Recently I overheard my husband listening to someone give an argument on why the crusades were justified. I'm not sure what he was responding to, but he seemed quite incensed and defensive, so I'm guessing it had to do with the recent climate of tension around Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Anyway, this guy was basically arguing that the Crusaders only went into the Middle East to help save their fellow Christians who were being persecuted and killed by the Muslims. I snorted and called "bull", knowing that my husband doesn't know much about history and not wanting him to be drawn in by a biased argument.
While I'm no expert on the history of these tines, but to say that Muslims were persecuting or targeting Christians would be more than just a gross over simplification it misses out a lot of facts. You see in the times of the crusades the Roman Empire was no longer and entity in the west, but it still existed in the east (commonly known now as the Byzantine Empire), with the emperor reigning from Constantinople in what is now Istanbul in modern day Turkey. Many of the surrounding nations were indeed Muslim and the emperor was often making war, treaties or allying with them depending on who was fighting who. What prompted the emperor to request help from the west which started the first crusade was an invasion into his lands and the surrounding lands by Seljuk Turks. While the Seljuks were Muslim their goal was to aquire land and whether it was populated by Christians or other Muslims was irrelevent. The emperor was losing lands to them, but so too were other Muslim factions.
When the pope in the west spread the call for people to go and assist the emperor in fighting the Seljuks it was framed as a holy duty to help fellow Christians under attack by heretics. This alone likely wouldn't have gotten people to risk their lives and fight and kill for events that didn't affect them, so it was also pitched as a way to achieve absolution and be guaranteed a place in heaven. So from the standpoint of most of the crusaders they were on a holy mission to serve God and save their fellow Christians. It was a fine example of the effectiveness of propaganda.
Over in the east the Fatimid muslims had an alliance with the emperor and had themselves lost lands to the Seljuks. When they heard that the crusaders were there at the emperor's request to help him regain his lands they welcomed and assisted them, then went to retake their own lands while the Seljuks we're thinned out on multiple fronts. This included Jerusalem, which they successfully reclaimed not realising that the emperor had actually told the crusaders that they should take that too so this was the crusade's ultimate goal. Jerusalem is a sacred city to Christians, Jewish and Muslims alike and they had all lived there together under Muslim rule. It was a place for pilgrimage and likely generated good revenue from that. When the crusaders captured Jerusalem they killed Jews and Muslims and even kicked the eastern, orthodox Christians out of their churches because they were considered to be conducting worship in a heretical way.
Something else worth noting is that when they arrived in Constantinople the crusade leaders had to make an agreement with the emperor that any lands they retook that had previously belonged to him they would return to him, but they could keep any extra territory they managed to take. They actually reneged on that agreement and instead established four crusader states (Edessa, Tripoli, Antioch and Jerusalem) governed by themselves. Thus when the second crusade was called upon the call came from the crusader states rather than the emperor.
When the second crusade was pitched to the west it was as a chance to combine a holy pilgrimage with helping the Christian crusader states. The pope even pitched it to the kings as a way to get rid of the criminals and poor by offering them forgiveness for crimes and debts if they joined the crusade. Foot soldiers had high fatalities, so the chances were high that they wouldn't return. Indeed the second crusade was such a disaster that not a single foot soldier did return. They were either killed or enslaved.
Multiple crusades followed spanning about 200 years from the first to the last and the goals each time changed depending on the situations in the east as they evolved and enemies changed. One even involved the sack of Constantinople by the crusaders, which completely goes agsinst a narrative of them going there purely to save fellow, persecuted Christians.
Blaming history
I've noticed an interesting trend of late to pull up events in history to justify hatred towards certain groups of people today, whether it's Jews, Christians, muslims, whites, blacks, Europeans...feel free to add to this list, every group is welcome on it. When you put into perspective that the crusades started nearly 1000 years ago and ended nearly 800 years ago it seems riduculous to be using cherry picked parts of what happened to label Christians or Muslims today as being bad people or even bad to be following a relgion or ideal where people in the past have done bad things in the name of that religion or ideal. You can pick examples from anything historically to prove a point, but the reality is that there are good and bad things in everything. Religions have brought some good values that are still upheld today, but a lot of bad things have also been done in their name.
I used to think that a lot of wars were started over religion, but now I'm starting to think that it's more the case that religion is used to justify wars and rally the people into fighting for what they believe to be a just cause. After all, how many people would volunteer to fight another country because their leader wants some more land and resources which probably won't even benefit most of the people anyway? Few things can unite large groups of people better than a shared religion or a shared common enemy, so combining the two is bound to be even more effective.
Why don't we learn from history?
Perhaps we don't learn from it because we cherry pick from the parts we most want to believe or use to illustrate our beliefs. Also, if you think about it, much of the information we have from historical events comes from accounts written by what would have been a small portion of literate people about what affected an elite group of people, namely royalty and aristocrats. This would include propaganda and when it came from those close to royalty it would likely be skewed to present them in a better light. While historians will try to take these things into account, they themselves aren't immune from bias and some will believe certain accounts over others.
Some final thoughts
At the start of the Roman Empire their official religion was a blended polytheistic one. In about 380 AD, they decided to adopt Christianity as their official religion in an effort to try and save the empire. This kind of worked and the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) lasted until 15th century. Even though officially the empire collapsed in the west in the 5th century, the following Frankish kings (those originally seen as the barbarians) adopted Christianity along with many Roman traditions. They continued to push Christianity onto the surrounding tribes in Europe and the Moors (Muslims) in Spain were eventually all driven out as well.
So we've had a situation in the west where for over 1000 years Christianity has been the main religion and for much of that it was Catholic, uniting everyone under one doctrine, whereas in the east Muslims and Christians lived side by side all that time. We know that this has at times caused unrest from the Christians who have fled to the west to escape persecution. Rather like Catholics and Protestants after the reformation as countries changed between Protestant and Catholic leaders.
As more Muslims come to the west are we just now starting to gain an insight into the dynamics that the east has experienced for hundreds of years? Can we find a balance and common ground like we eventually did after the Protestant reformation, or were we only able to do that because we were technically still following the same religion? That said, along with Judaism both religions have the same origins. At one time the three were referred to as the Abrahamic religions.