Page 143 - Age of Peace Goodword.indd

The Crusades as Trendsetter

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he Crusades were one of the longest wars in history,
Tbeginning from 1095 and continuing intermittently for two
hundred years and ending only in 1291.
In these wars, on the one side, all the Muslim rulers were
involved. On the other side were the Christian nations of
Europe; almost all the Christian rulers of that time participated
in them. After bloody battles spanning two hundred years, the
result was a glorious victory for the Muslims and a humiliating
defeat for the Christians.
In the fourteenth century AD, the state of affairs that
prevailed was that, on the one hand, the Muslim nations of
Asia and Africa had a great victory to celebrate, while, on the
other hand, the Christian nations of Europe were left with
nothing but a sense of defeat. Today, the situation is totally
different. The Muslims of the present times are suffering from
a defeatist mentality. On the contrary, the Christian nations of
Europe, including America, have established their supremacy
over Muslim nations.

Why is there this strange difference between the two? The
reason is that the Crusades became a trendsetter for the two
nations, although in two different ways. The Muslims came to
believe that war was the greatest means of achieving success,
whereas the Christian nations—as a matter of compulsion—
developed a different way of thinking, which was that since
they could not achieve success on the battlefield, they should
begin to devote their energies to peaceful fields. The Christians
for their part called these efforts ‘Spiritual Crusades’. I would

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