Crusades: Truths vs. Lies

There are many depictions of the Crusades in modern times. These assumptions are primarily made through the idea that it was a war based upon conflicting religions. Many people are taught today that the Crusades are the “mean Christians” from Europe coming over and killing the Muslims. There is so much to this idea that is wrong that, anybody that says this has obviously never studied or looked at the Crusades. Another depiction of the Crusades is that the Christians went up against the Muslims because they believed it was their “duty”, to fight in the name of God. The other portrayal of the Crusades can be that the Muslim involvement of Jihad was not a factor in the Crusades, this idea is also false. (source) (source ,Google Books)

Concerning the thought that the Christians came over, fighting against the helpless Muslims is quite ridicules. Separating the truth from what the definition of the Crusades has become is quite difficult to explain, the modern day deception has become so ridicules that it is so far from the truth. In reality the Crusades were a defensive maneuver on the European Christian side. The Europeans were being pushed back and attacked by the Muslims. This caused them to either do one of two things, either surrender or fight back. This had no correlation with a religious effort on their part. (source)

Next step is to dispel the false accusations of the Christians out weighing the Muslims. This is a pretty easy thing to do because during this time Arabian Peninsula was considered a wealthy area of the world and the Europeans were the poorer people of the time. This was a result of the good trade routes and use of water through the Muslims. Up until the Crusades the Muslims had already conquered most of the area around the Mediterranean Sea. As the Muslims continued to push their empire into Europe they had their first set back. Through the fact that the Muslims had an economic and militarily advantage against the Europeans, this war was not the depiction of the mean Europeans fighting against the helpless Muslims. (source) (source ,Google Books)

The conniption most people have with the Crusades is that the Christians only fought back to save their religion. This assumption is wrong, the European Christians fought back for the reason that the Muslims had gone to far with their tradition of Jihad. They had killed many people in the fight for conversion. The Muslims had used very threatening tactics in these advances and in common sense and defensive manner these actions should not have gone on. The effort was to save peoples lives not to convert people to Christianity. The other aspect of this is that the people can obviously not deny the fact that the Islamic tradition of Jihad was a factor in the Crusades. (source) (source) (source ,Google Books)

In reality the Crusades did not have that big of an impact on the Muslims and their efforts for expansion. The fight from the Europeans however did set them back and probably made them realize that actions have consequences and that every now and then people will fight back. The biggest thing the Crusades did do was buy time for the Europeans. These efforts also had minor delays on the economic status of both cultures. (source) (source ,Google Books)


The modern day depictions of the Crusades are so far from the truth. The truths can be seen if people today only looked at the Crusades. Connecting the ideas of Just War and Jihad have and impact on the correlation of the Crusades. They show what the efforts of both sides were and what they accomplished through their actions and efforts. In the end the Crusades did not leave a huge impact and these efforts just died off over time. (source) (source)
(source , Google Books)