Whythe Crusades Were Called
tur e Chri sti an lan ds. It was not unti l
over a hun dred years after the First
Crusade (in the thirteenth centur y) that
Europe an Christ ians made any organi zed
attemp t to convert Muslim s to
Christianity, when the Franciscans began
mis sio nar y work amo ng Mus lim s in
lan ds held by the Crusader s. This effort
was largely unsuccessful.
When the Crusaders were victorious and
establi she d kin gdo ms and pri nci pal iti es
in
theMiddle East, they generally let theMuslimsin the ir dom ain s liv e in
pea ce, pra ctice the ir rel igi on fre ely , bui ld- mos ques and sch ool s,
and mai nta in the ir own rel igi ous tri bun als. Some have compared
their status to that of the dhimmis in Muslim lands; they retained a certain
measure ofautonomy, but were subject to unfavorabletaxa tionratesand
oth er res tri cti ons. It is lik ely that the Crus ade rs adopted some of
the dhim mi laws alre ady in plac e, but they did not sub ject Jew s or
Mus lim s to dre ss cod es. So Jew s and Mus lim s cou ld avo id day-to -
da y dis cri min ati on and har ass me nt ." Th is was the opp os ite of
Muslim prac tic e. The key diff eren ce is that the dhi mma was neve r
part Christian doctrine and law, as it has been and remains part of Islam.
Wha t's mor e, the Spa nis h Mus lim Ibn Jub ayr (11 45-121 7), who
tra ver sed the Mediterranean on his way to Mecca in the early 1180s.
foundMusl ims had it bette rin theland s contr olle d by the Crus aders
than theydid in Islamic lands. Those lands were more orderly and better
managed than those under Muslim rule, so that even Muslims preferred to
live in the Crusader realms: "Upon leav ing Tibn in (nea r Tyre) , we
pass ed thro ugh an unbr oken ske in of far ms and vil lag es who se
lan ds wer e eff ici ent ly cultivated. The inhabitants were all Muslims, but
they live in
A Book You're Not
Supposed to Read
The New ConciseHistoryof theCrusadesby.
ThomasF.Madden;Lanham,MD: Rowman&
Littlefield, 2005, is a briskly told page-turner
that dispels innumerable PC myths about why
theCrusades were fought, whofoughtthem,
and what happened during each one.