From the Knight on the White Horse

to the Lawns of the White House

Barak Rubinstein∗

Foreword: A Hollywood Script and its Hidden Meanings

It was an afternoon in Los Angeles. A van containing five young men was
parked next to the freeway. In less than an hour, the young men believed,
they would be on the road to heaven because of the deadly cargo lying in the
back of the vehicle. With them, they hoped, dozens of infidels, children of the
sinful American nation, would die. The leader of the group, a former Saudi
Arabian, bade farewell to the other men as they left the vehicle to take up
their positions. Smiling, he said goodbye: "Try and take as many Crusaders as
you can with you…"
Fortunately, this incident never actually occurred. It took place in the
television suspense series Sleeper Cell, which aired in the US in 2005. The
series dealt with the establishment of terror cells for the Global Jihad,
affiliated with Al-Qaeda, on United
States soil. In order to enhance the
show's credibility, the Sleeper Cell script
writers consulted experts on radical
Islam, which Al-Qaeda represents.
Even so, most of the series viewers,
in the US and abroad, did not need
academic assistance to understand the
comparison the Moslem terrorist’s
character made between modern-day
Americans and medieval Crusaders.
Most of them were made aware of this
parallel after the president of the
 
United States, George W. Bush (2001-
Figure 1
2009), spoke to reporters on the White
House lawns on September 16, 2001. The Crusader in the White House:
George W. Bush and the war in Iraq
During the conversation, Bush in a 2003 cartoon,
compared the western nations'
upcoming struggle against global Islamic terrorism to a Crusade.1 Despite the

∗ Barak Rubinstein ([email protected]) is a first-year PhD student at the Graduate

School of History, Tel Aviv University. His article on the modern historiography of the
Islamic aspects of the Crusades was published in the 17th issue of Jama'a (2009).

3
fact that this comparison was later excused as a "slip of tongue," it was
heavily criticized all over the world by opponents of the Bush regime. The
comparison had provided them with proof that it was imperialistic and
warmongering, motivated by greed, Messianic-Christian values, and a hatred
of Islam (figure 1). Most likely, at least some of the Sleeper Cell viewers were
already introduced to the American-Crusader parallel in the late 1990s, after
being exposed to the militant declarations of the heads of Al-Qaeda and other
Islamic terrorist movements. Spokesmen for these groups, such as Usāma bin
Lāden, had back then begun to warn of the existential "Neo-Crusader" threat
that Israel and the Western Christian countries posed to the Islamic nation.
They called upon all Moslems to join the "Jihad against the Crusaders and the
Zionists."2
It is worth noting that the Israelis – the apparent partners of the
Americans in these new "Crusades" – have already for a long time been
exposed to such comparisons. It started long before the current struggle
between the radical Islamic movements and the western societies. This
started when the state of Israel was established. Israelis have become
accustomed to Arab statesmen, terrorists, religious figures and secular
intellectuals using terms containing "Crusader" connotations to describe the
struggle between Israel and its neighbors. These figures have spoken about
the almost perfect territorial overlap between the modern "Zionist entity" and
the "Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem." They have compared the causes which led
to the establishment of the two countries (messianic revival, massive
immigration, support of western powers and dissension on the Muslim-Arab
side). Finally, they hoped for the rise of local leaders to reconstruct the
victories of the sultan Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Al-Ayyūbi (1169-1193) and the Mamluk
sultan Baybars (1260-1277) over the kingdom of Jerusalem.
These facts lead to two conclusions. The first is that the European-
Christian presence in the Mediterranean’s eastern basin as part of the
Crusades' framework during the years 1098-1291 left a deep scar on the
consciousness of the Islamic nations – a scar that has yet to heal. The second is
that the Muslims' fear in recent generations of Crusades' attacks is not just the
result of Persecution Paranoia, but actually pretty justified. The responsibility
for this fear lies on the shoulders of western statesmen and military leaders. It
appears as though they have not stopped driving towards reconquering the
Crusader territories, which used to be part of the Levant. Bush's statement in
2001 is an example of this. Another similar utterance is the declaration
attributed to the British general Edmund Allenby that the British conquest of
Jerusalem in November 1917 is the "completion of the wars of the Crusades."

