The Legacy of the Crusades in the Muslim World

What has been the legacy of the crusades for the Arab/Islamic world and its relations with the West?

In the Muslim world the Crusades is seen from different viewpoints depending upon the type of religious and ideological view held. The secularists who are perhaps influenced by the socialism and Ba’thism of the 1950’s-60’s regard the Crusades as an early European colonialism with economic motivation clothed in religious labels. The modern secularists, tolerated by the now dominant secular ‘New World Order’ regard the Crusades as the natural consequence of ‘religion leading to war’ and thus the need for the ‘secular nation State’ based upon the model of the French and American revolutions. Other secularists in the Muslim world such as the nationalists look back on the Crusades as a precursor of their struggles for national independence. The Islamic fundamentalist relying mainly on the Quran and Hadeeth along with classical Islamic scholarship regard European colonialism as a combination of the religious hatred of Islam which motivated the Crusades along with the materialistic expansion intrinsic to secular ideologies. The fundamentalist would also see the modern weakness of the Muslim world as a natural consequence of the division of the Muslim world into nation states and other forms of secularism i.e. Military Dictatorship, Monarchy, Parliamentary Democracy etc.  This weakness contrasted with the previous strength of a unified Muslim world under one leader applying the supreme Islamic law. “The Arabs believe that European expansion begun with the Crusades, the first expression of ‘Imperialism’. The Western tradition, by contrast, views the Crusades as an attempt to reconquer the Holy from Islam which had seized a Christian country. In any event, a European history of colonization must of necessity take the perimeter of Christendom as its starting point.” (FERRO, Marc ‘Colonization – A Global History’ Colonization or Imperialism p.3 [London 1997 – Routledge, first published 1994])

Positive Legacy of the Crusades

1)       The Muslims see the occurrence of the crusades as a proof for the authenticity of the Quran. This is because:-

i) The Quran prophesized that non-Muslims would fight Muslims until they abandon their way of life. “…And they will never stop fighting you until they turn you back from your religion if they can…” (QURAN al Baqarah 2:217)

ii) Later Historically, the crusade of education during the colonial and neo-colonial periods “O you who believe! Do not take into your intimacy those outside your ranks. They will not fail to corrupt you. They only desire for you to suffer. Hatred has already appeared from their mouths and what their hearts conceal is far worse. We have made plain to you the signs if you have wisdom….” (QURAN aali I’mraan 3:118)

2)       The same is believed concerning the truth of the prophecy of the sunnah, but here from another two angles:-

a.        The fact that the crusades involved many countries. This co-incides with the following hadeeth, Abu Hurayrah said ‘I heard the Prophet (pbuh) saying to Thawbaan, “O Thawbaan! What will you do when the nations call one another to invade you as people call one another to come and eat from one bowl?” Thawbaan said ‘May my father and my mother be sacrificed for you O messenger of Allah! Is it because we are so few?’ The Prophet (pbuh) said “No, on that day you will be many but Allah will put weakness in your hearts.” The people asked ‘What is that weakness, O messenger of Allah?’ He said “It is love for this world and dislike of fighting” (AHMAD and in the version of ABU DAWOOD “…love of this world and dislike of death.”) and also what has been considered the modern crusade of European colonialism, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, France, Britain.

b.       The recovery of the European Christendom from the ultimate defeat of the Crusades, was in accordance with the attributes of recovery and resilience that have been attributed to them in Islamic tradition. When Mustawrid al Qurashi was sitting with A’mr ibn al A’ss he said ‘I heard the Prophet (pbuh) say “The Hour will come when the Romans will be in the majority.” A’mr asked him ‘What are you saying?’ He said ‘I am repeating that which I heard from the Prophet (pbuh).’ A’mr said ‘If you say this it is true, because they have four good characteristics – they are, the most able to cope with tribulation, the quickest to recover after disaster, and to return to the fight after disaster and are the best as far as treating the poor, weak and orphans. They have a fifth chractteristic which is very good, they do not allow themselves to be oppressed by their kings.’ (MUSLIM Jaami’ as Saheeh, Kitab al Fitan)

3)       The Muslims see a reminder in the episode of the Crusades, that when Muslims are attacked and oppressed by an invading enemy, their religion with its belief, inward motivation, unifying principles and system of life, give the potential for victory. “The unveiled crusading spirit was smashed against the rock of faith of Muslim leadership which came from various elements, including Salahuddin the Kurd and Turan Shah the Mamluk, who forgot the differences of nationalities and remembered their belief, and were victorious under the banner of Islam.” (QUTB, Sayyid ‘Milestones <Ma aa’lim fi’t Tareeq>’ This is The Road p.160 [New Delhi 1991 – Naushaba Publications, first published Cairo 1964])

4)       The decrease in overt manifestations of the ‘crusading spirit’ in European educational, media, political and military circles can be used as a scale to gauge the abandonment of the Islamic way of life in the Muslim world “…the West has never been farther from Islam than it is today. Its active hostility to our religion may be on the decline; this however, is not due to an appreciation of Islamic teachings but to the growing cultural weakness and disintegration of the Islamic world.” (ASAD, Muhammad ‘Islam at the Crossroads’ The Shadow of the Crusades p.60 [Gibraltar 1993 – Dar al Andalus, first published Delhi, Lahore 1934]).

