Syria: A Short History/14
THE CRUSADES
On November 26, 1095, Pope Urban II delivered a fiery
speech at Clermont in southern France urging the believers
to 'enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre, wrest it from
the wicked race and subject it' to themselves. Judged by its
results this was perhaps the most effective speech in history.
'Dens vult' (God wills [it]) became the rallying cry and was
reiterated throughout Europe, seizing high and low as if by
a strange psychological contagion.
The response, however, was not all motivated by piety. Besides the devout there were military leaders intent upon new conquests for themselves; merchants from Genoa and Pisa whose interest was more commercial than spiritual; the romantic, the restless, the adventurers ever ready to join a spectacular movement; the criminals and sinful who sought absolution through pilgrimage to the Holy Land ; and the economically and socially depressed individuals to whom ' taking the cross' was more of a relief than a sacrifice. Other factors were involved: papal aid in pushing back the Moslems had repeatedly been solicited by the Byzantine emperor Alexius Comnenus, whose Asiatic possessions had been overrun by Seljuks almost as far as Constantinople. The pope viewed these importunities as providing an oppor- tunity for healing the schism between Byzantium and Rome and establishing himself as head of Christendom.
By the spring of 1097 some hundred and fifty thousand men, mostly from France and adjacent lands, had re- sponded. They set out overland for Constantinople, wear- ing as a badge the cross which gave them their name. Their route lay across Anatolia, then the domain of the Seljuks of Konya. They restored Nicaea to the Byzantines, defeated the Seljuk forces at Dorylaeum and proceeded south-east to the mountain barrier of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus.
Here the leaders started squabbling among themselves and planning local conquests each for himself. The first such ventures in Cilicia collapsed, but then Baldwin of Boulogne swung eastward into a territory occupied by Armenian Christians and early in 1098 set himself up as count of Edessa. Meanwhile the bulk of the Crusading army was pouring into northern Syria, its main objective, held by Seljuk amirs akin to those they had defeated in Anatolia. Antioch was the first Syrian city in their path, notable as the cradle of the first organized Christian church. They settled down confidently to a siege which proved unexpectedly long and arduous (October 2, 1097, to June 3, 1098). Attempts at relief by Ridwan of Aleppo and Duqaq of Damascus were repelled. At last treachery on the part of a disgruntled Armenian commander of one of the towers gave them access to the city.
No sooner, however, had the besiegers made their entry than they found themselves besieged. Karbuqa, a Seljuk adventurer who had wrested Mosul from its Arab rulers, arrived from his capital with reinforcements. The suffering from plague and starvation in the course of the twenty-five days that ensued was perhaps the worst ever experienced by Franks in Syria. Heartened by discovery of the 'holy lance' which pierced Christ's side, the Crusaders made a bold sortie which forced Karbuqa to withdraw. Bohemond, the shrewdest and ablest of all the Christian leaders, remained in charge of the newly acquired principality, Antioch and its territory. The Byzantine emperor expected the re-annexation of Antioch to his empire but was disappointed.
Also disappointed was Bohemond's rival Raymond of Toulouse, who pushed southward up the Orontes valley with his Provencals. After a futile siege of Arqah he was joined by Baldwin's brother Godfrey of Bouillon, who had followed the coastal route south. They struck the coast at Tortosa and made contact with the Italian fleet. The re- united Crusaders avoided Latakia, which was being occupied by naval forces of the Byzantines, who had become alienated from the Latins. In Batrun the Crusaders established con- tacts with the Maronites, 'a stalwart race, valiant fighters', who provided greatly needed guides. Following Tripoli's precedent, the amir of Beirut offered money and a bountiful supply of provisions. The gardens of Sidon, where the Crusaders pitched their tents by the running water, pro- vided a welcome resting-place for a few days. Passing Acre, Caesarea and al-Ramlah, on June 7 they sighted their goal — Jerusalem.
The Crusaders then numbered some forty thousand, of whom about half were effective troops. The Egyptian garrison may be estimated at a thousand. At the end of a month's siege conducted by Godfrey, Raymond and Bohemond's nephew Tancred, the city was stormed (July 15) and its population was subjected to an indiscriminate slaughter. A third Latin state was set up under Godfrey, a devout leader and hard fighter. Allegedly reluctant to wear a crown of gold where Jesus had worn a crown of thorns, Godfrey chose the title 'defender of the Holy Sepulchre 9 . During his brief reign he defeated the Fatimid army near Ascalon, but this seaport with its Egyptian gar- rison remained a dangerous outpost and naval base. Jaffa and Haifa were occupied with naval aid from the Pisans and Venetians respectively. Tancred carved out a princi- pality in Galilee.
