Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE

Crusades
(9,641 words)

The Crusades originated from the speech delivered by Pope Urban II (r. 1088–99) on 27 November 1095 at the council of Clermont. He appealed for
all Christendom to come to the assistance of their threatened brothers in the East, to free them and the city of Jerusalem, with all its holy places, from
the Muslim yoke. Although there is no real verbatim account of the pope’s speech, it can be partially reconstructed from four contemporary reports
of the speech, even though these four di fer to a certain extent from each other. The pope described with great eloquence and skilful rhetoric the
alleged oppression and persecution by Muslims of the Christians in the Orient. Without the immediate support of the West, the oriental Christians
might be lost to the rising power of the Turks in Anatolia. The pope also denounced the belligerence and violence endemic in the West: this had to
stop immediately. Christian knights should concentrate their energy in acts that might please God; they should ght the enemies of the Christian
faith in His name. For the sake of Jesus Christ and eternal life, they should ght the pagans as penance for their sins. Those who died in such a just
war (bellum iustum) would gain indulgence in the hour of their death.

Urban’s speech must have impressed the audience deeply. They interrupted him repeatedly, shouting a slogan that went down in history, “Deus lo
vult!—God wills it!” As soon as the pope had nished his speech, Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy (d. 1098), went to him and asked to join this war
expedition. Hundreds, even thousands, are said to have followed his example. Alluding to the biblical verse, “Whoever does not take up the cross and
follow me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:38), the pope told the crowd to pin crosses made of cloth on their garments as a visible sign of the oath taken.
So the idea of the Crusade was born.

Knights volunteering to wage war for the good of Christendom against the pagans were to be considered pilgrims. Like pilgrims, they were o fered
spiritual rewards: all who went to Jerusalem dedicated to the liberation of the Church of God should have remission for their sins. They were granted
privileges customary for pilgrims, such as legal protection of the knight’s estates during his absence, a moratorium of their debts, and the suspension
of one’s oath of fealty.

It is thus not surprising that the crusaders saw themselves not only as knights of Christ ghting for the Lord but also as pilgrims. The only thing
distinguishing them from normal pilgrims was the fact that they carried weapons. They carried the pilgrim’s bag and sta f. They often called their
mission a peregrinatio, a pilgrimage; otherwise, they used the simpler terms iter (way, journey, march) or expeditio (expedition), often with the
addition Hierosolymitanum or Hierosolymitana, indicating the direction “to Jerusalem.” The term “crusade” is, in fact, of modern origin, although the
term croiserie appears occasionally in some Old French sources of the thirteenth century. They avoided the Latin equivalent cruciata, probably
because the basic meaning of cruciare was “to torture” or “to crucify.” The Arab term ḥurūb al-ṣalībiyya (lit., wars of the Crusades) is also a product of
modern times.

The immediate motive of the speech given by Urban II in Clermont was a call for help from Alexius I Comnenus, the emperor of Byzantium (r. 1081–
1118). Facing the intrusion of the Turkish Saljūqs into Asia Minor, he sent legates to the Council of Piacenza in March 1095, with a plea for military
help from the West. The pope may have sympathised with the request from the very beginning: his predecessor, Gregory VII (r. 1073–85), had already
considered sending an army to Byzantium just three years after the devastating defeat of the eastern empire at the battle of Manzikert, in 463/1071.
Urban II may have also hoped for the reuni cation of the church.

The immense and unanticipated success of Pope Urban’s speech had several causes. In the course of the time, the attitude of the Church towards war
had changed radically from the message of peace delivered by Jesus Christ. The rst to develop a concept of “just war” that was both theologically
viable and politically practicable was the Latin church father Augustine (d. 430). He explicitly distinguished a just war from an unjust war. A just war
(bellum iustum) must, at least to some extent, aim at peace, in order to realise the divine order. To establish peace, one must make an e fort to keep
and restore justice and ght against and punish unrighteousness. A Christian might therefore take up arms to gain peace and serve a righteous cause,
including self-defence and the retrieval of stolen property. But the most just war, according to Augustine, was one fought on behalf of God himself.
When the Vikings, the Magyars, and the Arabs led their forces deep into the heartland of Europe during the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries, it
seemed obvious that a war against them was defensive and thus just. Furthermore, these people were pagans in the eyes of the Church. The idea of
the bellum iustum could now be connected with that of driving back the pagans. This connection was signi cant for the future development of the
idea of crusading and the promise of eternal life for all who might die during these con icts.

