Muslim Response to the Crusades

9 Key excerpts on "Muslim Response to the Crusades"

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  Muslims and Crusaders

  Christianity’s Wars in the Middle East, 1095–1382, from the Islamic Sources

  • Niall Christie(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  mujahid par excellence, while Baybars became the hero of a hugely popular folk epic. Notably absent was Saladin, who was regarded by modern scholars as having been forgotten in the Middle East until he was re-introduced into the Muslim world as a result of the renown that he had achieved in the West, especially in the eyes of politicians such as Kaiser Wilhelm II (r. 1888–1918), who visited the sultan’s tomb in 1898 and publicly described how famous the sultan was in Europe (Hillenbrand, 1999a: 592–94). However, in an important article, Diana Abouali has recently demonstrated that this narrative is seriously mistaken, and both the crusades and Saladin continued to have a significant presence in the consciousness of Muslims of the Levant for centuries after the Franks had been expelled from the region. This did not, however, mean that the Muslims felt insecure and that they needed to be constantly prepared for another attack from Europe, but the events remained part of their collective historical memory, and figures like Saladin became seen as models of ideal behaviour for others to follow (Abouali, 2011: 179–85). Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the region carried on with their lives, with their rulers continuing to pursue their military and political conflicts, their merchants continuing to engage in their commercial endeavours, their scholars continuing to expand and pass on their knowledge, and their peasants continuing to till their fields.

  The impact of the crusades on the modern-day Muslim consciousness

  On 16 September 2001, the U.S. president, George W. Bush, declared, as he promised to pursue the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks of 11 September, ‘This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while’ (Bush, 2001). Both Muslims and scholars of the Muslim world were aghast, for his choice of wording showed an utter lack of sensitivity and cultural awareness. The word ‘crusade’, used so often in English simply to refer to a sustained effort to achieve something, has long been associated in the Muslim historical memory with European colonialism, interference in the Muslim world, and violent military action by Christians against Muslims, so in using the term, Bush raised a spectre of Christian-Muslim hostility that most had hoped to have left in the past (Esposito, 2003: 74–75). In response to the outcry that followed, Bush apologized for his remark, but the damage was done, and he had by then played directly into the hands of his enemies, as we shall see.

  As Carole Hillenbrand has noted, the Arabic equivalent of the term ‘crusade’, al-hurub al-salibiyya (the cross wars), began to be used to refer to the crusading period in Muslim political discourse and historical writing in the 19th century. The Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909) repeatedly described European colonial efforts in the Middle East as a ‘crusade’, and his use of this concept was widely taken up and circulated in the pan-Islamic press of the region. The Egyptian historian Sayyid ‘Ali al-Hariri, in his pioneering Arabic history of the crusades, al-Akhbar al-Saniyya fi’l-Hurub al-Salibiyya

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  Owning Disaster

  Coping with Catastrophe in Abrahamic Narrative Traditions

  • Aaron M. Hagler(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  This is not the case for the Crusades. In Hillenbrand's words, “No aspect of Mediterranean history has been studied more thoroughly than the Crusades, and given their Western origins, it is natural that they should have generated so much scholarship in the West. Yet on the Muslim side too, although medieval writers did not view them as being so momentous—coupling them jointly with the Mongol scourge as hated interventions into the Islamic world by infidel outsiders from outside—there is still much to be said.” 3 The complexity of the period must be borne in mind: Muslim reactions to the Crusades were not monolithic. In truth, the ancient responses to the community-threatening calamities we have already discussed were probably not as monolithic even as they seem to us now, but again, we are limited in our perspectives by the scope and number of surviving sources. The chronology of the Crusades merits only a brief discussion, seeing as how they are amply treated by any number of excellent monographs. 4 The following excerpt is from Carole Hillenbrand's incomparable compendium, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. It succinctly provides us with the necessary chronology: A century [after the Prophet's death] the Muslims had crossed the Pyrenees and conquered lands extending from northern India to southern France. For the next two hundred years, the balance of power between Europe and the Islamic world remained decisively in the hands of the Muslims, who enjoyed massive economic growth and whose culture flowered in spectacular fashion

