Omar Suleiman – The Story Of Jerusalem
AI: Summary ©
The transcript discusses the history of Jerusalem, including the implementation of the first crime of the first century, the use of religion as a tool to manipulate people, the collapse of the kingdom of heaven, and the use of religion as a tool to manipulate people. The segment also touches on the devastating impact of these attacks on the economy and the culture of the region.
AI: Summary ©
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. So now I want to live in Jakarta, peace beyond to you. In LA right now Rahim in the Name of God, the Most Compassionate, The Most Merciful. And hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was salam, ala rasulillah, Karima and Ernie he was a big marine. We begin by praising God by thanking him by declaring that No, God has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for him. And we asked him to send his peace and blessings upon His messengers and prophets, Jesus, Moses, Abraham, David, Muhammad, peace be upon them all. This is family companions, and those that follow, actually, the sister took the beginning
part of my speech, which was the pact of armor, so I'm just gonna, that automatically knocks 10 minutes off of the speech. So your mom said, you're gonna have an extra 10 minutes. And I'm still I said, if I cut my speech down he'll protests so I told him, I'll just run away. So this is be protesting to you all. But
honestly, this topic of the history of Jerusalem, I did not choose it for myself. But it's something I feel extremely passionate about. I just want to recount to you something that took place with me as a child, and I'll never forget it.
I remember, the first time I went to Jordan, in 1989. And my family, my parents are Palestinian, and my parents are actually Palestinian refugees.
Now, as far as I was concerned, you know, we always knew of Palestine, we knew the identity of Palestine, we had the flags in the house, we had everyone knew of Palestine, I didn't realize that there was no such thing as Palestine on the modern day map until I went to school. And I was wondering, you know, whenever they had to find your country type thing, or, you know, where are you from? And I was like, why is my country not on the map?
So, unfortunately, a lot of things started opening up to me, and I'm not going to make this a political speech at all, because this is about humanitarianism, this is about people being able to live in peace together, people being able to live together in harmony. And I remember going to Jordan, and my father and mother, may Allah Subhana, Allah be pleased with them both, may God be pleased with them both. They always taught us the ideals of charity. So we used to actually have a box, it was a plastic Dome of the Rock that we had in our homes, and you take the dome off, and we'd always put our charity there extra money there and things of that sort. So when we went to Jordan,
we would give that out and distribute that to refugees. So that was their habit when they went back.
Obviously, both my father and my mother, they worked very hard to, despite being refugees, you know, find a good situation for themselves and to become both very successful. But it was my exposure to the largest refugee camp in the world,
which is called bulahdelah camp in Jordan, where you literally have people living in trash cans. Literally, people take shade and trash cans, they go to sleep at night and trash cans. And for me, this was a huge wake up call. And I remember asking my parents, why is it that they Why do they live here? Why do you have 3 million people living on the outskirts of a country? And it's just a bunch of camps? Right? Why is this happening? And my parents that they don't have the right to go home, they don't have the right to go home, I myself, I've never been to my what would be my homeland, or my parents homeland, I go to Jordan every year have that allowed. So now my wife's parents live
there. So I, you know, I'm kind of stuck going there every single year. Although I don't always enjoy myself, but I've got to go. I've never been able, with the one time I actually tried to get to the Palestinian territories, despite having no record whatsoever of anything that would cause me to be disqualified from entrance was at the border of Jordan. And literally to get there from the borders of Jordan on the bridge, you would have to sleep there for two three days. And you still might not get in you have to undergo harassment by the soldiers you might get spit on you might have dogs put on you. It's a very it's a terrible situation. I just remember asking my parents Why. Why?
