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So in the wake of the whole Syrian affair that starts to get traction, where you have islamic jihadists fighting for control of Syria to turn into an islamic state from a secular, multireligious tolerant state under the dictatorship of Assad, let's see the origins of holy wars and religious conflicts, how they came to be, why where and when the major conflicts happened and where the root of holy wars come from.
Ofc, we will be discussing simply in the area we know and are familiar with, the europe/middle east/n. africa region, not the whole messy business of holy wars in Asia and such. Just the jewish holy wars, the Christian ones and the islamic ones.
Now the first real holy war, that is, war waged by people in the name of God, for religious reasons and motivations, expecting divine rewards, were the jews. Unsurprising because Judaism was a very powerful religion. Moses was after all, educated at the Egyptian court. Egypt in those ancient times had the finest military, or some of the best military tactics and weapons at that time. Moses wasn't an old senile man who lead the defenseless jews out of the promised land, he was a young, well, relatively young military general who equipped and trained his men to fight with Egyptian weapons of war to counter Egyptian war tactics and left Egypt with a jewish army for the promised land (the divine reward) and took with him a lot of gold and valuables... that's why the pharaoh chased him, he wanted his gold back. And the whole route to the Promised land was with conquest and bloodshed and massacres. All in the name of God of course and for the divine reward of the Promised land.
Numbers 31:1-54 ESV - Vengeance on Midian - The LORD spoke to - Bible Gateway
Anyway. Now that is a clear example of holy war and the first one I know of.
But that was in 1500BC or so and while you can consider some of the wars the kings of israel fought for expansion or slaves or fortune as holy wars... or the macabeean revolt or maybe even the modern day israel-palestine conflict, but that's not the point. The point is to establish the existence of holy wars as something inherent in all abrahamic religions.
Now. What is the next holy war? Again. Holy war is a war that is fought by people due to religious reasons, with religious motivations for the purpose of some divine reward. Now surprisingly, even though Christianity came before Islam, it wasnt' Christianity that had the first holy war. The first Christian holy war was basically the reconquista and the crusades. But these all happened as a reaction to a very successful holy war, or rather, holy wars. So I shall return to Christianity soon. Christianity has the potential to motivate people to do holy war, it's not off the hook, violence is a well adapted arm of Christianity as it is of all abrahamic religions. But we will get to it soon.
The next major holy war, the next next real holy wars, and indeed, probably the basis for the way holy wars should be done to be successful was Islam. Mohammed, we all know, came from a wealthy family who dealt in many things, including trade and religious pilgrimage. Basically trade and tourism at that time. But he was eventually expunged from his home city and had to flee to Medina where he started implementing his religious dogma of holy war. Now Medina was a rather large city and in order to become wealthier, like Mecca was, Mohammed proposed a deal. He started preaching his religion, converted enough people to start a berber army and then went on to raid trade caravans and attack pilgrimage routes. Why? Because he knew how they worked. How defended they were because that was his business before he was prophet.
And he did it quite successfully. Amassed a great deal of wealth, and because he was wealthy, more people joined his cause... and because he made many victories in the name of God, and grew richer,well, wealth and glory attract more people who were convinced he was wealthy and glorious thanks to Allah and the cycle of prosperity continued.
Now islam consolidated itself after Mohammed died. The 5 great leaders that followed managed, through holy war (there was a lot of go to war against), managed to very rapidly conquer the rest of the arabic peninsula and beyond with great success. Why? Because holy wars do that. In those times, when the majority of people were farmers, if you were the son of a farmer, around the age of 15-16, and wanted glory and conquest and money, holy war was attractive. Especially if you had multiple brothers or if you had and older brother and knew you weren't going to inherit much. Not to mention the promise of plenty of goods and sex in the islamic afterlife. So by staying as farmer, you had everything to lose, but by going to war you could gain either money and riches in this life, enough to buy your own farm and your own land, or in the aferlife. Win-win.
So jihad solves 2 major problems in the need to wage war. Manpower and motivation. Both are accounted for with jihad, islamic holy war. So it is unsurprising that Islam managed to expand itself in just 2-3 centuries to cover all of the arabic peninsula, and what is today: Iraq, egypt, Israel, Palestine, basically all the middle east up to Syria and even a bit further, most of N. Africa, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even expand as far as India and of course, took almost all of Spain in the VIIIth century, and took Sicily. If Charles Martel hadn't destroyed, repeatedly, the armies of islam, they would have overrun France and Europe. Now the fact that Islam managed to conquer Saudi arabia and the arabian peninsula wasn't that great a feat because there were divided countries, weak, mostly just city states and such. So conquering them was easy.
