The Revival of Jihad and the Rise of Saladin

Ironically, just when the crusader states started acting like secular powers with no particular religious raison d’ d’être, religious war, jihad, enjoyed a revival in the Muslim states. Powerful Muslim leaders discovered that the call to Jihad could be used to  suppress dissent, to eradicate domestic opponents, and to legitimize and popularize war. In short, jihad justified both external aggression and internal oppression.

The trend started with Zengi who had at times employed the language of jihad to justify his conquests. Contemporaries and historians agree, however, that Zengi was not motivated by religious zeal. Rather, he cynically used calls for jihad to motivate the masses. His son Nur al-Din, in contrast, did not simply trot out jingoistic slogans against ‘polytheists’ and ‘pigs,’ he systematically supported Sunni orthodoxy. This included support for religious institutions, particularly madrasas. The latter were colleges of higher education dedicated to the study of Islamic theology and law. Madrasas proliferated in Nur al-Din’s domains and provided much of the intellectual underpinning for his wars against both the ‘heretical’ Shias and against the Christians. The madrasas fostered a generation of Islamic scholars dedicated to jihad, and capable of providing the military elites with beautifully worded and meticulously argued religious justifications for the aggression they wished to undertake anyway.

Nur al-Din was adept, indeed masterful, in employing every conceivable media for jihadist rhetoric — whether in personal letters, sermons, inscriptions on tombs and buildings, or poetry.  By all these means, Nur al-Din beat the drum of jihad, calling on his subjects to push the infidel into the sea and ‘restore’ Muslim control of Palestine, particularly Jerusalem. It is hardly incidental that this propaganda also emphasized the need for religious and political unity as a prerequisite of success, enabling him to move ruthlessly against any rivals or dissents in his realm.

To be fair, Nur al-Din did not just preach jihad, he also lived according to Islamic principles. As a ruler, he founded and sponsored hospitals, orphanages, bathhouses and mosques, while also placing great emphasis on ruling justly. As an individual he prayed, listened to readings of the Koran, abstained from alcohol, and forbade music and dancing in his court and camp. William Archbishop of Tyre called Nur al-Din ‘a mighty persecutor of the Christian name and faith’ but acknowledged his fundamental piety by noting  he ‘was a just prince, valiant and wise, and, according to the traditions of his race, a religious man.’[i] Indeed, according to the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch (Michael I Rabo, 1166-1199), Nur al-Din ‘considered himself like Muhammed, and was waiting for the Lord to speak to him as he had to Moses.’[ii] Nur al-Din’s death was allegedly welcomed by many of his subordinates who resented his puritanical Islam and disliked the fact that prayer had banished music, dance and wine. 

His death was also welcomed by Saladin, albeit for very different reasons. Saladin, namely, had come to power in Egypt without the approval of his sultan and he was in trouble with him. Nur al-Din had, to be sure, sent his trusted Kurdish emir Shirkuh to Cairo, and Shirkuh’s murder of the Fatimid vizier Shawar been in Nur al-Din’s interest. Shirkuh’s coup enabled a Sunni to seize control of the Fatimid state, making it only a matter of time before the Shia caliph also disappeared.

Saladin’s coup on the death of his uncle Shirkuh, on the other hand, was not sanctioned by Nur al-Din. Saladin had been elected by the emirs in Egypt, a majority of which were Kurds, without consulting the sultan’s wishes. Furthermore, the election took place before a background of threatening crisis. Despite Shirkuh’s coup, the Egyptian bureaucracy and military remained intact and many of these men were still loyal to the Fatimids. The Frankish threat also remained real after five successive invasions, several of which had come close to taking Cairo. Both factors made the rapid election of a new vizier essential. Sending to Nur ad-Din in Damascu for his advice or approval did not seem practical. Saladin proved to be the candidate on whom everyone could agree, although by no means enthusiastically.

Yet Saladin’s rule was far from secure. He had to ruthlessly suppress a revolt by the Nubian troops, burning their families alive, to force them to withdraw from Cairo in exchange for their lives — only to betray them and slaughter them anyway. He then billeted his own troops in their former barracks for his own safety. Clearly, the situation remained volatile until another timely death came to Saladin’s rescue: the Fatimid Caliph died. This enabled Saladin, officially the caliph’s chief officer and protector, to simply end the ‘heretical’ caliphate. Saladin blandly announced to the caliph’s son and should-be successor that his father ‘had not made a bequest that recognized him as his successor.’[iii] Indeed, Saladin had not even waited for the critically ill caliph to die. He had ordered the imams in the mosques of Cairo to substitute the Sunni caliph for the Fatimid one in their Friday prayers a week before the caliph’s death. The Egyptian people, tired of war, acquiesced in the change of religion as well as the change of ruler.

