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> Catholics murdering them with terrible savagery

I see what you're trying to get at, but you make it sound as though the Islamic world was brutally traumatized by the Crusades. The savagery was no more terrible than any war of that time. And they didn't really "seal themselves off from the world". They did, however, seal themselves off from Europe culturally and intellectually. Politically and economically there was still plenty of engagement.

What the Crusades did do was to further hamper the adoption of European ideas in the Islamic World. While the Crusaders were happy to adopt both goods and knowledge from the Middle East, Arabs and Turks saw little reason to embrace any European customs and ways of thought. The Crusaders were invaders in their own lands and for that reason alone a typical Arab's perception of Europeans would've been much worse than a typical Frank's perception of "Saracens".

Amin Maalouf gives an example towards the end of "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" (decent book, by the way, though I liked "Arab Historians of the Crusades" better). As the Crusades progressed and Europe entered the high middle ages peasants in the West started to gain more rights and privileges as the feudal system continued to weaken. However, none of this was seen in the Middle East, where local lords ruled their holdings with an iron grip and peasant rights barely improved.



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