09.09.07
History of Islam - Plenary Indulgences
Not an Islamic tenet, a Christian one. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines plenary indulgences as:
By a plenary indulgence is meant the remission of the entire temporal punishment due to sin so that no further expiation is required in Purgatory.
This comes up in Islam: An Illustrated History by GSP Freeman-Grenville & Stuart C. Munro-Hay in the section on “Latin Kingdoms and Muslims.” In November, 1095, Pope Urban II made a call for the Crusade to retake Jerusalem from the “infidels” aka the Muslims. Part of his recruitment plan was to offer the lands each knight took from a Muslim to keep as his own, and plenary indulgences for his participation in the Crusades. (p.84)
The phrase “plenary indulgence” leapt out at me because I had just watched, for the sixth or seventh time, Kevin Smith’s very funny movie, Dogma, about two angels banned from heaven who find a loophole, in the form of a plenary indulgence, that will allow them to return to heaven.