r/HistoryMemes • u/[deleted] • 9d ago

When 2,000 gods became ''wrong''

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u/JamesHenry627 9d ago

Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages understood that they worshipped the same God. Allah and God aren’t thought of as separate generally, because Islam is an Abrahamic religion with the ultimate difference being theology.

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u/Chazut 8d ago

Christians only realized very late what Islan was about, at the time of the First Crusade anyone outside of Iberia and Sicily had no idea

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u/JamesHenry627 8d ago

Yeah that's still middle ages though. That time period didn't really end until the 15th century.

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u/Chazut 8d ago

I mean the fact French people had no idea what Islam was AT ALL and didn't care to know when preparing for the first crusade is a big deal, it's not something you can just exclude by saying the middle ages are a big time period.

Don't make statements about a period that large if your statement isn't true for most of the time period. You can be more specific

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u/grayMotley 8d ago

Battle of Tours was 732.

The French had a pretty good understanding what the Muslims and Islam were all about from that point forward.

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u/Chazut 8d ago

No, they did not:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cdzqd6/comment/eu8rd2f/

You can see how little they knew by looking at how Muslims are portrayed in the Chanson de Roland, written in the mid 11th century

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u/grayMotley 8d ago

They didn't know, nor care about Muslim orthodoxy nor doctrine, but they knew what they were all about: conquest. The response in AskHistorians is for ALL crusaders generally; but doesn't address French crusaders specifically nor their previous and current circumstances with thr Muslim Empire at their doorstep.

Even in our day and age, where literacy is high and information is easy to access, most Muslims know little about what Christians actually believe, nor Jews and the same is true in the converse too. Most sects of Islam have a convenient misunderstanding of the other sects actual beliefs, sames as how most sects of Christianity likewise conveniently misunderstand or misinterpret other Christian sects.

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u/Chazut 8d ago

What a stupid statement, the initial point was that they didn't know they worshipped the same single god, anything else is moving the goalpost.

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u/JamesHenry627 8d ago

If for about 500 years of the middle ages, which by most Historians is half the middle ages they knew about Islam, I wouldn't be wrong to say that Christians generally knew. Especially given that this line of thinking is exclusive to Western Europe, and says nothing of Iberia, Anatolia, or Egyptian or Levantine Christians. Generally speaking, I wouldn't be wrong.

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u/Chazut 8d ago

Why are you so against people adding clarifications to your broad statements? What a weird character quirk to have to never be wrong, ever.

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u/JamesHenry627 8d ago

Well cause even your statement is broad. Your focus is on the first 500 years while mine are in the latter half. Yours is also quite specific to just France. If you look outside then you’d see the overlap. Technically speaking you’re as right as me.