When Godfrey died his brother Baldwin (1 100-1 118) was summoned from Edessa and crowned king. Baldwin was the real founder of the Latin kingdom. His immediate task was to reduce the coast towns and thus ensure sea com- munication with the homeland and forestall hostile action by the Egyptian fleet. In the seamen of the Italian republics he found eager and greedy allies. These men insisted on a
share of the booty, special quarters in the captured towns 
Map of the crusader states of Syria and Lebanon
of importing and selling merchandise without paying taxes. Arsuf and Caesarea were taken in 1101 with Genoese aid. Strongly walled Acre capitulated three years later as a result of attacks by Pisan and Genoese ships. In 1110 Beirut was besieged by land and sea for eleven weeks and then stormed. In the same year Sidon was taken with the aid of a Norwegian fleet of sixty ships. Baldwin extended his kingdom southward too, building a formidable fortress, Krak de Montreal, south of the Dead Sea (1115), to threaten the caravan route from Damascus to Egypt and Hejaz. The Latin states to the north were likewise expanding.
Raymond, who had had his eye on Tripoli ever since he passed there, returned after the capture of Jerusalem and commenced a siege which dragged on until 1109, four years after Raymond's death. Tripoli became the capital of a county, fourth and last of the Latin states. Latakia had been added in 1103 by Tancred to his captured uncle's principality of Antioch, and Apamea in 1106. Parts of Cilicia were also included in it from time to time.
During the reign of Baldwin II (1118-1131) the Crusader states reached their approximate maximum, and all three of the northern principalities — Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa — owed nominal allegiance to the king of Jerusalem. Their remarkable success must have inspired the Franks with con- fidence and an optimistic outlook. But in reality the pro- spects were not so bright. Except in the very north and south, the area was limited to the littoral — a narrow Christian territory set against a dark background of Islam. Not a town was more than a day's march from the enemy. Inland cities, such as Aleppo, Hamah, Horns, Baalbek and Damascus, were never conquered though occasionally as- saulted. Tyre was taken in 1124 from the Fatimids. Within their own territories the Franks were spread thin. Even in Jerusalem and other occupied cities they never formed more than a minority. Clearly such exotic states could hold their own only as long as they received a constant supply of fresh recruits from home and the forces of opposition were not unified under strong leadership.
Their early good fortune in finding Syria divided among weak and mutually hostile amirs — some eager to appease the Franks and have them as allies — could not last in- definitely, but it did last for several decades. When Duqaq of Damascus died (1104), his young son's regent Tughtigin usurped power and passed it on after his death to his sons, who kept Damascus independent until 1154 by alternately fighting the Franks and making alliances with them. Rid- wan's heirs at Aleppo were incompetent, and in 1117 the town passed into the hands of Il-Ghazi, a Turkoman who ruled Mardin. He was a redoubtable warrior against the Crusaders, but could never secure sufficient Moslem aid to do permanent damage.
In 1128 Aleppo was annexed by another warlike Turk, Imad-al-Din Zengi of Mosul. In subsequent years Zengi added Hamah, Horns and Baalbek to his realm, and in 1144 he wrested Edessa from the Franks. Its fall marks the beginning of the turn of the tide in favour of Islam. On the European side it provoked the so-called second Crusade (1147-1149). The usual classification of the Crusades, how- ever, into a fixed number of campaigns is artificial, as the stream was somewhat continuous and the line of demar- cation not sharply drawn. A more satisfactory division would be into first a period of Latin conquest extending to 1144; second a period of Moslem reaction inaugurated by Zengi and culminating in the brilliant victories of Saladin; and third a period of petty wars, coinciding roughly with the thirteenth century, in which the Ayyubids and the Mamluks figured and which ended in driving all Crusaders out of the land.
At Zengi's death (1146) the task of advancing the Islamic cause passed to his son Nur-al-Din Mahmud. The Crusade, led by Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, failed miserably. More capable than his father, Nur-al- Din in 1154 wrested Damascus from the grandson of Tughtigin, thereby removing the last buffer between Jeru- salem and Zengid territory, which now stretched from Mosul to Hawran. Realizing the decrepit condition of the Fatimids and the advantage of placing Jerusalem where it could be crushed between an upper and a lower millstone, Nur dispatched an able Kurdish general named Shirkuh to Egypt. Here he succeeded in 1169, through diplomatic and military victories, in persuading the Fatimid caliph al- Adid to appoint him vizir. Two months after his investiture Skirkuh died and his mantle fell on his brother's son Salah- al-Din Yusuf ibn-Ayyub (rectitude of the faith, Joseph son of Job), known to us as Saladin.
