UNDERSTANDING THE MIDDLE EAST:
History, Religion, and the Clash of Cultures
400 pages
Copyright © 2007 by Beechmont Crest Publishing
First edition, 2007
0-9748330-6-1
C H A P T E R 3:
Understanding the Crusades
The Seljuk Turks, the Byzantine Empire, and the Crusades
By the mid-tenth century, the Abbasid Dynasty had ceased to function as an effective central government for the Muslim peoples. Rivalries increased between the Abbasids and the Fatimid Dynasty of North Africa. The ill will between the two dynasties was more than simple geopolitical competitiveness. The Fatimids were Shiite; the Abbasids belonged to the majority Sunni sect. From their capital in Cairo, the Fatimids worked tirelessly to undermine the Abbasids. Although they did not actually overthrow the Abbasids, the Fatimids did surpass them as the cultural leaders of the Muslim world. The Fatimids also maintained control of the Mediterranean and Red Sea areas.
But the Fatimids’ days of leadership were numbered. Power in the Islamic world was passing from the Arabs to the Seljuk Turks. The Seljuk Turks were a Central Asian people who had been converted to Islam. They had strong warrior traditions; and for generations they worked as mercenaries for both the Abbasids and the Fatimids.
After a while, however, the Seljuk Turks weren’t content to be mercenaries for the caliphs---they wanted to hold power themselves. They rebelled against their Abbasid employers, and took control of the eastern provinces of the Abbasid Empire. In 1055, a Seljuk Turk commander captured Baghdad and declared himself sultan (“holder of power”).
As the new rulers in Baghdad, the Seljuk Turks began a vigorous expansion campaign. They turned their swords on the Fatimids, but their first priority was attacking the dar al-harb, or non-Islamic world. The Byzantine Empire, which was based in nearby Constantinople, was the obvious target. The Crusades were launched in 1095 after the emperor of the Byzantine Empire frantically asked the Roman Catholic Pope for help in holding off the Seljuk Turks.
Western Europe and Byzantium
The Byzantine Empire---and its role in the Crusades--is often given short shrift in history classes. The Byzantine Empire thrived during the centuries spanning late antiquity through the late Middle Ages. A Christian civilization, the Byzantine Empire originally sprang from the same Roman sources as did Western Europe.
The roots of the Byzantine Empire can be traced back to the late Roman Empire. Around 300 A.D., the Roman Empire was split into administrative halves along an east-west boundary. The capital of the western empire remained in Rome, and the capital of the eastern empire was established in Constantinople.
Around the same time (312 A.D.), the emperor Constantine converted from paganism to Christianity. Later in the century (378 A.D.), the emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the empire. The Christianization of the Roman Empire eventually made Christianity the dominant religion from the British Isles to Asia Minor. The spread of Roman Christianity set the stage for the later conflict with Islam. This wide swath of Judeo-Christian culture would become a target, a “realm of war”, in the expansionist eyes of the Muslim caliphs.
The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 400s, long before the rise of Islam. Germanic tribes rolled back the Romans in Western Europe, and the city of Rome itself was sacked and occupied by “barbarians.” By 500, Roman imperial authority was a thing of the past in the Western empire.
At the same time, the Eastern Roman Empire flourished and began to assume a unique identity. Historians generally mark the late 400s as the beginning of a distinct Byzantine culture. The Byzantines spoke Greek rather than Latin, and regarded Rome as a distant cultural ancestor.
The Byzantine Empire was one of the Muslim armies’ early targets. In 636, Muslim forces defeated the Byzantines at Yarmuk, taking the old Roman provinces of Syria and Palestine for Islam. The Byzantines faced other threats as well: an Asiatic people known as the Bulgars drove them out of the western Balkans. As a result, the Byzantine Empire of the 700s was only a shadow of the former Eastern Roman Empire. Byzantine territory was reduced to Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) and the eastern Balkans---hardly much of an “empire” anymore.
Throughout these years, Byzantine emperors faced the swords of Islam. In 1071, the Byzantines suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Seljuk Turks in the Battle of Manzikert. Over the next twenty years, conditions deteriorated as the Seljuk Turks grew stronger and more aggressive. This prompted the Byzantines to call on their long-lost Western Roman compatriots for help.
Copyright 2005 Beechmont Crest Publishing
