The word “Jihad” is difficult to use in the post-9/11 world. Right-wing Christians use the word every twenty-three seconds or so and use the idea of Jihad as synonymous with Islam itself and pretty much every single Muslim. It’s useful for people who want to alienate the other and justify a war by the oldest excuse in the book: they started it!
A counter-narrative of Jihad arose to make an equal and opposite claim. I have no idea where it came from, nor do I know where I heard it. It went thusly, however: Islam is a religion of peace and Jihad is about the inner struggle for purity, but it was corrupted to make Jihad about holy war against the enemies of Islam. Moreover, the specific version I heard indicated that Jihad was corrupted because Saladin needed a rallying cry to get the various Muslim tribes and kingdoms to unite against the threat of the European Crusades.
This is a convenient counter-narrative. It’s based in a certain amount of truth, too. Jihad has two or three meanings and the notion of Jihad as holy war is actually only the lesser struggle. This is disputed, of course, by historians who claim that Jihad was primarily used to mean actual, physical war. I don’t know enough to make a judgment call. It doesn’t matter, however, as the argument is actually somewhat immaterial.
The counter-narrative of Jihad as Muslim anomaly and response to the Crusades pretends that Saladin’s fight to re-take the Holy Land from the infidels arose in a vacuum. It’s not like the Qu’ran was written sometime around 700 and then, boom, 400 years later there was a Crusade and the Muslims were all, “Oh, shit, now what are we gonna do?” Muslims and Christians were pretty much at war from the time Islam was founded. That’s why there were Crusades in the first place.
-
It’s actually really hard to claim that Islam is a religion of peace. Muhammed was pretty much constantly warring with someone or other. Muhammed died in 632. Exactly one century later Charles Martel defeated a Muslim army at the Battle of Tours-Poitier.
For those keeping track at home, that means that in the course of a century the descendants of Muhammed’s religion of peace had managed to conquer North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and curl all the way around to threaten Paris, France. They had to go the long way around because Constantinople was still at the height of its powers within living memory and blocked invasion of Europe from the east.
Oh, yeah, Constantinople. In the century between the death of Muhammed and the Battle of Tours-Poitiers Muslim armies had besieged that great city no less than three times, including one siege that lasted for five years and another that involved the troops bringing seeds to plant their own crops so they could be in it for the long haul. They weren’t so much beating swords into plowshares as bringing plowshares to make sure the swords would get use.
Islamic cosmography, meanwhile, had come to divide the world into three broad categories. First was the House of Islam, where Islam was the rule. Second was the House of Safety, where Islam was not the rule but Muslims were allowed to live in peace. Third was the House of War, which was pretty much everywhere else. This was also nearly synonymous with Christian Europe.
-----------------------------
A question must be asked before we can proceed: What were the Crusades?
This largely depends on who you talk to. In the specific telling of the story of the Crusade as a sudden release of violence from a previously peaceful Islamic culture the Crusades were a horrible atrocity and – because words have little meaning these days – Western terrorism on a grand scale. This is wrong. It’s not completely and totally wrong. But it’s definitely wrong.
The First Crusade was a direct result of the Battle of Manzikert. The Battle of Manzikert came was a direct result of the mutual embrace between the Turkmen and the Muslims.
Early Muslims were primarily nomadic Arabic tribesmen. They traveled fast, struck hard, and terrorized civilized people. It was their mobility and ability to endure hardship that allowed them to destroy the Persian Empire and cross North Africa in the space of just a few decades.
They eventually settled down, though. Empire tends to do that. In general it’s a good thing, but the practical matters of imperial administration tend to get in the way of overrunning nearby kingdoms.
Then the Muslims ran across the Turks, who hung out around Anatolia and the Caspian Sea. The Turks were nomadic horsemen of a tradition not all that dissimilar from the Huns or the Mongols. In the Turks the Muslims saw the spirit of the gazi: holy warriors who cared about nothing more than spreading Islam.
It was the Seljuk Turks who provided the opening for the Muslim conquest of Anatolia, which would mark the long, slow strangulation of the Byzantine Empire. In 1071 Romanos IV Diogenes lost to a Seljuk army at Manzikert in decisive fashion. This didn’t destroy the Byzantines, but it destabilized the empire and left all of Anatolia vulnerable to the Turks. In true Byzantine fashion, though, it was a civil war following the loss at Manzikert that allowed the Turks to take the Byzantine heartland, as opposed to the loss in the battle itself.
In 1095 Alexios I Komnenos was forced to do the unthinkable: request help from Rome to stop further Seljuk incursion. In 1078 they had taken Nicaea, which was both practically at Constantinople’s doorstep and one of the most important cities to the Byzantine cause. It could not be re-taken without help. Latin Christians considered Orthodox Christians half-breed heretics, however. They weren’t about to go take Anatolia just to keep the Byzantine Empire safe, even if it was in their own best interests. They needed a bigger justification. Thus a simple attempt to retake the Byzantine breadbasket became an apocalyptic war for the center of the world.
-------------------------
The First Crusade was wildly successful. The Crusaders started in Constantinople and marched through Anatolia, retaking Nicaea in the process. They then conquered Antioch and Jerusalem and established the crusader states.
Less than a century later Egyptian Muslim troops flying the banner of jihad conquered Jerusalem under the banner of Jihad. Their commander was known in the West as Saladin. Surprisingly, his reputation was as an exemplar of chivalry and not bloodthirsty savagery.
