Hidden Aspect of Muslims and Christian Relations in the Crusader States

By George Archer

B.A. May 2006, State University of New York at Stony Brook

M.A. August 2009, The George Washington University

A thesis submitted to

The Faculty of
The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
of The George Washington University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of the Arts

August 31, 2009

Thesis directed by

Mohammad Faghfoory
Professor of Religion
 Abstract of Thesis

Hidden Aspects of Muslim and Christian Relations in the Crusader States

This thesis examines the meeting of Near Eastern Muslims and Western European

Christians in the 11th and 12th century Latin Crusader Kingdoms. As the crusaders were

by definition enemies of the Islamic religion, and settled for several generations in the

midst of the Islamic world, they were forced to adopt increasingly more complex and

tolerant views of religious ‘others.’ A religiously mixed culture of Christian and Islamic

elements began to form, which I shall here attempt to demonstrate and analyze.

I will track the early history of this period with an account of the European

development of Islamophobia in the 9th-11th centuries based on historical record. After

the First Crusade created Latin nations in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1099, the role of

Islam in the psyche of the crusaders began to change as they became acclimatized to

Islamic cultures and practices. Using primarily eyewitness testimonies from both

Christian and Muslim sources, I will expose what can be deduced about these people’s

attitudes on Islam in the Crusader States. After describing the recapture of the city of

Jerusalem by Saladin in 1087, there will be a short conclusion outlining patterns and

progressions of interreligious relations.

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 Table of Contents

Abstract of Thesis…………………………………………………………………..……..ii

Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………iii

Chapter 1: Overview and Sources……………..…………………………………………..1

Chapter 2: The Construction of the Other, 1058-1095……………………………………9

Chapter 3: The Descent, 1096-1099……………………………………………………..18

Chapter 4: A New Culture……………..……………………………………..………….24

Chapter 5: Christian Kings and Muslim Subjects…………….……….…………………33

Chapter 6: Malik Bardaw!l ………………………………………………………..……..37

Chapter 7: De Laude Novae Militæ – “In Praise of the New Knights”………………….40

Chapter 8: The Muslim Burgher and the H"al#l Crusader……….……………………….47

Chapter 9: Fall of the Latin East…………………………………………………………55

Chapter 10: Concluding Notes - Islam as Shadow and Mirror………………..…………60

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..63

iii
 Chapter 1: Overview and Sources

The primary goal of this effort is to draw images of Western Christian interactions

with Near Eastern Islam in and around Jerusalem in the 11th and 12th centuries,

specifically within the small nations born from the First Crusade. We wish to argue that

there was a two-fold understanding of Islam in Crusading Western Europeans. It was at

once condemning and yet potentially accepting, and this later trait momentarily surfaced

as the more dominant of the two in “Latin Jerusalem” in the wake of the early Crusades.

After the two cultures violently collided, the initial tension between these two peoples

cooled into a short-lived but fascinating third culture that was to be quickly swept away

by continuing conflict. This third culture is our task at hand. It was not theologically

syncretistic – Christians remained orthodox Christians and Muslims, Muslims - yet this

aborted culture had at least inklings of tolerance pointing towards pluralism.

This is something of a hidden history without a clear trajectory that can be seen

from a modern standpoint, and so a pure chronology of events will be minimized.

Outlines of this epoch have already been completed many times over with only the

slightest disagreement amongst scholars. A strictly linear account of the period would be

merely an exercise in storytelling (although we will have to tell the tale to establish a

1
setting.) To afford sufficient context, there will be a recount of the First Crusade

provided. Focus will be given on its calling and some of the key eyewitness records of

the event, but only so much as they explain indigenous Western opinions of Islam. This

will then give way to several accounts of the relations between Christians and Muslims

within the Crusader States according to eyewitnesses. These principle fragments will be

overlaid with evidence from the period and its aftermath that addresses or is affected by

these experiences. This will be summed up with a short conclusion dealing with how

these events and documents can possibly be read and what can be known about religious

sentiments in this vanished group of peoples.

As is the case when dealing with figures of the remote past, especially when they

are not standing in the spotlight of the world stage, there are certain missing voices that

cannot be adequately recovered. There were certainly plenty of non-combatants both

from the East and the West, but there is little that can be said for them purely due to a

sheer lack of evidence. The voices of women, both Muslim and Christian, together a

mighty bulk of the populace, are non-existent. To know more of these people would of

course be a boon, but without even the barest bones of foundations upon which to build,

such as would require the uncovering of previously unknown documents or artifacts,

there is nothing further to be said.

On the use of a term: ‘crusade’ is a wide-ranging word that properly indicates

various Western assaults on perceived heresies across the second half of Western

Europe’s Middle Ages.1 These wars include the numerous scuffles with the Byzantines

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1
Another term: ‘Middle Ages’ and its synonyms are problematic in several ways. It is an anachronism that
would not have made sense to the peoples of that time. It is at least mildly disparaging, as if that formative
period of a thousand years was merely an interregnum between Rome and the Renaissance. When we cross
into the Islamic world, the term does not seem to apply even more so, as the Muslim world was not “in the

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(especially the Fourth Crusade), the “Northern Crusades” against indigenous paganisms

in the Baltic region, the “Albigensian Crusade” against the Cathars of Languedoc, the

Reconquista of the Iberian lands, and of course, the sieges against Near Eastern Muslims.

As the common English use of this term today summons up only images of the last of

these, and as they alone are our concern here, we will use the term in its vernacular

capacity for simplicity’s sake.

Why this narrow frame of reference? The Crusader States were hardly the largest

or longest meeting of Western Christianity and Islam in medieval times. The various

Muslim states of Iberia (al-Andalus) lasted as political entities for the nearly 800 years

leading up to 1492, with another century of noteworthy Muslim minority in the peninsula

present until 1570. Muslims interacted with the numerous princely realms of Italy from

the very dawn of Islam until the early modern era; notably in the arena of commerce with

the Venetians and during the Emirate of Sicily (Im#rat S"afiliyyah). More recently, large-

scale interactions between all the major lands of the West and the Ottomans occurred

until the latter’s eventual fall. Within all this, the West received continuous influxes of

Islamic influences in science, technology, medicine, theology, philosophy, and

mathematics until the end of the Renaissance.

When the modern Westerner reflects on Islam and Christianity’s associations

before very recent history, it is the Crusades that stand prominently in the foreground.

Whether or not it is an accurate historical claim to say that the Crusades are the

quintessential meeting of Islam and Christianity is rarely called into question. To be

blunt, the Crusades were not necessarily purely religious conflicts as much as a series of

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middle” of any two comparable points at all. However, as the phrase had and does have universal approval,
we must reluctantly continue its use.

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economic, commercial, and political adventures (and misadventures) with roughly similar

religious overtones between them. The religious elements would remain later in the

popular imagination of both Christians and Muslims, while the more material causes

would be forgotten. Public memory naturally shifts towards more digestible dualisms: the

American Civil War was “over slavery,” Rome fell due to “barbarian invasions,” and so

on. The Crusades were surely religious campaigns, but to say that that is all there were is

a half-truth.

Further confusing the matter, the size of the cultural contact between the religions

in the Crusades is often overestimated. The individuals and events in question were quite

localized in relation to the great civilizations they are claimed to represent. That the

conflicts were between very specific subgroups of two immense religious communities is

too often (or too conveniently) neglected. A minority of Latinate Western Christians and

the various Muslim bands (Arabs, Turks, Kurds, and the occasional Persian) that shifted

around the urban centers in the southwestern Mediterranean are the only active

participants in the drama. To expand the Crusades into wars in the name of one

civilization or another is both dangerous and false.

But yet when a fanatical Christian mentions, “waging crusade,”2 or a fanatical

Muslim calls someone a “crusader,”3 the reference does not require a clarification. It is

strangely not an obscure illusion to distant history, although by all means it ought to be.

For reasons both obvious and obfuscated, the Crusades remain fresh in the 21st century’s

imperialist/terrorist psyche, even if their most direct effect does not. That the Crusades

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2
David E. Sanger (2004, April 14) “President Makes a Case for Freedom” The New York Times. Retrieved
from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/14/politics/14ASSE.html
3
Osama bin Laden (2001, November 3) “Bin Laden Rails Against Crusaders and UN” BBC News.
Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1636782.stm

4!
sought to take the Holy Land is common knowledge even to the historically illiterate.

However, that those same lands were actually held and governed by the Crusaders for

almost a century is less likely to be noted. It is not often considered that there were

crusaders who were born, earned a living, and died of old age in the middle of the vast

world of their supposed religious enemies.

There are only indirect descriptions of daily life for the inhabitants of the

Crusader States known and surviving. There are a handful of accounts of various

individuals who lived in or visited the area at the time, but they each have their limits.

Given the era, only a minority of those living in either the East or the West would have

been literate.4 Upon this, the more learned classes would not have been as commonly

found amongst the Crusader States as elsewhere at the same time.

For the Muslims, the richer or more educated would have either been killed or the

first to flee to safety towards Egypt or various cities further to the East. After the initial

arrival of the Crusaders and the “conversion” of the land into an outpost of Christendom,

there would have been little possibility for a new literate class of Muslims to spring up by

either migration or education. The overwhelming majority of the population of the

Crusader States (native Arabic-speaking Muslims of the lower classes) were not literate,

and most likely could not leave records for posterity.

For the Crusaders themselves, the vast majority of the fighting men (possibly

literate upperclassmen knights and would-be landowners) left after the city was taken.

Quickly after the capture of Jerusalem, the job was considered complete and the majority

of the pilgrims returned home. Faithful and/or opportunistic peasants began to pour into

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4
James Westfall Thompson, The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle Ages (New York: B. Franklin, 1963)
pp. 126.

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the Latin Kingdoms after their founding, and would form the backbone of the States’

immigrant populations. Immigrants to the Crusader States from Europe were mostly of

the lower classes that sought financial and/or spiritual opportunities in the Holy Land.

Few would have been well educated enough to read and write.

Some did, and there are eyewitness accounts of Franks native to the Crusader

States that will be discussed below. They are few in number and all clergymen, as can be

expected. However, the Frankish chroniclers of the period are more concerned with

political histories than the internal relations between crusaders and Muslims in their

nations. The few histories of the era that were made and survive hardly tell a complete

story.

Unfortunately for the ends of this effort, it is more common to tell sad stories of

the death of kings than the lives of commoners. For example, the greatest Western

historian of the age, William of Tyre (1130-1186) who was born in Jerusalem, only

discusses the affairs of the common people in the Crusader States once. He speaks of

battles and nobles; of the movements of troops and the fall of cities; but no farmers,

peddlers, or random conversations. Lamentably, William does not seem to think that the

personal details of his own life and the lives of the masses are noteworthy. In his one

detailed reference to the people of the Crusader States, he only mentions how

depopulated the city of Jerusalem was shortly after the crusaders first invaded the city in

1095. This is the one reference from a true, native-born citizen of the Crusader States

about the common people of his homeland, and it is only of a memory from thirty years

before his own birth.5

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5
William Archbishop of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. E.A. Babcock and A.C.
Krey (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943) vol. I, pp. 381-82.

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 Therefore other sources must be used in the stead of the subjects themselves. The

most reliable of these sources will have to be the eyewitness accounts left by visitors to

the Crusader States. Nations with highly strategic positions on trade or troop routes

attract many visitors. The Latin Kingdoms of the East were no different. Knights,

diplomats, pilgrims, merchants, and various seekers of fortune would cause a consistently

fresh tourist/invader trade. A number of these people would leave behind accounts of

what they saw and did.

