Did the Crusades Intensify the Jihad?
A new book explains the true role the Crusades played on the jihad.
March 10, 2016
Raymond Ibrahim
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The hadiths, and the worldview they have engendered, speak for themselves: “Lining up for battle in the path of God [jihad] is worthier than 60 years of worship.” “If he dies or is killed, all his sins are forgiven … He will be wedded to the virgins of paradise, and the crown of dignity will be placed on his head.”
Themes emerge, some familiar to those following modern day jihadist discourse (e.g., the supremacy of jihad versus all other duties, and the great rewards associated with it)—but also lesser known ones, such as the terrible punishments awaiting those Muslims, according to Muhammad, “who do not believe in jihad … They will be tortured like no other sinful human.”
Mourad and Lindsay make clear that the Crusades did not create the doctrine of jihad, which had already been codified in books such as Ibn Mubarak’s
Kitab al-Jihad some three hundred years earlier. The primary innovation, or “reorientation,” in this period is that Asakir and other Islamic scholars intensified the importance of jihad in the new context of repulsing infidel invaders. They also expanded “the ideology of jihad to include direct and indirect attacks against other Muslim groups, especially Shi’is.” Although jihad had been proclaimed against other Muslims more than two hundred years before the Crusades, afterward, it became a major theme as Sunnis saw Shiites as subversive moles, weakening Islam against outside aggression.
Considering that the Muslim world is even more vulnerable to non-Muslim influence today than during the Crusades, it is unsurprising that in its most recent Islamic State manifestation, jihad continues to intensify, its fury directed against whatever is in its path—Jews, Christians, Yazidis, and, of course, Shiites.
Did the Crusades Intensify the Jihad?
