Fools And Devils: The Unbeliever In Islam And Christianity

Similarities run throughout Christianity and Islam generally, especially in the common Abrahamic thread found in both. Of particular interest and similarity are stories and passages found in the holy books of each religion, even going so far as similar wording in some instances. For example, both the Koran and the New Testament contain a passage that begins several lines with the phrase, "blessed are the..."[1]

Seemingly in spite of such shared ideals, Christianity and Islam clashed politically, militarily, and culturally during the time of the Crusades. The prism through which we can look to best understand this clash is in the differing practices and attitudes towards non-believers.

We will first examine the scriptural basis for these attitudes and practices laid out within the Koran and the Bible. Drawing upon firsthand accounts on both sides, we will then look at the physical examples of these scriptural enjoinders on treating non-believers. Using the writings of Islamic and Christian clerics of the time, we will reconstruct attitudes towards the other side. We will look over the concept of Islamic law regarding non-believers versus the Christian tradition about the same. Finally, we'll look at the idea and role of heresy in Islamic and Christian traditions.

I. The Scriptures

Before beginning in earnest, the author must establish a caveat regarding Islamic and Christian scriptures: detailing these passages is not an endorsement of any belief, but merely stating the religious subtext these passages create on their own.

In this section, examining the scriptural enjoinders regarding non-believers in Islam and Christianity, we will look at the doctrine of separateness found in Christianity, the fate of non-believers in Islam and Christianity, a believer's relationship to non-believers in the two faiths, and lastly, the role of the non-believer in the context of the other religion.

Two verses in the Apostle Paul's second epistle to the Corinthians exhibit a Christian attitude that will be discussed in greater detail as it moves forward.

"Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?[2]

In using the term "unequally yoked" Paul advises Christians to work hard together as a team, but that any attempt to work together with unbelievers (non-Christians) is not going to plow a straight line or bring any good to fruition. In comparing light and darkness, Christ and Belial (a Hebrew word meaning worthless or wicked)[3] Paul is pronouncing non-Christians as opposite and rightfully separate.

Separateness is a doctrine taught by Christ[4] and further emphasized by Paul. The Christian doctrine stresses a denunciation of the world, a shunning and sacrifice of the material in exchange for the spiritual. Over time, the denouncing of the world was an obligation reserved for churchmen, as exhibited in the Cistercian orders[5]. The separation became a vow to be taken when entering into the service of God. When denouncing the world became the province of a few, the doctrine of separateness took on a new meaning. The Christian people could separate themselves from anything non-Christian, regardless of its moral value. Passages such as the one listed above could definitely be construed to support renouncing of anything not associated with Christ.

In regard to the fate of non-believers, Islamic and Christian scriptures are sufficiently vague to warrant speculation. Nevertheless, two examples provide a framework from which to view the differences.

From the Gospel of Luke:

"The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers."[6]

Christ's teaching, comparing mankind before the end of the world as an appointed servant who begins to think his master is delaying his coming and starts to act maliciously, says that the servant will be cut in two and will have the reward of the unbelievers. Aside from the harsh comparison of an unbeliever to such an unrighteous servant, the utilizing of both clauses (e.g. cut asunder and appointed portion with the unbelievers) produces a chilling connection between the two, leaving the reader to ponder what it really means to be appointed a "portion with the unbelievers."

The Koran in its own scripture has similarly vague descriptions but wording helps the reader understand intent, and such is the case with this passage:

"After them We raised other generations - no people can delay their doom or go before it - and sent forth Our apostles in succession. Yet time after time they disbelieved their apostles, so that We destroyed one by one and made them a byword for iniquity. Gone are the unbelievers."[7]

Though the common thread throughout is a destruction of the non-believers by God, the unique concept in Islam is that mankind has been given a chance over and over again by God. While Christians could point to Israelite history as substance of this belief, [8] Islam has in their concept of the non-believer, a more hardened individual who has denied the mercy offered by The Merciful One. Hence, a Muslim does not have the obligation of mercy towards a non-believer; they have had their chance.[9] This hard and fast relation between Muslim and non-Muslim will be exposed further.

In regard to dealings required or regulated with non-believers, there are a good number of examples within Islamic and Christian holy writ. The author offers two, first from the Koran:

"If they give no heed, know that We have not sent you to be their keeper. Your only duty is to warn them."[10]

In this passage, the Islamic tradition of equity is sustained, inasmuch as opportunity is given, but not forced. While this passage was no doubt a comfort to the prophet Mohammed (your only duty is to warn), the Islamic relationship between a man of God and the non-believer is never in starker contrast to Christianity than in the above line, "We have not sent you to be their keeper." Christianity's answer to Cain's interrogatory "Am I my brother's keeper?"[11] would have been a resounding yes.