Another eyewitness, Fulcher of Chartres, was a crusader who composed a

chronicle of the First Crusade and the new world in the “Overseas.” He has many of the

same limitations as William of Tyre: his interests are more political and military than

cultural or religious. But Fulcher de Chartres’ reports are the closest thing to an internally

detailed native voice of the Crusader States surviving to us. Further, he would die in

1127, only twenty-eight years after the initial Crusaders arrived. He cannot offer any

insight into the later culture of the Crusader States, roughly in second half the 12th

century. He does give us suggestions that the Franks are, in his words, “being made

Orientals.”6

On another unfortunate note, although his Historia Hierosolymitana is quite

detailed, Fulcher de Chartres’ versions of events are not always trustworthy. He describes

scores of events, many of which are of major significance to early Crusading history, and

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Most regrettably, William of Tyre leaves an account that is now lost of the history of the region starting
with Muhammad called “The Deeds of Oriental Rulers” (Gesta orientalium principum). One can only
imagine, for the better or the worse, how a Christian crusader would have addressed the lives of the Prophet
and the early caliphs. See Peter W. Edbury and John G. Rowe, William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East
(Cambridge University Press, 1988) pp. 23-24.
There has been argument that William of Tyre’s histories reveal a form of tolerance for Muslims in other
nations, which is beyond the scope of this project. See R.C. Schwinges, Kreuzzugsideologie und Toleranz.
Studien zu Wilhelm von Tyrus (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1977)
6
Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana, Book III: XXXVII

7
he provides what is debatably the most complete account of the First Crusade after

William of Tyre’s. But his imagination and/or the imaginations of his sources often get

the best of his histories. Oddly specific omens, bizarre miracles, and extreme

exaggerations abound a bit too much, giving his text a ring of hearsay, gossip, and cosmic

self-importance.

There were later visitors who would also leave records of their experiences, chief

amongst them Us!mah ibn Munqidh, Benjamin of Tudela, and a few others whose stories

are more down-to-earth. However, their stays, as far as their documents imply, seem to be

significantly shorter than Fulcher’s three decades. They leave what may only be isolated

incidents and interesting happenings of their travels. Day-to-day life and any grasp on

what can be considered normalcy is elusive.

Our efforts are not to extend the specific scholarship of any one of these people,

events, or artifacts on its own, as these have all been established for some time and to

engage them such would be redundant. We will not point out new stars, but chart

forgotten constellations. We want to draw out a secret theme that connects each of these

points and underline Westerners’ struggles to fit Islam into their worldview without

syncretism, adoption, denial, or repulsion. No one piece of evidence or story has much to

offer on its own, but when viewed together a more complex image of this time period is

visible. We do not have all the pieces to the puzzle, but the handful we do have fit

together.

And so the question is what were the opinions of residents of the Crusader States

in regards to one another’s religions and cultures and what were the immediate effects of

this encounter?

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 Chapter 2: The Construction of the Other, 1058-1095

The physical and cultural distance travelled by the first crusaders is extraordinary,

as if Sri Lanka was to be overthrown and ruled for a hundred years by a small band of

samurai. That it was a very long way to the Holy Land is a very important key to

understanding how and why the Crusades came to be.

The Mediterranean Sea simultaneously kept the Near East alien and also

accessible to the Westerners. The sea was the barrier that pushed Europe’s northwestern

extremes up and apart from the Islamic world. Because of this, Western Europe’s

Christians would not mingle as much with Islam and Islamic cultures as the Eastern

Christian’s had done. Because the northwestern areas of Europe were the least developed,

urbanized, and economically productive regions on the Mediterranean, there would be a

one-sided motion of goods, information, and technology.7 Trade routes led into the West,

but not through it. Militarily, the centuries of strife caused by the collapse of the Roman

system turned nearly all the West into independent local states with only nominal ties to

the papacy, the Holy Roman Emperor, or the Frankish monarchs.

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7
Edward Miller, M. M. Postan, Cynthia Postan, The Cambridge Economic History of Europe: Trade and
Industry in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) pp. 137-145.

9
 This all would surmount to a mentality aimed at what is nearby. The affairs of

distant lands and peoples were not of any major concern. The furthest boundary for most

Westerners at the time was only as far as could be traveled in a few days on foot: the next

village over or the nearest fortified castle or sanctuary. The old Roman roads had been

crumbling for some time and the kinds of knowledge that reached beyond the horizon had

become either lost or simply impractical. With few exceptions, (the wealthy, merchants,

the well-educated) it is quite unlikely that many of the first crusaders would have even

been entirely clear where Palestine was, let alone what they would have to go through in

order to get there.

When the first crusaders departed there were any number of odd happenings that

imply poor planning or naïve self-confidence. Starvation abounded and often crusaders

would have to return home when their finances ran out. Large crusading caravans would

get caught in the middle of winter or walking through deserts in the summer. Added to

this was constant attack, the intrigues of the Greek emperor’s court, and odd relapses into

the worship of farm animals8. The whole adventure of the First Crusade and its characters

is rife with signs of inexperience and ignorance of the wider world.

Yet it is also this profound cultural isolation that seems to have made such a

venture possible at all. For a people at the outskirts, it would become all too possible to

construct an impossibly monstrous ‘other’9 against which one must do battle. In future

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8
The chronicles of Albert of Aix tell of a period when many people believed the way to the Holy Sepulcher
was being revealed to them by “a certain goose filled with the Holy Spirit, and that a she-goat was not less
filled by the same Spirit.” From The First Crusade edit. Edward Peters (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1971) pp. 104.
9
We shall employ here the counter-identification of ‘the other’ which has as of late been in vogue across
the humanities due to the work of 20th century philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas. For examples of the term as
used here, see Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University
Press, 2000)

10!
scholarship, this sentiment would collectively be called the ‘crusading spirit’,10 and on

those occasions when medieval Occidentals encountered the terror of the unfamiliar, it

would be their catharsis.

This specific form of xenophobia, coupled with an underdeveloped education of

the outside world, created a variety of spiritual scapegoating. The collective anger or

despair of Western culture would produce a unique two-sided bigotry. If there were a

problem within one’s own environs, fingers would point to the Jews, or if available, the

remaining pagans. Often forgotten is that Jews and pagans would also endure massacres

at the hands of crusaders during the First and Northern Crusades respectively.

Should a problem occur on the international or cosmic-spiritual scale, accusations

would fly to the East. Previously these issues would be taken up with the Greek

Christians. Inheriting ancient prejudices Romans and Greeks had for one another, the

Great Schism of 1058 marked a final parting of ways between the two greatest branches

of Christendom. Besides the Byzantines, when a medieval Westerner looked beyond

what was known to them personally, they would encounter the Muslim world reaching

seemingly to the ends of the earth. If the Franks’ panic had a logic, it is that they were

flanked by the D#r al-Isl#m and the ocean.

From our vantage point, it is easy to forget that for most cultures and at most

times, religion was inseparable from any facet of life; even those facets people may wish

to reject. Moderns often take issue with religion’s long relationship with warfare, and as

much as we may want to downplay the connection, it cannot be denied. For good or for

ill, religions are their most vocal when they are near the extremes of the human situation,
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10
Yet another term: ‘crusading spirit’ seems the best pithy phrase for this phenomenon as it implies
courage, religion, spunk, and drunkenness; more fitting than the rather passive (and almost forgiving)
‘crusading impulse’ used by Lord Kinross in his The Ottoman Centuries as well as others.

11
including violence. Starting with the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312, and onto the Battle

of Tours in 732, it is not at all difficult to see a direct link between warfare and the Prince

of Peace: the soldiers of Christ (milites Christi).

The biblical Jesus has little to say about warfare save telling what happens to

those who live by the sword. However, as the Roman model of power and governance

slowly scattered and reassembled in the hands of the clergy, the connection between

violence and faith became increasingly more accepted. The exceptional saint aside, it is

impossible to find a wholesale rejection of aggression in this era. Military-imperialism

fused with the will of the Church because there was no other possible way. Although later

reformers may see this as a cause to lament, it was the key to the survival of Western

European civilization.

As fighting became more spiritually permissible, the Church tried to introduce

various reforms in order to keep warfare in check. In 989, the Synod or Council of

Charroux declared the Peace of God (Pax Dei) that established religious guidelines of

who may be attacked by a knight and for what reasons. This is followed in 1027 by the

declaration of the Truce of God (Treuga Dei) at the Council of Toulouges, which states

that violence may only occur during certain times of the year – limiting warfare to about

eighty days.11 Although neither council told any Christian to kill anyone else per se, we

can see in the gradual clarification of the Just War (Bellum Justum) a growing precedent

for the reigns of violence to be held buy the hands of religious authorities.

We turn east. With the realization of the East-West Schism in 1054, the break

between the religious authorities behind the Western and Eastern Churches become more

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11
D.C. Munro, Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, series I, vol. I
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Department of History, 1902), no. 2, pp. 9-12.

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firm. Along with the obvious effects of such a division, we find a certain mentality

growing in the West that something unnamed in the East has gone horribly wrong12. That

this Eastern threat is merely a blur of fear in the minds of Westerners rather than an

explicit menace shall prove to be of vital importance as our story progresses.

In March of 1095, Byzantine ambassadors arrived in the court of Pope Urban II.

They told him of the troubles of their emperor Alexius I Comnenus13 and his

predecessors who had recently been subject to a series of skirmishes with the Seljuk

Turks (Selçuklular). Most notable was the former Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes’ defeat

and capture in the epic battle of Manzikert in 1071. Although relations between the two

halves of Christendom had be slowly souring in the last few decades, necessity demanded

the laying aside of old arguments. Perhaps as a last resort, or in an effort to rekindle

ancient alliances, Alexius asked for military aid from the Western barons via the pope.

Seeing at once a chance to reunite with his Eastern fold, consolidate the power of

Western barons under his wing, and filter some of the vast riches of the Asian trade

routes into his lands, the Pope thus declared the First Crusade14 to the Franks (the ethnic

group to which he himself was one) at the Council of Clermont on November 27, 1095.

Given that this is without a doubt one of the most influential speeches in history, it must

be noted that all records of what exactly was said that fateful day differ from one another

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12
Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A History. Second Edition (New Haven Connecticut: Yale
University Press, 2005), pp. 2-7.
13
Alexius I Comnenus (1048-1118) marked the turning point in Eastern Roman history, as he and his
inheritors, the Comnenian Dynasty (Komn$noi) marked the first expansion of the empire since the rise of
Islam. His eldest daughter, Anna Comnenus (1083-1153) would later become one of history’s greatest
female historians by composing a chronicle of her father’s life and involvement with the First Crusade, the
Alexiad.
14
To be honest, it is not clear that what would be called “crusade” was what Urban II had in mind. He
seemed to be making the more realistic request of a small armed force to be sent to Constantinople.
However, if “crusade” is what his followers heard him say, it must not bother us here that he most likely
never said it.

13
in various important ways. Four supposed witnesses to Urban’s declaration survive. As

they were all written many years after the event in question, it is impossible to argue

whose rendering is the most accurate.

Here are excerpts from three of the four testimonies as they describe against

whom the pope commands the Christians to do battle. A chronicler simply called Robert

the Monk relates the following:

Sad news has come from Jerusalem and Constantinople that the people of
Persia,15 an accursed and foreign race, enemies of God… have invaded the lands
of those Christians and devastated them with the sword, rapine, and fire. Some
Christians they carried away as slaves; others they put to death. The churches they
have either destroyed or turned into mosques. They desecrate or overthrow the
altars. They circumcise the Christians and pour the blood from the circumcision
on the altars or in the baptismal fonts. Some they kill in a horrible way by cutting
open the abdomen, taking out the entrails and tying them to a stake; they then beat
them and compel them to walk until all their entrails are drawn out and they fall to
the ground. Some they use as targets for their arrows. They compel some to
stretch out their necks, and they try to see whether they can cut off their heads
with one stroke of the sword. It is better to say nothing of their horrible treatment
of women. 16

Another account, by Baldric of Dol states:

Everywhere in those cities there is sorrow, everywhere misery, everywhere

groaning (I say it with a sigh). The churches in which divine mysteries were
celebrated in olden times, and now, to our sorrow, used as stables for the animals
of these people! Holy men do not possess these cities; nay, but bastard Turks hold
sway over our brothers… The sanctuary of God is everywhere profaned.
Whatever Christians still remain in hiding there are sought out with unheard of
tortures.17

A third telling of the Council, by Guibert of Nogent:

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15
The Seljuks did come to control Persian lands by this time, and that they did assimilate many aspects of
that land, including the language, but we cannot assume that Robert understood this distinction.
16
The Crusades: A Reader edit. S.J. Allen and Emilie Amt (Ontario: Broad View Press, 2003) pp 39-40.
There is little known in detail of who this Robert the Monk was exactly, except that he was a Benedictine at
the Abbey of St. Remy and that he composed his account of the speech around the year 1116. See Robert
The Monk's History Of The First Crusade: Historia Iherosolimitana trans. Carole Sweetenham. (Vermont:
Ashgate Publishing, 2005) pp. 2-4.
17
Ibid. pp. 43. Baldric of Dol (d.1130) was bishop of Dol-en-Bretagne and author of several longer
collections of poems and histories, including this passage from his Historiae Hierosolymitanae.

