Journal of Islamic Studies (Jan 1978)
The Muslims and the Precursors of their Awareness of the crusaders' Danger
Abstract
The paper is in two parts : the first is a brief survey of Islamic conditions in the East when the Crusaders first arrived I A. H. 490, A. D. 1097, . Those conditions indicate that all Muslim rulers, without a single exception, were then entirely unaware of the nature of the Crusaders' danger, motives and objectives. They were also not aware of the European powers behind the Crusaders serving their interests. The Muslim rulers' unawareness of the danger was due to their being absorbed in disputes and conflicts. In less than two years, the Crusaders managed to be firmly established in more than one place: Edessa, Antioch and Jerusalem. The second part of the paper is a survey and analysis of certain events that took place immediately afterwards , between Muslim and Crusaders, in which the writer saw the precursors of the Muslims' awakending to the Crusaders' danger. Those events covered a vast area extending from Asia Minor, Diar Bakr and Mesopotamia, in the extreme north (all under the Seljuks) to Fatimid Egypt in the extreme south. This proves that the precursors of awareness were comprehensive, irrespective of territorial boundaries or ideological differences. The writer referred to about sixty original Arabic and foreign sources.
