The Crusades were less coherent religious triumph than convenient enemy-making

Evidence

But as Esposito suggests, history perpetuates two great myths about the Crusades: the first that Jerusalem was liberated; the second that Christendom triumphed. As he goes on, if success equated the liberation of Jerusalem, then success was short lived as control of the city returned to Muslim rule in 1187 Ce. Likewise, the Crusades were not solely undertaken against the ensuing Muslim armies that Alexus I had called for. In the march towards Jerusalem, many on the Crusades co-operated in massacring not only vast numbers of Muslims but so too Jews as well as those Christians that the Vatican deemed heretical. The threat and encroachment of Muslim armies therefore provided a convenient scapegoat, a much-needed and necessary enemy against which the Vatican and its supporters could wage war. — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 173 (#expands, via linked claim)

Despite spending many years in the Middle east, the Crusades brought about little improved knowledge or understanding about Islam and Muslims. Instead, folk stories and myths returned from the Holy Lands with the Crusaders, many of which did little more than reinforce the misconceptions and misunderstandings already in existence about Muslims and Islam. Lurid tales of pagan and idolatrous practices mixed with legends about great warriors such as Saladin (Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi), supplemented by fantastically inspired stories about the promiscuity, wealth and luxury of Muslims were all given credibility as they were retold by those who seen such things with their own eyes. — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 175 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

This tension has relevance to modern scholarship on the history of Christian Islamophobia. Often authors paint Christians and Christendom as a single united entity, however, such generalizations ignore the prominence of theological tension within, even during times when one would most expect all of Christianity to be united against an adversary. I hope to have shown how such authors take Christianity as more unified than it was; only by acknowledging and moving beyond this generalization of Christian unity can we have a more nuanced discourse. History instead shows that perhaps a foreign religious enemy is better than a co-religious enemy. — Ali Qureshi, The Fall of Constantinople, 62 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Direct exposure during the Crusades did not reduce anti-Muslim mythmaking — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 175; The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 61; The Crusades were framed as a militaristic pilgrimage against Islamic advance — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 172 (+19 more)

Related

• The Crusades as holy triumph is a myth masking internal massacres (similarity 0.92)
• Direct exposure during the Crusades did not reduce anti-Muslim mythmaking (similarity 0.86)
• The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts (similarity 0.84)
• Historical memory of the Crusades drives Europeans’ anti-Muslim votes and stares (similarity 0.83)
• Historical scholarship overstates Christianity’s unity against adversaries. (similarity 0.83)
• Crusaders justified conquest by recasting Muslims as pagan Roman idolaters (similarity 0.82)
• Crusader contact reinforced fantasy rather than correcting misconceptions (similarity 0.82)
• Medieval Christendom defined itself by expelling threatening forces beyond its perimeter (similarity 0.82)
• Christians treated all non-Christian monstrous figures as interchangeable enemies (similarity 0.82)
• The Crusades were framed as a militaristic pilgrimage against Islamic advance (similarity 0.82)
• The Crusades were tied to enduring European xenophobia rooted in Greek thought (similarity 0.82)
• Theological explanations blamed Christian corruption and cast Muslims as God’s punishing instrument (similarity 0.82)
• Islamophobia scholarship often treats medieval Christianity as a united whole against Muslims (similarity 0.82)
• Islam became the convenient enemy to mobilize Europe’s territorial ambitions (similarity 0.81)
• New crusades are political and cultural wars, not religious conflicts (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Direct exposure during the Crusades did not reduce anti-Muslim mythmaking #corroborates (0.85) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 175
• Historical scholarship overstates Christianity’s unity against adversaries. #corroborates (0.85) — Ali Qureshi, The Fall of Constantinople, 62
• The Crusades as holy triumph is a myth masking internal massacres #expands (0.85) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 173
• The Crusades were framed as a militaristic pilgrimage against Islamic advance #qualifies (0.82) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 172
• Historical memory of the Crusades drives Europeans’ anti-Muslim votes and stares #expands (0.82)
• The violence-of-Islam myth traces to the Crusades and shapes coverage of the Danish cartoons. #expands (0.82) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 193
• Medieval Christian infighting outweighed the shared threat of Islam #corroborates (0.80) — Ali Qureshi, The Fall of Constantinople, 45
• New crusades are political and cultural wars, not religious conflicts #expands (0.80)
• The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts #expands (0.78) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 61
• Medieval depictions of Islam as heresy served to justify violence and resist conversion #expands (0.78) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 139
• Religion factors into most wars but rarely causes them #corroborates (0.78) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 512
• Accurate knowledge of Islam did not soften early Christian hostility toward it #corroborates (0.75) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 132
• Christians judged the inner religious enemy worse than the foreign one #complicates (0.72) — Ali Qureshi, The Fall of Constantinople, 59
• Ideological crusades cannot decisively win because ideas resist extermination #complicates (0.72) — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 896
• Byzantine Orthodox preferred Muslim conquest over theological compromise with Latin Christians #exemplifies (0.72) — Ali Qureshi, The Fall of Constantinople, 25