Muslim Perspective On The Christian Crusades example essay topic

Another important reason for failure of the Crusader states was the capture by the Crusaders the city of Jerusalem, which was lost by Muslims and represented a great value for them. While most of the European historians considered the capture of Jerusalem great event in the history of the Crusades, actually it became an incentive for the Muslim world to put force their best efforts and throw the Christians away. The city of Jerusalem contained the Islamic sacred shrines: the Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. For the Muslims, those two objects meant a lot, thus the loss of Jerusalem was perceived by the representatives of the Arabic world as one of the greatest losses ever in their history. The Muslims were enraged because of the defilement of their sacred religious places, that engagement has been fed by the Christians throughout the whole century, and, as a result, all the images and objects that belonged to Christianity were simply destroyed after the Muslims sacred shrines were gained back. The sacred shrines mentioned above, and the city of Jerusalem that contained those shrines became the focal point of the Jihad throughout the 1100's.

The Muslims were willing to do anything to recapture the city, they felt it rather humiliating that the Christians were able to capture one of the most important cities in the Arabic history and hold it for a substantial period of time. When the city of Jerusalem was finally taken back by the Muslims led by Saladin in 1887, Muslims were overwhelmed with joy and felt that now they certainly be supported by their God, since they have fulfilled their religious duties and freed such an important city with the sacred shrines that meant a lot for them. After the city was captured by Muslims, all the Christian object and images were destroyed immediately. The recapture of Jerusalem became the turning point in the confrontation between Muslims and Christians.

Muslims felt that now Jihad is prosecuted according to their religious duties and that they would certainly be able to cleanse their inherent territories from the Christians, who tried to occupy them and oppressed the Muslim population. The fifth reason for failure of the crusader states is the fact that the Muslims were quite militant in their nature, and the only way the Crusaders would have been able to maintain their states on the Muslim territory was hundred percent annihilation of the Muslim population, which was not theoretically possible. There is another interesting point that can be made regarding how Muslims perceived the war with the representatives of the Christian world. Certainly, they viewed the Christian Crusades as a religious war at the very fundamentals of the Islam faith, however Christians were actually considered more a political than a religious enemy. There is a particular evidence to prove that point, since when Saladin recaptured Jerusalem and the Christian defense was done with, he did not simply slaughtered the Christian population, as the Crusaders did to the Muslim population within the territories that they were conquering.

Saladin was a rather wise and civilized man, he gave those Christians a choice of living in the area and paying taxes to him or moving out to the territories that were controlled by the Christians. Carole Hillenbrand, in her famous book The Crusades, Islamic Perspective, discusses various issues connected with the Crusades and tries to show the general audience how the Muslims felt about the invasion of their land by the Christian forces and what those Crusades meant for them. She suggests that the presence and discussion of the Crusades, which are widely elaborated upon and interpreted in the history of Christianity and the European nations, is somewhat neglected in the Muslim history and society at large. For the representatives of the Arabic nations, who were in the constant state of war with their various neighbors as well as between the Arabic countries themselves on some occasions, Christian Crusaders, even considering the fact that they were actually able to capture the city of Jerusalem, represented only another enemy that needed to be fought. Hillenbrand comments that there is relatively small amount of work done by the Muslim scholars to cover the Crusades, and she believes that the reason for that is that the Muslims did not consider Crusades to be something significant as the Christians did.

She begins her book with a rather interesting discussion of the Crusades in Palestine, and how the Muslims respond to those Crusades. Further in her book, the author uses more details to show the Muslim perspective on the Christian Crusades, she elaborates on the political system that was dominant in the Arabic countries as well as at the values and norms of the Muslim society at large. She also elaborates on how various Muslim rulers retaliated on the Christian attacks, what methods were used to stop the advance of the Crusaders, how people reacted to the fact that their native lands were conquered by the representatives of another nations and completely different religion. Overall, the militant nature of Muslims and constant stage of war that made them accustomed to fighting different enemies on their territories is the fifth reason for failure of the Crusader states. Thus, employing the Arabic perspective on the Holy Wars is quite helpful for determining the five most important reasons for failure of the Crusader states. Definitely, those reasons are not the only ones that could have been mentioned within the course of that paper, however they are the most significant ones.

A brief restatement of those five reasons will conclude the research: 1) lack of motivation on Crusaders part; 2) no disciplined, regular army, but rather a mix of various groups of people fighting for different reasons; 3) the unnecessary aggression of the Crusaders towards civilians; 4) capture of Jerusalem the beginning of full scale religious war; 5) the militant nature of Muslims and their superiority because of the constant military conflicts they had to go through all the time..