Right. Why is it that these people don't have the right to go home? Now I want to, I want to start off with that thought. And it's not about this topic is not about the Palestinian cause, I assure you and I am I've been engaged in many interfaith dialogues. And it's important for us to sort of humanize each other. And I always say this to my Jewish friends, I do have Jewish friends. It's important for us to humanize each other. It's important for us to to view each other's struggles as human struggles, not a Palestinian struggle, not a Jewish struggle to view them as human struggles. And I just, you know, it's always this question that comes up every time we have one of these
debates or one of these dialogues, the Palestine Israel debate. You know, it's, there's this conclusion that the moderator will always throw out there that well, you
No, I guess Muslims, Jews and Christians just can't live in peace. Hopefully one day, we'll all be able to live in peace and everything will, will work out and we'll all come together and Jerusalem will, will serve its cause again, and people, you know, the people from all three different faiths will be able to go there and be able to truly live the heritage of their faith. But at the end of the day, everyone's sitting in the audience is just, yeah, we all know that's not gonna happen, right? And we think it's impossible. It's impossible for Jerusalem to house people of three different faiths. It's impossible for us to live together in peace in that area. It's just
impossible. And it's not it's not because there was a time when Muslims Jews Christians did live in peace in that area. And that time, actually was such a long time. That if you read in history, even you know I remember
reading Rabbi Mark Snyder mentioned this, you might know him from New York also a mom slots and and others will mention this, but the golden age of Jewish history came under Muslim rule. The Golden Age of Jewish history came under Muslim rule. Because Muslims Christians and Jews did live together in Jerusalem and peace they did live together in the Palestinian territory, or whatever you want to call it, they lived in that area in peace. And it starts off with the way that Muslims came. Now, obviously, the whole we were there first thing doesn't really hold up very well. Everyone tries to play the whole we were there. First thing I'm not even going to talk about the who was there. First,
I just want to sort of talk about the history of Jerusalem under Muslim rule. The sister May Allah reward her talks about the second halifa second Caleb of Islam, I'm gonna I'm gonna hop Fabiola on all my little kebab has a very interesting story, because when he came to Jerusalem, there was no bloodshed, there was no fighting. In fact, Jerusalem was in such, you know, was in such turmoil, that the leaders welcomed His coming and welcomed becoming part of the Islamic empire. And this is something that's well documented. But they told because it was it was tradition that the halifa would stay in Medina, the stronghold he should not leave his city. They told our VEDA de la, they
said that we will not give the keys to the city, except for your leader will only give it to him. So he's got to come and he's got to take the keys himself. And so basically, what we find is that miraculous organized a welcoming ceremony for Bob to be handed the keys of Jerusalem, he invited the patriarch of Rome, as well as the bishop as well as the Bishop of Jerusalem. In fact, leaders from the Jewish community were their ambassadors from all over the world were there, and he spread out for Bob, a red carpet. That was that spent over two kilometers long, so it was a long red carpet, you can imagine, when he just starts making his way there, he just starts making his way there, he's
gonna already be stepping on a red carpet to show him a good welcome. And to you know, because they heard of His justice, and to truly give him royal treatments, and also beforehand, they also invited for the two leading Muslim generals of war they the agenda, and armament and also the low tide on how to be in attendance when ornamental hubbub comes. So back then you didn't have first class, you know, seating or anything like that, but I'm sure they sent them some first class horses or first class camels, they took care of them, they furnish their stay in Jerusalem, they even provided them garments. So there was a special type of garment that you needed to wear at this historic ceremony
of handing the keys of Jerusalem over it. So I'm opening up now all over the hot tub, if you read about him, and by the way, he's the 52nd most influential men in world history. According to Michael Hartman.
This the book of the 100 most influential people in the world, a man of justice, a man for whom you have actually a statement, the United Nations Charter there's actually a statement in the UN Charter from alternative health pob How can you enslave a man who was born free, that he was the first one to say that, so he's a man who's justice as well known who history has been kind to, and Bob
was the person of much simplicity. Big Huge man. Okay, gigantic in the true sense of the word. The description of him is that if he sat on a horse, his feet would touch the ground.
