Author: Benny Morris
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067491645X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 673
Book Description
A Financial Times Book of the Year A Foreign Affairs Book of the Year A Spectator Book of the Year “A landmark contribution to the study of these epochal events.” —Times Literary Supplement “Brilliantly researched and written...casts a careful eye upon the ghastly events that took place in the final decades of the Ottoman empire, when its rulers decided to annihilate their Christian subjects...Hitler and the Nazis gleaned lessons from this genocide that they then applied to their own efforts to extirpate Jews.” —Jacob Heilbrun, The Spectator Between 1894 and 1924, three waves of violence swept across Anatolia, targeting the region’s Christian minorities. By 1924, the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, once nearly a quarter of the population, had been reduced to 2 percent. Most historians have treated these waves as distinct, isolated events, and successive Turkish governments presented them as an unfortunate sequence of accidents. The Thirty-Year Genocide is the first account to show that all three were actually part of a single, continuing, and intentional effort to wipe out Anatolia’s Christian population. Despite the dramatic swing from the Islamizing autocracy of the sultan to the secularizing republicanism of the post–World War I period, the nation’s annihilationist policies were remarkably constant, with continual recourse to premeditated mass killing, homicidal deportation, forced conversion, and mass rape. And one thing more was a constant: the rallying cry of jihad. While not justified under the teachings of Islam, the killing of two million Christians was effected through the calculated exhortation of the Turks to create a pure Muslim nation. “A subtle diagnosis of why, at particular moments over a span of three decades, Ottoman rulers and their successors unleashed torrents of suffering.” —Bruce Clark, New York Times Book Review
The Thirty-Year Genocide
Author: Benny Morris
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067491645X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 673
Book Description
A Financial Times Book of the Year A Foreign Affairs Book of the Year A Spectator Book of the Year “A landmark contribution to the study of these epochal events.” —Times Literary Supplement “Brilliantly researched and written...casts a careful eye upon the ghastly events that took place in the final decades of the Ottoman empire, when its rulers decided to annihilate their Christian subjects...Hitler and the Nazis gleaned lessons from this genocide that they then applied to their own efforts to extirpate Jews.” —Jacob Heilbrun, The Spectator Between 1894 and 1924, three waves of violence swept across Anatolia, targeting the region’s Christian minorities. By 1924, the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, once nearly a quarter of the population, had been reduced to 2 percent. Most historians have treated these waves as distinct, isolated events, and successive Turkish governments presented them as an unfortunate sequence of accidents. The Thirty-Year Genocide is the first account to show that all three were actually part of a single, continuing, and intentional effort to wipe out Anatolia’s Christian population. Despite the dramatic swing from the Islamizing autocracy of the sultan to the secularizing republicanism of the post–World War I period, the nation’s annihilationist policies were remarkably constant, with continual recourse to premeditated mass killing, homicidal deportation, forced conversion, and mass rape. And one thing more was a constant: the rallying cry of jihad. While not justified under the teachings of Islam, the killing of two million Christians was effected through the calculated exhortation of the Turks to create a pure Muslim nation. “A subtle diagnosis of why, at particular moments over a span of three decades, Ottoman rulers and their successors unleashed torrents of suffering.” —Bruce Clark, New York Times Book Review
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067491645X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 673
Book Description
A Financial Times Book of the Year A Foreign Affairs Book of the Year A Spectator Book of the Year “A landmark contribution to the study of these epochal events.” —Times Literary Supplement “Brilliantly researched and written...casts a careful eye upon the ghastly events that took place in the final decades of the Ottoman empire, when its rulers decided to annihilate their Christian subjects...Hitler and the Nazis gleaned lessons from this genocide that they then applied to their own efforts to extirpate Jews.” —Jacob Heilbrun, The Spectator Between 1894 and 1924, three waves of violence swept across Anatolia, targeting the region’s Christian minorities. By 1924, the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, once nearly a quarter of the population, had been reduced to 2 percent. Most historians have treated these waves as distinct, isolated events, and successive Turkish governments presented them as an unfortunate sequence of accidents. The Thirty-Year Genocide is the first account to show that all three were actually part of a single, continuing, and intentional effort to wipe out Anatolia’s Christian population. Despite the dramatic swing from the Islamizing autocracy of the sultan to the secularizing republicanism of the post–World War I period, the nation’s annihilationist policies were remarkably constant, with continual recourse to premeditated mass killing, homicidal deportation, forced conversion, and mass rape. And one thing more was a constant: the rallying cry of jihad. While not justified under the teachings of Islam, the killing of two million Christians was effected through the calculated exhortation of the Turks to create a pure Muslim nation. “A subtle diagnosis of why, at particular moments over a span of three decades, Ottoman rulers and their successors unleashed torrents of suffering.” —Bruce Clark, New York Times Book Review
Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks
Author: Marc David Baer
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253045428
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
An examination of why Jews promote a positive image of Ottomans and Turks while denying the Armenian genocide and the existence of antisemitism in Turkey. Based on historical narrative, the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 were embraced by the Ottoman Empire and then, later, protected from the Nazis during WWII. If we believe that Turks and Jews have lived in harmony for so long, then how can we believe that the Turks could have committed genocide against the Armenians? Marc David Baer confronts these convictions and circumstances to reflect on what moral responsibility the descendants of the victims of one genocide have to the descendants of victims of another. Baer delves into the history of Muslim-Jewish relations in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to find the origin of these myths. He aims to foster reconciliation between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, not only to face inconvenient historical facts but to confront, accept, and deal with them. By looking at the complexities of interreligious relations, Holocaust denial, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and confronting some long-standing historical stereotypes, Baer aims to tell a new history that goes against Turkish antisemitism and admits to the Armenian genocide. “[Baer] demonstrates not only his erudition and knowledge of the sources but his courage on confronting a major myth of Ottoman history and current Turkish politics: the tolerance and defense of Jews by the Ottoman and Turkish state.” —Ronald Grigor Suny, editor of A Question of Genocide “A very significant study regarding the origins of violence and its denial in Turkey through the empirical study of not only antisemitism, but also its connection to genocide denial.” —Fatma Müge Göçek, author of The Transformation of Turkey
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253045428
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
An examination of why Jews promote a positive image of Ottomans and Turks while denying the Armenian genocide and the existence of antisemitism in Turkey. Based on historical narrative, the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 were embraced by the Ottoman Empire and then, later, protected from the Nazis during WWII. If we believe that Turks and Jews have lived in harmony for so long, then how can we believe that the Turks could have committed genocide against the Armenians? Marc David Baer confronts these convictions and circumstances to reflect on what moral responsibility the descendants of the victims of one genocide have to the descendants of victims of another. Baer delves into the history of Muslim-Jewish relations in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to find the origin of these myths. He aims to foster reconciliation between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, not only to face inconvenient historical facts but to confront, accept, and deal with them. By looking at the complexities of interreligious relations, Holocaust denial, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and confronting some long-standing historical stereotypes, Baer aims to tell a new history that goes against Turkish antisemitism and admits to the Armenian genocide. “[Baer] demonstrates not only his erudition and knowledge of the sources but his courage on confronting a major myth of Ottoman history and current Turkish politics: the tolerance and defense of Jews by the Ottoman and Turkish state.” —Ronald Grigor Suny, editor of A Question of Genocide “A very significant study regarding the origins of violence and its denial in Turkey through the empirical study of not only antisemitism, but also its connection to genocide denial.” —Fatma Müge Göçek, author of The Transformation of Turkey
A History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East
Author: Heather J. Sharkey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052176937X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399
Book Description
This book traces the history of conflict and contact between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Ottoman Middle East prior to 1914.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052176937X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399
Book Description
This book traces the history of conflict and contact between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Ottoman Middle East prior to 1914.