5)       The term ‘Crusades’ and ‘Crusader’  and the memory of the brutality of the crusaders has been continually used a motivation for Muslims to strive against military and political invasion of the Muslim world.

6)       The term ‘Crusader’ has been used to galvanise and unify Muslim public opinion against every alien military and political presence in Muslim land. “…new plans of the Crusaders to occupy Mecca by establishing the first Western Kaafir [disbeliever] Consulate. Carrying their flags, their crosses and encompassing their filth.” (AL MISRI, Abu Hamza ‘Allah’s Governance on Earth’ p.10 [London 2001 – Supporters of Shari’ah])

7)       The memory of the Crusades has always been invoked by Muslims in debates with European Christians who have claimed Islam is violent, barbaric and expansionist etc. This would follow a line that it hypocrisy for the Christian to be espousing the Biblical maxims such as ‘…turn the other cheek…’ along with modern mantras of ‘human rights’ and ‘freedom’ being contrasted with modern American and European wars of aggression and suppression of Islamic fundamentalism under the guise of ‘Self defence’, ‘Enforcing international law’ and ‘pre-emptive strikes’. “Further, the Crusades, which were organized by Popes were the ‘Holy Wars’ of the Christians.” (HAMIDULLAH, Dr. Muhammad ‘The Battlefields of the Prophet Muhammad’ [Lahore 1993 – Idara-e-Islamiat, first published Woking 1952]) Another example of this can be seen in the writing of the modern biographer of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) under the sub-heading ‘Christianity and Fighting’ in refuting the idea that the crusades were due to the darkness of the Middle Ages, writes “…let us then turn to the twentieth century in which we now live and which they call ‘the century of the highest human civilisation.’ This century has indeed seen the same darkness as did the Middle Ages. Lord Allenby, representing the allied forces of England, France, Italy, Rumania and America, stopped in Jerusalem in 1918 after his conquest of that city toward the end of the first World War and said ‘Today the Crusades have come to an end.’” (HAYKAL, Muhammad Husayn ‘The Life of Muhammad’ Ch.12 The First Raids and Skirmishes p.215 [American Trust Publications, first published 1976])

8)       “… ‘They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ This verse of the New Testament Irving directs accusingly at Islam in the name of Christianity. How strange! Perhaps Irving might have had some excuse had he hurled his accusation a hundred or so years ago when the imperialism of the West (as we like to call it) or of Christendom (as Irving likes to call it) had not reached the terrible degree of greed and covetousness, of conquest and aggression by the sword which it has reached today. When Field Marshall Allenby captured Jerusalem in 1918 in the name of the Allies, he made this terrible proclamation standing on the steps of the Dome of the Rock: ‘Today the Crusades have come to an end.’ Doctor Peterson Smith, on his book on the life of Jesus, wrote, ‘This capture of Jerusalem was indeed an eighth Crusade in which Christianity had finally achieved its purpose.’…” (HAYKAL, Muhammad Husayn ‘The Life of Muhammad’ Islamic Civilisation and the Western Orientalists p.587 [American Trust Publications, first published 1976])

9)       The existence of the Crusades which had the aim of erasing Islam from the Holy land, and its associated negative preaching concerning Islam which motivated the crusaders, has laid a basis of distrust in all Euro-American orientalist writings about Islam. This means orientalist conclusions which contradict the Islamic belief will immediately be suspected of not weak scholarship but rather of deliberate distortion aimed at creating a negative impression. The Crusading propaganda is thus proof of in the form of historical precedent that Orientalalist writings about Islam are not objective and honest. Therefore this is turned into a detractor of Euro-American Academia and an aid in the propagation of Islam. “There is hence no ground for these fictitious stories woven by Orientalists and missionaries and repeated by Muir, Irving, Sprenger, Weil, Dermenghem, Lammens and other biographers of Muhammad. Their so-called scholarship is a scandalous piece of missionarizing. It is a masquerade of science. Their traditional antagonism to Islam, going back to the Crusades, has simply taken possession of their conscience, dictating and determining all that they write on the subject. It is this fundamental prejudice which vitiates their writing. Their ‘history’ is a crime against history itself, for they choose to see, to note and to report only the most scurrilous reports to satisfy this end.” (HAYKAL, Muhammad Husayn ‘The Life of Muhammad’ Ch.17 The Prophet’s Wives p.298 [American Trust Publications, first published 1976])

