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CNN Live At Daybreak
History Repeats: Islam and The West Have Met Many Times Before
Aired October 31, 2001 - 06:19 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Taliban have called the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism a crusade against Islam.
CNN's Garrick Utley now asks the question: Is history simply repeating itself?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Act one our story begins in the sands of Arabia, where a new faith arises. Mohammed is its messenger, and in the oasis town of Medina, Islam is born, the first mosque is built, the year is 622.
Within 100 years, the armies of Islam conquer the Middle East, sweep across North Africa and then push into Spain.
(on camera): Act two: Europeans are still living in the Dark Ages. Muslims are the leaders in science and learning, as well as military prowess. Christians are worried. The Pope calls for a Holy War.
(voice-over): The year is 1095, and Pope Urban II promises forgiveness of all sins for those who take back the Holy Land from Islam. The knights and their armies set off on their first crusade. The storm Jerusalem in bloody fighting, Muslims are slaughtered, Jews are driven from the city. The Muslim Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqse Mosque are turned into Christian sites.
(on camera): Act three: The tide turns once again. A Muslim army advances out of Egypt and retakes Jerusalem. The forces of Islam are on the march.
(voice-over): Turkish Muslims march north though the Balkans. In 1389, they defeat the Christian Serbs on a battlefield in a place known as Kosovo. The armies of Islam move on, capturing Belgrade, Hungary and advance to the gates of Vienna, and remain there until 1683.
(on camera): Act four: The fortunes of war and the balance of power shift once more. Now Europe advances and Islam retreats.
(voice-over): As told in "Lawrence of Arabia," World War I brought the downfall of the last great Muslim empire, the Ottoman Empire of the Turks. The European powers colluded to dominate the Arab world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) "Lawrence of Arabia"
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Sykes is an English civil servant. Mr. Pekoe is a French civil servant. Mr. Sykes and Mr. Pekoe met, and they agreed that after the war, France and England would share the Turkish Empire with Saudi Arabia. They signed an agreement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UTLEY: And then the West picked Arab leaders and put them on thrones. Later, the creation of a state of Israel was seen in Arab eyes as another western-backed invasion, and there was the added humiliation of the loss of the old city of Jerusalem, again, this time to Israel in 1967.
Was history repeating itself, or simply continuing the most enduring of conflicts between Western influence and power and the might of Islamic belief?
If the faces have changed, the fundamental and fundamentalist forces behind the conflict, over more than 1,300 years, have not, only the weapons have.
Garrick Utley, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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