I am currently writing an argumentative essay on the Crusades.
There are three main points that I would like to establish in this essay:

*The Crusades were not an unprovoked European invasion against the Muslims.

*The Crusades were not an act of Christian imperialism, rather they were fought to recapture Christian lands.

*The Crusades were not utilized to convert Muslims to Christianity by force.

These points are further elaborated in a rough draft of my thesis below:

The Crusades were not acts of unprovoked aggression by Europe against the Islamic world, but were a delayed response to centuries of Muslim aggression.
These were wars for the recapture of Christian lands and the liberation of Christians, not an act of religious imperialaism.
Further more the Crusades were not called in order to convert Muslims or any other religious sects to Christianity by force.

My idea is to demonstrate this with logical reasoning and an objective yet critical observation of theological narratives and credible historical sources.


Maybe some of you history experts can contribute an opinion.
Be as critical as you would like, I don't mind. :)

The Crusades were not acts of unprovoked aggression by Europe against the Islamic world, but were a delayed response to centuries of Muslim aggression.


I'd agree with the first half of this sentence but not the second. The First Crusade was fought not as a delayed response to Muslim conquests of previous centuries, but as a response to increased persecution of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. The Fatimids destroyed the Holy Places in 1009, although they were subsequently restored, and began to crack down on Christian pilgrims; Jerusalem was conquered by the Seljuks in 1070, and they too didn't much like Christian pilgrims. This was the background to the First Crusade - after all, Jerusalem had at this stage been in Muslim hands for over four centuries, so it wasn't like everyone had been quietly grinding their teeth about the fact all that time and only now got around to doing something about it. Of course, when the Crusade was ordered, the objective was not simply to secure safe passage for pilgrims but to conquer the Holy Land, but then you can hardly expect hordes of religion-motivated soldiers to moderate their aims.

Similarly, you can't really talk about "recapturing" the Holy Land. The western powers which went on the Crusades had never owned that area. If it had been a matter of restoration, it should have been restored to the Fatimids; if it's a matter of restoring it to the people who owned it before any Muslims turned up, it should have been restored to the Byzantines. But of course, any idea of "restoring" a territory nearly five centuries after the event is pretty daft anyway. If that were justified, the British would be justified in retaking the US. In fact, the Native Americans would be. Moreover, most of the Christians who actually lived in the Muslim-controlled Middle East were Monophysites, and did much better under the Muslims than they had done under the Byzantines, who had persecuted them. So if the Crusaders had been planning to "liberate" Christians from the Muslim yoke, they would have been pretty misguided.

It's worth pointing out that the Crusaders typically didn't try to convert Muslims by force, but given that their strategy was simply to slaughter as many of them as possible - at least during the battles to conquer the various cities and the looting which followed - this isn't really much of a positive point about them.

I should also mention that there was nothing "delayed" about the Christian world's attempt to fight back in response to the Muslim conquests. Just consider Charlemagne's campaigns in Iberia. Even Makuria invaded Egypt in the eighth century, although this was not a war of conquest (the Muslim and Christian powers of north Africa were typically on good terms in the latter half of the first millennium, though relations later disintegrated).

*The Crusades were not an act of Christian imperialism, rather they were fought to recapture Christian lands.
:)

what lands were they attempting to capture that were previously christian lands?

Spain?

recapture Jerusalem? that they just captured in the first crusade?

and it is important to mention in the first crusade they basically slaughtered any person in the city of JErusalem

i agree they werent meant to convert muslims by any means but to capture the holy city

and isnt the whole idea of conquering new territory for whatever reason an example of imperialism?

and isnt the whole idea of conquering new territory for whatever reason an example of imperialism?

Exactly. Part of the problem here is that many people have a tendency to think of the participants as either "Christian" or "Muslim". Jerusalem had once been Christian, it had been conquered by Muslims, so it was OK for Christians to reconquer it. Never mind that the place had been conquered by different Muslims since then, or that the Christians who conquered it were completely different from the ones who had lost it. The First Crusade was led by a Belgian. Now I may have missed something, but I really don't think that at any point in time beforehand Jerusalem had been Belgian...

Exactly. Part of the problem here is that many people have a tendency to think of the participants as either "Christian" or "Muslim". Jerusalem had once been Christian, it had been conquered by Muslims, so it was OK for Christians to reconquer it. Never mind that the place had been conquered by different Muslims since then, or that the Christians who conquered it were completely different from the ones who had lost it. The First Crusade was led by a Belgian. Now I may have missed something, but I really don't think that at any point in time beforehand Jerusalem had been Belgian...
You do not seem to have considered the concept of Christendom. The Pope in Rome was the reason the crusades were fought, not Belgium. The soldiers of the Crusades retained their nationality, but they fought as Christians, not as Germans, Frenchmen, English, or Belgians. And for the sake of Christendom as a whole, not their homeland. Soldiers and nobles from all over Europe fought in the Crusades. It did not matter to them that it was a different group of Muslims from those that first conquered the Holy Land, all that mattered was that they were Muslims, and that they were persecuting Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. In addition to protecting their co-religionists on pilgrimage, crusaders would receive an indulgence for their sins, and as in all wars, there would be loot. It was the perfect motivation. For the less pious there was profit, and for those concerned for their spiritual welfare, there was a "get out of hell free" card.

You do not seem to have considered the concept of Christendom. The Pope in Rome was the reason the crusades were fought, not Belgium. The soldiers of the Crusades retained their nationality, but they fought as Christians, not as Germans, Frenchmen, English, or Belgians. And for the sake of Christendom as a whole, not their homeland. Soldiers and nobles from all over Europe fought in the Crusades. It did not matter to them that it was a different group of Muslims from those that first conquered the Holy Land, all that mattered was that they were Muslims, and that they were persecuting Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. In addition to protecting their co-religionists on pilgrimage, crusaders would receive an indulgence for their sins, and as in all wars, there would be loot. It was the perfect motivation. For the less pious there was profit, and for those concerned for their spiritual welfare, there was a "get out of hell free" card.