Saladin was born in 1138 of Kurdish parents at Takrit on the Tigris. When a year old he moved with the family to Baalbek, over which his father Ayyub had been appointed commander by Zengi. The youth, at first reluctantly, em- barked on a military career devoted to the pursuit of three objectives : replacing Shiite with Sunnite Islam in Egpyt, uniting Egypt and Syria under one sceptre and pressing the holy war against the Franks. The first proved to be the easiest to realize. As al-Adid lay on his deathbed in 1171, Saladin as vizir simply substituted in the Friday prayer the name of the contemporary Abbasid caliph al-Mustadi. Thus came to its end the Fatimid caliphate. Incredible as it may seem, the momentous change was effected without even c the butting of two goats'. Thereby Saladin became the sole ruler of Egypt. The second ambition was realized in 1177 when his Syrian suzerain Nur-al-Din passed away. A few minor engagements snatched Syria from the hands of the eleven-year-old son of Nur-al-Din. With the first two goals attained, the third entered the range of possibility.
As adjuncts of Egypt, Cyrenaica and Hejaz immediately became parts of the newly rising Ayyubid domain. Saladin's elder brother Turan-Shah added Nubia and Yemen. In 1175 the Abbasid caliph at Saladin's request granted him a diploma of investiture over all these lands, thereby giving away what in reality was not his to give but what it was flattering to him not to refuse. The incorporation of upper Mesopotamia (except Mosul) rounded out the sultanate. Nur-al-Din's dream of enveloping the Franks and crushing them to death was becoming a reality through the achieve- ments of his more illustrious successor.
At last Saladin was free to concentrate on 'the infidels'. The hour of peril for the Latin kingdom struck when, after a six-day siege, Tiberias fell and the Moslem army moved to cut off the Frankish forces under the stubborn and incom- petent king of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan, at Hattin, over- looking the Sea of Galilee. There the battle was joined July 3 to 4, 1187. The heat was intense. Exhausted from the long march and crazed with thirst, the heavily armoured Franks were surrounded by lightly armoured Moslems and subjected to an incessant shower of arrows. Of the 20,000 knights and infantry only a few escaped; the rest were slaughtered or captured. Prominent among the captives was Guy of Lusignan, who was received as befitted his rank by the magnanimous and chivalrous sultan.
The destruction on the day of Hattin of the Frankish army, which comprised besides the capital's garrison con- tingents from the other states, sealed the fate of the Latin kingdom. After a week's siege Jerusalem capitulated on October 2. Saladin's treatment of the Frankish populace stood in sharp contrast to the treatment accorded the Moslems eighty-eight years earlier. Those who could ransom themselves individually did so; the poor were allowed forty days to collect a lump sum for ransom and the rest were sold as slaves. The lands of the evacuated Franks were purchased by troops and native Christians. From Jerusalem the tide of conquest continued, engulfing all the Frankish holdings except Tyre, Tripoli, Antioch and a few castles.
The loss of Jerusalem aroused Europe and inspired the 'third Crusade'. In it participated the three mightiest sovereigns of western Europe, Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, Philip Augustus of France and Richard the Lion- Hearted of England. Legend and history have collaborated to make this campaign, with Richard and Saladin as its chief heroes, one of the truly spectacular and romantic episodes in occidental and oriental annals.
Frederick took the land route and was drowned crossing a river in Cilicia. Discouraged, many of his followers returned home. Philip and Richard joined Guy in besieging Acre, which fell in July 1191 after a two-year siege which witnessed spectacular feats of valour on both sides. In- cluded in the conditions of surrender were the restoration of the 'true cross', captured at Hattin, and the release of the garrison on the payment of 200,000 gold pieces. But the money was not paid in a month and the Lion-Hearted ordered the twenty-seven hundred captives slaughtered. After tedious but inconclusive skirmishing, peace was finally con- cluded in November 1192 on the general basis that the coast from Tyre southward belonged to the Latins and the interior to the Moslems and that the Christian pilgrims should not be molested. Palestine was partitioned. Richard bade Syria farewell and started for home, only to be captured and held for ransom by a Christian sovereign. Early in March of the following year Saladin died of fever, aged fifty-five. His tomb, still standing by the Umayyad Mosque, is one of the most revered shrines in Damascus.
