Like many others I watched this week's handover ceremony in Basra with some relief. Hopefully it's the beginning of the end of a venture that most people in the UK would rather forget. But relief gave way to frustration as I listened to the closing prayers, and realised with fresh understanding why the Muslim world still cannot forgive or forget the Crusades.
It's one thing to have chaplains provide support and comfort to ordinary soldiers, who after all are only doing the job that their political masters have dictated. But against the backdrop of our history, it seems insanely foolish to include a religious element in a televised event associated with such a contentious war as the one in Iraq.
The marriage of religion and state has never born palatable fruit. When clerics have political power, the wrong kind of people become clerics, for the wrong reasons. That much is clear from European history, and is still apparent in parts of the Islamic world today. Almost all religion is peaceful. But religious fervour combined with political ambition, commercial interest and fear provides a volatile mix. That mix was very evident during the Crusading period, and it's still evident in relations between Islam and the western world today.
The Crusades are generally seen as a war of Christian against Muslim, but the crusading period was far more complex than that. It was a period of almost unprecedented violence and disruption throughout Europe and Asia, in which all peoples of every religion and none were caught up.
Muslim Turks and Arabs, Shias and Sunnis waged war on each other as well as those around them. Catholic Christians fought against Orthodox Christians, and against dissenting sects like the Albigensians and Hussites. European nation states waged war against each other - the Hundred Years War between England and France took place in this period - and the seeds of conflict in the Balkans, Ireland and Palestine had already long been sown. All came under intense pressure from the East, from the empire of Genghis Khan through to the conquests of Tamerlane.
Pressures on territory; English, French and German political ambitions; the commercial interests of the Italian city states; and the feudal knights' code of honour and war all played their part in triggering and sustaining conflict in the Mediterranean. The Crusades were more a product of their time than a product of religion. But as usual, religion is an easy target for an unfair share of the blame.
European excesses and the Catholic authorities' promotion and support of the crusades cannot be excused. But religious authorities in Damascus and Baghdad were equally warlike, and had equally mixed motives. Let's not forget that if the military advance of Islam had not been halted in Spain and the Middle East, we might all be living under Sharia Law today.
The Crusades are a shameful part of history, for Christians, Muslims and people of all religions. In these troubled times we desperately need to put them behind us. But we can't do that with military actions that serve purely national and commercial interests - or that still carry the flavour of a crusading religion.
It's one thing to have chaplains provide support and comfort to ordinary soldiers, who after all are only doing the job that their political masters have dictated. But against the backdrop of our history, it seems insanely foolish to include a religious element in a televised event associated with such a contentious war as the one in Iraq.
The marriage of religion and state has never born palatable fruit. When clerics have political power, the wrong kind of people become clerics, for the wrong reasons. That much is clear from European history, and is still apparent in parts of the Islamic world today. Almost all religion is peaceful. But religious fervour combined with political ambition, commercial interest and fear provides a volatile mix. That mix was very evident during the Crusading period, and it's still evident in relations between Islam and the western world today.
The Crusades are generally seen as a war of Christian against Muslim, but the crusading period was far more complex than that. It was a period of almost unprecedented violence and disruption throughout Europe and Asia, in which all peoples of every religion and none were caught up.
Muslim Turks and Arabs, Shias and Sunnis waged war on each other as well as those around them. Catholic Christians fought against Orthodox Christians, and against dissenting sects like the Albigensians and Hussites. European nation states waged war against each other - the Hundred Years War between England and France took place in this period - and the seeds of conflict in the Balkans, Ireland and Palestine had already long been sown. All came under intense pressure from the East, from the empire of Genghis Khan through to the conquests of Tamerlane.
Pressures on territory; English, French and German political ambitions; the commercial interests of the Italian city states; and the feudal knights' code of honour and war all played their part in triggering and sustaining conflict in the Mediterranean. The Crusades were more a product of their time than a product of religion. But as usual, religion is an easy target for an unfair share of the blame.
European excesses and the Catholic authorities' promotion and support of the crusades cannot be excused. But religious authorities in Damascus and Baghdad were equally warlike, and had equally mixed motives. Let's not forget that if the military advance of Islam had not been halted in Spain and the Middle East, we might all be living under Sharia Law today.
The Crusades are a shameful part of history, for Christians, Muslims and people of all religions. In these troubled times we desperately need to put them behind us. But we can't do that with military actions that serve purely national and commercial interests - or that still carry the flavour of a crusading religion.
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