Heretofore we have looked at the New Testament solely when examining Christian doctrine. While the New Testament definitely enjoins the believer to care after his or her brother or sister in the faith, the Old Testament offers a study of contrast, a seeming conflict within the theology. The commandment of God to the Israelites entering the promised land was the total destruction of every last man, woman and child that inhabited that land:

"But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them...as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee."[12]

All judgment aside, the annihilation of such a mass of people had to have a reason behind it. The reason for the commandment, and subsequent commandments forbidding intermarriage and pluralistic religious worship, is that any suggestion of an outside influence has the potential to lead astray the faithful of God. This religious fundamentalism, even to the point of total destruction, became the heritage of many Christian Crusaders.[13] Making no geographical miscalculations, the Crusaders heading towards the Holy Land must have looked at their march to Jerusalem as a sort of reenactment of the children of Israel, God's chosen people, conquering the pagans[14]. All of the commandments to love aside, the Christianity of the Middle Ages sometimes demanded a separateness that extended to waging total war on those who did not believe the same.

In examining the role of the non-believer in the theological scaffolding of the believer, two distinct patterns develop. In Christianity, the non-believer is put forward as an example of how not to be. While there is no particular portrait drawn of the non-believer, the very attribute of being faithless (faithless in God, in a resurrection, in Christ's atonement for sin) is looked upon with scorn.[15] The corresponding role of the non-believer in Islam is a much more insignificant and passive one. The Koran details what constitutes a believer, (as does the Bible for that matter) but instead of pinpointing the non-believer as an example of impiety, Islam more often portrays the non-believer as a foolish individual. The Koran concedes, as has been mentioned previously, that such are to be warned, and that is the extent to which man can, and should, go.[16] This dichotomy between the evil non-believer in Christianity and the bumbling unbelieving idiot in Islam provides a basis for examining the physical treatment of non-believers during the time of the Crusades.

II. Physical treatment of non-believers

Looking at treatment of non-believers in the two faiths addressed here historically, we have to be careful. To say Islam was more interested in keeping non-believers alive or conversely to say that Christian crusaders were only interested in the total destruction of Muslims is truly over-generalizing. However, these things being said, we have to remember a non-believer in a country surrounded by believers is going to act differently than amongst their own kind. Did Muslims treat Syrian Christians in their lands as they did the invading Crusaders? The answer is obviously no; the Syrian Christians were not trying to stage military rebellions against Muslim rule.[17] Islam was being attacked by Europe and Islam attacked back.

An important point to all of the following historical examples is to show a generally dismissive attitude on the part of Islam of the Crusades towards other beliefs as opposed to hateful vengeance against them. Care has to be taken when considering examples of treatment of non-believers. Was this example taken from a time or instance of conflict, or a time of relative peace? What was the political situation and administration during the time being included? It is beneficial for our purposes to separate the history in this part of the paper into two sections: Wartime treatment and peacetime treatment of non-believers.

1. Wartime Treatment

With the experience of the People's Crusade, that ill-fated group of pilgrims and lesser nobles who were lost to the Turks in Asia Minor, the typical thought is of the large massacre outside Nicomedia. The anonymous author of the Gesta francorum et aliorum Hiersolymytanorum reminds us that a "large number" were enslaved and sold to parts unknown.[18]

Jumping to a little less than a century later, at the Horns of Hattin, chronicler Imad el-Din records the scene of "scholars and Sufis" begging for the opportunity to behead the infidels.[19] Left out of this scene is the fact that thousands of foot soldiers were sold into slavery after the battle.[20] The only ones being beheaded were the leaders and the Knights Hospitaller.

Shortly before the Horns of Hattin, an interesting set of circumstances helps us understand a baser intent of the Muslims conquering Jerusalem and the Holy Land in 1185. Saladin's interest in the Christian occupants of the city was less in murdering or even converting[21] them. His approach was much more pragmatic, and indicative of a pattern. His stand towards the Christians living in Jerusalem was intrinsically getting every cent he could out of them.[22] This situation repeated in other Muslim reconquests after the First Crusade where those who could ransom themselves did so, and those who could not were sold into slavery.