Other, more recent developments had also altered the Church’s perspective towards war. The Pax et Treuga Dei/Domini (Peace and Truce of God)
movements at the end of the tenth century sought to protect the Church and noncombatant civilians from brutal attacks by a violent nobility. In
addition, as a result of the Church reform movement in the late eleventh century, which culminated in the Investiture Controversy, the papacy
stressed the obligations of the soldier to the Church. Christian knights, bound by a universal moral code, came to form a military power the Church
could easily co-opt for its own needs. The call of Clermont thus fell on the sympathetic ears of these knights, and they were eager to march to the
Orient for their faith.

Also important was the idea of pilgrimage, which had ourished since late antiquity, cultivating a sense of the religious value of the holy sites where
Jesus had lived and su fered. That the places made sacred by the life and the passion of Jesus Christ were now in the hands of pagans became
intolerable for Christians, especially those who had successfully repelled the pagans in the West and forced them back. Some equated the city of

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Jerusalem with the heavenly Jerusalem spoken of in the Book of Revelation, lending to the very name “Jerusalem” a kind of magic. In addition to
these pious concerns were certain profane ones, such as the social prestige and economic advancement that might come—to nobles and to common
folk—from a lengthy and di cult crusading pilgrimage.

Before the departure of the Crusader army, which was set for 15 August 1096, Pope Urban II traveled through southern France to deliver more crusade
sermons, as did the bishops in their dioceses, following his order to recruit more crusaders. Itinerant preachers such as Peter the Hermit (d. c. 1115),
too, spread the call among the masses, without the explicit authorisation of the Church. According to mediaeval accounts, their sermons promising
the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation enraptured their audiences. Some harboured apocalyptic expectations and the hope a better life on earth
in “the land of milk and honey.”

Finally, in the spring of 1096, tens of thousands of men, women, and children set out for Jerusalem in disorderly throngs. This movement, known
today as the “people’s crusade,” committed several pogroms on Jews, especially in the Rhineland. Three of these marauding hordes made it only as far
as Hungary, where they faced great resistance to their excesses and encroachments. In the end, they were largely worn down, and only the group led
by Peter the Hermit reached western Asia Minor, soon to be defeated by the Saljūqs near Constantinople, in Shawwāl 489/October 1096.

Meanwhile, the various armies of knights had also set out. Their deployment required much longer than the spontaneous and poorly organised
march of the common folk. The troops marched in independent columns to Constantinople under the leadership of Hugh, count of Vermandois, a
brother of the French king Philipp; Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine; the southern Italian Norman princes Bohemund and Tancred; and
Raymond IV, count of Toulouse. In the spring of 490/1097, the united Christian army set out from Constantinople, through Anatolia—approximately
sixty thousand men and women, among them about seven thousand knights, with all their baggage.

After dreadful struggles, deprivation, and hard ghting with the Saljūqs, they nally succeeded in what had been believed nearly impossible: with
God’s help, as the chroniclers believed, the army, reduced by great losses from all the hardships, stood before the walls of Jerusalem. On 23 Shaʿbān
492/15 July 1099 the Holy City was taken and sacked, and many of its Jewish and Muslim inhabitants were massacred.

Before the conquest of Jerusalem, on their way through Palestine, the Crusaders had already established the county of Edessa on the upper Euphrates
and, after a long siege and bloody battles, the principality of Antioch, followed by the Kingdom of Jerusalem and, some years later, the county of
Tripoli. The success of the First Crusade was due less to the militarily superiority of the Christian conquerors than to their religiously fanatical style of
ghting and, above all, the lack of an adequate defence by the Muslims, which resulted from the political and religious disunity of the Islamic world
at the end of the fth/eleventh century. Two great empires, the Fāṭimids and the Saljūqs, had hitherto dominated the political map of the Levant.
These two empires were irreconcilable enemies, as a result of their political and religious di ferences. From the point of view of the Sunnī Saljūqs,
established in Isfahan and Baghdad, the Shīʿī Fāṭimids, based in Cairo, were despicable heretics and, in the interest of orthodox Islam, had to be
fought. The Fāṭimids, on the other hand, saw themselves, following a dynastic model, as the true heirs of the prophet Muḥammad, through his
daughter Fāṭima. The powers of the Great Saljūqs and the Fāṭimids were on the decline on the eve of the Crusades, and their empires had been
reeling from internal crisis. In 487/1094, al-Mustanṣir, the last important caliph of the Fāṭimids, died. His successors were largely pawns in the hands
of ambitious wazīrs, and civil wars and plagues battered the empire on the Nile. The empire of the Great Saljūqs fared no better. In 485/1092 the great
statesman wazīr Niẓām al-Mulk was assassinated by a Shīʿī fanatic, and two months later, Malikshāh (r. 465–85/1073–92), his lord and the last
signi cant sultan of the Saljūqs, died. Malikshāh’s son Berkyārūk (r. 487–98/1094–1104–5) fought, until his death, a bloody war of inheritance against
his own brother and later successor Muḥammad I Ṭapar b. Malikshāh (r. 498–511/1105–18). The main area and primary object of their con ict was
Central Asia and Iran, and Syria and Palestine, where the spheres of power of the Saljūqs and the Fāṭimids had traditionally collided, lost their
importance. Furthermore, the sons of Tutush, Berkyārūk’s uncle, who ruled the cities of Damascus and Aleppo (471–88/1078–95), were on bad terms
with the sultan. There was no reason for Berkyārūk to intervene in Syria and Palestine after all—neither when the Fāṭimid wazīr al-Afḍal (d. 515/1121),
the de facto ruler in Cairo, took advantage of the situation and conquered Tyre in 490/1097 and Jerusalem in 491/1098, nor when the Crusaders
appeared on the scene. For Berkyārūk, who alone possessed the power to counter the Crusaders successfully, Syria and Palestine, including the holy
places, became an uninteresting periphery and a political sideshow. The rulers in Baghdad and Isfahan also failed to grasp—especially because there
was probably little information circulating in the Islamic world about the papal call—that the Crusaders were a new and threatening autonomous
power, not simply auxiliary forces and mercenaries of Byzantium with whom the Islamic world had been in contact and con ict for centuries. In
Cairo, the Muslims were likewise unaware of the real purposes and identity of the Crusaders, to the extent that the wazīr al-Afḍal thought he could
ally himself with the Crusaders against the Saljūqs.