But what is surprising is how impotent the Byzantine Empire was in the VIIth and VIIIth century to deal with the islamic jihad. That is of course because Byzantium didn't do holy wars. Christianity didn't do holy war, the armies, of the Eastern Roman Empire were professional, well trained armies much in the spirit of the Roman empire, of course, updated to the times... and the armies of byzantium were smaller, trained armies, professional ones. Sure they had masses of untrained armies from places like Armenia, their holdings in the ME and N. Africa and other regions, but those were no match for the vast armies of dedicated, fanatical jihadists that were basically countless. That's why when Islam emerged, it took Byzantium by surprise and cut it down to half it's size in half a century once they started fighting.
And it's important to note that Byzantium was no push-over. It successfully survived the fall of the western roman empire. The barbarian tribes that wrecked havoc in the western roman empire and caused its collapsed got devasted by the Byzantine armies when they tried their luck. Heck, even Attila the Hun in the Vth century didn't dare to attack the Byzantine Empire. This was the sole superpower in the world, it managed to reclaim much of Italy from the barbarians who defeated the western roman empire. No military force in the world managed to dent the Byzantine fighting force until Islam came along. So this is how efficient holy war can be. Very brutally efficient.
now of course, after the intial blitzkrieg, the Byzantine Empire bounced back. The whole region from what is today Armenia to what is today Israel was a battleground. Constantly changing hands between either the Byzantine empire or various islamic nations for centuries to come. And of course the ottoman holy wars after Constantinopole had fallen... and much more.
Now. That was islam. Christianity is next for meatgrinder. It isn't blameless in this whole affair. The first real holy war that was fought in the name of Christianity was in the iberian peninsula, and that was the reconquista. After the umayyads successfully took 70% of the iberian peninsula by storm, Christianity mounted a defence in northen iberia as the kingdom of asturia. And then eventually, Christianity went on the offensive, the reconquista with great success managed to push out the islamic sultanates from iberia. So that was the first holy war. And that is what prompted the creation of holy orders by the Pope.
So the Pope created all these holy orders to fight against islam. These people were fanatics, quite brutal most of the times, and played a key role in all the holy wars the Church ordered. From the reconquista to the crusades. Now the first crusades were exclusively aimed towards throwing the muslims out of the holy land. That is until the 4th crusade that successfully managed to destroy Byzantium, dealing fatal blow that would cripple it. But crusades weren't just the 9 crusades for the holy land, out of which most were failures, and some never reached to holy land to begin with. It is important to note that one of the reasons holy orders were created, and the crusades started, was because islam was a little too close to the Vatican for comfort. Holding Sicily and much of southern italy, there was the real danger of Rome being overtaken by the caliphate.
Now the crusades weren't the only holy wars that happened. As I said, Sicily and southern italy was for a long time, under islamic rule. But Christian princes, mainly those who were too far from the inheritance of titles, would often seek out allies and men willing to join in expeditions against islamic occupied territories. The Normans for instance were really good at this. It wasn't just William the Conqueror, who is the most famous, yes, but other Norman princes would go in and try and take sicily and southern italy, with the pope's blessing. And they managed to do that eventually. Crete was another such holy war. Malta. And generally regions and islands around the pacific.
(Fun fact, William the conquerors' invasion of Britain was also sanctioned by the Pope).
Now Christianity didn't just do holy wars against islam. Most notably, the greatest holy wars Christianity ever did was with itself. Mainly against the reformed christian beliefs of protestantism, lutheranism and calvinism, and also others. In the thirty years war alone, 8mil people died at the hands of religious fanatics.
So this is this. I had fun writing for 20-25min all this text. This is all to remind people not to joke when it comes to holy wars. And to remind people that the abrahamic religions, like all major religions, have a history of dreadful holy wars and the potential to ignite the desire for holy wars is still there. It can be tapped into at any time. And yes, I did say all major religions that exist in the world today have the potential for holy and have done holy wars in the past. You don't get to be a major religion if you can't motivate people to die for you. the eastern religions of asia have had their share of holy wars too. They're not more peaceful religions, that's just ignorant propaganda.