In many of these instances, the only ones slain outside the battle were the leaders or the special knights being held captive. The Muslim appetite for revenge did not extend far beyond the battlefield. Even with Christian medieval inventions like the Truce of God and the rise of humanistic thought, cherishing humanity for its essential worth, Islam of the time still appeared the enlightened faith.[23]

This is not to say that Islam was ever peaceful within its own fold. The Mameluks who took over Egypt after assassinating the Turan-Shah[24] were more accommodating to a weakened St. Louis (though they were mercenary in their attempts at keeping their hostages to become slaves) than they were to the Shah.[25]

A danger arises in reading about wartime treatment on both sides of the battlefield. A decade after St. Louis left the Holy Land, the Kipchak Turk Baybars brutally slaughtered men, women and children in Antioch, an event Madden has called "probably the single greatest massacre of the entire crusading era."[26] The key to understanding this however, is that Baybars did not frame the fight in the view of a jihad or holy struggle, as Saladin or numerous others had. For Baybars, this campaign, as other conquests had been, was simply for conquest's sake.[27] Being a Christian or a Mongol did not matter.

The desire for the other side's conversion has been mentioned briefly, but it deserves a deeper look. Before the defeat of Kerbogha, an envoy visited the Christian camp, seeking a peaceful resolution.[28] Kerbogha or Curbara as he is called in the Gesta Francorum, appealed to the Christian leaders that if they will "forsake their God and their laws, and become Turks in everything, they will have lands and castles and cities."[29] In addition, any choosing thusly would become eligible for knighthood.

Christianity's counterpart might be the famous instance of Richard Lionheart's brokered peace with Saladin, one supposed stipulation of which had Saladin converting to Christianity through marriage.[30] Plainly, not every plank was ratified or carried through.

What might some of the reasons for such a desire for conversion be? In times of war, any possible outlet for defection on the other side would be welcome or needed depending on the relative size of the armies. Looking at that same desire during peacetime yields a different answer.

2. Peacetime Treatment

The substance of the Crusades is so often viewed as the battles that were fought in the Holy Land, with little to no attention paid to the everyday lives of the Christian transplants who ruled singly for 80 plus years in the 12th century and for varying periods after that. By examining the daily relations of Western Christians and Muslims during the relative peace, and the various periods of peace after Saladin, a pattern develops distinguishing the two that has only been implied up to this point: Muslims coexist, while Christians separate.

First, there is the language barrier. While there are instances of minor nobles learning Arabic and other Eastern tongues[31] (even becoming proficient in a few)[32], most of the Latin East employed a handful of interpreters in order to deal with Muslims and even Jews. The doctrine of separation mandated that the Christian culture, and the language through which that culture was transmitted, remain separate.

Legal examples of treatment towards non-believers in peacetime are evident on an even broader scale. The Court of Burgesses (a basis for the modern French bourgeois, and a word denoting the city bound nature of Crusader culture[33]), was convened amongst the urban nobility for the purpose of hearing civil matters. Of course, the testimony of Catholics was the only testimony granted full weight in court.[34] This preponderance towards Catholic Christianity was mitigated by the presence of Armenian, Syrian, Nestorian and other Orthodox and non-orthodox Christian sects, and therefore, concessions were made as to the weight of testimony. Despite these concessions, Muslim testimony against a Christian was void in these courts.

Not only were Christians protected generally under the law, but an account by Muslim chronicler Ibn-Jubayr shows the Muslim attitude towards the courts to which they were often forced to resort: "Doubt invests the heart of a great number of these men when they compare their lot to that of their brothers living in Muslim territory. Indeed, the latter suffer from the injustice of their coreligionists, whereas the Franj act with equity."[35] While the chronicler went on to pronounce such equity as little more than a trap, a ruse implemented to convert Muslims to Christianity, we can see that such a provision in Frankish law was popular, inasmuch as it embraced an ethos of individual freedom, a difference from the community oriented Near East.[36]

In language and law, the Christians were selective in their dealings with Muslims. What of their everyday lives? While the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the nobility of the Latin East had set up a permanent home in the Holy Land, they rarely thought of or saw themselves as anything other than European.[37] The change in locales from rural to urban settings had produced a confining effect on those who had come to fight for Christ. These Europeans viewed themselves as pilgrims, and strangers in a strange land. As the Apostle Paul noted:

"Now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city."[38]

