Chapter 3
ISLAM AND THE CRUSADES
InA.D. 1071, Alp Arslan led his Seljuq Turks to victory at the Battle of
Manzikert in what would one day be called Turkey. The entire Byzantine
army was destroyed, and Emperor Romanus was killed on the field. This
victory, besides being the beginning of the end for old Byzantium, was
also the single most important catalyst in the onset of two centuries of
crusading warfare. These crusading wars would be unlike any that had
been seen before, and they would have an influence on the Islamic lands
of the Middle East that is still curiously evident.
After Manzikert, the Byzantine state compounded its military defeat
with an internal struggle for the throne. This struggle for succession was
eventually won by Alexius Comnenus, who realized that the imperial
losses to the Seljuq Turks could not be repaired by the remnants of the
Byzantine army. New forces would have to be found. Alexius chose to
appeal to the Roman pope for troops. He couched his appeal in religious
terms, pointing out that the new soldiers would be regaining Christian
lands that had been lost to the “infidel.” He rather assumed that these
troops would flock to Constantinople, enlist as mercenaries, and then re-
gain the lost provinces for the Byzantine Empire. The appeal of this to
the westerners was that they would be aiding Christianity by regaining
lands that had recently been surrendered to Islam but had been Christian
for centuries. It was normal for Byzantine armies to be formed with large
mercenary contingents, but Alexius’s appeal for troops had been couched
in religious terms, and he had appealed not to a king, but to a churchman.