Ofc, we will be discussing simply in the area we know and are familiar with, the europe/middle east/n. africa region, not the whole messy business of holy wars in Asia and such. Just the jewish holy wars, the Christian ones and the islamic ones.
Now the first real holy war, that is, war waged by people in the name of God, for religious reasons and motivations, expecting divine rewards, were the jews. Unsurprising because Judaism was a very powerful religion. Moses was after all, educated at the Egyptian court. Egypt in those ancient times had the finest military, or some of the best military tactics and weapons at that time. Moses wasn't an old senile man who lead the defenseless jews out of the promised land, he was a young, well, relatively young military general who equipped and trained his men to fight with Egyptian weapons of war to counter Egyptian war tactics and left Egypt with a jewish army for the promised land (the divine reward) and took with him a lot of gold and valuables... that's why the pharaoh chased him, he wanted his gold back. And the whole route to the Promised land was with conquest and bloodshed and massacres. All in the name of God of course and for the divine reward of the Promised land.
Numbers 31:1-54 ESV - Vengeance on Midian - The LORD spoke to - Bible Gateway
Anyway. Now that is a clear example of holy war and the first one I know of.
But that was in 1500BC or so and while you can consider some of the wars the kings of israel fought for expansion or slaves or fortune as holy wars... or the macabeean revolt or maybe even the modern day israel-palestine conflict, but that's not the point. The point is to establish the existence of holy wars as something inherent in all abrahamic religions.
Now. What is the next holy war? Again. Holy war is a war that is fought by people due to religious reasons, with religious motivations for the purpose of some divine reward. Now surprisingly, even though Christianity came before Islam, it wasnt' Christianity that had the first holy war. The first Christian holy war was basically the reconquista and the crusades. But these all happened as a reaction to a very successful holy war, or rather, holy wars. So I shall return to Christianity soon. Christianity has the potential to motivate people to do holy war, it's not off the hook, violence is a well adapted arm of Christianity as it is of all abrahamic religions. But we will get to it soon.
The next major holy war, the next next real holy wars, and indeed, probably the basis for the way holy wars should be done to be successful was Islam. Mohammed, we all know, came from a wealthy family who dealt in many things, including trade and religious pilgrimage. Basically trade and tourism at that time. But he was eventually expunged from his home city and had to flee to Medina where he started implementing his religious dogma of holy war. Now Medina was a rather large city and in order to become wealthier, like Mecca was, Mohammed proposed a deal. He started preaching his religion, converted enough people to start a berber army and then went on to raid trade caravans and attack pilgrimage routes. Why? Because he knew how they worked. How defended they were because that was his business before he was prophet.
And he did it quite successfully. Amassed a great deal of wealth, and because he was wealthy, more people joined his cause... and because he made many victories in the name of God, and grew richer,well, wealth and glory attract more people who were convinced he was wealthy and glorious thanks to Allah and the cycle of prosperity continued.
Now islam consolidated itself after Mohammed died. The 5 great leaders that followed managed, through holy war (there was a lot of go to war against), managed to very rapidly conquer the rest of the arabic peninsula and beyond with great success. Why? Because holy wars do that. In those times, when the majority of people were farmers, if you were the son of a farmer, around the age of 15-16, and wanted glory and conquest and money, holy war was attractive. Especially if you had multiple brothers or if you had and older brother and knew you weren't going to inherit much. Not to mention the promise of plenty of goods and sex in the islamic afterlife. So by staying as farmer, you had everything to lose, but by going to war you could gain either money and riches in this life, enough to buy your own farm and your own land, or in the aferlife. Win-win.
So jihad solves 2 major problems in the need to wage war. Manpower and motivation. Both are accounted for with jihad, islamic holy war. So it is unsurprising that Islam managed to expand itself in just 2-3 centuries to cover all of the arabic peninsula, and what is today: Iraq, egypt, Israel, Palestine, basically all the middle east up to Syria and even a bit further, most of N. Africa, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even expand as far as India and of course, took almost all of Spain in the VIIIth century, and took Sicily. If Charles Martel hadn't destroyed, repeatedly, the armies of islam, they would have overrun France and Europe. Now the fact that Islam managed to conquer Saudi arabia and the arabian peninsula wasn't that great a feat because there were divided countries, weak, mostly just city states and such. So conquering them was easy.
