Revisiting the Impact of the Crusades on the Muslim-Christian Thought and Development

Abstract

The Crusades had a tremendous impact particularly on the Western Europe; these wars led to the development of the European civilization. The Crusades necessarily include both destructive and constructive elements. It expanded the trade, exploration, and scientific inventions much significantly for the Europe. Similarly, but not as deep and wide as on the Western Europe, the Crusades impact could be seen on some socio-religious elements of the Muslim world. Further, the bitter legacy of these wars widened the hostility, hatred, and dissent between the West and the Muslim world that still is perceived in one way or the other. The present paper attempts to revisit the impact of the Crusades into a broader social, economic, political, and religious context. It will first investigate the Crusades’ impact on the Muslim world and, then accordingly and importantly on the Western Europe vis-a-vis trade, economy, religion, knowledge, scientific inventions, literature to name a few prominent areas. The Crusade imagery, ideology and symbolism are so much powerful and immense so that it has subsided and undermined the constructive/positive impact the Western Europe achieved by confronting with the Orient/Muslim world. The paper concludes that the Crusades’ positive impact and interaction if broadly highlighted and explored, and if given considerable space in public and academic discourses then the possibilities of the East-West tension and hostility could be alleviated to a considerable extent.