It is thus no surprise that Muslim intellectuals such as al-Sulamī (d. 499/1106) and Ibn al-Khayyāṭ (d. 517/1123), both of Damascus, denounced—based
on their accurate appraisal of the contemporary political situation—the Muslim lords for their internecine strife that had made possible the
conquest of Islamic lands by the hated Franks. Al-Sulamī and Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630/1233) also connected the Frankish conquest of Syria with the
Norman conquest of Sicily and the Reconquista in Spain, thus conjuring up a global Christian threat to the Islamic world; to withstand this menace,
Muslims should set every available force against it. This appeal made al-Sulamī one of the intellectual fathers of the reactivated concept of jihād in
the middle of the sixth/twelfth century, which was part of the ideological stock in trade of such men as Zangī (r. 521–41/1127–46), Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd
b. Zangī (r. 541–69/1147–74), and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyubī (Saladin, d. 589/1193). They used this concept to unify the Islamic world and successfully
oppose the Franks, whom al-Sulamī scornfully called polytheists (mushrikūn).

After the bloody conquest of Jerusalem, the leaders of the Crusader army met in counsel to decide who should take the secular crown of the Holy
City. Godfrey of Bouillon was chosen, but he refused to be crowned, instead taking the title Defender of the Holy Sepulchre (advocatus sancti
sepulchri). In the beginning, his domain included the Holy City itself (which no Jews or Muslims were allowed to enter), the seaport of Ja fa, Lydda,
al-Ramla, Bethlehem, and Hebron. The Fāṭimids, on the contrary, were unwilling to give up the conquests of the Crusaders without a struggle. All
Egyptian attempts to force the Crusaders back failed miserably. After the death of Godfrey, on 9 Ramaḍān 493/18 July 1100, his brother Baldwin had
himself crowned king of Jerusalem, in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, on 20 Safar 494/Christmas Day 1100. As Baldwin I (r. until 511/1118), he
became the real founder of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Baldwin set out energetically to enlarge his dominion and consolidate its base of power. He conquered the seaports of Arsūf and Caesarea in 494/1101,
Acre in 497/1104, and Beirut and Sidon in 504/1110. Because the Crusaders never, then or later, had a noteworthy eet, the maritime support of Pisa,
Venice, or Genoa was essential. But the business-minded Italians, focusing on their own interests, did not hesitate to accept payment for that support /
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in the form of valuable trade privileges and even parts of the cities held by the Crusaders. This development, however, led to dangerous centrifugal
forces a fecting the rule of the Crusaders. Most importantly, Baldwin had opened a gate to the West with the conquest of the seaports. Bypassing the
protracted and dangerous land route across Anatolia, Crusaders, pilgrims, and, especially, new settlers from Europe could use the safer, more
comfortable sea route. Seaports such as Acre became ourishing economic centres. The pro table trade between the Orient and Europe, which was
important for all involved, was carried out in these cities.

The system of rule and the social structure of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was based strongly on European models. The king stood atop the feudal
pyramid and by his side the assembly of the tenants-in-chief, the Haute Cour. Their duty was to advise and assist the king.

