Interesting Response from Dear Friend (and MOJ-Reader)

[Given some of the posts in the last twenty-four hours, I thought that this excerpt from an e-mail message I received this morning, from a dear friend and MOJ-reader, would be of interest to some other MOJ-readers:]

I have to say that -- to put this judiciously -- I don't really think that [Karen] Armstrong is a reputable source.  Of course, you're right that she's forgotten more about this than I'll even know ... but ... the bit I think I know just doesn't jibe with some things she says -- things that seem not only false, but hard to square with minimal acquaintance with relevant facts. (Some historians I trust much think she's got an ax to grind and that compromises her work.)

Here's a concrete case to think about.  She says, in the paper you quote, "Our Islamophobia dates back to the time of the Crusades."  And then there's this from the massively erudite historian of the Byzantine Empire, George Ostrogorsky, in whose magnum opus one finds: "At the same time, these great [10th century] conquests must be regarded as evidence of the powerful religious enthusiasm which inspired the Byzantines in their struggle against the infidel.  Nicephorus Phocas was entirely possessed by this enthusiasm. For him, the war with Islam was a kind of sacred mission.  He even claimed that those who fell in fighting the infidel should be declared martyrs. This claim expressed with curious intensity the Byzantine feeling that the war with the Muslims was a Holy War..."  (History of the Byzantine State, p. 288).  As Ostrogorsky makes clear elsewhere, the feeling of Holy War was more than reciprocated.

For a historian to claim that Christian Islamophobia began with the Crusadesis to forget the 400 years of history that preceded the Crusades -- lots of bad blood and mutual vilification between Christians and Muslims. And of course, it is also to forget the Christianophobia of the Muslims who were in a civilizational conflict with the Byzantines that whole time.  There's just a lot of bad blood.... 

[Post 9/11, ] it can't hurt for us to become a lot more familiar with the history of the conflict between our faiths -- to learn more about it than superficial stuff about the Crusades.  It's an ugly history, I've found.  On all sides. Pretty much without exception.
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mp