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 Islam 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. 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. 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, 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. I have discussed this in detail in my book, Ad-Dawlah al-'Uthmdniyah: 'Awdmil an-Nuwould
wa Asbdb as-Suqoot.
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, 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. 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. 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.
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.
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.
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."
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." 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 general went to the tomb of Salah
ad-Deen in Damascus where he said at the graveside, "Now we have come
back, Saladin."
The Crusades continued and did
not stop. Britain gave a homeland to the Jews in Palestine, where a Jewish
state was established. They took the necessary administrative and military
steps to establish this state, training the Jews in the use of weapons and arts
of war, and supplying them with weapons; they even gave them some of the
British army's weapons, specifically when Britain announced the end of the
British Mandate in Palestine on 15th May 1948. They even handed over many Palestinian
cities and towns to the Jews, who announced the establishment of the Jewish
state, but at the same time they forbade the Muslim Palestinians to train in the
use of weapons or to keep weapons, and they inflicted unjust punishments on any
Palestinian who kept weapons or military equipment. Execution was a common
punishment; thousands of Muslim mujahideen were hanged on the gallows of the
British crusaders during that period, and tens of thousands were thrown into
prison.33 These events coincided with the colonialist
movement and were closely connected to the Christian missionary movement, both
Protestant and Catholic, the centres of which were spread throughout the length
and breadth of the Muslim world. These missionaries paved the way for
colonialism by means of their various activities; they also enjoyed a lot of
help and advantages under colonialist authority.
But this colonialist counterattack did not happen peacefully and the Muslim peoples did not bow to the force of the invaders; they rolled up their sleeves and resorting to the strength generated by faith, they were able by means of their sacrifices, fearlessness in the face of death and desire for martyrdom, to resist the invasion despite the fact that they had no material or military resources. They achieved amazing feats that astounded the western colonialists and interrupted the flow of their plans for conquest, inflicting disastrous defeats on them and blocking their way with barbed wire and mines. Not only that, the response to the Christian colonialist challenge brought about authentic Islamic movements which were forged in a tough Jihad environment and were aimed at dealing with the enemy and liberating the land, the faith and the people. They produced examples of resistance action which were acknowledged by the Westerners themselves — before any Easterners — and which filled many bright pages of history. By way of example only, as we cannot list everything, we may mention the resistance of Muhammad 'Abd al-Kareem al-Khattabi in Morocco; 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri and the Association of Muslim Scholars (Jam'iyat 'Ulamd' al-Muslimeen) in Algeria, which was led by 'Abd al-Hameed ibn Badees and Muhammad al-Basheer al-Ibraheemi; 'Umar al-Mukhtar in Libya; and other liberation movements which deserve greater sincere, honest efforts to research and write about them. The Ummah is in the greatest need of such serious studies. The Crusades have not ended and will never end; what is happening in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine tells us that.
The Most Important
Causes of the Crusader Invasion
During this period, Western
European society was dominated by local conflicts and wars between feudal
princes, which helped to exacerbate the worsening social and economic situation
in Western Europe.36 The conflicts between the two heads of the Western
Christian world at that time
— the pope and the emperor — also had a great
effect on the course of European events. The papacy had reached a high level of
power and influence during this period, which had opened the door to it
becoming an
international power in the sense that the pope was
officially the spiritual leader of all Christians, in the East and in the West
equally.37 However, there were ongoing conflicts between the
two churches, the Eastern Orthodox and the Western Catholic, each of which
insisted that its point of view should prevail and that it should have the
upper hand over the other. Hence when the idea of a crusade was suggested to
Pope Urban II (471-491 AH/1078-1097 CE), he saw it as a great opportunity to
put an end to the dispute between the two churches and to dominate the Eastern
Orthodox church and incorporate it into the Western church under his
leadership, on the basis that this would all
be done under the cover of fighting the Muslims,
protecting the Byzantines and 'taking back' the holy lands in Palestine.38 This was
in addition to many other aims that the papacy wanted to achieve through
carrying out a holy war, such as putting an end to the power and influence of
the feudal lords in the West and at the same time putting an end to ongoing
feudal wars by diverting those energies and exploiting them in a conceited holy
war that
might create opportunities for petty rulers to
enjoy a better life in the east without disputes.
Opinions differ as to the nature
of the crusader movement and its hidden motives. Some think that the motive was
materialistic; others think that it was the offspring of the zealotry and
religious fanaticism that were common in Europe during the Middle Ages, and
that the true motive behind these wars was in fact religious fervour mixed with
other aims, such as the desire to establish new kingdoms and acquire great
wealth. The majorities of historians, both classical and contemporary, regard
these wars as religious wars, and believe that the religious
factor was the primary motive behind them, with the aim of taking back the
supposed sepulchre of Christ and the holy lands from the Muslims. Others regard
that as one of the manifestations of economic and colonialist expansion in the
Middle Ages. In fact the Crusades were the result of the interaction of all
these factors, because they were undertaken for political, economic and social
reasons, and used religion both as fuel and as a means of concealing the
motives mentioned.40 It is impossible to underestimate the religious
factor in these wars in any way. There follows a detailed discussion of the
motives and causes:
Religious motives
The religious motive was the
primary motive that drove the Crusader masses into battle. The symbol of the
Crusades, which demonstrates the importance of the religious aspect, was the
cross which they put on their weapons and luggage when they headed for
Palestine in particular.41 A religious revival movement had appeared in
Western Europe in the tenth century, and reached its peak in the eleventh
century, strengthening the position of the papacy and stirring up religious
fervour in the people's hearts. The church exploited this fervour, finding an
external outlet for it. When the idea of a crusade emerged, the churches took
Western Europe as a vast arena in which to exploit this suppressed energy and
raging fervour.42 This was done in the name of saving Jerusalem from
the 'infidel' Muslims.43 The most famous of those who adopted the call for
a crusade was Pope Urban II, who is regarded as being primarily responsible for
propagating the war against the Muslims and inciting the first campaign against
Greater Syria. Circumstances were ripe, so he hastened to hold a meeting in the
city of Clermont in France. The meeting lasted for ten days and was attended by
more than three hundred churchmen,44 as well as princes from different parts of Europe,
envoys of the Byzantine Emperor and representatives of the Italian city-states.
The pope was able to stir up the fervour of his audience and the cry
reverberated through all sectors of society: "Deus vult (God wills it)!" Those present hastened to
take the cross as a symbol.45 The Pope also pointed out what he called the
'Islamic danger' that was threatening Europe from the direction of
Constantinople; he declared that the Christians in the East were suffering from
Muslim oppression, and that churches and monasteries had been
destroyed; he urged his listeners to take revenge on the Muslims.46 In fact,
what the Pope said about the Eastern Christians being persecuted were false
claims; such persecution is not in accordance with the spirit of Islam or the
nature of its message and the care that it shows to Christians.47 One of
the slogans of this war was that the Christian pilgrims had been subjected to
persecution and aggression en route to Jerusalem just before the Crusades
began. This was also a false claim.48 A prominent European historian says that isolated
cases of persecution to which Christians were exposed in Muslim lands,
especially in the Near East, cannot be taken as a valid reason for the Crusader
movement under any circumstances, because Christians in general enjoyed a good
share of religious and other freedoms under Muslim rule. Not only were they
allowed to keep their old churches, they were also allowed to build new
churches and monasteries, in the libraries of which they collected theological
works of all sorts.49
The claims of churches and
monasteries being destroyed or confiscated were not based on any evidence; they
were just rumours, a fact which highlights the role of false propaganda in opening
up this front against the Muslims. A particular incident in a particular
village may have played some propaganda role, but that cannot be taken as the
norm of Muslims' interactions with Christians and their churches in Muslim
lands.50 More than one fair-minded historian has confirmed
that the Christians who were subjected to Seljuk rule were much better off than
their brethren who lived in the heart of the Byzantine Empire itself. There is
no evidence that the Seljuks persecuted the Christians in the east.51
Nevertheless, the pope's calls reached a fever pitch of hatred, with no
rational thought about negative consequences of his imprudent call. Otherwise,
what did it mean when he said to his followers: Go and annoy the barbarians,
rid the holy land of the infidels and take possession of it for yourself, for
as the Bible says, it is flowing with milk and honey?52 The pope
promised the masses who took part in the war that the sinners among them would
be spared punishment and they would be exempted from taxes; he also promised
that the church would look after their families in their absence.53 Perhaps
another factor that may be included under the heading of religious motives is
the fact that news of miracles and wonders, propagated by the church, had
become widespread in the west; there was a prevalent belief that the Second
Coming of Christ was imminent, and it was essential to persist in seeking
forgiveness for sins and doing good deeds before he arrived; there was also a
notion that the holy land should be regained before the
return of Christ.54 The Pope realized that this intense religious
fervour would not last for long, so he called for vows and prayers to be
offered in the Church of the Resurrection and he announced that the curse (the
sword of vengeance) would come upon everyone who was seized by cowardice and
weakness or who turned back on his heels.
The Pope threatened to
excommunicate everyone who did not respond to the church's call to head towards
the Muslim lands;55 he shrewdly exploited emotions and feelings to
achieve his plans. The church was influential because of the power that it had
over people's hearts in Western Europe at that time, which made his call to
arms successful, with the result that people came out in crowds, heading in a wave
of successive Crusader campaigns towards the Islamic East.56 We
should not forget the hatred that the Crusaders had towards Islam and the
Muslims, because Islam has taken from them lands that had been under their
control and liberated slaves who had been suffering under their domination; it
took away possessions that had been in their grasp, hence grudges started to
smoulder in their hearts and the fires of enmity flared up, and they began to
seek opportunities to regain what they had lost and avenge themselves against
those who had brought them low and torn apart their kingdom.57 The
famous Orientalist Prince Leone Caetani (1869 — 1926 CE), who gave most of his
wealth to write the history of the Islamic conquest movement in his book Annali delV Islam, explains to us the
reason for this hatred of Islam and Muslims in the introduction to his book,
where he says that he only wanted to understand through his work the extent of
the "Islamic catastrophe" that took away from Christianity millions
of followers all over the world who still follow the religion of Muhammad SAAW)
and believe in him as a Messenger.
Allah, may He be the Exalted, says:
‘Never
will the Jews nor the Christians be pleased with you [O Muhammad (SAAW)] till
you follow their religion. Say: Verily, the Guidance of Allah [Islamic
monotheism] — that is the [only] Guidance. And if you were to follow their
desires after what you have received of knowledge, then you would have against
Allah neither any protector
or guardian, nor any helper.)’ (Qur'an 2: 120)
And they
will never cease fighting you until they turn you back from your religion
[Islamic monotheism] if they can. And whosoever of you turns back from his
religion and dies as a disbeliever, then his deeds will be lost in this life and
in the hereafter, and they will be the dwellers of
the Fire. They will abide therein forever. (Qur'an
2: 217)
Political motives
The kings and princes who
participated in the Crusader movement were striving for political aims which
they could not hide, either before their arrival in Syria and Palestine or
after they settled in those lands. The feudal system was inherently connected
to land, and the bigger the fiefdom and the larger the amount of land, the
higher a prince's status in society rose. Under this system, the biggest
problem faced by princes and knights was not having any fiefdom or land, for
they were then regarded as unimportant and having no influence. Many knights
and princes were left without land, because one of the basic principles of this
system was the law of primogeniture, in which only the oldest son inherited the
fiefdom. When the owner of a fiefdom died, the land passed in its entirety to
his oldest son.59 This meant that the other sons were left without any land, which was a
loathsome situation in a feudal society. This led landless knights and princes
to seek ways of overcoming this obstacle, by finding an heiress to marry, or by
means of aggression and war aimed at acquiring land. The Crusader movement
opened a new door to this group of princes and knights; they answered the
pope's call and hastened to take part in this movement in the hope that they
would succeed in establishing principalities for themselves in the East, to
compensate for what they lacked in the West. As for the knights and princes who
owned fiefdoms, they found that taking part in the Crusader movement gave them
a good opportunity to attain higher glory and greater status.
In our study of sources on the
Crusades, we saw that the ambitions of the princes in the first campaign were
manifested in many political ways. They started to divide the booty when they
were still on their way, before they had actually acquired the booty. We shall
see, by Allah's leave, how conflict between them occurred outside Antioch, because
each one of them wanted to seize it; how those who managed to make some gains
for themselves on the road were content with that and gave up participating
with the other Crusaders in the march on Jerusalem, which
was the original goal of the campaign. Disputes often arose among them — after
they settled there
— concerning the rule of a principality or who
would take control of a city. To no avail, the papacy tried to intervene to
resolve the disputes among princes or to warn them that the Muslims surrounded
them and that their duty as Crusaders was to cooperate in order to ward off
danger from themselves. But these calls fell on deaf ears, because the aims of
the princes were selfish and political. They were not greatly concerned about
the approval or wrath of the pope; in fact some of the princes did not hesitate
to make alliances with neighbouring Muslim forces against their fellow
Crusaders, which indicates
that the religious motives of those princes were
often weak when they conflicted with their political motives.60 As for
the Byzantine Emperor Alexius, he did not object to the aims of the campaign
leaders, because if it were possible for the Byzantine state to regain the
possessions that had been lost as the result of Turkish raids, then he would
have some Christian principalities on the border as a buffer zone, and
Byzantium would have the right of sovereignty over them. In order to guarantee
this, the emperor tried to extract an oath of loyalty from the Western princes.
Thus the interests of both Christian sides in launching a war of aggression
against the Muslim lands came together, and in fact it is very difficult to
separate the material factors from the spiritual ones which motivated the
Christians to launch the Crusades. Poverty and the desire to accumulate wealth,
along with the spirit of adventure, were factors which created a suitable
atmosphere for war, but these factors only appeared as the result of what
really provided the impetus for this 'holy' war and liberation of this land: religious
zeal.