Unlike the principality of Antioch and the county of Edessa, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was inhabited mostly by Muslims. Given the lack of su cient
information from Latin, Old French, and Arab sources, we can only estimate their numbers. Probably about one hundred thousand Europeans and
about three hundred thousand Muslims lived in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In the cities, people of di ferent provenance and religious a liation lived
in separate quarters. We do not know for certain if there were mixed settlements in the countryside, but we do know that some villages were
inhabited only by Christians and some only by Muslims.

The conquerors held aloof from the native population, which included both oriental Christians and Muslims who had to pay various dues and a
capitation tax. There were also rigid dress regulations and unequal treatment under the law. Sexual contact between Christians and Muslims was
strictly forbidden and drastically punished. The sparse source material is often contradictory, so it is unknown whether Muslims were allowed to
practice their religion in their enclaves.

There was also a language barrier between the conquerors and the natives. Bilingual oriental Christians were generally used as writers and
interpreters in diplomatic and daily business communications with Muslim princes. Few Franks could speak Arabic, and few Muslims spoke the
various “Frankish” languages. This barrier impeded contacts between Muslims and Crusaders.

The partial adoption by the Franks of oriental customs, such as clothing and cuisine, and the sometimes luxurious furnishing of their houses and
palaces are no evidence of acculturation but represented, at most, a super cial assimilation.

During the period of consolidation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Crusaders continued to bene t from the quarrels among the Muslim princes,
even though the Muslim princes did occasionally carry out successful campaigns against the Crusaders. These military expeditions resulted, however,
from daily politics rather than from a mutual will to force the conquerors back. The Muslim princes were too busy watching each other with
suspicion. For them the most important thing was to maintain a balance of power. The Crusaders took advantage of that situation and became lucky
bystanders in the interplay of political and military forces in the Middle East.

This situation, however, changed immediately when ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī, the Turkish military leader and lord (atabeg) of Mosul and Aleppo,
conquered Edessa on 27 Jumādā II 539/Christmas Day 1144. The conquest of the city and the destruction of the county of Edessa showed for certain
that the Islamic world could defeat and drive back the invaders. The message of the fall of Edessa was a shock to the other Crusader states and to
Europe and led to the Second Crusade. This time, two kings even joined the expedition—Louis VII of France (r. 1137–80) and Conrad III of Germany
(r. 1138–52)—but the Second Crusade was a failure. Even though the Kingdom of Jeruslaem was allied with the Būrid dynasty that ruled Damascus
(497–549/1104–54), the Crusaders attempted to seize the Syrian metropolis; this was not only a violation of a treaty but also very short-sighted. The
rulers in Damascus saw no alternative but to call for help from Nūr al-Dīn, the son of Zangī, who had been assassinated in 541/1146. When the
Crusaders were told of the approach of a relieving army, they raised the siege of Damascus and withdrew.

Despite the attack, the Būrids renewed their alliance with the Crusaders in 544/1149, for which they were branded by Nūr al-Dīn as traitors to Islam
and thus lost the support of the population and were no longer accepted by the people of Damascus. The result was the triumphant entry of Nūr al-
Dīn into Damascus in 549/1154, where he was greeted as a liberator.

Nūr al-Dīn’s success was not, however, based only on his experience as a military leader: he was also a pioneer of a politically and religiously uni ed
Islam in the struggle against the Franks. For this purpose he revitalised and disseminated the idea of jihād that had remained in the background in
the preceding decades.

Although the Crusaders now faced a uni ed Muslim power in Syria, they became involved in yet another decisive and dangerous enterprise. Taking
advantage of the weakness of the Fāṭimid empire, King Amalric of Jerusalem (r. 558–69/1163–74) invaded Egypt four times between 558/1163 and
564/1169, and Egypt even temporarily became a Frankish protectorate in 562/1167. Amalric thus provoked Nūr al-Dīn, who, having been called on for
help by the Fāṭimid wazīr Shāwar, dispatched an army under the Kurdish commander Shīrkūh (d. 564/1169). In 564/1169, Amalric had to withdraw
from Egypt, and Shāwar was murdered. The Fāṭimid caliph al-ʿĀḍīd (r. 555–67/1160–71) appointed Shīrkūh as his new wazīr. When Shīrkūh died
shortly afterwards, his thirty-one-year-old nephew Saladin (Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf b. Ayyūb) succeeded him as wazīr.

