Mongols on Trial

I personally enjoyed the trial. It was fun seeing everyone put on the roles they picked. If we did another one I think I'd pick to be a direct examiner though, because being cross-examined was terrifying. The prep was pretty easy, especially because of the variety of sources we could use. But when it came to the actual trial, I found that a lot harder. You had to think quickly and remind yourself that no matter what you personally felt, you had to make the Mongols sound a certain way. That was tough for me, because I would have easily voted them guilty, but I was a part of the defense. I think I did better with my questioning with Melissa than the cross examination. I wish I hadn't faltered under Futaba so much, but can you blame me? I knew my information but being put on the spot is not my strong suit.

I think that a person can be ambitious, successful, and prosperous while also being a terrible person. That's kind of what I think of the Mongols. They had incredible achievements and expansion, but I don't like the way they went about gaining that. I personally don't like humanity's need to conquer conquer conquer. It's nice to expand and rule, but it's impossible to do without tons of bloodshed. And I think people have always been, and always will be, too greedy and violent to break these habits. It's depressing, but I don't see many other options when I look at how we act today. But back to the Mongols, I think we can admire them for their accomplishments and military strength while also acknowledging that they were ruthless killers. As were most people we learn about in history. Humans are just violent, unfortunately. We're selfish and greedy and ignorant. But that's besides the point.

I would have definitely found them guilty of terrorism and kidnapping. It's pretty clearly written in history that they stole people from opponents all the time, and they instilled fear through this and by demolishing cities. There's no way they didn't know the effect they would have on other societies by destroying everything in their path. They were far too clever for that. As for genocide, I'm not sure. I'd probably not charge them with that, only because I don't think they killed anyone because of their race, religion, etc. They just wanted to rule everybody, I don't think they cared which specific groups they were ruling. Equal opportunities for all the conquered, wooo!

Genghis Khan - insane or genius?

Genghis Khan was known for being one of the most ruthless leaders the world has ever seen. But was he crazy? I think that depends on your definition. I think he was extremely power hungry and driven - all of his attacks were thoughtfully planned out ahead of time. There was always a reason, a purpose, a strategy. He wasn't just randomly killing of people - you know, except for his half brother that took his fish. He carefully planned out all of his attacks so that they would benefit him - often scaring other potential targets into surrendering. He could just as easily have slaughtered them, but it was more logical to let them give up peacefully. He was also said to save women and children from the attacks. I know, "but killing men is just as bad!" The world he was brought up in was brutal, though. Survival was vital and could only be achieved through personal strength and determination. Genghis Khan was raised and taught that in order to survive and thrive, seizing power was necessary. And killing was necessary to seize power. Do I think killing a family member over a fish is normal? No. In fact, I personally believe that there's something abnormal going on in a person's brain who can willingly and relentlessly murder people. But that's just my opinion - Genghis Khan could have very well been completely healthy. He certainly was intellectually.

Links

Hashtag: https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23APworldSillyCrusades
My profile: https://twitter.com/#!/Quran_4evah
Heena's profile: https://twitter.com/#!/Allah_luvs_me

Wrapping it up

I really liked the outcome of this project, because I think our idea of having the two Muslims talk back and forth was really unique. Some of the tweets sounded a little forced, and I think some were awkward simply because people don't casually tweet what year it is. But besides that, this was a ton of fun! Heena and I both followed some other Islam-related twitters, Heena gained a random follow (who I'm sure was confused), and I accidentally followed a ton of Muslim twitters on my personal account the first time around. We got to poke fun at each other and think outside the box with our research, which I really enjoyed. I would love to do something like this again the future. Muhammad the Quran lover will always have a place in my heart.

Bibliographies are boring

But unfortunately, they're necessary. Here's mine:


 "Crusades." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades>.

 Rickard, J. (24 March 2001), Sixth Crusade, 1228-1229, http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_crusade6th.html

 "Sixth Crusade." Packrat Productions. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://www.packrat-pro.com/crusades/crusade6.htm>.

 Bentley, Jerry H., and Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past: Volume A: From the Beginning to 1000. Boston: McGraw Hill, C2011., 2006. Print.

Bing continues to disappoint me

I rarely use Bing, because it tends to lead me around in circles and it likes to autocorrect everything I type in. Which explains why I was having difficulty finding articles on the "piece crusades". Hmm. Well, Bing was decent for this project, but the best page it could provide me with was Wikipedia. Not everything seemed reliable, and often the articles would simply mention "peace" or "Crusade" or "Is Islam a friendly religion?" and not actually be talking about the crusades. Google was slightly better, but I was surprised by the lack of quality articles I found using it. I love Google. But apparently it's not the best for history projects. Yahoo, shockingly to me anyways, provided some nice articles that I used during my research. There wasn't a lot of irrelevant stuff in the middle, which is nice and it saves time. Sweetsearch was the best, because it linked to lots of informative articles and didn't give me too much random stuff to sift through.

The only other reference we used was the textbook, which I put in the bibliography.

Tweet War

So Heena and I did make a series of tweets, which are almost completed now. Our hashtag is #APworldSillyCrusades , and looking back, it may have been wise to shorten it. Anyways. It goes back and forth between Heena's account, @Allah_Luvs_me, and mine - @Quran_4evah. Heena / Fatima is tweeting back and forth with me / Muhammad about the crusades, and what's going on, and how we see it happening. We included a picture of an accurate portrayal of how Muslims pray, and some of the text was written in Arabic (with English translations, of course). Now what's mostly left to do is organize our sources, make a bibliography, and link everything. It's the final stretch!

It Begins

Despite the fact that I had to cancel all my social plans due to rigorous Chemistry studying, Heena and I did start planning on what we're doing for the project. We're most likely going with the 1st crusade, the 4th crusade, and the peace crusade. Of course, we'll have an honorable mention of the children's crusade, our favorite. We're going to do a series of tweets, possibly including some pictures of ourselves (can you guess who will be playing the Muslim girl?). I've started some of the research, but not deep enough to post anything about search engines yet.

Eid

Eid is an Islamic holiday that is usually compared to Christmas. Muslims celebrate it at a slightly different date each year, depending on the position of the moon. They exchange gifts and spend time with family, similar to how Christians (and a lot of non-Christians today) celebrate Christmas. Islam was huge in the earlier eras, and its even bigger now.