Diaz 1
Alexander Diaz
Professor Perry
World History 105
20 November 2014
Christian & Muslim Perspectives
At the time The Crusades were fought in the eleventh century, both Muslim and Christian religious parties retaliated with violence and disputes, causing each other to gain bad opinions and generalized views of each others parties as a whole.
The Muslims, as represented by Usmah’s view, saw The Crusaders as animals. Usmah sees the Crusaders as brave and courageous, but he feels they have nothing else more to them, that their mentality seemed entitled and they seemed to act without thinking. We see this in the excerpt where Usmah is describing Frankish medicinal practices says, “…the physician laid the leg of the patient on a block of wood and bade the knight strike his leg with the ax and chop it off at one blow…the leg was not severed. He dealt another blow, upon which the marrow of the leg flowed out and the patient died.” The way Usmah describes the experience was botched and not done carefully.
The Christian view, as represented by Robert the Monk, described the Muslims as godless people who pillaged and burnt down Christian villages, repurposed Christian churches for their own religions place of worship, and even circumcised Christians, which for people of
Jerusalem is an important religious matter. This view is a rather barbaric one. We see this when
Robert is describing the account and says, “…the blood of the circumcision they either spread
Diaz 2 upon the altars or pour into the vases of the baptismal font.” The excerpt here shows