Within that city, and those cities, Christians were keeping themselves from the outside world, both literally and figuratively. Land around those cities was under cultivation and irrigation, but it wasn't being cultivated or irrigated by Christians for the most part.[39]

Muslims, on the opposite end of this spectrum were coexistent by necessity, though they did not give tacit approval of their circumstances through that coexistence. Much has been written regarding the fatalistic nature of Islam, [40] the very word meaning quite literally, submission. Islamic examples of peacetime treatment were more open towards other religions and peoples, noting the existence of Cilician Armenia, and various city-states in the Northern Levant.[41]

Islam's approach at the time was to maintain a delicate balance politically, morally and spiritually in the region. This involved finding the common ground that existed between the religions (including abstention from pork like the Jews), a practice which was much harder than at first blush, as well as making sure certain rights were protected.

Whether during peacetime or wartime, Christians wished to maintain a separate and distinct identity, while Muslims profited from coexisting with the Franks by working with and for them.

III. Reconstructing clerical attitudes

The bond between clergy in Islamic and Christian traditions is composed of vastly different substances. In Christianity's case, the organization of priesthood and the church as a whole was always more pronounced. There was a system of authority, a hierarchy that functioned to keep heretics in check (some would say that such a hierarchy even created the concept of heresy), and to spread the word more efficiently.

Islam from its beginning was less organized.[42] Such a statement does not ignore the roles of caliph, the caller of salat or the Friday preacher. Islam's organization was much more apparent when it came to ensuring and enforcing Islamic law in those countries practicing Islam.[43] This section will examine those leaders and their roles in light of the Crusades.

In looking at spiritual leaders on both sides of the debate, we have to remember that these were preachers, those ordained to gain a reaction. Whether it was appealing to the caliphate at Baghdad[44] or the pope appealing to the Council of Clermont, the words being used were meant to stimulate the hearer to act, often as we will see, towards a violent end.

The role of a preacher in Islam was defined, but not strictly so. Such a preacher, known as a khatib had several duties assigned to him. He was the giver of the Friday sermons and a direct appointee of the caliph. The khatib tended to stay in one location (unless a change of power cancelled their appointment). Their duties warranted great prestige and good money. They were the best paid religious functionaries in their towns and cities and benefited by their direct association with the powerful. Often these men held other positions, since Friday preaching could never extend to a full time job. They were legal scholars who taught the hadith and were prayer leaders.[45] Many could be considered ascetics for the rejection of earthly trappings.[46]

Christianity had some significant differences. The Christian preacher was more often than not tied to the priesthood. Whether a lowly monk or an administrative leader like an abbot, the Christian preacher had a brotherhood. In particular, many of these had come from monastic orders, [47] rather than a parochial background. In this way, the preaching of a Crusade became a matter of fulfilling a vow to God, as opposed to a debt being repaid to the local parish priest. Of course, these preachers were itinerant, [48] yet another difference from the typical Muslim preacher. The Christian preacher was educated in the language of the Church, but knew the vernacular as well, such as the instance of a horrified Guibert of Nogent being called to speak with the pope in Latin when Guibert was much more comfortable in French.[49] Latin's linguistic influence on Christianity was not nearly as entire as Arabic was for Islam, a fact that deserves greater attention in papers other than this one.[50] In the same vein as their Islamic counterparts, many Christian preachers (though importantly not all) were ascetic, combining the renouncing of the world with the renouncing of the unbelieving Saracens and the reclamation of Jerusalem.

Christian clerical attitudes towards non-believers prior to the First Crusade must be viewed through the prism of the subconscious change that occurred about the year 1000 in the Christian church.[51] The idea of a Christ on the cross, versus the depictions previously of a living Christ, created a more substantive and visceral visual for worshippers of who they were worshipping. Likewise, the term transubstantiation (if not the concept), a doctrine formally codified in the Middle Ages, [52] gave a very real and almost discomforting feeling to the Eucharist. Why are such changes important? These changes essentially changed the way that Christianity was taught and even thought of. An already abstract God, who miraculously was three people in one, and who was able to forgive and pardon sin (a concept left open to ecclesiastical interpretation), began to take on a far more literal form. In the Church, one would now gaze on the crucified Christ, eat His literal flesh and blood, and receive quite literal pardon from that God's servant on Earth. These changes paved the way for the Crusades to be preached for two reasons. First, the gritty reality of death involved in the story of Christ was accentuated, paralleling the gritty reality many fighting men lived under. This connection between fighting man and Christ was essential. Secondly, the soldier was toiling not for the land where Jesus lived per se, but where he bled and died. In this way, crusading was making recompense for the suffering of Christ.[53]

