The paper, “Neighboring Faiths” highlights very well the mentality of Christians, and I would argue all people in general. For Europe Islam came to be a unifying force ‘kind of’. ‘Kind of’ because to say that in that time period or even today people could be unified is laughable, even more so by the reasoning behind this particular ‘unification’. For Christian Europe Islam was a direct threat to their power, in an era of god fearing people where might is right could be understood as the prevailing mentality and as justification by god, Islam forced Christianity to be its enemy if those in power wanted to remain in power, if those who have lived their lives as Christians could look at their lives an say I was a good person because I followed god well, not for their actions towards other people.

Europe began to emerge as a more and more Christian centralized identity. The Papacy garnered more strength and influence. The crusades came to be a crystallization of that power, as it gave them the ability to raise armies of many Christian nations to wage war against enemies of Christianity, it justified churches imposing a tax on its followers, the crusades created connections and alliances between nations as well as enemies and rivalries that would not have otherwise emerged. Ultimately the conflict with Islam would have ramifications for centuries to come, but it’s hard to say that without them those supposed ramifications would not have occurred anyway. The crusades created a precedent for conquest and violence against other religions. The crusades were a direct reaction to Islamic Jihads and conquests of Christian lands that threatened the Authority of the Papacy because of the mentality at the time that allowed for only two possibilities. “Either Christianity was an incorrect religion that should be abandoned in favor of Islam or Christians were indeed correct in their religious choice but were being punished by an angry god.” Pg 16.

European and Islamist conviction in their respective beliefs allowed for no one to yield to the other without seeming weak, losing resources and followers to the other as a result. It is in fact the same dance that has been played by every kingdom politics and factionalism powers only on a larger scale. That larger scale played into the hand of those who guided their respective religion, it was an unavoidable conflict between powers.