More than a warrior and champion of orthodox Islam, Saladin was a builder and a patron of learning. Like his predecessor Nur-al-Din he founded schools, seminaries and mosques in both Egypt and Syria. The vast treasures of the Fatimid court which fell into his hands on the overthrow of the caliphate he distributed among his men, keeping nothing for himself. Nur-al-Din's estate was passed on intact to the deceased ruler's son. The estate Saladin himself left amounted to forty-seven dirhems and one gold dinar, but the memory he left is still a priceless treasure in the heritage of the Arab East. The memory of his chivalry is almost equally cherished in Europe, where it has touched the fancy of English minstrels as well as modern novelists.
With the death of the great hero of Islam the third period in Crusading history begins, that of dissension and petty wars covering a century. Throughout the thirteenth century European public sentiment remained indifferent to these campaigns. Most of these were commercially rather than religiously motivated and directed against Con- stantinople, Egypt and Tunisia rather than Syria. The Moslems too had lost the spirit of holy war, the unified leadership and the united domain. Saladin's brother al- Adil before 1200 acquired sovereignty over Egypt and southern Syria, but consistently tried to maintain cordial relations with the Franks in order to promote peace and trade with the Italian cities.
Only in Aleppo did Saladin's lineal descendants retain power. From al-Adil sprang Ayyubid branches which reigned in Egypt, Damascus and Mesopotamia. Other branches arose in Horns, Hamah and Yemen. In the course of the ensuing dynastic turmoils one after another of Saladin's conquests — Beirut, Safad, Tiberias, even Jeru- salem (1229) — reverted to Frankish hands. Jerusalem was turned over by al-Adil's son al-Kamil (1218-1238) to Frederick II, king of Sicily, in accordance with a ten-year treaty in which al-Kamil was guaranteed Frederick's aid against his enemies, most of whom were Ayyubids. In 1244, however, al-Kamil' s nephew al-Salih utilized a contingent of Turks dislodged by Genghis Khan to restore the city to Islam. In any event the Franks were in no position to capitalize on Moslem dissension. They themselves were in as bad a situation, with rivalries between Genoese and Venetians, jealousies between Templars and Hospitallers and quarrels among leaders. In these quarrels it was no more unusual for one side to secure Moslem aid against the other than it was for Moslems to secure Christian aid against other Moslems.
After the failure of the 'sixth Crusade 3 and his release from captivity in 1250, King Louis IX of France spent four years in Syria, where he fortified Jaffa, Caesarea, Acre and Sidon. Of all Crusading leaders, Louis was the noblest char- acter and was later made a saint. A new and unexpected danger, however, was now threatening : Mongol hordes flooding northern Syria and advancing southward. Con- currently the Ayyubids were being supplanted by Mamluk rulers, to be discussed in the next chapter. The fourth Mamluk, Baybars (1260-1277), checked the first advance of the Mongols in Palestine, virtually destroyed the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, recovered the Mongols' Syrian con- quests, reunited Egypt and Syria and was then able to pursue the holy war. In addition to castles held by the military orders — Templars and Hospitallers — he regained Caesarea, Arsuf, Safad, Jaffa and even (1268) Antioch, where 16,000 people were put to the sword and 100,000 reportedly led into captivity. The city itself, with its ancient citadel and world-renowned churches, was given to the flames, a blow from which it has never recovered.
The fall of Antioch, second of the Latin states to be founded, had a demoralizing effect. A number of minor Latin strongholds were hastily abandoned. In 1271 the strong and strategically located Krak des Chevaliers, principal fortress of the Hospitallers and still the most admirably pre- served of all Crusader castles, surrendered after a short siege. Similar mountain strongholds belonging to the Assassins, allies of the Hospitallers, were now reduced and truces were arranged with the great coastal fortresses, planted to control the maritime road and ports and to defend them against the fleet based on Egypt.
The Assassins were an extremist Ismailite order founded in 1090 and based on the fortress of Alamut in northern Persia. Their name is derived from hashish (marijuana), the intoxicating hemp under the influence of which they sup- posedly committed their murders. The order was a secret organization headed by a grand master below whom stood priors followed by propagandists. Near the bottom were the devotees ready to execute at all cost the grand master's orders. The devotees made free and treacherous use of the dagger against Christians and Moslems alike; they made assassination an art.
About the same time that the Crusaders were entering Syria from the north-west the Assassins were entering it from the north-east. Their first important collaborator was the Seljuk amir Ridwan of Aleppo. Efforts to gain control of cities failed, as had the Druzes'. By 1140 they had acquired several strongholds in mountainous northern Syria, where between 40,000 and 60,000 obeyed the orders of the Syrian grand master at Misyaf. For thirty years, beginning about 1162, this high office was held by Rashid-al-Din Sinan. Assassins made two attempts on the life of Saladin and killed, among others, Raymond II of Tripoli and Conrad of Montferrat, titular king of Jerusalem. In 1172 Sinan sent envoys to the king of Jerusalem to discuss the possibility of conversion on the part of his men to Christianity. This was in line with the practice of dissimulation prescribed by ultra-Shiite tenets. Fearing the loss of tribute which the Assassins were then paying the Templars, these knights murdered the envoys. During his stay at Acre, Louis IX exchanged gifts with the current grand master, but the Assassins' power in the thirteenth century was less than in the twelfth. With Baybars' destruction of their fortresses, which for years had sheltered intrigue and murder, the Syrian Assassin power was for ever crushed.