Islamic attitudes during this period are harder to pin down outside what is read in the Koran. The extent to which clerics were chroniclers (like the West) is spotty at best. The general consensus is that the prominent role of the khatib began in response to the First Crusade, [54] the victories of which resounded through Islam. The response, that concept of jihad, first taught by the Prophet Mohammed, was revived by Saladin and those preachers whom he had called to be with him during his campaigns. Jihad came to mean more than simply a holy struggle, or inner spiritual turmoil. The word took on a meaning of contending for the faith. The change in thinking, this shift towards a militarized view of Islam, began to creep into the chronicles of this period. Imad-al Din, Saladin's scribe and preacher, compared a newly constructed khatib's podium stored in Aleppo, awaiting installation in a soon to be conquered Jerusalem mosque, to a "sword in the scabbard of protection."[55]

Taking a view of specific Christian thought brings out several conscious doctrines. In reading the varied accounts given of Pope Urban II's speech at Clermont alone, one can begin to put together a pattern in Christian thought that provided for Christian holy war.

As regarding the enumeration of injustices afflicted on the Eastern Christians by Muslims, monk Robert of Rheims' account[56] of Clermont was graphic enough to stir indignation. Tales of disembowelment and decapitation of innocents were unholy and able to move many to action immediately. Even in the midst of hardened warriors, such unspeakable horrors were enough to create a frenzy of distrust, animosity and even hate towards the non-believers.

The scriptural prophecies used in Guibert of Nogent's account[57] show a regard for the Christian current of prophecy and fulfillment that would play a major role in Crusader morale (e.g. The finding of the Spear of Antioch, the regaining of the True Cross). Answers to prayers, open visions and other holy miracles were an essential part of the crusading experience, and the scriptural allusions used by Guibert show this fulfillment on an even grander scale. His wording compared these soldiers of Christ with Israel, opposing the Canaanite non-believers (Guibert's metaphor for the Turks).

What was the most vital Christian doctrine in relation to the Crusade and what did it have to do with approaches to non-believers? The answer lies in two figures: Peter the Hermit and Bernard of Clairvaux. Both preached the Crusade, Peter the First, Bernard the Second. Their texts and contexts were quite different[58] (Peter preached for the reclaiming of the Holy Land, Bernard for a sustaining of it), but the message was the same; namely, eternal salvation awaits those who give up their lives for Christ, whether by the ploughshare or the sword it does not matter. The unbeliever's lot was conspicuously absent from the rhetoric. Such a lack of assignation to heaven or hell encouraged a carelessness[59] that in all likelihood exacerbated any feelings of outright hatred to the non-believing Muslims.

Why was this vital? So much of the New Testament is devoted to beatifying a non-contentious way of living. Preaching a salvation by the sword required an admixture of new chivalry and penance. Knights of a lord became knights of the Lord as they became vassals of a Heavenly King, receiving fiefs of eternal salvation. In teaching love, how can one go above "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends?"

Just as Peter the Hermit's context was different from Bernard of Clairvaux's, we find that Islamic thought is different at varying times. Whereas the current of Islamic thought is overwhelmingly that of reclamation and anger towards infidels during the 12th century[60] (a heritage of anger that the Koran quite literally typifies by the voice of Allah), the subsequent eras are more geared towards personal piety later on.

In detailing Islamic desire for reclamation and the anger felt towards the non-believing Christians, we see metaphors being used, much as we have seen used by the Christians. An important part of Islamic Friday prayers and sermons during this time in the Holy Land was the certification of the Muslim Abrahamic lineage[61] (the Koran's Ibrihim) and the ancient right to Canaan because of that lineage.

Islamic preaching was also concerned with those Koranic passages which emphasize purity.[62] This concept was used to teach a multitude of principles (personal purity through dietary restrictions and moral codes, keeping holy things holy, etc.), however, its use in the Middle Ages was most assuredly a way of declaring the invading Crusaders as impure. By ritual washing and cleaning standards alone, the Muslims had every right to look at the Christians as unclean. Such a literal determination only served to heighten the awareness of these Christians as non-believers.

