AHC: Islamic version of the Crusades

[MrNumbahOne]

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to find a way in which it is Islamic forces purging into Europe in the name of their faith rather than Christians purging into the Holy Land.

I was thinking that perhaps somewhere in Europe, there's a fervor of Muslim conversion, and they are punished harshly for apostasy and alsl punish the Arab-born leaders who led them to to abandon their faith. In an attempt to protect their fellow Muslims, they gather their armies and invade mainland Europe.

 

[Ultimate Paragon]

Maybe missionaries make inroads into Aquitaine and Southern Italy?

 

[Johnrankins]

They had it OTL, it is called Jihad. They had several in Spain IIRC before being kicked out.

 

[free115]

They had it OTL, it is called Jihad. They had several in Spain IIRC before being kicked out.

Not just in Spain the Muslims also controlled Sicily and parts of southern Italy at one point.

 

[oshron]

and Constantinople as well; the Jihad then eventually ended in the Ottoman conquest of the city via the Dardanelles gun

 

[Danth]

Seeing as the crusades were caused for several reasons
Opening the middle eastern ports (nothing motivates people more than money)
Unifying Europe through a common enemy
Protecting Pilgrims

We can saftely say that any really Christian/Islamic war can be counted as a Islamic Invasion or Christian Invasion

Well first we have the early Islamic expansion where Christian areas such as the Levant, North Africa, Sicily and Spain were taken, the battle of Tours while not a serious attempt to conquer France shows have deep into Europe the early Islamic armies managed to push.

Then their is the Islamic push through Anatolia that ended with the fall of Constantinople, the Ottomans also launched an invasion of Italy in an attempt to take Rome, but while they made a beachead in the Southern Mainland for political reasons they withdrew.

Latter their is the Ottoman expansions where at their height they laid siege to Vienna showing that Islamic armies could threaten even Germany (in an area sense of the term)

In fact it wasn't until the 1920's that a sovereign Islamic state was wiped out from the map of Europe. But even then the victory of Turkey over Greece in their Interwar conflict resulted in its return.

So if anything Islams invasions of Europe has been far more successful than Christianities invasions of the Middle East.

 

['Ezana]

They had it OTL, it is called Jihad. They had several in Spain IIRC before being kicked out.

Not really. The concept of Jihad can often refer to concepts besides military action. Literally, it refers to a "struggle to purify/defend one's faith" which can be defined by being more devout/a good Muslim. Even the militaristic definition of jihad is only used to refer to defensive holy wars, while the crusades were all offensive. The closest English definition of a jihad is a revolution, like the jihads in British India.

 

[Escape Zeppelin]

So if anything Islams invasions of Europe has been far more successful than Christianities invasions of the Middle East.

Indeed. It's popular currently to portray the Crusades as European aggression against a peaceful and learned Islam but that's not the whole story. Islam had already conquered nearly half of the Christian world by that point and was threatening the rest. The Crusades were really only a brief blip in the expansion of Islam.

 

['Ezana]

Thinking about the OP, I think that the holy wars fought by the Ghazis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghazi_warriors) fit the description quite nicely.

 

[free115]

Indeed. It's popular currently to portray the Crusades as European aggression against a peaceful and learned Islam but that's not the whole story. Islam had already conquered nearly half of the Christian world by that point and was threatening the rest. The Crusades were really only a brief blip in the expansion of Islam.

why do people get all hyped up about the crusades as a Christian aggression when they forget to the fact that Islam had been more succeful in their conques of Christendom? I call it double standard

 

[Johnrankins]

Not really. The concept of Jihad can often refer to concepts besides military action. Literally, it refers to a "struggle to purify/defend one's faith" which can be defined by being more devout/a good Muslim. Even the militaristic definition of jihad is only used to refer to defensive holy wars, while the crusades were all offensive. The closest English definition of a jihad is a revolution, like the jihads in British India.

The First Crusade started when the Molems attacked the East Roman Empire. It wasn't an offensive war, it was originally a defensive war protecting the Christian world from the further militaristic expansion of the Islamic World.