14!
 For it is clear that the Antichrist is to do battle not with the Jews, or with the
Gentiles; but according to the etymology of his name, he will attack Christians.
And if the Antichrist finds there not Christians (just as at present when scarcely
any dwell there), no one will be there to oppose him… They [the Muslims]
demanded money of them [the Eastern Christians], which is not an unendurable
punishment, but also examined the calluses of their heels, cutting them open and
folding the skin back, lest, perchance they had sewed something there… [The
Muslims would force them to] drink until they vomited, or even burst their
bowels, because they thought that the wretches had swallowed gold or silver; or
horrible to say, they cut their bowels open with a sword and spreading out the
folds of their intestines, with frightful mutilation disclosed whatever nature held
there in secret.18

What does each of these documents have in common? They do not appear to have

any literary relationship in these or other passages. They do not have shared written

sources upon which they all draw. Nor do they seem to refer to one another. They are, we

must conclude, three different depictions of what a medieval Christian thought a Muslim

was (although not one of them seems to know the words “Muslim” or “Islam”). Whether

or not one of these opinions accurately reflects what the pope once said is unclear, but

regardless this paints an excellent picture of just how over-the-top medieval

Islamophobia was.

Each of these men tells of an impossibly grotesque enemy. Christian sensibilities

would all be specifically offended by this enemy, whether they are “Persians,” “Turks,”

or the minions of the Antichrist himself. They are blasphemous, greedy, sadistic, and

satanic in ways that are strikingly similar in style to the worst exaggerations and

stereotypes of anti-Semitism. No one is simply killed: they are mutilated to death while

their sacraments are defiled and their gold stolen. Although there is no way of knowing

exactly how much any of these accounts are based on rumor, superstition, or the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
18
Ibid. pp. 45-46. Guibert of Nogent (d.1124) was abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Nogent-sous-Coucy
and author of several histories. His Dei Gesta per Francos is a retelling of an earlier eyewitness account of
the speech that was considered to be of inferior quality. See The Deeds of God Through the Franks trans.
Robert Levine. Boydell Press, Cambridge 2003.

15
creativity of the authors themselves, we must acknowledge that because people did flock

to the First Crusade, many must have considered these extraordinary offenses believable.

The fourth document of the Council of Clermont comes from an author

introduced above, Fulcher of Chartres. Fulcher of Chartres (c.1060-1127) was the

personal chaplain of Stephen of Blois and Robert of Normandy. Of the “witnesses” of the

Council of Clermont, his is the only one who actually went on the crusade which the

sermon suggested. He joined the First Crusade and continued to live on in the Latin

Kingdom of Jerusalem until his death in 1127 where he served as a priest in the Church

of the Holy Sepulcher. He provides the most detailed eyewitness account of the First

Crusade and the early years of the Crusader States in his Historia Hierosolymitana,

which he composed in three volumes roughly around 1100, 1105, and 1125.19

His first book of history opens with the affair at Clermont. He, like the others,

calls the “Turks and the Arabs” a “despised and base race, which worships demons.”

However, Fulcher’s account lacks the extraordinary tall-tales of the three others. Other

than this single line, he does not expand on the matter further. Fulcher is hardly one to

shy away from exaggerations and embellishment. As mentioned above, hyperbole is one

of the definitive characteristics of his text.

The difference, of course, is that of the four authors, Fulcher is probably the only

one to ever see a Turk or an Arab. Even if Pope Urban did make outrageous claims about

what Muslims do or did, Fulcher (assuming he was actually at Clermont) does not seem

to have taken them too seriously. Fulcher still fears and distrusts “Turks and Arabs” and

thinks of their religion as demonic. But, as he was recording the text of the speech at

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
19
See Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem 1095-1127 trans. Harold S. Fink
(Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press, 1969)

16!
Clermont, either from memory, imagination, or hearsay, while living in Jerusalem, it

seems probable that he would have understood Muslims were not cartoonishly evil.

Fortunately Fulcher’s story of this period is written episodically and at or near the

scene of the events he depicts. We will return to Fulcher shortly.

17
 Chapter 3: The Descent, 1096-1099

As preparations must be made, and lengthy voyages on foot cannot set out in the

coming winter, time passes as Western forces gather for their “pilgrimage”. Officially,

the journey is not to begin until August of 1096. As the Crusade was ordered in

November of 1095, this would give the knights and nobles time enough to gather their

forces and finances. With this wait, fervor increases and the crusading spirit waxes.

At some point someone amongst the crusaders decided that it would be a worthy

cause to cleanse Christendom of its internal foes before setting off for foreign challenges.

The rage and brutality that Westerners felt towards Muslims would first manifest in

aggression against European Jewry. First in the Rhineland city of Speyer, a handful of

Jews are killed as old anti-Semitisms resurface in preparation for their encounter with

Muslims20. Later, in Worms, approximately seven hundred Jews are massacred. Thirteen

days later in Mainz, Solomon bar Samson records the Crusaders shouting, “let us avenge

the blood of the hanged one” in reference to Christ, with which over eleven hundred men,

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
20
Jack Shaheen’s interesting work Reel Bad Arabs (Olive Branch Press, 2001) theorizes over the
connection of Westerners’ fears of Jews and their fear of Arabs and Muslims.

18!
women, and children are put to the sword21. The pilgrims have not even left their

homelands yet.

Word of the crusade began to precede the armies themselves. As the crusaders

were not departing from the same place at the same time, and because each group

marched under its own lord, knight, or in some cases, preacher, they would arrive not en

masse, but in waves. One small band would arrive in a city, followed by another months

later, and another a year after that. When they started to appear in Muslim territories, a

general confusion was created. Who were these mad foreigners who wore a hundred

pounds of solid metal armor into battle under the Anatolian summer sun?

In the small city of Ma‘arra, the fanaticism of the Franks (now al-Franj or some

variant) became even more inhuman in December of 1098. Bloodlust, terror, and months

of undernourishment have taken their toll. As exaggerated as it seems, both Muslim and

crusader historians agree that after the siege of the city was concluded, the Franks turned

to cannibalism. Frankish chronicler and crusader Radulph of Caen wrote, “In Ma‘arra our

troops boiled adult pagans in pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured them

grilled”.22 Another chronicler amongst the Franks, Albert of Aix, explains further that his

company did something which he considered even worse: “Not only did our troops not

shrink from eating dead Turks and Saracens; they also ate dogs!” What did the crusaders

think of these people if they considered cannibalizing them less offensive than eating dog

meat?
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
21
See the testimonies of Solomon bar Samson, The Jew in the Medieval World trans. J.R. Marcus (New
York: Harper Row Publishers, 1938), pp. 115-18 and Albert of Aachen, The First Crusade: The Eye-
Witnesses and Participants trans. A.C. Krey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1921), pp. 48-56
22
Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (New York: Schocken Books, 1984), pp. 39. In a letter
to the pope, it is explained, “A terrible famine racked the army in Ma`arra, and placed it in the cruel
necessity of feeding itself upon the bodies of the Saracens.” Maalouf argues that this cannibalism was
actually not from starvation at all but rather the collective madness of the crusaders. Although this source
text disagrees per se, it is not an inconceivable idea even if it is extreme.

19
 Although the occurrence of eating human flesh would not occur again in any

recorded incident during the pilgrimage, the spiral into insanity continues all along the

road to Jerusalem. The siege of Antioch was to be particularly ferocious. According to

Fulcher of Chartres, Christ appeared in a vision to one of the people of Antioch and

commanded him to assist the Franks in getting inside. They sacked the city off guard and

many of the Turks fled in surprise.

Those Turks who had good and swift horses escaped, but the stragglers were
abandoned to the Franks. Many of these, especially the Saracen footmen, were
taken. On the other hand, few of our men were injured. In regard to the women
found in tents of the foe the Franks did them no evil but drove lances into their
bellies. Then all in exultant voice blessed and glorified God.23

It is not easy to imagine the kind of mindset that can make such a claim

(italicized) without flinching. The claim is absurdly blasé. Non-combatant women were

killed apparently for no reason, but no evil was done to them. The horror of the

declaration is only magnified by Fulcher’s complete nonchalant manner.

The acts of the first crusaders indicates that they did not have the ability to see

their enemies as human beings. How frightened they must have been of Muslims in order

to descend to such levels, far beyond even the typical wartime reaction to dehumanize.

The ruler of Tripoli, Jal!l al-Mulk, offered them open terms for an alliance. He knew that

he had no grievance with these foreigners nor they with him, and he assumed correctly

that they must have required fresh water, food, and horses. It seemed prudent to extend

them an olive branch and simultaneously win some business and an apparently powerful

ally. Instead, in yet another example of outright lunacy, the Franks attacked.24

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
23
Fulcher de Chartres, Book I:XXIII (italicization added)
24
Maalouf. pp. 43 Fortunately for Jal!l al-Mulk, after they tried to seize one of his cities for over three
months, they gave up and continued on to Jerusalem.

20!
 The ending finally comes with a bloodbath to pale those that foretold it when the

pilgrims reach the City on the Hill. One of the greatest Muslim historians of the age, ‘Izz

al-D"n ibn al-Ath"r, was born sixty years after the event in question. He tells us that

seventy thousand died that day. Generally such a number of causalities can be assumed

inflated, but we must venture a guess that he was not far off the mark. As a Frankish

Crusader present at the scene happily reported:

Piles of heads, hands, and feet were seen on the streets of the city. It was
necessary to pick one’s way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were
small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place
where religious services are often chanted. What happened there? If I tell the
truth, it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much at
least, that in the Temple and porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their
knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that
this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, since it had suffered
so long from their blasphemies.25

Fulcher of Chartres gives a slightly less exaggerated version of the same event.

He explains that Jerusalem has particularly narrow streets. As the crowds of retreating

people were pushed back and up towards the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhrah,

Templum Domini) and al-Aqsa Mosque, the people were forced into a bottleneck.

There was no place where they could escape our swordsmen. Many of the
Saracens who had climbed to the top of the Temple of Solomon in the flight were
shot to death with arrows and fell headlong off the roof. Nearly ten thousand were
beheaded in this Temple. If you had been there your feet would have been stained
to the ankles in the blood of the slain. What shall I say? None of them were left
alive. Neither women nor children were spared.26

Muslims and native non-Muslims were killed indiscriminately. Jews were burned

alive inside their synagogues, and Greek holy men were tortured until they revealed the

location of the holy sites.27 Of the few who were left alive, some were forced to dump the

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
25
The accounts of Raymond of Aguilers, Allen and Amt. page 77
26
Fulcher de Chartres, Book I:XXVII
27
Maalouf. page 49-51

21
bodies of their families and countrymen into ditches where they would be cremated along

with the corpses. The date was July 15, 1099. By July 17, the city was entirely

depopulated of its original inhabitants.