The work begun by Baybars against the Franks was continued by his equally energetic and zealous successor Qalawun (1279-1290). The Hospitaller fortress al-Marqab yielded in 1285 and its defenders were escorted to Tripoli, the largest city still in Frankish hands. In 1289 Tripoli too fell and was levelled to the ground. Amidst preparations against Acre, the only place of military importance left, Qalawun died and was succeeded by his son al-Ashraf, who invested Acre for over a month, using ninety-two catapults, before he stormed it on May 18, 129 1. He slaughtered its Templar defenders in violation of a safe-conduct he had granted them. The capture of Acre sealed the fate of the few remaining coastal towns. Tyre was abandoned on the same day and Sidon on July 14. Beirut capitulated on July 21 and Tortosa on August 3. Athlith, deserted by its Templars, was demolished a few days later. Only on the islet of Arwad off Tortosa were the Templars able to hold out for eleven years more. With Arwad's surrender the curtain fell on the last scene of the most spectacular drama in the history of the conflict between East and West.
Rich in picturesque and romantic incidents, the Crusades were rather disappointing in intellectual and cultural achieve- ment. On the whole they meant much more to the West in terms of civilizing influences than they did to the East. They opened new horizons — industrial, commercial and colonial — before the eyes of Europeans. The states they built in Syria correspond to modern colonial acquisitions. The merchant or pilgrim rather than the returned soldier was the principal culture carrier. In the East they left a legacy of ill will between Moslems and Christians the effects of which are still noticeable.
Islamic culture in the Crusading epoch was already decadent in the East. For some time it had ceased to be a creative force. In science, literature, philosophy all its great lights had been dimmed. Moreover, the Franks them- selves were on a lower cultural level. Nationalistic ani- mosities and religious prejudices thwarted the free play of interactive forces between them and the Moslems and left them in no responsive mood. No wonder, then, that we know of only one major scientific work done from Arabic into Latin throughout the whole period, a medical treatise by al- Majusi translated at Antioch in 1 127 by a Pisan. Another work translated in Antioch (1247) was The Secret of Secrets, a pseudo- Aristotelian treatise on occult science which had a wide vogue in the late Middle Ages. Systematic hospitaliza- tion in the Occident probably received a fresh stimulus from the orient, where Nur-al-Din's great hospital in Damascus led the way. A number of hospices and hospitals, chiefly for lepers, began to appear in twelfth-century Europe.
In literature the influence was even slighter and more difficult to detect. Stories, including some of Persian and Indian origin, were transmitted and appear strangely altered in the Gesta Romanorum and other collections. Chaucer's Squieres Tale has an Arabian Nights antecedent; Boccaccio's Decameron contains a number of tales derived orally from oriental sources. The Holy Grail legend preserves elements of undoubted Syrian origin.
In Syria the Franks learned the use of the crossbow, the wearing of heavier mail by knight and horse, the employ- ment of the tabor and naker in military bands, the conveying of military intelligence by carrier pigeons and the use of fire for signalling at night. They also acquired the practice of holding tournaments among knights wearing distinctive heraldic devices. The double-headed eagle, the fleur-de-lis, the rosette and other emblems were borrowed from Moslem foes. Many Mamluks bore names of animals, whose images they blazoned on their shields, as did their Christian imi- tators. 'Azure' and other heraldic terms have an Arabic origin.
The order of Templars, which, with that of the Hospital- lers, was the Crusaders' nearest approach to harmonizing war and religion — an old achievement in Islam — followed in its organization a pattern similar to that of the Assassins. At the bottom of the Christian order stood the lay brothers, esquires and knights, corresponding to the associates, devotees and comrades. The knight wore a white mantle with a red cross mark, the Assassin comrade a white mantle with a red cap. There was also an order of Arab chivalry which was reformed and patronized by the Abbasid al-Nasir (1180-1225). The initiate was also called comrade and wore distinctive trousers. Saladin's brother al-Adil and al- AdiPs sons wore these trousers and may have belonged to the active Syrian branch of this order.