Errr not really. More than anything it was an excuse to get the knights and men at arms out of Western Europe, where they were doing a lot of raping and pillaging on their own. And I'm sure Plotinus is the last person on this site that needs to be lectured about the concept of Christendom :lol:

As for the general idea of the essay, it seems pretty biased and clumsy to me.

[Evil Tyrant] I agree that the Crusaders probably didn't much care about the differences between Muslims, but they certainly cared about the differences between Christians. The notion of "Christendom" to which you appeal was not as broad in the eleventh century as you suggest - on the contrary, this was the time when nationalism as we know it today was beginning to develop. More importantly, the Crusaders certainly didn't see themselves as the same as the Orthodox Christians, who, remember, were the ones who had lost the Levant in the first place. From a Catholic point of view, the Orthodox were schismatics and heretics, an attitude that had been developing for centuries and which had been made finally official only forty years before the First Crusade. That, after all, was the justification (after the fact) for the Fourth Crusade a century later. If there was a "Christendom" for which they were fighting, it was Catholicism, a religion whose adherents had never possessed the Holy Land. Now one may be able to construct a sort of justification for the war on that basis, given that it was fought, in part, to protect Catholic pilgrims to the Holy Land; but you can hardly justify it as a war of "reconquest" on those terms.

A general Christian sense of sacred geography did influence the crusading movement. Regardless of divisions within Christendom there was a sense of being geograohically displaces from those parts of the world of religious significance, most notably Jerusalem.
Sending Christian princes off to the Holy Land is unthinkable without this. It's why the Holy Land was the Holy Land.

But as far as the Crusades being a defensive action, that's going to be very hard to argue in favour off.
Christian-Muslim relations were of course determined by the fact that the Christian Churches of both east and west had a sense of being locked in conflict with a powerful foe pushing them back over several centuries. (There was frequent raiding in Italy, all the way to the outskirts of Rome, which helped keep the conflict hot.) But that still makes the crusades a counter-offensive, and not one the Church of Rome felt uneasy about. It was the opportunistic moment as the Muslim countries were unusually divided at the time.

And then again after a century of crusading the whole project was becoming discredited as the way the crusades had actually gone down had been anything but pious, with too many princes behaving in too godless a manner.

My idea is to demonstrate this with logical reasoning and an objective yet critical observation of theological narratives and credible historical sources.One piece of advice: Try it the other way around. Read the sources - see what is there - then draw your conclusions. Don't make your mind up and then go looking for back up. Unfortunately, at the moment, I take the same view as Jonatas' last line states.

Also, Plotinus is far too much of a gentleman to blow his own trumpet, so let me just say that his forthcoming book is in fact the new edition of this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0745936903/203-6819652-8385508?v=glance&n=266239&s=books&v=glance). (Hope you don't mind the promotion Plot?)
And I'm sure Plotinus is the last person on this site that needs to be lectured about the concept of Christendom :lol:

Once the Crusader Kingdoms were established their actions seem to have been less about preserving Christianity in the Holy Land than about exploitation, power building, and thwarting each other.

Also, Plotinus is far too much of a gentleman to blow his own trumpet, so let me just say that his forthcoming book is in fact the new edition of this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0745936903/203-6819652-8385508?v=glance&n=266239&s=books&v=glance). (Hope you don't mind the promotion Plot?)
Cool!:goodjob:

And, Ram, he'll just have to take it, won't he?:lol:

[Scurries off to his friendly local university library.]

Thankyou for the replies, I am actually a bit surprised at the amount of post in such a short time.:)

I have completed the brunt of my research and pretty much have the general outline of my essay. I need to organize all the information and appropriate it.
I am delighted that there are many here that disagree with my position, this will make me work harder to adress certain areas I have not covered.

Plotinus,
Its obvious you have an excellent grasp of the crusades and the early middle-ages. You make some key points that I will try my best to address.
please bear with the long post.:p

I'd agree with the first half of this sentence but not the second. The First Crusade was fought not as a delayed response to Muslim conquests of previous centuries, but as a response to increased persecution of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. The Fatimids destroyed the Holy Places in 1009, although they were subsequently restored, and began to crack down on Christian pilgrims; Jerusalem was conquered by the Seljuks in 1070, and they too didn't much like Christian pilgrims. This was the background to the First Crusade - after all, Jerusalem had at this stage been in Muslim hands for over four centuries, so it wasn't like everyone had been quietly grinding their teeth about the fact all that time and only now got around to doing something about it. Of course, when the Crusade was ordered, the objective was not simply to secure safe passage for pilgrims but to conquer the Holy Land, but then you can hardly expect hordes of religion-motivated soldiers to moderate their aims.

Similarly, you can't really talk about "recapturing" the Holy Land. The western powers which went on the Crusades had never owned that area. If it had been a matter of restoration, it should have been restored to the Fatimids; if it's a matter of restoring it to the people who owned it before any Muslims turned up, it should have been restored to the Byzantines. But of course, any idea of "restoring" a territory nearly five centuries after the event is pretty daft anyway. If that were justified, the British would be justified in retaking the US. In fact, the Native Americans would be. Moreover, most of the Christians who actually lived in the Muslim-controlled Middle East were Monophysites, and did much better under the Muslims than they had done under the Byzantines, who had persecuted them. So if the Crusaders had been planning to "liberate" Christians from the Muslim yoke, they would have been pretty misguided.

It's worth pointing out that the Crusaders typically didn't try to convert Muslims by force, but given that their strategy was simply to slaughter as many of them as possible - at least during the battles to conquer the various cities and the looting which followed - this isn't really much of a positive point about them.

I should also mention that there was nothing "delayed" about the Christian world's attempt to fight back in response to the Muslim conquests. Just consider Charlemagne's campaigns in Iberia. Even Makuria invaded Egypt in the eighth century, although this was not a war of conquest (the Muslim and Christian powers of north Africa were typically on good terms in the latter half of the first millennium, though relations later disintegrated).

Part of the problem here is that many people have a tendency to think of the participants as either "Christian" or "Muslim". Jerusalem had once been Christian, it had been conquered by Muslims, so it was OK for Christians to reconquer it. Never mind that the place had been conquered by different Muslims since then, or that the Christians who conquered it were completely different from the ones who had lost it. The First Crusade was led by a Belgian. Now I may have missed something, but I really don't think that at any point in time beforehand Jerusalem had been Belgian...

