Crusades prior to the Rise of the Ayubid State pdf

Salah Ad-Deen al-Ayubi Volume

Crusades prior to the Rise of the Ayubid State – Book Sample

CRUSADES PRIOR TO THE RISE OF THE AYUBID STATE

Historical Roots of the Crusades

It is worth mentioning that the Crusader wars between the Muslims and western Christians and others did not start at the end of the fifth century AH, and they did not end in the seventh century AH.

These campaigns were actually part of a series in a lengthy conflict that began with the emergence of Islam12 and continued, off and on, in almost all eras from the emergence of Islam until modern times.

It is possible to divide this period into five phases of this ongoing conflict.

Whenever the conflict cooled down during any of these phases, it soon reignited in the next phase, where it was no less vicious and violent, sapping Islamic energy and resources across vast swaths of land.13 These phases are as follows:

The Byzantines

The origins of the Byzantine anti-Islamic movement go back to the time of the Messenger (SAAW) (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) himself.

From the year 5 AH, in the battles of Doomat al-Jandal, Dhat as-Salasil, Mu’tah and Tabook, and ending with the campaign of Usamah ibn Zayd (may Allah be pleased with him and all the Companions), the Byzantines realized the new danger coming from the south, especially after the emerging Islamic state managed to free a number of Arab tribes in the north of Arabia from their former Byzantine masters.

Whether the Byzantines were moving against Islamic forces on their own initiative or as a reaction against Muslim movements, the ultimate conclusion is that this state began to realize, more and more, the extent of the new challenge and began to prepare to stop it.

It is true that on some occasions these preparations were not at the right level, which may have been due to lack of precise information on which the Byzantine leadership based its plans, but the outcome was that the fire of conflict broke out and intensified immediately after the death of the (Messenger (SAAW) and after Islamic forces started pouring into the lands under Byzantine control.14

The Byzantines were expelled from their possessions in Asia and parts of Africa at the hands of the Rightly Guided Caliphs.

During the subsequent period, which witnessed many attacks and counterattacks carried out by the Byzantines on land and sea, most of which ended in failure, the Byzantines soon retreated as a result of the persistent pursuit of the Umayyads,15 starting with Mu’awiyah, the founder of the Umayyad state, and the era of ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan and his sons, especially al-Waleed and Sulayman.

 This is discussed in detail in my book Ad-Dawlah al-‘Umawiyah (The Umayyad State).

This active pursuit of the Byzantines continued after the Umayyad era, in Syria, Egypt and North Africa. They withdrew completely from North Africa and vast areas of the Mediterranean, and were confined to Anatolia and their possessions in Europe itself.

With the passage of time, the danger of counterattacks grew less, because they were concentrated along a line stretching across Anatolia and the Euphrates Valley, rarely able to penetrate any deeper due to the alertness of the Islamic leadership, who fortified the borders and also launched ongoing attacks against the Byzantine state, penetrating deep in the direction of Constantinople itself.

 This did not leave the Byzantine Emperor, in most cases, any room to broaden the scope of his counterattacks, except at the beginning of the fourth century AH, when the Abbasid state had grown weak.

The emergence of the Seljuks then gave a new impetus to the Islamic Jihad movement; during the reign of the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan they were able to inflict a crushing blow to the backbone of the Byzantine forces in the battle of Manzikert (463 AH).

That victory spelled the end of the challenge posed by the Byzantine state and its counterattacks, and it remained ineffectual until it fell, many centuries later, to the Ottomans.16 I have discussed this in detail in my book, Ad-Dawlah al-‘Uthmdniyah: ‘Awdmil an-Nuwould wa Asbdb as-Suqoot.11

The Spanish

From the earliest stages the Andalusian arena witnessed persistent counterattacks from the north, where the Spanish had fortified themselves in areas of rugged terrain.

 These attacks resulted in a bitter conflict throughout which the Umayyad leadership confronted these counterattacks for nearly three centuries, during which they contained the threat and forced the enemy to retreat to northern pockets in the Iberian Peninsula.

 There were two bursts of renewed Islamic energy, the first of which was at the hands of the Almoravids (al-Murabitoori) who came from Morocco,18 and who achieved a magnificent victory at the battle of Sagrajas (az-Zallaqah) against the Spanish Christians in 479 AH.

 The second came at the hands of the Almohads (al-Muwahhidoon) who came after them and succeeded in inflicting a crushing defeat on the Christians in the battle of Alarcos (al-Arak) in 591 AH.19

 Thus Islam was able to survive in Andalusia by confronting challenges and resisting Spanish counterattacks on an almost equal footing, and this continued for almost four centuries.20 But the Muslims there soon became exhausted and ever more weakened by division and bloody conflicts among themselves.

 This tipped the balance in favour of the Christian leadership, which was ultimately able to bring down the last Islamic government there, the Kingdom of Granada, which fell in 897 AH.

 Soon after that, under the leadership of Ferdinand and Isabella, came the worst massacre in human history, when the state, church and Inquisition joined forces and were able, by methods which showed no respect to human — let alone religious — values, to destroy the Islamic presence in Andalusia and erase it from the map of Spain, and to assimilate the Muslim masses by force into a society that claimed to be Christian in religion, culture and conduct.21

The Crusader movement

The Crusader movement was a reaction against Islam by the Christians, the roots of which go back to the emergence of the Muslims from Arabia, when they confronted the Byzantine state.

This movement developed like a living entity over centuries, hardly emerging from one phase before it entered another. The period between 488 and 690 AH (1095-1291 CE) was only one of its stages.