Saladin solidi ed his position, and a revolt of Fāṭimid mercenaries was defeated bloodily. At the behest of al-Mustaḍīʾ (r. 566–75/1170–80), the
ʿAbbāsid caliph in Baghdad, he eliminated the rival Shīʿī caliphate of the Fāṭimids, and Sunnī Islam reclaimed Egypt. Saladin was beginning
vigorously to consolidate his position and did not envision himself as Nūr al-Dīn’s governor in Egypt. An open con ict between the two in 569/1174
was prevented only by the sudden death of Nūr al-Dīn. Reasoning that, in the interest of jihād against the in dels, all Muslims had to unite—that is,
submit to him—Saladin moved against the family of Nūr al-Dīn and seized Syria. The caliph in Baghdad countenanced Saladin’s actions in the
interest of Islam and, in 570/1175, bestowed the title of “Sultan” on Saladin, who thus received the necessary legitimisation. The Crusaders, for the rst
time in their history, had to face a united Muslim power consisting of a uni ed Syria and Egypt. With the exception of a few minor military
expeditions, Saladin was in no hurry to strike out against the in dels. He rst consolidated his power base in northern Syria and Mesopotamia. He
achieved the freedom of movement he needed by concluding, over some years, several cease re agreements with the Franks, who let him do as he
wished. When they realised the lurking danger and asked for support in the West, their calls for help went unheeded: the West was preoccupied with
its own a fairs.

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Finally, the Franks themselves gave Saladin, who was becoming increasingly powerful, a casus belli. During a truce, Reynald of Châtillon, prince of
Antioch (548–55/1153–60), lord of Oultrejourdain and lord of al-Karak, raided a caravan, and Saladin proclaimed jihād and attacked the Kingdom of
Jerusalem.

Unlike in former years, the Franks now had to deal with a great army of Egyptian, Syrian, and Mesopotamian forces that was led by a capable and
charismatic soldier. In Rabīʿ II 583/July 1187, Guy de Lusignan, king of Jerusalem (582–8/1186–92) moved against Saladin, with the largest army the
Franks had ever taken into action. Each side elded about twenty thousand men. Fighting broke out on 25 Rabīʿ II/4 July at the Horns of Ḥaṭṭīn (twin
peaks in Lower Galilee) and ended in disaster for the Crusaders. Saladin pardoned and freed the imprisoned king of Jerusalem “because a king does
not kill another king,” (Bahāʾ al-Dīn Ibn Shaddād, 79) as recounted by Bahāʾ al-Dīn, the biographer of Saladin. The surviving Templars and
Hospitallers, however, were all executed because, as Ibn al-Athīr asserted, “in war they are worse than all Franks together.”

After that victory, Saladin conquered almost the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem. After their nearly complete destruction at Ḥaṭṭīn, the Christians had
no way to counter Saladin, and Jerusalem surrendered to him on 27 Rajab/2 October. When he entered the city, Saladin not only eschewed bloodshed
but prohibited plundering. The conquest of the holy city was a great propaganda success against the backdrop of the idea he had revitalised of “holy
war” against the in dels. His secretary, ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī (d. 597/1201), praised the conquest of Jerusalem, which “was purged from the dirt of
the lthy Franks and took o f the dress of indignity to don the dress of honour once more” (ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, al-Fatḥ al-qussī fī l-fatḥ al-qudsī,
ed. Carlo de Landberg, Leiden 1888, 61).

Europe was preoccupied with fear and concern after receiving the message of the crushing defeat at Ḥaṭṭīn and the fall of Jerusalem. Pope Gregory
VIII (r. October to December 1187) immediately authorised another Crusade. Many kings took the cross, amongst them the emperor Frederic I
Barbarossa (r. 1152–90), King Philipp II August of France (1179–1223), and the English king Richard I the Lionheart (1189–99). Choosing the land route,
the emperor set o f in Rabīʿ I 585/May 1189 on the so-called Third Crusade, with a large army of German knights. After disputes with the Byzantine
emperor Isaac II Angelus (r. 1185–95, 1203–4) and heavy ghting with the Saljūqs in Asia Minor, he arrived in Cilicia but drowned on 5 Jumādā I 586/10
June 1190 in the river Saleph (the present-day Göksu). His once impressive army disintegrated, and most of the Crusaders returned home. Only a
small force of the German army arrived at Acre in Ramaḍān 586/October 1190.

The kings of France and England took the sea route. In Rabīʿ I 587/April 1191 the eet of Philipp II appeared at Acre. Richard the Lionheart, who had
seized Cyprus on his way, arrived at Acre in early Jumādā I/June. Against the will of Saladin, Acre surrendered to the Crusaders on 17 Jumādā II 587/12
July 1191. Philipp II returned home again after this victory, while Richard the Lionheart continued to ght Saladin for another year. He proved a
brilliant military leader and routed Saladin several times, but neither was able to defeat the other de nitively. They nally negotiated a peace in
Ramaḍān 588/September 1192. With the exception of Gaza and Ascalon, the Crusaders regained all of the seaports, which had large populations and
were vital for trade, but the hinterland, including Jerusalem, remained in Muslim hands. Richard the Lionheart returned home in Shawwāl
588/October 1192.