1 The transcript of the speech can be found at:

http://www.lossless-audio.com/usa/index0.php?page=1438852368.htm.
2 "Naṣ Bayān Al-Jabha Al-Islāmīyya Al-'Ālamīyya Li-Jihād Al-Yahūd W'al Ṣalībīyyin,” Al-
Quds Al-'Arabi, February 23, 1998, p. 3.

4
 Despite the fact that there is plenty of historical evidence to support these
conclusions, both of them rely on a faulty and inaccurate premise. The
assumption is that the current Crusader imagery has not changed in any
meaningful way over the past thousand years – both on the Western-
Christian side and on the Muslim side.
This article presents an alternative view – a view which was already
introduced in the last decade by a number of western historians focusing on
the period between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. It was during this
period that all of the current imagery on the Crusades and Crusading was
redesigned and even reinvented. In addition, I will argue that the process of
giving modern meanings to the Crusades’ vocabulary started in the Christian
European countries hundreds of years before it began in the Middle East.
However, surprisingly, despite the time gap, the discourse surrounding the
Crusades in both areas draws on similar roots.

The Crusades: When, Where, Why and How Many?

Before analyzing the development of the modern discourse on the Crusades,

it is necessary to deal with the debate surrounding the definition of that
movement. This dispute has existed for a long time in academic circles and
reflects the wider world surrounding it.3 One group of modern historians
provides a minimalist definition to the Crusades: the Crusades were a series
of Christian Western European military campaigns conducted between 1095
(Pope Urban II speech at Clermont) and 1291 (the conquest of Crusader
controlled Acre by the Mamluks). The Crusades’ declared purpose was to
liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims and to fortify the Christian hold on the
city. Those who champion this definition count six to eight primary crusades
as well as a few secondary ones. This number is currently universally
accepted.4
On the opposite side stand historians who belong to a "pluralist" school
of thought. According to them the Crusades were initiatives directed by the
Holy See or sadly by those who received his blessing. They were directed
against anyone the pope defined as an enemy of the faith. Therefore, the
Crusades were not limited to the Muslim kingdoms in Egypt, Syria and
Anatolia during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The crusades were also

3 For further information see: Giles Constable, "Introduction: The Historiography of the
Crusades," in: Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, eds., The Crusades from the
Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 2001),
pp. 12-14. Christopher Tyerman, The Invention of the Crusades (London: Macmillan,
1998), pp.99-103.
4 This "traditional" method of counting is even accepted in Arab states, as can be seen from
studying the history textbooks, which are used by the state educational systems. These
books are described in: Matthias Determann, "The Crusades in Arab School Textbooks,"
Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol. 19, № 2 (2008), pp. 204-205.

5
directed against Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa from the
eleventh century to the sixteenth century, pagan nations in the Baltic sea from
the eleventh century to the thirteenth century, Ottomans in South Eastern
Europe from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth century and against a
variety of Christian cults who refused to accept the authority of Rome.
Jonathan Riley-Smith, one of the leading pluralistic historians today, states
that "The last Crusade league was the Holy League, which began the recovery
of the Balkans from the Turks between 1684 and 1699." According to him,
after 1699 there were no more "real" crusades (i.e. sponsored by the pope).5

The "Birth" of the Crusader on the White Horse: Critical Romanticism

and Imperialistic Admiration

Riley-Smith's choice to position the end of the Crusades at the date the
lengthy war between the Ottomans and their Christian neighbors was
concluded in 1699 is not coincidental. According to him, the weakening of the
Ottoman military threat against central Europe allowed leaders and
intellectuals across the continent to doff the Crusader armor that they had
been wearing for centuries. This allowed them to transform the Crusades
from a role model in the struggle of life and death against the Islamic world
into a historical issue, which belonged to the distant past. The fading
attraction of the Crusades in the eighteenth century was also due to the
cultural climate which was developing in the western half of Europe during
the Age of Enlightenment. The noteworthy authors of this age, David Hume
(1711-1776), Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
proudly carried the standards of scientific rationalism and free thought.
Consequently, these thinkers viewed the Crusades as an unpleasant reminder
of the religious zealotry and the brutality that the church and society
demonstrated during the "dark" middle ages (as they phrased it). They
viewed the movement as a factor that "checked rather than forwarded the
maturity of Europe."6
The "long" nineteenth century (usually defined as the period of 1789-
1914) was the turn of the counter movement to the negative views held by the
Age of Enlightenment's intellectuals on the Crusades. This response was
backed by some of the central ideas for the history of that century in Europe:
Romanticism, nationalism and imperialism. Starting from the end of the
eighteenth century, the Romantic wave had washed over the literature,
poetry, painting, sculpting and architecture in Western Europe. This
movement carried within it a deep longing for the apparently simple pre-

