The city of Jerusalem was the center of faith for three major world religions. For people of the Jewish faith, it was their homeland. It was part of the Promised Land that Jehovah gave to Abraham and his descendants. To Muslims, Jerusalem was the location where the Prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven. After Mecca and Medina, Jerusalem was Islam’s third holiest city. Christians saw Jerusalem as the location of Jesus Christ’s birth and death. It is also the location of much of the New Testament. Jerusalem lies within the historic region of Palestine.
Jerusalem and much of Palestine was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate by 637 CE and would remain in Arab control for centuries. In 1095, Pope Urban II called for volunteer knights to travel to Jerusalem and fight to take it back from Muslim control. He called their mission a crusade. The word “crusade” comes from the word Crux, which means “cross” in Latin. Those who volunteered for the
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They did have the positive effects of increasing trade between Europeans and those in the Middle East. Greater cultural diffusion and travel benefitted the populations of both regions. However, the Crusades did increase tension between Muslim and Christian groups.
Timeline of the Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated and supported by the Roman Catholic Church with the objective of recovering the Holy Land from Islamic rule. These included:
The First Crusade (1095-1099): The First Crusade was the most successful. Armies from Europe drove out the Turks and took control of Jerusalem.
The Second Crusade (1147-1149): In 1146, the city of Edessa was conquered by the Turks. Edessa was a "Crusader state" created after the First Crusade. Most of Edessa's population was killed during the siege on the city or in the aftermath. A second Crusade was launched to take back the city, but it was