A month after Jerusalem was taken, the jurist Ab# S$a’ad al-H$arawi travels from

his home in Damascus to the court of Baghdad:

We have mingled blood with flowing tears,

And there is no room left in us for pity?
To shed tears is a man’s worst weapon
When the swords stir up the embers of war.
Sons of Islam, behind you are battles,
In which heads rolled at your feet.
How dare you slumber in the shade of complacent safety,
Leading lives as frivolous as garden flowers,
While your brothers in Syria have no dwelling place
Save the saddles of camels and the bellies of vultures?
Blood has been spilled!
Beautiful young girls have been shamed,
And must now hide their sweet faces in their hands!
Shall the valorous Arabs resign themselves to insult,
And the valiant Persians accept dishonor?28

But the Muslim world does not jump into action. Riddled with internal conflicts and

power struggles between the Seljuks and the slowly failing Fatimids (al-F#timiyy%n), this

ripple in the greater Islamic ocean takes time to create waves. The end of the First

Crusade and Islam’s major rebuttal before the Third will leave a ninety-year gap29.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
28
from Arab Historians of the Crusades, edit. and trans. E.J. Costello and F. Gabrieli (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1969), pp. 12. (Revised by author)
29
The Fall of the County of Edessa and the Second Crusade in 1145 are most certainly key events which
would lead to the unification of Muslim power and the eventual fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. But, the
Crusade was such a debacle, and the Seljuks’ victories were so effortless, that its final cultural influences
seem to have had little effect in the other Eastern Latin States other than to lower morale and turn the
Frank’s allies in Damascus into enemies. The city of Jerusalem would actually fall many years before the
Latin kingdom of the same name (1187, compared to 1291). We here are only concerned with the original
state itself, as the kingdom after it had lost its namesake city both lacks the same spiritual magnitude and
cultural potential. It is be briefly discussed below.

22!
 Shortly after this historic yawn begins, the famed Godfrey of Bouillion is named

“Advocate of the Holy Sepulcher.”30 Within a few years this seat will evolve into a

proper monarchy over the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Regnum Hierosolimitanum).

Other Crusader States are established as well: The County of Edessa, the Principality of

Antioch, and the County of Tripoli. The four states are possessed by different groups of

nobles but Jerusalem in always the de facto leader and hub of power and symbolic

influence.

Several urban districts are partially flushed of Muslims either by the saddle or the

lance. The sections of Jerusalem within the city walls become forbidden to all Muslim

and Jewish homes. The Franks, from Asia Minor to Egypt, now control the entire Eastern

coast of the Great Sea and the Muslims of that region are pushed out the centers of

power, both figuratively and literally.31

This ninety-year moment of time on this narrow strip of land is merely a scrap of

the larger history of the crusades. In the larger movements of empires and religions that

are tectonically shifting around, the little coastal states should not truly matter. However,

the life age of Latin Jerusalem, not even a century, is three of four generations enough for

a unique culture to start emerging.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
30
Joshua Prawer, The Crusaders’ Kingdom: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (New York: Praeger
Publishers, 1972), pp. 37
31
Ibid. pp. 46-59

23
 Chapter 4: A New Culture

In the West, the call to Jerusalem and the darkness which follows lingers on

unabated. With it comes a continuous trickle of migrants to the new lands over the next

century. But in the fledgling Latin realms of the East, there are signs of a new mentality

dawning. They call their new realm Outremer – literally “overseas.” Life in this strange

new world, although created by the insanity of the crusading spirit, has a second,

unintended effect: it has encouraged a fresh look at the ‘other.’ It takes a certain mixture

of time passing and the necessity of coexistence settling.

This slight shift can perhaps be prefigured in the form of Godfrey of Bouillon’s

cousin, Count Baldwin of Bourcq (d.1131). In Arabic he was known as al-Kumis (from

comte, “count”), who himself would someday become the second ruler of Edessa and

after that, the third Latin king of Jerusalem. He would also draft the official law books of

the kingdom.

Baldwin began to work alliances with the new em!r of Mosul, Jawali al-Saqawu.

Jawali offered aid to Baldwin (as well as his liberty as he was captive for a time) to fight

against Tancred of Antioch. There was infighting amongst the Franks and so Jawali

smartly used the situation to win himself an ally. In return “Baldwin quickly released all

24!
the Muslim prisoners in his territory, going so far as to execute one of his Christian

functionaries who had publicly insulted Islam”.32

This might be excused merely as lip service on Baldwin’s part, and this is at least

partially correct. If he wanted to win brothers-in-arms, it would be unwise to keep

company with those who had offended his would-be friends. But, when battle erupts in

October of 1107 and Baldwin and Jawali are no longer on the same side, Ibn al-Ath"r

reports:

Jawali fled, and a large number of Muslims sought refuge in Tel B!shir, where
Baldwin and his cousin Joscelin treated them with kindness; they cared for the
wounded, gave them clothing, and led them home.33

There are slightly milder things to come for the crusaders – that chivalry and

generosity to one’s ‘guests’34 might come to be extended beyond the borders of

Christendom. It does not seem to be much, but the context and players in the matter are

telling. Just nine years earlier, simply sparing the lives of non-combatant Muslim women

or accepting a Muslim as an ally in a time of need was asking too much.

It is tempting to try and excuse a very public act of kindness as mere propaganda.

Here Baldwin had nothing to gain from the encounter, except maybe to win himself some

goodwill amongst the Muslims. Underscore that all of Baldwin’s kingdom’s neighbors

were Muslim cities, and at home nearly all his subjects were Muslims as well. It would be

prudent for Baldwin to let the locals know that he could at least be civilized and rational.

If it was just political claptrap, it apparently worked to some extent, as later the chronicler

Ibn al-Qalanisi, who was hardly one to offer the Franks a complement, remarked about

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
32
Maalouf. pp. 73
33
Ibid. page 74
34
‘Guests’ in the sense of a medieval captive. Captivity in the world of the Latin Middle Ages more often
than not did not require a cell.

25
Baldwin that “after him there was none left amongst them possessed of sound judgment

and capacity to govern.”35

Whether Baldwin’s charitable deed was merely political cant, the first blossom of

tolerance, or both is not clear. He must have started to come to terms with the

permanence of Islam sooner or later. Whatever prejudices or xenophobia he or others

may have imported from Europe, they must have gradually appeared unrealizable.

Suppose the crusaders would have liked to literally rid the world of Muslims (or at least

the parts of it with which the crusaders were concerned). Given their recent deeds that

would seem realistic. If so, they must have soon discovered that the entirety of their

known world, in cities, farmlands, villages, and empires in every direction, forever, was

filled with Muslims. It must have been a daunting thought to those who had been

planning their lives and fortunes around genocide.

The worldview of the crusaders was not the only thing that was to change.

Amongst those who had wanted to settle permanently in this new world were wealthy

nobles and knights. They stole land by force or took up residence in newly abandoned

castles, churches, and mosques. When necessary and possible, they would also begin to

build some structures of their own from the European models to which they were

accustomed. Similarly, they tried to reconstruct the same methods of control used back

home: castle-forts with surrounding farmland populated by working serfs, i.e. feudalism.

They did not realize that such a distinctly Christian power structure could not work in the

Muslim world.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
35
Robert L. Nicolson, “The Growth of the Latin States,” A History of the Crusades, Volume I: The First
Hundred Years, edit. Kenneth M. Setton, Marshall W. Baldwin (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press,
2006), pp. 432

26!
 Although no human mastermind ever intended it, the feudal system of economics

and social power was a material reflection of the Church’s spiritual hierarchy. When an

organized religious system produces its own power structure, the relationships between

people and their government echoes their relationship to the Divine. Thus, medieval

Western Christian authority rests in two overlapping but independent hierarchies, church

and monarchy, as Christ possesses two simultaneous and complete natures, human and

divine. When the influential sphere of one system changes from local to universal (or

vice versa) the other sphere does so as well. When the papacy became more powerful, so

did the kings and emperors. When power shifted to the local bishops, the various barons

would be in the ascendant. Both the local system (based around bishops and barons) and

the universal (based around the papacy and a monarch) stand above feudal hierarchies

composed of serfs working on land that is owned by the church or the nobles. The two

systems support one another.

The Islamic social construct did not fit into this paradigm. The Islamic system

(iqt"#‘) is based around a series of placeholders: a caliph (literally a “steward”), a large

merchant/artisan class (that sell and process others’ raw goods), and most especially, hard

capital (a holder of value).36 All ownership and authority belongs to God, and therefore

all lesser systems of value or power are just regency (khal!fah). When a Muslim lord

wanted to pay one of his servants, they would be granted a piece of land to work. The

goods would be sold for coined money, which in turn could be traded or used to pay taxes

(a requirement of all Muslims, but not of all Christians).

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
36
There were also minted coins used in Europe, although they were not as useful as coinage in the Muslim
world. European coins of the period would have no value outside of the immediate area in which they were
produced.

27
 This constant movement of capital and wares meant that the availability of goods

in the average Islamic city would far exceed its Christian counterpart. The Islamic

economic system would develop elaborate and often quite ritualized schemes of bazaars,

caravans, haggling, and bargain hunting which must have baffled the crusaders. But they

would have learned and adapted quickly. It is a foreign concept now, but the crusaders

must have been in awe at all the wildly far-flung goods that could be found and

purchased on a whim. Cotton from Egypt, carpets in Persia, dyes from India, and silks

from China could all be purchased at a moment’s notice. Citrons, teas, and spices became

staples. Fulcher of Chartres seems almost childishly fascinated by sugarcane. He has a

hard time explaining it to his European readers except that it is like a reed that when

chewed tastes of honey but does not satisfy hunger.37

Any attempt to reconstruct the methods of control the Westerners used back

home, centered around land and agriculture, was swiftly altered to the Near Eastern

model focused around trade and minted coins. The results would have been quite

lucrative. The level of common comforts and luxury items had no rival in Christian lands

in that period of time. Back in Europe, the old, imaginary image of the Muslim-as-savage

lingered on, and thus pilgrims continued to arrive Outremer. Many would be quite

confused when they found former acquaintances in the Orient. Not only did it appear that

the cultures of the Easterners were to remain, the crusaders themselves wanted to see to

it.

The crusaders have children. Their children have children. Kinder climates and

better hygiene lend a hand as well. Soon the crusaders and their descendents must have

appeared quite different than the ragtag gang of filthy soldiers and peasants who had
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
37
Fulcher of Chartres, Book I:XXXIII

28!
arrived years before. Regular bathing, yet another requirement of Islamic custom to be

adopted by the crusaders must have been especially nice.38 The imported dyes and

fabrics, as well as the abundance of uncontaminated, fresh water meant that clothing was

almost always cleaner, more beautiful, more hygienic, and more comfortable than

anything produced in Europe. Marble and mosaic tiled floors kept the feet sanitary while

fine perfumes (one of the Prophet’s three favorite things, as the saying goes) soothed the

senses. This new world must have made Europe seem like a positive backwater in

comparison.

The crusaders, against anything they possibly could have foreseen, begin to shuck

off their old culture for something completely different – Islamic in form and taste, but

Christian in mind and faith. Fulcher of Chartres, makes mention (more telling because it

is nonchalant) of a knight he knows who now speaks Persian, and how this knight and his

Muslim counterpart bicker at each other.39 These Latins, to put it simply, are not

Europeans anymore. Some two decades after calling the Arabs and the Turks “a cursed

race,” Flucher gives the following testimony of his new life:

Consider, I pray, and reflect how in our time God has transferred the West into
the East, for we who were Occidentals now have been made Orientals. He who
was a Roman or a Frank is now a Galilaean, or an 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. Some already
possess here homes and servants which they have received through inheritance…
Some use the eloquence and idioms of diverse languages in conversing back and
forth. Words of different languages have become common property known to
each nationality… Those that were poor in the Occident, God makes rich in this
land… Therefore why should one return to the Occident who has found the Orient

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
38
An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades: Memoirs of Us#mah ibn
Munqidh, trans. Phillip K. Hitti (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp. xiv
39
Fulcher of Chartres, Book III: XXXVII

29
 like this? God does not wish those to suffer want who with their crosses dedicated
themselves to follow Him, nay even to the end.40

In many small ways, this Western Christians are starting to appear ever more like

Near Eastern Muslims. Baldwin of Odessa was known to grow a long beard and began to

eat squatting on fine carpets. The Prince of Galilee, Tancred of Antioch, minted coins

with his image upon them. On the coins he is proudly wearing his new Arab clothing,

including a turban41. The Muslims had been in the business of creating coinage since the

Umayyad Period. Yet, because the coin bares his human image, as opposed to nearly all

traditional Islamic art and craftwork, the gesture keeps a Christian flavor.