It is clear that the idea of war stemmed from papal
policy, the policies of the Byzantine state, and the Islamo-Spanish wars. One
of the factors which made it easy to declare war on the Islamic East was the
regular fighting in which the Spanish and French engaged against the Muslims in
Andalusia; this fighting had taken on the quality of holy war, both on the part
of the Muslims, when the Almoravids (al-Murabitoon) in the Maghreb launched a
religious Jihad, and on the part of the Christians who were living in the
atmosphere in which the Crusader campaigns against the East were launched. Even
the great historian Ibn al-Atheer adopted a comprehensive view of the external
danger and regarded any aggression against any part of the Muslim world, whether
in the East or in the West, as "a small tributary of the same great river"; it was organised foreign aggression against
the greatest civilized power of the Middle Ages, namely the Islamic state.61
This is from one angle. From
another angle, this historian clearly explains the reasons for the success of
this three-pronged attack (in Andalusia, Sicily and Syria/Palestine), which was
aimed at exploiting the divisions and attitudes of self-interest that affected
the Muslim rulers of the time, for they had lost the spirit of initiative which
distinguished the early rulers and Muslims who had built the Islamic state.62
It was clear to any observer that the Western
church was eager to expand its feudal lands and gain control of the Eastern
churches, in addition to its desire to launch a war against the Muslims. One of
the facts of religious fanaticism was the existence of religious groups that
were directly connected to the church and which were highly effective in those
wars, such as the Knights Hospitaller who were committed to defending Crusader
possessions in the East and protecting the holy places. They had a direct
connection with the Pope, and one tenth of the income of the churches in
Jerusalem was allocated to helping them to fulfil their so-called religious
mission. There were also the Knights Templar, who took as their headquarters
part of the Temple of Solomon (Sulayman, peace be upon him) in al-Masjid al-Aqsa63 64
The papacy and clergy had the
power to influence, pressure and threaten anyone who did not carry out the
wishes of the church, by issuing a decree of excommunication, which implied
that they would be denied blessing in the hereafter, as they claimed, and were
not to be obeyed in this world either.65
Social motives
European society in the Middle Ages was governed by
a distinct class system, dominated by the clergy and a warrior class composed
of noblemen and knights.66 The peasant classes formed the majority, but were
oppressed. They laboured hard to meet the needs of the first two classes. The
European peasant had no control of his destiny; he was required to fulfil many
commitments to his feudal lord. The Pope was aware of the situation of the
hard-working peasants, so he promised to annul their commitments to their
masters and tempted them with the good things of the Islamic East. Thousands of peasants were living a life of misery under the
feudal system; they built for themselves hovels of tree branches covered with
roofs of mud and straw, with no windows or furniture. Anything that the peasant
acquired was regarded as the private property of the feudal master, and he was
deprived of any personal possessions.67 The peasants were weighed down with numerous
commitments of service to their feudal masters, in addition to being deprived
of whatever they produced. Thus we can see the extent of the misery in which
most of the people of Europe were living in the eleventh century CE. Hence when
the call for the Crusader campaign came, many in this population found an
opportunity to free themselves from a harsh life filled with humiliation, and
they took the danger of participating in this campaign very lightly, in
comparison to the life they were living. If they died during this campaign,
they would have salvation, and if they survived they would have a life that was
better than the way they had been living.68
The church knew how to play with
their minds and instil grudges in their hearts against Islam and the Muslims.
They tricked them into believing that they were going to liberate Jerusalem and
the Holy Sepulchre, and that they would be blessed by the Lord and by the Pope.
Hence there was nothing to deter them from slaughtering and killing; killing a
Muslim was something pleasing to God, for which the Crusader would be rewarded
on the Day of Judgement.69
Avarice
for the good things of the Islamic East was the strongest motive for the
Crusades, after the religious motive. Pope Urban himself expressed in his
sermon the importance of the economic motive with regard to the situation in
Europe at that time. He said:
Do not let anything hold you
back...because the land that you are residing in now, which is surrounded by
sea and mountain tops, is too small for its many inhabitants. It is virtually
unable to supply them with enough food, and because of that you are
slaughtering and devouring one another. Jerusalem is a land without equal in
its crops and produce; it is a veritable paradise of delights.70
Historical documents indicate
that the economic situation in Western Europe at the end of the eleventh
century CE was very poor. France itself suffered a severe famine just before
the first Crusade. Hence the ratio of French people who took part in it was far
greater. The crisis was so severe that people resorted to eating grass and
fodder, but this war opened a new door to those starving people, offering them
the chance to escape from their difficult situation. This explains the many
incidents of plunder and robbery perpetrated by the first campaign against the
Christian peoples whose lands they passed through.71 A large
number of merchants from Italian, French and Spanish cities also took part in
the Crusade for purely exploitative purposes, aiming to seize control of the
trade routes for Eastern goods that were a source of great wealth for those who
dealt in them. Hence their fleets played an active role in seizing the main
centres in Syria. The Genovese helped the Franks seize Antioch in 490 AH/1097
CE, and two years later the Venetians helped the Romans seize Jerusalem. The
first and last aim of these communities was profit and material gain. Their
concern with the religious motive extended only so far as it would help them to
achieve their aims. It is sufficient for us to note that the slogan of the Venetians,
for which they were known at that time, was "Let us be Venetians first,
then let us be Christians."72 Hence the Italian Republics (Genoa, Pisa, and
Venice) made contracts with the Crusader rulers in the East which granted them
important economic advantages.
Tipping the balance of power in the Mediterranean
In the middle of the 5th century
AH (11th century CE), the balance of power tipped in favour
of Western Europe, the centre of the Crusade movement. The weakness of the
Byzantine state and the heavy blow it had suffered from the Seljuks made it
hasten to seek help from Western Europe. At the same time, the instability of
the Muslim governments in the western part of the Muslim world, especially in
Andalusia and Sicily, in turn facilitated the emergence and increase in
strength of their enemies. These changes in the balance of power prompted
Western Europe to offer the Christian monarchs of Spain help and every means of
support in their conflict with the Muslims of Andalusia. This in turn prompted
the Almoravids and the Muslims of Sicily to seek help from North Africa, all of
which led to a new phase in the Crusader movement in which it took on a
distinctly international character.74 The papacy supported this war with its approval,
advice, propaganda and moral support. This was a Crusade which preceded the
call of Urban II for the Crusader campaign to the East in 488 AH/1095 CE.75 North
Africa is counted as one of the theatres of war for the Crusades, as the North
African front was an arena in which hostile Crusader forces were active for
many centuries. That is represented in the many campaigns which were launched
against the region one after another. The Crusaders did not run out of steam
and failure did not weaken their resolve. Just as the Muslim lands of the
Maghreb were the first to feel the sting of European colonialism, so too the
lands of the Western wing of the Muslim world, including North Africa, were the
first to experience the first strikes by the Crusaders. The reason for that is due
to a number of geographical and historical factors, among the most important of
which was their proximity to Western Europe, which was the centre of the
Crusader movement, and the relatively good knowledge that the Europeans had of
the political, economic and social situation of the Muslims in this region due
to the ease of communication between both sides. In addition, the Europeans
felt intense hatred towards the Muslims of the Maghreb,76
especially since the latter shouldered the burden of Jihad in Europe more so
than other Muslims, and the Europeans sensed that these people would pose a
real danger to them if they became united behind dedicated leadership. For all
these reasons, Europe was plotting against the Muslims of
this region and preparing to pounce on them; they were just waiting for the
right opportunity. This long awaited opportunity began to present itself in the
mid 5th century AH (11th century CE), when the Western wing of the Muslim
world was afflicted with division which sent it into a downward spiral. The
situation of their brothers in the East was no better. This division and
disunity is the main reason for the calamity that befell the Muslims in the
East and the West alike. How closely today resembles yesterday. Division among the Arabs and Muslims was, and still is, a wide-open door through
which their enemies are able to strike them in their own homelands. Thus
the Crusader forces launched huge
campaigns, striking the Muslims on three fronts simultaneously: in Andalusia,
Sicily and North Africa.
Andalusia
From the middle of that century,
the Andalusian front witnessed a considerable level of activity which was
represented by the launch of a strong and sustained attack by the Spanish
Christians, led by the Kingdom of Castile, against the Muslims of Andalusia.
Muslim cities and citadels began to fall into Christian hands one after
another. They achieved victories over the Muslims in numerous battles,
victories which were crowned by the fall of Toledo in 478 AH, at the hand of Alphonse
VI, King of Castile. This disaster alarmed the entire Muslim world. Because of
this ongoing pressure from the Christians of Spain, the Muslims of Andalusia
sought support from the Almoravids of North Africa. They sent message after
message to this young North African force seeking their help, and when their
leader, Yoosuf ibn Tashifeen, had finished off the armies that were threatening
his own state in North Africa, he crossed the sea to Andalusia with a huge
army, and met Alphonse VI in the battle of Sagrajas (al-Zallaqah) in 479 AH,
where the Almoravids and the Andalusians (who were more of an auxiliary force)
achieved a great victory — a shining page in the history of Islamic Jihad. The
Muslim victory in that battle stemmed the tide of Christian expansion for some
time, until circumstances were ripe for it to begin again.
Sicily
On the Sicilian front, the emergence of the Normans
as a new force in international politics was what led to the balance of power
in the Western Mediterranean tipping in favour of Christian forces. As soon as
these newcomers found a foothold in the south of Italy and Robert Guiscard, one
of their greatest leaders, obtained the recognition of Pope Nicholas II at the
Council of Melfi in 1059 CE, he announced his project of directing a blow
against the Muslims of Sicily. He was aiming to appease the papacy, which
thought that this would achieve its Crusader aims on the one hand, and divert
the Norman threat from its own possessions on the other. The papacy thus
encouraged this venture, and as proof of its support and encouragement, the
Pope sent to Guiscard a 'holy banner', by the blessing of which Guiscard and
his troops might attain victory over the Muslims; he stressed that the
hoped-for victories for the sake of Christ were more important than sending
gifts to Rome. The island of Sicily was captured in 484 AH, during the reign of
Roger I; his forces then pounced on Malta and occupied it in the following
year, and began watching for an opportunity to attack North Africa.79
North Africa
The North African front faced its
own share of Crusader aggression at that time due to the actions of a
newly-emerging force: the Italian city-states. These city-states took advantage
of the disappearance of the ancient naval powers, represented by the Islamic
and Byzantine fleets, from the waters of the Mediterranean. Their presence had
faded away at the beginning of the century due to both states being distracted
by internal problems. The city-states' fleets began to patrol the Mediterranean
waters, close to the European shores at first, for fear of the fleet of Muhajid
al-'Amiri, ruler of Denia, which managed to make them freeze their activities
for a while, but as soon as the city-states were able to neutralise that danger
in the middle of the century, they began to sail the waters of the whole
Mediterranean, east and west. These city-states put their naval forces at the
service of the Crusader's aims from the beginning, in order to achieve some
gains of their own. With the encouragement of Pope Leo IX, a coalition from
Genoa and Pisa seized the Muslim island of Sardinia in 442
AH/1063 CE, during which they destroyed its walls and port, and seized a great
deal of booty. As these fleets took part in action on the Sicilian front, they
were also involved on the Andalusian front, where they played a role in
pursuing the Andalusian Muslims by sea, and took their share of booty. A naval
siege was imposed on Almeria until the city paid an enormous ransom of 113,000
gold dinars; Valencia was also forced to pay a ransom of 20,000 gold dinars to
save itself from pillage.80 The fleet also attacked the Balearic Islands on
several occasions.
As a result of this, the Italian
naval forces gained control of the Mediterranean waters, which motivated them
to embark on further campaigns. They directed their activities against North
Africa, which still retained some naval power, to prevent it from offering help
to their brethren in Sicily and elsewhere on the one hand, and to achieve the
goals of the Crusader movement in North Africa on the other. A huge naval
force, composed of the fleets of Genoa and Pisa, supported by a group from the
city of Amalfi and another military force that was supplied by the Pope,
launched an attack on the city of al-Mahdiyah in 480 AH/1087 CE, two years
after the capture of Toledo and shortly before the complete takeover of Sicily.
They succeeded in capturing al-Mahdiyah, with the exception of its citadel.
Al-Mahdiyah remained under the fleet's control until its ruler, Tameem ibn
al-Mu'izz, paid the coalition forces a huge monetary ransom and made a deal
with the conquerors, in which Tameem pledged never to intercept Italian ships
in North African waters; he also granted them some commercial concessions in
his country, as we shall see below.
From the above it is clear that
these Crusader attacks directed by the papacy on the western part of the Muslim
world from the mid 5th century AH (11th century CE) broke out on three fronts, of which
North Africa was one. These attacks were just one facet of the Crusader
movement, and confirm that the Crusades started in North Africa before the
Crusader march to the East. This fact validates Ibn al-Atheer's observations
concerning the events of 491 AH81, as it is clear from the text mentioned that these
events were connected, that the force controlling them was one, and that they
represent the beginning of the wave of Crusades at that stage of the Crusader
movement. Ibn al-Atheer note. The Frankish state emerged,
began to consolidate its power and marched towards the Islamic lands, seizing
some of them, in 478 AH. [The Franks] seized Toledo and other cities in
Andalusia...then in 484 AH they headed towards Sicily and seized it...they
headed towards North Africa, where they seized some regions and some regions
were wrested from them. In 490 AH, they set out for Syria.82
Even though most of the Crusader
forces headed towards the East, that did not erase the idea of occupying North
Africa from their minds. Norman hopes of capturing it remained until that was
achieved during the reign of Roger II, when most of the coastline, from Tripoli
in the east to the city of Tunis in the west was seized in 543 AH/1148 CE. The
Crusader wars raged on the North African front at the same time as they were raging
on the eastern front. The Norman presence remained there until 'Abd al-Mu'min
ibn 'Ali, head of the Almohad (al-Muwahhidoon) state, drove them out of their
last stronghold, al-Mahdiyah, in 555 AH/1160 CE.83
At the time when there was a tilt
in the balance of power in Muslim North Africa, we see that that this
contributed to the Islamic resistance in the East, during the reign of Noor
ad-Deen Mahmood Zangi and Salah ad-Deen al-Ayubi, as will be explained below.
The Byzantine Emperor seeks help
from Pope Urban II
The Byzantine Emperor Alexios
Komnenos (1081-1118 CE) sought help from Pope Urban II against the Seljuks.
This plea for help was not the first of its kind, for it was preceded by a plea
for help from the Emperor Michael VII to Pope Gregory VII, after the battle of
Manzikert (463 AH), as mentioned above.
It is well known that launching a
war against the Turks was one of the aims behind the Byzantine call for help.
