check out the writings of U.S. professor Dr. Abdullah Mohammad Sindi, a middle east authority and historian.
What goes around comes around.