Martin Luther in Context
Author: David M. Whitford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108584098
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 813
Book Description
Martin Luther remains a popular, oft-quoted, referenced, lauded historical figure. He is often seen as the fulcrum upon which the medieval turned into the modern, the last great medieval or the first great modern; or, he is the Protestant hero, the virulent anti-Semite; the destroyer of Catholic decadence, or the betrayer of the peasant cause. An important but contested figure, he was all of these things. Understanding Luther's context helps us to comprehend how a single man could be so many seemingly contradictory things simultaneously. Martin Luther in Context explores the world around Luther in order to make the man and the Reformation movement more understandable. Written by an international team of leading scholars, it includes over forty short, accessible essays, all specially commissioned for this volume, which reconstruct the life and world of Martin Luther. The volume also contextualizes the scholarship and reception of Luther in the popular mind.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108584098
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 813
Book Description
Martin Luther remains a popular, oft-quoted, referenced, lauded historical figure. He is often seen as the fulcrum upon which the medieval turned into the modern, the last great medieval or the first great modern; or, he is the Protestant hero, the virulent anti-Semite; the destroyer of Catholic decadence, or the betrayer of the peasant cause. An important but contested figure, he was all of these things. Understanding Luther's context helps us to comprehend how a single man could be so many seemingly contradictory things simultaneously. Martin Luther in Context explores the world around Luther in order to make the man and the Reformation movement more understandable. Written by an international team of leading scholars, it includes over forty short, accessible essays, all specially commissioned for this volume, which reconstruct the life and world of Martin Luther. The volume also contextualizes the scholarship and reception of Luther in the popular mind.
The Islamic Jesus
Author: Mustafa Akyol
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250088704
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
“A welcome expansion of the fragile territory known as common ground.” —The New York Times When Reza Aslan’s bestseller Zealot came out in 2013, there was criticism that he hadn’t addressed his Muslim faith while writing the origin story of Christianity. In fact, Ross Douthat of The New York Times wrote that “if Aslan had actually written in defense of the Islamic view of Jesus, that would have been something provocative and new.” Mustafa Akyol’s The Islamic Jesus is that book. The Islamic Jesus reveals startling new truths about Islam in the context of the first Muslims and the early origins of Christianity. Muslims and the first Christians—the Jewish followers of Jesus—saw Jesus as not divine but rather as a prophet and human Messiah and that salvation comes from faith and good works, not merely as faith, as Christians would later emphasize. What Akyol seeks to reveal are how these core beliefs of Jewish Christianity, which got lost in history as a heresy, emerged in a new religion born in 7th Arabia: Islam. Akyol exposes this extraordinary historical connection between Judaism, Jewish Christianity and Islam—a major mystery unexplored by academia. From Jesus’ Jewish followers to the Nazarenes and Ebionites to the Qu’ran’s stories of Mary and Jesus, The Islamic Jesus will reveal links between religions that seem so contrary today. It will also call on Muslims to discover their own Jesus, at a time when they are troubled by their own Pharisees and Zealots.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250088704
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
“A welcome expansion of the fragile territory known as common ground.” —The New York Times When Reza Aslan’s bestseller Zealot came out in 2013, there was criticism that he hadn’t addressed his Muslim faith while writing the origin story of Christianity. In fact, Ross Douthat of The New York Times wrote that “if Aslan had actually written in defense of the Islamic view of Jesus, that would have been something provocative and new.” Mustafa Akyol’s The Islamic Jesus is that book. The Islamic Jesus reveals startling new truths about Islam in the context of the first Muslims and the early origins of Christianity. Muslims and the first Christians—the Jewish followers of Jesus—saw Jesus as not divine but rather as a prophet and human Messiah and that salvation comes from faith and good works, not merely as faith, as Christians would later emphasize. What Akyol seeks to reveal are how these core beliefs of Jewish Christianity, which got lost in history as a heresy, emerged in a new religion born in 7th Arabia: Islam. Akyol exposes this extraordinary historical connection between Judaism, Jewish Christianity and Islam—a major mystery unexplored by academia. From Jesus’ Jewish followers to the Nazarenes and Ebionites to the Qu’ran’s stories of Mary and Jesus, The Islamic Jesus will reveal links between religions that seem so contrary today. It will also call on Muslims to discover their own Jesus, at a time when they are troubled by their own Pharisees and Zealots.
