Question on the crusades?

Question

What was it like to be a Muslim living in the city of Jerusalem during the Crusades and the attack on the city?

Answer 1

Life was better when the Muslims were in control of Jerusalem.  When the Catholic Church fought the Muslims for control of the city many Muslims were slaughtered.  The quality of life for Muslims depends on which crusade you are referring to .  Some people see the church as the bad guy and some see the Muslims as the threat.  You have to research and make up your own mind.

Answer 2

Both Jews an Muslims were slaughtered this is most of what history tells us, nothing much else:

Emperor Alexius asked Pope Urban II for assistance. On 1095-NOV-27, the Pope called on Europeans to go on a crusade to liberate Jerusalem from its Muslim rulers. "The first and second wave of Crusaders murdered, raped and plundered their way up the Rhine and down the Danube as they headed for Jerusalem." 1  The "army" was primarily composed of untrained peasants with their families, with a core of trained soldiers. On the way to the Middle East, they decided that only one of their goals was to wrest control of Jerusalem from the Muslims. A secondary task was to rid the world of as many non-Christians as possible - both Muslims and Jews. The Crusaders gave the Jews two choices in their slogan: "Christ-killers, embrace the Cross or die!" 12,000 Jews in the Rhine Valley alone were killed as the first Crusade passed through. Some Jewish writers refer to these events as the "first holocaust."  Once the army reached Jerusalem and broke through the city walls, they slaughtered all the inhabitants that they could find (men, women, children, newborns). After locating about 6,000 Jews holed up in the synagogue, they set the building on fire; the Jews were burned alive. The Crusaders found that about 30,000 Muslims had fled to the al Aqsa Mosque. The Muslim were also slaughtered without mercy.

Among many Jews and Muslims, the term crusade evokes visions of genocide, mass murder, and mass extermination of innocent people. However, among many Christians it has become a positive term, frequently used to refer to mass rallies and campaigns to win converts - as in the Billy Graham Crusades. Out of respect for the victims of the "first holocaust," we recommend that the term be only used to refer to the wars of the Middle Ages.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_cr...

After three years of traveling, encountering Muslims and fighting, pillaging, raping, for example in Constantinople, the kuffar reached Jerusalem and took control. Why did they enjoy such a success? This was due to the fact that the Muslims at the time were deeply divided as a result of the dispute over the Khliafah (Islamic State); there was a division between the Abbasid and Fatimid families. Palestine was the place where the conflict between the Muslims took place, making them weak and the land easy to occupy. After occupying Palestine, the kuffar founded new states which where called "Outremer" (a French word meaning overseas). A king was established in Jerusalem and military expansion occurred when more knights where recruited from Europe, such as the knights Templar. The Muslims closed off the north and Outremer became like a fortress. Anyone coming Into Outremer from Europe had to do so by the sea. Eventually the Templar Knights became rich and powerful and by 1187 they where the biggest land owners in the Middle East. However the Crusaders' power could only be maintained while the Muslims remained divided, the policy they applied to achieve this was divide and rude.

Salah Ud-Din's Rise to Power.

Amidst the turmoil, a strong group of Muslims arose to challenge and defeat the power of the Outremer. In 1144 a Muslim by the name of Zengi took control of Edessa the most northern of the Outremer states, his son Nur Ad Din also participated in the jihad against the crusaders and the weakness of their states became more evident. An officer of Nur AdDin, Salah Ud-Din Ayubi overthrew the Crusaders and united the Muslims. Salah Ud-Din overthrew the kuffar in many areas such as Damascus ( 1174 ) Aleppo ( 1183 ) and Mosud ( 1186 ), these areas surrounded the Outremer. Salah Ud-Din led an army against the Christians in Tiberias, the king of Jerusalem sent knights to attack the army but failed and the Muslims recaptured Jerusalem without killing a single person in the city.

The church in Europe was shocked at the fact that they had lost Jerusalem to the

http://www.missionislam.com/knowledge/cr...