Medieval crusader imagery was repurposed to justify modern French colonization

Evidence

Not so for René Grousset, writing the history of the crusades in 1934; he cites a passage in which the Muslim traveler Ibn Jubayr affirms that the Christian rulers of the crusading states often treat their subjects as well or better than Muslim rulers. Ibn Jubayr meant this comment to be more a criticism of incompetent and greedy petty lords in Muslim Syria than anything else, but for Grousset this represents “the finest praise of French colonization.” As France and England carved out empires in the Arab world, Grousset and others looked to the Crusades as a glorious precursor. The accolades of a Muslim writer of the twelfth century could be used to justify conquest and colonization in the nineteenth or twentieth. It is no accident that the Hall of the Crusades in Versailles, whose murals dramatize the exploits of the medieval crusaders, was painted in the 1830s, as France was conquering Algeria. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 57 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval crusader rhetoric was reframed to justify nineteenth-century French colonization — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 57; Western anti-Muslim writing from 1400 to 1900 recycled medieval images — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 63; Crusades imagery was redeployed to recast Muslims as the West’s timeless enemies — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 58 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Medieval crusader rhetoric was reframed to justify nineteenth-century French colonization #corroborates (0.95) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 57
• Twentieth-century colonizers recruited medieval crusade history to justify conquest. #corroborates (0.95)