Episode Description
The Crusades are often imagined as a simple clash between Christians and Muslims, but this view oversimplifies a far more complex reality. Religious belief certainly mattered, yet crusaders were motivated by many factors beyond faith, including political ambition, economic opportunity, social advancement, and personal survival. Neither side was unified. Christian forces frequently fought among themselves, and Muslim rulers were deeply divided by regional rivalries and dynastic conflicts. These divisions meant that alliances sometimes crossed religious boundaries, with Christian and Muslim leaders cooperating against shared enemies. Over time, the nature of the Crusades also changed: campaigns originally framed as pilgrimages evolved into wars of conquest, political struggles, and even attacks on other Christian cities, such as the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Local populations further complicate the picture, as Eastern Christians, Muslims, and Jews often navigated the conflict pragmatically rather than ideologically. Taken together, the Crusades were not a simple binary struggle, but a tangled web of competing interests and shifting loyalties. To dive deep into this history we have brought on historian Niall Christie.
Niall Christie received his PhD in Islamic history from the University of St Andrews in 2000, with a thesis focusing on representations of Europeans in Middle Eastern texts during the early crusading period. Currently, he teaches the history of medieval and early modern Europe, the history of the Muslim world, and world history at Langara College. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Program of Medieval Studies at the University of Victoria.
Niall's research continues to focus on interactions between the Middle East and Europe in the Middle Ages, about which he has published a number of articles and books, including The Book of the Jihad of 'Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami (d. 1106): Text, Translation and Commentary (published in 2015); and Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity's Wars in the Middle East, 1095-1382, from the Islamic Sources, which is currently in its 2nd edition (published in 2020).
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