Most conspicuous among all Crusading remains in Syria are the many castles still crowning its hills. Then come the churches. In the churches the Franks employed the familiar Romanesque and Gothic styles but added Byzantine and Syrian motifs of decoration. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome of the Rock were imitated in several ecclesiastical buildings of the 'round temple' type in England, France, Spain and Germany. Many of the Crusader churches have since been converted into mosques. Among these are the great cathedral of Tyre, the church at Sidon erected by the Hospitallers, the cathedral of Beirut and that of Tortosa, the most beautiful and best preserved of all. This structure, which was an object of pilgrimage, was begun in 1130 and housed a picture supposedly painted by Luke and an altar over which Peter allegedly celebrated the first mass.
For many generations before the Crusades pilgrims frequented the Holy Land and traders visited the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The Crusading movement accelerated forces already in operation and popularized in Europe oriental products, some of which must have been previously known. The problem of tracing origins is further complicated by the fact that while the Syrian bridge was open for traffic two other bridges, the Sicilian and the Spanish, were in operation too, thus making it difficult to determine the exact route taken by any particular commodity.
While in Syria the Franks were introduced to or acquired a taste for certain native and tropical products with which the marts of Syria were then stocked. Among those products were sesame, millet, rice (arizz), lemons {laymun) , melons and apricots, sometimes called plums of Damascus. The Syrian capital specialized in sweet scents and damask rose. Attars and fragrant volatile oils, of Persian origin, incense and other aromatic gums of Arabia, together with other spices, perfumes and sweetmeats became favourites. Cloves and similar aromatics, pepper and other condiments, alum, aloes and several drugs found their way into the European kitchen and shop. In Egypt ginger was added to the Crusader menu. More important than all these articles was sugar (sukkar), with the cane of which the Franks familiarized themselves on the Lebanese maritime plain. Arab traders had introduced sugar cane from India or south-eastern Asia, where it must originally have grown wild. Before the Crusades honey was the ingredient used by Europeans for sweetening foods and medicines. With sugar went a variety of soft drinks, sweetmeats and candy (qandah).
In matters of fashion, clothing and home furnishing new desires were likewise sharpened if not created. The Franks became convinced that not only native foods but native clothes were preferable. Men began to grow beards, wear flowing robes and cover their heads with shawls. Women wore oriental gauze ornamented with sequins and sat on divans, listening to the lute and rebab; they even veiled in public. Warriors, pilgrims, sailors and merchants returned with rugs, carpets and tapestries, which had been a fixture in Near Eastern homes from time immemorial. Fabrics such as damask (of Damascus), muslin (of Mosul), taffeta, velvet, silk and satin came to be appreciated as never before. Oriental luxuries became occidental necessities. Mirrors of glass replaced those of steel. The rosary, of Hindu origin, was used by Syrian Christians and then Sufi Moslems before it got into the hands of Roman Catholics. Pilgrims sent back home reliquaries of native workmanship which served as models for European craftsmen. Arras and other European centres began to imitate wares, rugs and fabrics of oriental manufacture. With cloth and metallic wares went dyestuffs and new colours such as lilac (laylak), carmine and crimson (qirmizi). Oriental work in pottery, gold, silver, enamel and stained glass was also imitated.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries maritime activity and international trade were stimulated to a degree un- attained since Roman days. The introduction of the com- pass, of which presumably the Moslems made the firfct practical use, was a great aid in navigation. Before the Moslems the Chinese had discovered the directive property of the magnetic needle. Among the Europeans Italian sailors were the earliest users of the compass. The en- hanced flow of trade created new demands, one of which was for ready cash on the part of pilgrim and Crusader. This demand helped to establish a money economy and increase the supply and circulation of currency. Banking firms were organized in the Italian city republics with branch offices in the Levant. The need was also felt for letters of credit. Gold coins with Arabic inscriptions were struck by the Latins. The first consuls reported in history were Genoese accredited to Acre in 1180. They presided over local Genoese courts, witnessed seal contracts, wills and deeds, identified new arrivals of their nationals, settled dis- putes and on the whole performed duties analogous to those of modern consuls in the Near East.
During the Crusades the periods of peace, it should be remembered, were of longer duration than the periods of war. Thus ample opportunity was provided for forging amicable bonds between Easterners and Westerners. Once the language barrier was removed the Frank must have discovered that after all the Moslem was not the idolater he was thought to be and that he shared in the Judaeo-Christian and Greco-Roman heritage of the European. We hear of many Crusaders who learned Arabic, but of no Arabs who spoke French or Latin. The tolerance, breadth of view and trend toward secularization which usually result from mingling of men of different faiths and cultures seem in this case to have accrued to the Western rather than to the Eastern society. On the social and economic level Christians and Moslems mixed freely, traded horses, dogs and falcons, ex- changed safe-conducts and even intermarried. A new progeny from native mothers arose and was designated Pullani. Many modern Lebanese and Palestinians have inherited blue eyes and fair hair, while certain Christian families have preserved traditions or names suggesting European origins.