5 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2008), p. 1.
6 Tyerman, pp. 111-113.

6
industrial past and a preference of the emotion and inclination over dry
rationalism. A marked component of Romanticism was Medievalism – the
tendency to idealize and mythologize the medieval European society. The
community was portrayed as guided by ideals, such as courage, loyalty,
honor and religious obedience. For many artists, these ideals were manifested
in their purest form in the images of the valiant knight on the white horse and
the gentle god-fearing monk. The merging of these two characters in the
eleventh century, it was claimed, led to the creation of the most medieval
hero of all – the Crusader who fought in the name of god.
This Romantic fashion of writing about the holy warriors and their
journeys to Jerusalem is identified to this day with the works of the Scottish
author Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Scott featured the Crusaders prominently
in four of his popular historical novels, describing them as brave, fierce
warriors. Yet, as someone who was born during the height of the Age of
Enlightenment Scott did not hesitate to judge the Crusaders harshly – he
would portray them as ignorant, aggressive, arrogant and greedy. He heavily
criticized their behavior also by contrasting it with the noble actions of their
Muslim enemies, whose leader was the noble Ṣalāḥ ad-DīnAl- Ayyūbi. For
example, in his best selling novel, The Talisman, the Sultan is portrayed as a
gentleman and even as the perfect knight.7 This Romantic-critical approach
towards the crusaders left a deep impression on generations of popular
western writers and academics, including the Scottish orientalists Stanley
Lane-Poole and Sir Hamilton A. R. Gibb.8 This writing, as will be described
later on, contributed much towards the development of the methods of
thought surrounding the period of the Crusades in the Middle East.
At the same time, political and social elites across Europe attempted to
utilize the renewed nostalgic embracing of the Crusader past to design
founding national myths and to enhance existing ones. This is how with the
encouragement of royalty, educators (both religious and secular) and artists,
cultural rituals began to grow around local Crusader heroes who were
"nationalized," such as Richard the Lionheart (1189-1199) in Britain, King

7 Robert Irwin, "Saladin and the Third Crusade: A Case Study in Historiography and the
Historical Novel,” in Michael Bentley, ed., Companion to Historiography (London:
Routledge, 1997), pp. 139-152; Riley Smith, pp. 65-66; Tyerman p. 114; Elizabeth Siberry,
The New Crusaders: Images of the Crusades in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth
Centuries (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 10-13.
8 Stanley Lane-Poole, Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (New York:
Putnam's Sons, 1898), p. 397. It is said about Gibb that he would recommend to his
students to read Scott's writings, because according to him they were important tools for
understanding Islamic history. Albert Hourani, “Hamilton Alexander Roskeen Gibb,” in
C. Edmund Bosworth, ed., A Century of British Orientalists, 1902-2001 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001), p. 157.