The goal of my agrument is to demonstrate that the Crusades were defensive conflicts and the direct result of Muslim aggression. The "objectives" of the first Crusades and that of the subsequent Crusades does not invalidate my argument. Suggesting that the idea of restoring territories after a long period of time as being "daft" also bears no relevance. My argument is not focused on the morality of warfare or the aims of the Crusades.
My argument here is to identify the events that led to the crusades.
Why the crusades were called.

I will attempt to establish the factors that contributed to the Chrisitian disposition of the Muslim East and the eventual call of the crusades.
By this, we must determine the origin of the crusades.
In order to look for the origin of a crusading ideal we must consider the struggle of Christians against the Muslim conquerers in Spain and establish how the idea of holy war emerged. We must then associate this premise with the deteriorating situation of the Byzantine Empire.
When the first crusade was preached in 1095, Christians had already been fighting against the Muslims in Iberia for over a hundred years.
The Spanish Reconquista is the prominent example of Christian war against Muslim conquest, however it is not the only example. The Normans had conquered Calabria from the Muslims of Sicily in 1057, which were formerly Byzantine lands. The states of pisa, genoa, and Catalonia were all actively fighting Muslims in Sardinia and the lands of southern Italy, freeing the coast of Italy from continuous Muslim raids.
European coastal settlements were assualted as far as southern England by Muslim Berber raiders. These towns were wiped clean of their inhabitants; men butchered, women and children taken as slaves.
Earlier, Christian homelands of Syria, Lebenon, Israel, Egypt and so on had been conquered by Muslim armies. This long history of losing land to the Muslims, combined with the fact that all of Western Europe was facing a powerful surge in the form of this Islamic movement, created a strong motive to respond to the plea of the Byzantine Empire to defend Christiandom and recapture lost lands.

The persecution of Christians in the Holy Land was not the immediate cause of the first crusade, again this was one of many factors that contributed. Vast territorial gains made by the Muslim Seljuk invasion of Byzantine Asia Minor, led Byzantine emporer Alexuis I to ask for military aid from Pope Urban II.
Fully understanding the threat posed by the Islamic warmachine, Alexius began reconciling with the papacy as early as 1090.
The appeal of Alexius I to Pope Urban II (1095) on the basis of a united Christian alliance against Muslim aggression was how the first Crusade came about.
This Christian alliance is of great importance when defining the crusading movement and how it was viewed by both Muslims and Christians in the eleventh century.
Initial Muslim responses to the Crusades were confused, however Muslim leaders swiftly came to grips with the full significance of the Christian counter-offensive. A Muslim Scholar from Damascus, Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami produced the first treatise on Holy War (jihad) after the arrival of the crusades in the Near East. Unlike some of his contemporaries, al-Sulami did not confuse the crusades with just another Byzantine expedition to reclaim lost lands. Rather he regarded the Crusades as a collective Christian Holy War, which had the aim of helping native Christians as well as regaining control of Christian lands.
Al-Sulami was very aware of conflicts between Christianity and Islam which were going on in Spain, and Sicily. His readiness to see the crusades as a struggle between the two religions, was soon adopted by many other Muslim scholars.
Although al-Sulami was the first to write a jihad treatise in response to the crusades, it was definitely not the first book to be written on the subject.
Many others were previously written in response to the Byzantine counter-offensives, and other peoples conquered in the name of Islam.
The ultimate authority for jihad is the Quran itself.

009.029
YUSUFALI: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued

009.123
YUSUFALI: O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him.

047.004
YUSUFALI: Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them.


To further support the argument that crusade was a delayed response to Muslim aggression, we must examine Islamic theology and the history of Islam from its inception.

Jihad which is commonly translated as 'Holy War', literally means 'striving': that is striving to advance Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, leadership of the holy war to extend the territories of Islam is given to the caliph (calipha means successor of the prophet Muhammad).
In the 8th and 9th centuries this leadership to direct the jihad was given to the Abbasid caliph. For example, Haun al-Rashid led his troops to conquer Byzantine lands every other year; in the alternate years he led the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca which is one of the pillars of Islam.
The actions of al-Rashid were in perfect accordance to Islam and he was considered an exemplary Muslim, anything less was considered unIslamic.
Jihads were also launched against the then pagan Turks in Transoxania and central Asia as well as against the idolatrous Hindus in India.
It is important to understand that these expeditions were not the actions of over ambitious leaders anxious for land and wealth. The obligation of jihad did not lapse until all the world was brought under the sway of Islam. The first duty of a Muslim ruler is to prosecute jihad and bring about the victory of Islam, and if he does not do so and makes peace with the infidel, that ruler would be better dead than alive, for he would be corrupting the world.
Islamic theology divides the world into two spheres locked in perpetual combat, dar al-Islam (House of Islam - where Islamic law predominates), and dar al-harb (House of War - the rest of the world). It is incumbent on dar al-Islam to fight and conquer dar al-harb and permanently assimilate it.
Once land is conquered by Islam it is considered forever Islamic land(House of Islam) and Muslims must wage war to regain control over it.


And with that I must break here, have an appointment.
I'll continue when time allows.:)

Well, it came out exactly as I expected. Exactly as you said it would. Exactly as you wanted it to.

I don't have the time, inclination or the in-depth knowledge of the period to pick it apart, there are others here more suited. But I'll tell you what, I know enough about the period (both sides of the story) and I've read enough rampantly biased pieces of "history" to know that this is one too. Sorry to say it man, but this is what we warned against before you posted the article.

