SPECIAL REPORT: Should We Be Ashamed Of the Crusades?

Long before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the Middle East was the heartland of Christianity. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew.

WICHITA, Kansas (Catholic Online) - "What about the Crusades?" The question seems more like an accusation, implying that the powerful Europeans attacked a simple and peaceful people on their home turf for no reason.

Using the Crusades as a club to bludgeon the West into guilty silence is a modern practice that has more to do with twentieth century events like the First and Second World Wars and the strains of passivism these engendered, than with the reality of the 12th and 13th centuries.

In fact, the Muslims were proud of the Crusades. After all, they won. And the Europeans? The Crusades were the first stirring of coordinated defense against centuries of attack by Muslim forces. Until the 20th century the Crusades were viewed as honorable wars, by all sides.

So, be ready when someone flips you the Crusades trump card. The historical context is the key to this puzzle, not 20th century sensibilities. The events leading up to and following the Crusades place them where they belong in the flow of history.

The Middle East was once the Christian Heartland

It's hard to believe, isn't it? Long before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the Middle East was the heartland of Christianity. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew. All the major doctrines of Christian theology - the Trinity, the Incarnation, etc. -- were hammered out in the great and ancient Sees that go back to the earliest history of the Church. With the exception of Rome, all were engulfed by Islamic conquest. - Jerusalem, Alexandria (Egypt), Antioch (Syria), and Constantinople - all submerged.

The Muslim conquerors swept over the Arabian peninsula, north into Syria and Persia and further points east, across northern Africa where the great St. Augustine once preached, over the Straits of Gibraltar into Spain and Portugal and north far into modern day France. One by one the islands of the Mediterranean fell. The southern coast of France was pounded for centuries. Right before the Crusades, the Muslims overwhelmed the Balkans and the Anatolian Peninsula. Later, after the Crusades, the jewel of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, fell to the Sultan in 1453.

After the fall of the Roman Empire and without protection, Europe was like a third world continent exposed to invasion and looting from all sides. Charles Martel held them out of France at the Battle of Tours in 732. His grandson Charlemagne spent his life crisscrossing Europe in the late 8th and early 9th centuries trying to protect his people, with some success. The Spanish endured 700 years of domination by the Moors, the last living branch of the original Umayyad Dynasty, until the 15th century.

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The Byzantine Empire was wealthy, powerful, and organized, as were the Muslims under their caliphs. Until the Crusades, the Europeans were too weak, too disorganized and too poor to mount an effective response, but in the 11th century the chaos began to lift. Still, it was not until the 17th century, when the Muslims were finally repulsed at the gates of Vienna on September 11, 1683, that the balance of power definitively shifted in favor of Europe. That story, however, picks up long after the Crusades had come and gone.

There were more immediate reasons for the Crusades also.

Dhimmitude, or Life Under Muslim Domination

A common myth is that Christians and Jews were tolerated by their Islamic overlords. In a certain fashion, this was true. But the medieval Islamic understanding of toleration did not leave the conquered peoples simply free to go about their business.

They were given three options: convert, die or enter into dhimmitude, a protection pact with their overlords. They were permitted to live and practice their religion, but under very heavy social, economic and political burdens. The weight of these burdens depended to some extent on the local overlord, but even in the best of times the limitations were a significant handicap, much like our own vile Jim Crow laws.

The most important burden placed on the dhimmi was the Jizya or head tax. This could be in the form of money or in the form of slaves, under some rulers even one's own children. The jizya was collected with maximum humiliation to be sure the dhimmi were properly "subdued" and passive towards the injustices they endured.

The overlord could rescind the agreement at any time, but failure to pay the Jizya for any reason meant the infidel (Christian or Jew) had ceded his right to protection. Their neighbors could take property. They could be beaten, killed or deported, and many were.

The dhimmi were not permitted to own land and were not allowed to testify in a court of law. This could have important ramifications. For example, a Christian man whose wife was raped in his presence was not able to testify against a Muslim rapist. At any time, violence, rape or theft could occur against the dhimmi, with minimal punishment to the perpetrators

Dhimmi were required to wear identifying garb, at a minimum some form of headgear or armband. These rules were quite specific and were intended to ensure that dhimmi were highly visible wherever they went.

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This was important, because dhimmi could not come face to face with a Muslim on the street or walk on the sidewalk. They were required to pass a Muslim on the left, or impure side. They could not remain seated in the presence of a Muslim, could not ride a mule in town or any noble creature, like a horse or camel. Infractions against these rules could result in being beaten, even to death, in the street.

Christians were prohibited from building or repairing churches, without express permission. To avoid insulting their Muslim overlords with the sound of their singing, worship had to be conducted in silence. Christian houses had to be built lower than Muslim houses.

The reality of dhimmitude lived by their Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East gradually entered the consciousness of Christians in Europe, especially as pilgrims to the Holy Land came back with stories to tell, even with accounts of their own mistreatment. While some caliphates were less oppressive, the ascendancy of the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century intensified the sufferings of the dhimmi and of pilgrims, many of whom were not only harassed but enslaved. This was the situation shortly before the First Crusade.

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Jeri Holladay writes from Wichita, Kansas, where she has been Director of Adult Education at the Spiritual Life Center of the Diocese of Wichita, Associate Professor of Theology, Chairman of the Theology Department and founding Director of the Bishop Eugene Gerber Institute of Catholic Studies at Newman University. She teaches moral theology and church history.This is the first in a series she will offer to the readers of Catholic Online.

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