The Fourth Crusade left three terrible legacies: a deepening religious split between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic ...

While the first three Crusades were launched in an effort to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslims, the Fourth Crusade, begun in 1202, pitted Christians against Christians: Roman Catholics against Orthodox.

In April 1204, Crusader armies breached the walls of Constantinople after a brutal siege shaped by chance, wind, and desperation. What followed was not victory but catastrophe, as the greatest city in ...

At Zara, a desperate crusader leadership accepted an extraordinary offer from Prince Alexius that promised money, unity, and imperial power. This moment marked the true turning point of the Fourth ...

As a student of history, Ridley Scott knows as well as anyone that the Crusades have been given the gauzy, soft-focus treatment by Hollywood. What turned out to be “one of the blackest chapters in the ...

In an earlier column in these pages, “Reforming Islam,” I documented the need for Islam to experience an internal reformation. This is not just a question of abstract theology but directly relates to ...

It was Easter Sunday, and I was in a tuk-tuk in Sri Lanka when I first heard about the attacks by Islamist suicide bombers in which more than 250 people died. Shortly after, Islamist groups aligned ...

From the safe distance of many centuries, it is easy enough to scowl in disgust at the Crusades. Religion, after all, is nothing to fight wars over. But we should be mindful that our medieval ...