In his memoirs Usamah ibn-Munqidh (1095-1188) gives the clearest first-hand picture of interfaith association. A friend of Saladin, Usamah defended his picturesque ancestral castle on the Orontes, Shayzar, against Assassins and Franks. Never did this castle fall into Crusading hands. He himself fraternized with Franks in time of peace. To him the comparatively free sex relations among the Franks, 'who are void of all zeal and jealousy 5 , were simply shocking. Their methods of ordeal by water and duel were far inferior to the Moslem judicial procedure of the day. Especially crude by contrast was their system of medication. Two members of a Frankish family at al-Munaytirah were properly treated by a native Christian physician until a European was summoned. The latter laid the ailing leg of one of the patients on a block of wood and bade a knight chop it off with one stroke of the axe. He then shaved the head of the other patient, a woman, made a deep cruciform incision on it and rubbed the wound with salt — to drive off the devil. Both patients expired on the spot. The native physician, himself the narrator of the story, con- cludes with these words : 'Thereupon I asked them whether my services were needed any longer, and when they replied in the negative I returned home, having learned of their medicine what I knew not before.'
In general, the effects of the Crusades on Syria were disastrous. The cities had been destroyed and the ports dismantled; all was ruin and desolation. Dissident Moslem elements, comprising Shiites, Ismailites and Nusayris, who then reportedly outnumbered the Sunnites and had on varied occasions compromised their loyalty by aiding Franks, were now decimated. Their remnant sought refuge in central Lebanon and the Biqa. The Mamluk al-Ashraf exacted from the Druzes outward conformity to Sunnite Islam, but the conformity did not last long. Baybars forced the Nusayris to build mosques in their villages, but he could not force them to pray in them. Instead, they used the buildings as stables for their cattle and beasts of burden. In pursuit of the 'scorched earth' policy Mamluk sultans methodically ravaged Lebanon. Shiites of the Kisrawan region were replaced by Kurds and Turkomans; Maronites from the north pushed on later to fill the vacancy. The defence of Beirut against recurring sea incursions was en- trusted in 1 294 by the sultans to amirs of the Buhtur family, one of whose members left us the most detailed account of the period. Lebanon then became less oriented westward; it assumed the general aspect that it has maintained till modern times. In fact, all Syria had in it by then almost every element of civilization it possessed until the early nineteenth century, when a fresh wave of Western ideas and cultural elements began to break on its shore.
Native Christians suffered no less than schismatic Moslems. A measure of hostility was engendered between the Syrian Christians and their Moslem neighbours that was seldom attained before and that is not yet entirely abated. The active help given the Crusaders by the native Christians led to ruthless reprisals which rarely discriminated between active collaborators and their innocent co-religionists. In Lebanon the Maronites were accorded by the Latins all the ecclesiastical and civil rights that pertained to members of the Roman Catholic church, though actual union was not effected until the eighteenth century. After Saladin's capture of Beirut (1191) thousands of Maronites migrated to Cyprus, where two thousand of their descendants still live, but those who stayed developed into what may be con- sidered the national church of Lebanon. This church still retains its Syriac liturgy and its non-celibate priesthood, despite its ties to Rome. The 1952 census gives the number of Maronites in Lebanon as 377,544, more than any other religious body in that republic. Recent Maronite emigrants have carried their rite into Italy, France, North and South America, Australia and other parts of the civilized world.
The Armenian and Jacobite communities in the crusad- ing period likewise entered into closer friendly relations than ever before with the Latins, but the rapprochement led to no union. Both of these churches, like the Coptic, are in- dependent descendants of the Monophysite rite. The triumph of the church of the Syrians over those of Armenia, Egypt and Ethiopia was another conspicuous achievement of Syrian society and culture. All three used their respective vernaculars in their liturgies and survived primarily as vehicles of national spirit reacting against foreign domina- tion. The Jacobite remnant in Syria and Lebanon, who prefer to be designated as Old Syrian, have a patriarchal seat at Horns. Those of them who in recent times joined the Roman Catholic Church form the Syrian Catholic church with its patriarchal seat in Lebanon. The Armenian Orthodox church has a similar Uniat offshoot.