 

[Urcea]

Um...yeah, this was OTL, check out the history of the history of the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates

 

['Ezana]

The First Crusade started when the Molems attacked the East Roman Empire. It wasn't an offensive war, it was originally a defensive war protecting the Christian world from the further militaristic expansion of the Islamic World.

I know, it was started by calls for help from the Byzantines in response to Seljuq aggression. I was just saying that jihads are not directly analogous to crusades and that there isn't really an equivalent of a holy war in Islam. The closest thing you have to a holy war are the gazam (wars carried out by the ghazi), but even they were economically motivated and often raided fellow Muslims. You didn't really have anything like the crusades where the Caliph declares holy war against the infidels, rather you have individual Muslim states conquering and subduing their neighbors, usually not by religious motivation. I also wouldn't count the Ummayyad/Abbasid conquests as holy wars because again, I don't know of any records that indicate that the conquests were carried out because of religious motivation. From what I remember, Abu Bakr started the wars because he feared encirclement by the Sassanids and Byzantines.

 

[DominusNovus]

How to get the Muslims to launch an analogue of the Crusades into Europe? Have several of the major Holy Sites of Islam reside in Europe.

Which would require some *serious* changes to Islam.

 

[Oba]

Not really. The concept of Jihad can often refer to concepts besides military action. Literally, it refers to a "struggle to purify/defend one's faith" which can be defined by being more devout/a good Muslim. Even the militaristic definition of jihad is only used to refer to defensive holy wars, while the crusades were all offensive. The closest English definition of a jihad is a revolution, like the jihads in British India.

Point taken, partially.

I don't mean to offend, but frankly I think you are misunderstanding the original thoughts and intentions of Muḥam'ad to the best of current scholarly knowledge (full disclaimer: I'm no Qurʻā'nic scholar myself). So while I am aware that in the Qurʻā'n both "lesser" and "greater" ĝihäd are spoken of - and that violent lesser ĝihäd is perhaps only permissible when nonviolent lesser ĝihäd is not possible, I still say that it is nonetheless undeniable that the Qurʻā'n condones violence in situations that could logically lead to an offensive war in the name of Islam. In brutal honesty, to argue otherwise is the same as saying that the Christians who participated in the Spanish Conquest of the Americas were not "True Christians" because Jesus said to turn the other cheek and Jesus is the word of YHWH.

Furthermore, IIRC one of the conditions of which Muḥam'ad spoke for offensive ĝihäd - namely, that non-combatants not be harmed - is open to interpretation: For example, a Maoist could argue - from the concept of People's War - that this permits would permit the killing of whom Westerners typically call "civilians" so long as they are collaborators with the enemy. Thus, the Qurʻā'n not only calls Muslims to arms tens of times but also IMHO quite arguably records that Muḥam'ad himself would allow an offensive war for the good of Islam.

 

[Oba]

why do people get all hyped up about the crusades as a Christian aggression when they forget to the fact that Islam had been more succeful in their conques of Christendom? I call it double standard

+1. I agree completly.

 

['Ezana]

How to get the Muslims to launch an analogue of the Crusades into Europe? Have several of the major Holy Sites of Islam reside in Europe.

Which would require some *serious* changes to Islam.

That actually gives me an idea. Part of the reason Jerusalem is considered holy in Islam is because that is where Muhammad is believed to have traveled before ascending to heaven, where God revealed some stuff to him. Although, it does not say specifically that Muhammad went to Jerusalem; it says that he went to "the farthest mosque". The Jerusalem interpretation only comes from several hadith, or sayings attributed to Muhammad (that have a reputation for being rather shady in origin). So what if the farthest mosque was interpreted to be the Haghia Sophia or (harder to do) a church in Rome? Then you could potentially get Muslim expeditions to "reclaim" these holy locations for Islam.

 

[DominusNovus]

+1. I agree completly.

