The Jihad: An Ironic Contrast with the Crusades

In the last post we discussed the decline and fall of Arabic civilization, noting that the jihad, while affording unity and solidarity, did so at the expense of cultural sophistication, preventing Islam from reattaining its achievements of centuries past. The crusades, on the other hand, led directly to the western Renaissance, pulling Europe out of backwater anarchy, exporting violence abroad, reforming the knightly class, and putting Christendom in touch with more advanced civilization.

The crusades and the jihad are often viewed in parallel, but aside from promoting holy warfare, the commonalities are superficial. Christopher Tyerman contrasts:

"Unlike the crusade, under Islamic law derived from the Koran, jihad, struggle, is enjoined on all members of the Muslim community. Unlike the crusade, according to classical Islamic theory...the jihad takes two forms, the greater (al-jihad al-akbar), the internal struggle to achieve personal purity, and the lesser (al-jihad al-asghar), the military struggle against infidels. Both were obligatory on able-bodied Muslims... Unlike the crusade and Christian holy war, to which the Islamic jihad appears to have owed nothing (and vice versa), jihad was fundamental to the Muslim faith, a sixth pillar." (Fighting for Christendom, pp 115-116)

The jihad had been formulated during the Golden Age of the Abbasid caliphate (7th-9th centuries). But it took a fragmented and feuding Islam, coupled with a Christian crusading movement, to prompt the 12th-century revivalism which emphasized the military as much as spiritual jihad more than before.

There is thus a further irony: that the crusades were designed and launched by a Christendom in dire straits, while the jihad had been formulated but intermittently ignored by an advanced and sophisticated Islam; that the voluntary crusades, amidst so much bloodshed, led to European progressivism, while the obligatory jihad, in reaction, produced stagnation under what we would today call Islamic fundamentalism.

In the next post, we'll look at the six kings of Latin Jerusalem (1100-1187).