Reopening Muslim Minds
Author: Mustafa Akyol
Publisher: St. Martin's Essentials
ISBN: 1250256070
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
A fascinating journey into Islam's diverse history of ideas, making an argument for an "Islamic Enlightenment" today In Reopening Muslim Minds, Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and opinion writer for The New York Times, both diagnoses “the crisis of Islam” in the modern world, and offers a way forward. Diving deeply into Islamic theology, and also sharing lessons from his own life story, he reveals how Muslims lost the universalism that made them a great civilization in their earlier centuries. He especially demonstrates how values often associated with Western Enlightenment — freedom, reason, tolerance, and an appreciation of science — had Islamic counterparts, which sadly were cast aside in favor of more dogmatic views, often for political ends. Elucidating complex ideas with engaging prose and storytelling, Reopening Muslim Minds borrows lost visions from medieval Muslim thinkers such as Ibn Rushd (aka Averroes), to offer a new Muslim worldview on a range of sensitive issues: human rights, equality for women, freedom of religion, or freedom from religion. While frankly acknowledging the problems in the world of Islam today, Akyol offers a clear and hopeful vision for its future.
Publisher: St. Martin's Essentials
ISBN: 1250256070
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
A fascinating journey into Islam's diverse history of ideas, making an argument for an "Islamic Enlightenment" today In Reopening Muslim Minds, Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and opinion writer for The New York Times, both diagnoses “the crisis of Islam” in the modern world, and offers a way forward. Diving deeply into Islamic theology, and also sharing lessons from his own life story, he reveals how Muslims lost the universalism that made them a great civilization in their earlier centuries. He especially demonstrates how values often associated with Western Enlightenment — freedom, reason, tolerance, and an appreciation of science — had Islamic counterparts, which sadly were cast aside in favor of more dogmatic views, often for political ends. Elucidating complex ideas with engaging prose and storytelling, Reopening Muslim Minds borrows lost visions from medieval Muslim thinkers such as Ibn Rushd (aka Averroes), to offer a new Muslim worldview on a range of sensitive issues: human rights, equality for women, freedom of religion, or freedom from religion. While frankly acknowledging the problems in the world of Islam today, Akyol offers a clear and hopeful vision for its future.
Erasmus and the “Other”
Author: Nathan Ron
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030249298
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
This book investigates how Erasmus viewed non-Christians and different races, including Muslims, Jews, the indigenous people of the Americas, and Africans. Nathan Ron argues that Erasmus was devoted to Christian Eurocentrism and not as tolerant as he is often portrayed. Erasmus’ thought is situated vis-à-vis the thought of contemporaries such as the cosmographer and humanist Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini who became Pope Pius II; the philosopher, scholar, and Cardinal, Nicholas of Cusa; and the Dominican missionary and famous defender of the Native Americans, Bartolomé Las Casas. Additionally, the relatively moderate attitude toward Islam which was demonstrated by Michael Servetus, Sebastian Franck, and Sebastian Castellio is analyzed in comparison with Erasmus’ harsh attitude toward Islam/Turks.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030249298
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
This book investigates how Erasmus viewed non-Christians and different races, including Muslims, Jews, the indigenous people of the Americas, and Africans. Nathan Ron argues that Erasmus was devoted to Christian Eurocentrism and not as tolerant as he is often portrayed. Erasmus’ thought is situated vis-à-vis the thought of contemporaries such as the cosmographer and humanist Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini who became Pope Pius II; the philosopher, scholar, and Cardinal, Nicholas of Cusa; and the Dominican missionary and famous defender of the Native Americans, Bartolomé Las Casas. Additionally, the relatively moderate attitude toward Islam which was demonstrated by Michael Servetus, Sebastian Franck, and Sebastian Castellio is analyzed in comparison with Erasmus’ harsh attitude toward Islam/Turks.
