The Crusades vs. Jihad

Back in 1999 while our mission was being bombed by the National Islamic Front government in Sudan, fellow missionaries were organising "Reconciliation Walks" to the Middle East to apologise for "The Crusades". At the time, as our church services were under aerial and artillery bombardment by Jihadists, this seemed rather bizarre. Therefore I undertook a study of the Crusades and Jihad.

Anin Maalouf in "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" claims that the Crusaders conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 was "The starting point of a millennial hostility between Islam and the West." Islamic scholar John Esposito blames the Crusades for disrupting "Five centuries of peaceful coexistence." (Islam: The Straight Path OUP)

What Preceeded The Crusades?

However the Crusades only started after five centuries of Islamic Jihad had conquered and annihilated, or forcibly converted, over two thirds of what had formerly been the Christian world. Shortly after the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, in 638, Christian pilgrims were harassed, massacred, and early in the 8^th Century, 60 Christian pilgrims from Amoriem were crucified.

The Muslim governor of Caesarea seized a group of pilgrims from Iconium and had them all executed. Muslims extorted ransom money from Pilgrims, and threatened to ransack the most holy churches in Christendom such as the Church of the Resurrection - if they didn't pay exorbitant taxes. In the 8^th Century a Muslim ruler banned all displays of the Cross in Jerusalem. He also increased the penalty tax (Jizya) and forbad Christians to engage in any religious instruction, even of their own children! In 772, the Calipha al Mansur ordered the hands of all Christians and Jews in Jerusalem to be branded.

In 789, Muslims beheaded a monk in Bethlehem, plundering the monastery and slaughtering many more Christians. In 923, a new wave of destruction of churches was launched by the Muslim rulers. In 937, Muslims went on a rampage in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday plundering and destroying the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.

In 1004 the Fatimid Calipha Abu Ali al Mansur al Hakim unleashed a violent wave of church burning and destruction, confiscation of Christian property, and ferocious slaughter of both Christians and Jews. Over the next ten years, 30,000 churches were destroyed and vast numbers of Believers were forcibly converted or killed.

In 1009, Al-Hakim ordered that the most holy churches in Christendom ? the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem - be destroyed. He heaped humiliating and burdensome decrees upon Christians and Jews forcing Christians to wear heavy crosses around their necks, and Jews to have blocks of wood in the shape of a calf around their necks. Ultimately, he ordered Christians and Jews to either accept Islam or flee his areas of control.

Christians remained in a precarious position and under threat throughout the Middle East. When the Seljuk Turks swept into Jerusalem in 1077 they murdered over three thousand people, including many Christians. It was at this point that the Christian Emperor of Byzantium, Alexius I, appealed for help to the Western churches.

Pope Urban II challenged the knights of Europe at the Council of Clermont in 1095: "The Turks and Arabs have attacked our brethren in the East and have conquered the territory of Romania (the Greek Empire) as far as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many and have destroyed the churches and devastated the Empire. If you continue to permit them to continue thus for a while with impunity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I persuade all people of whatever rank, foot soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians. "

Nowhere was the call for the launch of the Crusades talking about either conquest or conversion, they were merely to remove the Islamic invaders from the lands that had previously been Christian, to restore religious freedom to the Holy Lands.

Myths and Misconceptions

The politically correct dogma that the Crusades were unprovoked, imperialist actions against the peaceful, indigenous Muslim population is simply not accurate. Such propaganda reflects a hostility for Western civilization, and often against Christianity itself, rather than any actual historical research.

Similarly, the characterization of the Crusaders as greedy for loot, only out for personal gain, is simply out of touch with reality. Those who participated in the Crusades saw it as an act of sacrifice rather than of profit. The Crusades were in fact prohibitivly expensive. Many Crusaders had to sell their property to raise money for the long journey to the Holy Land and knew that their chances of returning alive were slight. Most who did manage to survive and return came back with nothing material to show for their efforts.

