HOME | DD
Theophilia β Keeping Your Head
Published: 2012-05-08 00:51:24 +0000 UTC; Views: 8445; Favourites: 58; Downloads: 47
Redirect to original
Description
"If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you..."
~ "If" by Rudyard Kipling
The picture and the idea belong completely to ~dashinvaine , he gave me permission to use it, so I just slapped the thing together today.
In case you don't get it (and major props to you who do: you win the internet
), on July 4th, 1187, the Crusader forces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem engaged the Muslim armies of Saladin in what is known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin. The crusaders were largely massacred and the power of the crusaders in Outremer was forever shattered in consequence. Many prisoners were taken by the Muslims during the battle, including many Templars and Hospitallers. Saladin wanted them all dead, so he paid each man in recompense for his Templar/Hospitaller prisoner, had all of the Christians brought together, and had them beheaded, saying, "I shall purify the land of these two impure races." Gerard de Ridefort, the rash Grand Master of the Templars, however, was not executed. Hence, the joke. Here is the image used: "After Hattin" [link]
Used with permission.
Related content
Comments: 60
Can't take all (or even most of) the credit for it. The image and the idea are both dashinvaine 's, I just threw it together.
π: 1 β©: 0
Never learned this in History class.
π: 0 β©: 1
Nope, not many people do know about this particular event.Β
π: 0 β©: 1
Good job. I did laugh. Black comedy is gold.
π: 0 β©: 1
π: 0 β©: 0
Yet Saladin's supporters boast of his "chivalry". Both sides were brutal.
π: 0 β©: 1
That's not something we're supposed to laugh at but.. but xD Oh my godness
π: 0 β©: 1
Hahahah, it's rather black humor. 
π: 0 β©: 0
Because he was the Grand Master of the Templars and Saladin figured he could get a good ransom out of him or reach some other kind of advantageous deal with him in exchange for his freedom. Which he did. de Ridefort promised that the Templars would give up some fortresses that would otherwise have stopped Saladin's advance.
π: 0 β©: 0
Hahahaha... and the first thing that comes to my mind is chapter 2 of Orthodoxy.
π: 0 β©: 1
Thinking of any line in particular?
π: 0 β©: 0
Oh man. I love the internet, because it makes having a warped sense of humor completely socially acceptable. 
π: 0 β©: 1
And may I say, 'Thank you very much sir.'
π: 0 β©: 0
Poor Gerard.
But I have to admit that I laughed.
π: 0 β©: 1
Hahahah, I was thinking of you the entire time I put this together.
π: 0 β©: 0
Apparently Baha al-Din wrote that Saladin invited the Sufis and imams attached to his army to carry out the execution. Most of them had never handled a sword, but they happily did so. The Templars and Hosptallers didn't die cleanly, as I'm sure we can assume.
Also, Gerard de Ridefort is legendary, simply for his powers of Karma Houdini. Robert de Sable is still no. 1 in my book haha
π: 0 β©: 1
Yeah.
Hahahah, and may I ask why Robert de Sable is #1 for "Karma Houdini? (excellent expression by the way! I'll have to find something to fit that phrase to...
π: 0 β©: 1
hahah Robert de Sable isn't a karma houdini-- he acted honorably, fought well, and was rewarded with a successful campaign and a quiet tenure as Master. de Ridefort single-handedly crippled the order, was one of the main culprits at Hattin, but still got away alive. THAT, is a karma houdini.
π: 0 β©: 1
Ah! I see what you're saying. Sorry, I thought you had implied that Robert de Sable was #1 in your book because of some alleged "Karma Houdini" skills. I see what you're saying. You were simply stating that Robert de Sable was your favorite Grand Master, right?
π: 0 β©: 1
Oh yes. Hero of Arsuf, bought and sold Cyprus to give some money to Richard AND take it off his hands? de Sable's a class act.
π: 0 β©: 1
π: 0 β©: 0
Proof positive that Christians have learned and grown, and Muslims refuse to do so as an example in Pakistan today where a border checkpoint was overrun by the Taliban and all guards beheaded...
π: 0 β©: 2
Hmmm, well...I'm not sure if I'd exactly agree with that, I mean, even simply from just being-executed point of view. Beheading is certainly not the worst way to go (Impalement, crucifixion, heck, I think even being electrocuted would be way worse especially if it's botched up...). But I guess, what do you mean by your statement, if you could give me clarification please?