So huge individual, huge human being very intimidating look, because of how big he was. And he set such a I mean, he set such a tone of justice during his rule I'm talking about and the rule in Medina that whenever the distribution of garments whenever they distributed cloth to each one of the Muslims, I want them to call Bob had to take two garments, two garments. So one man actually stood up said man, a man by the name of Sandman actually stood up and
I started to question him and chastise him because he took two garments and everybody took one, and almost had to explain that you know what I need to because I'm so tall, I just couldn't, I literally had to have them stitch together. Or else I wouldn't even be able to cover myself adequately. And even with that one garment, there were 17 stitches are 17 patches that were counted in his garment on the day that he conquered. Or the day that he opened, it's a better word open Jerusalem. He opened Jerusalem, he didn't really, there was no battle that was there. So I'm gonna hop off, you know, he asked the people in Medina, he said, you know, should I go there to take the key? Or is
this some kind of setup or some kind of plot? Am I going to be killed? Is this a wise decision, it's never wise for the leader to leave is basically said, You know what, for this case, it's okay. He went out there, he took with him one servant. And they had one camel. And he made a deal with the servant beforehand. He said, on the way there, I'll ride for half of the time, and you pull me and then you ride for half the time and I'll pull you. So they took turns 5050. And then on top, as they were approaching Jerusalem, the servant was on the camel, and he was the one pulling the camel. Not only that, but right before they got to Jerusalem, he fell into a mud puddle. So his clothes got
covered in mud too.
And he's pulling the servant and he's covered in mud. And he has 17 patches in this cloth. And you know, everyone is waiting there with their best clothes. You know, everyone is waiting there to give them this grand royal reception. Here he is walking in, he's got mud all over him. And so the servant at least tells them as they get to the red carpet, it's two kilometers long. He says, You know, I think we should switch now I'm gonna cut off so the deal is a deal. 5050 it's still your turn. So but you know, you're kind of going in to take over the greatest city in the world, you know? No, no, no, you stay on the camel. We'll keep walking on a hotdog comes walking with the
camel. And the people are waiting. And the people are standing out and they're waiting out their windows to see who this great leader is. And they see this man coming and running with a camel with dirt all over his clothes, and 17 patches. So about a beta and armor, they were the tunes that were invited to to be part of this reception of our beta who himself was a very simplistic man, but recognize the situation at this point, I will obey the you know, he gets upset with this. He goes and he walks out to Omaha is like I gotta take care of some business with the leader before he comes and takes the key.
And he says you've embarrassed us. You know, you've humiliated us, you know, these people are all dressed nice. We want to you know, you've got to show that you're a strong leader. You've got to show your your best clothes and things of that you've embarrassed us. And I'm gonna katabi became upset. And he said nothing. We'll call them one as an ally hope in Islam. We were a people who God gave dignity through through faith through Islam. And if we seek honor and dignity and glory through any other means we will surely be humiliated, humiliated, meaning I'm not that superficial person I used to be on what was known before he became Muslim to be an extremely well dressed, wealthy man.
He was one of the few literates few people that could read in his time. You know, they didn't they didn't expect that from him. But he said, we seek our glory through faith. We don't seek it through subjugating anybody. We don't seek it through through some pompous, you know, display, we seek it through faith.
And so he received the keys from her Oculus. And the people were shocked. And then the Bishop of Jerusalem took him to the church of Nativity, he gave them a little bit of a tour of Jerusalem. And he took him to the church of Nativity. And while they were in the church of negativity, the call for prayer came, the call for prayer came for the noon prayer came. And Bob was in there and he knew it was time to pray. And the Bishop of Jerusalem told him he said, Look, why don't you just go ahead and pray here? You're the leader. You know, you don't have to go outside and pray. You can just pray here. It'll be an honor for us. And all I'm gonna have Bob, he says no, he said, No. He said,
because I'm afraid that Muslims will come generations later and claim this is a message it this is a mosque because this is where I prayed.
So he walked out of the church, he walked down the steps, and he prayed right there. And then lo and behold, 400 years later, they built a mosque. They're called Majid, the owner of the mosque of Alma.
