John (Trip) Adler

Historical Study A-40

Paper #2
2/18/04
Jihad and Crusade as Aggressive Ideologies

Jihad and Crusade can be thought of as aggressive ideologies, but this is not

necessarily true. Jihad is not necessarily aggressive because, first of all, truce is allowed.

This means that Muslims will avoid being aggressive and fighting if they can and think it

will benefit them. In addition, looking at historical events, there were many times when

there was mutual tolerance between Muslims and the world beyond their borders.

Although jihad was manifested at certain times in certain places, there were many times

when there was no war and peace was present. It is definitely true that jihad can be

thought of as an aggressive ideology in many cases. One of the basic ideas of jihad is

that all polytheists should be fought. Since this means that polytheists who want peace

should be attacked by Muslims simply because they have a different religion, it can

definitely be said that this is aggressive. However, this is limited, because there are

specified amounts of damage allowed to be inflicted upon different categories of enemies.

The only way that the aggressive nature of jihad can be justified is by the idea that Islam

is simply the one true religion. Because Muslims truly believe that there is only one God,

and that it is absolutely wrong to have any other beliefs, jihad makes sense and its

aggressive nature can be justified.

Crusade, in a similar way to jihad, has aggressive aspects but is not necessarily

this way. The First Crusade is an example of how crusade can possibly not be aggressive,

because starting the crusade was mainly a defensive act in response to Muslim violence.
Pope Urban II explained this in his call to the First Crusade when he said that Persians

had “violently invaded the lands of those Christians and had depopulated them by pillage

and fire.” But crusade can definitely be considered an aggressive ideology because some

of the later Crusades were initiated not necessarily in a defensive way. There were also

other reasons for starting crusades, such as the idea that they were fighting “an accursed

race,” as Pope Urban II explained. In addition, people went on crusades for personal

reasons, such as gaining land for themselves, and starting war for this reason an

aggressive act. Christian reasons for going on Crusades can mainly be justified by their

religious beliefs. Crusaders cried out that what they were doing was the will of God, and

to them, God’s will is always the right thing to do. The fact that Christians started

crusades because they thought they were fighting an inferior race can be justified just by

the fact that they knew very little about Muslims, and much of what they learned were

false myths that made them look bad. Therefore, their ignorance about this other group

of people made them more willing to aggressively fight for Christianity. In summary,

both jihad and crusade can be aggressive ideologies, but this is not necessarily true.