Anatolia was regarded as more important than Jerusalem to the Byzantine state,84 hence
when the Byzantine capital came under threat from the Seljuks, the Emperor had
no choice but to seek help from the west in return for uniting the eastern and
western churches. Pope Gregory VII sent a satisfactory response
to Emperor Michael VII, which was based on both Christian brotherwould and
political motives, because whatever army he was going to mobilize would put an
end to the division between the two churches and increase papal influence in
the east as well as the west. However, the war that broke out between Gregory
VII and the Emperor Henry IV (the Holy Roman Emperor) prevented him from going
ahead with his plan. When the Emperor Alexios Komnenos succeeded Michael VII,
he sent a letter to Pope Urban II and to the senior feudal lords in 478 AH,
calling on them to send help to save their brethren in the east and to protect
Constantinople against the Seljuk threat.85 Alexios was hoping that the west would send him
some mercenary troops, but Urban II did not want to put himself at the service
of the Byzantine state, rather he wanted the papacy itself to take charge of
offering help to the Christians in the east. This change of approach led to the
Latin Christian world mobilizing a huge army, rather than sending mercenaries
who would be subject to the whims and desires of the princes. This action of
the Pope in response to the request of Emperor Michael VII shows the importance
of innovative thinking, making the most of opportunities and using available
means to serve their plans. We should learn a great deal from this lesson and
apply it to Islamic endeavours. This difference in thinking caused a great deal
of trouble from the outset, which soured the relationship between the
Byzantines and the Crusaders. What is proven historically is that the one who
was primarily responsible for the establishment of the Crusader movement was
Pope Urban II. He is the one who proclaimed these wars86 and was
supported by the church in the west. All contemporary Latin historians
attribute to him the main role in launching the Crusades.87
Pope Urban II
and his comprehensive plan for the Crusade campaign
Urban II was born in 427 AH/1035
CE in Chatillon-sur-Marne. His name was Otho de Lagery and he studied under St.
Bruno of Cologne, founder of the Carthusian Order. In 461 AH/1068 CE, he became
a monk in the monastery of Cluny, near Macon, and joined the service of the
influential pope at that time, namely Gregory VII, who had a strong belief in
the superiority of the papacy over the empire. Odo was appointed cardinal- bishop of Ostia in 473 AH/1080 CE, and he served the church in
Germany during the period 477 AH/ 1084 CE — 478 AH/1085 CE. He supported, in a
legitimate fashion, Pope Gregory VII during his conflict with the Holy Roman
Emperor Henry IV. Urban II was also connected to the synods (church councils)
in Saxony which were held in 478 AH/1085 CE. When Pope Victor III died on 16
December 1087 CE in Monte Cassino, Clement
III seized control of Rome, then Urban II was elected Pope after a lengthy
delay in Terracina, which is south of Rome, near Gaeta. He took on the (papal)
name of Urban II (481-493 AH/1088-1099 CE).88
We may note from the biography of
this man that he was characterized by his great energy and the tight control
that he exercised over all the regions that were subject to the influence of
the "mother church". His attitude towards Spain illustrates an
important dimension for us. This Pope supported the war against the Muslims.
When the Spanish managed to subdue some areas that had been previously been
under the control of their enemies, the Pope hastened to bring them under the
influence of the Church of Rome. Undoubtedly in his support of the war against
the Muslims, Urban
II
was following in the footsteps and following the teachings of Pope Alexander
II. This confirms for us an essential fact, which is the existence of an
ulterior strategy that the papacy in Rome was carefully executing in the
eleventh century CE/fifth century AH, regardless of changes and successions of
popes. The most important feature of this strategy was expansion of the
influence of the Roman Church, unification of the churches, and fighting
Islam wherever it was found, on the basis that it
was a bitter enemy which must be confronted and defeated at any cost.89 It may
be noted that through the repeated Byzantine cries for help, despite the
preoccupation of those who came before Urban II with many other matters, the
opportunity came to this Pope, at the Council of Piacenza in Italy in March
1095 CE (488 AH), when he decided to respond to the call of Emperor Alexios
Komnenos (474-512
AH/1081-1118 CE). However, at the Council of
Piacenza the Pope failed in his call to launch a Crusade against the Muslims in
the East.
Urban II holds a church council in southern France
Despite the failure of the
Council of Piacenza, the Pope did not abandon his stubborn resolve to achieve
his goal by all possible means. He went to his original homeland of France to
find the support he needed to make the plan he had in mind succeed. This choice
is indicative of his particular intelligence, because the conservative and
traditional region of southern France was a geographical point of contact with
the war that the Spanish had launched against the Muslims in Spain, in addition
to the fact that merely suggesting the idea on French soil made immediate
success a possibility, because France was the original homeland of the Pope,
and he knew the lie of the land, especially since it also had its own history
with Islam, namely the battle of Poitiers, which is known to the Muslims as Baldt ash-Shuhadd' (114 AH/732 CE), in which the Muslims were defeated
and the expansion of Islam was halted
and prevented from going beyond the Pyrenees. By analyzing the speech that the
Pope delivered at the Council of Clermont we will understand that all these
aspects were present in the mind of this sharp-witted, strong-willed man who
had been raised in the strict Carthusian monastic order. Whatever the case, the
Pope headed towards Clermont in southern France and held a church council
there. On the tenth day of the council, which dealt with numerous issues of
concern to the church, the Pope delivered a speech of utmost importance to his
audience. That occurred on 27 November 1095 CE.
Pope Urban II's speech
The speech that was given by Pope
Urban II at the religious council in Clermont in 488 AH/1095 CE had a profound
impact on the Christians who had gathered for this council. It inflamed their
zeal and affected them in a way which the historian Gustave le Bon described in
his book La Civilisation des Arabes as an acute fit of insanity.91 The Pope
said:
'O race of Franks, O race chosen
and beloved of God, from the confines of Jerusalem and the city of
Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth, namely that an accursed race, a
race utterly alienated from God, has transgressed and spread evil in that land,
the land of the Christians in the East. They have overturned the holy altars,
plundered the churches and destroyed them and burned them.
They have led away a part of the captives into their own country, and a part
they have destroyed by cruel tortures. They have defiled the holy places with
their uncleanness. The kingdom of the Greeks (Byzantines) is now dismembered by
them and deprived of territory so vast in extent that it can not be traversed
in a march of two months. On whom therefore is the labour of avenging these
wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you? You, upon
whom above other nations God has conferred remarkable glory in arms, great
courage, bodily activity, and strength to humble the hairy scalp of those who
resist you. Let the deeds of your ancestors move you and incite your minds to
manly achievements; the glory and greatness of Charlemagne, and of your other
kings. Let the holy sepulchre of the holy Christ, our Lord and Saviour, which
is possessed by unclean nations, especially incite you, and the holy places
which are now treated with ignominy and irreverently polluted with their
filthiness. Let none of your possessions detain you, no solicitude for your
family affairs, since this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the
seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large
population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough
for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage
war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred
depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all
dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy
Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.
Jerusalem is a land fruitful above others, like another paradise of delights.
The great city which is situated at the centre of the world is calling for your
help; get up and save it! Undertake this journey willingly for the remission of
your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the kingdom of
heaven.9
These inspiring words spoken by
Pope Urban II had a profound effect on the hearts of the Christians who were
gathered there. After the Pope had finished his speech, the people present were
reported to have shouted as one man: "God wills it!"93
Hardly had Urban II finished his
speech but Bishop Adhemar de Monteil stood up and bowed before the Pope, and
sought his permission to join this holy campaign. This moving scene stirred the
hearts of the people present, who rushed in their hundreds to bow before the
Pope like Adhemar, with unprecedented zeal. They took up the
cross and all swore to save the holy city.
A contemporary historian, Robert the Monk,
commented on this:
What a large number of people, of
all ages, from all classes, took up the cross during the Council of Clermont,
and swore to save the Holy City. Their number reached three hundred thousand.94 As a
result of Adhemar's zealous attitude, Urban II appointed him as his personal
representative and deputy to make it clear to all that the campaign was under
the auspices of the church, and under his direct supervision.
Conclusions to be drawn from
Pope Urban II's speech
Dr. Muhammad M. 'Awad has undertaken in-depth
research on the Crusades, making use of European source documents. He analyzed
the Pope's speech based on the texts of four contemporary historians, namely
Fulcher of Chartres, Robert the Monk, Guibert de Nogent and Balderic of Dol. It
is thought that Fulcher of Chartres was one of those actually present at the
Council of Clermont. Generally speaking, it is possible to compare the texts
that are narrated in the books of these four historians in order to discern the
essence of what the Pope declared in his famous speech. By comparing these
texts, Dr. 'Awad reached the following conclusions:
a)
The Pope addressed his words to the Frankish race in order to focus on
the ethnic or racial dimension. He explained that God had favoured them with
the location of their land and their Catholic faith, and he tried to highlight
the historical dimension by referring to the glories of Charles Martel and
Charlemagne, and the great services they had rendered to
Christianity, in a manner that reflected the
importance of this historical imperative in the formation of this great
historical phenomenon.96
b)
The Pope pointed out that there was regrettable and disturbing news
coming from the east, which said that an accursed race, a race that was
utterly alienated from God and had never turned its
hearts and souls towards God97 (meaning the Seljuk Turks) had slaughtered the
eastern Christians and turned the churches into stables for
their horses, and that the blood of those Christians was crying out to the
Christians of the west to save them from the oppression of their 'infidel'
enemies. The Pope strove to stir up his listeners' greed for the wealth of the
east. He explained that land in Western Europe, especially in France, had
become too small for its population, and asked the people to go to the East, to
the land of Canaan which was flowing with milk and honey. This makes it
indubitably clear that there was an economic dimension to the Crusades, and
that it was clearly proclaimed from the outset.
c)
The Pope promised that whoever took up arms and headed towards the east
would be forgiven his sins; in other words he was offering them the forgiveness
of the church. If a man was martyred in pursuit of this goal, then he would be
regarded as one of the righteous Christian martyrs. All of this points to an
important incentive during an era in which religious fervor and emotion were
prevalent in the Christian European world.
d)
The Pope referred to Jerusalem as an earthly paradise in the centre of
the world, which had witnessed the birth of Christ and been purified by his
death. He told his listeners that it was calling upon them to save it from the
control of its infidel occupiers. I would like to affirm here that this city
represented a prominent idea of central importance, in order to stir up the
religious sentiments of the Pope's audience. In most of the texts that have
come down to us concerning this speech, we find that Jerusalem occupies a
prominent and pivotal place, which is quite logical on the basis of its status
and religious significance. It also represented the collective dream of
Christian pilgrimage at that time.
e)
The Pope was eager to support his speech with a number of Biblical texts
in order to stir up the religious sentiments of his listeners or perhaps to
lend sanctity to his speech, especially since the phrases of the Bible were
part of the common European consciousness at that time, for example the texts
from the Gospel of Matthew which say: "He that loveth father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me: and he that
loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" [Matthew 10:37]98
"And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy
of me." [Matthew 10:38]99
g) Pope Urban II had a certain order
of priorities. This Pope was very skilful in presenting some of his ideas
whilst at the same time concealing others. He focused on the
issue of Jerusalem so as to present a single path on which the West could march
without hesitation and a single goal that he could present to his
contemporaries through the oneness of the religious institution that was
propagating it, as represented in the papacy. To this aim, no mention was made
in his speech of his great ambition to unite the churches and subjugate the
church of Constantinople to the control of the mother church in Rome.
Similarly, no mention was made of the goal of Christianisation, which was a
major aim of the papacy by means of the proposed enterprise. The reason for
this covertness may be that the papacy realized that there were priorities in
presenting the enterprise that should not be overlooked, and that the unity of
the Christian world depended on not listing and announcing too many goals at
once, lest that lead to confusion from the outset. It may be noted here that
the language used by the pope in this speech was aimed at concealing other
goals. After the enterprise succeeded and the main religious Christian symbol,
namely Jerusalem, was captured, we find — in examples that are too numerous to
mention — the other goals expressed clearly and frankly. This clearly indicates
that this influential religious establishment decided to achieve its aims step
by step and not all in one go. This is what was most cunning about the entire
enterprise, in my view.100 This idea was never far from the mind of Pope
Urban II, because he was the engineer of this project and its main sponsor. In
fact, the speech that the Pope gave at the Council of Clermont was of great
historical importance. We have never heard before in the history of mediaeval
Europe of any speech that was as expressive of its era as this speech, or of
any speech that motivated the European masses to move from their original
homelands to the east at such a level as contemporary sources tell us happened.
Hence we cannot regard it as being an ordinary type of speech, rather it is
more akin to a declaration of a mediaeval "world war" on the part of
western Europe against the Muslim east. This is not an attempt to exaggerate or
pass unfair judgement; rather it is on the basis of historical evidence of what
took place subsequent to this speech. It was reported that immediately after
the Pope had concluded his speech, the people shouted with one voice, "God
wills it!" This was the Christian call to fight Islam and its followers.
They took the cross as their symbol; hence they were called Crusaders
(ultimately derived from the Latin word for cross, crux)} Pope Urban II focused on presenting an enterprise that held universal
appeal. He managed to unite all the peoples of Europe in this general
enterprise despite the fact that these peoples' languages, local customs and
interests differed greatly. But the idea of the crusades which united the
masses of Western Europe could not have succeeded if it had not been in harmony
with the social dynamics; this harmony between thought and reality, between the
moral justification for the war and social dynamics, is what created the
ideology that motivated the European masses to act within its framework. At the
popular level, the people's way of thinking in Western Europe in the eleventh
century was in line with papal policy and the idea of holy war to some extent,
because a religious revival had begun in Europe at the beginning of that
century. At the end of the first millennium after Christ, there was in Western
Europe a wave of guilty feelings and a desire to repent. The sense of sin was
particularly profound in western Christians. In fact anyone who reads the
sources of eleventh century Western European history will not be able to
overlook the persistence of people in that era in seeking to guarantee for
themselves forgiveness for their sins. This stemmed from millennial feelings
that controlled people's consciences and minds, and the expectation that
Judgement Day was at hand. Itinerant preachers spread throughout Western
Europe, urging people to renounce the world, repent, and imitate the life of
poverty led by the disciples. In the midst of all this religious fervour that
dominated western societies, feelings of hatred and fanaticism towards the
followers of other religions, and even against the followers of churches other
than the Catholic Church, were prevalent. There is strong evidence of this in the
epic poem called the Chanson d'Antioche,
which truthfully reflects the spirit of vengeance that was widespread in
Catholic society against the "doomed idolaters" — as they called
them. This poem not only regards the Muslims as a nation that is hostile to
Christ, but this description is applied to all of those who do not believe in
the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Thus it represents popular European
thought in the eleventh century. This popular thinking was itself one of the
features of the general ideology that produced the Crusader movement. The
success of Urban II is reflected in the fact that his speech in which he called
for a crusade was like a focal point in which all the ideas which represented
the ideological framework of the social dynamics of the west were combined,
despite the differences in languages, customs and traditions. Thus the response
of the masses to the Pope at Clermont was not merely a reaction to his
eloquence; it was an expression of the listeners' joy at an enterprise which
touched on their hopes. The holy war served as an astonishing cover under which
everyone could proceed to secure the achievement of their worldly dreams and
hope of salvation in the hereafter. We could quote dozens of phrases which
appear in the historical sources and contemporary literature which describe the
Crusaders as "knights of Christ", "men of Christ",
"those who form the army of Christ", "the holy people",
"the people of the Lord". These are all expressions which indicate
that the idea of a Crusader war was well entrenched in people's minds, and that
they were fully convinced that by taking part in this campaign, they were not
doing so in response to any person, not even the Pope himself, but they were
obeying the Lord.10
The Pope's consultation following his speech
Urban II
met with the Christian clergy and consulted them about mobilizing official and
popular resources in order to attack the Muslims. He met with his bishops, and
as a result of this consultation meeting, they issued the following decrees:
❖
Anyone who had committed a punishable crime could be spared the
punishment if he took part in this holy war.