7
Louis IX "The Saint" (1226-1270) in France, Emperor Frederick I "Barbarosa"
(1152-1190) in Germany etc.9
There were certain groups who "discovered," and to a certain extent
invented, the glorious Crusades' past of the European nations. These groups
also made an effort to connect that past to the present, which they viewed as
even grander. Joseph François Michaud (1767-1839) played a central role in
these efforts. Michaud was a devout Catholic and ardent supporter of the
post-Napoleonic French royalty. His multi-volumed work on the Crusades
was first published in 1822. As opposed to Scott, Michaud, like many other
orientalists in his generation, thought that medieval Islam was an inferior
backward civilization. Therefore, instead of blaming the Crusaders for not
imitating their tolerant peace-loving Muslim rivals, he praised them for
striving to bring the "light" of civilization to the "dark" Islamic expanse. In
addition, Michaud repressed the fact that the Frank settlement in the Levant
during 1098-1291 failed. He rather chose to emphasize the fact that this was
the first significant attempt by Europeans to found settlements in "primitive"
countries across the sea. In Michaud's view, this attempt was a harbinger of
the modern Colonialist enterprises and the continued justified rise of Western
civilization to a position of world hegemony.10
During the "long" nineteenth century, Michaud's research was published
many times and translated into different languages. His teachings were
copied and refined by an endless amount of writers, both academics and non-
academics. These entrenched in the Western European public the
understanding that the Crusaders played a vital role in laying the
groundwork for the rise of the white man – they were "guides" and role
models for the modern western empire builders. These assumptions were
quickly included in the animated political discourse on imperialism and the
"exotic" and "backward" natures of the lands targeted as imperial enterprises.
It was for this reason that politicians, soldiers, academics, journalists and
clergymen defined Britain and France’s military and state campaigns of in
Africa and Asia as a continuation of the Crusades. Those that participated in
these endeavors were heirs to the national Crusader heroes. Examples of this
can be found from the conquest of Algiers (1830), to the crisis in Mt. Lebanon
(1860), and finally with the capture of Jerusalem (1917).11 These actual
campaign descriptions were followed up by a series of unrealized initiatives
for the holy land’s liberation from the claws of the "Turks" (i.e. Muslims) and

9 For a detailed list containing the names of local Crusader heroes, who were heavily
praised in Scandinavia, the Iberian peninsula and Central Europe see: Riley-Smith, p. 54
10 Tyerman, pp. 116-117. For further emphasis, see: Joseph-François Michaud, Histoire des
Croisades /(Paris: Furne, 1857), Vol. 4, pp. 198-203.
11 Adam Knobler, "Holy Wars, Empires, and the Portability of the Past: The Modern Uses of
Medieval Crusades," Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 48, № 2 (2006), pp. 296-
297; Siberry, pp. 26, 74, 82-86, 313-315.

8
its restoration to Christian hands. These initiatives were raised by a variety of
British and French public figures – including high ranking political and
economic functionaries.12
The efforts to apply the "Crusader legacy" and the "chivalrous values" to
modern western intellectual environment were not limited to "marketing"
state and military initiatives. From the end of the eighteenth century in North
America and Western Europe, demands were beginning to be made that
metaphorical Crusades should be conducted. These were intended to redeem
the Christians' souls and improve the society in which they lived. Church
organizations (of different denominations), social unions and political parties
attached the "Crusade" label to the struggles for the elimination of
prostitution, alcoholism, slavery and illiteracy; the label was added to
suffrage efforts and public relations campaigns to increase the support
towards military endeavors, which were being conducted for a "higher
purpose."13

The "Return" of the Crusader to the Middle East: from Cultural

Curiosity to Political Utilitarianism

Evidence of the influence of these trends can be found in the travel journals of
western tourists who visited the shores of the Levant in growing numbers
towards the end of the nineteenth century. These tourists are often mentioned
in academic research on the "orientalist paradigm" because of their prejudices
and twisted viewpoints regarding the physical and human vistas of the
"lands of the east." In the historiographic research of the Crusades, these
tourists receive focus also because of the literature they read in preparation
for their visits or during them. These materials almost always included both
the Bible (viewed by them as an updatedtour guide for the Christian traveler
in the Holy Land), as well as the works of Scott, Michaud and their
successors.14
The German Kaiser Wilhelm II (reigned 1888-1918), was one of the more
famous tourists in the Levant towards the end of the nineteenth century. In
his youth he was exposed to the novels of Scott, and he viewed himself as
heir to the Crusader German emperors Frederick I and Frederick II, as
evident in October 1898, when Wilhelm staged his official entry into Old
Jerusalem dressed as a knight of the Crusader Teutonic order (most of the
members of this order were ethnically German). A month later he conducted

12 Siberry, pp. 66-67, 76-82.

13 For a variety of examples of such representations of the Crusades and Crusading in
Western Europe in the nineteenth century in Britain see: Siberry pp. 104-111.
14 Among the tourists who reported on the Holy Land through the use of Crusader images
were the Prince of Wales (later King) Edward VII, and the two sons of the American
author Mark Twain. Siberry pp. 64-70

