Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 12
12 Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi subsequent centuries upheld the actions of the marauding crusad- ers and justified their every savage act and painted the ‘saviours of Christianity’ in glory and martyrdom. Hugh Trevor-Roper, a Scottish historian, relates some of these in his book and quotes Edward Gibbon : ‘The simple crusaders, who paused to chronicle their violent but holy deeds, and ended each chapter of carnage with devout scrip- tural ejaculations, questioned their own motives no more than the Spanish conquistadors of the sixteenth century. To them, the Turks were the infamous, accursed unbelievers, God’s enemies and ours, while the Christians who perished in battle went up to Heaven to be robed in white and receive the palm of martyrdom. ’ (R of CE, p. 101). Roper also relates some of the views of the fashionable Jesuit Louis Maimbourg, who also upheld the actions of the crusaders: ‘To him the Crusades were still holy wars, whose every barbar- ity was justified by their high spiritual aim; and he described with relish how the Christians, once in possession of Jerusalem, used to their full extent the rights of victory. . . . . . Everywhere one could see nothing but heads flying, legs hacked off, arms cut down, bodies in slices. . . . they killed the very children in their mothers arms to ex- terminate, if possible, that accursed race, as God formerly wished should be done to the Amalekites. ’ (p. 101-102). Sir Steven Runciman tries to give a balanced contemporary Christian view of the Crusades at the conclusion of his three-vol- ume A History of the Crusades. Though the language and tone has been softened, the brutality and savagery of the crusaders is still borne out : ‘The triumphs of the Crusade were the triumphs of faith. But faith without wisdom is a dangerous thing. . . . . . the Crusades were a tragic and destructive episode. The historian as he gazes back across the centuries at their gallant story must find his admiration overcast by sorrow at the witness that it bears to the limitations of