The Crusades

1. The Christian Crusades

By: Jeremy Muston

Chhi 301 Summer 2009

The Crusades

The Crusades were expeditions undertaken, in fulfillment of a solemn vow, to deliver theHoly places from Mohammedan tyranny. The origin of the word may be traced to the cross made of cloth and worn as a badge on the outer garment of those who took part in these enterprises.¹

There are numerous differing theories as to why the Crusades actually took place. Along withthese differing theories comes a lot of questions that need to be answered. Was the purpose of the Crusades to promote Christianity? Did God give the command to carry out the Crusades? Were the Crusades carried out in a way that was acceptable to God? In this paper we will explore the different reasons for the Crusades. We will try to understand the thinking process of those who carried out these acts of war. We will look to the Word of God to see what the Holy Scripture says about this type of behavior. We will explore the idea that these crusades have never stopped.

In doing the research for this paper, I found that there is a lot of speculation as to why these events took place. The reasons for this time in history seem to differ depending on the culture in which the stories are written. The story involves two major players; the Christians and theMuslims. Each one has their own take as to what happened and why. Christian historians have many possible views as to why the Crusades took place. These two theories tend to top the list.

First, Christians faced the military and political threat of Islam. The Seljuk Turks, fanatical group of converts to Islam, invaded the Holy Land and seized Christianity’s sacred shrines.The Islamic radicals continued their march into Asia Minor, Christian Territory where they met some resistance from the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Christians), but at the battle of Manzikert(1071), the Turks captured the Easton emperor and scattered his forces. Within a few years Asia Minor was lost. Nicea fell to the invaders in 1092, bringing the Turks perilously close to Constantinople, the Byzantine capitol. The new emperor, Alexius I asked Pope Urban II to send mercenaries to aide him in recovering the lost territories. Thus, Christian crusaders headed toward the Holy Land in part because they were invited. They were giving aid to Christians in the East.²

Second, the Roman Catholic Church of the eleventh century was led by a militantly aggressivepapacy. The reformed-minded party of the church felt that church improvement lay in investing the Pope with more authority. In his rallying sermon for the First Crusade, Urban referred to himself as “spiritual ruler of the whole world.” Of course, it would be only fitting that the ruler of the whole world being Christian, would have to lay claim to the birth place ofChristianity.²

The Christian Crusaders following the lead of Pope Urban II waged war on the Muslimpopulation in the Holy Land, which they believed to be rightfully theirs. They felt that they were being led by God to take back what had previously been taken from them. It is hard for people ofthis generation to fathom what it must have been like for these people involved in the first Crusade. We are fortunate to have lived in a free country, where our ability to freely worship inthe places that we considered holy have never been taken from us. Sadly this was not the case inthe eleventh century. The people who took part in the Crusades were determined to not let anything stand in the way of them regaining control of the Holy Land and ridding their environment of any infidels.

Futhermore, Christians of the time believed that violence, if used rightly, was a proper means of defending Christians. Augustine had laid down the principles of a “just war”: it was conducted by the state; it’s purpose was the vindication of justice. For Augustine, a just war’s purpose was to achieve peace. Even in waging war, a follower of Christ must “ cherish the spirit of a peacemaker.”¹

Unfortunately, this mentality did not hold true for all members of the crusades. There were those who let the idea of the wrongs done against them prevail over the ideology of peace. In doing so, some crusading mobs resorted to attacking non-combatant Muslims, such as women,and children. To make matters even worse, when Pope Urban II was rallying Christians, he offered anextraordinary reward to those who set out to liberate the land of the Savior’s birth: “All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in the battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins.” Of course this may be completely contrary to the Word of God, but it was believed to be true by those who followed the Pope. This kind of reward could only inflame the intensity of those fighting during the Crusades.

According to the Word of God there have been many occasions where God has sent Hispeople into battle to defend their land or even to claim their land. So the argument is easily madethat the people of this time were just doing what they thought God was telling them to do. TheChristians believed that they were justified in what they were doing, and even today most Christians feel that we were right in what we did to take back our Holy Land.

The Muslim’s on the other hand, tend to look at the Crusades from a different perspective.Muslims viewed the Christian settlements as alien and illegitimate, established at the expense of the native population which had been displaced or massacred.³ This is ironic because theChristians thought that they were the native population of the Holy Land.Some Muslim scholars interpreted the success of the First Crusade as divine punishment against Muslims for neglecting their religious duties, and for failing to prosecute a jihad in defense of territories God had entrusted to them.³ To the credit of the Muslim population, they were remorseful for what they felt to be letting God down. The Christians and Jews alike have always struggled with the idea of taking care of what God has given them. On many occasions we have neglected the land which God has given us, just to have it taken away by some outside force.

After the First Crusade, the Muslims began a counter crusade, or jihad. The Muslims finally recovered control of Jerusalem in 1187 under the lead of Saladin. Although the Muslims saw the Crusades as a religious war against Islam, they considered Christians to be more of a politicalthan religious enemy. Thus when Saladin recovered the Holy Land from the Christians, he gave them the choice of living in the area and paying a poll tax, or moving to Christian-held territories.³

Based on this account of what happened after the jihad, the argument can be made that the Muslims followed Augustine’s principles of a just war better than their Christian counterparts. It seems that they showed more mercy than the Christians did in allowing the Christians to remainthere in the Holy Land after the war.

Of all the history that one can find on the crusades, one thing is clearly evident. Both sides of the war felt that they were doing what God had told them to do. They were both fighting for the same goal. They were both fighting to eliminate any heresy from their religion and to remove said heretics from the Holy land.

The question now is; have the Crusades ever stopped? On September 29, the ChicagoTribune ran a letter, discovered by the FBI, that had been written to the September 11 hijackers,emboldening them with the promises of paradise in exchange for their suicide attack. This lettersounds a lot like the reward promised by Pope Urban II to all those who would volunteer to carry out the first Crusade. The similarities are that neither promise made is in accordance with each religions teachings. God has certainly never promised salvation to anyone in exchange for violent acts against another human being.

I think it is safe to say that given the selfishness of mankind, that these wars will always be fought as long as man exists in the current Godless state that we live in today. Though the intentmay be good, the end does not always justify the means. If we as Christians forget that we are here to “as much as possible live peacefully among all men” then the likelihood that we will ever see a time when war does not exist is very slim.

Bibliography

1. The Catholic Encyclopedia/ Crusades. 2009

2. Shelley, Bruce L. “ How could Christians Crusade” Christianity Today 2005

3. Dajani- Shakeel, Hadia “Christian History Corner: A Muslim perspective on War.” Christian History 2001