Arab Orthodox Christians Under the Ottomans 1516–1831
Author: Constantin Alexandrovich Panchenko
Publisher: Holy Trinity Publications
ISBN: 1942699107
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 966
Book Description
Following the so called "Arab Spring" the world's attention has been drawn to the presence of significant minority religious groups within the predominantly Islamic Middle East. Of these minorities Christians are by far the largest, comprising over 10% of the population in Syria and as much as 40% in Lebanon.The largest single group of Christians are the Arabic-speaking Orthodox. This work fills a major lacuna in the scholarship of wider Christian history and more specifically that of lived religion within the Ottoman empire. Beginning with a survey of the Christian community during the first nine hundred years of Muslim rule, the author traces the evolution of Arab Orthodox Christian society from its roots in the Hellenistic culture of the Byzantine Empire to a distinctly Syro-Palestinian identity. There follows a detailed examination of this multi-faceted community, from the Ottoman conquest of Syria, Palestine and Egypt in 1516 to the Egyptian invasion of Syria in 1831. The author draws on archaeological evidence and previously unpublished primary sources uncovered in Russian archives and Middle Eastern monastic libraries to present a vivid and compelling account of this vital but little-known spiritual and political culture, situating it within a complex network of relations reaching throughout the Mediterranean, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The work is made more accessible to a non-specialist reader by the addition of a glossary, whilst the scholar will benefit from a detailed bibliography of both primary and secondary sources. A foreword has been contributed to this first English language edition by the Patriarch of Antioch, John X. It contextualizes the history found in this work within the ongoing struggle to preserve the ancient Christian cultures of the Arabic speaking peoples from extinction within their ancestral homeland.
Publisher: Holy Trinity Publications
ISBN: 1942699107
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 966
Book Description
Following the so called "Arab Spring" the world's attention has been drawn to the presence of significant minority religious groups within the predominantly Islamic Middle East. Of these minorities Christians are by far the largest, comprising over 10% of the population in Syria and as much as 40% in Lebanon.The largest single group of Christians are the Arabic-speaking Orthodox. This work fills a major lacuna in the scholarship of wider Christian history and more specifically that of lived religion within the Ottoman empire. Beginning with a survey of the Christian community during the first nine hundred years of Muslim rule, the author traces the evolution of Arab Orthodox Christian society from its roots in the Hellenistic culture of the Byzantine Empire to a distinctly Syro-Palestinian identity. There follows a detailed examination of this multi-faceted community, from the Ottoman conquest of Syria, Palestine and Egypt in 1516 to the Egyptian invasion of Syria in 1831. The author draws on archaeological evidence and previously unpublished primary sources uncovered in Russian archives and Middle Eastern monastic libraries to present a vivid and compelling account of this vital but little-known spiritual and political culture, situating it within a complex network of relations reaching throughout the Mediterranean, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The work is made more accessible to a non-specialist reader by the addition of a glossary, whilst the scholar will benefit from a detailed bibliography of both primary and secondary sources. A foreword has been contributed to this first English language edition by the Patriarch of Antioch, John X. It contextualizes the history found in this work within the ongoing struggle to preserve the ancient Christian cultures of the Arabic speaking peoples from extinction within their ancestral homeland.
