The history of the Arabs from the beginning of the Crusades to the end of the Ottoman Empire

Author: Issa Al-Hassan Pages: 792 Year of publication: 2008 Publishing house: Al-Ahliya for Publishing and Distribution Category: History Brief about the book: The Crusades were nothing but a long and exhausting military clash and cultural confrontation between the Arab Islamic East and the Western European Catholic West. This confrontation began at a time when Arab Islamic civilization had reached its peak of maturity and development. Amidst the conflict, the factors of weakness in the Arab Islamic world became apparent, and at the same time, the factors of strength that helped it withstand the Crusader invasions and triumph over them also became evident. Although the Crusades were not the cause of the cessation and stagnation of Arab Islamic civilization, these wars, which lasted more than two centuries, were among the most important factors draining the creative forces of Arab Islamic civilization, leading to its stagnation and the region's backwardness. The Arab world had to mobilize all its energies and capabilities—human, economic, political, military, social, and cultural—in the military effort or the moral and cultural work accompanying the war. Thus, the Arab region had to reshape all aspects of its life based on the idea that war was the axis of life. Despite all this, the Arab world had not yet entered a decline curve, as the future still held some of the most important achievements of Arab Islamic civilization—economic, military, and cultural.