π: 0 β©: 1
Warfare during that time frame was brutal across the board. While there were rules of chivalry in place, they sometimes (okay a lot of times) weren't followed. Prisoners were often times summarily executed, especially based on social status. In more modern times, especially since World War I, western and eastern asian societies have ceased this practice for the most part. I say for the most part because Communists are the exception (well, them and Fascists and Nazis). Meanwhile, the mindset of the Islamic world has remained in place since the times of Mohammad, and prisoners are constantly subject to torture and death.
When I refer to an advancement in mindset, this is what I mean. While to a Muslim (for the most part in the Middle East, with a few notable exceptions), beheading prisoners wouldn't bother them one bit. Meanwhile, if such actions were carried out by a Western nations soldiers... It would be a scandal resulting in demands from the UN down to the streets of the that country for court marital and military tribunals for the soldiers involved.
π: 0 β©: 1
Warfare has always been brutal; so I don't think it's necessarily fair to the Middle Ages to say that it was a particularly brutal period. Modern wars are by far more brutal in terms of lives and property destroyed...in a LOT less time.
"Meanwhile, the mindset of the Islamic world has remained in place since the times of Mohammad, and prisoners are constantly subject to torture and death."
And at an effort to be fair again, the Islamic world at this point in time has not fielded an army, which is to say, that the prisoners being tortured and killed are not taken in "war" but are captured during acts of terrorism. The Muslim terrorists of today are not traditional armies nor do they subscribe to the normal conventions of warfare. Nor, I think, do most terrorist groups from any background. Do you see what I'm saying? The last time the West faced an Islamic power was during World War I (the Turks). And while their atrocities against the Armenians and other peoples were considerable, that's also not what I think would be classified as "traditional warfare."
Perhaps I am just under the assumption that we are discussing conventional warfare. 
π: 0 β©: 2
Committing atrocities is "traditional warfare" for Turks. It long predates Islam with them.
Admittedly, it is not entirely fair to blame Islam for Turkish behaviorβthe main thing about them that it changed was getting them to give up the ritual cannibalism.
π: 0 β©: 1
Well, committing atrocities is, sadly, something that is common to all wars of all times and all peoples as well.
That's something at least.
π: 0 β©: 1
Yes and no. All soldiers sometimes break discipline. But the Turks routinely committed atrocities; it was actually a part of their conception of warfare, like supply-lines or field tactics. Many other horse-nomad culturesβthe Mongols, for instance, or the Comanche Indiansβactually deliberately cultivated atrocities, as part of their discipline. Gang-rape, torture, and in the case of some Mongol tribes (including the pre-Islamic Turks), cannibalism, were a routine, deliberate, terror tactic.
Some cultures also considered atrocities completely normal in war, and took no steps to avoid them. Mostly, ironically, cultures with pacifistic ideologies, for instance in East Asia, where Confucianism essentially considered "just war" a contradiction in terms (their concept was merely "necessary war"). Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea, for instance, in the 16th century, killed 1/3 as many people as the Hundred Years War...in six years (which is to say, it had roughly 6 times the death toll, since it killed 1/3 as many people in 1/19 the time).
The Byzantines, also, had a bit of that attitude; in the aftermath of the French sack of Constantinople, for instance, most of the outcry against the rapes and massacres was from the Latins themselves. The Byzantines mostly objected to Hagia Sophia being desecratedβbecause to Byzantine thought, rape and massacre were an ineradicable part of war, not worth bothering about, but desecrating churches just wasn't done.
π: 0 β©: 1
Fair point.
"...in the aftermath of the French sack of Constantinople, for instance, most of the outcry against the rapes and massacres was from the Latins themselves."
Not to be too nitpicky, but some Venetians were involved as well.
Yeah, and well, whenever people bring up the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders, I can't help but grit my teeth. Everyone remembers the Sack, but no one remembers the massacre of the Latins in the city of Constantinople in 1182. -___- Burns my butt. AND which, I would argue, was far worse, because it wasn't a siege or part of warfare or anything. It was like a miniature Rwandan holocaust: it was just fellow citizens and neighbors murdering each other. Anyway, enough of a spiel.
π: 0 β©: 0
Last time was actually the Iraqi Army, which was a cohesive force under the national flag of Iraq. This as well as the Taliban which was the current government in Afghanistan. Saddams Iraq wasn't so prone to summary execution of POWs if they were American, however the same couldn't be said about its treatment of captured Iranians... Taliban was the Taliban. Conventional war side...