As far as can be seen from 800 years away, the Latins appear to be shedding

every vestige and habit of their former lives save their religion. Churches are built,

typically on the sites where events from the lives of Christ and the first Christians are said

to have occurred. But other than remaining true to their ancestral faith, the life in

Outremer leaves its mark. The crusaders were becoming cosmopolitans; citizens of a

much bigger world, leading them to slough off their past. We cannot honestly say what

the day-to-day life of one of these people was like, but some guesswork fused with

previous observations may help.

The constant arrival of wondrous, Eastern goods and travelers from distant lands

would soften their fears of the foreign. The city of Jerusalem itself was forbidden to all

but the Franks for a time, but all the outside land was still maintained by the local people.

The crusaders would hear the call to prayer in Arabic and the conversation of Eastern

Christians in Coptic, Armenian, and Aramaic dialects. Books, although still quite rare and

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
40
Ibid.
41
Gustave E. von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam. Second Edition. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1954), pp. 58

30!
expensive, could be read and the light of Greek learning could be uncovered. Islamic

philosophy and theology would not have been unheard of as pilgrims and merchants from

Baghdad buzzed with talk of the revolution of Algazel. The stories and insights of this

pivotal philosopher-poet would only grow more commonplace as the century continues.

Ab# H$!mid al-Ghazz!l" (1058-1111) as he would have been known by his fellow

Muslims, had lived for an uncertain amount of time in Jerusalem, not far from the Gate of

Mercy. It is possible that it was here that he composed his Revivification of the Religious

Sciences (Ih"ya’ ‘Ulum al-D!n).42 There were a series of caves that were used for Sufi

retreats around the Dome of the Rock. He is said to have stayed amongst them during his

twelve years of spiritual wondering. Because he was moving incognito, it cannot be

entirely confirmed when he arrived at or left the place. However, given the known timing

of his presence in the area, and that the Sufis and other holy men of the Temple Mount

were known to have been slaughtered to the last when the crusaders arrived, Ghazz!l"

probably moved away within months of certain death.43

The old city was kept as a Frankish refuge for the first two and a half decades of

the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was depopulated from the massacre of the conquest,

but it would have still been cramped quarters. It was small even by Frankish standards,

about three or four bowshots across – not even a brisk ten-minute walk from wall to wall.

The city was full of poorly buried bodies and no one was apt to keep the streets clean.

Fulcher mentions the foul smell around every corner. The nation itself, although called

“Jerusalem” stretched about 60 miles in most directions and included all the major

coastal port-towns of Ascalon, Acre, and Jaffa. Although Muslims, Jews, and Eastern

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
42
Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996), pp. 269
43
Maalouf, pp. xv

31
Christians were forbidden to enter the city, the locals continued on as the overwhelming

majority everywhere else in the land.

Baldwin of Bourcq is named the third Latin king of Jerusalem in 1118, making

him Baldwin II of Jerusalem. Under his rule non-Franks are permitted to enter the city

again. Muslims are allowed to do business there and stay for certain short periods of time

(whether or not they can live there permanently is not clear). By 1170 there are at least

some Jews living within the city walls again.44 This would push the limits of intercultural

and interfaith exchange even further than it had gone previously. Most importantly, some

of the crusaders were starting to understand that others too turned to the God of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
44
Armstrong, pp. 285

32!
 Chapter 5: Christian Kings and Muslim Subjects

In 1180, four score years after the foundation of the Crusader States, a pilgrim

named Ibn Jubayr (1145-1217) departs from his homeland of Granada (then the Im#rat

Gharn#tah). After completing the H"ajj and leaving Mecca, he travels north. He goes up

along the ancient caravan routes, presumably visits Medina, and continues on his way to

Acre (‘Akk#), where he will take a ship back to Spain. On September 17, 1184, he arrives

in the lands held by the Franks and does not seem to care for what he finds there.

The Christians impose a tax on the Muslims in their land which gives them full
security; and likewise the Christian merchants pay a tax upon their goods in
Muslim lands. Agreement exists between them, and there is equal treatment in all
cases. The soldiers engage themselves in their war, while the people are at peace
and the world goes to him who conquers.45

This observation was made from the garrison city of Tibnin, home to an imposing

castle-fort of Toron (built circa 1105). This may be why his observations are particularly

concerned with military service. As far as the records show, no Muslims ever fought for

the Latin Crusader kingdoms as a part of their duty. If ever this was to have happened, it

was either uncommon, unrecorded, or both. It seems probable that like in the European

feudal fashion, only those who could afford weapons were required to fight (although

about this we can only guess).

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
45
The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, trans. R.J.C. Broadhurst (London: Jonathan Cape, 1952), pp. 313

33
 Ibn Jubayr’s accounts are most likely relatively trustworthy if for no other reason

that there is no motive to be otherwise. He truly hates the Franks with a venomous

passion and curses them on every occasion on which they are mentioned. Whenever he

has to relay that something is going well for them, or their Muslim subjects, his outrage is

palpable. As a foreigner to these lands, he personally has no stake in happenings here. It

stands to reason that as he has no other cause to relate this “bad news” other than it is the

truth. We must, therefore, believe that there was a certain level of peace between

Christians and Muslims in the Crusader States because Jubayr tells us so.

Jubayr later says:

We moved from Tibnin [(Tibnayn)] – may God destroy it – at daybreak on

Monday. Our way lay through continuous farms and ordered settlements, whose
inhabitants were all Muslims, living quite comfortably with the Franks. God
protect us from such temptation. They surrender half their crops to the Franks at
harvest time, and pay as well a poll-tax of one dinar and five qirat for each person.
Other than that, they are not interfered with, save for a light tax on the fruits of
trees. Their houses and all their effects are left to their full possession. All the
coastal cities occupied by the Franks are managed in this fashion, their rural
districts, the villages and farms, belonging to the Muslims. But their hearts have
been seduced, for they observe how unlike them in ease and comfort are their
brethren in the Muslim regions under their (Muslim) governors. This is one of the
misfortunes afflicting the Muslims. The Muslim community bewails the injustice
of a landlord of its own faith, and applauds the conduct of its opponent and
enemy, the Frankish landlord, and is accustomed to justice from him. He who
laments this state must turn to God.46

Christians and Muslims in the 1180s can hardly be said to get along swimmingly, but

there are early indications that there was something at least Andalusian, if not utopian

happening. Of course Ibn Jubayr himself was from al-Andalus, so it would seem that his

shock is more over Muslims living well under Christians, rather than simply coexisting

well enough with them.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
46
von Grunebaum. page 109

34!
 This passage confirms that Muslims continued to live and work the land

apparently unmolested by the political upheaval in the cities decades earlier. Clearly they

were not killed off as their settlements are “continuous” and we can probably hazard a

guess that they or their ancestors’ oppression at the hands of the crusading overlords must

have been negligible. If it were otherwise, they would have been killed, fled, or had their

lands taken. But judging from Jubayr’s condemnation of these Muslims, we must assume

that they were more than merely surviving.

And the next day:

We came to the city of Acre – may God destroy it. We were taken to a custom
house… Before the doors are stone benches, spread with carpets, where are the
Christian clerks of the customs with their ebony ink-stands handsomely
ornamented with gold. They write in Arabic, which they also speak well… The
officials did their work courteously and without violence or exaction 47

We can extrapolate some interesting points here: at least some of the crusaders are

learning Arabic in order to conduct business. Not only have they learned enough to

converse, they “speak well.” For Ibn Jubayr to complement a people like this, as he is in

the middle of cursing them, suggests that they must speak Arabic notably well, indeed.

Could Arabic have been their first language?

Also puzzling is that they are literate. If they are writing in Arabic that also

implies that they had some formal tutelage. We cannot be sure of how much, as keeping

ledgers does not necessarily mean writing poetry. One cannot learn to read and write a

language except intentionally, so there must have been some kind of Arabic language

educational system still functioning.

Further, the business most likely involved in the use of the coined capital we have

already seen. Also as we have seen, the crusaders are using carpets in the Eastern style
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
47
Ibid. page 110

35
(probably Persian) and are using ebony that would have to have been imported from

either Southern India or the West African coast. The ink could have theoretically come

from anywhere, but if it was of any quality, it would have been made in the Indian style

where the pigments of blue-black were darker and less likely to fade. In any or all of

these cases, the crusaders were engaged in some degree of trade with multiple parts of the

Muslim world, from which we can also deduce that the Crusader States were not entirely

isolated from their Muslim neighbor states.

And finally:

To the east of the town is the spring called ‘Ayn al-Baqar (the Spring of the
Cows), from which God brought forth the cattle for Adam - may God bless and
preserve him. The descent to this spring is by a deep stairway. Over it is a mosque
of which there remains in its former state only the mihrab, to the east of which the
Franks have built their own mihrab; and Muslim and infidel assemble there, the
one turning to his place of worship, the other to his. In the hands of the Christians
its honor is maintained, and God has preserved in it a place of prayer for the
Muslims.48

The crusaders and their Muslim subjects at some point began to share sacred space. No

further details are given on what the exact methods of this arrangement entailed. It is

known that within a stone’s throw of the spot is a sanctuary (mashhad) to Al" ibn Ab"

T$!lib which was left undefiled by the crusader conquest of the city in 1104.49 Otherwise,

the activities of the religious communities of the area, both Christian and Muslim, are not

further addressed. We can speculate that the shrine might have been divided, as many

Hindu/Muslim shrines in India or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (between Christian

dominations) are divided today.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
48
Ibid.
49
Moshe Sharon, Handbuch der Orientalistik: Corpus Inscription Arabicarum Palaestinae. Vol A (Brill,
1997), pp. 25

36!
 Chapter 6: Malik Bardaw!l

One of the more notable characters who dwelt in the Crusader States was the

famed eighth king of the Jerusalem, Baldwin IV (Malik Bardaw!l) His notoriety in

modern times, as his epithet tells us, was won less by what he did than by what he was:

“the Leper King.” For his entire adult life, including his whole reign as the sovereign of

the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, Baldwin had visible symptoms of his infirmity, which

would eventually kill him when he was only twenty-four years old. If we momentarily

abandon modern attitudes towards the disabled and the chronically diseased, we are stuck

with a very odd occurrence.

There is no precedent in either Western or Islamic history before or after this time

for a ruler with advanced, highly visible, and highly publicized leprosy.50 Indeed, nearly

all Westerners in this era would have viewed the disease as at best a shame, if not the

curse of God Himself.51 The deformities of leprosy are particularly unpleasant: scaled

skin, the loss of fingers, toes, and nose, blindness, a horrible smell, and so on. If today the

thought is uncomfortable, in the Middle Ages it was horrific.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
50
There is an exception which may prove the rule: Robert I of Scotland (d. 1329) is believed to have had
the illness, which, fearing for his throne, he hid for the years leading up to his death. He may not have had
the leprosy but something else instead.
51
See Saul Nathaniel Brody, The Disease of the Soul: Leprosy in Medieval Literature (Ithaca: Cornell
Press, 1974). Also, 2 Chronicles 26:15-21 for the accounts of King Uzziah of Judah, who was struck with
leprosy for his pride. The numerous references to lepers in the miracle stories of Christ did not seem to
change their lot accept in the eyes of the saintly.

37
 On top of this, Baldwin was a very young man. He was probably only thirteen

when he was crowned, at which point he was already known to be sick for some years.

Medievals would have been fully aware that as the disease would infect the reproductive

system. The teenage king would be sterile even before he was old enough to be married.

Being unable to sire an heir, certainly doomed to die quite young, and thus a living

countdown to dynastic in fighting, it is curious that Baldwin was ever allowed to rule at

all.