❖
All wealth, whether land or possessions, that the warrior left behind
when he went to the holy land would come under the protection of the church
during his absence, and would be returned in full when the warrior came home.
❖
Every participant in the campaign must wear the sign of the cross.
❖
Anyone who took up the cross must fulfil the promise to travel to
Jerusalem. If he changed his mind, he would be excommunicated.
❖
Every city that was saved from the "infidel Muslims" was to be
returned to the Church.
❖
Every individual must be prepared to leave his homeland on the Feast of
the Virgin.
❖
The armies should meet in Constantinople.
The Pope sent his bishops with
these decrees, to convey them to the kings of the Christian world and the
princes in the west.
The Crusader propaganda campaign
The speech of Urban II ushered in
a new phase of great importance, namely the phase of Crusader propaganda. This
was propaganda based on the movement of individuals to numerous locations,
addressed to different sectors of society, and which played an effective role
in the success of this enterprise. It may be noted that propaganda for the
first Crusade, in particular, were made with the utmost brilliance and
precision from the time this speech was given. To this end an army of preachers
was mobilized whose aim was to expand the call to people of different
mentalities so as to address all sectors of European society, each according to
its mentality. After the Council of Clermont, Urban II travelled to the cities
of Tours, Bordeaux and Nimes, and he spent nine months promoting this new
enterprise.104 He also sent numerous letters to promote the
Crusader cause, including those that he sent to all the Christian believers in
Flanders, Bologna, Besalii, Sardinia, Roussillon, and Empurias. It may be noted
that these letters cannot be separated from the role of the Pope in the Council
of Clermont, as they were indeed a continuation of his role as propagator of
the Crusades.105
The organised mentality of Urban II
It may be noted that the letters
sent by the Pope to promote his Crusader enterprise offer us a number of
details which do not appear in the speech of Clermont, including his approval
of the role of the papal legate Adhemar, Bishop of Le Puy, and the obligation
to obey his commands as if they came from the Pope himself. It was also stated
that monks and priests were not permitted to go to the East unless they had
permission from their bishops, and the abbots of monasteries were also
forbidden to go; this was aimed at avoiding rebellion and chaos. We should
realize that the extant documentary sources show us the precise, organised
mentality of Urban II. Hence we see that he had a comprehensive vision of the
Crusader enterprise
— at that early stage at least — and
he was very keen to advise those who were going to take part in the journey to
the east of the necessity of blind obedience to his commands and the commands
of their direct supervisors.
We also
sense that the Pope insisted on the idea of uniting the Christian world. It is
as if what was happening to the Christians in the east — according to the
biased claims of the Europeans — was a matter of the utmost concern to the
inhabitants of Western Europe, and that the help of the Franks and others for
the eastern Christians was an important part of their duties as Christians.106 Whatever
the case, the natural outcome of the organizing, planning and propaganda role
played by the Pope and senior clergy was the commencement of the Crusades. What
helped them with this enterprise was choosing the right time for war.
Peter the Hermit
Peter the Hermit was moved by the
speech of Pope Urban II, and he had a powerful impact on people. He rode a
donkey, travelling from one city to another. He travelled barefoot, wearing
coarse clothing. The historian Robert the Monk said concerning him: This Peter
was the pioneer of the Crusades. He superseded the priests and bishops in
piety, and refrained from eating bread and meat; rather he lived on fish and
did not permit himself more than a little ale and coarse food.107 Despite
the rough appearance of Peter the Hermit and his dishevelled state, he had a
strange power that stirred the zeal of men and women and attracted the masses
to him. He was able to attract nearly fifteen thousand followers among the poor
who followed him from one country to another with great fervour, despite the
fact that most of them did not know anything about the use of weapons or
horsemanship, nor had they ever taken part in battle before. But they were
influenced by the impassioned words of Peter the Hermit and his appearance,
which made them rush to follow him with overwhelming enthusiasm without
thinking of any other possibilities. His fiery speeches were accompanied by
weeping, wailing and heaping curses upon the 'infidels', and the promise of the
Lord's forgiveness for those who were marching to save the sepulchre of Christ;
his imaginative eloquence stirred people's hearts.108 We would
like to point out that the preachers who played a role similar to that of Peter
the Hermit in propagating and promoting the Crusades numbered in the hundreds
and thousands.109 People were moved by these preachers. The
historian Balderic, who lived at the time of these events, noted that some of
the Christian masses drew the sign of the cross on their chests using branding
irons, in an outward show of their zeal and to delude others that this sign had
come to them by miraculous means.110 Thus they all began preparing to go to the holy
places in Palestine after hearing these words, and most of them sold their
possessions in order to equip themselves for the journey, hoping to erase their
sins and earn God's approval. Parents were happy to see their children leaving
and wives rejoiced when they saw their husbands preparing to set out. This
universal zeal was unprecedented and their conviction of the lightness of their
cause was strong.111 As great as the joy was of those who
left their countries to join the
first Crusade, the regret and sorrow of those who did not go out on that
campaign was just as great.
The Muslims are unaware of what
is being planned for them
The Islamic
state at the time of the Umayyads had an intelligence system that was able to
penetrate the ranks of their opponents on both the local and international
levels. The spies of Mu'awiyah were able to penetrate the Byzantine court. I
have discussed this topic in my book about the Umayyad state.
When it comes to the Abbasid
state, however, we do not see in the Islamic sources any record of any fiery
speech delivered by the Abbasid or Fatimid caliphs in reaction to the speech of
Urban II, or at least sense that the Muslims were aware of what had occurred at
the Council of Clermont and afterwards. Perhaps the reason for that has to do
with the fact that both the Abbasid and Fatimid states were preoccupied with
the conflict between themselves, and the attempts of each to overpower the
other and gain dominance. They remained profoundly unaware until the first
Crusader campaign actually reached Syria.113 This may be supported by what is mentioned by Ibn
al-Qalanisi, in which he states that news of the Crusade did not reach the
Muslims in Syria until 490 AH/1097 CE. He writes, "News concerning this
plot against Islam arrived and caused great anxiety and fear."114 Despite
that, the only Muslim reaction which appeared just before the Crusaders reached
Syria came from the Seljuks in Asia Minor, when they managed easily to destroy
the first part of the Crusader forces (which was a campaign of the masses known
as the 'people's crusade'), as well as
defending their possessions in
Asia Minor,115 as we shall see below, in shd' Allah.
The
Crusaders were moving under qualified leadership, with a clear goal, great
energy and careful deliberation, using the power of rhetoric to influence
people and using various factors — economic, social and religious
— to motivate the people of Western Europe.
The spiritual status of the Pope
was also effective in motivating armies to move eastwards. The Pope mobilized
all available resources for this enterpr
CHAPTER III The Beginning of the
First Crusade
After the speech of Urban II at
Clermont in France, in which he called for a crusader war, he ordered his
clergymen to go back to their countries and preach war, and they made great
efforts in doing so. The natural outcome of the propaganda campaign launched by
the Pope and those whom he trusted was the launch of the First Crusade, which
had two parts: (i) the campaign of the masses and (ii) the campaign of the
princes. The First Crusade, in both aspects, attracted a great deal of
unprecedented attention from contemporary historians, whether they were Latin,
Byzantine or Muslim, as well as from modern historians who specialize in the
study of the Crusades. The reason for that may be the serious consequences that
resulted from that campaign in particular, as it led to the establishment of
Crusader principalities in the east, some of which lasted as long as two
centuries.117 The Crusader campaign was successful to a large
extent in establishing four Latin principalities:
1.
In the headwaters of the Euphrates, at Edessa
2.
In northern Syria, at Antioch
3.
On the Syrian coast, at Tripoli
4.
In the heart of Palestine, at Jerusalem.118
In addition there were four major
seigneuries: Sidon, Jaffa, Ascalon and Galilee; and twelve smaller territories
that were given to their owners by the Crusader kings in return for their
loyalty and obedience. These were: Arsuf, Hebron, Darum, Caesarea, Nablus,
Bethsan, Haifa, Toron (Tibnin),
Baniyas, Hasankeyf, Lod and Beirut.119 It is worth mentioning that this success was due
to a number of factors, including the following:
—Lack of political unity in the Muslim world
—Contest for power within the Seljuk dynasty
The role of the Christians who were living in
Greater Syria
v
The
attitude of some of the Arab emirates towards the Crusader attack
v
The role of the unorthodox Rafidi Batini Ismaili movement in putting
obstacles in the path of the Jihad against the Crusaders
v
The spread of the unorthodox Shiite doctrine and speculative theological
ideas Shiite Rafidi and Batini ideas
v
The decline in economic prosperity prior to the
Crusader attack
v
Weakness of the Byzantine state
v
Military experience of the Frankish knights
v
Continual European reinforcements for the Crusader
campaign
v
Political tyranny and its effects on religion and
life
v
Preoccupation
of the Muslim scholars with arguing over minor issues of fiqh
These causes have been discussed
in detail in my book Dawlat as-Saldjiqah
wal-Mashroo1 al-Isldmi li Muqdwamat at-Taghulghul al-Bdtini
wal-Ghazw as-Saleebi.
Crusader strategy after
occupation
The
occupying Frankish forces which were able and made plans to live in a strange
environment had no choice but to adopt a number of strategies that could be
developed further, in order to maintain their occupation for a long time. These
strategies included the following:
a)
As much as possible, and by all available means, maintaining one of the
most important means of their success, which was keeping the surrounding
Islamic forces divided as much as possible, because that would cancel out the
possibility of the Muslims confronting them with one united force. For that
reason they strove continuously from the outset to occupy regions of strategic
importance, which served the purpose of isolating the Islamic regions and
preventing the Muslim forces from uniting. This involved occupying Edessa (in
Arabic, ar-Ruha) so as to prevent contact between Iraq and Syria; later on they
took control of southern regions of Syria such as Kerak (in present-day Jordan)
and ash-Shawbak (also in present-day Jordan, known to the Crusaders as Montreal
or Mons Regalis) with the aim of preventing communication between Egypt and
Syria. This approach made use of the geographical features of the land. On the
human level, the Crusaders were eager to support ethnic and sectarian divisions
in the surrounding Muslim areas, using a carrot-and-stick approach and a policy
of forming alliances with some groups against others, which was aided to a
large extent by the hostility that existed between Shiites and Sunnis. They
were also aided by the presence of Christian minorities, some of whom the
Crusaders were able to exploit by forming alliances with them, and conspiring
with them against the neighbouring Muslims.
c)
The occupying Crusader forces concentrated on regions which guaranteed
secure communication with their headquarters in Western Europe. Hence they
focused on occupying the Levantine coast in order to secure that, and they
avoided seizing interior regions as much as possible for fear of losing this
advantage, and so that they would not be besieged by Islamic forces, based on
the assumption and fear that these forces might unite later on, which would put
them in jeopardy and lead to their defeat. The Crusader
forces strove to form treaties with other forces that would be able to help
them at various stages, either because of the latter's enmity towards the
Muslims around them or because of their desire to gain economic advantages. In
this context we may note these treaties began with
Byzantium, then with some of the
Italian city-states, and finally the possibility of forming alliances with the
Mongol forces,122 which posed the greatest danger to the Islamic
regions.
d)
From the outset, the Crusader forces in the Muslim east were eager to
find a solution to the demographic problems that they faced in the east, in
contrast to Muslim density. The Crusader forces dealt with this problem in
different ways and by different means, which were open to development,
depending on the circumstances. For example, they followed a policy of killing
or expelling Muslims in the regions that they occupied, then they followed
different methods at subsequent stages to preserve the Muslim population if
that served their interests. At the same time they worked to attract migrants
to the regions under Crusader dominance, either from Western Europe or Armenia,
or from Christian communities in the Islamic regions. They also resorted to
militarising Crusader society so as to create a society of all groups and
classes that would be able to offer military service to deal with the
demographic shortfall. Nothing is more indicative of that than the fact that
religious groups in Crusader society at all stages were the
most well-trained and equipped in
the military field, such as the Knights Templar and Hospitaller.123
f)
The Crusader forces built military fortifications based on their own
experience or by imitating the expertise that they found in the Muslim regions.
Attention was paid to making these fortifications like "early warning
systems" that were able to keep watch on Muslim movements, so great care
was taken in selecting locations opposite important Muslim gathering places or
in areas that could threaten Muslim interests, such as those that were built
near trade routes. The Crusaders relied, as they learned
from their experience of war with the Muslims, on using methods of rapid
warfare. This did not require large numbers of troops, and at the same time was
aimed at specific targets within a carefully selected time frame, such as
attacking agricultural areas at harvest time, which did not require a large
military force, but at the same time was capable of inflicting a great deal of
harm on the Muslims.
g)
The Crusaders also adopted a policy of making truces and offering some
concessions to some Muslim groups so that they could focus on fighting other
Muslim groups. This policy was successful during the period of Muslim division.
