Blog Archives
Book review: “Crusaders” by Dan Jones
Dan Jones. Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands. Viking, 2019.
I have read several books on the Crusades, but this is the best I’ve read so far. Dan Jones has written numerous books on the Europeans in the Middle Ages, so this is his area of expertise. His work is thoroughly researched, but he also writes in an engaging style, opening most chapters with vignettes about colorful personalities, and he peppers the book with fascinating quotes and interesting details.
The title Crusaders (instead of “Crusades”) is deliberate, because, as Jones explains in his preface, he focuses on the personalities like Richard the Lionheart, telling stories of the combatants (mostly Christian, but he also gives coverage to prominent Muslim warriors, including a chapter on Saladin). Yet he tells the story in chronological order, which helps the reader to follow the facts.
With so much blood and horrendous violence, Jones could easily depict the Crusaders as pure evil, but as a good historian he leaves it to the reader to make moral judgments, even reminding the reader at times that as bad as the violence was, it was normal for all sides at that time in history. He simply tells the facts and quotes the sources that describe the characters, whether evil or holy, or, as many were, a mixture of both. The book truly helps the reader understand the reasons why the Crusades happened as they did by helping the reader understand life in the Middle Ages. Until I read this book, I didn’t fully understand why the Fourth Crusaders plundered Constantinople instead of invading Muslim territory, but now I understand the economic motivations of the Venetians.
The old adages about history repeating itself and not learning lessons from history are evident in these stories. One example is the defeat of the Fifth Crusade on the Nile River because they didn’t consider the geography of when the Nile would flood and stop their advance. Another example was how Emperor Frederick II was able to gain more by negotiation than the previous Crusaders had gained by war, because he spoke Arabic and was able to gain their trust.
Jones explains that the Crusades included the “Reconquista,” the seven hundred years of battles for Spain to retake the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims, which finally ended in 1492. Thus, instead of seeing the Crusades as a total failure, since the Crusaders were expelled from the Holy Land after the fall of Acre in 1291, he sees the battle for Spain as a success for the crusaders. He even cities numerous occasions when crusaders on their way to the Holy Land would stop off in Spain and help them win a battle, then sail on for Jerusalem. The author explains how, even as Europe lost interest in raising large international armies to fight Muslims in the Holy Land, the crusading spirit continued and degenerated into hunting down heretics in southern France, fighting pagan tribes in the Balkans, and even papal battles against Christian rulers who refused to submit to the pope.
I wish that Jones had explained more of the results of the Crusades. He does allude to how it gave power to the pope, and he ends the book by explaining the anti-Christian bitterness that remains among Muslims in the Middle East. He could have said more about how it affected Muslim treatment of Christian minorities in the Middle East, and how the contact opened doors of economic, cultural, and intellectual trade between East and West, even helping bring Arabic numerals and Aristotle’s philosophy to the West.
Sadly, Jones points out that the Crusades never fully ended, as Osama bin Laden referred to President George W. Bush as “the Chief Crusader… under the banner of the cross.” As ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said, “the battle of Islam and its people against the crusaders and their followers is a long battle.”
Four key pieces to the Middle East puzzle
Copyright by Bob Rogers.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, country singer Alan Jackson wrote a hit song, asking, “Where were you when the world stopped turnin’ that September day?” One line in that song expressed how little most Americans understand the Middle East:
“I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN, but I’m not sure I can tell you
The diff’rence in Iraq and Iran.”
So how does one piece together the puzzle of the Middle East? There are four important pieces to the puzzle that are key. Fit these four pieces in place, and you will get a good picture of why there is conflict in the Middle East:
1. Muslims are not all alike. Most Americans assume that all Muslims are the same. In fact, there are two major branches of Islam: Sunni and Shiite. They have different doctrines, and a long history of bitter conflict. On the Shiite side is Iran, southern Iraq, rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and Bashar al-Assad, dictator of Syria. On the Sunni side is most of the rest of the Muslim world, including northern and western Iraq, the government in Yemen, the Islamic State (ISIS), the majority of Syria, and such large nations as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey. Now take a look at the map above. See the two geographical giants, Saudi Arabia and Iran? Saudi Arabia is Sunni, and Iran is Shi’a, and the two nations are in constant struggle against one another. See Iraq between them? As Iran seeks to extend it’s influence, Saudi Arabia opposes Iran, and places like Iraq and Yemen are the battleground.
2. Middle Easterners are not all Arabs. Most Americans assume all Middle Easterners are either Arabs or Jews. In fact, there are three other major ethnic groups in the Middle East that speak different languages and have different cultures: Turks, Kurds and Persians. Jews dominate Israel, and most of the southern part of the Middle East is Arab, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but as one goes north, there are other ethnicities. Turks are the majority in Turkey, but some 20% of Turkey are Kurds, and Kurds are concentrated in southeastern Turkey. Kurds have a semi-autonomous self-rule in northern Iraq, and Kurds in northern Syria have dominated that region as they defeated ISIS during Syria’s Civil War. Iran is primarily Persian, but has Kurds in its western region. There are also ethnic groups in the Middle East like the Coptic Christians of Egypt, Druze in Lebanon, Assyrian Christians in Iraq, and Yazidis in Iraq (who speak the Kurdish language but have their own religion that blends Islam with Christianity and Zoroastrianism. ISIS considers the Yazidis to be demon-worshipers.).