But what is surprising is how impotent the Byzantine Empire was in the VIIth and VIIIth century to deal with the islamic jihad. That is of course because Byzantium didn't do holy wars. Christianity didn't do holy war, the armies, of the Eastern Roman Empire were professional, well trained armies much in the spirit of the Roman empire, of course, updated to the times... and the armies of byzantium were smaller, trained armies, professional ones. Sure they had masses of untrained armies from places like Armenia, their holdings in the ME and N. Africa and other regions, but those were no match for the vast armies of dedicated, fanatical jihadists that were basically countless. That's why when Islam emerged, it took Byzantium by surprise and cut it down to half it's size in half a century once they started fighting.
And it's important to note that Byzantium was no push-over. It successfully survived the fall of the western roman empire. The barbarian tribes that wrecked havoc in the western roman empire and caused its collapsed got devasted by the Byzantine armies when they tried their luck. Heck, even Attila the Hun in the Vth century didn't dare to attack the Byzantine Empire. This was the sole superpower in the world, it managed to reclaim much of Italy from the barbarians who defeated the western roman empire. No military force in the world managed to dent the Byzantine fighting force until Islam came along. So this is how efficient holy war can be. Very brutally efficient.
now of course, after the intial blitzkrieg, the Byzantine Empire bounced back. The whole region from what is today Armenia to what is today Israel was a battleground. Constantly changing hands between either the Byzantine empire or various islamic nations for centuries to come. And of course the ottoman holy wars after Constantinopole had fallen... and much more.
Now. That was islam. Christianity is next for meatgrinder. It isn't blameless in this whole affair. The first real holy war that was fought in the name of Christianity was in the iberian peninsula, and that was the reconquista. After the umayyads successfully took 70% of the iberian peninsula by storm, Christianity mounted a defence in northen iberia as the kingdom of asturia. And then eventually, Christianity went on the offensive, the reconquista with great success managed to push out the islamic sultanates from iberia. So that was the first holy war. And that is what prompted the creation of holy orders by the Pope.
So the Pope created all these holy orders to fight against islam. These people were fanatics, quite brutal most of the times, and played a key role in all the holy wars the Church ordered. From the reconquista to the crusades. Now the first crusades were exclusively aimed towards throwing the muslims out of the holy land. That is until the 4th crusade that successfully managed to destroy Byzantium, dealing fatal blow that would cripple it. But crusades weren't just the 9 crusades for the holy land, out of which most were failures, and some never reached to holy land to begin with. It is important to note that one of the reasons holy orders were created, and the crusades started, was because islam was a little too close to the Vatican for comfort. Holding Sicily and much of southern italy, there was the real danger of Rome being overtaken by the caliphate.
Now the crusades weren't the only holy wars that happened. As I said, Sicily and southern italy was for a long time, under islamic rule. But Christian princes, mainly those who were too far from the inheritance of titles, would often seek out allies and men willing to join in expeditions against islamic occupied territories. The Normans for instance were really good at this. It wasn't just William the Conqueror, who is the most famous, yes, but other Norman princes would go in and try and take sicily and southern italy, with the pope's blessing. And they managed to do that eventually. Crete was another such holy war. Malta. And generally regions and islands around the pacific.
(Fun fact, William the conquerors' invasion of Britain was also sanctioned by the Pope).
Now Christianity didn't just do holy wars against islam. Most notably, the greatest holy wars Christianity ever did was with itself. Mainly against the reformed christian beliefs of protestantism, lutheranism and calvinism, and also others. In the thirty years war alone, 8mil people died at the hands of religious fanatics.
So this is this. I had fun writing for 20-25min all this text. This is all to remind people not to joke when it comes to holy wars. And to remind people that the abrahamic religions, like all major religions, have a history of dreadful holy wars and the potential to ignite the desire for holy wars is still there. It can be tapped into at any time. And yes, I did say all major religions that exist in the world today have the potential for holy and have done holy wars in the past. You don't get to be a major religion if you can't motivate people to die for you. the eastern religions of asia have had their share of holy wars too. They're not more peaceful religions, that's just ignorant propaganda.