[Evil Tyrant] I agree that the Crusaders probably didn't much care about the differences between Muslims, but they certainly cared about the differences between Christians. The notion of "Christendom" to which you appeal was not as broad in the eleventh century as you suggest - on the contrary, this was the time when nationalism as we know it today was beginning to develop. More importantly, the Crusaders certainly didn't see themselves as the same as the Orthodox Christians, who, remember, were the ones who had lost the Levant in the first place. From a Catholic point of view, the Orthodox were schismatics and heretics, an attitude that had been developing for centuries and which had been made finally official only forty years before the First Crusade. That, after all, was the justification (after the fact) for the Fourth Crusade a century later. If there was a "Christendom" for which they were fighting, it was Catholicism, a religion whose adherents had never possessed the Holy Land. Now one may be able to construct a sort of justification for the war on that basis, given that it was fought, in part, to protect Catholic pilgrims to the Holy Land; but you can hardly justify it as a war of "reconquest" on those terms.
I suspect that one of the few points that Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics of the time could agree on was that the Holy Land belonged in Christian hands rather than those of "heathens". However, I shall bow to your superior knowledge on the subject, as you seem to have studied the subject more extensively than I have. :hatsoff:

One major quibble that I have is that you classify it as a "defensive" conflict. In no circumstances, in my mind, can such an offensive action be justified as defensive, even if justified.

I wouldn't claim superior knowledge about this period of history. But there are a number of flaws in the argument presented.

For one thing, you just can't talk about "Muslim theology" as if it's monolithic. Obviously it's not. It's certainly true that the notion of conquest is much more inherent in Islam than in, say, Christianity or Buddhism, but it doesn't follow from that that it's central to all "Muslim theology". Similarly, you say that al-Rashid "was considered an exemplary Muslim" without further qualification. This may be true as far as it goes, but considered by whom? Did all Muslims really think that? It's like saying that George W. Bush is considered an exemplary Christian. Yes, by some Christians, but not most.

Another problem is that you don't seem to be drawing any distinctions between expressed motivation, actual motivation, and the judgement of history. It's not enough to say that the Crusades were simply a reaction to Muslim expansionism, because even if that's true, on which level is it true? For example, while this may have been the rhetoric, it could still be jonatas is right to see the actual reason for the wars to have been more mercenary. And again, even if the rhetoric was about retaliation, and the motive was too, it doesn't follow from that that we, centuries later, must agree with the Crusaders that their actions were justified. To describe an action simply as "justified", "defensive", or whatever is to leave open the question - justified by whom? By them? By us? You say that you're only interested in the causes of the Crusades, not their aims - but of course their aims are part of those causes, and you're using evaluative language to describe them. For example, you say they weren't "Christian imperialism", which sounds like a way of excusing them; yet even if that's true, on what level was it true? Maybe the participants didn't think of themselves as imperialists, but it's surely obvious that from our point of view they were, since they set out to conquer and hold, for as long as possible, territory that wasn't theirs.

It also seems to me that you've not really addressed the basic problem with defending the Crusaders, which is that - even if they were justified (in whatever sense) in taking action in the face of Islamic aggression - their goal was to conquer a territory that had been quite happily ruled Muslims for four and a half centuries. I don't see how that can easily be justified, and no way can it be called "defensive". Remember, the people of the Levant - Muslim, Christian, and Jewish - were mostly perfectly happy with the status quo; in particular, the Christians living there were far happier under Muslim rule than they had been under Byzantine rule, and they had been ever since the days of John of Damascus. From their point of view, the Crusaders - even where they shared the same religion - were a bunch of violent foreign heretics with whom they had less in common than their Muslim overlords. And this is quite apart from the minor detail of the appalling massacre of civilians carried out by the Crusaders when they got there. If that's a "defensive" action, then so was September 11th! At best you can call it a counter-attack. But a "defence" is when you try to stop someone taking over your land, not when you go off and try to take theirs in revenge. I think shortguy's quite right on that score.

You need to distinguish between the different Crusades, too. For example, the Third Crusade, launched to recapture Jerusalem after Saladin conquered it (which he managed without slaughtering everyone), could be far more justifiable: Jerusalem had at that point been a Latin kingdom for nearly a century and Saladin's conquest was a recent event. The First Crusade, though, which had captured Jerusalem in the first place, lacked these mitigating factors - Jerusalem had never been a Latin kingdom, and it had been conquered by the Muslims centuries earlier.

Finally, it would be well to consider the other Crusades as well, launched against people other than the Muslims - for example, the actions against the Cathars and the Hussites, as well as the religious wars in northern Europe, around the Baltic. If the Crusades in the Middle East were purely "defensive", and the Catholics weren't interested in offensive warfare, then how do you explain these other, decidedly aggressive actions on their part?

Well, it came out exactly as I expected. Exactly as you said it would. Exactly as you wanted it to.

I don't have the time, inclination or the in-depth knowledge of the period to pick it apart, there are others here more suited. But I'll tell you what, I know enough about the period (both sides of the story) and I've read enough rampantly biased pieces of "history" to know that this is one too. Sorry to say it man, but this is what we warned against before you posted the article.

Rambuchan,
Please allow me to finnish my argument before passing judgement. Contrary to what you may believe, I too am very familiar with the modern contemporary view of that period. Both apologetic views.
In fact I had adopted the same mainstream view of the crusades that you have before beginning any in-depth research. I analysed all the available data, synthesized it, and came to my conclusion.
To you my argument may seem biased, but do not forget I am writing an argumentative essay, the primary purpose in my argument is to be convincing and to sway the reader to accept my point of view.
That being said, there is nothing in my argument that is decieving or dishonest. My information is taken from credible sources from both apologetic histrorical documentation and narratives from the Quran, if you find those sources to be unreliable then take it up with them.

To continue the argument from my previous post I will now out-line the general history of Islam from its inception. Note that I will only include periods in the Islamic history up until the first crusades and that only apply to the argument.

