The History of Jihad- From Muhammad to ISIS

by Robert Spencer

  Although they existed in a state of more or less constant war, the Crusader states managed to allow many of their citizens to go about living normal lives. In the 1180s, a Muslim from al-Andalus, Ibn Jubayr, visited the Crusader domains on his way to Mecca. To his dismay, he found that Muslims were living better in the Crusader lands than they were in the neighboring Islamic areas:

  Upon leaving Tibnin [near Tyre], we passed through an unbroken skein of farms and villages whose lands were efficiently cultivated. The inhabitants were all Muslims, but they live in comfort with the Franj—may God preserve them from temptation! Their dwellings belong to them and all their property is unmolested. All the regions controlled by the Franj in Syria are subject to this same system: the landed domains, villages, and farms have remained in the hands of the Muslims. Now, doubt invests the heart of a great number of these men when they compare their lot to that of their brothers living in Muslim territory. Indeed, the latter suffer from the injustice of their coreligionists, whereas the Franj act with equity.25

  To preserve Muslims from this temptation, the jihad to destroy these entities began immediately after they were established. The Principality of Antioch fell to the warriors of jihad in 1268; the County of Tripoli, in 1289; and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, in 1291.

  Zengi, Nur ed-Din, and the Second Crusade

  The first Crusader state that was established, the County of Edessa, was the first to go. The Turkish jihad leader Imad ad-Din Zengi, atabeg (governor) of Mosul, laid siege to Edessa in 1144, and conquered it after a four-month siege. The Syrian bishop Basil was present as the victors plundered the Crusaders’ churches:

  Everything was taken from the Franj…gold, silver, holy vases, chalices, patens, ornamented crucifixes, and great quantities of jewels. The priests, nobles, and notables were taken aside, stripped of their robes, and led away in chains to Aleppo. Of the rest, the artisans were identified, and Zangi kept them as prisoners, setting each to work at his craft. All the other Franj, about a hundred men, were executed.26

  The Crusader advance had been definitively halted, making Zengi a hero of Islam. A contemporary inscription at Aleppo hailed him as the “tamer of the infidels and the polytheists, leader of those who fight the Holy War, helper of the armies, protector of the territory of the Muslims.”27 Ibn al-Athir hailed Zengi in extravagant terms, attributing it all to the intervention of Allah, as the Qur’an does regarding the Battle of Badr:

  When Almighty God saw the princes of the Islamic lands and the commanders of the Hanafite [monotheistic] creed and how unable they were to support the one [true] religion and their inability to defend those who believe in the One God and He saw their subjugation by their enemy and the severity of their despotism…He then wished to set over the Franks someone who could requite the evil of their deeds and to send to the devils of the crosses stones from Him to destroy and annihilate them [the crosses]. He looked at the roster of valiants among His helpers and of those possessed of judgement, support and sagacity amongst His friends and He did not see in it [the roster] anyone more capable of that command, more solid as regards inclination, stronger of purpose and more penetrating than the lord, the martyr [al-shahid] Imad al-Din.28

  Allah may have used Zengi for his own purposes, yet the atabeg was not always a model of piety. One night not long after he conquered Edessa, he drank a large quantity of wine and fell asleep, only to be awakened to the sight of one of his Frankish slaves, Yarankash, sneaking some wine from Zengi’s own goblet. Enraged, Zengi vowed to punish the slave in the morning, and fell asleep again—whereupon Yarankash, thoroughly frightened at the prospect of his master’s wrath, stabbed him multiple times and fled.29

  The death of Zengi did not blunt the renewed momentum of the jihad. Pope Eugene III in December 1145 called for a second Crusade, and an army was amassed, but it was soundly defeated by the Turks in Asia Minor and never even got close to achieving its objective of recapturing Edessa. Zengi’s son Nur ed-Din worked hard to revive the spirit of jihad among the Muslims, using a combination of threats and enticements. One emir who received his call to aid him in jihad against the Franks complained:

  If I do not rush to Nur al-Din’s aid, he will strip me of my domain, for he has already written to the devotees and ascetics to request the aid of their prayers and to encourage them to incite the Muslims to jihad. At this very moment, each of these men sits with his disciples and companions reading Nur al-Din’s letters, weeping and cursing me. If I am to avoid anathema, I must accede to his request.30

  Unlike his father, Nur ed-Din was strict in his observance of Islam. Not only did he not partake of alcohol, he forbade it to his troops as well, along with, in the words of the chronicler Kamal al-Din, “the tambourine, the flute, and other objects displeasing to God.” (In accord with statements attributed to Muhammad, Islam forbids musical instruments as well as alcohol.) The atabeg also “abandoned luxurious garments and instead covered himself with rough cloth.”31 Before battles, he would pray, “O God, grant victory to Islam and not to Mahmud [his given name; Nur ed-Din is a title meaning Light of the Religion]. Who is this dog Mahmud to merit victory?”32

  Appealing to a rival Turkish commander amid ongoing disputes between rival Muslim factions, Nur ed-Din again demonstrated his piety: “I desire no more than the well-being of the Muslims, jihad against the infidels, and the release of the prisoners they are holding. If you come over to my side with the army of Damascus, if we help each other to wage the jihad, my wish will be fulfilled.”33 It was. His forces captured Damascus from Muslim rivals in 1154.

  Jockeying for Egypt

  The Crusaders, however, were by no means a spent force. At least not yet. Realizing the feebleness of the Shi’ite Fatimid caliphate in Cairo, King Amalric of the Kingdom of Jerusalem led troops into Egypt in 1164, where he faced the forces of Shirkuh, the general whom Nur ed-Din had sent to seize the Fatimid domains for himself. Hoping to relieve the pressure on Shirkuh, Nur ed-Din moved quickly toward Antioch and defeated a large Crusader army in the outskirts of the great city.

  It was a standoff. Amalric agreed to withdraw from Egypt if Shirkuh would as well, and so it was done. But the great game was not over. In 1167, Nur ed-Din sent Shirkuh into Egypt again. By this time, the Fatimid caliph was just a figurehead, like his Sunni Abbasid counterpart; the real ruler of Egypt was Shawar, whom Nur ed-Din had sent into Egypt only to see him turn against his patron. Shawar appealed to Amalric for help; the Crusaders again entered Egypt, and Shawar agreed to pay an annual tribute to the Christians for protection against Nur ed-Din. However, this arrangement was not to last either. When Shirkuh died in 1169, his nephew assumed his authority, and defeated a combined force of Crusaders and Byzantines at Damietta in Egypt. The Crusaders were driven from Egypt, and Shirkuh’s nephew was only beginning to take the jihad to them and to roll back what they had gained.

  The Assassins

  The Crusaders faced other foes as well. In 1175, the king of Germany and Holy Roman emperor Frederick Barbarossa sent an envoy to Egypt and Syria, who reported back to him about a strange and dangerous Shi’ite Muslim sect, the Nizari Ismailis, commonly known as the Assassins. With their planned murders of many of their individual opponents, the Assassins gave the English language its word for one who commits planned, premeditated murder, and foreshadowed the individual jihad terror attacks of the twenty-first century. Barbarossa’s envoy wrote:

  Note that on the confines of Damascus, Antioch and Aleppo there is a certain race of Saracens in the mountains, who in their own vernacular are called Heyssessini, and in Roman segnors de montana [elders of the mountains]. This breed of men live without law; they eat swine’s flesh against the law of the Saracens, and make use of all women without distinction, including their mothers and sisters. They live in the mountains and are well-nigh impregnable, for they withdraw into well-fortified castles. Their country is not very fertile, so that they live on their cattle. They have among them
a Master, who strikes the greatest fear into all the Saracen princes both far and near, as well as the neighboring Christian lords. For he has the habit of killing them in an astonishing way. The method by which this is done is as follows: this prince possesses in the mountains numerous and most beautiful palaces, surrounded by very high walls, so that none can enter except by a small and very well-guarded door. In these palaces he has many of the sons of his peasants brought up from early childhood. He has them taught various languages, as Latin, Greek, Roman, Saracen as well as many others. These young men are taught by their teachers from their earliest youth to their full manhood, that they must obey the lord of their land in all his words and commands; and that if they do so, he, who has power over all living gods, will give them the joys of paradise. They are also taught that they cannot be saved if they resist his will in anything. Note that, from the time when they are taken in as children, they see no one but their teachers and masters and receive no other instruction until they are summoned to the presence of the Prince to kill someone. When they are in the presence of the Prince, he asks them if they are willing to obey his commands, so that he may bestow paradise upon them. Whereupon, as they have been instructed, and without any objection or doubt, they throw themselves at his feet and reply with fervor, that they will obey him in all things that he may command. Thereupon the Prince gives each one of them a golden dagger and sends them out to kill whichever prince he has marked down.34

  Several years later, Archbishop William of Tyre wrote a history of the Crusader states in which he included this:

  There is in the province of Tyre, otherwise called Phoenicia, and in the diocese of Tortosa, a people who possess ten strong castles, with their dependent villages; their number, according to what we have often heard, is about 60,000 or more. It is their custom to install their master and choose their chief, not by hereditary right, but solely by virtue of merit. Disdaining any other title of dignity, they called him the Elder. The bond of submission and obedience that binds this people to their Chief is so strong, that there is no task so arduous, difficult or dangerous that any one of them would not undertake to perform it with the greatest zeal, as soon as the Chief who has commanded it. If for example there be a prince who is hated or mistrusted by this people, the Chief gives a dagger to one or more of his followers. At once whoever receives the command sets out on his mission, without considering the consequences of the deed nor the possibility of escape. Zealous to complete the task, he toils and labours as long as may be needful, until chance gives him the opportunity to carry out his chief’s orders. Both our people and the Saracens call them Assissini; we do not know the origin of this name.35

  We do. The word “assassin” is derived from “hashashin,” or hashish smokers, a name given to the group by its foes and based on stories about their novel method of recruiting new members. In the early thirteenth century, the German chronicler Arnold of Lübeck revealed more about the group’s mysterious leader:

  I shall now relate things about this elder which appear ridiculous, but which are attested to me by the evidence of reliable witnesses. This Old Man has by his witchcraft so bemused the men of his country, that they neither worship nor believe in any God but himself. Likewise he entices them in a strange manner with such hopes and with promises of such pleasures with eternal enjoyment, that they prefer rather to die than to live. Many of them even, when standing on a high wall, will jump off at his nod or command, and, shattering their skulls, die a miserable death. The most blessed, so he affirms, are those who shed the blood of men and in revenge for such deeds themselves suffer death. When therefore any of them have chosen to die in this way, murdering someone by craft and then themselves dying so blessedly in revenge for him, he himself hands them knives which are, so to speak, consecrated by this affair, and then intoxicates them with such a potion that they are plunged into ecstasy and oblivion, displays to them by his magic certain fantastic dreams, full of pleasure and delights, or rather of trumpery, and promises them eternal possession of these things in reward for such deeds.36

  The fullest account of how the Assassins recruited their fanatical killers comes from Marco Polo’s late-thirteenth-century Travels:

  Mulehet is a country in which the Old Man of the Mountain dwelt in former days; and the name means “Place of the Aram.” I will tell you his whole history as related by Messer Marco Polo, who heard it from several natives of that region.

