God of Battles: Holy Wars of Christianity and Islam

by PeterPartner (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  1998

  $69.16

  What makes a war 'holy', and who decides that it is? This title examines the origins of holy war, and how it affects the modern world. It shows how the ideal of the crusade, 'God's War', came to permeate medieval Christendom, and how it influenced later Western societies, especially in their attitudes to colonialism.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1997

  $5.77

  An examination of the ways in which the concept of holy war - the jihad of the East and the crusade of the West - came to acquire the symbolic power it has, and how this still affects the modern world. It shows how the ideals of the crusade permeated Western attitudes, traditions and beliefs, and how this influence still persists today. It discusses the modernity or otherwise of today's Islamic fundamentalist movements and the meaning they give to the concept of jihad. It argues that Christianity has never been a pacifist religion and that the institution of the crusade was central to the policies, prestige and world view of the papacy and many European states. It reveals how present-day Islamic reformers have actually borrowed from the vocabulary of fundamentalism from Western sources, while maintaining their faithfulness to their own traditions and discusses the ways in which they have interpreted the idea of holy war. Above all, it investigates the reasons behind the fear which Islamic fundamentalism excites in the West and warns against allowing views that ultimately derive from 11th-century propoganda to infuence us today.