we ought not see the Crusades as simply “Christians versus Muslims” or vice versa. Christians and Muslims were far too divided for such a monolithic view. Christians were not united among themselves, which is why it ultimately took hundreds of years for the Western Christians to come to the aid of the Byzantine Christians. Muslims were even less united, which is the primary reason the crusaders were able to conquer Jerusalem in 1099. The Seljuq sultan had just died in 1092, and multiple family members were vying for power. The Fatimid dynasty, a Shia caliphate based in Egypt, took advantage of
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