In the D#r al-Isl#m however, the case for lepers was slightly different. There is a

sound h"ad!th of the Prophet commanding Muslims to avoid the contagious disease by

running away from lepers “as they would run from a lion.”52 However, a verse from the

Qur’!n overrides any medical panic or prejudice that could potentially be taken from this

message. “There is no fault in the blind, and there is no fault in the lame, and there is no

fault in the sick.”53 As Islamic piety commands, the second authority set the meaning of

the first. An account of the second caliph strengthens the tradition:

‘Umar ibn al-Khat$t!$ b passed a group of Christian lepers (mujadhdham!n) and he

order that they be given something out of charity (al-s"adaq#t) and that food be
assigned to them.54

Sometime later, the medical authorities in the Islamic world came to realize that leprosy

had more to do with physical cleanliness than ritual purity. Ibn Jubayr, who despised

Baldwin profoundly, mocked him for just such an offense. He called him “al-khinz!r”:

the pig.55

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
52
S"ah""h" al-Bukh!r" 7:71:608
53
Qur’!n 24:60
54
Ah"mad ibn J!bir al-Bal!dhur", The Origins of the Islamic State, trans. Phillip K. Hitti (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1926), pp. 129
55
Ibn Jubayr, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, trans. Roland Broadhurst (New Delhi: Goodword Books, 1952),
pp. 316

38!
 The Muslim world was no safe haven from discrimination against lepers, but it

was certainly leaps and bounds better than Western Europe would be for some time.56

Avicenna (Ibn S"na) had catalogued leprosy at length in his Canon of Medicine (al-

Q#n%n f! al-T"ibb, Canon Medicinæ) which he completed in 1025. In it he states that the

illness is caused by a malfunction or pollution in the liver that cannot be corrected by

normal filtration and then couples with other preexisting conditions.57 Unfortunately it

would take some time before his theory would reach European doctors, who would

follow its guidelines and eventually open the West’s first leper colonies and hospitals.

The Canon would not be translated into Latin until 1185, the year Baldwin died.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
56
Bernard Hamilton, The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 257
57
Avicenna, Canon of Medicine (al-Q#n%n f!’l-T"ibb) trans. O. Cameron Gruner, Mazer H. Shah (Chicago:
Kazi Publications, 1999), Book IV, part 3:3:1

39
 Chapter 7: De Laude Novae Militæ – “In Praise of the New Knights”

The Poor Soldiers of Christ and Solomon’s Temple (Pauperes Commilitones

Christi Templique Solomonici), or the Knights Templar, were officially recognized by the

Church in 1129. The new religious order was called “the Healers” (al-D#wiyyah) by the

local Muslims.58 At first they were fundraisers for the crusading cause, but in time they

became powerful financial figures during the Crusades. They started offering notes of

debt to pilgrims in Europe that could be cashed in when the pilgrims arrived in the East.

Land or goods could be turned over to the Templars in Europe and the seller would be

issued a receipt. When the pilgrim arrived in the East, the receipt could be cashed in

minus a small donation to the Templars themselves. It was a convenient system for the

crusaders who did not have to travel with large amounts of treasure or leave their wealth

with others for years on end. The system was even more convenient for the Templars

because many crusaders would never live to withdraw their initial deposits. The system

made the Templars quite wealthy and powerful, and thus years later the objects of fear,

distrust, and fascination.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
58
The reason for this is uncertain. The most logical and simple reason why they would have been called
this is confusion with the Knights Hospitaller. The Order of St. John’s Hospital-Knights of Jerusalem
(L’ordre souverain militaire hospitalier de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem) ran a famed clinic and boarding house
for pilgrims based in Church of the Holy Sepulcher on the opposite side of the city.

40!
 They did occasionally fight in the battles, and although they were holy men, this

was not an issue in the 12th century. In time they would be able to leave the hard combat

to others. Their wealth meant they could give out loans to their cause with which nobles

could buy the manpower they needed. Eventually the Templars would get a private group

of its own mercenaries, including a band of Syrian light cavalrymen, the Templar “Sons

of Turks” (Tourkópouloi).59

The Templars’ namesake, the Temple Mount, was to become their center of

operations. The complex of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock simultaneously

served as their headquarters, a church, and the royal palace for the kings of Jerusalem. It

was also, as we have seen, the site of the final siege of Jerusalem where the greatest

numbers of native Muslims were annihilated.

The Templars, like all of the early crusaders, did not understand that the Dome of

the Rock was not the Temple of Solomon.60 It was simply refered to as the Temple of

Solomon in all crusading literature. Christian legend, as well as the accounts of the Bible

give the impression of the Temple as most beautiful building in the world. When the

crusaders arrived in Jerusalem and found an architechturally perfect ancient building on

the Temple Mount, they naturally assumed this was the building that Christ had once

known. In a backwards way, it is a great complement to Islamic architecture’s first

triumph.

Inside the structure itself of the Dome itself, the crusaders would have seen the

Foundation Stone (Sakhrah) upon which many of greatest events of all three Abrahamic

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
59
Piers Paul Read, The Templars: The Dramatic History of the Knights Templar, the Most Powerful
Military Order of the Crusades (New York, Macmillan Press 2000), pp. 133
60
I Kings 6. Even further confusing the matter was that the Temple of Solomon, to which the crusaders
referred, was actually the Second Temple that was destroyed during the Jewish Revolt in 70 CE.

41
religions are bound. The Templars would have regularly seen the oldest engraved

representation of the Qur’!n on earth. The Arabic, particularly when written in an ornate

circular band of calligraphic script may have been beyond their abilities to read

(assuming any of them could read Arabic). The verses are chosen with obvious

intention.61

This is Jesus, son of Mary,

In word of truth, concerning which they are doubting.
It is not for God to take a son unto Him.
Glory be to Him!
When He decrees a thing, He but says to it “Be,” and it is.
Surely God is my Lord, and your Lord;
So serve you Him. This is a straight path.
But the parties have fallen into variance among themselves;
then woe to those who disbelieve for the scene of a dreadful day.62

The passage when used in this format declares Muslim independence from Christianity. It

is a sign saying, in effect, that the city of Jerusalem and the site of the Temple no longer

belongs to the previous revelation of the Christians. In this particular place it would seem

in order as there is no location on earth where the three Abrahamic traditions intertwine

more. When the Dome was first built almost four centuries earlier, the newborn Islamic

Empire would have seen their victory as a ‘clear sign’ that the Christian dominion from

Byzantium was in the descent. They flew the banner of Muhammad’s revelation in

triumph. It was here that the Prophet united in prayer with Christ and his other spiritual

forebears. And from here as well, Muh$ammad would ascend to within arms’ reach of

God (al-mi’r#j) and receive the gift of the ritual prayer (al-s"al#t). Because of this unique

property, happenings on the Temple Mount are of utmost importance to our aims here.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
61
Goitein, Shlomo Dov, The Historical Background of the Erection of the Dome of the Rock, Journal of
American Oriental Society, Vol. 70, No. 2, 1950
62
Qur’!n 19:34-37

42!
 A rabbi by the name of Benjamin of Tudela from Navarre traveled to the Latin

Kingdom of Jerusalem around this time. He was to be one of the great world travelers of

the Middle Ages and a precursor of Ibn Bat$t$#t$ah and Marco Polo. It is not known when

he was born or died, but from 1165 to 1173, he explored. From Navarre, he crossed the

Great Sea via Rome, cut across Anatolia, circumnavigated the Arabian peninsula from

Basra to the Sinai, traveled to Alexandria and sailed back home.

Benjamin’s Book of Journeys (Sefer ha-Masa‘ot) is something of a twelfth

century travel companion.63 He keeps a detailed list of sites he has visited and how he

was treated in various places. In every notable village and town to which he journeyed,

Benjamin kept a catalogue of the religious beliefs and attitudes of each district. As human

habit is to seek out oneself, his primary focus is on the local Jews, about which he records

their numbers, as well as the names of their prominent rabbis and scholars of the law. For

example:

One day’s journey brings one to Acre, the Acco of old, which is on the borders of
Asher… it possesses a large harbor for all the pilgrims who come to Jerusalem by
ship. A stream runs from it called Kedumim. About 200 Jews live there headed by
Rabbi Zadok, Rabbi Japheth, and Rabbi Jonah. From there it is three parasangs to
Haifa…64

Naturally he travels to find the classical holy sites of Judaism and in doing so

leaves behind his commentary. In all this, he does not intentionally mention the state of

inter-religious relations within the Crusader States – a silence that is regrettable. When he

reaches Jerusalem, he describes the great significance of the Western Wall, and like

others before and after him he marvels at the elegance of the Dome of the Rock (although

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
63
Benjamin of Tudela’s book is an example of rihlah literature, which is a combination of vacation
itinerary and guided walking tour.
64
Benjamin of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation, and Commentary
trans. M.N. Alder (New York: Phillip Feldheim, Inc., 1907), pp. 17. A farasang is an extinct unit of
measurement equal to about one hour of walking or 3 to 4 miles (Gk. parasanges, Ar. farsakh).

43
he too calls it the Temple of the Lord, even while acknowledging it is not either of the

biblical Temples).

Our ancient Temple, now called the Temple of the Lord. Upon the site of the
sanctuary Omar ben al Khataab (‘Umar ibn al-Khat$t!$ b) erected an edifice with a
very large and magnificent cupola, into which the gentiles do not bring any image
or effigy, but they merely come there to pray. In front of this place is the Western
Wall, which is one of the walls of the Holy of Holies.65

Christians, he says, have taken to praying there. They control the shrine, and yet,

he says, they have not introduced any of the ornaments of their religion. Turning

buildings into churches defined the entire history of the early Crusader States. It has been

shown from the account of Ibn Jubayr (above) that at least some mosques have been

spared, but this one? The site of the Dome of the Rock is one of the most holy in

Christendom and it is occupied by at least 300 members of the Templar religious order.66

Between the 300 clergymen who live there, and the constant visitations of local and

international pilgrims, there must have been Christians praying at the site around the

clock. Throughout all of this, no one has introduced a statue or an icon. No saints. No

shrine to the Virgin. No crucifix.

The oddity of Benjamin’s observation is rendered even more remarkable because

art historians have in recent times verified at least part of his account67. Crusader art is

relatively rare but not unknown considering it was extremely localized and was only

produced for less than two centuries. It is essentially Frankish in style, but blended with

some Byzantine techniques. Otherwise the crusaders would have used the buildings they

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
65
Ibid. pp. 22. Inexplicably considering the entire purpose of his book, Benjamin does not mention if Jews
pray there as well.
66
Ibid. Benjamin mentions earlier that there are 300 knights living in the Dome of the Rock, who other
sources clarify as being the Knights Templar.
67
The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States. edit. H.W. Hazard (Madison, Wisconsin: University of
Wisconsin, 1977), pp. 273.

44!
seized and introduced into them the Western Christian accoutrement they knew from

back home. If a particular mosque, tomb, or Eastern church was believed to somehow be

linked to the life of Christ, biblical figures, or a saint, they would be converted into

Western-style churches. Throughout the Crusader States, holy sights and castles were

decorated with the same motifs that would have been seen in any contemporary European

building: images of Christ, the Virgin, the lives of saints, statuary, alters for the taking of

communion, tabernacles for the holding of the Host, as well as the more telling additions

of Greek-style mosaics and iconography.

However, when they arrived at the Dome of the Rock and added their

embellishments, all of these elements were absent. They did add to the structure. The

Foundation Stone had a large, flat table placed over it to deter pilgrims from chipping

away souvenirs. A decoratively designed frieze was added and later removed. Luckily,

there are remains of these modifications that survive unto the present: Arabesques of the

“wet-leaf” style, created by an Italian artist sometime after 1150.68 Regrettably his name

has not been preserved. However, it can be assumed that he was Italian as the same style

would later be reproduced in parts of Italy. 69 Presumably the artist was a resident of the

Jerusalem who later fled back to Europe after Saladin took the city in 1187. When he

returned to his ancestral homeland, he took up his old job and recreated some of the

Eastern forms in Europe.