By piecing together the patchwork of Muslim and Christian thought through this time period, the basis for the differing approach to non-believers is put out in the open. Christians cared solely for their own salvation, collective or otherwise, and took a cavalier (ironically, French for knight) attitude towards all others. Islam began with a personal concept of jihad which evolved into a collective retaliation against all attacks on the faith. In preaching the crusade and the jihad, Christian and Muslim clerics unknowingly shaped the theological stance these two faiths have taken for the past 900 years.

IV. Islamic Law and Christian Tradition

Nowhere else is the difference between Islam and Christianity starker than in the Islamic laws and Christian traditions which govern non-believers or infidels. We will examine first the few similarities, followed by the vast differences.

Islamic legal structure is a complex system, taking into account not only the words of the Koran, but the writings of respected Islamic scholars and clerics who have interpreted the law laid down by that holy book.[63] Under this law, called sharia law, those who were not Muslim were denoted as dhimmi. The word dhimmi denotes protection;[64] ideally, Muslim government is obligated to protect the life and property of those living in the midst of Islam.

The dhimmi was, in having these rights, still a second class citizen in a Muslim country. For instance, weight of dhimmi testimony was not as full as Muslim testimony, [65] especially against a Muslim. This imbalance was not solely Muslim either, as the Latin East's Court of Burgesses functioned on much the same basis.[66]

In considering Islamic legal ramifications of being a non-believer, the Koran's 109th chapter is of vital importance:

"Say, Unbelievers, I do not serve what you worship, nor will you ever serve what I worship. You have your own religion, and I have mine."[67]

By utilizing the spirit of the above passage, any government could find a strong foundation for good religious liberty laws. Though a jizya or non-believers tax was exacted as part of being a dhimmi, [68] the dhimmi actually gained a reputation for being well off and well positioned in society in some instances. Medieval Spain, with its matrix of Jews, Muslims and Christians existing in the same sphere, offers a prime example of how far a minority religious member could profit under sharia law.[69]

Legally in Europe and the Crusader States, Jews and Muslims had rights similar to dhimmis in Islam. A difference arises however, once again, through the doctrine of separation. Separation, even segregation according to religion was what made such atrocities as the slaughter of Mainz, [70] the Teutonic Knights[71] and the Inquisition[72] so easily accomplished. Isolation led to being targeted in groups.

Disrespect no doubt abounded between people of both faiths living in the land of the other. It is inevitable that such intolerant feelings should arise. Despite these feelings, the simple points remain: Islam was ready to offer protection to its minority populations against peril to its essential rights. The secular and ecclesiastical authorities in Europe and the Latin East could not say they were doing the same. Often enough, especially during the Crusades, they were the ones ordering the peril.

V. The Tale of Heresy

Thus far, we have examined the treatment of the non-believer through a tightly defined lens; the treatment of non-believers by the opposite side. While such examination is advantageous, an entirely new view reveals itself when we discuss the role of heresy within a religion, and the treatment of heretics within Christianity and within Islam.

In the same way that the Christianity of the Crusades had a complex priesthood hierarchy, the word heresy is pluralistic and complex.[73] To a Catholic Christian, a heretic could be someone who believed or practiced any number of things contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church. There were great divisions in the first millennia A.D. which resulted in sects devoted to doctrines as diverse as who the rightful pope is to whether Christ (or the idea of Christ) was begotten of God or had existed forever.[74]

Islamic heresy is a much different matter. The simplicity of the Islamic faith relates to the simplicity of heresy in Islam. Creeds in Islam, the seven pillars as they are called, make any diversions from those pillars a deal breaker for most Muslims.[75] The major heresy in Islam consists of how one determines who the successor of Mohammed should be. In this way, Muslim heresy is often political and not theological.

The historical treatment of heresy in Catholic Christianity and in Islam offers an even greater view of the chasm that separates the two faiths in relation to their stances on non-believers. With the calling of the Albigensian Crusade, the Pope for the first time leveled war against those who professed Christ.[76] So absolute was the destruction of the Cathars (the heretics targeted in the Crusade), that even their doctrines are in dispute by historians, inasmuch as most of what we do know about them was written by the opposition.[77]

Islam's inner strife has never been so minute, and was not so during the Middle Ages. The dissensions which led to a victory during the First Crusade for the Westerners were not dissensions based on religious belief about angels, God's substance or even dietary rules. The region was politically fragmented because of the major question in Islam, the question that still causes violence in the Middle East today: Who should be Mohammed's successor?

