A Matter of Faith

Historians have given many interpretations and causes for the two centuries of war between Christianity and the Islamic world that we know as the Crusades. There were, of course, political concerns, with the Catholic pope wanting to gain power in the Eastern Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, the rival Christian empire of the time. Princes, kings, and emperors also had a desire to increase the size of their holdings and perhaps even create new empires in the Middle East. Economic reasons were also important, as many people and cities made a good living off the Crusades, transporting the soldiers and setting up new areas for trade. But most important, the Crusades were about religion and about which religion should control the holy sites in the city of Jerusalem, sacred to Islam and Christianity (as well as Judaism). It was this competition between religions, the debate over whose god was best, that continued to drive the Crusaders and Muslim fighters alike.

The most recent of the great religions, Islam came into existence in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. Christianity thus had about six hundred years head start, and Judaism, the third great religion of the Middle East and Europe, was older than both, stemming from perhaps two thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ. But Islam spread quickly. Its founder, Muhammad, believed that he was visited by the angel Gabriel when he was about forty years old and that the angel told him to become a messenger of the word of Allah, or God. All those who followed or submitted to the word of Allah were known as Muslims; the name of the religion, Islam, means "to submit." In certain ways Islam is similar to Christianity, especially in that the faithful are always looking for new members or converts from other religions.

Christianity's holy book is known as the Bible; Muslims have the Qur'an, or Koran, a book that pays special attention to leading a moral and proper life. Islamic law covers practical matters, from what one should eat to how one should deal with the poor and with other Muslims. Written in Arabic, the Koran played a large part in making that language a gathering point for the Islamic world, for the Koran was not intended to be translated. Instead, the faithful were meant to read it in its original language and also to pray in Arabic. As Islam spread in its first four centuries, the central position of the Koran and of Arabic made the religion not only a spiritual movement but also a cultural, or Arab, one. By the time of the Crusades the Islamic world had already reached and just passed the high point of its civilization and empire, controlling lands from India to Asia Minor, from Iraq to Arabia, and from Egypt and North Africa to Spain and southern Italy.

Christianity was also on the rise at the time of the Crusades. In Europe, there was a competition between the leader of the church, the pope, and the kings and emperors who were establishing their kingdoms. The pope and the kings of France and England, as well as the German emperor, were rivals for power in medieval Europe. The church controlled much of the cultural life of the time and also sought to establish itself as the messenger of God on Earth. As far as the popes were concerned, all power, spiritual and temporal (political), came from them.

The teachings of the Bible and the first books of the New Testament, or the Gospels, had a strong influence on both nobles and common people during the Middle Ages. The miracles of the church were widely accepted and kept the faithful together and believing. However, even in the Middle Ages there were those who searched for their own private forms of religion. Such skeptics and part-believers were found, as we shall see, in both the Christian and Muslim worlds.

The power of religion was used to bring the faithful of both Christianity and Islam to battle. Both sides saw their warriors as soldiers of God, and both spoke of fighting battles for their religion. In the West this was known as a holy war, or Crusade, while in the Muslim world it was called jihad, also meaning holy war. The Crusades were an expensive adventure, and to finance it the church often taxed the faithful. Early states of Europe were not organized to allow such taxation of the common people, but the church, with its local priests, was. Also, faith could be used to create elite groups of fighters. From the time of the First Crusade (1095–99), Crusaders were promised to have their sins forgiven in return for their service. This use of faith in wartime was extended even further with the creation of religious military orders, such as the Knights Templars and Knights Hospitallers in the early twelfth century. Faith and religion have continued to play prominent parts in conflicts throughout human history. Most of the time, all participants in a war think that they have God on their side.