The following story is related by Usamah Ibn Munqidh, a twelfth-century Muslim writer who lived during the time of the early Crusades, about his interactions with some of the Knights Templar who occupied Jerusalem in his day.
Whenever I visited Jerusalem I always entered the Aqsa Mosque, beside which stood a small mosque, which the Franks had converted into a church. When I used to enter the Aqsa Mosque, which was occupied by the Templars, who were my friends, the Templars would evacuate the little adjoining mosque so that I might pray in it.
One day I entered this mosque, repeated the first formula, “Allah is great,” and stood up in the act of praying. Then one of the Franks rushed to me, got hold of me and turned my face eastward, saying, ‘This is the way you should pray!’
The Templars came up to him and expelled him. They apologized to me, saying, ‘This is a stranger who has only recently arrived from the land of Franks and he has never before seen anyone praying except eastward.’
– Usamah Ibn Munqidh, Autobiography
Ibn Munqidh’s experience is certainly not typical of Christian-Muslim relations in the Crusade period, but it is a useful illustration of the kinds of friendly and respectful relationships that could be forged between individuals of different backgrounds, even in times of war.
From another point of view, it is useful to note that the Templars were effectively enforcing an anti-harassment policy on their own members. If a militant religious order in a war zone could do that, then there’s no excuse for modern fan conventions not doing the same.
Translation from Philip K. Hitti, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 160.
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