The answer to this question is answered in two different ways by two different groups. Shia Muslims accept that Ali, Mohammed's cousin, was the rightful successor after Mohammed's death, and therefore reject the first three Caliphs after Mohammed and the influence they exerted on the Islamic world.[78] Sunni Islam teaches that what is essential is the sunnah, or words or examples of the Prophet.[79] The major shifts in power in Islamic history have been along the fault lines of Sunni and Shia, the ruling power seeing itself as a correction or a righting of history.[80]

Catholicism's political ax to grind was always present, especially with the power obtained by the popes of the time. Inquisition became the method of adjudicating heresy during the Middle Ages, an operation which eventually led to the deaths of countless Christians. The Inquisition was also an arm of the crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition in particular used the power of the Church to condemn heretics, Jews and Muslims. This condemnation involved torture in order to persuade the non-believers to revert from their beliefs and accept Catholic Christianity. By putting them all in the same pot as non-believers and enemies of the faith, the Inquisition clarified the extent to which Catholicism had to go to preserve its hold on the doctrine and practices associated with Western Christianity.

Conclusion

BIBLIOGRAPHY

-The Koran, Translated by N.J. Dawood, London: Penguin Books, Inc., 1974.

-The First Crusade, Second Edition, Edited by Edward Peters, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

-Robert of Clari, The Conquest of Constantinople, Translated by Edgar Holmes McNeal, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.

-Sperry, Sidney B., The Old Testament Prophets, Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Union, 1965.

-William of Tudela, The Song of the Cathar Wars, Translated by Janet Shirley, Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1996.

-Thomas F. Madden, A Concise History of the Crusades, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999.

-Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, Translated by Helen J. Nicholson, Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1997.

-Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, London: Al Saqi Books, 1984.

-Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual: 1050-1200, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972.

-King James Version of the Bible, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

-Clarence-Smith, William Gervase, Islam & the Abolition of Slavery, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006.

-Tyerman, Christopher, God's War, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press care of Harvard University Press, 2006.

-Menocal, Mara Rosa, The Ornament of the World, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 2002.

-Gregg, Gary S., The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2005.

-Lewis, Bernard, The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2, 000 Years, New York: Scribner and Sons, Inc., 1995.

-Gibbons, Edward, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. VI, Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott and Co., 1871.

-Tallmon-Heller, Daniella, Islamic Preaching In Syria During the Counter-Crusade, Article from In Laudem Hierosolymitani, Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2007.

- Guibert of Nogent, A Monk's Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent, Translated by Paul Archambault, Philadelphia: Penn State University Press, 1996.

[1]The Koran, Trans. N.J. Dawood, (London: Penguin Group, 1974), 220 / The Holy Bible, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 950

[2]The Holy Bible, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 1149

[3] Multiple Authors, Bible Dictionary, Ed. Robert J. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) 620

[4]The Holy Bible, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 13, 16, 22, 90, 93

[5] Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual 1050-1200, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 12

[6]The Holy Bible, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 85

[7]The Koran, Trans. N.J. Dawood, (London: Penguin Group, 1974), 222

[8] Sidney B. Sperry, Old Testament Prophets, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Union, 1965), 10. The theme of repentance and apostasy is followed through in the Old Testament in no less than five major instances.

[9] Gary S. Gregg, The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology, (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2005) 98

[10]The Koran, Trans. N.J. Dawood, (London: Penguin Group, 1974), 158

[11] See Genesis 4:9. Obligations to family members composed a large portion of Middle Eastern social etiquette in the Middle Ages as well as today, see Gregg, 56-58.

[12]The Holy Bible, 221

[13] Christopher Tyerman, God's War (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2006), 149-50. Jerusalem and Ma'arat al- Nur'man are prime examples.

[14]The First Crusade, Second Edition, Ed. Edward Peters, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998) 32. Baldric of Dol's account of Urban's call at Clermont included usage of the term "Amalekite" and the enjoinder, "With Moses, we shall extend unwearied hands in prayer unto Heaven, while you go forth and brandish the sword, like dauntless warriors, against Amalek."

[15] See 2 Thessalonians 2:12, John 12:48.

[16]The Koran, 158

[17] Tyerman, 225. In addition to mostly peaceful coexistence in many instances, major examples of leadership, such as Armenian administrators and generals in Shi'ite Fatimid Egypt and Jewish physicians in Saladin's army speckle the history of the region during the period.

[18]The First Crusade, Second Edition, Ed. Edward Peters, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998) 145-46

[19] Francesco Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, trans. E.J. Costello (Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984) 34

[20] Gabrieli, 34

[21] Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (London: Al Saqi Books, 1984) 187. Saladin even goes so far as to spare a wedding ceremony during a catapult maneuver.

