Oren Cousins, Contributor
This is part two of a four-part series titled "The Irony of Holiness." Part three will be published next week.
THE peoples of the Byzantine empire called themselves Romans. During AD500, the Byzantine Empire ruled the Middle East. Constantine renamed the capital city Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire ended when the Turks captured Constantinople in 1463.
During the early seventh century AD, Jerusalem changed hands three times. First, it was captured by the Persians, next by the Byzantines, then by the Muslims. In 1099, a military-religious expedition of Crusaders (The First Crusade), defeated the Muslims and set up the Kingdom of Jerusalem. About this time, Palestine came to be called The Holy Land. The Muslims retook the city in 1187.
Persia was a territory that included parts of what are now Iran and Afghanistan, Under Cyrus the Great, Darius II, Xerxes and other kings, it became the home of a great civilisation. Early Persians were nomads who came from what is now southern Russia, about 900BC. The Persian empire lasted for 200 years. Persia was overthrown by the Arabs in AD642. Cyrus, the King of Persia, conquered Babylon in 539BC, and restored the Jews to Palestine. The Persians ruled the Middle East from 539BC to 331BC. The Persian Empire ended in 331BC when Alexander the Great defeated the Persian army at Arabela.
Muslim Arabs, during the sixth century AD, conquered the Middle East including Palestine, and most of the inhabitants converted to Islam. In AD1000, the Turks over-ran Palestine. Their rule lasted 30 years. Christian Crusaders, as mentioned before, set out from Europe in 1096, to regain 'The Holy Land' from the 'infidels', and Jerusalem was recovered. The Crusaders held the 'holy city' of Jerusalem until 1187 when the Muslims under the leadership of Saladin repossessed it. Saladin (1136-1193), was the greatest of the Muslims in the 12th century. His capture of Jerusalem caused another Christian European effort known as the Third Crusade to save the 'Holy Land'. When Saladin agreed to a truce with Richard III, King of England, he gave the Palestinian coast to the Christians and kept the interior. He, however, permitted Christians free access to Jerusalem.
Islam is the religion founded by the prophet Mohammad in AD600. Believers of Islam are called Muslims. Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are places sacred to Islam. Islam spread rapidly throughout the Middle East and practically engulfed the Byzantium Christian Empire. Islam established a splendid civilisation in Iraq, Egypt, Persia (now Iran), Palestine, Syria, North Africa and Spain. Jerusalem became the holy city of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Christians considered the city of Jerusalem holy because Christ, the founder of their religion was tried and executed there. Muslims also regard the city as holy because they claim that Mahomet the Prophet ascended to heaven from there. Currently, about 75 per cent of the inhabitants of West Jerusalem are Jews. East Jerusalem is about twice the size of West Jerusalem and about 80 per cent are Arabs.
Christianity was founded in Palestine and grew after the crucifixion of Christ. Today, it is the largest religion in the world, embracing one and a quarter billion or 25 per cent of the world's population. Various Roman emperors persecuted Christians, but in AD 392, Christianity, as mentioned earlier, became the official religion of the Rome Byzantine. By 1453, Rome became the centre of the Western Church and Constantinople the centre of the Eastern Church. The Middle Ages began after the fall of Constantinople and lasted a thousand years. During the Middle Ages, Christian armies fought to free the 'holy land' from the Turks.
Holiness, ironically, fails to protect The Holy Land from continued violence perpetrated by her own mundane forces. In 1517, Palestine became a part of the Ottoman Empire. Beginning about 1800, oppression of Jews in Europe set off a mass migration of Jewish refugees into Palestine. By 1880, there were 24,000 refugees. The Jews founded a movement called Zionism, which sought to make Palestine an independent Jewish nation. At the same time, the Arab population had grown rapidly. By 1914, there were 615,000 Arabs and 5,000 Jews. The population of Palestine has since grown into over nine million.
Continues next week
Oren Cousins, a retired principal, is an author
