Positive And Negative Effects Of The Crusades

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The land of Palestine was a place sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It was where Jesus had lived, where Muhammad went to heaven on his Night Journey, and where the Jews’ great temple once was. The Muslims ruled this land, and it was usually peaceful among religions. However, the privileges of non-Muslims varied. Sometimes important religious buildings of non-Muslims were demolished, and there were rumors of robbers robbing and killing Christians on pilgrimages. Soon, the Christians decided to take action against what they saw as a threat. The Christian pope called his people to fight in the Crusades, a chain of religious wars fought in an attempt to gain control of Palestine. These horrid Crusades had both a positive and negative impact on the lives of Christians through disagreement on wartime ethics and the spread of new ideas, Muslims through loss of property and unification, and Jews through anti-semitism and a worsened place in society. …show more content…
For instance, one girl said “she respected [Crusaders] as Christians…[but] questioned whether all of the crusaders were truly fighting for God.” Many people had mixed feelings about what was seen as well to their God. Some of the things they were doing, such as murder, were against the Ten Commandments. But the war also spread great new ideas. As the book says, “contact with other cultures had a major impact on Christian’s way of life.” The Crusades spread new things from other places, like food and clothes, to the Christians. Therefore, since people wanted those goods, the merchants who traded them became very