570 CE Birth of Muhammad.
622 CE Hijira - Muhammad and a small group of followers migrate to Medina from Mecca. Here a large band of tribal warriors pledge loyalty to him. This band of warriors come to be known as the Ansar (helpers).
624 CE Muhammad successfully attacks Meccan caravans at Badr.
625 Muhammd is defeated by Meccans at Uhud.
630 Muhammad conquers Mecca. Tribes of Arabia vow allegiance to him.
632 Death of Muhammad.
632-33 Wars of ridda (apostasy) restore allegiance to Islam
633 Muslim conquests (Futuhat) begin.
633-42 Muslim armies conquer the Fertile Crescent (Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia), North African coast, parts of Persian and Byzantine Empires.
657-661 Muslim disunity causes factional wars. Beginning of Umayyad Caliphate (661-750)
600s Ruling classes in East and West Africa convert to Islam.
710 Muslim armies invade Spain from North Africa.
732 Muslim empire reaches further into Europe. Charlemagne defeats the Muslim invasion at Battle of Tours, preventing further advances northward.
747-750 Revolt defeats the Umayyads. Abu l'Abbas becomes caliph in Iraq.
754 Baghdad becomes the new capital of the Abbasid empire.
786-809 Reign of Harun ar-Rashid, best known through the stories of The Thousand and One Nights. Champion of the Islamic movement. Led campaigns against Byzantine and Turks.
800s Sicily is invaded, comes under Muslim rule.
869-883 Uprisings of black slaves (Zanj) are eventually defeated.
908 First Fatimid caliph in Tunisia.
945 The Buyids (Persian) invade Baghdad and take power from caliph.
969 Fatimids gain power in Egypt and attack Palestine, Syria, and Arabia. Cairo (Al-Qahira, "the victorious city") is founded.
996-1021 Reign of Fatimid al-Hakim. Severe persecution of Christians and Jews ensues.
900s West Africa converts to Islam
1030 Umayyad caliphate in Cordoba defeated by the Christian Reconquista.
1055 Muslim Seljuk Turks take Baghdad; Abbasids now only nominal rulers.
1000s Reconquista takes more of Spain, Sicily falls to the Normans.
1071 Muslim Seljuk Turks decisively defeat Byzantines at Battle of Manzikert.
1095 Christian Crusaders are called.

This out-line clearly demonstrates the rapid advancement of Islam. Alone this out-line can be seen as individual political/factional land grabs not entirely different from the concept we see in Europe or Asia at the time.
However when this political movement is driven by and completely dependant on the ideology of the Islamic doctrine which demands its followers to wage war until all lands are under Islamic law, then we cannot ignore the significance this had when examining the motives of the crusades.

A few of your dates seem rather odd - for example, the conversion of West Africa to Islam took a lot longer than a single decade. In fact it mostly occurred considerably later than the tenth century and remains incomplete even today. Also, you've omitted areas and incidents that conflict with your basic thesis of unremitting expansion on the part of Islam. Obvious examples are the baqt between Egypt and Makuria, and the generally friendly relations between Ethiopia and the neighbouring sultanates in the early second millennium - there was even a legend among the Muslims that Muhammad himself had forbidden his followers ever to attack Ethiopia!

I wouldn't claim superior knowledge about this period of history. But there are a number of flaws in the argument presented.

For one thing, you just can't talk about "Muslim theology" as if it's monolithic. Obviously it's not. It's certainly true that the notion of conquest is much more inherent in Islam than in, say, Christianity or Buddhism, but it doesn't follow from that that it's central to all "Muslim theology". Similarly, you say that al-Rashid "was considered an exemplary Muslim" without further qualification. This may be true as far as it goes, but considered by whom? Did all Muslims really think that? It's like saying that George W. Bush is considered an exemplary Christian. Yes, by some Christians, but not most.

Another problem is that you don't seem to be drawing any distinctions between expressed motivation, actual motivation, and the judgement of history. It's not enough to say that the Crusades were simply a reaction to Muslim expansionism, because even if that's true, on which level is it true? For example, while this may have been the rhetoric, it could still be jonatas is right to see the actual reason for the wars to have been more mercenary. And again, even if the rhetoric was about retaliation, and the motive was too, it doesn't follow from that that we, centuries later, must agree with the Crusaders that their actions were justified. To describe an action simply as "justified", "defensive", or whatever is to leave open the question - justified by whom? By them? By us? You say that you're only interested in the causes of the Crusades, not their aims - but of course their aims are part of those causes, and you're using evaluative language to describe them. For example, you say they weren't "Christian imperialism", which sounds like a way of excusing them; yet even if that's true, on what level was it true? Maybe the participants didn't think of themselves as imperialists, but it's surely obvious that from our point of view they were, since they set out to conquer and hold, for as long as possible, territory that wasn't theirs.

It also seems to me that you've not really addressed the basic problem with defending the Crusaders, which is that - even if they were justified (in whatever sense) in taking action in the face of Islamic aggression - their goal was to conquer a territory that had been quite happily ruled Muslims for four and a half centuries. I don't see how that can easily be justified, and no way can it be called "defensive". Remember, the people of the Levant - Muslim, Christian, and Jewish - were mostly perfectly happy with the status quo; in particular, the Christians living there were far happier under Muslim rule than they had been under Byzantine rule, and they had been ever since the days of John of Damascus. From their point of view, the Crusaders - even where they shared the same religion - were a bunch of violent foreign heretics with whom they had less in common than their Muslim overlords. And this is quite apart from the minor detail of the appalling massacre of civilians carried out by the Crusaders when they got there. If that's a "defensive" action, then so was September 11th! At best you can call it a counter-attack. But a "defence" is when you try to stop someone taking over your land, not when you go off and try to take theirs in revenge. I think shortguy's quite right on that score.

You need to distinguish between the different Crusades, too. For example, the Third Crusade, launched to recapture Jerusalem after Saladin conquered it (which he managed without slaughtering everyone), could be far more justifiable: Jerusalem had at that point been a Latin kingdom for nearly a century and Saladin's conquest was a recent event. The First Crusade, though, which had captured Jerusalem in the first place, lacked these mitigating factors - Jerusalem had never been a Latin kingdom, and it had been conquered by the Muslims centuries earlier.

Finally, it would be well to consider the other Crusades as well, launched against people other than the Muslims - for example, the actions against the Cathars and the Hussites, as well as the religious wars in northern Europe, around the Baltic. If the Crusades in the Middle East were purely "defensive", and the Catholics weren't interested in offensive warfare, then how do you explain these other, decidedly aggressive actions on their part?


You make a few valid points which you maintain are flaws in my argument. I will list them below and address them individually. You state:

1)The agrument of presenting a theological basis to demonstrate the aggression of Islam in a monolithic context is erronous.