The East Syrian church — called Nestorian by Roman Catholics as a stigma of heresy in contradistinction to those of its members who joined Rome as Uniats and became exclusively known as Chaldaeans — was not active in medieval Syria, as its patriarch had moved to Baghdad in 762 and its unparalleled missionary efforts had been directed eastward into Central Asia, India and China. Their cultured traces are still visible in the Syriac characters in which Mongol and Manchu were written and in the technique and decoration of bookbinding in Turkestan. The East Syrian church was represented at the beginning of the first World War by 190,000 members domiciled in and around the edges of Kurdistan. Those who survived drifted into Iraq and Syria and were given the appellation Assyrian chiefly by Anglican missionaries.
The East and the West Syrian churches with their ramifications did not comprise all Syrian Christians. There remained a small body which succumbed under the impact of Greek theology from Antioch and Constantinople and accepted the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (451). Thereby this community secured orthodoxy and not only escaped excommunication but obtained protection, even patronage, from the state church and the imperial city. By way of reproach their opponents centuries later nicknamed them Melkites, royalists. Melkite ranks must have been recruited mainly from city-dwellers and descendants of Greek colonists. Gradually Greek replaced Syriac as the language of ritual and the Syriac liturgy gave place to the Byzantine. In the Crusading period the Melkite com- munity suffered heavily. Their Syrian descendants main- tain one patriarchate in Damascus and another in Jerusalem and are now known as Greek Orthodox. In recent years, strangely enough, 'Melkite' has been exclusively employed to designate Christians drawn from the Orthodox church and attached to Rome. Their patriarch maintains a resid- ence in Egypt and another in Lebanon. At present they number about one-half of the Orthodox community, estimated at 230,000. The majority of the Greek Catholics and of the Greek Orthodox live in Syria rather than in Lebanon.
The spirit of holy war which animated the Mamluks in their counter-crusades seems, after its initial triumph, to have been canalized against Egyptian and Syrian Christians. Towards the end of his reign Qalawun issued edicts excluding his Christian subjects from governmental offices. In 1301 al-Nasir reactivated the old discriminatory laws requiring Christians and Jews to wear distinctive dress and refrain from horse and mule riding and padlocked many Christian churches. This wave of anti-Christian feeling is further reflected in the contemporaneous literature. Speeches, legal opinions and sermons inflamed popular antagonism. The writings of the Syrian theologian ibn-Taymiyah (1263- 1328) embody the reactionary spirit of the age. Born in Harran, ibn-Taymiyah flourished in Damascus, where he lifted his voice high in condemnation of saint worship, vows and pilgrimage to shrines. His principles were later adopted by the Wahhabis, who today dominate the religious and political life of Saudi Arabia.
Another type of literature flourished now which may be termed counter-propaganda. It extolled the virtues of Jerusalem, recommended pilgrimage to it and insisted that Muhammad had proclaimed prayer in its mosque a thousand times more meritorious than in any other, excepting, of course, the two of Mecca and Medina. Alongside this genre arose a form of historical romance extolling the exploits — real or imaginary — of some Moslem hero. Saladin, Baybars and Antarah became the heroes of such romances. Antarah was a pre-Islamic poet-warrior, but his romance, judged by its latest historical allusions, was con- ceived in Syria in the early twelfth century. Story-tellers in the cafes of Cairo, Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad drawing their tales from it and the romance of Baybars attract larger audiences than when reciting tales from the Arabian Nights.
An interesting by-product of the Crusades was the initia- tion of Christian missionary work among Moslems. Con- vinced, by the failure of these wars, of the futility of the military method in dealing with Moslems, thoughtful men began to advocate concentration on peaceful methods. Raymond Lull (d. 1315), a Catalan ecclesiastic, was the earliest European to emphasize oriental studies as an instruinstrument of pacific campaign in which persuasion should replace violence. He himself studied Arabic from a slave and taught it. With Raymond, the Crusading spirit turned into a new channel: converting the Moslem rather than expelling or exterminating him. The Carmelite order, still active in the area, was founded in 1154 by a Crusader in that country and named after one of its mountains. Early in the thirteenth century two other monastic orders, the Franciscan and the Dominican, were founded and their representatives were stationed in many Syrian towns. In the last years of that century Beirut had a large Franciscan church. In 1219 the founder of the Franciscan order, St. Francis of Assisi, visited the Ayyubid court in Egypt and held a fruitless religious discussion with al-Kamil. A Dominican bishop, William of Tripoli, wrote in 1270 one of the most learned treatises in medieval times on the Moslems, bringing out points in which Islam and Christianity agree and advocating missionaries rather than soldiers to undertake the recovery of the Holy Land.