So he was right, he could see he knew how history works with these things. He didn't want people to claim that church as a mosque just because he prayed there, not because it was impermissible or not, because there was some theological objection to that he just wanted to give the people their rights and their respect. He also made the famous pact of armor which the moderator read, which essentially guaranteed the rights of all citizens, they're guaranteed the rights of people to practice their own fates. Christians and Jews not only were allowed to live in peace, they were allowed to do
judge each other by their own law. So they were not subject to Islamic law, they were allowed to keep things according to their law, out of out of sensitivity and out of justice towards them. So it wasn't like, you know, again, the Bible was thrown away, or the toad was thrown away. In fact, if a situation came to Omar, in regards to a public act of lewdness, or disobedience, from a Christian or a Jew, he would consult the rabbis or the priests, and he would ask them if this was something that was allowed in their faith or not. So it was complete justice complete honor. As we know, the story of Jerusalem is not always a pretty story. And in fact, in terms of conquering, you know, lens, and,
you know, let's face it, every religion has its dark period. And it's not the religion itself, we would always say it's the, it's the people, people will manipulate religion. And you know, if you ever heard that that statement, in any class, and, you know, history that religion is responsible for most of the world's violence and war, religion has done this, and religion has done that, I guarantee you, I assure you, the Crusades would have still taken place, if there was no such thing as Christianity, because the Crusades were under were undertaken, as a result of the economic hardship of Europe, not because of any religious purpose, but religion is very convenient. In those
situations, likewise, must much of the political disputes. So for example, I always whenever we have the talk about suicide bombings.
And I know this is a hot topic, and we shouldn't shy away from it. I mean, let's have an open discussion about it. When the when the Virginia Tech killer did what he did shot, you know, 33 students, there is an entire eight months worth of reporting about the psychological or the right or the circumstances that led to him committing that crime, the the logic that he had the the psychological trauma that he might have been through as a child bullying, whatever it was, it was not in any way justifying the murder. Okay, it was looking at the circumstances that led to that murder so that they could be prevented in the future. So when people talk about suicide bombings and
terrorism, and things of that sort, specifically, suicide bombings, there's actually a book that's called dying to win. I always recommend this to people dying to win by Robert Pape, where he basically analyzes suicide bombings over the last 100 years, the origin of suicide bombings being the Japanese kamikazes, which were obviously not a people of religion, or people of faith. Until today, the largest practitioners of suicide bombings are who,
not al Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers, which is a Hindu separatist group, okay, so the fact of the matter is, is that every single suicide bombing, he literally goes through them over the last 100 years, was the result of political strife. And the reason why people continue to use it is because it's a way for a minority, a small, a small group of people that are being targeted, it's a way for them to catch the attention of the majority or catch the attention of a more powerful government that doesn't justify it in any way. Islam doesn't justify suicide bombings. But the fact of the matter is, is when you have suicide bombings taking place, you need to understand the circumstances behind
it. Don't just blame Islam for it. Don't just blame Islam for it, that would be just as absurd as saying Hitler really killed 6 million Jews because he believed they were Christ killers, because he used to say that that was the front. But the baggage behind that told a totally different story. And so that's the same thing that we see. And so we see that the crusades, in particular,
the First Crusade taking place in 1095, in the year 1095. And through 1099, that was the First Crusade. The First Crusade came again as a result of the economic hardship of Europe.
The first, the first victims of the Crusades were actually the Jews. The first victims of the Crusades were the Jews. So they basically considered themselves entitled to the service of God. And in Bavaria, in Bavaria, the Crusaders massacre 12,000 Jews, that was their first group of victims then when they made their way to Jerusalem.