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  Islam

  The Religious and Political Life of a World Community

  • Gustave E. Von Grunebaum(Author)
  • 1984(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  For these, the premodern dynamics of Islamic society remained strong, providing a clearly Islamic basis for later movements of purification and renewal. 157 158 . Muslim Responses to Colonialism Militants and "old-fashioned" revivalists have provided a major basis for Islamic continuity and dynamism in both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. In earlier periods such groups were a significant part of the Islamic experience. They were not movements reacting primarily to Western expansion, at least in their origins. It is important to recognize that the "Muslim response to the West" has been part of a broader network of forces at work within Islamic societies in the modern era. Muslims responded to the changing global role of the West in a variety of ways. In the established states the governmental response was more influenced by the needs of military, economic, and ad- ministrative organization than by specifically Islamic factors. The reforms of leaders such as Muhammad Ali in Egypt, Mahmud II in Istanbul, and Ahmad Bey in Tunisia are good examples of this type of response. More explicitly Islamic themes can be seen in the ex- periences of revivalist Islam and in the development of intellectual responses. These two areas are the two basic types of responses that need to be examined here. THE REVIVALIST RESPONSE The basic and natural response of Muslim peoples to Euro- pean military and political expansion was to fight. Throughout the world of Islam in the nineteenth century there were many wars in which Muslims fought. Many of these have been called "holy wars" because they were explicitly waged by Muslims against unbelievers. One significant feature of many of these militant efforts is that few of the "holy wars" actually began as anti-European movements and even fewer were explicitly "anti-Western" in their approach.

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  Encountering Islam on the First Crusade

  • Nicholas Morton(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  More detailed regional studies would be desirable going forwards and doubtlessly will add a greater level of detail, but this present chapter seeks to assess the widely-referenced but rarely-explained notion that the crusade provoked or dilated within Christendom a sense of antagonism towards the Islamic world. 5 It will begin by examining this relationship from a purely military perspective, enquiring whether the period from c. 1050 to 1150 saw an escalation in conflict between these two civilizations. It will then apply quantitative techniques to a range of sources to evaluate whether there is a discernible shift in Christendom’s interest in the Islamic world in the wake of the First Crusade. The Military Situation, 1050–1150 By the mid-eleventh century, Christendom had three major zones of mili- tary interaction with Islamic societies: western Mediterranean (Iberia and the western isles of the Mediterranean), the central Mediterranean (Italy, Southern France, Sicily, and North Africa), and the eastern Mediter- ranean (Anatolia, Egypt, and the Holy Land). The overall trajectory of Christian/Islamic military confrontations during the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries will now be assessed. Western Mediterranean (sustained warfare): The first of these zones remained the scene of intense fighting as the Reconquista gathered pace during this period. The advent of the Almoravids and subsequently the Almohads likewise ensured that Iberia remained a major theatre of war throughout the twelfth century. Naturally there were times of treaty, 4 Pope Urban II, ‘Epistolae et Privilegia’, col. 504. 5 Crawford explains this notion and discusses some of its proponents. He too does not find this thesis convincing and in the article here-cited he also offers counter-arguments: Crawford, ‘The First Crusade: unprovoked offense of overdue defense’, pp. 1–4.

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  Medieval Imaginaries in Tourism, Heritage and the Media

  • Jennifer Frost, Warwick Frost(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Such dual representations are particularly apparent in films, in instances as diverse as The Crusades (1935), King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), El Cid (1961) and Kingdom of Heaven (2005), with much attention devoted to portraying the twelfth-century Sultan Saladin as highly chivalrous. We also examine the representation of Westerners as the savage Other, through consideration of the invading Teutonic Knights in Alexander Nevsky (1938) and the Scottish experience of English invasion in Braveheart (1995). The final part of this chapter focuses on heritage tourism related to medieval Muslim–European interactions in two cities: Córdoba, and Palermo in Sicily. The Crusades The Crusades (1095–1221) refer to a series of military campaigns by various combinations of Western European armies to reconquer and establish Christian states in the Holy Land. Their genesis came from a call for help by the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I, who was seeking assistance to fight off Muslim expansion in Anatolia. The emperor was probably hoping to recruit a few bands of knights who would enter his service. Instead, his call was taken up by Pope Urban II, who urged Western princes to cease their infighting and redirect their military resources towards taking Jerusalem. The resultant multinational First Crusade succeeded in this goal in 1099, establishing a series of crusader states in the Middle East. Increasing pressure from Muslim forces led to a Second Crusade (1146–1148). A massive defeat of the crusader army by Saladin at Hattin (1187) led to the Third Crusade (1187–1197) which temporarily regained most of the lost ground. This was the crusaders’ last major success. The Fourth Crusade (1198–1204) was subverted into an attack on the Byzantines and led to the sack of Constantinople. The Fifth Crusade (1217–1221) was directed at Egypt without success. The crusader states held on along the coast, but 1291 saw the fall of their last stronghold in Acre