It even led to them choosing to interfere in favour of one side against
another, either as the result of a Crusader offer of help or a request for help
on the part of one or other Muslim side.
h)
The Crusaders resorted to various means to keep the spirit of war strong
in Western Europe, so as to guarantee the continuation of Crusader campaigns
and to offer help and support to the Crusader entities in the east. They paid a
great deal of attention to keeping communication channels with Europe open,
which guaranteed human reinforcements and continual material supplies. The
kings of Europe felt a great responsibility towards the Crusader kingdoms in
the east, and they were committed to supporting and defending them.
i)
With the passage of time, the Crusaders adopted a strategy based on the
idea that guaranteeing their presence in greater Syria depended on seizing
control of Egypt or eliminating it from the conflict by whatever means
necessary. Thus we see that some later Crusader campaigns were directed
primarily against Egypt. Researchers of the Crusades have found that they
achieved some successes in this regard, taking advantage of the hostility that
sometimes arose between the rulers of Egypt and certain Syrian regions.
j)
Some Crusader parties resorted to carrying out military attacks with the
aim of striking at Muslim morale and threatening Muslim holy places, as
happened in the case of expeditions in which some forces aimed to transgress
against the holy places in the Hijaz. They also targeted some essential
economic and religious facilities, as when they threatened trade routes and
hajj caravans. On some occasions this role was played by the principalities of Kerak and Montreal (ash-Shawbak), which belonged to the
Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
The Crusader kingdoms, the papacy
that supported them and some of the clergy and thinkers worked to develop new
strategies as a result of the failure of the military strategy, using methods
other than military ones. This was based on the propagation of Christianity and
the call for increased missionary activities among Muslims. We are not
discussing the success or failure of this strategy; rather our concern is to
point out that this was one of the alternatives that the Franks tried to use in
order to achieve their goals.
The Crusaders presented
themselves as defenders of Christianity in the east, regardless of their
sectarian differences, so they were portrayed as having come to save Byzantium
from the Muslim Seljuk danger. They also depicted their march to the Islamic
regions as having the aim of liberating the eastern Christians from the Islamic
yoke, guaranteeing as a result that they would help the Armenians and Syrians
as they began to take control of Muslim regions. But this was a temporary
strategy which began to diminish with the passage of time.124
Moreover, they formed alliances with deviant Islamic sects such as the Bdtini125
movements.
Although these strategies were
followed, in general, by all the Crusaders, that did not prevent some
commanders from following some temporary strategies that were specific to
particular circumstances, which means that some of these principalities
probably adopted policies that went against the general principles. From
examining these strategies it seems to us that the success of the Muslim forces
in resisting the Crusader threat may be measured by the extent to which they
adopted strategies and used means that put mitigated the danger posed by the
crusaders' strategies, either by adopting opposing strategies or by preventing
the Crusaders from implementing their strategies in actuality. This may be
noted from the development of Muslim reactions to the Crusader challenge,
starting at the time of Imad ad-Deen and Noor ad-Deen Zangi, up to the time of
Salah ad-Deen al-Ayubi and finally the achievements of the Mamluk state. But it
should not be understood from this that this development in the Muslim reaction
during the time of the Zangids, Ayubids and Mamluks always took place within a
positive framework. Rather, what happened sometimes was that the Muslim side,
or some of its forces or individuals, contributed to the success of the
Crusader strategies.
Resistance movement during the
Seljuk period
The shock of the fall of
Jerusalem woke many Islamic scholars, judges and rulers from their slumber, and
they realized the seriousness of the invasion after it began to threaten their
existence and position in the cities of those lands, above and beyond the
threat to Muslim lands and Islamic beliefs. Hence the Islamic scholars and
judges of Syria, in Damascus, Aleppo and Tripoli, hastened to seek help from
the central authorities in Baghdad and the local rulers, knowing that they
possessed the military strength that was capable of confronting this invasion.127 But the
response of the Islamic scholars and judges of Syria to the Crusader invasion
was not limited to seeking help and support; it went further than that and
included many other means, such as writing treatises about Jihad against the
invasion, so as to prepare an intellectual framework and educate the Muslims in
general, as it attracted a great deal of attention from the Islamic scholars
and scholars before and during the Crusader invasion. The need of the hour was
for an intellectual mobilization that would spread Islamic teachings. This
became essential at a time when Syria was involved in political, sectarian and
military conflicts — conflicts which are reflected in the history books about
the Islamic east. As a result, many biographies of rulers, king and ruling
families were written, as well as books about conflict with the Crusaders.
Hence a number of Islamic scholars and judges hastened to enlighten Muslim
societies, and from their works we can see that there were two groups. The
first group focused on writing and preaching in a traditional manner,
explaining issues and principles of Islam to the people. The second group
focused on urging the people to fight and writing about the topic of Jihad;
they urged Muslims to get involved because they were aware of the general
weakness of the Muslims' faith and their negligence concerning matters of
religion. Hence many books were written before and during the Crusader invasion
of the Levant. What concerns us here is the books of the Islamic scholars who
urged an Islamic Jihad and sought to mobilize Muslims and teach them about
their religion so that they could resist that invasion.Among
the most prominent of these Islamic scholars was:
The juristic scholar 'Ali ibn
Tahir as-Sulami (431-500AH/1039-1106 CE)
His full name was Ali ibn Tahir
ibn Ja'far al-Qaysi as-Sulami ad-Dimashqi ash-Shafi'i. He was a Syrian scholar
who as a result of that invasion became a preacher and promoter of Jihad,
giving speeches and lessons in the mosques, travelling from one mosque to
another throughout Syria and Palestine. His efforts are embodied in his book, Al-Jihdd, which he wrote following the
fall of Jerusalem in 492 AH/1098 CE, and in one of his speeches in which he
urges the Muslims to wage Jihad against this invasion.129 In the
first chapters of his book, al-Sulami focuses on a number of important
circumstances and issues which Syria and the Muslim world were facing at that
time. He starts with a discussion of the general Crusader policy which targeted
Andalusia, Sicily and Syria; he was also the first to point out the unified
goal of the Crusader wars encompassing their attacks on Andalusia, Sicily and
Syria, an idea which was adopted and developed further by subsequent
historians. Ibn al-Atheer wrote:
The Frankish state began to grow
stronger and set out for the Muslim world, capturing some of it in 478 AH, when
they seized Toledo and other
cities in Andalusia. Then in 484 AH they targeted
the island of Sicily and gained possession of it. In 490 AH they set out for
Syria.130
As-Sulami realized the weakness
and division of the Muslim world, and that its disunity, not the strength of
the Crusaders themselves, was the main factor for the success of the Crusaders
in both the western and eastern wings of the Muslim world. He focused on the
political divisions in Greater Syria in particular, because he lived there and
was pained by what he saw of its people's reluctance to engage in Jihad.131
As-Sulami reminded the Muslims of the idea of continuing Jihad at times of war
and of peace, as part of a general policy that the Muslim rulers and caliphs
should adopt as an essential condition of a successful confrontation: every
year, the Muslim ruler should lead an expedition outside the Muslim territory,
not to satisfy greed or to seek booty, but to protect the Muslim land from the
aggression of non-Muslims and to make them realize and fear Muslim strength on
a continual basis, as an embodiment of the idea which in
modern times is described as 'taking the war to the enemy in his own land'.132
As-Sulami
reminded the Muslim rulers that this invasion was
not only aimed at Muslim lands and faith, it was also aimed at removing them
from power and expelling them from the land that was under their authority; his
aim was to stir them up and urge them to engage in Jihad.133 He asked
the common folk to support their rulers and leaders in Jihad, as they were
following the example of the righteous Muslim predecessors in confronting this
turmoil, and by this to expel the Crusaders.134 Anyone who reads as-Sulami's book about Jihad will
immediately understand the depth of the pain and suffering felt by this Muslim
scholar who saw the sanctity of Jerusalem being violated and transgressed.
Hence the first thing he urged was rescuing Jerusalem from the hands of the
invaders:135 "Strive, may Allah have mercy on you, in that
Jihad, so that you might be victorious by means of Allah's support."136
As-Sulami is regarded as the first to have realized the importance of a united
Jihad between Syria, Iraq and the cities of Asia Minor, before the Muslims
united against the Crusaders under the leadership of the Zangids and Ayubids.137 In this
field he is regarded as one of the pioneers. As-Sulami called upon Muslims to
purify their souls and reform themselves, because this is the basis of Islamic
unity, and to resolve to persist in fighting this invasion.
Give precedence to Jihad over
your own ego before Jihad against your enemies, for your egos are more harmful
to you than your enemies. Force your ego to refrain from what it is doing in
disobedience towards its Creator, then you may gain what you are hoping for in
terms of (Allah's) support against them.138
The Crusader invasion of Syria
from as-Sulami's point of view did not come out of nowhere; he realized that
the Muslims were weak because they were not adhering to the religion of Allah.
Hence he strove to advise them to turn back to Allah and purify their souls, to
come back to the Book of Allah (the Qur'an), to give up the sins that they had
been committing and to take steps towards Jihad:
Let your aim in your Jihad be to
please your Lord and to defend yourselves and your brothers, so that Allah may
grant you reward for your Jihad. But that cannot be achieved
while we watch the progress of the Crusader invasion, in which they have
captured many cities, unless we hasten to confront them and protect the cities
that have not fallen into their hands. Mobilizing and heading towards the
cities that they have captured from us is nothing less than a war in which we
are defending ourselves, our children, our wives and our wealth, and guarding
the land that is still in our hands.139
As-Sulami's call to the Muslims was a general call
to unite the Muslim forces: Syrian, Mesopotamian and Egyptian. He advised them
to follow a methodology of purifying their souls, forgiving one another and
embarking on Jihad so that they could achieve their goal of defeating the
invaders, as he thought that if the Muslim rulers could not forget their
grudges and differences then they were still following a path of jdhiliyah 140 and were
not following the wise saying which stemmed from their (Islamic) heritage:
"At times of hardship, grudges disappear."141
In many places in his book Al-Jihdd, as-Sulami urged, incited,
exhorted and warned, and he addressed the rulers in particular regarding the
necessity of Jihad in the speeches and lessons that he delivered in the Umayyad
Mosque in Damascus and in the cities of Syria and Palestine.142 He did
not omit any minute detail that had to do with Jihad, but he discussed it. We
may note that in his book as-Sulami discussed and highlighted the divisions and
splits in the Muslim East, especially in Syria, which had weakened and
fragmented the Muslim forces and had weakened the belief in the obligatory
nature of Jihad, which is something that the invaders took advantage of. He
dealt with this problem by discussing the importance of purifying the soul,
returning to adherence to the religion of Allah, setting things straight with
one another and embarking on Jihad to confront the invasion; he pointed out
that this could not be achieved unless the Muslim forces were united. Hence his
book Al-Jihad spoke in general terms:
it was not addressed only to specific political leaders or certain groups in
Syria, for example; rather it was in accordance with a clear Islamic vision
that was based on strong and authentic references in the Qur'an and the Sunnah,
and in books of biography and military campaigns of early Islam, connecting its
subject matter with the Crusader threat to Syria. The way in which he compiled
information and quoted it in the right context is indicative of the extent of
his far-sightedness and deep insight. Our research has shown
that the first call to Jihad was not issued by the rulers; instead it came from
the Muslim scholars of Islamic jurisprudence and the ulema,144 from
teachers, scholars, jurists and writers. As-Sulami is regarded as one of the
first to urge a Jihad; he was part of the current of popular Islamic resistance
which was supported by Islamic scholars and judges.145
As-Sulami wrote his book at an early stage in this war, which is indicative of
his intelligence and acumen in understanding the complex problems faced by
Syria. Even though general circumstances were not conducive to the success of
his call to Jihad at that early stage in particular, his book was a
contribution to paving the way for the Zangid and Ayubid phases. Professor
Ramadan Husayn ash-Shawish undertook a study and commentary on as-Sulami's book
Al-Jihad, which he presented as a
Master's thesis at Al-Fatih University in Tripoli (Libya) in 1992 CE.146
Islamic scholars and judges
participate in physical Jihad
One of the most prominent
examples of an Islamic scholar's participation in the regular army and on the
battlefield, so as demonstrate the ideal state of belief in Jihad and defending
one's land and oneself, was that of Abu Muhammad 'Abdullah ibn Mansoor, who was
known as Ibn Sulayhah, the judge (qadi)
of the fortress of Jablah, who became the ruler of that fortress after the
death of his father Mansoor in 494 AH/1100 CE. He had great military experience
because he loved the soldierly life, and had chosen his troops and proven his
good character.147 The talents of this ruler-judge were manifested
when the Franks besieged the fortress of Jablah in an attempt to capture it in
494 AH/1100 CE. Initially he used what is now known as psychological warfare,
when he came up with a brilliant plan to spread fear in the ranks of the
Frankish forces. He pretended that the Sultan Barkiyaruq was headed towards
Syria,148 coming to his aid, which made the Franks worry,
and fear spread throughout their ranks and caused them to withdraw. When the
Franks realized that this was really a trick, they came back and besieged the
city again. But the judge repeated his trick in a different manner, spreading a
rumour among the Crusader ranks that this time the Egyptians
were coming to fight them and help him, so they ended their siege of the
fortress.149
It seems that the Franks did not have sufficient
information about the state of the fortress or of the number of troops that the
qadi had, otherwise they would not have abandoned the siege on these two
occasions. The Franks quickly realized that this was a case of psychological
warfare, and what the aim of it was, and they returned and besieged the
fortress for a third time, in Sha'ban150 of 494 AH. But the qadi realized that the Franks
had figured out his old tactics, so he resorted to a new way of resisting the
Franks. He worked out a deal with the Christians who were in the fortress,
agreeing that they would send a Christian delegation to the Franks to work out
the terms of surrendering the fortress to them, in which the Franks would send
some of their knights to take over the fortress; they were to send three
hundred of their most prominent and bravest knights. The Franks agreed to that,
but it appears that Ibn Sulayhah had set a trap for them.151 The
Frankish warriors kept climbing up the rope, one by one, and every time one of
them reached Ibn Sulayhah, who was on top of the wall, he killed him, until he
had killed them all. The next morning, the Muslims threw the heads of the
Franks down to the Crusaders below.152 The Crusaders were very upset about the trap that
had been set for them by the qadi of Jablah, and the success that the qadi had
achieved, so they decided to take the fortress by any means.,
They built a wooden tower and
used it to destroy one of the towers of the fortress, but with his quick wits
and cleverness the qadi could see that the danger was imminent so he did not
slow down or surrender, but he hastened to put in motion yet another brilliant
plan, similar to those that had already caused losses to the enemy more than
once. He made holes in the walls of the city, and it seems that these holes
were in the rear wall; this was so that the army would be able to exit through
these holes.153 Al-Qadi Ibn Sulayhah and his army came out to
fight the Franks and then pretended to flee from them, thus tricking the
invaders. The Franks did not realize what was happening, so they hastened to
pursue the Muslims as far as the gates of the city, at which point the Muslim
army took the opportunity to come out through those holes and come at the
Crusaders from the rear; they attacked the Franks from behind and defeated
them. Al-Qadi Ibn Sulayhah must have had some knowledge of
the arts of war and Islamic military methods. The art of psychological warfare
was nothing new in the Islamic military heritage at the time of the Crusades,
because such methods had been used by the (Messenger (SAAW) in the Battle of
the Trench in 5 AH, when he dug the ditch and defeated the confederates, and in
the Battle of Mu'tah in 8 AH, when the commander Khalid ibn al-Waleed ((RA)‘’)
turned the battle around from defeat to victory against the Byzantines by using
psychological warfare, stirring up the dust with the horses' feet to make the
Byzantines think that reinforcements had come to the Muslims, so that they fled
in defeat and the Muslim army was able to withdraw from the battlefield without
incurring any other losses. Psychological warfare was also used in many other
battles, including the Battle of Yarmook in 13 AH, when Khalid ibn al-Waleed
divided his troops, putting the right flank on the left and the rearguard in
the front, a military tactic which fazed the huge Byzantine army completely and
led to their defeat.155
Scholars and judges urge fighting on the battlefield
One of the most prominent of such figures was
al-Qadi Abul-Fadl ibn al-Khashshab, the Qadi of Aleppo, whose exploits in this
field were famous. When the Crusader siege of Aleppo intensified in 513 AH/1119
CE, al-Qadi ibn al-Khashshab came and urged the people to fight, riding on his
mount with his spear in his hand, delivering an eloquent speech which motivated
and stirred them. The people wept and felt great respect for him, and they
sallied forth to fight the invaders.156 Although the people of Aleppo were able to save
their city that year, the Crusaders did not hesitate to try again to take
Aleppo, in 518 AH/1124 CE, when they destroyed all the villages around Aleppo
so that they would not be able to offer any support to the city. The Franks
camped in Harran and then marched towards Aleppo from the direction of Mashhad
al-Jaff, from the north. Al-Qadi ibn al-Khashshab played a role in encouraging
the people to fight the invaders, and in encouraging Aq Sunqur al-Bursuqi, the
ruler of Mosul, to join the fight, as will be discussed below, in sha' Allah,
when discussing the role of the Seljuk rulers in Mosul, Damascus and elsewhere
in warding off the attacks of the Crusaders.
