We hear and read about the Crusades when the urge strikes us or by accident, but few, including myself, have ever really delved into the history of the Crusades. We hear from the muslims that we invaded their lands with murderous intentions; however, one needs to take this with a grain of salt - or perhaps even a full box of salt. In reality, the truth has been swept under the muslim prayer rug rather conveniently.

Muslims did not conquer North Africa and the Middle East. The Seljuk Turks did, and at the time few were muslims. Most were polytheistic idol worshipers. The Turkish Sultan was very canny. He needed a way to control his conquered peoples and unite them as much as possible. He also understood that this would be extremely difficult using only brute force. He needed to be able to control their minds, and toward this effort he adapted islam to control the countries that he had conquered. A review of the history books written regarding his conquests finds only one mention of the muslim prophet Muhammed and only an incidental mention at that. This shows how little importance islam had at the time of the conquests. It was an obscure quasi-religious, actually a theocracy, movement of little importance. A theocracy is a political movement that uses religious dogma to control people. Adopting and changing islam to suit his political needs was a strategic tactic. Nothing more. On his command, all of the Middle East and North Africa were forced to convert to islam and become muslims. Those who refused to convert to islam were sometimes given a choice of becoming slaves, being killed, or if the person were wealthy and influential enough, pay a special tax every year. All to often they were quickly murdered upon refusing to convert to islam. It was all about political control and money. Islam was but another tool in his arsenal, to be used to control and suppress the people under his rule.

The Crusades were a continuing effort on the part of Christians to expel muslims from Europe and from former Christian lands which the muslims had conquered by treachery, deceit, duplicity, terrorism and warfare. 40 years before the Crusades the muslims had been expelled from the southern part of Italy, and the Crusades were a continuation of this war which actually had been going on for hundreds of years. To this very day muslims still continue their war worldwide in one form or another against all non-muslims.

In looking at this map, it becomes apparent that the Crusaders' position was certainly not the best tactically. They were surrounded essentially on 3 sides by enemy countries and had their backs up against the 4th. side - the Mediterranean Sea. Unless they could establish a safe, broad corridor up to Europe, they were in trouble from day 1.