Nur al-Din, on the other hand, might welcome the extermination of the Fatimid Caliphate, but he was alarmed by Saladin’s increasingly independent behavior. He rightly suspected that Saladin no longer viewed himself the Sultan’s servant, but rather as his equal and rival. To reassert his authority, Nur al-Din ordered Saladin to assist in a campaign against the Frankish castle of Kerak.

Saladin feared that if he showed up, he would be arrested or otherwise removed from his lucrative position in Cairo. So, he told Nur al-Din that there were rumors of Shia plots against him and if he left Cairo, it would fall back into the hands of the ‘heretics.’ While undoubtedly a convenient excuse, Saladin may not have been fabricating these rumors. A plot was uncovered hatched by pro-Fatimid elites, who hoped to drive Saladin and his Kurdish/Turkish troops out of Egypt with the help of the Sicilians and the Franks. The plot was foiled by a traitor in their ranks, and Saladin had the traitors arrested, killed and crucified. Despite this action against the known traitors, Saladin remained sufficiently insecure to dismiss all Jews and Coptic Christians from his bureaucracy.

Yet no matter how real the threats, Nur al-Din didn’t believe they were the reason Saladin consistently failed to obey orders. By early 1174, Nur al-Din’s patience had run out. He prepared an invasion of Egypt to bring Saladin to heel. Saladin, however, was saved yet again by a timely death. Nur al-Din fell mortally ill before he could embark on his campaign and died on 15 May 1174. He left behind a nine-year-old boy, al-Salih, as his heir.

The competition between the various Seljuk princes for control of Nur al-Din’s empire began at once. Saladin was only one of several contenders, and at this point in time he gave no indication of being more moral or more religious than any of the others. Indeed, from this point forward until shortly before his death, Saladin was predominantly preoccupied with fighting his Sunni Muslim rivals. Furthermore, throughout his career, Saladin relied heavily upon nepotism. He consistently appointed family members to positions that controlled fiscal and military resources, an indication of fundamental insecurity. Although he gained control of Damascus bloodlessly and rapidly in October 1174, al-Salih took refuge in Aleppo and remained a rallying point for dissatisfied subjects and emirs. It was 1183 before al-Salih died and Saladin could take Aleppo. Even then, he faced serious opposition from Mosul, which remained in the hands of the Zengid dynasty.

As seen from Jerusalem, however, Saladin was the greatest threat to the Kingdom since its inception. Hostility between Shia Egypt and Sunni Damascus represented a fracture in Dar al-Islam in the Middle East that the Franks had been able to exploit. To have the vast financial resources of Cairo controlled by the same hostile power that held near-by Damascus was inherently threatening. What made the situation even more dangerous was that Saladin continued Nur al-Din’s policy of publicly and ardently expounding jihad.

Whether Saladin pursued jihad from conviction or expediency is controversial. Was jihad only a means to distract his subjects from his usurpation of power and his Kurdish extraction? Christopher Tyreman argues that Saladin was ‘a conquering parvenue with no legitimacy,’ who ‘needed to demonstrate his religious credentials … through overt performance of Koranic models [including] dedication to the culture of jihad.’ He argues that ‘regardless of Saladin’s private beliefs’ his political situation required him to behave like a model Islamic leader.[iv] Other historians go even further, suggesting that the promotion of jihad by Saladin’s regime did not originate with him at all, but was rather the work of his sophisticated bureaucracy, manned by the graduates of Nur al-Din’s madrasas. Contemporary Muslim critics of Saladin such as al-Wahrani depict Saladin’s court in Egypt in 1177 as wanton and rife with drunkenness and homosexuality. Then again, accusations of sexual misconduct, intemperance and hedonism were standard, almost interchangeable charges routinely used to discredit Muslim and Christian rulers alike, particularly by their respective clerical opponents. Last but not least, many have pointed out that if Saladin had died in 1185, that is before the conquest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, he would be remembered as nothing more than one of countless petty Middle Eastern despots, struggling to establish a dynastic empire by means of bribery, murder, and warfare.