Guerrilla/Insurgency warfare is another animal. However, reading Geneva Conventions, we certainly treat captive fighters much more fairly than even that Convention requires... Partly our Judeau-Christian values, partly our modern secular views, partly our belief we are better than summary executions... Even Guerrillas and legitimate resistance movements are required, for UN recognition as such, to abide by Geneva Convention or if captured face a loss of those protections themselves.
I'll leave it at that! I'm sure we can go off for a whole thread in and of itself about that! That, and its your post, so I'd better leave you with the final word here!
π: 0 β©: 1
I apologize. Last time to my knowledge. But perhaps you'll excuse me, I was thinking more of "proper wars" that is to say, wars like Vietnam, Korea, etc. Warfare nowadays is not very conventional (perhaps because we finally got it into our heads that it costs an insane amount of lives. But that might be putting a little too much faith in humanity.
And yes, I agree with your comments about Guerrilla/Insurgency warfare.
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts.
π: 0 β©: 0
christians had their dark age. muslims are now in theirs.
back then, (yes, this ONE instance is horrible), on the whole, muslims were better humanitarians that the christian forces.
now the situation is relatively reversed. however, there are tons of factors that dont even involve religion. you could more accurately say that the Middle East is in a dark age of sorts, as most of the muslim population does not live in the middle east (though most of the middle east is muslim and jewish).
most of christianity has learned and grown, but the most outspoken and influential people, even those who arent true christians but still claim it and act on its behalf, are barbaric people.
π: 0 β©: 2
How in depth have you studied the era? Because no, Christians were much better-behaved than Muslims. Muslims always took slaves from their captives, and they always considered men to have sexual rights to female slaves.
The one incident one can hold against the West is the sack of Jerusalem in the First Crusade, which was A) a siege (even modern professional soldiers break discipline when lifting sieges; fortunately they don't happen very often anymore), B) deliberately provoked by the defenders, who made a big show of desecrating Christian symbols from the walls, and C) still only had a death-toll of around 3000 people. Plus, it was unique. No such massacres occurred at Antioch: because the siege was shorter. Muslims, on the other hand, always sacked cities. It was how Turksβremember, Mongol horse-nomadsβpaid their soldiers.
Many Christian writers did indeed contrast their own men's bad behavior with Muslim good behavior. It's called rhetoric; many Islamic writers did the same in reverse. Richard and Saladin, for instance, were praised as honorable by their opponents (completely counterfactually in both cases), and reviled (accurately) as scum by their compatriots.
Then again, there never was a Dark Age in the first place, and real historians will laugh in your face if you say there was.
π: 1 β©: 2
LIKE, LIKE, LIKE. So much like in this comment.
π: 0 β©: 0
then i thank you for not being a real historian and not laughing in my face
π: 0 β©: 0
Having studied radical Islam across the globe (occupational hazard of 'gee, where is Uncle Sam going to send me next') I honestly can say that were ever they take hold, they bring society backward into a dark ages. Looking at Asia and the Pacific for example, with the exception of Singapore and parts of Indonesia, most of the ares in which Islam has spread has been behind the rest of the region in more than just adjusting to humanitarian treatment of people, but also technological growth. Islam has been in a dark ages since the Ottoman Empire was turned back at Vienna; and currently they refuse to allow any form of renaissance.
While I agree that there are many barbaric Christians, or more specifically "christians" who make notable exceptions, the fact that they are exceptions rather than the norm stands out compared to the life I've seen people forced to live in the Muslim world in both Iraq and Kuwait first hand. Kuwait is rather cosmopolitan for an Islamic nation, yet still you see the backwardness of the standard Sunni and Shia mindset contrasted with the modern influences. In fact, this makes it even more apparent to me... Even Kuwait executes people for 'apostasy' and turning away from Islam to Christianity (as does the somewhat enlightened Indonesia).
Sadly to a large degree, the kind of growth that is allowable under the New Covenant (and to a large degree the Old Covenant) becomes stagnant with the 'revelations' of Mohammed and Sharia. This will likely continue to stymy the Islamic world, and sadly where ever the enlightened ones run to across the globe, the more barbaric elements will pursue them as well as the rest of us.
π: 0 β©: 2
The Crusades were a response to Muslim aggression. They committed more war crimes then the Christians.
π: 0 β©: 1
This I know very well... Especially since they continue to do so.
π: 0 β©: 1
No kidding!
And they refuse to admit it.
π: 0 β©: 0
thank you for your words.
and also thank you for your service.
π: 0 β©: 0
| Next =>