March 23, 2003
THE LAST CRUSADE:
To the Arabs, This Crusade Too Will Fail: Time is a mighty force. But a new Saladin would hasten the process. (James Reston Jr., March 23, 2003, LA Times)In the West, it is hard to grasp why events that happened nearly a millennium ago still dominate Arab perceptions of Europeans -- and, by extension, Americans. There were five principal Crusades in medieval times, stretching over 200 years, and all aimed at "liberating" Christianity's holiest sites from Muslim control. And though each was unique, they had one thing in common: In one way or another, they were all failures.This is a primary reason Arabs are drawn to this ancient lore. Memory is long in that part of the world, and resentment runs deep. Many Arabs put great faith in a mysterious process they call "the forces of history." Western armies may commit aggression in the sands of the Middle East. They may kill many Arabs, and they may stay for years, even decades. But ultimately they will leave or become absorbed. [...]
In crusades, the war can never be separated from its long and tedious aftermath. In their view of history, Arabs know the Americans will want to go home as quickly as they can. They will not want to bankrupt the American treasury, nor will they want to stay for decades. They will tire of their American crusader kingdom.
Of all the crusades, the third Crusade of Richard the Lionhearted, from 1187 to 1192, most passionately captures the imagination of the Arab world. It is a story not of oppression but of Arab triumph. It had a great Arab hero, Saladin, the defender of the faith and the lance of jihad. Memorials to him dot the Middle East today, from the heroic equestrian statue in Damascus to his colossal palace in Cairo. It was Saladin who crushed the Crusader army in 1187 at the Battle of Hattin. Until his death a few years ago, Syrian President Hafez Assad displayed an epic painting of the Battle of Hattin in his presidential office. Proudly, he would take Western visitors over to it. One day, he would say, a new Saladin will arrive on the scene.
It is doubtful that an American occupation of Iraq, no matter how long it lasts, will erase from the Arab mind the heroics of Saladin or the obligation of jihad or the carnage of the first Crusade and replace it with the democratic principles of Jefferson.
The most troubling thing, if you combine informed essays like this with the one below by Paul Berman, is the possibility they raise that the only way for the West to rid Islam of its totalitarian and murderous aspects will be to crush it as thoroughly as we did fascism in WWII, to demonstrate, once and for all, that the "forces of history" are centrifugal as regards Islam, rather than centripetal. What we may now be determining is just whether Islam can reform before such devastation becomes inevitable. Because radical Islamicism will have to be dealt with either internally or externally and internally would be much the preferable option. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 23, 2003 2:54 PM
Shoot, I've been saying that for 20 years and
people call me an extremist.
About 80 years after Richard left, the Mamelukes
defeated the Mongols
in Syria, a much more consequential event
than all the Crusades put together. But although
the Mamelukes were Muslims, they were not
Arabs, so Arabs cannot take pride in that
victory.
Not so many years after that, Tamerlane erected
his pyramid of 100,000 skulls at Samarkand
(and others at other cities), but you never
hear Arabs thirsting let the blood of the
descendants of Tamerlane.
Syria?
I thought it was in Egypt.
The Crusades still resonate because like the creation of Israel, they were the attempt of a foreign power to take control of lands under the aegis of Muslims in the name of a type of religious nationalism.
If Mongols and Central Asians started making raids on the Middle East, I guess folk memories abou Tamerlane and his ilk would soon reappear.
Ali:
Without being at all argumentative, it's worth noting that the Muslims had taken the Holy Lands themselves.