10)   Many scholars and leaders of Muslim political movements even see a parallel in the Crusades of their own intellectual and political struggles against the secularism and European ideogical invasion that has effected the Muslim world. Dr. Israr Ahmad in his book explaining the forming of his own group ‘Tanzeemi Islami’ a break away from ‘Jamati Islami.’ Dr. Israr reflects on the causes of the initial fall then rise of the Muslims during the Crusades. “Jerusalem remained in the hands of the Crusaders for eighty-eight years. This was so because the Abbasid Caliphate was passing through the pangs of death, and there was no energy left in the descendants of the originally indomitable Arabs. Finally the fiery and flesh blood of the ‘akhireen’, i.e. non-Arab Muslim peoples, under the leadership of the great and famous warrior Salahuddin Ayubi, liberated Jerusalem from the Occupation of the Crusaders in 1187 and thus turned the tide of the war between the Muslims and the invaders.” Later Dr. Israr connects all of this to the relevance of Islamic revivalists in all ages “As a matter of fact, no period of degradation and degeneration in Islamic history has been without an attempt to reform and rejuvenate the Muslim community. In every epoch and in every country, people of sublime determination were born who performed the gigantic task of reformation and reconstruction as their times demanded.” (AHMAD, Dr. Israr ‘The Rise and Decline of the Muslim Ummah with a Comparison to Jewish History and a Brief Survey of the Current Efforts Towards Islamic Resurgence’  p.15-16 & p.21 [London 1992 - Ta-Ha Publishers, first published Lahore 1980])

11)   Jihad oriented Muslim scholars such as the now imprisoned Shaykh U’mar A’bdur Rahman approve the motivation of their students towards the obligation of jihad with the reminder of the calamity of the Crusades and the lesson that in the absence of jihad the Muslim world suffers. “Likewise when the Muslim advances came to a halt after the capture of Andalusia and the South of France the Muslim armies sustained a crushing defeat. Later the Crusaders came from the same area to push us out of Spain…..Similarly, after the Ottoman advances came to a halt  at the gates of Vienna, the European Armies came from the centre of the continent to bring down the Caliphate in Istanbul…..Indeed it is a great lesson that history teaches us as though it is saying to us, ‘If you do not fight with the Truth, your enemy will fight you with falsehood. If you do not advance to attack them, they will move forward to attack you. If you do not bring them out of darkness into light with the sword, they will instead bring you from light into darkness with the sword.’” (IBRAHIM, Dr. Naajeh, ABDUL MAAJID, Asim, DARBAALAH, Esaam-ud-Deen, supervised by ABDUR RAHMAN, Shaykh U’mar ‘In Pursuit of Allah’s Pleasure <al Meethaaq al A’ml al Islami {The Charter of Islamic Work}>’ Waging Jihad in the Way of Allah p.131 [LONDON 1997 – Al Firdous]) This passage alludes to the belief in the continuous struggle between truth and falsehood “Nay We hurl the Truth against the Falsehood so it destroys it…” (QURAN al Anbiyaa’ 21:18) and as mentioned in the same book, “…For had it not been that Allah checks one set of people by means of another, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, wherein the Name of Allah is mentioned much, would surely have been pulled down. Verily Allah will help him who helps His (cause)…” (QURAN al Hajj 22:40) [Ibid. p.94] and “And fight them until there is no more persecution and the deen [system] is all for Allah…” (QURAN al Baqarah 2:193 & al Anfaal 8:39) [Ibid. p.118, p.121]) and “And fight the associationists collectively as they fight you collectively…” (QURAN at Tawbah 9:36) [Ibid. p.121])

12)   The Jihad scholars also regard the modern Euro-American drives in the Muslim world to spread secularism and democracy as a continuation of the Crusading war on islam,  “Islam’s aim is to destroy disbelief, uproot it, prevent its laws and practices holding sway over humanity and restrict to dead beliefs in the hearts of the people of the Book (i.e. Jews and Christians)…..Shirk (polytheism, disbelief, secularism) in turn, seeks to destroy Islam, obliterate its features and destroy its laws completely. To achieve this, it uses all the means at its disposal, sparing no effort and leaving no plot untried. The Quran tells us in the following verses “Many of the people of the Book wish they could turn you away as disbelievers after you have believed, out of envy from their ownselves, even after the Truth has become manifest to them.” (QURAN al Baqarah 2:109) and “…And they will never stop fighting you until they turn you back from your religion if they can…” (QURAN al Baqarah 2:217) and “And never will the Jews and Christians be pleased with you until you follow their way of life…” (QURAN al Baqarah 2:120) and “They desire to put out the Light of Allah with their mouths…” (QURAN at Tawbah 9:32)” [Ibid. p.128-129]