Therefore, by combining the observation of Benjamin of Tudela with the

archeological evidence, there appears a Christian artist, working in what was at the time a

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
68
Adrian Boas, Crusader Archeology: The Material Culture of the Latin East (London: Routledge, 1999)
pp. 201-201
69
Helmet Buschhausen, Die Suditalienische Bauplastik Im Konigreich Jerusalem Von Konig Wilhelm II Bis
Kaiser Friedrich II (Vienna: Austrian Academy of the Sciences Press, 1978)

45
Christian church, but obeying Islamic traditions regarding the presentation of the human

form.70 It is astonishing, but this is the same exact place where the crusaders once

committed atrocities so severe that they themselves thought it was unbelievable.71 Is it

possible that the children of the enemies of Islam had learned to respect the practices of

their ‘other’?

The simple answer, at the very least for some of them, is yes. Although the

crusaders certainly would retain many of their old issues regarding Muslims as a people,

at least some amongst them had learned enough to at least respect the Islamic religion.

There survives an eyewitness record of exactly what religious observances were being

allowed on the Temple Mount from the notable Us!mah ibn Munqidh.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
70
There is a story of the Prophet Muhammad which tells of how when he cleansed Mecca of idols, he
found an image of the Virgin with the Christ-Child. He spared this object, probably a Syrian icon or framed
mosaic, and later it was sent to a church in Syria. This testimony of the Temple Mount, Christianized but
not de-Islamized, suggests a similar moral in reverse.
71
See note on the massacre at the Temple Mount above.

46!
 Chapter 8: The Muslim Burgher and the H"al#l Crusader

Us!mah ibn Munqidh (1095-1188) is nearly a medieval scholar’s dream. He was

born the year Urban’s declaration at Clermont and died the year after the crusaders left

Jerusalem. He is a well-read eyewitness to a major period of both Islamic and Christian

history. He is honest and opinionated, yet fair-minded and polite. He never seems to

exaggerate or distort. When he relates events he did not see for himself, he says so. He is

a well-connected noble but is friendly and amiable. His account survives in a manuscript

hand-written by the man himself, and his son later vouched for the work and the truth of

its contents. 72 His only flaw as a historian would be that he was not as concerned with

dates and context as much as with experiences and personalities (which also makes him

all the more likable) because he appears to be writing more for his family’s reading than

posterity’s.

An am"r of Shayzar, he is both a warrior fighting against the crusaders and later

acts as ambassador to them. He loves to collect stories of his adventures and his

autobiography is essentially a long string of yarns from his long, eventful life. He gives it

the colorful title of Kit#b al-I‘tib#r or “the Book of Learning by Example.” He is

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
72
Richard W. Bulliet’s introduction to An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the
Crusades: Memoirs of Us#mah ibn Munqidh, trans. Phillip K. Hitti (New York: Columbia University Press,
2000) pp. xiv

47
something of a man-about-town, befriending fascinating characters and collecting many

odd and extraordinary adventures.

Back to the matter of the religious practices on the Temple Mount, the following

remarkable story is told in Us!mah’s chronicle:

Whenever I visited Jerusalem I always entered al-Aqs$a Mosque, beside which

stood a small mosque which the Franks had converted into a church. When I used
to enter al-Aqs$a Mosque, which was occupied by the Templars [al-D#wiyyah],
who were my friends, the Templars would evacuate the little adjoining mosque so
that I might pray in it. One day… [while in the] act of praying, one of the Franks
rushed on me, got hold of me and turned my face eastward saying, “This is the
way thou shouldst pray!” A group of Templars hastened to him, seized him and
repelled him from me. I resumed my prayer. The same man, while the others were
otherwise busy, rushed me once more and turned my face eastward saying, “This
is the way thou shouldst pray!” The Templars again came in to him and expelled
him. They apologized to me, saying, “This is a stranger who has only recently
arrived from the land of the Franks and he has never before seen anyone praying
accept eastward.”73

Freedom of worship does not often come to mind when one thinks of the

Crusades. This episode suggests that at least some crusaders, although it can never be

known how many, softened their touch. Ibn Munqidh, who has no qualms over cursing

the Franks (which he does ad infinitum), is fully aware that after some time living in

Outremer, the once barbarous knights of the First Crusade learn to respect the piety of the

formerly demonic ‘other’. He opens this anecdote with an explanation of the

transformation the East creates in these foreigners, saying:

Everyone who is a fresh emigrant from the Frankish lands is ruder in character
than those who have become acclimatized and have held long association with the
Muslims.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
73
Ibid. pp. 163-164. Another interesting parallel to the life of Muhammad: Muslims once performed the
prayer towards Jerusalem in just this manner. However, after his arrival in Medina, and the q!blah was
turned towards Mecca. The act was at once a spiritual homesickness, a literal homesickness for the first
Muslims, and another sign of religious independence from the other Abrahamic traditions. Interesting to
now see the Templars defending a Muslim of this particular rite (or right?) is such a telling manner.

48!
 Us!mah developed a complicated relationship with the peoples of the Crusader

States. The first time he ever met a Frank it was in the heat of battle. The man was clad in

dark armor and rode a black warhorse that was “as big as a camel.” Us!mah, who had

never been to war before this point, volunteers that he was very scared of this knight.

They jousted towards one another and Us!mah’s lance passed through the horse and

stabbed the man in the side. Us!mah ran quickly from the body and rejoined the battle.

Days later, he was shocked to see his uncle the Sultan ibn Munqidh speaking with

another Frankish knight. The knight who had been lanced, named Phillip, was recovering.

The knight was impressed with how Us!mah had managed to stab this man and wanted to

introduce himself.74

This sense of chivalry and sportsmanship between Muslims and Franks is a

recurring theme in Us!mah’s encounters. Rather than simply hating one another, as was

most likely common, they toyed with one another and yet played together as courteous

adversaries.

In another story, Us!mah insults the Franks as being “animals possessing only the

virtues of strength and courage, but nothing else.” Two lines later he says:

In the army of King Fulk, son of Fulk, was a Frankish reverend knight who had
just arrived from their land in order to make the holy pilgrimage and return home.
He was of my intimate fellowship and kept such a constant company with me that
he began to call me ‘my brother.’ Between us were mutual bonds of amity and
friendship.75

Apparently the new Franks are not all bad. One day, the two friends are talking and the

Frank says that it is coming time for him to return to his homeland. He offers to take

Us!mah’s son back to Europe with him so that he can learn chivalry. “When he returns,

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
74
Ibid. pp. 68-69
75
Ibid. pp. 161

49
he will be like a wise man.” Us!mah thinks to himself that he would rather have his son

taken hostage than go to the land of the Franks. However, he says:

By thy life, this has exactly been my idea. But the only thing that prevented me
from carrying this out was the fact that his grandmother, my mother, is so fond of
him and did not this time let him come out with me until she exacted an oath from
me to the effect that I would return him to her.
Thereupon he asked, “Is thy mother alive?”
“Yes.” I replied.
“Well,” he said, “disobey her not.”

How is this conversation supposed to be taken? Is it a clever Oriental outwitting a slow-

witted Occidental? Is the knight serious, chivalrous, or dim? Is Us!mah mocking him,

minding his manners, or are they joking together? Us!mah clearly stated that he was

friendly with this man and they liked each other. But they also both just indirectly

insulted each other’s cultures.

Again and again ibn Munqidh seems to give two-sided reports on the crusaders.

The reason is probably just honesty and a healthy dose of integrity. He is looking at the

Franks from a point of view of cultural superiority, and in many ways that matter the

Arabs of the day are advanced well beyond the Franks. The sciences, arts, literature, and

craftwork of the Islamic world of the 12th century completely eclipse their contemporary

Western equivalents. However, rather than simply dismiss them with a curse like others

have done, he is willing to see their virtues as well as their shortcomings. It is probably

also a better reflection of the culture of the late Crusader States.

Unfortunately Us!mah would not have perceived the minor differences in points

of origin and language of the Franks. Like all Muslims of the day, the crusading peoples

were all just Franj. Most of the original crusaders of 1095 would have indeed been

Franks. However, there were also some Normans, who greatly increased in number after

50!
a minor crusade from Sicily in 1101. Once the ports were open for business a large

community of Genoese joined them. The Venetians followed. Slowly, smaller groups of

other Italians, as well as Scandinavians, Russians, Britons, and many others would have

appeared in the mix.76 And this was only a small minority of Europeans.

Beyond them were the various Arabs and Turks from all over the region and

beyond. Berbers, Kurds, Persians, Greeks, and Jews from Spain to Baghdad would have

been common. By Us!mah’s time, when Muslims and Jews are clearly entering and

exiting the Outremer regularly, the culture must have been dense with the mix of

languages and traditions. All of the pre-crusader ethic and religious groups have returned,

and now in addition to this peoples from every Christianized European population.

Jerusalem must have been the most diverse city in the world for a time.

It seems to have tossed up some unusual situations. On another occasion

sometime around 1145, ibn Munqidh is invited to dine with an elderly Frankish knight

whom he has never before met77. They share a mutual friend, Theodoros Sophianos

(T#drus ibn al-S"affi), a Greek aristocrat of considerable influence living in Antioch,

where the story takes place. It would in a not too distant past seem like the opening of a

bad medieval joke, “A Frank, a Greek, and an Arab go to a party together and…”, but ibn

Munqidh does not even acknowledge that this arrangement would in a former situation be

ridiculously unimaginable.

Us!mah cannot make it to the dinner party (it is not clear why) and so he sends a

servant in his stead. The servant later recounts the tale to his master.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
76
There cannot be any way of guessing exactly how many Europeans actually moved to the East and stayed
there, nor can the exact makeup of the population be known. However pilgrimages from each of these
nations did set out regularly over the century, and we can only guess at who stayed and who did not.
77
Ibid. pp. 169-179

51
 Our storyteller learns that this aged knight was amongst the first Franks to arrive

in the East some sixty years before, and that he now is living off a pension his military

service has earned. With this income he has earned himself a comfortable estate and is

now living out his twilight days in Antioch. The economics required for this do not fit at

all into the Frankish model, which is at this point still revolving around fiefdoms and

local barons78. Furthermore, in his former homeland, if he was granted a retirement

income at all, it would be in raw goods or a residence in a spare castle, but even this

would have been quite unusual.

Ibn Munqidh’s servant sees the food put out before him and it looks remarkable

and clean. But in a moment of hesitation he wordlessly and politely resigns himself not to

eat this foreigner’s food as it is almost certainly h"ar#m. The knight insists that he eat and

enjoy himself, and without having to ask, he understands his guest’s wavering, (and

consequently, what is considered h"ar#m and h"al#l). The knight gives the servant good

news.

“Eat, be of good cheer! I never eat Frankish dishes but I have Egyptian women

cooks and never eat except their cooking. Besides, pork never enters my home.” With

this, the guest drops his guard and partakes in the feast his new friend has offered to him.

The story jumps to after the meal has ended, and Ibn Munqidh’s associate is

leaving the knight’s abode and walking through a nearby marketplace. Suddenly a

Frankish woman whom he has never seen before grabs the edge of his robes and begins

to shout at him. Us!mah ibn Munqidh says specifically that she is speaking in “their

language” which he and the servant cannot understand. With this comment, we must step

aside for a moment.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
78
See notes on Islamic land grants above.

52!
 It must be noted that all the Christians these two Muslim men (ibn Munqidh and

his servant) have thus spoken to (the Templars, the rude newcomer amongst them, the

Frank speaking to the Sultan, Us!mah’s Greek friend Theodoros, the pleasant h"al#l

knight) are each fluent in Arabic. The Christians mentioned by Ibn Jubayr above were not

abnormalities; neither were they simply required to learn Arabic because of their line of

work. Furthermore, the new Templar and the retired knight, as we have seen, were

definitely not born in the East, and so we must therefore conclude that they willfully

chose to speak the particularly difficult language of the ‘other’79.

The story continues. The knight, presumably hearing the commotion, arrives on

the scene. “What is the matter between you and this Muslim?” By this point, a crowd has

gathered and the servant is beginning to fear for his life. The knight translates for the

woman who claims that this is the man who killed her brother in a battle at Af!miyyah.80

This is not true, but the servant can already hear the angel of death flapping its wings.

With this we can confirm that the Crusader States were not completely free of that

crusader spirit which led them to this place decades earlier.