9
a similar publicized event in Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn's burial compound in Damascus,
who he referred to as "one of the most chivalrous rulers in history." He even
donated from his own pocket towards the compound’s renovation.
It is worth noting that Wilhelm's visit in the Levant was more than just
an innocent act of pilgrimage. The visit was intended to symbolize the
cementing of the bonds between the German Reich and Ottoman Empire,
which was ruled by the Sultan Abdülhamit II (1876-1909). This Sultan, the
members of his court and quite a few of his educated subjects were capable of
understanding the meanings lying behind the Kaiser's pompous gestures in
Jerusalem and Damascus. However their understanding was not only fed
from vague collective memories of the Crusades passed down throughout the
generations, but also from exposure to Romantic-critical literature in the style
of Scott and Romantic-imperialistic literature in the style of Michaud.
In order to explain where this knowledge came from we need to focus
again on the period of time from the end of the thirteenth century to the
beginning of the nineteenth century. As previously mentioned, during most
of this period the Crusades were considered a central component (both
positive and negative) in the political and intellectual discourse of Christian
Europe. In Islamic countries the picture was quite different. While fears
occasionally arose on the Mediterranean’s Eastern Coast that the "Franks"
would return,15 the ruling elites of the Middle East devoted most of their
attention towards handling the infidels from the east – the Mongols. And
only later did they turn their attention towards internal Islamic conflicts (e.g.
between the Ottomans and the Safavids) and conflicts with the neighboring
Christian powers.
Researchers such as Emmanuel Sivan and Carol Hillenbrand associate
the beginning of the penetration of the topic of the Crusades into Middle
Eastern dialogue, or its renewed entrance with the growing exposure of local
writers to the literary products of European discourse. Namık Kemal (1840-
1888), for example, was a prominent thinker for the Young Turks movement
who spent a number of years in Western Europe. In 1882 he became the first
Muslim of the modern era to publish a biography of the sultan Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn.
One of the reasons he wrote the biography was to criticize the Anti-Muslim
messages found in Michaud's research, which had been translated into
Ottoman Turkish. Also, in the final decade of the nineteenth century, some
plays about Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn were performed in Egypt, and many essays written
by Georgie Zaydān, the Lebanese born Christian author and publicist, were
printed. It is possible to detect in all of them influences from novels, such as
Scott's The Talisman.16

15 Haim Gerber, Remembering and Imagining Palestine: Identity and Nationalism from the
Crusades to the Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 64-66.
16 Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp.
592-593; Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 (London: Oxford

10
 The focus on the Crusades, which had started due to the efforts of
"mediators" from the fields of historiography, art and journalism, soon
became towards the turn of the century an integral part of the general
discourse on the current political and state affairs. The main reasons for this
focus were the increasing defeats of Middle Eastern societies by European
imperialist forces and the expressions of pride in the heritage of the Crusades
made by some of the supporters of imperialistic expansion, which were
described previously. An early manifestation of the politicization of the local
discussion on the Crusades can be found in the original Arab history book on
their origins, published in 1899 by the Egyptian 'Ali Al-Ḥarīri. In the
introduction, Al-Ḥarīri states that "the sovereigns of Europe nowadays attack
our Sublime Empire in a manner bearing a great resemblance to the deeds of
these people in bygone times," and "Europe is now carrying out a Crusade
against us in the form of a political campaign." Alongside identifying the
imperialistic enemy as "modern Crusaders," Arab writers were quick to
"recruit" the local hero, Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn, to their side. This was because the
sultan had already been crowned in the Romantic literature as the one who
was most suited to ward off the imperialistic threat.17
The growing number of different ways on viewing the Crusades during
the long nineteenth century can be seen in Britain's participation in the
closing event of this era – World War I (1914-1918). During the war and after
it, the British authorities made an effort to compare the war to a metaphorical
crusade intended to save the Western democracies from the dangers of
German militarism. For example, the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd-
George, referred to his collection of speeches from the war period as the Great
Crusade (figure 2). On the same token, the physical conquest of Jerusalem
towards the end of the war enhanced the sense of connection of many British
people to the medieval Crusaders, and their Romantic, national and
imperialistic legacy. One of these people was Mark Sykes, who shaped British
policy in the Middle East, and after he died was commemorated with a
Crusader statue. Nevertheless, this achievement encouraged many high-
ranking military commanders, among them general Allenby, to attempt to
conceal the connection to the Crusades in order to calm Muslim hostility.
Ironically, Allenby was not the one who said that conquering Jerusalem

