The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

Crusades

The Crusades, as viewed by the West, were a series of at least eight military campaigns against the Muslims of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Their initial impetus was to protect the holy places of the Christian Near East, but especially Jerusalem. The Crusader presence in the Middle East lasted from 1098 to 1291.

In the 20th century, the Arab world “rediscovered” the Crusades, viewing them as symbols for current political problems. Some saw the medieval Crusading states as “protocolonies,” the precursors of Napoleon in Egypt, the British Mandate for Palestine, and the state of Israel. The Crusades marked the initial phase of Western imperialism in the region (isti‘mār mubakkar, or premature colonialism). Arab nationalist leaders reminded their people of the glorious Muslim victories over the Crusaders (the Franks), and although the most famous Muslim generals—Saladin (a Kurd) and Baybars (a Turk)—were not ethnically Arab, the rhetoric used in political speeches by Middle Eastern leaders allowed modern Arabs to claim these medieval military triumphs as their own. Several Arab leaders, such as Gamal Abdel Nasser, Hafez al-Assad, and Saddam Hussein, aspired to become “the second Saladin,” the charismatic figure who would one day reunite the Middle East. Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem in 1187 has clear resonance for modern Palestinians.

For other Muslim spokesmen, the Crusades have been seen not in national but in religious terms, as part of a continuing conflict between Christianity and Islam. The leading figure of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb (executed by Nasser in 1966), referred in his Fi Zilal al-Qur’an (In the shade of the Qur’an) to the perennial struggle between Muslims and “polytheists” and spoke of “international Crusaderism,” arguing that the blood of the Crusaders flowed through the veins of all Westerners.

The core meaning of the word “crusade” is the Latin word “crux” (cross), and the modern Arabic phrase for crusade—al-ḥurūb al-ṣalībiyya (the cross wars)—reflects this inherent religious focus. Indeed, in contemporary times hostility toward American hegemony is often expressed in religious terms. As Osama bin Laden put it in an interview with Aljazeera, “This battle is not between al-Qaeda and the U.S. This is a battle of Muslims against global Crusaders”; his fatwa (religious opinion) of February 23, 1998, “Jihad against Jews and Crusaders,” mentions a Crusader-Zionist alliance. He likened American military bases in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, to Crusader armies spreading like locusts, and he said that their banner was the cross. The involvement of Jews in his anti-Crusader rhetoric is thus contradictory.

Thousands of miles from the geographical sites of the medieval Crusades, the concept of Perang Salib (The War of the Cross) is now used in Islamist circles in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Islamic country, to denote what is perceived as wicked Christian aggression against Muslims, especially after 9/11. As in the speeches of Bin Laden found on the Internet, Indonesian Islamist discourse links the concept of “crusade” with the words “Zionists” and “Jews” and presents a global conspiracy of Christian Crusaders and Zionist Jews bent on destroying Islam. After President George W. Bush’s visit to Indonesia in 2006, he was labeled “the Supreme Commander of the War of the Cross” by one of the leaders of the Islamist organization Ahl al-Sunna wa-l-Jama‘a (The People of Tradition and the Community).