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  The Crusades

  Islamic Perspectives

  • Carole Hillenbrand(Author)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • Edinburgh University Press

    (Publisher)

  It must be remembered that most Islamic chroniclers were by training religious scholars or administrators, not military strategists; they talk about what interests them and they see history through the prism of faith. For them, history is the unfolding of God’s will for the world and the inevitable victory of Islam. THE CRUSADES: ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVES 32 The General State of the Islamic World on the Eve of the First Crusade It is a familiar tenet of Crusader history that the warriors of the First Crusade succeeded because of Muslim disunity and weakness. Had the First Crusade arrived even ten years earlier, it would have met strong, unified resistance from the state then ruled by Malikshah, the last of the three so-called Great Seljuq sultans. His western domains included Iraq, Syria and Palestine. Yet previous scholarly discussions of the overall Muslim position in 488/1095 have not gone far enough in emphasising to what extent the Islamic world was bereft of unity and catastrophically weakened both by a complete lack of powerful leadership and by religious schism. The Devastating Events of the Years 485–487/1092–1094 In the space of less than two years, beginning in 485/1092 , there was a clean sweep of all the major political leaders of the Islamic world from Egypt eastwards. In 485/1092 the greatest figure of Seljuq his-tory, the vizier Nizam al-Mulk, the de facto ruler of the Seljuq empire for over thirty years, was murdered. A month later, Malikshah, the third Seljuq sultan, died in suspicious circumstances, after a successful twenty-year reign, followed closely by his wife, grandson and other powerful political figures. The Muslim sources view the year 487/1094 as even more doom-laden, for in this year yet another era was brought to an end with the death of the Fatimid caliph of Egypt, al-Mustansir, the arch-enemy of the Seljuqs, who had ruled for fifty-eight years.

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  The Routledge Companion to the Crusades

  • Peter Lock(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  272 At first the Franks were just one more pawn in an already overcrowded political chessboard, and were not distinguished from the Byzantines. It was the length and the religious nature of their occupation that gradually provoked an Islamic reaction. In terms of significance to Islam they pale into insignificance besides the Mongols; one has only to contrast the relative ease with which the former crusader states were absorbed in the thirteenth century with the cultural and artistic contributions of the Mongol khanate. In the literature of the West the crusade literature is a genre of its own. In the literatures of Egypt and Iraq they received relatively little attention, and that usually compiled in the thirteenth century. In the literature of Iran they are scarcely mentioned at all.

  Bad behaviour seemed to know no religious bounds. The rulers and warriors of Islam were no less vicious or ruthless than their crusading counterparts. As successful rulers they could be no other. They sought to be feared rather than loved in the pursuit of their political purposes, and it should come as no surprise that jihad was not at the forefront of their thoughts. Zengi spent his time in attacking his Muslim neighbours rather than the crusader states, with which he sought to remain on good terms. It is only with his attack on Edessa that later writers saw him as the founder of the counter-crusade. As many examples of violence may be plucked from the annals of Islam as from those of the West. Dynastic coups, as in 661 and 750, were accompanied by extreme violence in an attempt to wipe out the opposition. Louis IX and his fellow captives were appalled by the bloodshed that accompanied seizure of power by the Mamelukes at Damietta in 1250. The course of the slave revolt by East African slaves in the saltpetre mines of the Basra region (869–73), known as the Zanj rebellion, showed no mercy to captives and non-combatants and was suppressed as harshly as in any other slave-owning society. Violence, too, was exercised as much against Shi'ite enclaves as against infidels. Both Zengi and Nur ed-Din had a reputation for ruthlessness and violence. If they were not loved they were certainly feared and respected. Many are the folk tales of loyal servants carrying out Zengi's orders to the letter, even if it meant waiting years holding a loaf of bread by a Euphrates ferry station for his return. Ibn Athir (1160–1233) eulogised Zengi for these very qualities.273 Saladin's first thought on attacking Jerusalem was to take it by force. It was only the prevalence of wiser counsels that pointed out that should he not offer terms the defenders of the city would fight to the end; thus a more conciliatory line was taken. Saladin's humanity and magnanimity on this occasion was almost immediately written up to demonstrate the superiority of Muslim over Christian conduct, with direct reference to the events of 1099.274 Control of troops after a hard-pressed siege was as much a problem for Muslim commanders as for Christians. Both Ibn al-Qalanisi's (1073–1160) account of the capture of Edessa on 23 December 1144 and the eyewitness account of Abu al-Fida (fl. 1300) of the sacking of Tripoli in April 1289 and the capture of Acre in June 1291 show the problem well.275 The victory parade of the Mameluke sultan al-Ashraf Salah-ad-Din Khalil (1290–4) in Acre in June 1291, celebrating the final removal of the Franks from Palestine, featured a display of scalps from dead Franks.276