Saladin died, after a brief illness, on 27 Safar 589/4 March 1193. Even though Saladin used the idea of jihād as propaganda in the ght against both
Muslim rivals and Crusaders, he was never a bigot. He repeatedly showed leniency and justice towards the vanquished, and the Europeans portrayed
him in historiography and later, in literature, as the “noble pagan”—as in “Nathan the Wise,” (1779) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and “The Talisman,”
(1825) by Walter Scott.

Facing death, Saladin in 589/1193 divided the Ayyūbid empire he had created between his three sons and his brother al-Malik al-ʿĀdil (r. 1193–1218). In
the rst years, al-ʿĀdil dexterously dispossessed his nephews, until he gained sovereignty over the empire in 596/1200. To rule the empire as a federal
state, he split it in 596/1200 into three parts, over which he appointed his three sons as rulers. The three-year treaty Saladin had concluded with
Richard the Lionheart was left intact by al-ʿĀdil. After all the sacri ces the empire had had to make during the wars of Saladin, these three years gave
them a desperately needed respite, but it was a peace from which the Crusaders also bene ted.

During the reign of al-ʿĀdil, Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216) called for the Fourth Crusade, which was intended to seize Egypt, the heartland of the
Ayyūbid empire. Venice, however, which provided the ships for the Crusaders, managed adeptly to adapt the Crusade to its own ambitions. Finally, in
600/1204, it was not Egypt that was seized but Christian Constantinople. The Crusaders conquered the city and established the Latin Empire of
Constantinople. This conquest was a perversion of the idea of crusading and so was strongly criticized in the West. Venice was nevertheless satis ed
with the outcome of the Fourth Crusade: the defeat of the Byzantium Empire meant the elimination of a dangerous political and commercial enemy,
and the Venetians succeeded in distracting the Crusaders from conquering Egypt, thus avoiding a disruption of their pro table commercial
relationships with the land of the Nile.

The Italian seaports had long attempted to build a commercial relationship with Egypt, because the latter controlled the trade with India via the Red
Sea. They had their rst promising negotiations under the reign of Saladin, who wanted to build his own eet and needed a great deal of timber and
iron, materials that were in short supply in the resource-poor Middle East. In the following decades, Venice and Pisa were allowed to establish trading
settlements (Ar. funduq, Ital. fondaco) in Alexandria. For lack of raw materials, Egypt received from Europe commodities such as iron and wood and
even weapons such as swords and blades and, in return, exported coveted spices, alum, sugar, and other goods.

These arrangements were interrupted only brie y, during the Fifth Crusade, when a Frankish eet took Alexandria in Ṣafar 615/May 1218. In summer
618/1221, however, the Crusaders were defeated by the sons of al-ʿĀdil at the battle of al-Manṣūra and had to withdraw. The next Crusade was led by
the emperor Frederic II in 625–6/1228–9. But neither the emperor nor the Ayyūbid sultan al-Malik al-Kāmil (r. 615–35/1218–38) was interested in war.
In Shawwāl 625/September 1228, the emperor reached Acre without a large military force, having sent ahead only ve hundred knights. In Rabīʿ I
626/February 1229, he and the sultan negotiated a compromise, despite resistance from fanatics on both sides: the Christians were to receive back
Jerusalem, albeit without the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqṣā mosque (though the Christians were to be allowed to pray in the Dome of the Rock).

After the death of al-Kāmil, in 635/1238, the Ayyūbid empire had to face another di cult succession struggle for more than two years, which was
nally won by al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb (r. 637–47/1240–49), the son of al-Kāmil. His importance for the history of the Middle East is based primarily
on the fact that he, like no other ruler before him, purchased Mamlūks and made them the mainstay of his reign. He used these loyal Turkish slave-
warriors as the nucleus of his army and his personal guard. /
The rst practical test for the slave warriors was the Crusade of Louis IX (called St Louis, r. 1226–70). The French king set sail on 4 Jumādā I 646/25
August 1248 and, after a stopover in Cyprus, arrived at Damietta, which the eet conquered without a single stroke of the sword. The army dispatched
by Sulṭān al-Ṣāliḥ failed miserably and was forced to withdraw. The sultan managed to regroup his forces but died unexpectedly, in Shaʿbān
647/November 1249. His death deprived the state and the army of leadership, because Tūrān Shāh, the son of the sultan and vice-king, was, at the
time, in the eastern provinces of the Ayyūbid empire. In this threatening situation, it was the sultan’s widow, Shajar al-Durr, who seized the initiative.
Supported by the Mamlūk amīrs, she concealed the death of al-Ṣāliḥ and continued the ght against the Crusaders. In Dhū l-Qaʿda 647/February 1250,
the Mamlūks surrounded the Crusader army at al-Manṣūra. Meanwhile, Tūrān Shāh, the heir to the throne and last independent sultan of Saladin’s
family, arrived in Egypt. In Muḥarram 648/April 1250, King Louis surrendered at Fāriskūr and was taken captive. The Crusade of the French king was a
great failure, but it was important for the history of the Middle East because it was the Turkish Mamlūks who had won the day and later used their
victory to legitimise their reign. An agreement was reached that freed the French king, in return for the city of Damietta and a large ransom payment.

