NYTimes | President Obama
personally added a reference to the Crusades in his speech this week at
the National Prayer Breakfast, aides said, hoping to add context and
nuance to his condemnation of Islamic terrorists by noting that people
also “committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”
But
by purposely drawing the fraught historical comparison on Thursday, Mr.
Obama ignited a firestorm on television and social media about the
validity of his observations and the roots of religious conflicts that
raged more than 800 years ago.
On
Twitter, amateur historians angrily accused Mr. Obama of refusing to
acknowledge Muslim aggression that preceded the Crusades. Others
criticized him for drawing simplistic analogies across centuries. Many
suggested that the president was reaching for ways to excuse or minimize
the recent atrocities committed by Islamic extremists.
“I’m not surprised, I guess,” said Thomas Asbridge, a medieval historian and director of the Center for the Study of Islam and the West
at the University of London. “Any use of the word ‘Crusade’ has to be
made with great caution. It is the most highly charged word you can use
in the context of the Middle East.”