2)The argument must draw expressed motivation, actual motivation, and the the judgement of history. The absence of these distinctions renders the argument inconclusive and erronous.

The final point you make correlates and expands upon the second point.

3)The argument must distinguish between the different crusades because they each had their individual actual motive.


To address your first point. Its true, Islamic theology in practice is not monolithic, but I'm sure we can agree that the Islamic doctrine from its conception was designed to be absolute. This holds true for many other theological doctrines. However regardless of the diversity in which theological doctrines are precieved, there exists fundamental elements that are universally accepted and adhered to.
Keeping that in mind, we must examine how the Islamic doctrine was precieved by Muslims from the beginning of the Islamic conquests up to the period of the crusades. We must examine the fundamental elements in the Islamic doctrine that were commonly accepted and how they applied to the rapid expanision of Islam.

The outline I have provided in my previous post shows that Islamic expansion began with the prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam.
From a historical stand point we know that Muhammad gathered a band of tribal warriors in Medina, attacked Meccan caravans, raided outlining settlements, accumilated wealth to support a larger army and ultimately conquered Mecca.
From a theological stand point we know that Muhammad claimed to be a prophet of God, His followers believed him to be a Phrophet of God, the Islamic doctrine was divinely given to him by God, Muhammads actions were a result of and in accordance to the mandates of God.
Now lets fast foward a bit to the time of the Muslim conquests(Futuhat).
Within two years of Muhammad's death, Abu Bakr (the first Righteously Guided Caliph), launched the Great Jihad. The ensuing three decades witnessed Islams most spectacular expansion, as Muslim armies subdued the entire Arabian peninsula, and also conquered Byzantine territories.
The essential pattern of the jihad war is found in the classical Muslim historian al-Tabari's recording of the recommendation given by Umar al-Khattab (the second Rightly Guided Caliph) to the commander of the troops he sent to al-Basrah (636), during the conquest of Iraq. Umar said:

Summon the people to God; those who respond to your call, accept it from them, (This is to say, accept their conversion as genuine and refrain from fighting them) but those who refuse must pay the poll tax out of humiliation and lowliness. (Qur'an 9:29) If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency. Fear God with regard to what you have been entrusted.

Uthman ibn Affan (the third Righteously Guided Caliph), was known as "he of two lights" because of his benevolence. His benevolence truly shined when he picked up the Jihad where Umar left off.
During his reign he conquered all of Persia, most of North Africa, the Caucusses and Cyprus.
Uthman during his reign attempted to develope a definitive text of the Quran at the expense of all others. His aim was simply to establish one true text of the revelation, in order for all Muslims to know what the Quran consisted of, and how it should be written. In it he established the meaning of jihad and formation of the Umma (the brotherhood of Islam).

Thus far, we see here a universal and definitive understanding of the Islamic doctrine and the meaning of jihad among the leaders and the adherents of Islam.
These leaders after all were the original followers Mohammad. They were true believers and only did as Muhammad reapedly emphasized which was that
there is nothing better his followers could do than engage in jihad.

Ali's (the fourth Righteuosly Guided Caliph) reign was marked with rebellion and disunity. This schism was not about the Islamic doctrine but rather Ali's claim to succession.

Now lets jump 300 hundred years later to 11th century Islam. There are now two Islamic sects(Shi'a and Sunni), surely Islam is now percieved differenty by these two sects and cannot be monolithic. However there are fundamental elements that these two sects universally adhere to. Al-Sulami was a reknowned Muslim scholar of the great mosque of Damascus. In 1105 he wrote the Kitab al-jihadi, a treatise on Holy War. His treatise is very lenghty but by exhibiting a few of his narratives we can clearly see that his understanding of jihad reflects that of the original Caliphs.

"The call to Islam (concerns) the Abyssinians, and after that the hijra and jihad concern the Muslims." In his saying that after that the jihad concerns the Muslims is a visible proof it concerns all Muslims. If it concerns all Muslims, it remains their concern until the Day of Resurrection.

We have heard in what we have heard of a sufficiently documented hadith, mentioning in it that the Rum (Byzantines) will conquer Jerusalem for a set period of time, and the Muslims will gather against them, drive them out of it, kill them all except for a few of them, (and) then pursue their scattered remnants to Constantinople, descend on it and conquer it. This is certain...

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali said: "Whenever a year passed without an expedition every Muslim (who was) free, responsible and capable of taking part in an expedition went out on one, seeking by it to exalt the word of God (who is praised), to demonstrate his religion, to suppress by it his enemies the polytheists, to achieve the reward which God (who is praised) and His Prophet promised him from (fighting) the jihad in His cause, and to gain their (the enemies') wealth, women and lands, until there were, of those who came to face them (the enemy), enough to fight them in it (the expedition). That is to say that the jihad, however, is an obligation of sufficiency.


Was this just the radical view of a Muslim cleric at the time of the 11th century? This dosn't seem to be the case. His views are popular among the Muslim leaders and inspire many Muslims to fight the crusaders.
The Bahr al-Fava'id is another jihad treatise written in 1160s by anonymous Muslim scholar from Nur al-Din's Aleppo. This treatise reflects that of al-sulami but further insists on the obligation of all Muslims to take up jihad.

A prominent 14th-century Muslim treatise on jihad written by Ibn Hudayl revealed the violent methods employed during the conquest of the Iberian peninsula:

It is permissible to set fire to the lands of the enemy, his stores of grain, his beasts of burden — if it is not possible for the Muslims to take possession of them — as well as to cut down his trees, to raze his cities, in a word to do everything that might ruin and discourage him.


The Muslim historian al-Maqqari, commenting in the 17th century on the brutal tactics of Muslim raiders, wrote,

Allah thus instilled such fear among the infidels that they did not dare to go and fight the conquerors; they only approached them as suppliants, to beg for peace.

Later centuries saw Muslim fortunes decline. Many conquered lands liberated themselves from Muslim rule. But the ideology of jihad was handed down unchanged to all future Muslim generations.


I will continue with the other points in my next post.