13)   The Crusades is remembered also for a contrast of two things between Christian Europe and the Muslims. These are the noble and just conduct of the Muslim Mujaahideen based upon the principles of the Quran and Prophetic example and the deliberate preservation of civilisation, civilians and knowledge as opposed to the brutal destructiveness of the Crusaders. The Muslims see a parallel with the Weapons of Mass Destruction utilised by the U.S.A. and her allies today, along with the suppression of Islamic knowledge through ‘education for aid’ initiatives and similar covert secular indoctrination projects. “The Muslim army captured in booty several copies of the Torah during the battle of Khaybar but Muhammad (pbuh) returned them to the Jews on their request….the Crusaders destroyed an immense library at Tripoli, in Palestine. The General, finding that the first room of the library contained the Holy Quran only, ordered the whole library to be burnt.” (QURESHI, Prof. Muhammad Siddique ‘Foreign Policy of Muhammad (saw)’ Foreign Policy p.23-24 [Lahore 1989 – Islamic Publications]) “Islam taught its followers to treat the prisoners of war with kindness so that they were induced to embrace it….On the occasion of the conquest of Makkah the Holy Prophet forgave his enemies who had inflicted every type of torture upon him….In the capture by the Crusaders, the brains of young children were dashed out against the walls; infants were pitched over the battlements, men were roasted at fires, some were ripped up to see if they had swallowed gold, the Jews were driven into their synagogue…” (QURESHI, Prof. Muhammad Siddique ‘Foreign Policy of Muhammad (saw)’Islam and Sword p.325-326 [Lahore 1989 – Islamic Publications]) Professor Qureshi, a modernist apologist, as opposed to a fundamentalist further said “Islam ‘grasped the sword’ in self defence (a view rejected by classical texts and by fundamentalists) ; Christianity grasped it in order to stifle freedom of thought and belief.” (QURESHI Islam and Sword [Ibid. p.316])

14)   The common Crusading masses were driven much by the ignorance based preaching which heavily distorted or even totally fabricated images of the Islamic belief and way of life. This false propaganda again has resurfaced in European and American media and religious circles and is stirring up the same zeal and hatred in the intended audiences. This type of distortion is the worst oppression in the sight of Islam as the verse says “And who does more wrong than the one who invents a lie against Allah while he is being invited to Islam? And Allah guides not the people who are oppressors.” (QURAN as Saff 61:7)  However, the Quran declares that eventually this negative propaganda backfires, “Verily, those who disbelieve spend their wealth to hinder (men) from the path of Allah, and so will they continue to spend it. But in the end it will become an anguish for them. Then they will be overcome. And those who disbelieve will be gathered unto Hell.” (al Anfaal 8:36) This can be seen post September 11^th 2001 when the Global Secular Media saw an opportunity to attack Islam, but statistics showed that purchases of the Quran and Islamic books increased manifold and conversions to Islam went up 400% even in U.S.A.

15)   The ‘Crusades’ as a term indicating a war in the cause of ‘the Cross’ does not distinguish between the different Christian sects and denominations, even though the Crusades were mostly driven by the Roman Catholic Church. However, the need for the distinction that does not barely exist among the Muslim masses, is an appropriate mis-generalisation as in these times the Catholic Church has been openly opposed to military invasions of Muslim lands and instead other Western Protestant and Evangelical Christian sects have been the main advocates of Wars on Islam. An example of this is the use of the word ‘Crusade’ by president George Bush jnr. During the American invasion of Afghanistan.

16)   Muslims often reflect on the losses of the Crusades in terms of loss of life and being the victims of brutality, and historically Muslims reflect on the subsequent loss of Spain and the failure of the Islamic dominance to remain in France and central Europe. However, the great positive legacy of the Crusades is that the Muslims eventually won and so islam survived in those lands. If we see how much Islam was wiped from Spain after being there for several centuries then what if the Crusades would have turned in favour of the European invaders. “Let us imagine for example that the Muslims had conquered Rome instead of their failure under its walls, or that the Crusaders were able to crush Egypt and establish themselves in the East what would have been the fate of Islam and the Islamic world?” (ENAN, M. A. ‘Decisive Moments in the History of Islam’ Preface p.iv [Delhi 2000 – Adam Publishers])

17)   The European powers in what some have called ‘The Age of Discovery’ had learned enough of a lesson from previous defeats in the Crusades not to continue a military offensive against the Muslim world which would have resulted in more suffering on both sides. In a similar trend it is hoped that the Militaristic Bush administration and any of its successors will learn from their losses of life and mission failures in their recent ‘Crusades’ in Afghanistan and Iraq, and not be stupid enough to attempt an Invasion of Iran or Syria. “The fifteenth-century voyages of discovery have often been described as a continuation of the Crusades. Certainly, the menacing proximity of Islam was always in the minds of the fifteenth-century kings, especially in Eastern and southern Europe. Nevertheless, those kings were realists enough for the most part, to see that a Crusade of the traditional pattern…..was no longer even a remote possibility. Crusades of this type in earlier centuries had been, in the long run, costly failures.” (PARRY, J. H. ‘The Age of Reconnaissance – Discovery, Exploration and Settlement 1450-1650’ Attitudes and Motives p.22 [London 2000 – Phoenix Press, first published London 1963])

