Part 12

British Prime Minister William Gladstone expressed it clearly when he addressed Parliament, holding a copy of the noble Quran in his hand, "So long as this is in the hearts and minds of the Egyptians, we will never be able to defeat them."30 When the British crusader general entered Jerusalem in victory after the First World War and was received with great honour by the allies of the British, he could not conceal his crusader resentment against Islam and the Muslims; he expressed his joy and happiness as a victorious crusader leader who had conquered Jerusalem and Palestine and brought it under the crusader British Mandate, saying, "Now the Crusades are over."31 With this statement he declared that the aim of the Crusades, to occupy Jerusalem and impose Crusader authority on it and on Palestine had been achieved. He was stating that the Crusades, which continued for two centuries, during which Jerusalem and Palestine were occupied in 492 AH and liberated by the Muslims in 583 AH, had not achieved their goal until the First World War. The Crusaders achieved their goal when they took over Palestine and Jerusalem. The French crusader general went to the tomb of Salah ad-Deen in Damascus where he said at the graveside, "Now we have come back, Saladin."32 The Crusades continued and did not stop. Britain gave a homeland to the Jews in Palestine, where a Jewish state was established. They took the necessary administrative and military steps to establish this state, training the Jews in the use of weapons and arts of war, and supplying them with weapons; they even gave them some of the British army's weapons, specifically when Britain announced the end of the British Mandate in Palestine on 15th May 1948. They even handed over many Palestinian cities and towns to the Jews, who announced the establishment of the Jewish state, but at the same time they forbade the Muslim Palestinians to train in the use of weapons or to keep weapons, and they inflicted unjust punishments on any Palestinian who kept weapons or military equipment. Execution was a common punishment; thousands of Muslim mujahideen were hanged on the gallows of the British crusaders during that period, and tens of thousands were thrown into prison.33 These events coincided with the colonialist movement and were closely connected to the Christian missionary movement, both Protestant and Catholic, the centres of which were spread throughout the length and breadth of the Muslim world. These missionaries paved the way for colonialism by means of their various activities; they also enjoyed a lot of help and advantages under colonialist authority. But this colonialist counterattack did not happen peacefully and the Muslim peoples did not bow to the force of the invaders; they rolled up their sleeves and resorting to the strength generated by faith, they were able by means of their sacrifices, fearlessness in the face of death and desire for martyrdom, to resist the invasion despite the fact that they had no material or military resources. They achieved amazing feats that astounded the western colonialists and interrupted the flow of their plans for conquest, inflicting disastrous defeats on them and blocking their way with barbed wire and mines. Not only that, the response to the Christian colonialist challenge brought about authentic Islamic movements which were forged in a tough Jihad environment and were aimed at dealing with the enemy and liberating the land, the faith and the people. They produced examples of resistance action which were acknowledged by the Westerners themselves — before any Easterners — and which filled many bright pages of history.35 By way of example only, as we cannot list everything, we may mention the resistance of Muhammad 'Abd al-Kareem al-Khattabi in Morocco; 'Abd al-Qadir alJaza'iri and the Association of Muslim Scholars (Jam'iyat 'Ulamd' alMuslimeen) in Algeria, which was led by 'Abd al-Hameed ibn Badees and Muhammad al-Basheer al-Ibraheemi; 'Umar al-Mukhtar in Libya; and other liberation movements which deserve greater sincere, honest efforts to research and write about them. The Ummah is in the greatest need of such serious studies. The Crusades have not ended and will never end; what is happening in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine tells us that. CHAPTER II The Most Important Causes of the Crusader Invasion During this period, Western European society was dominated by local conflicts and wars between feudal princes, which helped to exacerbate the worsening social and economic situation in Western Europe.36 The conflicts between the two heads of the Western Christian world at that time — the pope and the emperor — also had a great effect on the course of European events. The papacy had reached a high level of power and influence during this period, which had opened the door to it becoming an international power in the sense that the pope was officially the spiritual leader of all Christians, in the East and in the West equally.37 However, there were ongoing conflicts between the two churches, the Eastern Orthodox and the Western Catholic, each of which insisted that its point of view should prevail and that it should have the upper hand over the other.