If you read in the year 1097 1097, if you read about the massacre of Mandala, the massacre of Mandala, which is in modern day Syria, the massacre of Mandala is the to date, is the largest display of cannibalism that has ever taken place in history. The Crusaders literally ate the people that they massacred, they cooked the Muslims in my IRA, they cooked them and they bragged about it. They wrote letters back to the pope talking about how they ate they feasted on the children of my Ottawa and they ate their dogs. They ate human beings and dogs. I mean, it was it was a ridiculous display
of just you know, harsh hardness again, no, no sense of humanity. How did this happen? Again, religion can become a convener
Excuse Pope Urban the second, I want you to listen to the letter that he wrote the Declaration of Pope Urban the second, he said all who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. Oh, what a disgrace. If such a despised and base race which worships demons should conquer a people, which has the faith of omnipotent god of an omnipotent God, and is made glorious with the name of Christ, with what reproaches will the Lord overwhelm us if you do not a those who with us profess the religion of Christianity, let those who have been accustomed
unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now, go against the infidels, and end with victory, this war, which should have been begun, which should have started a long time ago. Let those who for a long time have been robbers now become Knights let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for salts for small for small pay, now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double honor. Behold, on this side will be the sorrowful and poor poor on that the rich on this side the enemies
of the Lord on that his friends, let those who go not put off the journey but rent their lens and collect money for their expenses. And as soon as winter is over, and spring comes, let them let him eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide. Let him murder every Sarason and pagan worshiper, whether he is a man, woman or child or old man or monk.
Can you imagine if the pope wrote that letter? Now, when Pope Urban the second wrote that letter, he saw it was signed into law in Europe that anyone who would join the Crusaders would be forgiven for their debt would be forgiven for past crimes, and would be given a salary and their families would be taken care of. And they would also attain the eternal reward of the hereafter and they were basically absolved of sins. They were not they would be forgiven for anything that they did. So obviously, whenever the Crusaders went out, it was all out war, and there was no sense of conscience. And that's why we find that in the First Crusade, whenever Jerusalem was conquered, the
Crusaders bragged about their horses being knee deep and blood, and burning the Christians that belong to Eastern churches alive in their churches, the Christians hitting their churches that belong to Eastern churches and their churches were set to fire and they were burned alive in their churches. So this was an extremely dark episode
in the history of Jerusalem in the history of Palestine, and was something that that you know, till today, I don't think anyone belonging to any faith condones that type of behavior. No one's gonna come out today and say that the Crusaders were just in what they did at the same time as people. If you're a Muslim, you should not use that as you know, a talking point against Christians to say, you guys are actually violent. It doesn't work that way either. It just shows you how dark people can become. Okay, again, it would have happened regardless, regardless of the Pope, regardless of all of those things, but religion was used as a tool to manipulate people in that situation. So in the
First Crusade,
by the year 1099, the death toll had reached over 700,000 people, over 700,000 people. Raymond de schutter, Leon, he actually was was, was attacking the people that were coming for Hajj that were going to take, you know, going to the pilgrimage from all different parts of the world. He was actually even having done attack. In fact, he plotted to have the body of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him dug out in Medina, and brought back to Jerusalem and mutilated and shown and just show it as a sign of humiliation of the Muslims and the one who foiled that plot was noted Dean nurudeen is the mentor of Salahuddin Saladin. Nora Dean was his mentor, he foiled that plot of two men that
actually were given the task of posing as Muslims posing as pious Muslims and then taking the body of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, and bringing it back to Jerusalem to be hung up and mutilated as a sign of humiliation. So, some handle I mean, we're talking about an extremely dark period in history. When we look at Salahuddin Saladin.
And you know, how many of you watch the kingdom of heaven?
Not movies in Hollywood are extremely annoying, because they always have to have a guy that's trying to get the girl. They couldn't, you know, the Titanic, Kingdom of Heaven. They couldn't even spare the crusades, right of the guy trying to get the girl. So that actually never happened. I hate to break it to you. That was a totally fictional story. I'm sure at one point during the crusades, there was a Muslim guy that was interested in a Christian girl or vice versa. But so you know, I remember when the kingdom
Heaven came out. None other than fox news was extremely upset because they felt like Kingdom of Heaven portrayed the Muslims in a very favorable light. But to be completely honest with you, it did not do justice. If you read about solokha, Dean solid and his kindness, the amount of honor and dignity that he displayed in conquering Jerusalem and bringing it back to the ranks of the Muslims and not showing any, or not displaying any form of revenge, not taking any form of revenge out on the Christians or the Jewish, the Jewish population that lived in Jerusalem after it came back under his rule, it's some it's really phenomenal, and it's unmatched in history. It's unmatched in
history.