18)   The Muslim world, especially those in Islamic fundamentalist intellectual and political circles continue to suspect the Euro-American secular establishment’s regret concerning the Crusades due to the great amount of Crusades-related symbolism existing in some of their elite social groupings. For instance, Freemasonry which is prevalent in the Crusader countries of Britain and France as well as U.S.A. possesses many degrees of initiation invoking the Crusaders. This is even more significant due to the great membership of freemasonry (globally six million), its scope of membership – high numbers in politics, law and the military and its declared principle of separation of religion from State, an antithesis of the Islamic principle. We see this symbolism in the table below

Degrees of Initiation in Freemasonry

 (DECKER, Ed ‘The Masonic Lodge –What You Need To Know’ [Eugene 1997 - Harvest House Publishers])

Negative Legacy of the Crusades

1.        The Roman Catholic Church, the religious authority for the Crusades has continued a religious Crusade through its missionary orders in Muslim Africa and Asia. There is a negative effect of this for both Muslims and the modern-day Catholic Church, as on another level, the Church through the late John Paul II and now expectedly through Benedict XVI has sought moral and political co-operation and support in a secular dominated Europe and North America. Both the Catholic Church and the fundamentalist Muslim world are the largest opposition camps to the secular ‘New World Order’ and are the only effective possible obstacles to the materialistic and irreligious mono-culture clothed as moral and religious ‘relativism’. “… the Evil caused by the Crusades was not restricted to the clash of weapons: it was, first and foremost, an intellectual evil. It consisted in poisoning the European mind against the Muslim world as a whole through a deliberate misrepresentation, fostered by the Church, of the teachings and ideals of Islam…” (ASAD, Muhammad ‘Islam at the Crossroads’  The Shadow of the Crusades p.54 [Gibraltar 1993 – Dar al Andalus, first published Delhi, Lahore 1934]).

2.        Relations with non-Muslim Europeans (and by natural extension Americans also) have been hindered by oversimplification of classifying the actions and motivations of people in their contact with the Muslim world. The concept of the ‘Crusader’ has caused suspicion of European Christians as a whole, and even beyond that all Europeans. While Islam itself distinguishes between different categories of non-Muslims. The Quran itself a Sabians, addressed Idolaters, Jews, Atheists and the Quran also mentioned that not all Christians have the same malicious intentions “A party of the People of the Scripture wish to lead you astray…” (QURAN aali I’mraan 3:69) and “Among the People of the Scripture is he who, if entrusted with a qintaar (large amount of wealth) will readily pay it back, and among them there is he who if entrusted with a single silver coin will not repay it unless you constantly stand demanding…” (QURAN aali I’mraan 3:75) The Catholic church is not the main threat to Islam and Muslims today but rather the concepts of nationalism, secularism and democracy which have been adopted by masses in the Muslim world.

3.        The unification of the non-Muslim European world has been followed in latter day unifications against Islam e.g. The European Union, The United Nations following a secular and pro Euro-American agenda, the activities of NATO and more recently, the 40+ country coalition in the Bush administration’s ‘War on Terror’ regarded in the Muslim world as a war on Islam and Muslims. A second lesson concerning the unity of the Crusades was that the Crusaders had success when united while the Muslims were divided and the Crusaders saw defeat at the time of their disunity when Muslims started to unite. “The Crusades were not only a European event, they were in every country a national event. In every country all classes of people were moved by the same sentiment – kings, nobles, priests, merchants, the common classes and the peasants all had, for the Crusades, the same feeling and acted as one man. Thus the Crusades were, for the European nations, the cradle of moral unity which was a new phenomenon, in fact the beginning of European unity.” (ENAN, M. A. ‘Decisive Moments in the History of Islam’ Chapter VIII The Idea of the Crusades p.133 [Delhi 2000 – Adam Publishers]) We also see this indicated in the Quran in addition to the warning that unless Muslim unity is practised then the world will suffer. “And the disbelievers are awliyaa [allies, protectors] of one another and unless you (Muslims) do so, there will be calamities on the earth and great corruption.” (QURAN al Anfaal 8:73)