We will never know Saladin’s motives, but without doubt he used the language of jihad to unite and motivate his subjects. Furthermore, in the last fifteen years of his life he sought to live in accordance with Sharia law. There is evidence that Saladin experienced a religious epiphany after an attempt on his life in 1176, and possibly a reaffirmation of his religious convictions in 1185. Like Nur al-Din before him, he built mosques, libraries and madrasas. He gave generously to pious causes and charities. He abolished unlawful taxes, even when this reduced his own revenues. He reformed his personal life to conform with Sunni orthodoxy — and he embraced jihad.

His secretary and biographer, Baha ad-Din, who knew Saladin intimately, claims: ‘Saladin was very diligent and zealous for jihad… [H]is love and passion for it, had taken a mighty hold on his heart and all his being…. In his love for the jihad on the path of God he shunned his womenfolk, his children, his homeland and all his pleasures….’[v]  Baha al-Din claims that Saladin told him directly: ‘…when God grants me victory over the rest of Palestine I shall divide my territories, make a will stating my wishes, then set sail for their far-off lands and pursue the Franks there, so as to free the earth of anyone who does not believe in God, or die in the attempt.’[vi]

 

[i] Tyre, Book XX, Chapter 31, 394.

[ii] Barber, Malcolm. The Crusader States. [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012] 261.

[iii] Philipps, Jonathan. The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin. [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019] 71.

[iv] Tyreman, Christopher. The World of the Crusades: An Illustrated History. [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019] 167.

[v] Baha al-Din Ibn Shaddad. The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin translated by D.S. Richards. [Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002] 28.

[vi] Gabrielli, Francesco. Arab Historians of the Crusades. [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957] 101.

 This entry is an excerpt from Dr. Schrader's comprehensive study of the crusader states.

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Medieval Jihad

  The concept of jidad predated the crusades by more than four hundred years. Before one can begin to understand the crusades, it is necessary to first understand jihad as it was understood and practiced in the Middle Ages. Below is a short explanation.

Jihad is the theology that justified all Muslim conquest throughout the Middle Ages.

Although Islamic scholars also recognize “internal” jihad, the struggle against sin and the striving for a more perfect Islamic life on the personal level, the external jihad against non-believers was recognized as legitimate — and was practiced — from the earliest days of Islam.

Islam divides the world into two houses or camps: The dar al-islam (usually translated as the Abode of Islam) and the dar al-harb (the Abode of War). Thus, in the name of peace, all regions still in the dar al-harb must be conquered and eliminated until the entire world lives harmoniously together in the happy house of the dar al-islam.

Indeed, many medieval Islamic scholars argued that it was impossible and wrong even to make truces with non-Islamic powers. Practical politics got in the way of such purity, and Islamic states found it increasingly convenient to make truces with non-believers. This led to acknowledgement that there was a grey area between the dar al-islam and the dar al-harb, namely the dar al-’ahd — the Abode of the Treaty.

Nevertheless, such treaties were always viewed as temporary conveniences. Throughout the crusader period, for example, it was widely believed that the absolute longest period of time a truce between a Muslim and non-Muslim power could last was 10 years, 10 months and 10 days. In short, the very concept of permanent peace between Muslims and non-Muslims was rejected as contrary to Sharia Law in this period.

After the death of Muhammad conquests in the Arabian Peninsula were undertaken in the name of jihad. In the name of jihad, the conquests continued:

·       634–644 Muslim conquests of Egypt, Libya, Persia and Syria

·       637 Muslim conquest of Jerusalem

·       649 Muslim attacks on Cyprus

·       678 First Muslim siege of Constantinople

·       698 Muslim capture of the Christian city of Carthage

·       711–713 Muslim conquest of most of the Iberian Peninsula

·       713 Muslim conquest of Corsica

·       717 Second Muslim siege of Constantinople

·     732 Muslim invasion of Southern France stopped on the Loire River by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours Oct. 10.

·       825 Muslim conquest of Crete

·       827–902 Muslim conquest of Sicily

·       837 First Muslim raids on mainland Italy

·       888 Muslims establish a base for raiding on the coast of France

·     997 Muslims pillage the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella in Northern Spain

·    1086 Muslim conquest of Christian Antioch

Naturally, jihad also justified all the campaigns against the crusaders and the crusader states.