Poets and their role in the resistance movement
Some poets played a major role in
encouraging the Muslims and describing the situation of the Ummah and the
nature of the Crusader invasion which had occupied their land and transgressed
people's honour. One of the most famous of these poems was that of al-Qadi
al-Harawi, which was also attributed to Abul-Muzaffar al-Abyurdi, which begins
with the words:
We mixed
blood with our flowing tears and there was no room left to apportion blame. The
worst weapon for a man is flowing tears, when the flames of war intensify by
the sword.
At the beginning of this ode, he
clearly states that the people were weeping so intensely that blood flowed from
their eyes, because their weeping was so intense and ongoing, and that they had
wept until there was no energy left to blame anyone. But he soon realized that
weeping, no matter how intense, not avail anything in battle, and nothing could
intensify the fire of battle except the sword:
O people
of Islam, there lie ahead of you events which will bring low those who are
high.
Are you
sleeping with a sense of security and joy, Living a life of softness and ease?
How can
your eyes have their fill of sleep
when
there are events which are awakening every sleeper?
When your
brothers in Syria cannot even nap
Except on
the backs of horses or in the bellies of vultures?
The
Byzantines are humiliating them whilst you
Live a
life of luxury like a man averse to combat.
Here the poet is addressing those
who have stayed away from fighting alongside their Muslim brothers in Syria. He
begins this portion of his poem with a heated call to the Muslims, 'O sons of
Islam, wake up from your sleep, for this invasion is coming to you and it will
bring low your elite.' Then he wonders about them and their sleep: how can they
sleep peacefully, enjoy a life of luxury and feel safe, when not far away
terrible things are befalling their 'brothers in Syria' and
they cannot find even a few moments in which to take a nap in their houses;
most of the time they are on horseback, fighting, or the decree of martyrdom
has overtaken them and they are snatched by the vultures, as they have no one
to bury their bodies, or they may fall into the hands of their Frankish enemies
and be humiliated. 'But it seems that you are enjoying a life of ease and are
either surrendering or allying yourself with your enemy.'
How much
blood was shed and how many young Muslim girls were killed whilst trying to
cover their beauty with their hands out of shyness.
Silver
swords turned red and spearheads dripped with blood In the midst of stabbing
and striking which made the heads of young boys turn grey.
These are
such battles that those who keep away to remain safe and sound will regret it
bitterly.
The hands
of the polytheists have unsheathed the swords,
but they
will be sheathed again-in their own chests and skulls. And you can almost hear
him who is buried in Taybah (Madinah)y calling
out in the loudest voice, O Family of Hishdm!
In these lines, the poet depicts
the ferocity of the battles which took place between the Muslims and their
Frankish enemies, in which the blood of many Muslims was spilled and women's
seclusion was transgressed upon, but they could not find anything with which to
protect their chaste bodies except their arms, which they held up out of
shyness and fear. These battles grew intense, with a great deal of killing,
until the edges of the swords and spears appeared to glow red hot, and
children's hair would turn grey because of the horrific scenes of stabbing and
striking that they saw. Then he again alerts those who stay behind, and warns
them that they will regret not participating in these battles, warning again of
their dangers and mocking the enemy by saying that the sharp swords that they
have unsheathed will come back to them, buried in their own chests and skulls.
In the final lines, he reaffirms how terrifying these wars are by saying that
the (Messenger
(SAAW), from his tomb in Madinah, is summoning the Arabs
and Muslims, not only the clan of Hisham, to help in the fight against the
enemy.
Seljuk leaders of Jihad prior to 'Imad ad-Deen Zangi
It is a well known fact in the
history of the Crusades that the Islamic Jihad against the Crusaders in the
Muslim East first emerged in Mesopotamia, which is the region between the
Tigris and the Euphrates, close to Syria, including Diyar Mudar and Diyarbakr
(in Turkish, Diyarbakr). It is called al-Jazeerah
158 in
Arabic because it is located between the two rivers of the Tigris and the
Euphrates. The Mesopotamian region is noted for its fresh air, suitability for
agriculture and abundant crops. In it there are many great cities, strong
fortresses and citadels.159 Among the reasons why the resistance movement
first emerged in the Mesopotamian region are the following:
a)
Mesopotamia was the first region in the Muslim East to be touched by the
fire of the Crusader menace, when the Crusaders seized Edessa and established
the first of the Crusader kingdoms there in 490 AH/1097 CE. The inhabitants
realized the danger posed by the Crusader penetration into their country, which
led the Muslims to think seriously about attacking the Crusaders.
b)
The character of the Mesopotamian region had been shaped in the early
days of Islam, because it was located on the edges of the Byzantine state,
which posed a great danger to the Muslims during the days of the Umayyad and
Abbasid periods. Hence it became the first line of defence on the Muslim
borders against the Byzantines. After the Crusader invasion, Mesopotamia faced
the Crusader Kingdom of Edessa, which posed the greatest danger to the Abbasid
caliphate in Baghdad.
c)
In the second half of the fifth century AH (eleventh century CE),
Mesopotamia witnessed the appearance of the Seljuk Turks who were famous for
their love of raising horses and their adventurous spirit, as well as their
great zeal for Islam; they were new converts to the faith, and adhered to the
Sunni school of thought. The Seljuk Turks in Mesopotamia supplied new blood and
were very eager to engage in Jihad for the sake of Allah, unlike the
other Muslim forces in the Muslim East whose
religious enthusiasm had grown weak and whose fighting spirit had diminished. The Mesopotamian region was rich in resources because of its
abundant supply of water and fertile land, including vast areas of arable land
and grazing which was essential for horses and livestock. This made it possible
to provide the mujahideen with a practically limitless supply of food and
weapons. Another great advantage was the natural fortifications enjoyed by the
major cities and citadels of Mesopotamia, such as Mosul, Amid, Mardin,
Hasankeyf and so on, in which the Islamic Jihad movement against the Crusaders
started. These cities, which were distinguished by their unique geographical fortifications,
made invading the region by force a very difficult task; therefore it became
safe from Crusader counterattack. It is not farfetched to suggest that the
leaders of the Islamic Jihad movement must have fully understood what great
danger the presence of the Crusader kingdom of Edessa in Mesopotamia
represented to their positions, and that
they had a well-founded fear of a possible Crusader
advance to the south, which would be aimed at destroying the Abbasid caliphate
in Baghdad.161 Hence it comes as no surprise that the idea of
Islamic Jihad first emerged in
the region of Mesopotamia, with the aim of wresting
Edessa from the hands of the Crusaders.162
Kerbogha, regent of Mosul, engages in Jihad
The idea of an Islamic resistance
began to take practical shape in 491 AH/1097 CE, when Qawwam ad-Dawlah
('Founder of the State') Kerbogha, the regent of Mosul, started to gather
whatever troops he could with the aim of preventing Antioch from falling into
Crusader hands. Kerbogha, however, soon stopped en route and besieged Edessa
for three weeks, thus giving the Crusaders ample opportunity to do their utmost
to capture Antioch, which they succeeded in doing. If Kerbogha had gone
directly to Antioch, Yaghi-Sayan (its ruler) would have handed the city over to
him and the situation of the besieged would have been different,163 but
Kerbogha lifted the siege of Edessa when he heard that Antioch had fallen into
Crusader hands. He crossed the Euphrates into Syria and stopped in Marj Dabiq,
where he met Daqqaq ibn Tutush, the ruler of Damascus, Dhaheer ad-Deen
Tughtegin, the atabeg (regent) of
Daqqaq, Janah ad-Dawlah Husayn, the ruler of Horns, Arslan Tashi the ruler of Sinjar, Suqman (in Turkish, Sokmen) ibn
Artuq the ruler of Jerusalem, and other rulers who resembled them in exemplary character and ability, according to Ibn al-Atheer.164 These
rulers joined together under the leadership of Kerbogha, who led them towards
Antioch in 491 AH/1097 CE, where the citadel was still in Muslim hands. They
drew close to the city and intensified the siege until the condition of the
Crusaders changed and deteriorated, and they found themselves besieged from
within and without. They faced severe hardship due to lack of food, which
forced them to eat carrion and leaves.165 This motivated the Crusaders to send a delegation
to Kerbogha, asking him for safe passage so that they could leave Antioch, but
Kerbogha refused and said to them, "You will only leave by the
sword." 166 This led one of the Christian clergy, whose name
was Peter Bartholomew, to fabricate the story of the 'Holy Lance', which raised
the Crusaders' morale and led them to rally around their leaders. Their resolve
to march towards the Muslims and exit through the gate in scattered groups was
strengthened until they had all come out, then they marched towards the
Muslims, strong and in great numbers, and the Muslims broke ranks and
scattered.167 Thus in 491 AH/1097 CE Kerbogha failed in leading
the Muslim alliance through which he wanted to prevent Antioch from falling
into Crusader hands. Historians have listed the reasons why Kerbogha failed to
prevent Antioch from falling into the Crusaders' hands at the time when the
Crusaders had reached a state of weakness and decline inside the city. Among
the most important of these reasons are the following:
a)
What the Frankish historian mentioned about Kerbogha, ruler of Mosul,
having wasted three weeks during the siege of Edessa, which enabled the
Crusaders to take over Antioch and take precautions against a sudden
attack, whether it was to come from the Muslims who
were in the citadel of Antioch or from their brethren in Syria or elsewhere.168
b)
Lack of harmony among the troops of Kerbogha, who were composed of
Arabs, Turks and others, combined with what Daqqaq, ruler of Damascus, did to
foment division between Arabs and Turks.
c)
Lack of a clear military plan on Kerbogha's part. Perhaps the clearest
explanation of this is Kerbogha's lack of desire to allow his men to strike a
decisive blow against the Crusaders when they were emerging in small groups
from Antioch. That is because, as appears to be the case, Kerbogha
was afraid that if he did that, he would only be
destroying the vanguard of the Crusaders' army. Kerbogha's
poor treatment of the other rulers who were with him was one of the reasons for
his defeat. He began to look down on them, thinking that they would stay with
him in this situation, which led to them feeling offended by his attitude.170
d)
The Crusaders' morale was lifted after hearing the story about the 'Holy
Lance'; in addition, before Kerbogha arrived at Antioch, the Crusader leaders
corresponded with Daqqaq, the ruler of Damascus, and told him that
their aims went no further than regaining the lands
in Northern Syria that had been in Byzantine hands.171 This
does not rule out the proposition that Kerbogha's attempt to prevent Antioch
from falling into Crusader hands was the starting point for the initiative of
an Islamic Jihad against the Crusaders and that it highlighted to the Crusaders
the extent of the Muslims' strength when they were united. It also demonstrated
the right way for subsequent Muslim leaders who took it upon themselves to
raise the banner of Islamic Jihad and complete the mission after him. This fact
may be proven by noting
that Imad ad-Deen Zangi lived under the care of
Kerbogha after his father died.172 However, Kerbogha, ruler of Mosul, died in the
city of Khawa in Azerbaijan in 495 AH/1102 CE, during the conflict between the
sultan Barkiyaruq ibn Malikshah and his brother Muhammad ibn Malikshah. Thus
Mosul lost one ruler who was not distracted by the existing conflict among
the Seljuks from working on reviving the idea of
Islamic Jihad against the Crusaders.173
Jekermish and Suqman join forces in Jihad
The death of the atabeg of Mosul,
Kerbogha, made the situation very precarious and led to the outbreak of civil
war, because Kerbogha had appointed as his heir Sunqurjah, who was one of his
commanders, and ordered the Turks to obey him. However, Moosa at-Turkmani, his
representative in Hasankeyf (Hisn Kayfa), disputed with Sunqurjah after he was
summoned by the prominent figures in Mosul, and he managed to kill his opponent
and take over in Mosul as the deputy of the sultan Barkiyaruq.174 Shams
ad-Dawlah Jekermish (Chokurmish), the ruler of Jazeerat Ibn 'Umar, made the
most of the opportunity given by the chaos and intervened in these internal
disputes. He marched to Nusaybin and captured it. Moosa fled to Mosul and
fortified himself there, where Jekermish besieged him for a lengthy
period. Moosa had no choice but to seek help from Suqman al-Artuqi in
Diyarbakir, offering to give him Hasankeyf and ten thousand dinars in return
for his help. Suqman accepted this offer and sent military help. Jekermish was
forced to end his siege of Mosul, but when Moosa came out to meet Suqman, some
of Moosa's own slaves killed their master en route, so his army scattered and
Suqman quickly returned to Hasankeyf and captured it, whilst Jekermish went on
to Mosul and entered the city, where he was welcomed by its inhabitants.175
Jekermish became the ruler of
Mosul from 495-500 AH/1101-1106 CE, where he formed an alliance with Suqman ibn
Artuq, the ruler of the Artuqids in Diyarbakir. Together, they aimed to block
the advance of the Crusaders eastwards towards the heart of Mesopotamia, for
following the swift victories that the Crusaders had achieved they were
resolved to capture Harran, which lay at the crossroads of the routes to Iraq,
Mesopotamia and Syria, and thus take advantage of the conflicts among the
Muslim rulers. In addition to that, taking over Harran would sever
communications between the Muslims in Persia, Iraq, Mesopotamia and Syria, and
give the Crusaders the opportunity to attack Mosul, secure Edessa and gain
control over the Mesopotamia region. All of these factors had a decisive
impact: Jekermish and Suqman had to forget all their previous disputes and work
together to stop the Crusader advance.
