My answer to Mr. Shishir

Submitted by Debanjan Banerjee (India), Nov 6, 2011 at 09:52

"As for Crusaders as cannibals, you will forgive me if I dont swallow wholesale clumsy propaganda stories concoted by Muslim chroniclers."

My Answer ---> Please read the following Chronicles of Christian travellers during crusades and if you have enough intelligence then judge for yourself.

Several Christian sources of the First Crusade report instances of cannibalism. Specifically, starving crusaders were reported to have eaten their fallen Muslim opponants. Although such behavior was undoubtedly very rare, sources claim that Muslims spread terrifying rumors of crusaders "who fed very greedily on the bodies of saracens."

Radulph of Caen, an eyewitness to events at Ma'arra in 1098, wrote, "In Ma'arra our troops boiled pagan adults in cooking-pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured them grilled." (1)

The chronicler Albert of Aix seemed to rank Muslims lower than dogs when he wrote, "Not only did our troops not shrink from eating dead Turks and Saracens; they also ate dogs!"

Guibert of Nogent, in his work Historia Hierosolymitana, provides more details on the incident of cannibalism at Ma'arra. There he notes that whenever the Tafurs who took part in the expedition discovered "scraps of flesh from the pagan's bodies" cannibalism was practiced with little discretion. According to Guibert, the Tafurs were well aware that the Muslims feared them because of cannibalism. For that reason, on at least one occasion, the Tafurs publicly "roasted the bruised body of a Turk over a fire as if it were meat for eating, in full view of the Turkish forces." Guibert notes that the Franks also practiced cannibalism, but they did so "in secret and as rarely as possible."

Fulcher of Chartres also refers to the same instance of cannibalism at Ma'arra. In his Historia Hierosolymitana, also known as A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, Fulcher confirms that when the crusaders "suffered from excessive hunger" at Ma'arra, they engaged in cannibalism. He wrote, "I shudder to say that many of our men, terribly tormented by the maddness of starvation, cut pieces of flesh from the buttocks of Saracens lying there dead. These pieces they cooked and ate, savagely devouring the flesh while it was insufficiently roasted."

"As for killing Sultan Murad-so what. A despot is a despot- who cares how he dies or old he was?shall we recount the cruelties and perfidies perpetrated by Ottoman Turks?"

My Answer ---> Do you even understand what a despot means and from where does this word originates ? Well that is too much to expect from a person like you but just tell me what was the fault of Sultan Murad for other than being a Muslim and a Turk that he was assasinated.

Regarding perfidies by Ottomans and Turks , please let me point it out to you that these same Muslims gave India Taj Mahal which is the most important historical piece of architecture which brings so much foreign money from Tourists from all over India and this very same Mughal dynasty also had descended from the very same Turks that you just love to dehumanize.

"I dont agree with much of what Ianus said but the fact does remain that the Turks have a serious identity crisis. Ataturk disbanding the Caliphate and turning European was one of the most bizarre social experiments in world history."

My Answer ---> My ignorant friend , history moves forward based upon people's quest for identity. Turkey after losing their empire and being witnesses to the rise of the Western civilization , had decided to adopt Western norms and practises. There is nothing wrong in that. Later when these Western techniques will stop to bear fruit (as they already seem to be doing in much of the Western World) , it will be time for the Turks to look back towards another successful model which is closer to the Ottoman model of being an Islamic multi-cultural empire. This is the exactly way , Turks may well be thinking now days.

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