4.        The political and military revenge for the Crusader’s defeat. This is especially emphasized as many of the countries making up the Crusades were later major colonizers of the Muslim world, such as Britain, France, Portugal, Spain and Italy. The Muslim world has been suffering the suppression of Islam first of all from Foreign armies including the Europeans in the Colonial period and extending to the first World War, and then continuing onto the current time when secular leaders in the Muslim world oppress their own populations with support of the Euro-American secular governments. This is all seen as a revenge for the Crusades as well as a natural animosity non-Islam has for Islamic civilisation, “The malice and hatred has existed ever since the days of the Crusades and it is still perpetuated today. What we face in terms of oppression, humiliation, colonisation and exploitation – in addition to the political aspect – is in fact an act of brutal revenge on the Muslims. Indeed it is particular to the Muslims.” (AN-NABAHANI, Taqiuddin ‘The Islamic State <ad Dawlat al Islamiyah>’ The Crusaders’ Animosity p.189 [London – al Khilafah Publications])

5.        The desire for revenge for the defeat of the crusades can be seen in the European colonialists in their pride of a  crusading ancestory. An example of this is George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess Cuzon of Keddleston a major figure in Victorian colonialism and Viceroy of India, one of his biographers writes “Occasionally the family tree was illuminated by a kinsman as splendid as Robert, Cardinal Courson, spiritual director of the Fifth Crusade who was mortally wounded at the siege of Damietta in 1218…..Curzon was proud enough of his lineage to write to the Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, on hearing in 1915 that a supposed enemy alien had changed his name to Curzon.” (ROSE, Kenneth ‘Superior Person – A Portrait of Curzon and his circle in late Victorian England’ Kedleston p.1-2 [London 2001 – Phoenix Press, first published 1969]).

6.        The media onslaught against Islam in the form of Movies and novels is a continuing factor in the disinformation of the non-Muslim world, a definite legacy of the Crusades “… ‘They were waving curved scimitars and their leader had flung over his saddle two severed heads tied together by the hair. He threw them down on the ground, laughing as he did so, and two black slaves appeared with a silver salver to put them on. The men dismounted and a bevy of flimsily veiled, giggling slave girls gathered to escort each to one of the tents…’ This ridiculous caricature, or one similar to it, is unfortunately, courtesy of the Crusades via Hollywood, more or less the picture that most people have at the back of their minds when Islam is mentioned and unfortunately the Muslims here and elsewhere have so far been able to do little to dissipate this view in the public consciousness.” (BEWLEY, Abd-Al-Haqq ‘The West Wakes Up To Islam’ [Norwich 1988- Murabitun])

7.        The impact of the Crusades and the great cultural significance given to it has meant that not only religiously motivated military offensives against the Muslim world are now termed as ‘Crusades’ but rather any attack on Islamic belief, laws or people. So it is common to hear of an ‘Intellectual Crusade’, a ‘Cultural Crusade’ or ‘Educational, Ideological, Economic or Political’ Crusades. “Need we say that the struggle between Islam and Christianity is still going on; that the West, in our time, is still organizing its crusades on Islam under the banner of political and economic imperialism and with new methods concealed under the mask of civilisation, education and culture?” (ENAN, M. A. ‘Decisive Moments in the History of Islam’ Chapter VIII The Idea of the Crusades p.134 [Delhi 2000 – Adam Publishers]) This is not necessarily helpful to a cause of Islamic revival as it mis-classifies intentions and objectives as all being of a common origin. In truth many or even the majority of the onslaughts against Islam are not motivated by Christianity. Whereas in the practise of the Prophet (saw) he distinguished between the different enemies of Islam and even exploited divisions among them, as in the case of the companion Na’eem bin Masoo’d who was sent to make divisions among the confederates during the ‘Battle of the Trench or Confederate’ Also the Quran has indicated the same “…Their enmity among themselves is very great. You would think they were united, but their hearts are divided. That is because they are a people who understand not.” (QURAN al Hashr 59:14) Indeed, many resources and efforts could be wasted militarily or intellectually combating an enemy whose identity, objectives and motivations have been misjudged. The identification of the enemy and maximisation of preparation have been addressed in Quranic principles of war, “And prepare against them all you can of power and steeds of war to threaten the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides whom, you may not know but whom Allah does know…” (QURAN al Anfaal 8:60)

8.        The Crusades stands out in the public mind ‘as long and bloody conflict in connection to religion’. Much of the modern Christian world in its submission to the post French Revolution secularism, has claimed that religion has nothing to do with war and fighting. In imitation of the Christian bowing before secularism Muslims also responded with defeated apologetics which have no basis in their religious Scriptures. It is common now to hear Muslims say ‘jihad is only defence’ and ‘jihad is only in the heart.’ This imitation of Christian apologetics has even extended to totally contradicting clear texts of the Quran. “…while the meaning of ‘war undertaken for the propagation Islam’ which is supposed by European writers to be the significance of jihad is unknown equally to the Arabic language and the teachings of the Holy Quran.” (QURESHI, Prof. Muhammad Siddique ‘Foreign Policy of Muhammad (saw)’Islam and Sword p.317 [Lahore 1989 – Islamic Publications]) In fact Jihad does have an offensive dimension to make Islamic law dominant and remove the obstacles in the way of that, “And fight them until there is no more persecution and the deen [system] is all for Allah…” (QURAN al Baqarah 2:193 & al Anfaal 8:39) and “It is He Who has sent His messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over all the religions even if the associonists detest it.” (QURAN at Tawbah 9:33) and “Those who believe fight in the Cause of Allah…” (QURAN an Nisaa’ 4:76) and “Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of Truth among the People of the Book…” (QURAN at Tawbah 9:29)