University Press, 1962), pp. 246, 277. For examples of Zaydān's treatment of the Crusader
movement, and its heroes see the historical articles and the "editor's response" to readers
letters, which were printed in his newspaper Al-Hilāl: "As-Sultān Salāh Ad-Dīn Al-
Ayyūbi," Al-Hilāl, February 15, 1894, p. 372; "Rikārdūs Kalb Al-Asad, Malik Inklatera," Al-
Hilāl, March 3, 1897, pp. 481-488; "As-Sultān Salāh Ad-Dīn Wa-Mamālīkuhu," Al-Hilāl,
February 1, 1910, pp. 300-301; "Salāh Ad-Dīn Al-Ayyūbi Wa-Rikārdūs Kalb Al-Asad: Ma
Tushābihā Bihi Wa-Ma Ikhtalafā Fihi," Al-Hilāl, June 1, 1914, pp. 643-652.
17 For example, in 1911 a caricature appeared in the Beirut newspaper, Al-Himara, in which
Salah Ad-Din is seen expelling Jewish land purchasers from the Jezreel valley. Emanuel
Sivan, Arab Political myths (Tel Aviv: Am-Oved, 1988), pp. 16-20; Knobler, pp. 320-321.

11
marks "the completion of the Crusades" (a quote mentioned at the beginning
of this article). This saying was attributed to him, most likely after the fact, by
Arab writers, who were recently made aware of the enormous impact the
Crusader imagery has on the awareness.18

 
Figure 2

The knight on the white horse: St. George, as a

medieval Crusader is going to fight in World War I, in
a British propaganda flyer from 1915.
Source: http://www.world-war-pictures.com/
british-war-picture/wargb004.html

The Twentieth Century: the Penitent Crusader and the Muslim and
Arab Counterattack

This is what led up to the period between the end of World War I and the
middle of the twentieth century. It is a period that marks the beginning of the

18 For more examples of the West treating World War I as some type of "Crusade" see:
Siberry, pp. 87-103. One of the cases of this is the way Thomas E. Lawrence's (Lawrence of
Arabia) actions were treated as "the final Crusade.” On the one hand, Lawrence fought on
the side of Christian Britain and France against the rulership of the Ottomans and Muslim,
in what appeared as a modern reenacting of the ancient Crusades. On the other hand, his
joining the Arab Revolt movement and his call for Arab independence were portrayed as
his conducting a metaphorical Crusade in favor of the principle of freedom of expression
and against tyranny. Regarding the likelihood of Allenby's statement about "the end of the
Crusades" being a forgery, see: Knobler, p. 316, 322.

12
latest phase in the development of the modern approach towards the
Crusades. The main attribute of this phase in Western discourse is the
removal of the positive Romantic aura which had encompassed the
Crusaders in the previous phase. It is worth noting that early signs of this
trend already appeared in the nineteenth century,19 but it was truly in vogue
after World War I. This is demonstrated in the writings of historians who
under the influence of the Annales school of thought emptied the Crusades of
all ideological content, and analyzed it according to social and economic
parameters – and later according to demographic and ecological ones. On the
one hand, these historians presented the movement as a proto-colonial
enterprise, and in that respect were similar to the pro-imperialist writers of
the nineteenth century. On the other hand, they showed that the movement’s
true purpose was a violent takeover by the residents of Northern Europe over
the rich developed Mediterranean expanse – and thus brought back into the
spotlight the critical tone of the Age of Enlightenment thinkers.20
This form of interpretation became the dominant one in Western
discourse during the twentieth century. It left its mark on a new breed of
Arab intellectuals and politicians who championed Pan-Arab Nationalism
(Qawmīyya) or state particularism (Watanīyya). As one article from the mid-
1920s demonstrates, these figures enthusiastically accepted the western
historians' claims that "from the outset it was not religious thinking that
guided the Crusades, but rather the desire for conquests and political
control."21 They also warmly adopted the description that the "West"
possesses an almost eternal desire to steal areas from the "Arab East," plunder
its treasures and copy its innovations. According to them the West did this
once by falsely representing Jesus, and now by partitioning the area into
artificial countries, supporting the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine
and aiding it.22 This description appealed to the Arab nationalists for two
reasons: it flattered their positive self-image as being culturally and
materialistically superior to the West in the past, and it revealed that the
Crusades’ aggression is the reason for the change of roles in the new age.
In the second half of the twentieth century, after the Colonial powers left
the area, the propaganda continued and the court historians of the Pan-Arab
regimes began to create analogies between their old (Britain and France) and
new (Israel and the US) enemies and the medieval Crusaders. In addition,
they frequently compared between the ruling leaders (particularly Gamāl