The Dark Angel
Author: Mika Waltari
Publisher: Rare Treasure Editions
ISBN: 1773238914
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
No other city in the world could compare with it in grandeur, splendor, and wealth. And when it fell to the Turks in 1453, it must have seemed like the end of the world to Christians. Famed author Mika Waltari takes us into the last months of this dying city as revealed in the diary of John Angelos, a strange man hopelessly in love with the daughter of an eminent Byzantine official. In this powerful novel which closely follows actual historical events and personalities, Waltari explores the passions and follies of a civilization on the brink of disaster. With shrewd psychological insight, Waltari provides us with an unbelievable tapestry of false hopes, dogged determination, and fanatic Muslim religious faith as seen through the eyes of the 15th century Greeks and Italians who valiantly defended the city to the bitter end. With chaos and despair deepening into a pall of gloom, the sultan's huge army surrounds Constantinople and assaults its massive walls. We peer over the shoulder of John Angelos as he dons his armor and plunges into the tumultuous events taking place amid smoldering suspicions of betrayal and assassination. But as always, the beautiful Anna Notaras lingers in his imagination. "Today I am called a spy and the lover of the empires most desirable woman. But no one knows my true identity and no one ever shall. For it is the year 1453; and here in Constantinople a mighty Christian empire is dying brutally as the Muslim hordes storm its massive wall." The sweeping, powerful story of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 and a hopeless love affair—these are the background for this intimate and exciting historical novel.
Publisher: Rare Treasure Editions
ISBN: 1773238914
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
No other city in the world could compare with it in grandeur, splendor, and wealth. And when it fell to the Turks in 1453, it must have seemed like the end of the world to Christians. Famed author Mika Waltari takes us into the last months of this dying city as revealed in the diary of John Angelos, a strange man hopelessly in love with the daughter of an eminent Byzantine official. In this powerful novel which closely follows actual historical events and personalities, Waltari explores the passions and follies of a civilization on the brink of disaster. With shrewd psychological insight, Waltari provides us with an unbelievable tapestry of false hopes, dogged determination, and fanatic Muslim religious faith as seen through the eyes of the 15th century Greeks and Italians who valiantly defended the city to the bitter end. With chaos and despair deepening into a pall of gloom, the sultan's huge army surrounds Constantinople and assaults its massive walls. We peer over the shoulder of John Angelos as he dons his armor and plunges into the tumultuous events taking place amid smoldering suspicions of betrayal and assassination. But as always, the beautiful Anna Notaras lingers in his imagination. "Today I am called a spy and the lover of the empires most desirable woman. But no one knows my true identity and no one ever shall. For it is the year 1453; and here in Constantinople a mighty Christian empire is dying brutally as the Muslim hordes storm its massive wall." The sweeping, powerful story of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 and a hopeless love affair—these are the background for this intimate and exciting historical novel.
Encountering Islam on the First Crusade
Author: Nicholas Morton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316721027
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
The First Crusade (1095–9) has often been characterised as a head-to-head confrontation between the forces of Christianity and Islam. For many, it is the campaign that created a lasting rupture between these two faiths. Nevertheless, is such a characterisation borne out by the sources? Engagingly written and supported by a wealth of evidence, Encountering Islam on the First Crusade offers a major reinterpretation of the crusaders' attitudes towards the Arabic and Turkic peoples they encountered on their journey to Jerusalem. Nicholas Morton considers how they interpreted the new peoples, civilizations and landscapes they encountered; sights for which their former lives in Western Christendom had provided little preparation. Morton offers a varied picture of cross cultural relations, depicting the Near East as an arena in which multiple protagonists were pitted against each other. Some were fighting for supremacy, others for their religion, and many simply for survival.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316721027
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
The First Crusade (1095–9) has often been characterised as a head-to-head confrontation between the forces of Christianity and Islam. For many, it is the campaign that created a lasting rupture between these two faiths. Nevertheless, is such a characterisation borne out by the sources? Engagingly written and supported by a wealth of evidence, Encountering Islam on the First Crusade offers a major reinterpretation of the crusaders' attitudes towards the Arabic and Turkic peoples they encountered on their journey to Jerusalem. Nicholas Morton considers how they interpreted the new peoples, civilizations and landscapes they encountered; sights for which their former lives in Western Christendom had provided little preparation. Morton offers a varied picture of cross cultural relations, depicting the Near East as an arena in which multiple protagonists were pitted against each other. Some were fighting for supremacy, others for their religion, and many simply for survival.