To find out what these wars were like, you need to look at individual campaigns, particularly theaters of war such as North Africa, Spain, the Byzantine Empire, the Crusader States, etc.

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A Crushing Defeat over Saladin - The Battle of Montgisard

In in 1177, Salah-ad-Din (known in the West as Saladin) launched a full-scale invasion of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem.  It was less than ten years since Saladin had assassinated his way to power in the Fatimid Caliphate in Cairo, and ruthlessly suppressed numerous rebellions to establish Sunni rule over the Shia and Coptic Christian population on the Nile. It was only three years since the coup d’etat in Damascus by which he had established himself in the heart of Syria but failed to take key cities such as Aleppo and Mosul that remained loyal to the son and legal successor of Nur ad Din. Saladin had thus largely united the Caliphates of Cairo and Baghdad for the first time in 200 years, but his hold on power was precarious. In Egypt his faced suspicion and opposition because he was Sunni, and in Syria he was viewed as a usurper and upstart because he was a Kurd and had stolen the Sultanate from the rightful heir.

A Contemporary Depiction of Salah-ad-Din from an Islamic Manuscript

Saladin countered these internal doubts and dissatisfaction with his rule with the age-old device of focusing attention on an external enemy: the Christian states established by the crusaders along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. These states represented not merely a military threat to his lines of communication between Egypt and Syria, but had also five times in the 1160s invaded Egypt. These were not all outright wars of aggression, as the Shia Viziers had requested Christian help against their Sunni enemies in three of the campaigns, but the fact remained that army of Jerusalem, often aided by Byzantine fleets, had conducted campaigns on Egyptian territory and once come close to capturing Cairo.

Saladin did not simply beat the drum of alarm concerning an external enemy in order to rally his subjects around him; he took up the cry of “jihad” — Holy War. This was a clear attempt to increase his stature vis-a-vis his remaining rivals in Syria. Salah-ad-Din means “righteousness of the faith,” and Salah-ad-Din throughout his career used campaigns against the Christian states as a means of rallying support.

Another depiction of Saladin; Source Unknown

Saladin had not invented jihad. The word itself appears multiple times in the Koran, but with varying meanings. It was also used as justification for the Muslim conquests of the 7^th Century.  It had, however, been largely forgotten or neglected until Nur ad-Din, the Seljuk ruler of Syria from 1146-1174, resurrected the concept. Most historians agree, however, that Nur ad-Din used jihad when it suited him but remained a fundamentally secular ruler. He had, however, unleased the jinni from the bottle and the concept of “Holy War” soon gained increasing support in the madrassas and mosques across the Seljuk territories of the Near East. By the time Saladin came to power there was a body of already radicalized youth eager to follow the call to jihad.

Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, King Amalaric, who had been so intent on conquering parts if not all of Egypt, had died.  He had been succeeded by Baldwin IV, a youth suffering from leprosy. Conscious of his own weakness and immanent death, Baldwin IV sent to the West for aid, and in early August 1177, Count Philip of Flanders reached Acre with a large force of Western knights.

On the advice of the High Court, Baldwin IV offered Philip of Flanders the regency of his kingdom, whose armies were preparing yet another invasion of Egypt aided by a large Byzantine fleet. Flanders, however, insisted on being made king of any territories the joint Christian forces conquered. The idea did not sit well with either the King of Jerusalem or the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, both of whom were footing the bill and providing the bulk of the troops for the expedition. The result was that the entire expedition was called off, the Byzantine fleet withdrew while Philip of Flanders took his knights and half the barons of Jerusalem north to attack the Seljuk strongholds of Hama and Harim instead.

A Medieval depiction of a Crusading Host

Saladin had gathered his forces in Egypt to repel the impending attack. He rapidly learned that not only had the invasion of Egypt been called off, the Byzantine fleet had withdrawn and the bulk of the fighting forces of Jerusalem had moved north. It was a splendid opportunity to strike, and Saladin seized the opportunity with a force estimated at 26,000 light horse — which leaves open the question of whether there were infantry with Saladin or not. The force also allegedly included some 1,000 mamluks of the Sultan’s personal body guard.

