To fired-up Franks, all cats were black in the dark. They regarded eastern Christians just as much as victims as Muslims – which was indeed the case.
Muslim historians did not use the term crusader to them, it was not a religious war or a Christian one – it certainly was an unchristian war even if the cross was its symbol. The Muslims called the invaders – for that is what they were – Franks believing that the invaders came from the western European land. Beware of the pit of false associations and assumptions.
Arabs themselves did not use the word, but, irony of ironies, in modern Arabic, sariqun means thieves and bandits – very much like the derivation of the word Tory from the Irish word tóir ‘, bandit or highwayman, but in reality, a member of the Irish resistance to the depredations of Oliver Cromwell’s army in the mid seventeenth century. The implication was that they were a shady bunch. a term with negative connotations widely used among Christian writers in Europe during the Middle Ages to refer to Arab Muslims. Saracen derives form from the Greek, Sarakēnós or desert dwellers.
ELYOUM ELSABA NEWS SERIES
I have my criticisms of the series – it is hammy and very badly dressed, with op shop clothes and fake beards and wigs – i would never have let my crusaders and saracens out looking like that! – and lots of running and galloping around in sand deserts (the Levant is anything but … ) This was most probably due to a meagre budget, but with academic talking heads from Europe and the Middle East giving a commentary in English, French and Arabic, it contains many stimulating talking points, and it makes for a fascinating if harrowing tale. The inspiration and impetus derived from a three part documentary series that screened on Al Jazeera a few years back. Rather it is a synthesis my own knowledge of the history of the Middle East and opinions and observations derived therefrom. It does not claim to be a comprehensive and scholarly treatise – erudite and dedicated historians have been there and done that. What follows is a contemplation on the origins, character and events of the crusades. A selection of my photographs accompanies this article. In succeeding years, I widened my early, naive perspective, learned more about the crusades and actually visited many of the fortresses the invaders built to defend their stolen patrimony. Indeed, westerners, long on romanticism and short on historical knowledge, associate crusades and crusaders with medieval knights, red crosses emblazoned on white surcoats and shields and wielding broadswords battling it out with swarthy scimitar-swinging, be-turbaned Saracens. From the television serials and films of Robin Hood and Ivanhoe to Ridley Scott’s dubious, flashy, but entertaining Kingdom of Heaven. The Crusades have enthralled me from an early age. In 1099, things changed utterly for east-west relations, whilst the crusaders and the fiefdoms they established in the Levant have haunted historical memory to this day.
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The story that dominated the news in the last year of the Eleventh Century was how the heirs to the Roman Empire in the west, the Franks and the Normans, descendants of nomadic marauders who broke the power of Rome, fired up with religious zeal and the prospects of material gain, embarked upon the first of a series of Crusades to free the Holy Land and the paths that Jesus trode, from the heathen Mohammedan.
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