06-11-2016, 02:27 AM
(06-11-2016, 02:09 AM)Bengalzona Wrote: Dude. You put two empires next to each other and they fight. That's the way history rolls. The whole term 'empire' defines a group of people that can't be satisfied with just their own borders and feel they have to continually invade other kingdoms.
You are aware that the interactions between the Byzantines and the Turks were more complex than "good guys, bad guys", right?
First off, and this may come as a shock, not all Turks... were Muslim. And the Seljuk Turks were quite different from the Ottoman Turks or the modern Turks. At one time, the Seljuk Empire stretched from Anatolia to China (1092). While most Seljuk Turks were Muslim, the expansion of their empire had nothing to do with seeing another religion and attacking them. It had everything to do with expanding the power of the empire itself as a political entity, in exactly the same manner that Alexander the Great expanded his empire beyond Macedonia. The truth is that most of the expansion of the Seljuk empire was through Muslim lands and 80% of the fighting they did was against Muslims.
Like most empires, the Seljuks had a wide range of ethnic groups and religions living within their empire (Kurds, Armenians, Georgians, Persians, Christians, Zoastrians, Hindus. Jews, etc.). And, as with most empires, they did not try to convert subjects. As long as the subject people obeyed their laws, they were okay with them living there and worshiping as they pleased. What they did import, however, was Persian culture. Life in the Seljuk Empire was quite different for Christians and other minorities than it was for folks in the Iberian Peninsula. A big part of that was because the Caliphate of Cordoba was led by Syrian Arabs, former rivals of the Seljuks (from the Umayyad Caliphate). The Syrian minority leadership in Cordoba were not nice people and believed wholeheartedly in their racial and religious superiority over others, even other Arabs and Muslims. Those types of exclusive attitudes prevent a group from ever creating an empire and was a reason why the Seljuks were able to successfully create an empire and the Syrians were not.
The Byzantine Empire also had a plethora of ethnic groups and religions, including Turks, Arabs, Muslims, etc. The Byzantines also hired Turks, Arabs, Muslims, Bulgarians, Russians, Vikings, English, etc. to fight for them at various times in their history. They really weren't too particular about who did the fighting for them.
Wasn't This all about how this started? I realized it mushroomed into something crazy... And certainly it's not Christians were great and Muslims were bad. I am just pointing out how the religion of peace has conducted itself not only back then but throughout modern history.
Would the crusades had started if Muslims were actually peaceful.... Probably. But it wouldn't have been a religious centric war. It would have been your typical war of empires.
The difference between Christians and Muslims is that Christians are no longer fighting a holy war over lands they think are theirs. I used to think Sykes-Picot was wrong but it was done to contain them to just fighting one another.
