The Crusaders
On the one hand, the commonwealth of Islam was devoting its attention to the educational and intellectual pursuits, while the Christendoms, on the other, was consolidating its might to wipe out the entire Islamic world. Europe had been nourishing an intense hatred for Islam ever since the Arabs had taken to arms and conquered the eastern possessions of the Byzantine Empire.
All the holy places of Christendom including the birthplace of Jesus Chjrist were under Muslim rule. This , by itself, was a sufficient reason for Europe for breathing vengeance on Islam, but the existence of powerful Islamic states and their continued inroads into the Christian countries did not give them the heart to covet the Muslim territories. However, the downfall of the Seljukid Empire and the unsettled conditions in Asia Minor and Syria towards the unsettled conditions in Asia Minor and Syria towards the end of the fifth century A.H. in many respects favoured a successful venture by Europe . At the same time, the Christendom found a wandering preacher in the person of Peter the Helmit, who didtinguised himself by his fiery zeal and ability to carry away by his eloquence thousands of poor Christians from one corner of Europe to another. Apart from these, numerous other factors, social and economic, contributed to the religious venture of the Crusaders with a hallow of romance tainted with avarice ambition and lust. The first eastward march of the Crusaders towards Syria commenced in 490A.H; within two years the great cities of Edessa and Antioch and many fortresses were captured, and by 492A.H the Crusaders had taken possession of Jerusalem itself. Within a few years the greater part of Palestine and the coast of Syria, Tortosa, Acre , Tripolis and Sidon fell into the hands of the Crusaders.
The Crusaders penetrated like a wedge between the old wood and the new” , says Stanley Lane Poole, “ and for a while seemed to cleave the trunk of Mohammedan empire into splinters.” The capture of Jerusalem threw the fanatical horde of Crusaders into a frenzy which gave rein to their wildest passions: a savagery which their own writers are ashamed to confess, and unable to deny. Here is a graphic account of the massacre of Muslims after the fall of Jerusalem: “So terrible, it is said, was the carnage which followed that the horses of the crusaders who rode up to the mosque of ‘Umar were knee-deep in the stream of blood. Infants were seized by their feet and dashed against the walls or whirled over the battlements, while the Jews were all burnt alive in synagogue. “On the next day the horrors of that which had preceded it were deliberately repeated on a larger scale. Tancred had given of his indignant protest they were all brought out and killed; and massacre followed in which the bodies of men, women and children were hacked and hewn until their fragments lay tossed together in heaps. The work of slaughter ended, the streets of the city were washed by Saracen prisoners.” The fall of Jerusalem marks the beginning of the decline of Islamic power and the rise of the Christian West. It was successful in due course in establishing four Latin Kingdoms-Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli-in the territory bordering the eastern end of the Mediterranean from the Euphrates to Egypt, exposing the entire world of Islam to the danger of annihilation. The ambition of the warriors of the Cross ran so high that Reginald of Chatillon once exp[ressed the desire to cross over to Arabia with the full design of sacking Makkah and Madinah and taking the corpse of the blessed Prophet out of his grave! Never since the rising of the Prophet out of his grave!
The fall of Jerusalem marks the beginning of the decline of Islamic power and the rise of the Christian West. It was successful in due course in establishing four Latin Kingdoms-Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli-in the territory bordering the eastern end of the Mediterranean from the Euphrates to Egypt, exposing the entire world of Islam to danger of annihilation. The ambition of the warriors of the Cross ran so that Reginald of Chatilon once expressed the desire to cross over to Arabia with the full design of sacking Makkah and Madinah and taking the corpse of the blessed Prophet out of his grave! [Saladin,p177] Never since the rising of the apostates following the death of the Prophet s.a.w had Islam been exposed to such a grave danger. The existence of Islam being at stake for the second time in its history, Muslims had take the field for a decisive battle with the Latin West. The opening decades of the sixth century A.H marked the dissension of the Islamic East . after the death of Malik Shah , the last great Seljukid ruler, civil war broke out among his successors and the empire split into many separate principalities . there was then no ruler who had the capacity to unify the forces of Islam and stand up to defend the Islamic world against the increasing pressure from the north-west. “It was a time of uncertainty and hesitation of amazed attendance upon the dying struggles of a mighty empire; an interregenum of chaos until the new forces should have gathered their strength; in short , it was the precise moment when a successful invasion from Europe was possible.” –Stanley Lane –Poole [Ibid ,p.25]
The verse 2:256 of the Quran says: Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah hears and knows all things. Islam wants its adherents to be just to every human being. "Do not let your hatred of a people incite you to aggression." (The Quran 5:2). "And do not let ill-will towards any folk incite you so that you swerve from dealing justly. Be just; that is nearest to heedfulness" (The Quran 5:8). Muslims are asked to be truthful, trustworthy, humble, kind and generous. They are asked to repel evil with goodness, control their anger, and be forgiving. When we speak of human rights in Islam we really mean that these rights have been granted by God; they have not been granted by any king or by any legislative assembly.
Masjid Al-Aqsa, where Messenger Muhammad (PBUH) led the prayers for the other messengers and prophets on the night of Al-Isra’ wal Me’raj.
The charter and the proclamations and the resolutions of the United Nations cannot be compared with the rights sanctioned by God; because the former is not applicable to anybody while the latter is applicable to every believer. They are a part and parcel of the Islamic Faith. Every Muslim or administrators who claim themselves to be Muslims will have to accept, recognize and enforce them. If they fail to enforce them, and start denying the rights that have been guaranteed by God or make amendments and hanges in them, or practically violate them while paying lip-service to them, the verdict of the Holy Quran for such governments is clear and unequivocal:
"Those who do not judge by what God has sent down are the disbelievers." (Kafirun). 5:44 The following verse also proclaims: "They are the wrong-doers (zalimun)" (5:45), while a third verse in the same chapter says: "They are the evil-livers (fasiqun)" (5:47).
In other words this means that if the temporal authorities regard their own words and decisions to be right and those given by God as wrong they are disbelievers. If on the other hand they regard God's commands as right but wittingly reject them and enforce their own decisions against God's, then they are the mischief-makers and the wrong-doers. Fasiq, the law-breaker,is the one who disregards the bond of allegiance, and zalim is he who works against the truth.
Thus all those temporal authorities who claim to be Muslims and yet violate the rights sanctioned by God belong to one of these two categories, either they are the disbelievers or are the wrong-doers and mischief-makers. The rights which have been sanctioned by God are permanent, perpetual and eternal. They are not subject to any alterations or modifications, and there is no scope for any change or abrogation.
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