But Tūrān Shāh angered his father’s Mamlūks and widow by favouring his own followers and Mamlūks over them, leading them to fear for their own
positions. Therefore some rebellious Mamlūk o cers assassinated Tūrān Shāh. Signi cant for the Mamlūks’ concept of rule is the reason for the
assassination later given by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir (d. 691/1292), the biographer of the sultan Baybars (r. 658–76/1260–77)—that is, that the Mamlūks had
killed Tūrān Shāh because he was a poor military leader and did not set a good example for his men.

The Mamlūk amīrs agreed on elevating al-Ṣāliḥ’s widow, Shajar al-Durr, as new sultana, with the amīr ʿIzz al-Dīn Aybak as atābag (commander in
chief) on her side. She ruled Egypt for a couple of months as malikat al-Muslimīn (“queen of the Muslims”). Because of the diplomatic pressure of the
ʿAbbāsid caliph in Baghdad against a female ruler and the military threat of the Ayyūbid princes in Syria, she resigned at the end of Rabiʿ 648/July
1250 and married Aybak, who was proclaimed new sultan.

Over the next ten years, Egypt descended into political chaos, with the various Mamlūk parties struggling for power. These struggles led to weakness
in foreign a fairs, which gave the Crusaders time to recover, but this was not a permanent situation. In 656/1258, the Muslim world was shaken by an
historic event: coming from the east, the Mongols conquered Iran and then devastated Baghdad, the old capital of the caliphs, and brought down the
ʿAbbāsid caliphate. In the autumn, the Mongols completed their preparations for an expedition into Syria. The Ayyūbid princes dared not resist them,
and the Mongols entered Damascus in triumph in 658/1260.

Al-Muẓa far Quṭuz, the sultan in Cairo (r. 657–8/1259–60), answered the demand of the Mongols to surrender immediately by having the Mongol
envoys executed: war was now inevitable and reached its climax in the battle of ʿAyn Jālūt (25 Ramaḍān 658/3 September 1260). The opposing forces
were nearly equal in number, but the sultan and his amīr Baybars defeated the Mongol army, and the Mongol general Kitbughā probably died on the
eld. With this victory, the Mamlūks not only ended the Mongol encroachment into the Middle East but also saved Sunnī Islam. Al-Muẓa far Quṭuz
became lord of Syria, and the existing Ayyūbid principalities were integrated into the Mamlūk state. On the return march to Egypt, the sultan was
assassinated by fellow o cers. One of the conspirators was the amīr Baybars, who was proclaimed the new sultan by the other amīrs.

As sultan, Baybars became the real founder of the Mamlūk empire that shaped the history of the Middle East until its destruction by the Ottoman
Empire, in 923/1517. To legitimate his power, Baybars drew on Ayyūbid traditions and connected them skillfully with Mamlūk elements of power.
Unlike the Ayyūbids, he did not rule the empire as a dynastic federal state but brought the state under tight, centralised rule, with the sultan as the
supreme ruler. Syria was divided into several provinces, whose governors were absolutely accountable to the sultan. As a skilful administrator, the
new sultan sought the internal consolidation of the state. In contrast with the heterogeneous forces of the Ayyūbids, he built a tightly organised and
disciplined army.