[22] Maalouf, 195

[23] Maalouf, 200

[24] Thomas F. Madden, A Concise History of the Crusades (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999), 175

[25] Madden, 175-6

[26] Madden, 181

[27] Madden, 181. While Saladin was interested in resurrecting the concept of jihad, Baybars ruthless horrors shocked even the Muslim chroniclers of the time.

[28]The First Crusade, Second Edition, Ed. Edward Peters, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998) 221

[29]The First Crusade, Second Edition, Ed. Edward Peters, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998) 222

[30] Maalouf, 211-13

[31] Tyerman, 234

[32] Tyerman, 231-2

[33] Sally N. Vaughn, The Crusades (Houston: University of Houston Distance Education, 2002)

[34] Tyerman 232

[35] Maalouf, 263

[36] Gregg, 336-338

[37] Edward Gibbons, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. VI, (Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott and Co., 1871) 4-12

[38]The Holy Bible, 251

[39] Tyerman, 238

[40] Gregg, 343-5

[41] Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2, 000 Years (New York: Scribner and Sons, Inc., 1995) 88-9

[42] In comparison to the early organization of Christian churches into apostles, preachers, evangelists, pastors, etc., Islam was relatively simple and straightforward in terms of who to listen to and in what order of authority.

[43] E.g. Sharia Law

[44] Maalouf, 82-3

[45] Daniella Talmon-Heller, Islamic Preaching In Syria During the Counter-Crusade, Art. from In Laudem Hierosolymitani (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2007) 62-3

[46] Talmon-Heller, 64, 66

[47] Citeaux, Bec and others.

[48] Tyerman, 70-71

[49] Guibert of Nogent, A Monk's Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent, Trans. by Paul Archambault (Philadelphia, Penn State University Press, 1996) 107

[50] Though the subject would be an interesting one, (and with ready references), the author does not volunteer to go beyond the suggestion.

[51] Vaughn, Lecture 2. See also Collin Morris' Discovery of the Individual.

[52] Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours, St. Thomas Aquinas and the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), all pronounced the concept of transubstantiation as doctrine of the Church, Hildebert by use of the term, and Aquinas and the council by letter and edict.

[53] Crusading as atonement was not a new concept. See Song of Roland: "And for penance, he ordered them to the battle!"

[54] Maalouf, 187-8, Talmon-Heller, 63

[55] Talmon-Heller, 62

[56]The First Crusade, 26-29

[57]The First Crusade, 33-37

[58] Peter's character and mission are detailed in accounts from Guibert of Nogent, Albert of Aachen, William of Tyre. The purpose behind Peter's ministry is best described from the last author who wrote: "I am prepared under God's guidance to visit them all, to exhort them all, zealously to inform them of the greatness of your sufferings and to urge them to hasten to your relief."

[59] Unknown author, Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, Trans. Helen J. Nicholson (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1997) 231

[60] Talmon-Heller, 67-8.

[61]http://lexicorient.com/e.o/abraham.htm, The Koran, 361-2

[62]The Koran, 142, 162, 323 are some of the major examples

[63] Lewis, 81-2

[64] Maria Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 2002), 29-30

[65] Maalouf, 95-7

[66] Reference Court of Burgesses definition on p. 11

[67]The Koran, 401

[68] Talmon-Heller, 73

[69] Menocal, 92-94

[70]The First Crusade, 109-125

[71] Ibid.

[72] Menocal, 248-9

[73] According to Webster's Collegiate, heresy is derived from the words for "taking a choice" in Greek. Such a meaning denotes a multiplicity of options available to the heretic.

[74] The differences between Eastern and Western Christianity, as well as Nestorian and Jacobite Monophysite sects.

[75] Vaughn, Lecture on Islamic faith

[76] William of Tudela, The Song of the Cathar Wars, Trans. Janet Shirley (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1996), 13-14. In his instructions to the abbot of Citeaux, the pope taught him to "exhort them [the Crusaders] to drive the heretics out from amongst the virtuous."

[77] The Cathars said that this world was the true hell, and Satan was the King of This World. Such doctrines dictated their beliefs in the transitory and material nature of this life, and the ultimate liberation of such with death.

[78] Maalouf, 282

[79] Ibid.

[80] Gabrieli, 210

[81]http://www.ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/HERESY4.TXT