Similarly, the modern myth that the Crusaders attempted to forcibly convert Muslims to Christianity is a politically motivated fantasy. Search as one might through the writings and records of the Crusaders, one will not find any mention of Crusaders seeking to forcibly convert the Sarracens or the Turks. The Crusaders saw themselves as Pilgrims seeking to recapture and liberate Christian lands from vicious invaders.

Anin Maalouf in The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, reports the observations of Spanish Muslim Ibn Jubayr who traversed the Mediterranean on his way to Mecca in the early 1180's and found that the Muslims were far better off in those lands controlled by the Crusaders than they were in Muslim ruled lands. And that Muslims preferred to live in the Crusader realms as those lands were more orderly and better managed.

Ibn Jubayr wrote: "Whose lands were efficiently cultivated. The inhabitants were all Muslims. They live in comfort with the Franks - may God preserve them from temptation! Their dwellings belong to them and all their property is unmolested. All their regions, patrolled by the Crusaders in Syria are subject to the same system: The land that remains, the villages and farms, have remained in the hands of the Muslims. Now, doubt invests the hearts of a great number of these men when they compare their lot to that of their brothers living in Muslim territories. Indeed, the latter suffer from the injustices of their co-religionists, whereas the Franks act with equity."

The Merciful Saladin

The presentation of Muslim commanders such as Saladin as merciful and magnanimous is a myth. When Saladin captured the Crusaders at Hattim on 4 July 1187, he ordered the mass execution of all the Christians: ?They should be beheaded in accordance with Quran 47:4 ?When you meet the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike their necks?? Saladin?s secretary Imad reported, ?With him were a whole band of scholars and Sufis and a certain number of devout men and aesthetics; each begged to be allowed to kill one of them and drew their swords and rolled back their sleeves. Saladin, his face joyful, was sitting on his dais; the unbelievers showed black despair.?

In 1148, the Muslim Commander Nured Din ordered the slaughter of every Christian in Aleppo. In 1268, when Mamluk Sultan Baybars seized Antioch, he ensured that all the men were slaughtered, the women sold into slavery, the crosses in every church smashed, the Bibles torn and burned, the graves of Christians desecrated, every monk, priest and deacon was dragged to the altar and had their throats slit where a mass had previously been celebrated, the Church of Saint Paul and the Cathedral of Saint Peter were destroyed and the bodies of the Christians burned.

When on 29 May 1453, the greatest city in the world of that time, Constantinople, was conquered by the Jihadists, the Muslims ?slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women and children without discrimination. The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets from the heights of Petra toward the golden horn?. The Muslim soldiers even entered the Hagia Sophia, and slaughtered thousands of Christians worshipping in what was the largest church in the world at that time.

Were The Crusades a Failure?

The constant depiction of the Crusades as a failure is not justified by the historical record. The Crusades succeeded in seizing the initiative, throwing the Muslim invaders onto the defensive, for the first time after five centuries of attack. The Crusaders bought Europe time ? centuries in fact.

At a critical time, the Crusades united a divided Europe, and threw the Muslim invaders back, bringing a peace and security to Europe that had not been known for centuries. As a result of the tremendous sacrifices of the Crusaders, Christian Europe experienced Spiritual Revival and Biblical Reformation which inspired a great resurgence of learning, scientific experimentation, technological advancement, and movements that led to greater prosperity and freedoms than had ever been known in all of history.

For a picture of what Europe might be like today had Islam succeeded in conquering it, one can look at the previously Christian civilisations of Egypt and what is today called Turkey. The Copts in Egypt now make up just 10% of the total Egyptian population, and are severely oppressed. What is today called Turkey was once the vibrant Christian Byzantine Empire, the economic and military superpower of its day. Today the Christian civilization which had flourished there for a thousand years has all but been extinguished. The last Christian city in Asia, Smyrna, was massacred by the Turkish Army in 1922.

The popular misconceptions about the crusades are that these were aggressive wars of expansion fought by religious fanatics in order to evict Muslims from their homeland, and force conversions to Christianity. However the historical record does not support those assertions.