With Syria and Egypt united in his hands and in command of a powerful army, he resumed the ght against the Crusaders, who were forced onto the
defensive. In Jumādā I 663/March 1265, Baybars conquered Caesarea and, on 12 Rajab 663/30 April 1265 of the same year, Arsūf. Both cities were
destroyed by order of the sultan. Other cities and forti cations followed. In the expeditions of 666–70/1268–72, Ja fa and Beaufort were seized, and
the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia was forced into dependency. The sultan conquered Antioch in 666/1268, and the Mamlūks carried out a bloodbath,
in revenge for the support of Mongol forces by Lesser Armenian and Antioch contingents in 658/1260. The populous city had ourished since
antiquity, but, having now lost most of its inhabitants and been sacked and devastated, it would remain an insigni cant provincial city up to the
twentieth century. When Baybars died, in 676/1277, the Crusaders were forced into a few refuges. After weeks of ghting, the Mamlūks, under Sulṭān
al-Malik al-Ashraf Khalīl (r. 689–93/1290–3), nally took Acre in 690/1291. With the fall of Acre, the fate of Outremer was sealed. Shortly afterwards,
Tyre surrendered. Facing only brief resistance, the sultan seized Sidon, Beirut, Haifa, and the Templar forti cations of Tortosa and Chastel Pelerin
(ʿAthlīth). Thus were the Crusader states lost, almost exactly two hundred years after the Europeans’ capture of Jerusalem.

To ensure that the Europeans would never again come from the sea and take root in Outremer by using the forti ed places as beachheads, the
Mamlūks destroyed most of the seaports and forti cations on the coast and systematically devastated the land, which would not recover from the
destruction wrought by the Mamlūks until the nineteenth century. The Muslims harboured a long-established hatred of the Crusaders and an abiding
fear that the Christian conquerors would return. There were, indeed, Christian memoranda and deliberations about reconquering the Holy Land, but
these attempts, failed from the outset, because the idea of crusading to the Holy Land had become time-worn. The defense against the advance of the
Ottomans in the Balkans was, from the eighth/fourteenth century on, of higher importance for the West, and the later Crusades were thus fought to
repel the Ottomans.

Furthermore, criticism of crusading has obviously a longer tradition in the West, not least because the Curia considered as a Crusade every war that
was fought against political enemies of the pope (such as the German dynasty of the House of Hohenstaufen and the rebellious Stedinger peasants of
northwestern Germany) and against heretics such as the Albigenses.

Until the beginning of the Crusades, the Islamic world had had—out of a sense of religious and cultural superiority—no interest in the West, which
they considered behind the times. They thought Europeans savage, lthy, barbaric, and morally inferior. These prejudices and assessments were not
modi ed during two centuries of personal contact with the Crusaders and the resulting experiences, but rather were con rmed. They had, however,
gained political and diplomatic knowledge about the European states. Other than in these pragmatic matters, Muslim interest in the West had not
grown at all. Until modern times there was not a single Muslim traveller or author who reported in depth on Europe and its people, and even the
contemporary view of the Crusades is similar. Unlike the Mongol conquest, the Crusaders were never seen as a real threat to the Islamic world. /
Neither Baghdad nor the important Syrian cities of Aleppo, Ḥamāh, Ḥimṣ, or Damascus were conquered by the Crusaders, and the occupation of
Cairo was only a brief episode. It is little wonder that not a single author writing in Arabic during the Crusades focused on the Crusades as an
independent event. The topics of Arab historiography were either universal or concerned with local history or the biographies of charismatic leaders
such as Saladin and Baybars. Although the struggles with the Crusaders are mentioned in all these books, they are never at the centre of the
discussion. Neither then nor in the later Middle Ages was a book devoted entirely to the Crusades.

The situation in Europe was, however, totally di ferent. The Crusades have, since the beginning, evoked broad interest, as evidenced by numerous
contemporary sources on individual Crusades and universal histories of the Crusaders.

The Crusades also extended substantially the worldview of the West. Since late antiquity, there had been pilgrim guides describing the holy sites, and
these descriptions became more detailed during the Crusades. After the Crusades, there were more and more travel reports giving detailed accounts
of the Middle East that satis ed the curiosity of the Europeans about the exotic world of the Orient. It was not just the missionaries who travelled to
the Mongols—and even on to China—that contributed to the increase of knowledge but also the merchants who pro ted from the lucrative trade
with the Muslims. Trade with the Orient was not interrupted during the Crusades and, in fact, increased.

The assessment of the Crusades varied: although they were a disastrous failure militarily, older European historiography, in particular, appraised the
Crusades positively. In Muslim historiography, however, the Crusades were, at rst, not a signi cant issue. Not until the nineteenth century did the
Crusades gain more attention when viewed through the prism of European imperialism and colonialism, when they came to be seen mostly
negatively by Muslims.

Peter Thorau

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Cite this page

Thorau, Peter, “Crusades”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Consulted online on 15 June 2020 <http://dx.doi.org.iij.idm.oclc.org/10.1163/1573-
3912_ei3_COM_24420>
First published online: 2014
First print edition: 9789004269637, 2014, 2014-4