The Battle of Balikh (the Battle of Harran)
Jekermish
and Suqman sent word to one another, calling for a meeting to tackle the issue
of Harran, and stating that each was offering himself for the sake of Allah and
His reward. Each accepted the invitation of the other, and they met at
al-Khaboor at Ra's al- 'Ayn, where they reaffirmed their alliance and set out
with ten thousand Arab, Turkish and Kurdish horsemen to besiege Edessa before
others could attack them. When Baldwin II, ruler of Edessa, heard news of this
mobilization in Ra's al-'Ayn, he sent word to Bohemond and Joscelin, who were
attempting to besiege Harran, seeking their help and suggesting that they
should now redirect their attack. After leaving a small group to protect
Edessa, Baldwin went to Harran, leading a small group of knights and Armenians.
Near Harran he was met by Joscelin the ruler of Turbessel (in Arabic, Tel Bashir), Bohemond the ruler of
Antioch and his nephew Tancred, the Patriarch of Antioch, an
army composed of Crusader knights and princes, and a huge number of Armenians
and clergymen. There were nearly three thousand cavalry and three times that
number of foot soldiers. In fact this army represented the entire striking
force of the Crusaders in northern Syria, apart from the garrisons in the
fortresses. When this army gathered near Harran, Jekermish and his ally were
still marching towards Edessa.177
The Crusaders almost captured
Harran shortly after laying siege to it, but the conflict that arose between
Baldwin of Bourcq and Bohemond, in which each insisted that his banner should
be raised over the city after it was captured, helped Harran to withstand the
siege and gave the Muslims the opportunity to move to fight the Crusaders
before this territory fell into their hands. The two sides met at al-Balikh
River on the ninth of Sha'ban; the Muslims pretended to flee, and the Crusaders
pursued them for almost two leagues. Then the Muslims turned and attacked them,
destroying most of their forces,178 and seized a great deal of booty, both money and possessions.179 Bohemond, the ruler of Antioch,
and his nephew Tancred hid behind a hill, aiming to attack the Muslims from
behind when the fighting intensified. When they emerged they witnessed the
defeat of their companions and the plunder of their camp, so they stayed where
they were until nightfall, then they slipped away and fled. They were pursued
by the Muslims, who killed and captured many of their companions, but they
themselves managed to flee to Edessa. Baldwin and Joscelin were taken prisoner;
Baldwin, along with a group of his commanders, tried to flee by fording the
Balikh, but the mud prevented them from moving quickly. A Turkmen commander who
was one of Suqman's troops caught up with them and managed to capture them, and
he took Baldwin to his master Suqman.
Jekermish and Suqman fall out
When the followers of Jekermish saw that Suqman's
troops had seized the lion's share of Crusader booty, they said to their
master, "What status will we have before the people when the Turkmens have
taken the booty instead of us?" They urged him to take Baldwin, the
Crusader prince, as a hostage, so Jekermish sent some of his troops who managed
to kidnap Baldwin from Suqman's camp. When Suqman realized what had happened
during his absence from his camp, he was very upset and his companions prepared
to fight, but he soon called them back and told them: I do not want to assuage
my anger by giving the enemy satisfaction at the Muslims' expense.181
Suqman led his troops and took the weapons and
banners left by the Crusaders as they had fled; he dressed his troops in the
Crusaders' clothing and put them on their horses, and marched to the fortresses
in the region of Shabakhtan in Diyarbakir. The Crusaders came out to greet them
thinking that their companions had been victorious. Suqman attacked them and finished
them off, and seized the fortress. In this manner he was able to seize a number
of fortresses in the region before he returned to his seat of power in
Diyarbakir.182
Jekermish7 s defeat
Jekermish
decided to go ahead and fight after his ally returned. He attacked the Crusader
citadels in the Shabakhtan region which lies to the east of Edessa, so as to
protect his army's back, then he marched to Edessa itself. Whilst the slowdown
in the Crusaders' progress meant that Harran stayed in Muslim hands, Edessa
remained in Christian hands because of slow movement on the part of the
Muslims. This gave Tancred enough time to renew his defences; hence he was able
to repel the first attack undertaken by Jekermish. This was due in large part
to the loyalty and courage displayed by the Armenians and local people.
Nevertheless, the pressure that Tancred felt led him to seek help from
Bohemond. Faced as he was with many problems, he decided to give priority to
protecting Edessa. He took action to help his nephew but was slowed down by the
bad state of the roads. Tancred felt desperate so he ordered
his troops to take up attack positions before dawn, under cover of darkness;
his men attacked the Turks, who were fast asleep feeling no sense of danger.
The Crusader victory was completed when Bohemond arrived. Jekermish fled in
panic, leaving behind his camp which was filled with rich plunder. Thus the
Franks got their revenge for the defeat at Harran, and also managed to keep
Edessa.183
Among the prisoners who fell into Tancred's hands
was a Seljuk princess, one of the ladies of the household of Jekermish.
Jekermish was so enamoured of this lady that he was willing to pay a huge
ransom of fifteen thousand bezants for her, or even to exchange Count Baldwin
himself for her. News of this offer reached Jerusalem, and King Baldwin (Count
Baldwin's cousin) wrote to Bohemond telling him not to let this opportunity
escape to have Baldwin set free. Bohemond and Tancred, however, needed the
money at a time when Baldwin's return would lead to Tancred losing his position
as de facto ruler of Edessa and having to return to Antioch, so they responded
to the king's letter, saying, "It is not good diplomacy to appear too
eager to accept this offer, when showing some hesitation may lead to Jekermish
increasing the ransom." At the same time, they agreed to accept
Jekermish's offer of money, thus Baldwin remained in captivity.
The outcomes of the Battle of Balikh
The Battle of Balikh had a number
of very important outcomes for both the Muslims and the Crusaders, the most
important of which included the following:
a)
It stopped the Crusader advance and prevented them expanding towards the
east at the expense of the Muslims; it also put an end to their hopes of advancing
towards Iraq and taking full control of Mesopotamia.
b)
It dashed Bohemond's aspirations of controlling Aleppo and turning the
principality of Antioch into a large state. Moreover, it destroyed the
Crusaders' hopes of severing links between the Muslim forces in Syria,
Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, which they had wished to achieve by capturing
Aleppo.
c)
It determined the fate of Edessa. This principality was faced with a
great deal of internal troubles, especially from the Armenians who soon started
to voice their complaints about the oppression of the Armenian church by the
Latin rulers and their persecution of its clergy. This prompted the Armenians
to make contact with the Turks, which in turn weakened
Edessa, thus the possibility of its falling into Muslim
hands became imminent.185
d)
It gave the Muslims the opportunity to regain the possessions that had
been joined to the principality of
Antioch and which they had lost to the Crusaders
earlier on.
After Baldwin's capture, Tancred took charge of the
principality of Edessa and Bohemond became the strongest of the Crusader rulers
in the north.
The circumstances of the victory led to a
rapprochement between the Muslim and Byzantine forces against the common enemy.
Ibn al-Qalanisi explained the consequences of these developments as follows:
e)
It was a good victory for the Muslims; nothing like it had happened
before. It weakened the morale of the Franks, reduced their supplies of weapons
and equipment, and diminished their power. The Muslims' morale
was raised, and they became more determined to support the faith and fight the
infidels.
f)
People began to speak of defeating them [the invaders] and became
certain that the Muslims would put an end to them.
g)
It destroyed the myth that the Crusaders could not be defeated.186
h)
The Byzantine Emperor Alexios took advantage of the weakness of
Bohemond's position after criticism was directed against him for not ransoming
his friend Baldwin. In addition, the treaty that Bohemond had made with the
Emperor encouraged uprisings by the inhabitants of Cilicia against their Norman
rulers. The Emperor also ordered his troops to capture a number of cities and
positions which Tancred had captured previously, and the Byzantine fleet took
part in the capture of some of the coastal cities between Latakia and Tartous.
Furthermore, the Byzantines were able to use their naval bases in Cyprus to
help Raymond de Aguilers — the sworn enemy of Bohemond — who was trying to
establish a principality around
Tripoli, parallel to and south of Antioch.
Meanwhile, no one from Jerusalem offered Bohemond any help during this
calamity.187
Thus Jekermish, by forming an alliance with Suqman,
was able to play a major role in the history of the Crusades and, along with
his allies, to present the Muslim world with its first decisive victory against
the Crusaders. This was to pave the way for the emergence of leaders and
Islamic alliances which would direct continual blows against the Crusader
forces, starting with Mawdood, the Seljuk ruler of Mosul and ending with Salah
ad-Deen, and including Ilghazi and Balak al-Artuqiyeen, Aq Sunqur al-Bursuqi,
Imad ad-Deen Zangi and Noor ad-Deen Zangi.188
Jekermish persists in Jihad
In spite of some negative signs
that followed the Muslim victory in Balikh, Jekermish continued to aspire to
achieve other victories in this field. Less than two years later that became
possible for him, when at the end of 499 AH/1106 CE, he received instructions
from Sultan Muhammad to launch a new campaign against the Crusaders. He contacted
local rulers and was able to form an alliance which included Radwan the ruler
of Aleppo, Ilghazi al-Artuqi the ruler of Mardin, Albi Timurtash the ruler of
Sinjar and al-Asbahadh Sawa, one of the rulers of Persia.
However, what Ilghazi suggested to the aforementioned rulers delayed
implementation of the suggested plan: he asked them to start their campaign by
moving against Jekermish with the aim of capturing Mosul so as to earn the
pleasure of Sultan Muhammad. This latter held a grudge against the ruler of
Mosul because of his actions; moreover, there was the possibility of utilizing
the financial and military resources of Mosul against the Crusaders. The
leaders agreed to this and joined forces to attack Nusaybin, which belonged to
the ruler of Mosul. However, the representatives of Jekermish in that city
succeeded — with instructions from their master in Mosul — in provoking a rift
between Radwan and Ilghazi. Radwan took the opportunity during a feast held
before the walls of Nusaybin to kidnap Ilghazi and put him in chains. Ilghazi's
Turkmen followers managed to release him, and they launched a surprise attack
against Radwan's camp, forcing him to withdraw to Aleppo. The breakdown of this
alliance began to show before even a single step was taken towards its original
aim of fighting the Crusaders,189 but none of that shook Jekermish's resolve to
attack the real enemy. Once he had dealt with the efforts of these rulers
allied against him, he hastened to launch an attack against Edessa. He overcame
the attacks launched by the troops of Richard (of Salerno) who was ruling
Edessa at that time on behalf of the imprisoned Baldwin. As soon as Jekermish
returned to Mosul, however, he was faced with new troubles regarding the
Seljuks. Only a short time passed before Kilij Arslan ibn Sulayman, the Sultan
of the Seljuks of Rum, moved to attack Edessa, and the representatives of
Jekermish in Harran took the opportunity to send word to him that they would
surrender the city to him. Kilij Arslan arrived and entered Harran, and the
people rejoiced at the Jihad against the Franks.190 He
stayed there for several days, after which he had to return to his own land
because of a severe illness that struck him, but he left behind a group of
commanders in Harran to protect it.191 It seems that Kilij Arslan began to prevail
because of the power, independence and influence over his counterparts among
other Muslim rulers in the region that he enjoyed due to their ongoing disputes
and conflicts aimed at achieving limited local victories. Moreover, the
problems that Jekermish was facing in Mosul and the deterioration of his
relationship with the Seljuks kept him from focusing fully on the Jihad against
the Crusaders. This led to Kilij Arslan coming to the attention of Jekermish's
representatives in Harran, who summoned him and surrendered the city to him.
This explains what happened shortly afterwards, when Kilij
Arslan was summoned by the people of Mosul so that he could rule them as well,
after their ruler, Jekermish, was killed.192
Jihad of Jekermish and Suqman ibn Artuq
Crusader hordes in Syria and
Palestine, the many princes who had not taken part became eager to go to the
East, motivated by personal, worldly ambitions to acquire booty and land, above
and beyond the religious motives of attaining reward and forgiveness. It is
said that the Crusaders in the East were in urgent need of fighters and
colonists, with the following aims:
—Continuing the war against the Muslims
—Further expansion
—Guarding what they had already gained
—Protecting
these gains from any attempt on the part of the Muslims to recapture them.
Western society responded to this
phenomenon with a wave of new Crusader energy, which led to the flow of more
Crusader masses towards the East. The Lombards formed the first of these
groups, setting out from northern Italy in 494 AH/1101 CE, led by Anselm of
Buis, the Archbishop of Milan, and accompanied by a number of rulers, including
Albert Count of Achen, Guibert Count of Parma, and Hugh Count of Montebello.193 It seems
that this Lombard group, despite the large number of its participants, was no
different in quality from the masses that had gone before, because it included
only a small number of fighting knights; the vast majority were common folk who
did not know how to fight and were lacking in discipline. When they reached the
outskirts of Constantinople, they committed acts of plunder and pillage which
made the Byzantine Emperor hasten to send them on to Asia Minor. That occurred
in Jumada I (March). They settled in Nicomedia, awaiting the arrival of other
Crusader groups.194 In fact, it was not long before another group
arrived, composed of Frenchmen led by Stephen Count of Blois. He was joined by
a number of other rulers, such as Stephen Count of Burgundy, Hugh Count of
Varmandois, Baldwin Count of Hainaut and Hugh Pierrefond Bishop of Macon, in
addition to a German expedition led by Konrad (Count of Luxembourg). This group
crossed the Bosporus and camped at Nicaea, close to the Lombard camp. The number
of people gathered there was between two and three hundred thousand fighters.
The Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos appointed his friend
Raymond of Toulouse as their commander in chief, and they were joined by a
number of Byzantine troops, led by Tzitas.195
The battle of Merzifon
The huge Crusader army moved from
Nicomedia to Dorylaeum with the aim of reaching the holy land, provided that
during its march it would reopen the route through Asia Minor. Hence the
Emperor ordered Stephen of Blois to take the army via the route that the
previous Crusaders had taken, which passed through Dorylaeum and Konya. The
Lombards refused to head towards the holy land until after Bohemond was freed,
for they viewed him as an exemplary model and a hero, and the only warrior they
trusted to lead them to victory. They insisted that the campaign head towards
Cappadocia, and Ibn al-Atheer states that the aim of this Crusader campaign was
to free Bohemond.196 In spite of the arguments from some of the
leaders, the campaign headed towards the Danishmend lands via Ankara, which
belonged to Kilij Arslan, they then made their way to Gangra (£ankr) which is
located south of Paphlagonia, so as to take the main route leading to Amasya
and Niksar. With the intent of slowing down the Crusaders' progress, Kilij
Arslan resorted to a gradual withdrawal ahead of the Crusader forces, following
a Bedouin-style method of destroying the land as he withdrew, burning
everything that could be of benefit to the Crusaders, especially food supplies.
At the same time, Turkish forces started gathering in a new alliance to
confront the Crusader menace. Gumiishtigin Ahmad the Danishmend renewed his
alliance with Kilij Arslan, and urged Radwan the ruler of Aleppo to send a
number of troops.197
The Crusaders reached £ankr where
they found the Turks present in full force and were unable to capture the city
because of its strong fortifications. They were forced to march on, after
plundering neighbouring villages. They grew exhausted because of the lack of
food supplies, extreme heat and pressure from the Turks. In order to avoid
imminent destruction, Raymond suggested that the army should head north-east,
towards Kastamonu, and thence towards one of the Byzantine cities on the Black
Sea coast. The journey towards Kastamonu was very slow and hard, because of the
lack of food, as the Turks had destroyed all crops and filled in the wells, and
because the Crusaders were exposed to sudden Turkish attacks, so they scattered, not caring about anything, before Raymond could
bring them back together. When they reached the outskirts of Kastamonu, Raymond
had to find a route among the masses of Turkish troops to the coast, but the
Lombards again insisted on heading towards the East, and he gave in to them.198 The
Crusader army crossed the Halys river into the Danishmend lands, and some of
them reached the city of Merzifon, located halfway between the river and
Amasya.199 When the Turks realized that the Crusader forces
had become exhausted, they attacked them and it was not long before the
Crusaders collapsed and fled the battlefield, under the pressure of the
fighting, leaving behind their women and the monks. Raymond fled to a small
hill where he hid until the French and Germans rescued him; he then fled during
the night after having despaired of achieving any victory, leaving behind the
Crusader camp and the non-combatants in it to fall into the hands of the Turks
as booty.200 The battle was followed by a chase in which no one
escaped except the knights, and the Crusaders' losses amounted to four-fifths
of the army.201 The Turks seized a large amount of weapons and a
great number of prisoners, whom they sold into slavery.
Raymond soon reached Bafra, the small Byzantine
port on the Black Sea, near Sinop. From there he was taken by a Byzantine ship
to Constantinople.202 The Latin historian Albeit of Aix points out that
Raymond received a bribe from the Turks to lead the army to Kastamonu, but this
is unlikely, because anyone who studies the course of the campaign and the
events that accompanied it will see how much effort Raymond put into trying to
convince the Lombards not to head towards the lands of the Danishmend first of
all, then how he tried to save the army from the dilemma into which he had
fallen, and how he only chose the route to Kastamonu because of the troubles to
which his army had been exposed. As for his flight from the battlefield, that
was the result of his realization that there was no point in continuing after
the Lombards had turned tail and fled, followed by the Pecheneg mercenaries.203
The first battle of Heraclea
The disaster that befell the Crusaders at Merzifon
erased the fame that they had acquired as the result of their victory at
Dorylaeum. What made it worse was that this was not the last disaster. At the
same time as the Lombards left Nicomedia, a French army of fifteen thousand
knights and foot soldiers,
led by William Count of Nevers, arrived in Constantinople. William was eager to
join the Lombards quickly, so he left Constantinople, heading for Nicomedia,
where he found out that the Crusader hordes had left, heading for Ankara. He
travelled to that city, which he reached easily, but no one knew in which
direction those hordes had gone. All the count could do was head for Konya;
when he reached it he besieged it, but a group of Seljuk
Turkish troops defended it. All his attempts to
capture it failed, so he left it.204
During the same period, the
Seljuks and their allies finished destroying the Lombard army, and Kilij Arslan
and Giimushtigin Ahmad the Danishmend learned of the approach of a new enemy
whilst they were still savouring their victory. They headed south and beat
William to Heraclea. William's troops travelled slowly from Konya, heading
East, and when they came to place near Heraclea, utterly exhausted, the Turks
attacked them. Their resistance collapsed after a battle which did not last
long, and the entire French army met its end, apart from William and six of his
followers.205
The second battle of Heraclea
At the same time as William's
campaign was marching through Asia Minor, the final group of these Crusaders,
consisting of French and Germans led by William DC Duke of Aquitaine and Welf
IV Duke of Bavaria, reached Constantinople. The number of their troops was sixty
thousand. This horde set out from Constantinople, heading for Konya, following
the same route that Bohemond had taken before. The Turks implemented the same
plan as before, burning crops, destroying food supplies, and filling in wells.
When the horde reached Konya, they found the city empty; the Seljuk garrison
had vacated the city after resisting William's attack, carrying with them all
the supplies in the city and even stripping its gardens and orchards of
anything that could be of benefit to the Crusaders.206 The
Crusaders did not stay in Konya for long before heading towards Heraclea via a
route that was fifty-five miles long. They suffered a great deal of hardship,
with extreme hunger and thirst, enduring Turkish attacks from time to time in
which some were killed. When they entered Heraclea, they found the city
deserted.207 The Muslims were lying in wait for the Crusaders,
hiding in the forests around Heraclea, and they ambushed them when they were
drinking water from the river that emerges behind the city.
The Crusaders fell into disarray and the Turks pounced on them and destroyed
them utterly, except a very few who managed to escape with difficulty, among
whom were William IX and Wolf IV; these headed for Tarsus and thence to
Antioch.
Outcome of the battles of Kilij Arslan
Each of these three groups met a very sad end,
which affected the course of the Crusader movement on one hand, and on the
other hand, affected the Turks in general and the Seljuks in particular. The
most important of these effects were as follows:
a)
The Seljuks exacted revenge for what had befallen them at Dorylaeum.
After that they would never again be expelled from Anatolia. These consecutive
victories also raised their morale.
b)
The route that crossed Asia Minor into Syria remained unsafe for both
Crusader and Byzantine armies, despite the successes of the first Crusader
groups in penetrating it. The Crusader migrants became afraid to take this land
route, which led from Constantinople to Edessa, unless they were in huge armies.
They were no longer able to come except by sea, which
incurred huge expenses that few were able to
afford. This land route remained closed to the Crusaders for several years.209
c)
The Crusaders blamed the Byzantines for the calamities that had befallen
them and held them responsible for what had happened. Rumours spread amongst
them that Raymond had been acting on the Emperor's instructions when he took
the army that he was leading away from the designated route so that the
soldiers would meet their deaths in a previously-planned ambush. In fact, Rome
wanted to find a scapegoat to bear
responsibility for its mistakes, so they put the
blame on the Byzantines and regarded them as responsible for the disasters that
had occurred.210
d)
Kilij Arslan's pride grew after these victories, and he was soon joined
by the Turks of Anatolia; he was able to seize control of the interior, after
which he stayed in his capital Konya, which lay on
the main route connecting Constantinople to Syria.211
e)
The Danishmend continued their conquests in the Euphrates valley with no
obstacles, and they reached the edges of the kingdom of Edessa.
They also conquered Malatya (Melitene), capturing its ruler, on 23 Dhul-Hijjah
495 AH/18 September 1102 CE.
f)
The Crusaders' departure to Syria led to a new round of disputes and
competition between the Seljuks and Danishmend; the two great Turkish
tribes fought to take possession of Malatya and
take the ransom for Bohemond. Thus the Turkish front in that region
disintegrated.
Consequences of the death of Kilij Arslan
Zangi ibn Jekermish contacted
Kilij Arslan I asking him for help. At that time he was in Malatya, and he
promised to hand Mosul and the surrounding area over to him. The Seljuk sultan
Kilij Arslan took this opportunity to expand his territory at the expense of
the warring rulers, so he hastened to help Zangi. When Jawali learned of his
march, he withdrew from the city, especially since Jekermish had died suddenly
in captivity, and he had intended to use him as a bargaining chip; he also
realized that Kilij Arslan I was so powerful that he would not be able to
confront him in battle face to face. Hence he decided to form an alliance
against him so as to support his own position.Despite
this, Kilij Arslan I was able to enter Mosul where he was welcomed by the
population; he promised to respect their freedom and made some administrative
arrangements. As for Jawali, he withdrew to Sinjar, where he
held discussions with Ilghazi al-Artuqi and Radwan the ruler of Aleppo, at the
end of which they agreed to drive Kilij Arslan I out of Mosul, then after that
go to attack Antioch. The war against Kilij Arlsan I ended with his defeat: he
drowned in the Khabur River in 500 AH/1107 CE. Kilij
Arslan I is regarded as one of the prominent figures produced by the Seljuks of
Rum, and the Near East was affected by his sudden
death.
The Seljuks of Rum, among whom no
strong leader appeared to take the place of Kilij Arslan, were subjected to
increasing pressure from the Byzantine Empire, which resumed its interference
in their internal affairs. Alexios Komnenos managed with ease to regain his
control over the western parts of Asia Minor and along the southern coast.
The death of Kilij Arslan
extended the life of the Great Seljuk state by nearly one hundred years: sharp
divisions in the state between the sultans and emirs
fighting to gain the throne and the numerous civil wars among them, in addition
to the external dangers surrounding them such as the dangers posed by the Assassins
and Crusaders, encouraged Kilij Arslan to interfere in eastern affairs so as to
gain authority and leadership, and to unite again all Seljuk power in the east.
He would have been able to achieve this dream of his, because both internal and
external political circumstances were favourable, but his death spared the
Greater Seljuks and lengthened their lifespan.
The death of Kilij Arslan is
regarded as a very important stage in the separation of the Seljuks of Rum from
the Seljuks of the East, because the internal and external dangers surrounding
the Greater Seljuk state prevented them from interfering in the affairs of the
other Seljuk branches, especially in Syria and Asia Minor. It is worth
mentioning that the state of the Seljuks of Rum still, up to this time,
belonged nominally to the Greater Seljuks, and did not become completely
independent until 552 AH/1157 CE.
The death of Kilij Arslan
deprived the Seljuks of Syria of a force which could have guaranteed unity
among them, as Seljuk power in Syria began to shrink rapidly because the two
sons of Tutush, Radwan and Daqaq, did not have the political acumen to enable
them to confront the worrisome circumstances that Syria was going through at
the end of the fifth century AH (eleventh century CE) and the beginning of the
following century. Perhaps the greatest sign of diminishing Seljuk authority in
Syria, Iraq and elsewhere was the emergence of a large number of dynasties
which all had something in common — a connection to the Seljuk family name. From
those families emerged political units headed by regents known as atabegs.
The death of Kilij Arslan removed
a serious danger from the Byzantine Emperor at a critical time, because
Bohemond was preparing to attack the Balkans in 501 AH/1107 CE, starting out
from the well-fortified fortress of Durazzo (Dyrrhachium, Durres), and Alexios
Komnenos had sacrificed his southeastern border to save Durazzo. He had made a
treaty with Kilij Arslan, according to which he got military aid from him, but
his sudden death and the absence of any strong leader to take his place gave
Alexios the opportunity to focus on confronting the danger of Bohemond, whom he
defeated in 502 AH/1108 CE. The death of Kilij Arslan made
the situation in Asia Minor volatile, because the oldest of his four sons,
Malikshah, became a prisoner in the hands of Sultan Muhammad after the battle
of al-Khaboor, whilst his widow gained control of Malatya and the eastern
regions, with the help of the emir Aydbar, who acknowledged the authority of
Tughrul Arslan, the youngest son of Kilij Arslan, over Byzantine territory. As
for the other two brothers, Mas'ood and 'Arab, the former lived in the
Danishmend region and the latter settled in Konya.
The collapse of the central
authority among the Seljuks of Rum was not to the advantage of the Byzantines,
because the Seljuks continued to raid the Empire's lands. Despite that, the
Byzantine Emperor was able to capture some fortresses in the border regions, but he
did not want to venture into Cilicia or Syria. This attitude of his worked in
the favour of the Seljuks who were devoting their efforts to dealing with their
internal problems.
Jawali Saqawah: after the death of Kilij Arslan, who drowned in the Khabur River in 500 AH/1107 CE, it became possible for Jawali to enter Mosul, but because of the savagery that accompanied his rule, he soon became hated by its people. He did not do anything more than Jekermish had done with regard to outwardly accepting the authority of Muhammad, despite the fact that he delivered sermons in that ruler's name in Mosul,224 as he declared his independence and cut off all ties with him. This prompted Sultan Muhammad in Dhul-Qa'dah 501 AH/June 1108 CE to give one of his men, Mawdood ibn al-Tuntash, the task of expelling Jawali from Mosul and taking his place as governor.225 Thus Jawali was forced to flee from Mosul a second time; he went to Mesopotamia where all the enemies of the Seljuk state rallied around him, chief among whom was the Arab Banu Mazeed tribe. He did not hesitate either in forming an alliance with neighbouring Crusader forces; he release Baldwin de Bourcq, the ruler of Edessa, and formed an alliance with him against the Seljuks.226 Mawdood entered Mosul, where he was welcomed by the inhabitants, in Safar 502 AH/September 1108 CE.
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