Dimensions
165 x 240 x 33mm
Malcolm Lambert looks afresh at the Christian and Islamic struggle to control the holy places of Palestine and the Middle East between the seventh and thirteenth centuries. Crusade and jihad are often reckoned to be two sides of the same coin: both resonate on opposing sides in the war on terror.
This simple opposition, Dr Lambert argues, ignores crucial differences in their origins and meanings. He compares their early development in a narrative that places an equal emphasis on the complex inner histories of both Christendom and Islam, each of which were and are subject to internal tensions and dissent.
The final chapters consider their long afterlife, including the nineteenth-century French imperial crusade to bring what they saw as their enlightened civilisation to a benighted world; the benign heritage of the Knights Hospitallers and the Royal National Lifeboat Association and the St John Ambulance Brigade; and the terrorists operating in the name of holy jihad in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and elsewhere.