9.        One of the detrimental traces of the Crusades for the Muslim world is that in a time of decline, the Muslims relied much upon the memory of a hero saviour in the form of specific individuals such as Salahud-Deen Ayoobi, and they conceived that the resistance of oppression and preservation of Islam relied on such individuals rather than a collective effort of the nation. Similarly, in these times when the Muslim world is in much decline and experiencing humiliation and oppression, they have become over reliant on the concept of a hero figure such as Usamah bin Ladin or other people. This concept has without doubt been exploited by the secular media who encourage the Muslim masses to rely on the actions of a solitary figure rather than the community collectively building its own revival. The reliance on an individual clearly contradicts the Quranic view of how changed occurs, “…never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves…” (QURAN ar Ra’d 13:11) “And the disbelievers are awliyaa [allies, protectors] of one another and unless you (Muslims) do so, there will be calamities on the earth and great corruption.” (QURAN al Anfaal 8:73) and “And fight the associationists collectively as they fight you collectively…” (QURAN at Tawbah 9:36) and “Verily, Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in rows as if they were a solid structure.” (QURAN as Saff 61:4)

10.     The Christian Missionary invasion of the Muslim world along with the attack from Orientalist writers  and historians upon Islam is regarded as a continuation of the Crusading spirit from Europe as a necessary process to weaken the Muslim world. “Once again the Crusader animosity was revived and the Orientalist concept emerged, which was concerned at the time with resisting the Muslim armies, halting the Islamic conquest and lessening the threat of Muslims. This deeply rooted animosity in the hearts and the minds of the Europeans prompted all Christians in Europe to send their missionaries to Muslim land in the name of science and culture. The missions took the shape of schools, clinics, associations and clubs. The Europeans devoted almost unlimited resources and huge efforts to the missionary work. They combined their efforts and methodology despite their differences in policy and interests. Peoples and States were united behind the missionary effort since it was conducted by their consuls, ambassadors, delegates and missionaries..…a Crusade was waged against Islam for a second time; this time it was a cultural war which poisoned the mind by what they had distorted from the Islamic laws and Islam’s high values, the poisoning of the young Muslim minds by what they alleged about Islam and the history of the Muslims in the name of scientific research and scientific fairness. It was in reality the cultural venom which was far more dangerous than the Crusader wars. The missionaries carried out the spreading of their poisonous filth in the name of science and humanity.”  (AN-NABAHANI, Taqiuddin ‘The Islamic State <ad Dawlat al Islamiyah>’ The Crusaders’ Animosity p.188-189 [London – al Khilafah Publications]) and “…The contempt for Islam had become part and parcel of European thought. It is true that the first orientalists in modern times were Christian missionaries working in Muslim countries, and the distorted pictures which they drew of the teachings and history of Islam were calculated to influence the Europeans in their attitude towards the ‘heathen’; but this twist of mind perseveres even now, when the orientalist sciences have long since become emancipated from missionary influences and no longer have a misguided religious zeal for an excuse. Their prejudice against Islam is simply an atavistic instinct, an idiosyncrasy based on the impression which the Crusades, with all their sequels, caused on the mind of early Europe.” (ASAD, Muhammad ‘Islam at the Crossroads’ The Shadow of the Crusades p.56-57 [Gibraltar 1993 – Dar al Andalus, first published Delhi, Lahore 1934]).

11.     The prolonged contact of Christian Europe with Islamic civilisation due to the Crusades led to material, organizational and intellectual advances in Europe. These gains eventually built the foundations which were to cause problems for the Muslim world in decline during the colonial periods and industrial revolution, a time when the Muslim world had neglected its Islamic principles in the governance of society and the advancement of material progress. “…Europe profited considerably by these conflicts. The Renaissance, that revival of European arts and sciences with its extensive borrowing from Islamic, mainly Arabic, sources, was largely due to the material contacts between East and West. Europe gained by it, in the domain of culture, far more than the world of Islam ever did; but it did not acknowledge this eternal indebtedness to the Muslims by a diminution of its old hatred of Islam. On the contrary , that hatred grew with the passing of time and hardened into a custom.” (ASAD, Muhammad ‘Islam at the Crossroads’  The Shadow of the Crusades p.56 [Gibraltar 1993 – Dar al Andalus, first published Delhi, Lahore 1934]).