We shall look at that later.
A counter-narrative of Jihad arose to make an equal and opposite claim. I have no idea where it came from, nor do I know where I heard it. It went thusly, however: Islam is a religion of peace and Jihad is about the inner struggle for purity, but it was corrupted to make Jihad about holy war against the enemies of Islam. Moreover, the specific version I heard indicated that Jihad was corrupted because Saladin needed a rallying cry to get the various Muslim tribes and kingdoms to unite against the threat of the European Crusades.
This is a convenient counter-narrative. It’s based in a certain amount of truth, too. Jihad has two or three meanings and the notion of Jihad as holy war is actually only the lesser struggle. This is disputed, of course, by historians who claim that Jihad was primarily used to mean actual, physical war. I don’t know enough to make a judgment call. It doesn’t matter, however, as the argument is actually somewhat immaterial.
The counter-narrative of Jihad as Muslim anomaly and response to the Crusades pretends that Saladin’s fight to re-take the Holy Land from the infidels arose in a vacuum. It’s not like the Qu’ran was written sometime around 700 and then, boom, 400 years later there was a Crusade and the Muslims were all, “Oh, shit, now what are we gonna do?” Muslims and Christians were pretty much at war from the time Islam was founded. That’s why there were Crusades in the first place.
-
It’s actually really hard to claim that Islam is a religion of peace. Muhammed was pretty much constantly warring with someone or other. Muhammed died in 632. Exactly one century later Charles Martel defeated a Muslim army at the Battle of Tours-Poitier.
For those keeping track at home, that means that in the course of a century the descendants of Muhammed’s religion of peace had managed to conquer North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and curl all the way around to threaten Paris, France. They had to go the long way around because Constantinople was still at the height of its powers within living memory and blocked invasion of Europe from the east.
Oh, yeah, Constantinople. In the century between the death of Muhammed and the Battle of Tours-Poitiers Muslim armies had besieged that great city no less than three times, including one siege that lasted for five years and another that involved the troops bringing seeds to plant their own crops so they could be in it for the long haul. They weren’t so much beating swords into plowshares as bringing plowshares to make sure the swords would get use.
Islamic cosmography, meanwhile, had come to divide the world into three broad categories. First was the House of Islam, where Islam was the rule. Second was the House of Safety, where Islam was not the rule but Muslims were allowed to live in peace. Third was the House of War, which was pretty much everywhere else. This was also nearly synonymous with Christian Europe.
-----------------------------
A question must be asked before we can proceed: What were the Crusades?
This largely depends on who you talk to. In the specific telling of the story of the Crusade as a sudden release of violence from a previously peaceful Islamic culture the Crusades were a horrible atrocity and – because words have little meaning these days – Western terrorism on a grand scale. This is wrong. It’s not completely and totally wrong. But it’s definitely wrong.
The First Crusade was a direct result of the Battle of Manzikert. The Battle of Manzikert came was a direct result of the mutual embrace between the Turkmen and the Muslims.
Early Muslims were primarily nomadic Arabic tribesmen. They traveled fast, struck hard, and terrorized civilized people. It was their mobility and ability to endure hardship that allowed them to destroy the Persian Empire and cross North Africa in the space of just a few decades.
They eventually settled down, though. Empire tends to do that. In general it’s a good thing, but the practical matters of imperial administration tend to get in the way of overrunning nearby kingdoms.
Then the Muslims ran across the Turks, who hung out around Anatolia and the Caspian Sea. The Turks were nomadic horsemen of a tradition not all that dissimilar from the Huns or the Mongols. In the Turks the Muslims saw the spirit of the gazi: holy warriors who cared about nothing more than spreading Islam.
It was the Seljuk Turks who provided the opening for the Muslim conquest of Anatolia, which would mark the long, slow strangulation of the Byzantine Empire. In 1071 Romanos IV Diogenes lost to a Seljuk army at Manzikert in decisive fashion. This didn’t destroy the Byzantines, but it destabilized the empire and left all of Anatolia vulnerable to the Turks. In true Byzantine fashion, though, it was a civil war following the loss at Manzikert that allowed the Turks to take the Byzantine heartland, as opposed to the loss in the battle itself.
In 1095 Alexios I Komnenos was forced to do the unthinkable: request help from Rome to stop further Seljuk incursion. In 1078 they had taken Nicaea, which was both practically at Constantinople’s doorstep and one of the most important cities to the Byzantine cause. It could not be re-taken without help. Latin Christians considered Orthodox Christians half-breed heretics, however. They weren’t about to go take Anatolia just to keep the Byzantine Empire safe, even if it was in their own best interests. They needed a bigger justification. Thus a simple attempt to retake the Byzantine breadbasket became an apocalyptic war for the center of the world.
-------------------------
The First Crusade was wildly successful. The Crusaders started in Constantinople and marched through Anatolia, retaking Nicaea in the process. They then conquered Antioch and Jerusalem and established the crusader states.
Less than a century later Egyptian Muslim troops flying the banner of jihad conquered Jerusalem under the banner of Jihad. Their commander was known in the West as Saladin. Surprisingly, his reputation was as an exemplar of chivalry and not bloodthirsty savagery.
We shall look at that later.
Recent Comments