The legacy of the "crusader mentality" reigns supreme to this day in conflicts from the eastern Mediterranean and the Fertile Crescent to the Balkans and farther west—conflicts that spell terror, trauma, and tragedy.
This "crusader mentality" became a critical part of the triad of Russian political psyche based on centralization, authoritarianism, and religious mission. During the past five centuries this Russian psyche has devastated many nations from Crimea, to the Urals, from Caucasia to Central Asia and beyond.
This experiment in social engineering consistently substituted basic human rights, human freedoms, and human dignity with modernized slavery, political suppression, and religious persecution.
Half a Millennium of Religious Intolerance:
Russian-Muslim Conflicts in Caucasia and Beyond
By Zaman S. Stanizai
Political Editor, Asian Affairs – The Minaret
The ebb and flow of the Muslim-Christian history has had its turns and twists and ironies. Charles Martel Battle of Tours, in the vicinity of Paris, in 732, A.D. is seen by many analysts as a critical turning point in the history of Islam while the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 has been viewed as a loss of equal magnitude to the Christians.
The side effects of both of these events, however, have been overlooked by many. In the long run Muslim-Christian relations, the dark side of the Battle of Tours was the subsequent century-long crusader wars (1096-1204, A.D.) that spread religious hatred and intolerance, a trait of the dark ages of Europe, to Muslim lands. As an unfortunate consequence of those wars belligerency and animosity became a norm of conduct between the two most similar major universalistic and monotheistic religions of the world. While the crusader campaigns ended in early 13th century, the subsequent colonial and neo-colonial periods further aggravated Muslim-Christian relations. The legacy of the "crusader mentality" reigns supreme to this day in conflicts from the eastern Mediterranean and the Fertile Crescent to the Balkans and farther west—conflicts that spell terror, trauma, and tragedy.
Perhaps, the most important event of 1453 was not the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, but the transfer of the seat of Orthodox Christianity to Moscow, resulting from the triumph of Islam on the European continent. This power shift enabled Christian Orthodox Russia to initiate its own crusades. This "crusader mentality" became a critical part of the triad of Russian political psyche based on centralization, authoritarianism, and religious mission. During the past five centuries this Russian psyche has devastated many nations from Crimea, to the Urals, from Caucasia to Central Asia and beyond.
To the Russians, the 'Muslim East' posed a threat, albeit an unjustifiable; but from the Muslim perspective theirs have been a history of forced conversion, cultural assimilation, Cossack raids, territorial annexations, Russification, Sovietization, collectivization, forced mass migration, starvation, merciless slaughters, and outright genocide of the millions.
Russian generals, Austrian, German, and other European officers in the service of the czars outperformed the Mongols in genocidal atrocities via mercenary missions; the later on the bases of barbarism while the former in the name of (European) civilization were first justified by the religious mission of Orthodox Christianity, later by Czarist empire building schemes, and for the past seven decades in the name of creating a "classless Soviet society." In the process, independent states, principalities, khanates, sultanates, emirates, and confederations, many the sizes of modern European states gave way to the largest centralized bureaucracy in human history that simply dehumanized these societies. This experiment in social engineering consistently substituted basic human rights, human freedoms, and human dignity with modernized slavery, political suppression, and religious persecution.
Attempts by Russians to subjugate the freedom loving people in southern Caucasia, Trans-Caucasia and northern Caucasia, as well as in Crimea, the Urals, along the banks of Volga to Kazan and beyond resulted in fierce resistance that were lead by legendary leaders like Ghazi Muhammad, Hamza Bek, Haji Murad, Shu'aib, and Imam Shamil whose leadership, valor, and piety is emulated in the war in Chechnya today.
This article will analyze Chechnya and Caucasia in a historical context. The analysis will raise more questions than can be satisfactorily answered, but in doing so the reader will become acquainted with the many nations that have been imprisoned within the Soviet/Russian borders. The steadfast heroism, resilience, perseverance, agonies, and triumphs would convince the reader that Caucasia should no longer be viewed terra incognita, but a Dar el Islam that is vibrant in spite of all the odds it faces.
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