Quote:More people died in the one day of the WTC attacks, than the entirety of the Spanish Inquisition.
I think it'd be more reasonable to compare the WTC attacks with the crusades, not with the inquisition.
Let's do some comparisons shall we?
The Crusades began in the late 11th. century. On the way to the first Crusade, before even leaving Germany, German crusaders killed 2-3 times as many Jews as people were killed in WTC.
How many people in the WTC were eaten by those big bad nasty evil Muslims? Answer: None. Crusaders however, after besieging the town of Ma'arra and slaughtering about 20,000 odd civilians (what's that?? about 6 or 7 WTC's??) went on to eat the bodies of the dead. Some chroniclers reported out of hunger, others reported out of a desire to strike fear and terror into the hearts of the 'saracens'.
In 1098, the city of Antakya was taken by the Crusaders, over 100,000 Muslims perished. That's about 30 odd WTC's??
After arriving in al-Quds the Crusaders slaughtered over 70,000 Muslims, and on top of that all the Jews and most of their fellow Christians of the city. There's a good 25 WTC's for you.
Richard the Mouseheart, whom you seem to admire and respect massacred over 3,000 Muslim POW's, there's another WTC for you.
Now let's look at the 'internal' crusades, ie. Christians crusading against their fellow Christians...
The Albigensian Crusade resulted in the deaths of up to 1,000,000 Christians by many accounts. In one city alone, Beziers, up to 100,000 Cathars were massacred by their fellow Christians. So about 30 WTC's in just one city. And all up about 300 WTC's for that entire Crusade... not bad for an internal crusade I must say.
Btw, the Albigensian Crusade was the precursor to the Inquisition, the Crusade against the Cathars ended by forming the Inquisition, so you could pretty much count those 1,000,000 Cathars murdered in the initial 'military' aspect of the Inquisition (ie. the Albigensian Crusade) as being part of the Inquisition. Also some historians cite figures as high as 300,000 just for the Inquisition, the Catholic Church though does claim only 2000.
And the Protestants weren't much better. The witchhunts were the Protestant equivalent of the Internal Crusades/Inquisitions, in which some historians report up to 500,000 people were burned alive after being accused of witchery. In Europe as a total, some historians report up to 10,000,000. So all up close to about 3,000 WTC's.
After taking al-Andalus from the Muslims, the Christians bringing their englightened civilised ways to the Iberian peninsula set about causing a few 'WTCs' worth of damage to the Jews, Muslims and non-Catholic Christians. In Lisbon for instance in 1506, 3,000 Jews massacred, nice little WTC right there.
The list goes on and on, and the few isolated and desperate revenge attacks of a few scattered Muslims here and there cannot even hope to be compared to the massive scale of death and wanton destruction that Christians have caused all throughout their history. If anyone deserves your sarcastic "religion of peace" label it is Christianity. The religion that claims "turn the other cheek" but which in reality has killed millions upon millions of people down through the ages, and forced millions more to convert at the threat of death. Yet all we hear about is the last 5 minutes of the story,, of a few Muslims, who after years of colonialism, oppression, pillaging of their land and resources, constant and enduring political interference in their countries, finally say "enough is enough" and begin resisting, and you instantly claim it's the most evil brutal ideology on earth. Please put it into context, look at the history, and look at the quite obvious motives involved here.
Nothing can justify the deaths of innocent civilians, and Islam most certainly doesn't, it is striclty HARAAM (forbidden), but in reality, when you look at how many Muslim civilians the Christian world has killed, from the Crusades till now, the meagre Islamic response is really nothing. Neither side really has justification for doing it, but if anyone is really in need of justification, it would have to be the Christian West, since they've been the most brutal killers of Muslims civilians for close to a millenium now.