12.      The religious hatred based upon the negative and distorted preaching preparing for the Crusades also fuelled Christian Europe’s persecution of Muslims in other areas outside of the Holy lands. This in the case of Spain was not only a damage to the Muslim world but also a great loss of an advanced Islamic culture which would have continued to benefit western Europe at the time and laid the seeds for a more principled Europe today. “The seed of hatred was sown. The enthusiasm of the Crusades soon had its sequels elsewhere in Europe: it encouraged the Christians of Spain to fight for the recovery of that country from the ‘yoke of the heathens’……because of the long duration of this struggle, the anti Islamic feeling in Europe deepened and grew to permanency. It resulted in the extermination of the Muslim element in Spain after a systematic, merciless persecution; and that victory was echoed by the rejoicings of all Europe…” (ASAD, Muhammad ‘Islam at the Crossroads’ The Shadow of the Crusades p.54-55 [Gibraltar 1993 – Dar al Andalus, first published Delhi, Lahore 1934]).

13.     The conflict originating in the Crusades is still continued as superpowers who claim to be promoting ‘peace’ and ‘humanity’ still adopt hostile terminology in connection with the Crusading spirit. “…during the Cold War the United States Navy chose the name ‘Crusader’ for two very successful aircraft, while the new self-propelled gun to be fielded by the U.S. Army over the next few years is also named the ‘Crusader.’…” (MILLER, David ‘Brassey’s Book of the Crusades’ The Results of the Crusades p.121 [Dulles 2001 – Brassey’s Inc.]) The naming of a recent  U.S. war ship engaged in operations targeting Muslim lands is carrying an even more sinister anti-Islamic Crusading connotation, this time in connection with the sixteenth century Portuguese conqueror Albuquerque whose reputation can not by any stretch of the imagination be said to be positive for the Muslim world “Once the trading posts of India had been secured, Albuquerque hit upon the idea, after crushing the Mameluke fleet, of ruining Egypt by means of an army of stone-breakers. He would bore through the mountain and dry up the sources of the Nile, under the guidance of Ethiopian advisers. At the same time from Aden, he would proceed to seize the body of the Prophet in Mecca and exchange it for the Holy Places. It was Crusade again, yet another Crusade.” (FERRO, Marc ‘Colonization – A Global History’ The Initiatives p.29 [London 1997 – Routledge, first published 1994])

14.     A detrimental effect of the Crusades is that its notoriety is so great that it may be that Muslims overlook the modern atrocities committed against Islam and Muslims by way of either propaganda and distortion in media and education or by way of slaughter of people. How many have been killed by European and American bombs, bullets and sanctions while they refrain from calling it a Crusade? “The spirit of the Crusades – in a very diluted form, be sure – still lingers over the West and influences its attitude towards the Muslim world and all matters Islamic.” (ASAD, Muhammad ‘Islam at the Crossroads’ The Shadow of the Crusades p.58 [Gibraltar 1993 – Dar al Andalus, first published Delhi, Lahore 1934]) and “We see an example of this today in the attempts of Christendom to try to deceive us by distorting history and saying the Crusades were a form of imperialism. The truth of the matter is that the latter-day imperialism is but a mask for the crusading spirit, since it is not possible for it to appear in its true form, as it was possible in the middle ages.” (QUTB, Sayyid ‘Milestones <Ma aa’lim fi’t Tareeq>’ This is The Road p.160 [New Delhi 1991 – Naushaba Publications, first published Cairo 1964])

Conclusion – The Legacy of the Crusades in the Crusades of Today

 In Iraq, now recently invaded by U.S.A., Britain and assisted by a coalition of many other European countries, we see all viewpoints secular-socialist/ba’thist, secular-nationalist, secular-democratic and Islamic. Despite efforts of the occupiers and those secular elements collaborating with the occupiers to distance the invasion from religious motivation, the traces of the Crusades remains. The memory and terminology of the Crusades has been used by both the occupier and the occupied. However, out of the existing viewpoints, by far the most feared by the occupier is that of Islamically orientated voice which appeals to widely held beliefs in the Muslim world, the global Muslim brotherhood [‘ummah’] and the higher authority of the Quran, the Word of Allah, predicting the actions of nations and providing the radical, all encompassing solutions. The Medieval Crusades resulted in the expansion of Islam further into the non-Muslim world. And the Islamic fundamentalist would see current World events as a pre-cursor to the repeating of history, especially when looking to such Quranic verses as “Arrogant in the land and plotting evil. But the evil plot encompasses  only him who makes it. Then, can they expect anything (else) but the way of the Peoples of old? So no change will you find in Allah’s Sunnah [way] and no turning off will you find in Allah’s Sunnah.” (Faatir 35:43)