I don't agree with some of the author's statements, particularly his comments on the Fourth Crusade. But perhaps it was the way the author worded what he said and said it through the perspective of how a citizen of Constantinople viewed the Crusade and Crusaders rather than historians - the Byzantines were always paranoid that the Western crusaders were plotting to conquer the Byzantine empire.
Anyways, I'll provide the first page or so of an eleven page essay:
For most civilized people the term holy war is a contradiction in terms. What religious
motive could possibly transform the widespread destruction and the slaughter of thousands
of human beings into a holy and meritorious act? But, as we know, religion has all
too often served as a pretext for violence. Before going any further, however, we should
agree upon a definition of holy war. Three criteria, I think, are essential. A holy war has
to be declared by a competent religious authority, the obvious examples being a Christian
pope or a Muslim caliph. The objective must be religious; again, two obvious examples
are the protection or recovery of sacred shrines or the forced conversion or subjection
of others to your religion. There could, of course, be other goals. Finally, those
who participate in the holy war are to be promised a spiritual reward, such as remission
of their sins or assurance of a place in paradise.1
In the world around the Mediterranean, two forms of holy war did emerge. First, the
Muslim jiha¯d. Much has been written about this, and I wish only to point out its salient
features.2 Jiha¯d is a religious duty for the Muslim community to propagate Islam, employing
coercion of various sorts as needed, until the whole world professes Islam or is
subject to its laws. At times, especially when the caliph, or other religious authority,
proclaims it, this obligation takes the form of armed conflict. Those who die in the
struggle are acclaimed as martyrs and are believed to go straight to paradise. The doctrine
of jiha¯d may be traced to the earliest days of Islam, although maybe not directly to Muhammad
himself. The jiha¯d did not become one of the five “pillars” of Islam, but it was
kept alive by preaching and the attractiveness of the ideal of martyrdom and paradise and
the more tangible rewards of booty and plunder. In essence, it was aggressive and bent
on conquest. Of course, not every war waged by Muslim powers, including those against
nonbelievers, was a holy war. Many were simply tribal, ethnic, or even national conflicts
whose roots often went back to pre-Islamic times.
In Western Europe the idea of a holy war developed later and for different reasons.
So much has been written about this that there is no need to enter into detail.3 First, we
must remember that what we call a crusade was, especially during the first century or
so, a pilgrimage, and those who took part in it were pilgrims; it was a holy journey (iter,
passagium), not a holy war. It was regarded primarily as defensive, that is, armed escorts
were to protect pilgrims on their way to the sacred shrines of Christendom and were to
recover or defend the holy sites in Palestine. This defensive character differentiated it
from jiha¯d, as did the fact that it did not advocate the forceful imposition of Christianity
upon others.......
http://www.doaks.org/publications/doaks ... s/CR03.pdf
