Christians and Muslims: A Millenium of Evil Exchanges

I am a Christian that tries to avoid religiocentric and ethnocentric thinking. I was reading a wonderful old book and came across some information that appears to be wrong in Wikipedia and definitely never learned correctly by myself.

During the middle ages, a young cook was told his Christian master wanted fresh pork for dinner. Having none and knowing not where to find a pig; the cook, fearing he would lose his head, had a prisoner killed and fed the flesh to his master.

Praising the dinner, but mistrusting the taste, the master asked for the head of the pig to be brought to the table. The cook, sure of his fate, brought the head to the table. Surprisingly, the cook’s master laughed replying “We will not want for pork as long as we have sixty thousand prisoners.” The master was a man history would come to love as a defender of Christianity - a man with a heart of a lion. The man was King Richard. 

Only days later, the commander of the enemy army sent ambassadors beseeching his prisoners not be put to death. The ambassadors were beheaded and added to the banquet table decorations. After ransom talks had stalled the prisoners were executed just outside the east gate of the city. This massacre at Ayyadieh was done in front of the army and Sultan of Egypt - the Saracen named Saladin.


The hero of the Third Crusade executed 60,000 citizens of the city of Acre - men, women, and children.  Saladin was not without guilt having also executed prisoners one of the earliest exchanges of evil between Christianity and Islam.  Christians and Muslims have known that for nearly a thousand years the religious war to end all wars has been brewing.  Many Muslims belief they are called to convert or kill all infidels.


I hope Muslims will remember the massacre of Ayyadieh.  While they may want to convert or kill infidels, Christians may not actively engage in terrorism as a tool of our religion, but we do embrace fully the concept of war and wiping our enemies from the face of the planet.  Hopefully, we can have an accord someday.  Muslims will stop terror attacks and Christians will not be forced to destroy Islam.  All it will take is one dirty nuclear bomb being set off in a Christian city and the whole of Middle East will be reduced to a series of Christian ruled colonies.


Iran may think itself clever in getting help building nuclear reactors for power, but Israel, and the Christian world, will never allow it to develop nuclear weapons.  The west learned with North Korea, that once it happens, politics and power change too much.   Frankly, Israel cannot afford this mistake because Islam is hell bent on its destruction.