“He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me” (Pope Urban II, 1095). Are these the words the spark that fueled a wave of destruction and unjustly persecuted Islam? Most historians consider the sermon preached by Pope Urban II at Clermont-Ferrand in November 1905 to have begun the wave of military campaigns to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control. Known as the Crusades, these campaigns, considered to be divinely sanctioned in the Christian view, were led by the desire for Christian access to the shrines associated with Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior of the Christian Faith.
Out of the eight to nine crusades, only the first truly fulfilled the purpose that Pope Urban II wished to fulfill. While, there were positive effects of the Crusades – such as the opening of the Mediterranean to commerce and travel and the improved collective identity of the Latin Church under the papacy, – there were also negative effects. Thousands slaughtered, pillaged, razed, and raped the Muslim and Jewish communities under the Cross of Christ.
Though such moral stains are present, the Crusades were not the unjustifiable attack and persecution of Muslims and an attempt to take their lands. The purpose of this essay is to counter the negative myths that Christianity led unprovoked aggression against a peaceful Islam World, that the Crusades were colonialism of Christianity, and that the Muslims have a good reason to the hate the West today because of the Crusades. The general portrayal of the Crusades as unprovoked aggression against a peaceful and sophisticated world is a misconception; a myth.
Far from being unprovoked, then, the crusades were actually the first great western Christian counterattack against Muslim attacks which had taken place continually from the inception of Islam until the eleventh century, and which continued on thereafter. Today scholars are still trying to work out the full truth and influences behind the Crusades, but the Christians at the time were not on a campaign of intolerance and malice. There was a real threat from Islam. The Crusades were not only a way to free up the Holy Land for pilgrims, but it was a direct response to Muslim aggression.
The Christian World at the time was enjoying a relatively successful position as the dominant religion of power and wealth in the Roman Empire, as well as expansion into the Mediterranean and the Middle East. This made Christianity a prime target for leaders of Islam. After Mohammed’s death, major Christian thresholds fell to the warriors of Islam as they stuck out against Christianity. Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Christian North Africa, Spain, and Asia Minor (Modern Turkey) fell one by one. Two-thirds of the old Christian World was captured. The Emperor in Constantinople called out to the Byzantine Empire and the Papacy.
Their response was the First Crusade in 1095 AD. Their outright goals were to free up the Holy Land and to possibly unite the Church after the Great Schism in 1054 AD, the answering of this plea was a defense of the Christian faith and culture. Thousands answered the call of Pope Urban Il in his sermon in 1095 AD. Unfortunately, not all the thousands had only piety, self-sacrifice, and love for God as their central virtues and took to darker designs. Enter the rape, the razing of villages, the massacres, and all else the Church shoulders as the negative consequences of the Crusades.
Horrors of Wartime, but horrors that are no less cruel (that’s goes for both sides of the war; the Christians were not the only ones razing and raging). Another misconception of the Crusades was that they were nothing more than colonialism of the Christians, who were again disturbing the peaceful Muslim world. A goal of the Crusades was to truly liberate Jerusalem and other shrines connected to Jesus Christ and the crusaders did believe themselves to be pilgrims, spreading the Word of God to the Islam (or in the sight of the Pope).
But regaining Jerusalem was not colonialism, but an act of restoration (though a lot of things were being destroyed on both sides). Even as the Christians expanded their claim into the Holy Land, miraculously, they, in most cases, allowed the Muslims in the area to retain their faith, their property, and their livelihood; though there were some tragic mess-ups. On a side note, in the 13th centuries, certain Christian groups (the Franciscans) did try to convert the Muslims of the area taken, but this was 200 plus years after the First Crusade and were peaceful.
The land taken was merely an outpost for Christians to visit safely for pilgrimages, not a conquered land or people. Even the idea of Christianity trying to colonize Islam at the time is impractical. The Islam world was more developed compared to the Christian world. The leaders of Islam developed larger, more intricate systems of communication, mathematics (ex. Algebra for engineering and decimal numbers for better accounting, commerce, and trade), and sciences to rule their larger land masses with larger populations compared to the Christians.
Much on this learning was built off the knowledge already recorded and procured in Alexandria after it fell to the Islam world; allowing for the almost world-wide center of learning to be a powerhouse of the Muslim faith. The Christian world was also in a disarray due to internal and external struggles over the past few centuries. The Christian side was particularly fractious – the Great Schism of 1054 had split the Church into Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and both sides were trying to get the advantage over the other some forty years later when the Crusading Era began.
This superiority of the Muslim world should have been apparent to the leaders of the Western World at the time and should have be accounted for. To any leader, such odds would have been a turn-off, if not for the need to regain a must (in this case, the Holy Land) and any further expansion (colonialism) just wouldn’t have been the best choice as a defense strategy against the more sophisticated Muslim world at the time. Though the Crusades were a defensive tactic against Muslims that negatively affected the populace, it did not teach Islam to hate Christianity.
Hostilities were present from the Inception of Islam, it was the West that taught Muslims to hate the Crusades. Before World War I, the general Muslim opinion on the Crusades was represented by the statement, “But, pardon me, which one of us won the crusades? ” by Faisal I of Iraq to the French Stephen Pichon at territorial negotiations during World War I. They did not see selves as the victims of Christian persecution, but as equals fighting a war.
Even in accounts of the Crusades, the campaigns were not titled separately as ‘crusades’ – they were not distinguished from other previous conflicts. At that time, the Muslims did not even pay much attention to the Crusades (at first). Instead, they focused on internal struggles rather than the attacks of Christianity’s puny militia. Though the loss of Jerusalem was a bit unsettling, the Muslim opposition to the Crusades were more of a tactic to unite the Muslim world behind the present aspiring rulers thanks to the internal power struggles.
Certain Muslim parties were even glad when the Crusades became problems of their opposition within the Muslim (a large part of this being part of the Sunni vs. Shia struggle). The change in reputation for the Crusades occurred in the 1800s to 1900s, when two main Western schools of thought surfaced about the Crusades. One school saw the crusades as the barbaric aggression by crude and greedy Christians against a peaceful Muslim world (supported by Voltaire, Gibbon) and the other romanticized the Crusades with the chivalry of knights that drove back Islam in the name of Christ (supported by Michaud).
Along with the nationalism that spreading through the Muslim world, the thoughts of the first school (crusades = Christianity’s evil) were spreading rapidly to unify Islam against Christianity yet again. Even Bin Laden used this school’s ideas on the Crusades against the Western World; deeming that the once prosperous and peaceful Muslim world was destroyed the Christian Crusaders. Odd that this unifying idea for the Muslim world was introduced by the western world. Overall, the alternative fact of the Muslims being unjustifiably attacked and persecuted by the Christians of Europe is untrue.
The misconceptions of that Christianity led unprovoked aggression against a peaceful Islam World, that the Crusades were colonialism of Christianity, and that the Muslims have a good reason to the hate the West because of the Crusades are just pawns used against Christianity and their morality. Horrible actions were taken by the crusaders, but not on behalf of the Church nor under the Cross of Christ. The Crusades contrasted the mission of Christ and his first followers, but were not unjustifiable nor the specific persecution of Islam..