At the moment of the first crusade the idea of a christendom to which both eastern and western christians belonged was still valid because the schism between eastern orthodox christians and roman catholics was still fresh and recent, only a few decades old, and during the first millenium many times were the roman pope and patriarch of constantinople in schism to later re-unite.
No one knew in 1054 the church would still be divided 1000 years later.


And I think many people put modern prejudices on the crusaders, that dozens of thousands of men could fight mainly due to religious reasons seems incredible to most modern men who think, that was just an excuse, they did it for the money, they had to.

I am currently writing an argumentative essay on the Crusades.
There are three main points that I would like to establish in this essay:

*The Crusades were not an unprovoked European invasion against the Muslims.

*The Crusades were not an act of Christian imperialism, rather they were fought to recapture Christian lands.

*The Crusades were not utilized to convert Muslims to Christianity by force.

These points are further elaborated in a rough draft of my thesis below:

The Crusades were not acts of unprovoked aggression by Europe against the Islamic world, but were a delayed response to centuries of Muslim aggression.
These were wars for the recapture of Christian lands and the liberation of Christians, not an act of religious imperialaism.
Further more the Crusades were not called in order to convert Muslims or any other religious sects to Christianity by force.

My idea is to demonstrate this with logical reasoning and an objective yet critical observation of theological narratives and credible historical sources.


Maybe some of you history experts can contribute an opinion.
Be as critical as you would like, I don't mind. :)

Yes thats about right.
unfortunity the crusades took a life of its own.

Once the first crusade was launched a new type of warfare came to the for, Relifous warfare with for the first time violent conversions and genocide. This can easily be seen as many cities had surrended in negosiations with byzintine rather then to the crusader. Which was an old "established" war fare method at that time. The crusaders then procceed to take cities for themselves with there own "means" (i.e killing all the muslims in sight)

The Byztinians had provided at that time most of the naval power (still the dominate navel power until viennic suppased it.) and provided logistic and small military force could not control the crusaders.

After which the normal sets of rules for warfare had changed. Byxatine would no longer negosiate with the turk. As the amount of bad blood had been spilt which was an affrount to the muslim nations. Not to mention the different fiefdoms which the crusaders carved out for themselves.

Prior to this though most christains iirc was simply treated as second class citiizens by the Turkish empire and no effect was made to convert them. No had the concept of holy wars been fought. But rather a fight between the two empires.

I think Emporer Alexi had full intended to control the crusaders as an ally subject to byztine to recover her lost empire. (as she had often done iin the past). Byztine also had invested heavily by spreading its culture and chirstain faith to the north and west previously. it had previously used mercany and allied amries to fight the turks.

Ok Plotinus, to conclude my rebuttal to your first point we see that the understanding of jihad has remained unchanged since the founding of Islam. Jihad was an essential principle shared among the Muslim scholars and leaders of that time, therefore we must acknowledge that the principle of eternal jihad in Islamic dogma was the driving force in Muslim military expansion.


Moving on to your next point you state that there must be a distinction between expressed motive and actual motive and the judgement of history in relation to the crusades.
I understand your reasoning and this is something I have already considered.
I decided to approach this argument from a logical standpoint, just for the sake of argument lets consider the general philosophy of cause and effect. For example if X (Islamic aggression) is the cause of Y (crusades), then Y will only occur if preceded by X.
Using the philosophy of cause and effect, I must first demonstrate that Islamic expansion was religious and militarily aggressive by appling necessary and sufficiant conditions. In this case the founding of Islam being the necessary condition and the military principles in the Islamic doctrine being the sufficient condition. Establishing Islamic aggression using these conditions, I must now demonstrate that Islamic aggression was the cause of the crusades and that the crusades could only have occured with the actualization of Islamic aggression. This I have already demonstrated.
Without the invasion of Islam, history would not have known the Crusades.

This is not to say that I cannot maintain my argument using your reasoning by drawing distinctions between expressed and actual motivations, it just becomes a little more complex.
We see in the first Crusade that the expressed motivations do not deviate from the actual motivations. This becomes apparent when examining Pope Urban's speech at the council of Clermont after recieving the plea of military aid from Byzantine Emperor Alexius in 1095.
At the council Pope Urban explained, that he was calling for the Crusade because without any defensive action "the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked" by Muslim forces. After admonishing the Christians to keep peace among themselves, he turned their attention to the East:

For your brethen who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them aid which has often been promised them. For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania[Byzantine] as far west as the shore of the mediterranean and the Hellespont. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impunity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them.

Note the pope says nothing about conversion or conquest. The Crusades came together as pilgrimages: Christians from Europe made their way to the Holy Land for a religious purpose, Many took religious vows.
Of course, not every Crusader's motives were pure. More than once, many fell from the ideals of Christian pilgrims.
Pope Urban didn't envision the Crusades as a chance for gain. He decreed that the lands recovered from the Muslims would belong to the Byzantine Empire. The pope saw the Crusades as an act of sacrifice rather than profit.

Nothing indicates that the Crusades were an early form of predatory imperialism.
Crusading was, in fact, extremely expensive. Crusaders sold their property to raise money for their long journey to the Holy Land, and did so knowing they might not return. As Brachy-pride stated in his post, secular society today cannot grasp the mind set of 11th century Christian Europe. The average Christian laymans first and formost concern was God and the kingdom of heaven. To avoid sin and act in the service of God ensured them a place in heaven. A perfect example of this is the phenomena of the pilgrim crusade were thousands upon thousands of Christian non-fighting men and women left their homes and took up the popes decree of the crusade and journeyed to the Holy Land.
A vast majority of Crusaders were not "second sons" looking for a profit and estates in the Middle East. Most were like Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, who sold off many of his properties in order to finance his trip. Godfrey clearly planned to come home after the pilgrimage because he did not give up his title or all his holdings.
Nobles in the Crusades had their own estates and had a great deal to lose.
However some Crusaders did very well for themselves after the first Crusade, but most who return to Europe came back with nothing material to show for their efforts.
Their were no colonial arrangements with the coming of the Crusades. Broadly, a colony is a land that is ruled by a far-off power. But the Crusader states were not ruled from Western Europe; the governments they established did not answer to any Western power. Nor did the Crusader rulers siphon off the wealth of their lands and send it back to Europe. They had no economic arrangements with any European states. In fact, many Crusaders ceased to think of themselves as European.
The chronicler Fulcher of Charters wrote:

Consider, I pray, and reflect how in our time God has transferred the West into the East. For we who were once Occidentals now have been made Orientals. He who was Roman or a Frank is now Galilaean, or inhabitant of Palestine. One who was a citizen of Rheims or of Chartres now has been made a citizen of Tyre or of Antioch. We have already forgotten the places of our birth; already they have become unknown to many of us, or, at least, are unmentioned.

have to take a break, I'll continue in another post. I Don't feel like rewriting all this again.:p

I can see some of your points, but you're definitely on shaky ground with some of them. From a purely philosophical point of view, you've got cause and effect the wrong way round. When X is the cause of Y, that doesn't mean that if you have Y you must have had X - it means that if you have X you must have Y. That's what is usually understood by causation - cause entails effect, not effect entails cause. For example, imagine that a house is destroyed because I set it on fire. My fire-setting is the cause and the destruction is the effect. But it doesn't follow from that that any destroyed house must have been burned by me. All that follows from that is that if I burn a house it will be destroyed.

This is relevant to your argument since you seem to be trying to show (a) that Muslim aggression was the sole cause of the Crusades, and, because of this, (b) the Crusades couldn't have existed without Muslim aggression, since the presence of the effect entails the presence of the cause. It seems to me that all you've shown, if anything, is that (c) there was Muslim aggression, and (d) it was one of the causes of the Crusades. But no-one would deny (c) or (d). You haven't shown (a) at all. On the contrary, there were plenty of other causes, such as the view of many Christians that it was undesirable for Muslims to control the Holy Places (irrespective of their aggression in acquiring it), or the view of many Christians that all Muslims were much of a muchness and one bunch of Muslims could be attacked for the crimes of another bunch of Muslims. To put it another way, it's perfectly possible to imagine Muslim aggression occurring without any Crusades happening in response, which means that Muslim aggression can hardly have been the sole cause. Again, you certainly haven't shown (b), partly because the understanding of causation that underlies it is fallacious, and partly because we can see counter-examples in history. The real first Crusade was fought by Heraclius against the Persians, and that hadn't been caused by any kind of Muslim aggression, since it happened while Muhammad was still sitting in a cave somewhere. Or, if you prefer, you can go even further back and take the Battle of the Frigidus, when Theodosius the Great defeated the (largely pagan) armies of Eugenius. These are examples of wars that were viewed by many Christians as righteous struggles against the unbelievers. In other words, we can see precedents for this sort of thing before the Muslims even came on the scene; Christians were already used to the idea of holy war, having fought them on a number of occasions in the past. So you can hardly point to Muslim aggression as the sole cause of the Crusades even on the most simplistic reading of it. For example, if Islam had never happened there still might have been Crusades against other powers (perhaps more holy wars against Zoroastrian Persia, for example). In particular, you can't use nice, neat logical categories such as necessity and sufficiency when dealing with history, because everything is far more complicated than that. The existence of Islamic aggression is established by examining history and seeing how Muslims actually behaved, not by drawing conclusions from what they believed in a Cartesian sort of way. At least, that's how I see it!

Don't take the criticisms the wrong way - I do think you're right to point out Muslim aggression as a factor in the causes of the Crusades (especially given that we often hear the Crusaders criticised disproportionately more than the architects of the Muslim invasions of earlier centuries) - I just think that you're going too far in what you're trying to establish, in particular the claim that Muslim aggression was the sole cause of the Crusades, that the Crusades were "defensive" in any serious sense of the word, and the application of suspect philosophical principles to an analysis of history. I don't think anyone's successfully managed the latter!

Plotinus,
You have misundertsood the manner in which I have applied the philosophy of causality in relation to my argument. But the fault is mine, in my haste I did not clearify the term crusade and failed to elaborate on its application; so I can certainly understand why my use of cause and effect may have seemed
faulty.
My use of the philosophy of causality is determined by my argument on the historical "Crusades", not the general use of the word "crusade". My argument is substantiated on the actual historical Crusades that had transpired, not on an alternate probability.
So by applying causality under those terms, we see that if Muslim aggression(X) is the necessary cause of "the first Crusades"(Y), then yes, the first Crusades(Y) will only occur if preceded by Muslim aggression(X). What I must demonstrate is "IF" Muslim aggression is in fact the necessary cause or as you stated above: "to show (a) that Muslim aggression was the sole cause of the Crusades". By applying the Crusades in its historical context I have demonstrated this in a previous post.
In short, emperor Alexius sent a plea to Pope Urban for military aid against Muslim aggression which launched the first Crusades.

I may be wrong but your example of causality may be a bit shaky too.:p
You stated:

When X is the cause of Y, that doesn't mean that if you have Y you must have had X

Logically, I believe it does.
Actually the presence of X does not ensure that Y will occur, but the presence of Y ensures that X must have occurred.

You validate this by your statement below, however the latter part is flawed:

To put it another way, it's perfectly possible to imagine Muslim aggression occurring without any Crusades happening in response, which means that Muslim aggression can hardly have been the sole cause.

Here you state that it is possible that Muslim aggression could have occured without the materializtion of the Crusades, however Muslim aggression IS the sole cause because the presence of the Crusades ensures Muslim aggression existed.

However I must concede that according to logic, other events may have also triggered a crusades, and thus the presence of a crusades does not ensure the presence of Muslim aggression.
But again, by employing the Crusades in its historical context (i.e. Crusades: a holy war fought by Christians against Muslims) then we can deduce that the above logic does not apply.


In actuality the philosophy of casuality is irrelevant to my agrument, my intention was to apply casuality to maintain my agrument not to deviate from
it. And thats exactly what happened. I should have known not to use philosophy to validify my argument, philosophies are rarely ever agreed upon.:p
In any case, I appreciate all your criticizim and I am truly grateful for your time. From what I gather we seem to disagree on two points, the Crusades being a defensive and delayed response to Muslim aggression. I can still go on and attempt to prove my argument but only if you are willing.
Thanks again.