When Salahuddin conquered Jerusalem, and he conquered it on the same day, the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, coming back to Mecca,
was conquered on the same day that the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him came back to Mecca victorious after being persecuted and run out of it. And when the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, marched back into Mecca,
one of the companions, he said, a leiomyomas Mel hammer today is the day of revenge. Today is the day of events and the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him responded a leiomyoma. Muhammad today is the day of mercy. And he took the flag away from that companion, although he was a great companion. So today is the day of mercy. And by any means, you know, by any standard or of what was considered ethical war, the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him had a full right to take revenge on the people that that murdered his uncle, that ran him out of Mecca that, you know, placed him under economic boycott, which caused his wife to die in his uncle to die because they could not handle the
circumstances. He had every right to kill those people when he came back to Mecca by any standard of war, but instead the Prophet Muhammad opted for mercy, he opted for mercy. And instead, he put his head very close to his to his writing animal, so that he wasn't an arrogant ruler. And he said, whoever is in the house and have such and such as is safe, everyone come out, do not feel afraid. There is no revenge today, nothing will happen to you today. That's a three bar a chameleon, there is no blame on you today, I forgiven and I forgotten, it's over. Don't worry about it.
So sulla had been solid, and he remembered so we can see here that just as we like to portray religion as the source of violence and as a source of hatred, and bloodshed. Let's remember what religion did on the other side, solid and now when he's entering into Jerusalem from 18. On the same day, on the same day, he recalls that incident with the Messenger of God, peace be upon him.
And he remembers that and when he goes into Jerusalem, he tells the people that you should feel no fear, you should feel complete safety Now, everyone is safe. On top of that, he called for the Jews that were that were expelled from the land of Jerusalem to be brought back and to have new homes built for them,
so that they could resettle Jerusalem. This is historically documented not by Muslim sources, by any source, he called back the Jewish populations to resettle Jerusalem, to have their homes reconstructed and rebuilt. He ran some every single one of the Crusaders, every single one of them, and the amount of ransom the price for the ransom was tendinitis for a man, five dinars, which would be equivalent to $1, five dinars for a woman and one for a child.
In regards to a public act of lewdness or disobedience, from a Christian or a Jew, he would consult the rabbi's or the priests, and he would ask them if this was something that was allowed in their faith or not. So it was complete justice complete honor. As we know, the story of Jerusalem is not always a pretty story. And in fact, in terms of conquering, you know, lens, and, you know, let's face it, every religion has its dark period. And it's not the religion itself, we would always say it's the, it's the people, people will manipulate religion and you know, if you ever heard that that statement in any class and, you know, history that religion is responsible for most of the world's
violence and war, religion has done this, and religion has done that. I guarantee you, I assure you, the Crusades would have still taken place if there was no such thing as Christianity, because the Crusades were under were undertaken as a result of the economic hardship of Europe, not because of any religious purpose, but religion is very convenient. In those situations, likewise, must much of the political dispute so for example, I always whenever we have the talk about suicide bombings,
and I know this is a hot topic and we shouldn't shy away from it.