19 For examples of nineteenth century nineteenth century criticisms of the attempts to

magnify and glorify the Crusaders, see: Siberry, pp. 85, 165-166.
20 Riley-Smith p. 67
21 See for example: "Fikrat Al-Ḥurūb Al-Ṣalībīyya: Bayna Ash-Sharq Wa-l Gharb," Al-Hilāl,
April 1, 1926, pp. 709-714.
22 See for example: Ḥabīb Jāmāti, "Al-Ḥurūb Al-Ṣalībīyya: Hal Kānat Dīnīyya Aw Siāsīyya?,”
Al-Hilāl, January 1, 1935, pp. 337-340.

13
'Abd an-Nāṣer in Egypt, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn in Iraq and Ḥāfeẓ al-Asad in Syria)
and Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn, who became established as a universal, Arab and Muslim
of the first order. This showed itself as a tendency to focus on the rulers’
biographies (for example, emphasizing the fact that the Ṣaddām Ḥusayn’s
birthplace, Tikrīt, was also Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn’s birthplace, and the similarity
between 'Abd an-Nāṣer’s initiative to unify Egypt and Syria in 1958 to their
unification in the Sultan's time) and on changes in the public arena (placing a
statue of Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīnin the center of Damascus, and naming one of the
governorates in Iraq after him).23 The authorities' message behind these
analogies was clear: To beat the "Franks" again at the "second round," which
had just begun, it was necessary for the population to stand behind the
current regime. It is worth noting that this is very similar to the Pro-Crusader
rhetoric which the European powers employed up to the beginning of the
twentieth century to increase the grassroots support for the governments and
their Colonialist policy.
In the past three decades with the rise of radical Islam and the gradual
fading of the national movements in the Arab world, the ideological-religious
content of the discourse on the Crusades and the "New Crusading" has been
reemphasized. The harbinger of this change was none other than the
Egyptian, Sayyid Quṭb (1906-1966), a spiritual father of the current radical
wave. Quṭb identified the "Crusader spirit," fundamentally religious and
camouflaged by Geo-strategic and economic considerations, in every attack
on Muslims by non- Muslims throughout history. Despite this change, the
radical Muslim's formula for foiling the new Crusader invasions was overall
the same as what was suggested by the previous national and anti-
imperialistic writers and speakers before them.24
While the use of Crusader imagery as a tool for attacking the West had
significantly increased in the Middle East since World War II, a similar
process was also going on at the same time in the Western countries. The
horrors that accompanied the traumatic World War, along with the
liberalism, Fascism, Communism and decolonization, which the European
powers experienced following it, awakened in the public and Western
academia a deep distaste for imperialistic wars in the name of ideology. The
Crusades, whose name was connected during the two previous centuries
with imperialism and ideological violence, were increasingly criticized,
sometimes to the point of utter disgrace. As a result, it was not uncommon to

23 Sivan, pp. 32-33, 37-38, 126-127; Ofra Bengio, Iraq shel Saddam (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv
University/Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1996, in Hebrew), pp. 105, 136, 208; Moshe Ma'oz,
Assad, Ha-Sfinx Shel Damesek (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1988, in Hebrew), pp. 34, 55-56.
24 Hillenbrand, pp. 600-602. An example of the prominence of the religious-Islamic rhetoric
at the expense of the national-Arab rhetoric can be found in the responses to the American
invasion of Iraq in 2003; See also: Danny Rubinstein, "Fatwa Neged 'Masa Hatslav' Shel
Hanassi Bush,” Ha'aretz, 23.3.2003 (in Hebrew), p. B3

