The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

The Crusades were a series of Christian holy wars from the late 1000s to the 1300s that brought Europeans into conflict with the Muslim world. These Crusades largely occurred outside of Europe, but Crusading ideology was also directed internally, at heretical Christian populations and northern European pagans.

Pope Urban II called for the First Crusades in 1095 at the Council of Claremont in France and commissioned wandering preachers to spread the word. The First Crusade’s genesis is multifaceted. It was called in response to the Byzantine request for support against the Seljuk Turks; a desire to liberate the Holy Land from Muslim control; and a desire to permeate lay society with monastic values. The Church justified the violence that occurred by claiming it was not inherently evil to commit brutal acts if one’s intentions were selfless. Moreover, the Church offered indulgences (forgiveness for sins) for those who went on Crusade, guaranteeing their entrance into heaven should they perish.

Religious ideology was important to the Crusaders, as Maalouf’s Arab historians observed. The West framed the Crusades as the “Great Pilgrimage” since Jerusalem was the ultimate site of Christian pilgrimage, given its association with Christ’s life and death. The First Crusade was launched in three waves, with only the last, the Princes’ Crusade led by the French barons, having any real success. It concluded with Jerusalem’s bloody conquest in 1099. This Crusade established four Crusader States: The county of Tripoli, the county of Edessa, the principality of Antioch, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

This conquest encouraged the ideology of lesser jihād (military holy war) to grow and spread among diverse Muslim populations in the east, but, as Maalouf explains, it took years for unified resistance to form. Although Maalouf’s Arab historians speak of massive hordes of Crusaders at times, research indicates that less than 10% of the European population took up the cause. Moreover, crusading was not merely a land grab. It was a costly undertaking; as historian Jonathan Riley-Smith’s research indicates, of those who went on crusade, relatively few permanently relocated. Religious zeal and a desire to see the world may have been primary motivators for those who took the cross (i.e., pledged themselves to fight).

Westerners launched the Second Crusade (1147-1149) because of Zangi’s rise, coupled with Edessa’s fall, but the crusade ended in failure for the Europeans. Likewise, Saladin’s success in unifying Syria and Egypt spawned the Third Crusade (1189-1192) led by European kings, like Phillip II Augustus of France and Richard I the Lionhearted of England. This crusade concluded with Muslims agreeing to protections for Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem, which remined in Muslim hands. Later crusades largely failed to achieve their goals. The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204), for example, went nowhere near the Holy Land and concluded with crusaders sacking the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and even creating a short-lived Latin Empire in the east.

The Church also called for internal crusading. For example, in the 1200s, the Church and French crown launched a Crusade against the Albigensian, or Cathar, Christian heretics located in the south of France. The French monarchy was happy to participate in this endeavor, since a successful crusade would bring southern France firmly under its authority. This Crusade largely wiped out these non-orthodox sects. Crusading ideology was also applied during the Portuguese and Spanish Reconquista, as significant parts of the Iberian Peninsula were still under Muslim dominion at this time. Indeed, the papacy told Reconquista knights not to go on the Second Crusade because their efforts were needed at home. The Reconquista knights donned the cross and received indulgences, just as Crusaders to the Holy Land did.