I mean, let's have an open discussion about it. When the, when the Virginia Tech killer did what he did shot, you know, 33 students, there is an entire eight months worth of reporting about the psychological, or rather the circumstances that led to him committing that crime, the the logic that he had the psychological trauma that he might have been through as a child bullying, whatever it was, it was not in any way justifying the murder. Okay, it was looking at the circumstances that led to that murder so that they could be prevented in the future. So when people talk about suicide bombings and terrorism, and things of that sort of specifically, suicide bombings, there's actually
a book that's called dying to win. I always recommend this to people dying to win by Robert Pape, where he basically analyzes suicide bombings over the last 100 years, the origin of suicide bombings being the Japanese kamikazes, which were obviously not a people of religion, or people of faith. Until today, the largest practitioners of suicide bombings are who,
not al Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers, which is a Hindu separatist group, okay, so the fact of the matter is, is that every single suicide bombing, he literally goes through them over the last 100 years, was the result of political strife. And the reason why people continue to use it is because it's a way for a minority, a small, a small group of people that are being targeted, it's a way for them to catch the attention of the majority or catch the attention of a more powerful government that doesn't justify it in any way. Islam doesn't justify suicide bombings. But the fact of the matter is, is when you have suicide bombings taking place, you need to understand the circumstances behind
that don't just blame Islam for it. Don't just blame Islam for it, that would be just as absurd as saying Hitler really killed 6 million Jews because he believed they were Christ killers, because he used to say that that was the front. But the baggage behind that told a totally different story. And so that's the same thing that we see. And so we see that the crusades, in particular,
the First Crusade taking place in 1095, in the year 1095. And through 1099, that was the First Crusade. The First Crusade came again as a result of the economic hardship of Europe.
The first, the first victims of the crusades, were actually the Jews. The first victims of the Crusades were the Jews. So they basically considered themselves entitled to the service of God. And in Bavaria, in Bavaria, the Crusaders massacre 12,000 Jews, that was the first group of victims then when they made their way to Jerusalem.
If you read in the year 1097 1097, if you read about the massacre of Ottawa, the massacre of Ottawa which is in modern day Syria, the massacre of Ottawa is the to date is the largest display of cannibalism that has ever taken place in history. The Crusaders literally ate the people that they massacred, they cooked the Muslims in my IRA, they cooked them and they bragged about it. They wrote letters back to the pope talking about how they ate they feasted on the children of Ottawa and they ate their dogs. They ate human beings and dogs. I mean, it was it was a ridiculous display
of just you know, harsh hardness again, no, no sense of humanity. How did this happen? Again, religion can become a convenient excuse Pope Urban the second, I want you to listen to the letter that he wrote the Declaration of Pope Urban the second, he said, All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. Oh, what a disgrace. If such a despised and base race which worships demons should conquer a people, which has the faith of omnipotent god of an omnipotent God, and is made glorious with the name of Christ, with what reproaches will the Lord
overwhelm us if you do not a those who with us profess the religion of Christianity, let those who have been accustomed unjustly to weights private warfare against the faithful now, go against the infidels, and end with victory this war, which should have been begun, which should have started a long time ago. Let those who for a long time have been robbers now become Knights let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians. Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for salts for small for small pay. Now obtain the eternal reward. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a
double honor. Behold, on this side will be the sorrowful and poor poor on that the rich on this side the enemies of the Lord on that his friends, let those who go not put off the journey but rent their lens and collect money for their expenses. And as soon as winter is over, and spring comes in.
Let them let him eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide. Let him murder every Sarason and pagan worshiper, whether he is a man, woman or child, or old men or monk.
Can you imagine if the pope wrote that letter? Now, when Pope Urban the second wrote that letter, he signed, it was signed into law in Europe that anyone who would join the Crusaders would be forgiven for their debt would be forgiven for past crimes, and would be given a salary and their families would be taken care of. And they would also attain the eternal reward of the hereafter and they were basically absolved of sins. They were not they would be forgiven for anything that they did. So obviously, whenever the Crusaders went out, it was all out war, and there was no sense of conscience. And that's why we find that in the First Crusade, whenever Jerusalem was conquered, the
Crusaders bragged about their horses being knee deep in blood, and burning the Christians that belong to Eastern churches alive in their churches, the Christians hidden their churches that belonged to Eastern churches and their churches were set to fire and they were burned alive in their churches. So this was an extremely dark episode
in the history of Jerusalem in the history of Palestine, and was something that that you know, till today, I don't think anyone belonging to any faith condones that type of behavior. No one's gonna come out today and say that the Crusaders were just in what they did at the same time as people. If you're a Muslim, you should not use that as you know, a talking point against Christians to say, you guys are actually violent. It doesn't work that way either. It just shows you how dark people can become. Okay, again, it would have happened regardless, regardless of the Pope, regardless of all of those things, but religion was used as a tool to manipulate people in that situation. So in the
First Crusade,
by the year 1099, the death toll had reached over 700,000 people, over 700,000 people. Raymond de schutter, Leon, he actually was was, was attacking the people that were coming for Hajj that were going to take, you know, going to the pilgrimage from all different parts of the world, he was actually even having done attack. In fact, he plotted to have the body of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him dug out in Medina, and brought back to Jerusalem and mutilated and shown and to just show it as a sign of humiliation of the Muslims and the one who foiled that plot was noted Dean nurudeen is the mentor of Salahuddin Saladin. Nora Dean was his mentor, he foiled that plot of two
men that actually were given the task of posing as Muslims posing as pious Muslims and then taking the body of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, and bringing it back to Jerusalem to be hung up and mutilated as a sign of humiliation. So, somehow, I mean, we're talking about an extremely dark period in history. When we look at Salahuddin Saladin. And you know, how many of you watch the kingdom of heaven?