According to an anonymous Christian chronicler from northern Syria, the news of Saladin’s invasion plunged Jerusalem into despair. The king was just 16 years old, had no battle experience of his own, and his most experienced commanders (or many of them) were besieging Hama. The Constable of the Kingdom, the competent and wise Humphrey de Toron II, was gravely ill. But Baldwin rallied the forces he had — according to Archbishop William of Tyre, Baldwin’s former tutor now his chancellor and our best contemporary source , and with just 376 knights made a dash to Ascalon.

Arriving there only shortly before Saladin himself on November 22, King Baldwin took control of the city, but could not risk open battle because of the imbalance of forces.  His dash to Ascalon may have been heroic, but as a result Saladin could bottle up the King and his knights inside Ascalon. This in turn meant that nothing lay between Saladin and Jerusalem except scattered garrisons. Saladin left a force of undefined size to maintain the siege of Ascalon and moved off with the bulk of his troops.

The Sultan and his emirs were so confident of victory that they took time to plunder the rich cities of the coastal plain, notably Ramla and Lydda, but also as far inland as Hebron. In Jerusalem, the terrified population sought refuge in the Citadel of David.

The Citadel of David as it appears today.

But Baldwin IV was not yet defeated. With the number of Saracen troops surrounding Ascalon dramatically reduced, he risked a sortie, rendezvoused with Templars from Gaza (although to this day no one knows how he got the message to them) and started to pursue Saladin’s now dispersed and no longer disciplined army. Meanwhile, he had already issued the arrière ban, a general call to arms that obligated every Christian to rally to the royal standard in defense of the realm. Infantry started streaming to join him.

On the afternoon of November 25, King Baldwin’s host of about 450 knights (375 secular knights and 84 Templars from Gaza), with their squires, Turcopoles and infantry in unspecified numbers caught up with the main body of Saladin’s troops at a place near Montgisard or Tell Jazar, near Ibelin (modern day Yavne).  The Sultan, as he later admitted to Saracen chroniclers, was caught off-guard. Before he could properly deploy his troops, the main force of Christian knights led (depending on which source you believe) by Reynald de Chatillon, “the Ibelin brothers” or the Templars smashed into Saladin’s still disorganized troops, apparently while some were still crossing or watering their horses in a stream.

A modern portrayal of the Battle of Montgisard by Mariusz Kozik

Although the battle was hard fought and there were Christian casualties, the Sultan’s forces were soon routed.  Not only that, Saladin himself came very close to being killed or captured and allegedly escaped on the back of a pack-camel. But for the bulk of his army there was no escape. Those who were not slaughtered immediately on the field, found themselves scattered and virtually defenseless in enemy territory. Although they abandoned the plunder they had accumulated, it was still a long way home — and the rains had set in.  Cold, wet, slowed down by the mud, no longer benefiting from the strength of numbers, they were easy prey for the Christian residents and settlers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.  The latter, after the sack of Lydda, Ramla and other lesser places, had good reason to crave revenge. Furthermore, even after escaping Christian territory, the Sultan’s troops still found no refuge because once in the desert the Bedouins took advantage of the situation to enslave as many men as they could catch in order to enrich themselves. Very few of the Sultan’s men made it home to safety in Egypt.

Saladin was badly shaken by this defeat. He had good reason to believe it would discredit him and initially feared it would trigger revolts against his rule. Later, he convinced himself that God had spared him for a purpose, and he was to learn from his defeat. He never again allowed himself to be duped by his own over-confidence and his subsequent campaigns against the crusader states were marked by greater caution. However, it was not until the crushing defeat of the Christian armies at Hattin in July 1187 — almost ten years later — that he had his revenge.

The Battle of Montgisard is an important episode in Knight of Jerusalem, the first book in a three part biography of Balian d'Ibelin.

A landless knight, 

a leper king,

and the struggle for Jerusalem.

 A divided kingdom,

a united enemy,
and the struggle for Jerusalem

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The Genesis of the Crusades

The Crusader Kingdoms were founded in the wake of the First Crusade, so an understanding of the crusades and their genesis is essential to any study of the crusader kingdoms.

Essentially, the Crusades were a series of campaigns undertaken by Christians in the 11th to 13th centuries to establish (or re-establish) control over the Holy Land (the sites of Christ’s passion), particularly Jerusalem. These campaigns were a response to the expansion of Islam, which had spread in the wake of invading armies that used the sword to impose Islam on previously Christian territory. Most – but not all – crusades were fundamentally defensive campaigns that responded to aggression with aggression.

