Creative Writing: The Crusades

Typically when people think about me their thought process inevitably leads them to ponder on violence which appears to be caused by religious disputes, most notably of these occurrences being the Crusades. This often leaves individuals questioning my inhabitants and quartering them off into rigid binaries of Christian and Muslim: us versus them. This fixation scholars and thinkers have had for centuries is incredibly frustrating, as it delineates from understanding my true identity, but it also perpetuates misconceptions about my Islamic citizens which continue to exist to this very day. This misjudgment of my character doesn’t allow individuals to realize that my existence has encouraged and at times forced the cooperation between civilizations

Although the first real examples of globalization occurred after the creation of the printing press and the discovery of the Americas, in my little pocket of the world, this was already happening, albeit on a smaller scale. Events which transpired in Spain, reverberated across me to the Ottoman Empire, and civilizations which existed before it. This interconnectedness is something which should not be undermined by the school of old thought which characterized my inhabitants as “dark-skinned, indolent, inferior, and superstitious people.” By this presumption of inferiority, people believe that the religions which were commonly practiced here were incapable of reaching the same level of sophistication that Christianity had attained in their eyes. Often the identity of my inhabitants is misconstrued, and scholars become incapable of separating the religion of groups from their person. While religion is incredibly important to those which live here in terms of building strong communities and values, it is a disservice to account Islam for the failure of states or civilizations. If this were truly the case, then Islamic innovation would never draw the attention of the Christian communities who lived here alongside

Greek Orthodox Christians were not the only people to take advantage of my trade routes, but often renegade women as well. If it had not been for the well-established trade routes which sailors, pirates, and merchants often traversed from one destination to another, these women would not have been so easily capable of shedding their former identities in order to escape societies which confined them to lives of depravity. The incredible stories of Fatima, Elena, and Mihale would not have transpired without the ambiguity I allow people to adopt while traveling in my waters. These women truly understood who I am as a sentient body of water, and they took advantage of my existence and created new, bold, and even exciting lives for themselves in regions foreign to them. These women’s experiences have gone untold for centuries, but their stories reveal something greater about me; unity of people in places was not only a direct result of commerce and trade, but also simple interaction and relationships which were formed due to travel. Once a foreigner is finished with his visit, he doesn’t simply leave behind those experiences with him. In fact, that foreigner carries them aboard, and back to my waters until he reaches home once again. Fatima’s harrowing tale is a perfect example of this, while