Not movies in Hollywood are extremely annoying, because they always have to have a guy that's trying to get the girl. They couldn't, you know, the Titanic Kingdom of Heaven, they couldn't even spare the crusades, right of the guy trying to get the girl. So that actually never happened. I hate to break it to you. That was a totally fictional story. I'm sure at one point during the crusades, there was a Muslim guy that was interested in a Christian girl or vice versa. But, you know, I remember when the kingdom of heaven came out. None other than fox news was extremely upset because they felt like Kingdom of Heaven portrayed the Muslims in a very favorable light. But to be
completely honest with you, it did not do justice. If you read about Salahuddin Saladin and his kindness, the amount of honor and dignity that he displayed in conquering Jerusalem and bringing it back to the ranks of the Muslims and not showing any or not displaying any form of revenge not taking any form of revenge out on the Christians or the Jewish, the Jewish population that lived in Jerusalem after it came back under his rule. It's some it's really phenomenal, and it's unmatched in history. It's unmatched in history.
Once the law had been conquered Jerusalem, and he conquered it on the same day, the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. Coming back to Mecca,
was conquered on the same day that the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him came back to Mecca victorious after being persecuted and run out of it. And when the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him marched back into Mecca,
one of the companions, he said a leiomyoma Mel hammer today is the day of revenge. Today is the day of revenge and the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon them responded leiomyoma Muhammad today is the day of mercy and he took the flag away from that companion although he was a great companion. So today is the day of mercy and by any means, you know, by any standard or
of what was considered ethical war, the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him had a full right to take revenge on the people that that murdered his uncle that ran him out of Mecca that, you know, placed him under economic boycott, which caused his wife to die and his uncle to die because they could not handle the circumstances. He had every right to kill those people when he came back to Mecca by any standard of war, but instead the Prophet Mohammed opted for mercy. he opted for mercy. And instead, he put his head very close to his to his writing animal, so that he wasn't an arrogant ruler, and he said, whoever is in the house and have such and such as is safe, everyone come out, do not feel
afraid. There is no revenge today, nothing will happen to you today. That two three ballet Kuma Leone, there is no blame on you today, I forgiven and I forgotten, it's over. Don't worry about it. So sulla had been solid, and he remembered so we can see here that just as we like to portray religion as the source of violence and as a source of hatred, and bloodshed. Let's remember what religion did on the other side. salad and now when he's entering into Jerusalem from 18, on the same day, on the same day, he recalls that incident with the Messenger of God peace be upon
and he remembers that and when he goes into Jerusalem, he tells the people that you should feel no fear, you should feel complete safety now. Everyone is safe. On top of that, he called for the Jews that were that were expelled from the land of Jerusalem to be brought back and to have new homes built for them,
so that they could resettle Jerusalem. This is historically documented not by Muslim sources, by any source he called back the Jewish populations to resettle Jerusalem, to have their homes reconstructed and rebuilt. He ran some every single one of the Crusaders, every single one of them, and the amount of ransom the price for the ransom was tendonitis for a man five dinars which would be equivalent to $1 five dinars for a woman and one for a child.