  The Old Man was called in their language Aloadin. He had caused a certain valley between two mountains to be enclosed, and had turned it into a garden, the largest and most beautiful that ever was seen, filled with every variety of fruit. In it were erected pavilions and palaces the most elegant that can be imagined, all covered with gilding and exquisite painting. And there were runnels too, flowing freely with wine and milk and honey and water; and numbers of ladies and of the most beautiful damsels in the world, who could play on all manner of instruments, and sung most sweetly, and danced in a manner that it was charming to behold. For the Old Man desired to make his people believe that this was actually Paradise. So he had fashioned it after the description that Mahommet gave of his Paradise, to wit, that it should be a beautiful garden running with conduits of wine and milk and honey and water, and full of lovely women for the delectation of all its inmates. And sure enough the Saracens of those parts believed that it was Paradise!

  Now no man was allowed to enter the Garden save those whom he intended to be his Ashishin. There was a Fortress at the entrance to the Garden, strong enough to resist all the world, and there was no other way to get in. He kept at his Court a number of the youths of the country, from 12 to 20 years of age, such as had a taste for soldiering, and to these he used to tell tales about Paradise, just as Mahommet had been wont to do, and they believed in him just as the Saracens believe in Mahommet. Then he would introduce them into his garden, some four, or six, or ten at a time, having first made them drink a certain potion which cast them into a deep sleep, and then causing them to be lifted and carried in. So when they awoke, they found themselves in the Garden.37

  According to the legend that surrounded the Assassins, the “potion” that made these young men susceptible to the suggestion that they had visited Paradise was hashish.38 The Old Man would get his potential recruits high on hashish—an experience they didn’t understand and for which they had no cultural referent—and then introduce them to his gardens, which, as Marco Polo related, had been scrupulously designed to correspond to the Qur’an’s descriptions of Paradise: fruits, women, and all:

  Indeed, you [disbelievers] will be tasters of the painful punishment,

  And you will not be recompensed except for what you used to do—

  But not the chosen servants of Allah.

  Those will have a provision determined—

  Fruits; and they will be honored

  In gardens of pleasure

  On thrones facing one another.

  There will be circulated among them a cup from a flowing spring,

  White and delicious to the drinkers;

  No bad effect is there in it, nor from it will they be intoxicated.

  And with them will be women limiting their glances, with large eyes,

  As if they were eggs, well-protected. (37:38–49)

  The Old Man of the Mountain, according to Marco Polo’s account, used his young recruits’ experience of Paradise to manipulate them into doing his murderous bidding:

  When therefore they awoke, and found themselves in a place so charming, they deemed that it was Paradise in very truth. And the ladies and damsels dallied with them to their hearts’ content, so that they had what young men would have; and with their own good will they never would have quitted the place.

  But eventually the hashish wore off, and the girls were gone, and the Old Man of the Mountain would then explain to the bewildered and disappointed young men who had been so enjoying Paradise what had
just happened:

  Now this Prince whom we call the Old One kept his Court in grand and noble style, and made those simple hill-folks about him believe firmly that he was a great Prophet. And when he wanted one of his Ashishin to send on any mission, he would cause that potion whereof I spoke to be given to one of the youths in the garden, and then had him carried into his Palace. So when the young man awoke, he found himself in the Castle, and no longer in that Paradise; whereat he was not over well pleased. He was then conducted to the Old Man’s presence, and bowed before him with great veneration as believing himself to be in the presence of a true Prophet. The Prince would then ask whence he came, and he would reply that he came from Paradise! and that it was exactly such as Mahommet had described it in the Law. This of course gave the others who stood by, and who had not been admitted, the greatest desire to enter therein.39

  This was all to induce the young men to commit murder:

  So when the Old Man would have any Prince slain, he would say to such a youth: “Go thou and slay So and So; and when thou returnest my Angels shall bear thee into Paradise. And shouldst thou die, natheless even so will I send my Angels to carry thee back into Paradise.” So he caused them to believe; and thus there was no order of his that they would not affront any peril to execute, for the great desire they had to get back into that Paradise of his. And in this manner the Old One got his people to murder any one whom he desired to get rid of. Thus, too, the great dread that he inspired all Princes withal, made them become his tributaries in order that he might abide at peace and amity with them.40