A Reaction To Jihad

The crusaders were reacting to over four centuries of relentless Islamic Jihad, which had wiped out over 50% of all the Christians in the world and conquered over 60% of all the Christian lands on earth ? before the crusades even began. Many of the towns liberated by the crusaders were still over 90% Christian when the crusaders arrived. The Middle East was the birthplace of the Christian Church. It was the Christians who had been conquered and oppressed by the Seljuk Turks. So many of the towns in the Middle East welcomed the crusaders as liberators.

Far from the crusaders being the aggressors, it was the Muslim armies which had spread Islam from Saudi Arabia across the whole of Christian North Africa into Spain and even France within the first century after the death of Muhammad. Muslim armies sacked and slaughtered their way across some of the greatest Christian cities in the world, including Alexandria, Carthage, Antioch and Constantinople. These Muslim invaders destroyed over 3,200 Christian churches just in the first 100 years of Islam.

Defensive Wars

As Professor Thomas Madden in The Real History of the Crusades points out: ?The crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression ? an attempt to turn back, or defend against, Muslim conquests of Christian lands. Christians in the 11th Century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them?Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Muhammad, the means of Muslim expansion was always by the sword. Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. The Christian world therefore was a prime target for the earliest Caliphas and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years. The crusades were but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured over two thirds of the Christian world.

Thinking The Unthinkable

As the London Telegraph pointed out: A more realistic view of history requires less retrospective fantasy and more brain work. It means forcing your head around to see what motivated men and women centuries ago. Try to think the unthinkable that the Crusaders were right, and that we should be grateful to them.

Without the Crusades it is questionable whether Europe or American would even exist.

Christian Love And Self Sacrifice

Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith explains that crusading was "an act of love" for one's neighbour. An act of mercy to right a terrible wrong. As one church leader wrote to the Knights Templar: "You carry out in deeds the words of the Gospel, 'No greater love than this hath no man, than that he lay down his life for his friends'."

Professor Riley-Smith points out that the goals of the crusades were firstly to rescue the Christians of the East: "Many thousands of Christians are bound in slavery and imprisoned by the Muslims and tortured with innumerable torments." And secondly the liberation of Jerusalem and other places made holy by the life of Christ.

The Medieval crusaders saw themselves as pilgrims, restoring to the Lord Jesus Christ His property. The Crusaders conquest of Jerusalem, therefore, was not colonialism, but an act of restoration and an open declaration of one's love of God. It is often assumed that the central goal of the crusades was forced conversion of the Muslim world. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the perspective of Medieval Christians, Muslims were the enemies of Christ and His Church. It was the Crusaders' task to defeat and defend against them. That was all. Muslims who lived in crusader won territories were generally allowed to retain their property and livelihood and always their religion.

Against All Odds

When we think about the Middle Ages, we inevitably view Europe in the light of what it became rather than what it was. The fact is that the superpower of the Medieval world was Islam, not Christendom. The crusades were a battle against all odds with impossibly long lines of supply and cripplingly inadequate logistics. It was a David against Goliath enterprise from the beginning. The chances of success for the first crusade were highly improbable. They had no leader, no chain of command, no supply lines and no detailed strategy. The first crusade consisted simply of thousands of dedicated warriors marching deep into enemy territory, thousands of kilometres from home. Many of them died of starvation, disease and wounds. It was a rough campaign that always was on the brink of disaster.

Yet it was miraculously successful. By 1098, the Crusaders had liberated Nicea and Antioch to Christian rule. And in July 1099 they re-conquered Jerusalem and began to rebuild a Christian state in Palestine.

A Judgement of God

When Jerusalem fell to Saladin in 1187, Christians across Europe perceived that God was punishing them for their sins. Numerous lay movements sprang up throughout Europe dedicated to purifying Christian society so that it may become worthy of victory in the East.