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encounter in recent decades researchers who viewed the Crusades as
"superiority movement of violent white supremacist colonialism," and
newspaper articles that opened with the words: "If there is one thing that
everybody knows about the Crusades, it is that they were a Bad Thing."25
However, certain communities continued to view the term "Crusade" in a
positive light even as they conducted a severe examination of the
embarrassing, bloody Crusading past. This occurred every time the word
"Crusade" was removed from its historical context and was vaguely defined
as a "struggle for a higher cause." The result is that most of the dictionaries of
the English language published in the last century contain two definitions for
the term "Crusade": one historical (negative), and the other metaphorical
(positive).26
The historical process which has been described up to this point covered
the evolution of certain views about the Crusades in Western countries. It also
reviewed the partial integration of these views in the existing Arab-Muslim
discourse while adapting them to the local political and cultural needs. The
beginnings of a reverse process can be detected from the end of the twentieth
century, which has intensified ever since the 9/11 attacks in the US. It seems
as though the frequent verbal attacks by radical Muslims again the "Neo-
Crusader" West have recently stirred some western writers in turning this
expletive against their accusers. These writers now choose to view the "Anti-
Crusades" Jihad campaign of Bin-laden and his ilk as comparable to the
original Crusades conducted by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. Of
course, this comparison is based on the current consensus that these historical
campaigns are worthy of being condemned.27

Conclusion

Examining the changes in interpretation over the last two hundred years of
the term "Crusade" and associated words can contribute much towards
understanding the true intentions of those who currently employ "Crusader"
and "Anti-Crusader" rhetoric. On the one hand, when the American
president, George W. Bush compared in 2001 the "global war on terror" to a
Crusade, he was speaking, most likely, as an Evangelist and a "Reborn
Christian," and was referring to a campaign to correct the wrongs of the

25 John Ward, "The First Crusade as Disaster,” in Medieval Studies in Honour of Avrom Saltman
(Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1995), p. 255, as quoted in Constable, p. 3; Daniel
Johnson, "How to Think About the Crusades,” Commentary, Vol. 120, № 1 (2005), pp. 46-51.
26 For example see: "Crusade,” in William A. Neilson (Ed.), Webster's New International
Dictionary of the English Language (Springfield, Mass.: G. and C. Merriam, 1944), p. 636.
27 See for example: Martin Kramer, "Islam's Coming Crusade,” The Jerusalem Report, Vol. 16,
№ 24 (March 20, 2006), p. 47; Loretta Napoleoni, "Modern Jihad: the Islamist Crusade,”
SAIS Review, Vol. 23, № 2 (2003), pp. 53-69.

15
world. On the other hand, Bush's opponents in the West and Arab countries
were shocked by his words because they had gotten used to associating
"Crusade" with imperialistic initiatives based on material greed. On the other
hand, the man to whom Bush's words were intended, Usāma bin Lāden, had
declared in 1998 a "Jihad against the Zionists and Crusaders" out of a
religious perspective that the Crusades are a component of an ongoing
Christian-Islamic confrontation (a view that is not fundamentally different
from that of the Arab regimes against which bin Lāden originally struggled).
Finally, there are some intellectuals in the west who recently pointed out that
bin Lāden and his ilk are the executors of an "Islamic Crusade" similar in style
to the original Crusades.
What is common to all four types of speakers is the presentation of a
certain interpretation of the medieval Crusades as the "correct" interpretation,
and the attempt to understand through it the global reality of the past two
hundred years. The irony is that these interpretations were themselves born
from the events and trends that shaped this time period, and they were
applied anachronistically to the Middle Ages. Therefore the multi-faceted
image of the Crusader knight, who climbed onto his horse at the beginning of
the nineteenth century with the help of writers, such as Scott and Michaud,
continues to ride today in the pages of the speeches given at the White House
and in the pages of the speeches of those who seek to harm it.

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