The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades

ThePoliticallyIncorrect Guide to Islam(and the Crusades

arm ies adv anc ed nor th fro m Jer usa lem , the Cru sad ers wai ted for the
Byzantine emperor to arrive with troops. But the emperor had received a
repor t that the Crusad ers' situa tion in Antioc h was hopel ess and turne d
back his forces. The Crusade rs felt betray ed and became enraged. After
they overcame immense odds and took Antioch, they renounced their
agreements with Alexius and began to establish their own governments.
These were not, however, colonial arrangements. The Crusader states
simply would not have been recogn izable as colonie s to someone famil-
iar with Virginia, Australia. or the Dutch East Indies in later centuries.
Broadl y, a colony is a land that is ruled bya far-off power. But the Cru-
sader states were not ruled from Western Europe; the governments they
established did not answer to any Western power. Nor did the Crusader
rule rs siph on off the weal th of thei r land s and send it back to Euro pe.
They had no economic arrangements with any European country. The
Crusa ders estab lishe d their state s in order to provi de perman ent prote c-
tion for Christians in the Holy Land.
In fact, many Crusade rsceasedto think of themsel ves as Europe ans.
The chronicler Fulcher of Chartres wrote;

Cons ider , I pra y, and refl ect how in our time God has tran s-

ferre d the West into the East. For we who were Occi dent als

now hav e bee n mad e Ori ent als , He who was a Roma n or a

Fran k is now a Galil aean , or an inha bitan t of Pales tine , One

who wasa citizen of Rheims or of Chartres now has been made a

citizen of Tyreor of Antioch. We have already forgotten the

pla ces of our bir th; alr ead y the y hav e bec ome unk now n to

many of us, or, at least, are unmentioned. Some already possess

here homes and servants which they have received through

inheritance. Some have taken wives not merely of their own

people, butSyrians,or Armenians, or even Saracens who have

received the grace of baptism. Some have with them father-in-

law, or daughter-in-law, or son-in-law, or stepson, or step-father.