{"id":62098,"date":"2025-09-15T23:44:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T21:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/?p=62098"},"modified":"2025-09-15T23:44:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T21:44:53","slug":"the-arab-historian-defends-the-crusades-legitimate-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/2025\/09\/15\/the-arab-historian-defends-the-crusades-legitimate-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arab Historian Defends the Crusades: &#8220;Legitimate Defense&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-128532\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/crociate_guerre_difesa-1.webp\" alt=\"crusades defensive wars\" width=\"604\" height=\"317\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i><strong>Raymond Ibrahim<\/strong> speaks on a podcast and deals with the legitimate initiative of the <strong>Crusades<\/strong> as defensive wars and to halt the Muslim armed invasion of Europe.<\/i><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If even Arab scholars consider <mark><strong>the Crusades<\/strong><\/mark> a legitimate defensive war.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is what <mark><strong>Raymond Ibrahim<\/strong><\/mark> states, a historian of Egyptian origin, specialized in military history and in relations between the Islamic world and Christianity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Born in 1973, a researcher at the Gatestone Institute and the Middle East Forum, he is the author of several essays, including <strong><i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Sword-Scimitar-Fourteen-Centuries-between\/dp\/0306825554\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sword and Scimitar<\/a><\/i><\/strong> (2018), in which he analyzes the 14 centuries of clashes between Islam and the West. He is appreciated and known for his ability to draw on <strong>original Arabic sources<\/strong> and has repeatedly proposed in his books a critical reading of secularized historiography on the <strong>Crusades<\/strong>, arguing that they were wars of defense and not mere imperialistic aggressions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He did so, for example, in <strong><i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1642938203\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam<\/a><\/i><\/strong> (Bombardier Books 2022) and reiterated it in a <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RLk4MnWtQ4U\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">podcast<\/a><\/em><\/strong> in which he recently intervened.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Crusades, necessary responses to Muslim expansion<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Crusades, Ibrahim explained, were heroic and necessary responses <strong>to centuries of Muslim expansion and invasion<\/strong> that had reduced and conquered Christian territories and aimed to defend Western civilization by reconquering lands historically Christian, such as Syria, Egypt and Palestine.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Contrary to the view of some historiography, these wars were not unleashed by <strong>imperialistic motivations<\/strong>, but by a need for cultural and religious defense. Furthermore, the Arab historian points out that the Crusaders \u2014 notwithstanding <strong>violence and abuses<\/strong>, which there were \u2014 were not &#8220;barbarians&#8221; without culture, but individuals deeply motivated by faith, ready to sacrifice themselves to defend their lands and traditions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Within <strong>100 years<\/strong>, after the death of Muhammad in 732, the Muslims <strong>conquered Europe<\/strong>. Well before the First Crusade of 1095, Islamic armies had conquered vast Christian areas from the Middle East and North Africa to Spain and <strong>as far as the gates of Vienna<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Christian communities were decimated and forced to the blackmail of <strong>paying the <i>Jizya<\/i><\/strong> (money paid by non-Muslims to continue their religion) or die. Churches were destroyed and pilgrims brutally attacked, including those traveling to Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Thus, Ibrahim explains, the Crusades were a desperate attempt to repel the siege, to defend Christians, to reconquer what had been invaded and what guaranteed a safe passage for pilgrims.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The Crusades and violence, what history says<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Like every human war and conflict, there were also <strong>atrocities<\/strong> in the Crusades.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In the podcast, the historian does not deny this at all but insists that they must be understood <strong>in their historical context<\/strong>, not presented as proof of the intrinsic violence of Christianity, ignoring the often greater and systematic brutality of the opposing forces.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The interpretation of the Crusades as defensive wars fits <strong>into a broader debate<\/strong> among historians. <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/apholt.com\/2018\/04\/15\/the-first-crusade-as-a-defensive-war-four-historians-respond\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Some years ago<\/a><\/em><\/strong> during a conference organized by the <strong>Society for Military History<\/strong>, <strong>the majority<\/strong> of the historians present sided precisely with considering them defensive-type wars.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When the First Crusade was proclaimed, in fact, the Eastern Christians and the Byzantine Empire lived under the <strong>constant threat<\/strong> of Muslim armies, with territories continuously eroded and populations forced to suffer conversions or discrimination.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Byzantine emperor <strong>Alexios I Komnenos<\/strong>&#8216;s request for help to the West, against the Seljuk Turks, has always been seen as <strong>the proof<\/strong> that the Crusade was born as an act of assistance, not as a colonial adventure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Raymond Ibrahim speaks on a podcast and deals with the legitimate and meritorious initiative of the Crusades as defensive wars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":55,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1910,1871,1872,1873],"class_list":["post-62098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-crusades-crusades","tag-crusades-defensive-wars","tag-crusades-motivations","tag-raymond-ibrahim"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - 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