Professor Madden, of St. Lewis University and the author of A Concise History of the Crusades, has observed: From the safe distance of many centuries, it is easy enough to scowl in disgust at the crusades. Religion, after all, is nothing to fight wars over. But we should be mindful that our Medieval ancestors would have been equally disgusted by our infinitely more destructive wars fought in the names of political ideologies. Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. The ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy toward slavery, not only survived but flourished. Without the crusades, it might have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam's rivals, into extinction. But for the crusades Europe would have probably fallen to Islam and the USA would never have come into existence.

The Facts of History

The fact is that the crusades of the Middle Ages were a reaction to centuries of Islamic Jihad. In the first century of Islam alone Muslim invaders conquered the whole of the previously Christian North Africa destroying over 3200 churches in just 100 years. In the first five centuries of Islam, Muslim forces killed Christians, kidnapped their children to raise them as Muslims, or compelled people at the point of the sword to convert to Islam. Up to 50% of all the Christians in the world were wiped out during the first three centuries of Islam. The Saracens (as the Muslim invaders were called) desecrated Christian places of worship and were severely persecuting Christians. Pilgrims were then prevented from visiting those places where our Lord was born, was crucified and raised from the dead. It was only after four centuries of Islamic Jihad that the crusades were launched as a belated reaction to the blatant Islamic Jihad.

Logistics and Economics

As the Christian History Institute has pointed out, the characterising of crusaders as only in it for the plunder and the loot betrays an ignorance of both geography and history. The vast majority of the crusaders were impoverished and financially ruined by the crusades. Crusaders, through great sacrifice and personal expense, left their homes and families to travel 3000km across treacherous and inhospitable terrain and the shortest crusade lasted 4 years. Considering that only 10% of the crusaders had horses, and 90% were foot soldiers, the sheer fact of logistics is that the crusaders could not possibly have carried back enough loot to have made up for the loss of earnings and high expenses involved with these long crusades. Many crusaders lost their homes and farms to finance their involvement in the crusades.

There's More to Life than Money

Perhaps self-seeking materialistic agnostics in the 21st Century cannot understand that some people could be motivated by something other than personal financial enrichment, but the fact is that many people make sacrifices for their religious convictions, and in order to help others. In the case of the crusaders, the historical record makes clear that amongst the motivations that led tens of thousands of volunteers to reclaim the Holy Land was a sense of Christian duty to help their fellow Christians in the East whose lands have been invaded and churches desecrated by Muslim armies, and a desire to secure access to the Holy Lands for pilgrims. There was also a desire to fight for the honour of their Lord Jesus Christ, Whose churches had been destroyed and Whose Deity had been denied by the Mohammadan aggressors. In other words, to the crusaders this was a defensive war to reclaim Christian lands from Muslim invaders.

We may not share their convictions, or agree with their methods, but we ought to evaluate them in the light of the realities of the 11th and 12th centuries, and not anachronistically project our standards and politics back upon them.

Jihad vs The Gospel

The word "crusade" does not appear in the Bible, nor is it commanded in Christianity. However, Jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam and the second greatest command of Muhammad. It is not only commended, but commanded in the Quran.

The crusades ended many centuries ago. However Islamic Jihad is carried out to this day. Millions of Christians have been slaughtered throughout the centuries by Islamic militants such as the 1.5 millions Armenians murdered in Turkey in 1915. Christians have continued to be slaughtered by Islamic militants in Indonesia, the Philippines, Sudan and Nigeria to the present day.

Therefore, before Christians fall over themselves to apologise for the crusades, which ended over 700 years ago, it would be wise to first learn from reliable sources what the crusades were all about, and study the Islamic teachings and track record of Jihad over the last 14 centuries. Those who do not know their past have no future.

The Crusades ended over 700 years ago. Islamic Jihad continues to this day.

The above is an excerpt from Dr Peter Hammond's presentation at the University of Minnesota. For the full text and for audio CDs of his presentations (and the hours of volatile and explosive open discussion time afterwards) contact:

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