The fact that this phase is so prominent that it almost outshines all other stages is due to many complex and interconnected factors, which a researcher may find in the motives and reasons that led to the onslaught of the huge waves of Crusades at that time.22 

Historians agreed to use the word “Crusades” or “Crusader” to apply to the entire Crusader, colonialist movement that was born in Western Europe and took the form of armed attacks against Muslim lands in Syria, Iraq,

Anatolia, Egypt and Tunisia, in order to eradicate Islam and Muslims and take back Jerusalem.

The roots of this movement are to be found in the religious, social, intellectual, economic and political conditions that prevailed in Western Europe in the eleventh century; it harnessed religion as the fuel to achieve its aims.23 Crusader attacks are nothing new, they are not a strange or exceptional phenomenon; they are the rule, and anything else is the exception.

 Hence we say that limiting the time scale of the Crusades to the period between 588 and 690 CE is a mistake, as Professor Sa’eed ‘Ashoor states:

It is not based on a solid foundation or on any comprehensive study of the Crusader movement, but it is (the result of) taking a partial view of the movement and failing to examine its roots and origins on the one hand, and its consequences and legacy on the other.25

The Islamic resistance to this invasion was a brilliant indication that faith was still alive in the hearts of Muslims, sometimes at the level of the leadership, and at the level of the masses most of the time.

This era produced mujahideen26 who reached a high calibre of efficiency and capability; these mujahideen spread along all fronts and resisted the invaders at every turn.

 Throughout two centuries they never gave up their resistance, never accepted the status quo or laid down their weapons.

 They were constantly prepared, at any moment, to leap upon their horses and rush to meet their goals. Jihad is not created by wishful thinking, and the mujahid does not operate in a vacuum; it is great historical challenges that make Jihad and motivate the mujahideen, and instil in the Muslim fighter a spirit of heroism, sacrifice and martyrdom.27

The Crusaders outflanking manoeuvres

Soon after Europe had crushed the Islamic presence in Spain, the leaders of Spain and Portugal, followed by Britain, Holland and France, began their well-known historical manoeuvres to outflank the Muslim world, via their operations in Africa and Asia.

This evolved into the colonialist movement that the Muslim world would subsequently suffer from, and which continued for decades after the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate.

The Mamluks in Egypt and Syria had run out of steam; the discovery of a new sea route around the Cape of Good Hope had dealt a crushing blow to their trade, which was the backbone of their financial strength.

The Ottomans were concentrating their efforts on penetrating Europe from the east, and they did not have the territorial connections to enable them to stop the outflanking manoeuvres when they started; it was only after many decades that they took action to confront this situation.

 Nevertheless, Muslim populations and local leadership fought vigorously in the areas under attack, and set a great example of long-term resistance against the aggression.

They inflicted huge losses on the invaders on all fronts and along the coasts where the invaders sought to get a foothold.28 The Ottomans managed to save the Islamic world from the Spanish-Portuguese invasion which had threatened to strangle Muslim trade.

 When the Iberians tried to gain control of the coast of Muslim Morocco, the Ottomans hastened to seize control of all of North Africa except Marrakech; they were able to confront the Spanish all along the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean and push them back.

 Thus the Ottoman navy managed to keep the coastal regions of the Mediterranean for Islam and the Muslims.

The Ottomans also managed to gain control of the coast in East Africa and areas on the northern coasts of the Indian Ocean at the beginning of the eighteenth century, which alarmed the Europeans.

 Ahmad ibn Sa’eed (1740) managed to stand up to them in Oman, where the Portuguese lost any hope of regaining control of the region. After the fall of Andalusia, Oman was the strongest Arab power; its revival lasted from 1000-1250 AH. Oman controlled the coastal fortresses of the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Gulf and East Africa as far as the Cape of Good Hope.

 Within a few generations the Omanis became masters of the three great seas; they had a huge fleet that defeated the Portuguese fleet and expelled it from all the ports in India, Persia and Africa.

The English could not tolerate this naval power which threatened their possessions in Asia and Africa. For eighty years they tried to weaken it and destroy it, and the British fleet bombarded its cities.29

Colonialism

The next European counterattack came at the hands of the colonialist forces which were pushed by the Industrial Revolution to seek fresh pastures in the Old World. They sought markets for their goods, sources of raw materials, and a supply of cheap human labour.

 This took the form of slaves taken by force from Africa and transported across the sea in a process that remains a dark stain on the history of the conflict between Europe and the East, to which huge numbers of Muslims in Africa fell victim.

 This wave which was led by Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, and Germany to some extent, continued until the early decades of the twentieth century.

 The Muslim world was its primary victim; in fact it was its only victim if we exclude small areas inhabited by non-Muslim majorities. Its economic goals, driven as they were against a Crusader background, were expressed in more than one incident, and offered evidence in more than one case.

 British Prime Minister William Gladstone expressed it clearly when he addressed Parliament, holding a copy of the noble Qur’an in his hand, “So long as this is in the hearts and minds of the Egyptians, we will never be able to defeat them.”30

When the British crusader general entered Jerusalem in victory after the First World War and was received with great honour by the allies of the British, he could not conceal his crusader resentment against Islam and the Muslims;

 he expressed his joy and happiness as a victorious crusader leader who had conquered Jerusalem and Palestine and brought it under the crusader British Mandate, saying,

“Now the Crusades are over.”31 With this statement he declared that the aim of the Crusades, to occupy Jerusalem and impose Crusader authority on it and on Palestine had been achieved.

He was stating that the Crusades, which continued for two centuries, during which Jerusalem and Palestine were occupied in 492 AH and liberated by the Muslims in 583 AH, had not achieved their goal until the First World War.

The Crusaders achieved their goal when they took over Palestine and Jerusalem. The French crusader