Christians killed Muslims during crusades?

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jun 22, 2011 at 02:37

Dear Dr Pipes,

I am not an expert in crusades but I am certain of one thing: crusades did not result in European Christians attacking and capturing the holiest place of Muslims (Mecca). However, if we reverse the argument, hundreds of places that once belonged to the other religions are now in Islamists' possession. For crusades to be truly bad something should have occurred so today we would have been arguing about dividing Mecca into eastern and western sections so Jews and/or Christians could pray in their half of it.

No matter how much we try, violent history of Islam cannot be hidden and, as I said elsewhere, it is about time that Islam should be judged according to some neutral standards and not to some self-serving standards that it knits for itself.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".