I forget the specific individuals involved, but the was at one point, a European official (I think a Frenchman around the time of the post-Ottoman mandates) who apologized to one of the local Muslim leaders for the Crusades. The response of the local was "Why apologize? You lost."

 

['Ezana]

Point taken, partially.

I don't mean to offend, but frankly I think you are misunderstanding the original thoughts and intentions of Muḥam'ad to the best of current scholarly knowledge (full disclaimer: I'm no Qurʻā'nic scholar myself). So while I am aware that in the Qurʻā'n both "lesser" and "greater" ĝihäd are spoken of - and that violent lesser ĝihäd is perhaps only permissible when nonviolent lesser ĝihäd is not possible, I still say that it is nonetheless undeniable that the Qurʻā'n condones violence in situations that could logically lead to an offensive war in the name of Islam. In brutal honesty, to argue otherwise is the same as saying that the Christians who participated in the Spanish Conquest of the Americas were not "True Christians" because Jesus said to turn the other cheek and Jesus is the word of YHWH.

Furthermore, IIRC one of the conditions of which Muḥam'ad spoke for offensive ĝihäd - namely, that non-combatants not be harmed - is open to interpretation: For example, a Maoist could argue - from the concept of People's War - that this permits would permit the killing of whom Westerners typically call "civilians" so long as they are collaborators with the enemy. Thus, the Qurʻā'n not only calls Muslims to arms tens of times but also IMHO quite arguably records that Muḥam'ad himself would allow an offensive war for the good of Islam.

I don't mean to offend either, but I don't think you understood what I was saying. I never said that the Qur'an does not condone violence; I have read it, and there are passages where it does. However, I was saying that there is no complete equivalence between a jihad and a Crusade.

 

[LSCatilina]

Crusades are the logical evolution of the christianised institution of milites through the XIth century and the reinforcement of clerical institutional power. If violence against Christians from a class whom whole legitimacy was based on warfare was frowned upon, the logical outcome for milites, in order to be religiously legitimized, was to use this violence to serve Christians.

I would really really disagree with what Danth proposed as objective of Crusades : protecting pilgrims was already a thing at least one century before (as well armed pilgrimages), Mediterranean basin already was under latin dominance at this point (that's actually one feature that allowed Crusades to be a thing : without italian presence in ME already established, there would be no reinforcement or ravitail possible in first place), and "uniting Europe" is at best a romanticist vision (would it be only because Europe as a concept didn't existed).

Legitimisation of violence and more generally of a military-based social class (less nobility as a whole strictly speaking than milites, aka warring nobility) that is in the direct continuation of Truce of God and XIth councils (it did help that Urban II was issued from this nobility, and most able to speak to them as they could agree with) played the most important part there.
The consequences : conquest, loot and else was more issued from warring than a real planned objective (The constant infighting and hesitation of the nobles supposedly leading the expedition point that).

In this regard, Jihad (I won't go into subtilities about "greater/inner jihad" : for centuries, the best and more widespread expression of jihad was military conquest and expansion of Dar al Islam.) is quite similar : you have there the legitimization of razzias and conquests already practiced by pre-Islamic Arabic society but at the condition it's not made against Muslims but against other regions.
The social configuration is of course quite different, but we have the same essential reasoning.

There's some differences, but more temporal than essential as well.
Crusades were the answer against Islamic expansion. It's made clear by contemporary texts that loss of Spain and Jerusalem were put in the same bag with different recalls of earlier expeditions.
Interestingly, the Crusades provoked eventually among Muslims a revival of Jihad as military expedition, especially by Saladin : on this regard again, we have a religious expedition or ideological base lead against what was percieved against an aggression.

The parallel is really close there : it wasn't before Arabo-Muslim world really percieved the religious/social nature of Crusades that it was able to provide an answer (already existing in its traditions) at the same measure; as it wasn't before western Christianity really percieved the holistic religious/social nature of Arabo-Islamic world that it was able to think an answer.

I would go with Jihad being both the precedent Islamic version of Crusades, and its answer. Differences exists, but similarities are far more present.