3. Many of their national boundaries were forced on the Middle East. Before World War I, the Ottoman Empire ruled a vast area that included what is now Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia (even Egypt was subject to the Ottoman Empire). The Ottomans sided with Germany in WWI, and lost everything but Turkey after the war. Europeans, who didn’t understand the region, drew new national boundaries to create many of the nations we now have in that region, most notably splitting up the region inhabited by 25 million Kurds into parts of Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Thus the Kurds have been a mistreated minority in their own homeland. What is more, the Europeans created a new nation called Iraq, out of three former Ottoman provinces that had no natural commonality, with Kurds in the north, Sunni Arabs in the middle, and Shi’a Arabs in the south. No wonder Iraq is in constant conflict.
4. There are two sides to the story in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Before World War I, the population of the Ottoman province of Palestine was about 90% Arab, although Jews were always there. The Ottoman Empire turned over Palestine to British rule after WWI, and the British encouraged Jews to return to their ancient homeland. Jews immigrated there in such massive numbers, buying up the best land, that by World War II, the Jews were nearly equal in number to Arabs. Palestinians deeply resented this, which they saw as an invasion of their homeland. After the Nazi holocaust of World War II, many more Jews fled to Palestine. Britain tried to divide the nation between the Palestinian Arabs and the Jews. Israel agreed to the two states solution, but the Arabs refused, only wanting the eradication of the Jews. This led to war, which the Jews won, establishing the state of Israel in 1948. Feeling disenfranchised, Palestinians have resorted to riots and terrorism ever since then. Israel has consistently won wars with the Arabs, and has often made peace with Arab neighbors by returning land in exchange for peace, especially with Egypt. However, Arabs living in Gaza (the “Palestinians”) and West Bank, have refused to make peace.
This is only a simplified summary of the Middle East. There are many other pieces to the puzzle, and other complicating factors. But if you understand these four key pieces above, you will have a much clearer picture of the Middle East puzzle.
(Dr. Bob Rogers has a Th.D. in Church History, and has taught History of the Middle East at The Baptist University of Florida.)
Be a Christian “muslim”
Copyright 2012 by Bob Rogers
Often on our television screens when we see pictures of Muslims bowing in submission to Allah. In fact, whenever a Muslim comes into a mosque, he bows with his forehead to the floor to represent his total submission to his God.
There is good reason for this. The Arabic word islam means “submission,” and the word muslim means “one who submits.” I am aware that President Bush and others said that islam means “peace,” but they were incorrect. Look it up in any reference work, and you will see that the word salam means peace, but islam means “submission,” and muslim means “one who submits.”
Now here is my point. We who are followers of Jesus Christ do not think of ourselves as Muslims at all. We do not worship the same God. We believe that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, and they do not.
But Muslims can remind us of at least one thing in our own faith that too many of us have forgotten. The New Testament book of James calls upon believers to come before God in humility, and he says this in James 4:7-8a: “Therefore, submit to God. But resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”
Muslims call themselves by that name because they submit to Allah. Unfortunately, many followers of Christ have neglected the command of scripture for us to submit to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In a sense, you could say that we need to be “Christian muslims;” that is, believers in Jesus who are willing to do more than just say that they believe in Jesus—they are willing to surrender their lives completely to Jesus.
James explains submission in three basic ways: 1) standing up to the adversary (v. 7 “resist the Devil”), 2) cleaning up our actions (v. 8 “cleanse your hands, and purify your hearts”), and 3) straightening up our attitudes (v. 9 “your laughter must change to mourning”– apparently a reference to laughing at sin).
Pastor Nadarkhani is an inspiring example of a Christian “muslim.” This Christian pastor in Iran was arrested and spent three years in jail for his Christian faith, on trumped-up charges of blasphemy against Islam. Despite threats of execution, he refused to recant his faith in Jesus Christ, and after three years, he was released from prison, thanks to the fervent prayers of millions of Christians and international pressure on Iran.
Few Christians will be asked to submit to Christ in such a dramatic way, but most of us must make hard choices to do what is right, not what is convenient.
It’s hard to be a Christian muslim and totally surrender to God. It’s hard to stand up to the adversary, clean up our actions, and straighten up our attitudes.
Yet God gives us a great promise if we do. Read it in James 4:10: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
After all, God is not asking us to do anything that He hasn’t already done in His Son Jesus Christ. As Philippians 2:8-10 says, “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow.”
Timothy Keller says, “If you go to Jesus, he may ask of you far more than you originally planned to give, but he can give to you infinitely more than you dared ask or think.” (Timothy Keller, King’s Cross, p. 63.)
That is the paradox of submission. The paradox is that if we will bow before God, we can stand up to anything and anybody else. When we submit to God, the Devil can’t beat us and the world can’t defeat us. So how about it, believer? Will you surrender your life totally to God’s will?
Bob Rogers 