The Crusader States would not end well, but Us!mah Ibn Munqidh’s story would.

The knight scolds the woman and the onlookers. He explains to them that this is not the

man with whom she has an issue. He tells her that Us!mah’s man is a burj#si81, a middle

classman,

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
79
It is quite unlikely, but we must offer the very slight possibility that they all speak another language such
as Greek. Arabic, however, proving itself much more useful and common that that particular time and
place, seems infinitely more likely. We mention that Arabic is particularly difficult as to underline that as it
is so radically different than the European languages, it would not be nearly as easy to pick up unless one
was purposefully studying it. Further, it might also be possible that that someone was translating in each of
the circumstances. However, as ibn Munqidh does mention the need for translation in this latest incident,
we must assume that he would have noted it previously if it had been required.
80
Modern Hamah, Syria. The city was briefly held by the Franks but was retaken by the Seljuks in 1114.
81
Frankish/Germanized form of “burgher” or a middle class merchant or “bourgeoisie.”

53
 …who neither fights nor attends fights. He also yelled at all the people assembled
and they dispersed. Then he took me by the hand and we went away. Thus the
effect of that meal was my deliverance from certain death.82

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
82
Ibid. pp. 169-179

54!
 Chapter 9: Fall of the Latin East

The crusaders would not have know it in their own day, but the success of the

First Crusade and the establishment of the Crusader States had more to do with timing

than any strength or skill on the crusaders’ parts: the crusaders were particularly

ferocious towards their enemies but they were also highly disorganized. There were more

unarmed peasants on foot than there were mounted knights. The first crusaders would

have spoken several different languages making communication amongst them a

continuing problem. On nearly every turn of the road, starvation and sickness took their

toll.83 That the crusaders managed to walk across three empires and actually take the city

of Jerusalem was, indeed, a miracle.

The Franks entered the scene when there was a momentary shutter of power

between Muslim forces. The Seljuk Turks in Anatolia were on the rise and the F!t$imid

dynasty in Egypt was collapsing. Alliances between the two rivals and the dozens of Near

Eastern emirates (of which Us!mah ibn Munqidh’s Shayzar was just one) were in

unending flux. Jerusalem itself had just changed from Seljuk to F!t$imid hands a year

before the crusading siege. The Franks’ arrival was hardly bloodless, but it was

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
83
Thomas F. Madden suggests that the mortality rate for the average crusader was nearly fifty percent. Like
all “statistics” of pre-modern times this cannot be confirmed or denied.

55
potentially much worse. The crusaders could handle most cities, but they would not be a

match for an empire. The luck of the Crusader States was running thin.

As internal issues between Muslims and Christians within the little Crusader

States played out, outside forces were realigning. A series of three Muslim rulers came

onto the scene, each more powerful and talented than his predecessor. The first was Imad

al-D"n Zang" (1085-1146) commander of both Mosul and Aleppo. With the blessings of

Baghdad he began to align the various emirates under the same banner, including

Shayzar. He was not particularly concerned with the presence of the Westerners as much

as restoring the unity of the Muslims. In an effort to claim Damascus,84 Zang" conquered

the strategically important city of Edessa, capital of one of the four Crusader States. He

would be assassinated two years later. The killers were three of his own slaves, with the

deathblow going to a man named Yaruqtash, a Frank.85

Zang" is followed by his son N#r al-D"n (1118-1174) who succeeded in claiming

Damascus in 1154. Meanwhile, N#r al-D"n, recognizing that the F!t$imids are only a

slight shove away from toppling, sent in men to overthrow the false caliphate in Egypt.

All the lands to the East of the three remaining Crusader States were now under a single

leader. Within a few more years, the lands to the West would be the same. All literature

from within the Crusader States fell silent – all further accounts will only be collected

decades in the future.

N#r al-D"n’s man in Egypt was the famed Saladin (S"al#h" ad-D!n Y%suf ibn Ayy%b,

c.1138-1193) and in 1171, he overthrows the F!t$imids and becomes waz!r. In less than

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
84
Damascus was at the time the largest of the independent city-states in Syria. The Buyid Dynasty had
claimed power during a bloodless coup in 1104.
85
Ibn Al-Athir, Arab Historians of the Crusades, ed. F. Gabrieli (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1969), pp. 50-52. The sources claim the killing was over a “private grievance” but give no further details.

56!
three years N#r al-D"n is dead, and Saladin alone controls Egypt and Syria as sult#n$.

Controlling these two lands presents a problem, as his territory was divided in half by the

little Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin attempted to keep good relations with the

crusaders for some time, but minor skirmishes gradually start to escalate into ever-larger

disputes.

Saladin was, by all accounts, even European ones, the quintessential gentleman-

knight and philanthropist. He gave liberally to charities, schools, and hospitals. Most

importantly here, he freed his people of all taxes that are not supported by Islamic law.

Like in every era, lowering taxes won popular support. In the case of Saladin it was no

different. His people were firmly united behind their king, who had brought them

security, lower taxes, and intimations of imperial glory. In the generations to come he

would be equated by both Muslims and Christians alike with the figure of Joseph (Y%suf,

is also Saladin’s given name): he descended as a servant into Egypt and returned as a

king, uniting his brothers by his skill, piety, and generosity.86

In 1187, Saladin finally sieges the city of Jerusalem. Using the exact same

opening in the city wall used by the crusaders to enter the city in 1099, Saladin takes

Jerusalem back with minimal bloodshed. The Muslims and Jews are allowed to remain,

as are the Greek Christians if they pay a ransom that the patriarch supplies. The

Westerners, however, must leave the city and pay the ransom.87 The knights of the Third

Crusade would arrive in 1189, led by Richard the Lionheart and the first major assault of

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
86
Hannes Möhring, Saladin: The Sultan and His Times, 1138-1193, trans. David S. Bachrach (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) pp. 89.
87
There are several conflicting traditions on what happened here. Some sources claim Saladin had all the
crusaders’ soldiers beheaded and made the rest of the Occidentals pay a ransom. Others claim only the
nobles had to pay for their release. Still others claim that the ransom was for everyone, but when Saladin
realized most people could not pay it, members of his own house provided the money.

57
the Britons, but to no avail; Jerusalem remains in Saladin’s hand. Over the next century,

the Latin Crusader States of the east are dismantled a piece at a time. The Muslims would

reclaim the final major crusader city, Acre, in 1291.

Just before Acre falls, a Dominican friar called Burchard of Mount Zion leaves

one final account. He, like Fulcher of Chartres two hundred years earlier, is a crusading

monk. Two centuries of failed crusades in the East has made him quite bitter of the whole

enterprise. The naïve triumphalism of Fulcher is completely absent. Instead Burchard

systematically catalogues each religious and ethnic group he encounters and just as

systematically condemns them. The crusaders are no exception. He says

There are dwelling [here] men of every nation under heaven, and each man
follows his own rites, and to tell the truth, our own people, the Latins, are worse
than all the other people of this land… bad fathers beget bad sons worse than
themselves, from whom descend the most vile grandchildren who tread upon the
holy places with polluted feet. Hence it comes to pass that, because of the sins of
the dwellers in the land against God, the land itself, and the place of our
redemption, is brought into contempt.88

This is beyond an honest and healthy dose of self-deprecation. But there is also a clue as

to a change of ethics. In Acre, the last citadel of the crusades, there are people actively

practicing Islam coexisting with the last Christian occidentals.

He goes on to give what is probably the most accurate description of Islamic

doctrine ever before recounted by a Westerner up until this point that has survived to the

present. It is not without errors. The passage does certainly imply some kind of honest

inter-religious discussion as it is far beyond the old claims of “paganism”:

The Saracens preach Muh$ammad and keep his law. They call our Lord Jesus
Christ the greatest of the prophets, and confess that he was conceived of the Holy
Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. But they deny that he suffered and was
buried, but choose to say that he ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
88
Allen and Amt. pp. 121

58!
 of the Father, because they admit him to be the Son of God. But they declare
Muh$ammad sits on God’s left hand.89

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
89
Muslims of course do not call Jesus the “Son of God” or do they have this interesting celestial seating
chart. However, this description of Islam is light years ahead of all earlier Western accounts still existent.
Compare to those provided in R.W. Southern’s Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1978).

59
 Chapter 10: Concluding Notes - Islam as Shadow and Mirror

Friedrich Nietzsche famously once said, “Beware when fighting monsters, as you

tend to become one. And should you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into

you.”90 Carl Jung, who would identify what he called the “shadow” or the “shadow-self”

in the unconscious, would later take up this more complex version of the same thought.91

As a statement of the collective mind, the stereotypes and opinions of a people are

expressions of their own interior lives. The lesser one is in touch with their own identity,

the more demonic traits appear in the shadow.

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it
happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and
does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out
the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.92

The arc of observations about what Islam meant to the crusaders follows a certain hidden

path. But that is not say the trajectory of opinions of Islam are devoid of a certain degree

of perceptible definition.

During the speech of Pope Urban II at Clermont in 1095 and/or later in the minds

of those documenting the occasion, the description of Muslims and their religion are

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
90
Friedrich W. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, (1886) Aphorism 146.
91
Carl G. Jung (1938). "Psychology and Religion." In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East.
pp. 131
92
John Pennachio, “Gnostic Inner Illumination and Carl Jung’s Individuation,” Journal of Religion and
Health (Netherlands: Springer, 1992) Vol. 31, Number 3. September, 1992. Pp. 237-245.

60!
beyond the limitations of the human. They defile Christ, disembowel people for mere

coins, mistreat women, and so forth. The Muslim takes the guise of the boogeyman of

medieval Christianity; a straw-man religion. Unrealistic bloodlust, greed, and sacrilege

are the Muslim’s standard operating procedure.

Consequentially, it is not coincidental to find what the crusaders themselves

become once their quest to “battle monsters” gets underway. Muslims (and anyone

symbolically associated with them, such as Jews or Greeks) are killed in deliberately

disgusting and dehumanizing ways. Children are skewered and women run through.

There are no non-combatants. Rightful property was taken and random cities sacked,

even if it would be more convenient to not do so. Muslim holy sites would be desecrated

and robbed of their valuables. Urban’s declaration to crusade was a few misplaced

pronouns away from a prophecy of the crusaders themselves.

Afterwards, Muslims would be downgraded from the slaves of Satan to the

servants of mere greed and lust. The insult remains, although watered down. The shift is

apparently small, but crucial for the survival of both the Muslims and the Christians. It is

at least possible to relate to hedonism and avarice, even when it is only an exaggeration

of reality. Near Eastern Muslims of the 11th and 12th centuries were of course, not sitting

in harems and sipping from golden goblets, although this particular image would return to

the Occidentals’ descendents in the form of Orientalism. More grounded in reality is the

great proclamation of Fulcher of Chartres. “Those that were poor… God makes rich…

God does not wish those to suffer want who with their crosses dedicated themselves to

follow Him.”

61
 Finally, more complete and subtle visions of Islam begin to appear in the

crusaders. Reflection takes the place of projection. The Templars of the Dome of the

Rock, both in their respect of the Islamic arts and defense of Us!mah ibn Munqidh’s

prayers, understand that another’s religion must at least be tolerated. Such a view of

Islam, in which it and individual Muslims have dimension, is a sign of a healthy

Christianity. It is the same for the Christian knight who would only eat h"al#l Egyptian

food. He can recognize something in the other that he would like for himself. The woman

who accused of ibn Munqidh’s servant of murder shows the contrast: all Muslims are

confused with the one with whom she has a grievence.

When Burchard of Mount Zion, who is no Islamophile, attempts to explain what

Muslims believe, it sounds more like Christianity with typos. Burchard is not intending to

draw parallels and that is what makes his comparison more honest. As his views of his

own religion start to become more realistic, so do his views of the other. Muslims believe

this, as do Christians. Christians sin, as do Muslims. Burchard’s is not an especially

comforting view, nor he even factually correct, but it is a healthy growth away from

ingrained violence and demonization and a movement towards seeing the other in the

self.

62!
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Read, Piers Paul The Templars: The Dramatic History of the Knights Templar, the Most Powerful Military Order of
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65