The successful First Crusade established a string of Christian states in the Holy Land that, although prosperous, were always threatened by the overwhelming military superiority of the surrounding Muslim states. Whenever one or more of these states was invaded or fell to the Saracens (the opposing Muslim forces, which were ethnically Egyptian, Syrian, Kurdish or Turkish; I will use the contemporary term “Saracen” to refer to these diverse but consistently Muslim fighting groups), the call went out to the West for aid – for a new crusade. Thus in the course of two centuries, a total of eight numbered crusades were launched, not counting such tragedies as the Children’s Crusades, the Reconquista (liberation) of the Iberian Peninsula, or the wars against the heathens of northeastern Europe and the heretics of Southern France, which were sometimes also referred to as crusades.

In the course of these crusades, Christian leaders and troops committed many atrocities that are incompatible with Christianity, but not all crusaders were inherently depraved and brutal. Furthermore, the enemy also committed countless well-documented atrocities. These were violent centuries, but they were also a period in which the close contact between the East and the West produced cross-fertilization of culture and art, and a period in which trade and science flourished.

Below is a short chronology of the events leading up to the First Crusade:

The First Muslim Invasion of Christian Territory: 632-750

Between 630 and 750, Islam aggressively expanded across North Africa and into the formerly Christian territories of the Byzantine Empire. They captured the Holy Land, including Jerusalem, and also modern-day Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Cyprus and other islands in the Mediterranean were also either conquered or subjected to destructive raids.

The First Muslim Invasion of Western Europe: 710-732

The first Muslim invasion of Western Europe started in 710 with the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula by Muslim armies from North Africa. The Muslim armies conquered the bulk of what is now Spain and Portugal, establishing Muslim states that over the next five centuries developed flourishing cities and a highly sophisticated culture. In 732 a Muslim army crossed the Pyrenees, defeated the Christian forces in what is now Aquitaine, and continued north, approaching the Loire valley. They were stopped and forced to withdraw by Charles Martel, the leader of the Franks, near Poitiers in 732.

Further Muslim Conquests: 827-878

Sicily and Crete were conquered by Muslim forces.

First Christian Offensive: 969-975

The Byzantine Empire made its first attempt to reconquer lost Christian territory in 969, with the recapture of Antioch. By 975 the Byzantine army had captured much of Palestine, particularly on the coast, but the Christian armies failed to capture Jerusalem. A peace treaty in 1001 ended the Byzantine attempt to re-establish political control over the Holy Land and resulted in a period of intensive persecution for native Christians living under Muslim rule. The situation improved somewhat by the middle of the 11th century.

The Norman Conquest of Sicily: 1061-1091

The Norman adventurer Roger de Hauteville recaptured Sicily from the Muslims, who were fighting among themselves, in a series of campaigns between 1061 and 1091. Sicily thereafter fell under the Latin rather than the Byzantine Church, but remained Christian until the present.

The Rise of the Seljuk Turks: 1056-1075

Turkish tribes, who had converted to Islam, began to establish an empire in the 11th century, conquering large parts of Persia and Armenia. In 1071 they destroyed a Byzantine army sent to stop their westward expansion and captured Jerusalem along with the rest of Palestine. The Seljuk Empire soon stretched from Aleppo to Egypt. Christians, whether pilgrims to Jerusalem or merchants, were now more likely to be robbed or enslaved than left in peace.

The Call for a Crusade: 1095

The Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos saw in the internal conflicts between Turks, Syrian Muslims, and Egyptian Muslims the chance to restore Christian rule to the Holy Land, but lacked the military strength to make an attempt. He appealed to the Pope, highlighting alleged atrocities committed against Christians in the Holy Land and other former Byzantine territories. On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II delivered a rousing speech, calling for Christians to free Jerusalem from the Muslims and reopen it to Christian pilgrims. Urban II was both persuasive and charismatic, and he must have struck a chord with his listeners; it is recorded that the audience spontaneously started chanting “Deus le volt” (God wills it). When he finished speaking, many men crowded around him, vying to be among the first to “take the cross” – that is, to wear a cross on their sleeve as a symbol of their vow to free the Holy Land from Muslim rule. The concept of a crusade – a Christian holy war – had been born. (The notion of jihad – Muslim holy war – was, of course, already hundreds of years old by then.)