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  Islam in Historical Perspective

  • Alexander Knysh(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In hindsight, it is easy for us to dismiss the Crusades as morally repugnant and intrinsically evil—a long act of intolerance and violence in the name of Christ. However, we should keep in mind that the infinitely more destructive and devastating wars in twentieth-century Europe were waged in the name of the political and social ideologies that the crusaders would probably have found pathetic, perhaps even ludicrous. Nor would the crusaders appreciate the pragmatic and ideological reasons behind the more recent military conflicts in the Muslim world instigated by the Western powers and their local allies. Should we, for a moment, step back and cast a dispassionate look at the wars waged in the name of either religion, the nation, or some broader geopolitical and economic objectives, we shall find out that, in any society, be it medieval or modern, people fight and sacrifice their lives for that which is most dear to them and that which, they believe, transcends their earthly existence. That is a fact of human nature that is not so changeable across time and space. One can put one’s trust in the idea of liberating the Holy Land of an “infidel enemy” and restoring it to Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. In choosing this course of action, one can present one’s actions as doing the will of God. Or one can set about spreading one’s own values and principles in the name of freedom and democracy because one holds them to have universal value and applicability. Unfortunately, as history teaches us, regardless of the justification, the end result is likely to be the same: war, mayhem, and human suffering.

  As we remember, in addition to the conquest of the Holy Land, the original aim of the crusaders was to help their fellow Christians of the Byzantine Empire as well as the Middle Eastern Christians who lived under Muslim rule. Ironically, after all the great sacrifices and bloodshed, this aim was not achieved. The sack of Constantinople by the marauding European knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 closed an iron door between the Catholic West and the Orthodox East. One can even argue that, as a result, the Byzantine Christians eventually preferred Ottoman Turkish rule to union with the Roman Papacy. The two churches parted ways and have not reconciled to this day. In the meantime, the lot of the Christian communities living under Muslim rule was not improved by the Crusades. In fact, it deteriorated drastically as they came to be seen by their Muslim overlords as the fifth column in the Abode of Islam, ever ready to join forces with the Frankish invaders. Persecutions and pogroms ensued, and various humiliating and onerous restrictions were imposed by Muslim rulers on their Christian subjects.

  The Founder of Islam and His Message in the Eyes of His Followers and Through the Christian Looking Glass

  After examining the political, military, and cultural aspects of the Muslim–Christian interaction during the premodern epoch, we should address their ramifications in modern times. The Prophet and his message, the Qur’an, being the fulcrum of Islamic faith, it is only natural that they have become a prominent theme of both Christian theological polemic and popular prejudice against Islam.

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  The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies

  • Clinton Bennett(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Later Crusades to the area had little success and the last of the crusader kingdoms was termi -nated in 1291. The Crusades had considerable effect on Westerners since the Crusaders encountered a society far more urbane and sophisticated than their own and figures such as Salah al-Din contributed something to the European ideal of chivalry. In terms of concrete borrowings, however, the Crusades provided less than what came from al-Andalus or directly from Byzantium. They made Europeans more aware of Islam but generated fantasies such as Muhammad as a sexually licentious epileptic, a magician eventually killed by pigs, and as “Mahound,” one of an idolatrous trinity, which continued for centuries in European belief and folklore. The Crusades had much less significance for the Muslims, apart from those in the immediate area. For the Muslim world as a whole they were just one more barbarian incursion, whose damage was relatively ephemeral and whose contribution was nil. The “Franks,” as they were known, were seen as strong and courageous but uncivilized, and among other things inclined to slaughter, Islam and the West 189 not keeping covenants and treating their women in far too open a manner. The term jihād was not even used at first for the fight against them though it came to be very much used before the end of the period. Those who suffered most from the Crusades were probably the eastern Christians. In 1203, in the Fourth Crusade, the Crusaders sacked Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire never fully recovered from this. The Crusades appear to have made the Muslims in the area less tolerant of the Christians living among them and this seems to have hastened the decline of these communities. While the impetus for Crusades to the Levant diminished, the crusading spirit burned brightly among the Christians of the Iberian peninsula.

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