Pax Mashirq

(Also referred to as “Cross & Crescent”)

Current Year: 1100

“No peace and security among mankind—let alone common friendship—can ever exist as long as people think that governments get their authority from God and that religion is to be propagated by force of arms.”

-John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration: Humbly Submitted

In this universe, Wiebert of Ravenna (known in our universe as Antipope Clement III) is elected to the position of Pope of the Catholic Church in 1088 rather than his personal rival, Pope Urban II, becoming Pope Clement III. In addition, Tutush I, the Sultan of Damascus, does not die in 1095, meaning that his sons do not further divide Syria when they inherit his kingdom.

When the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos approaches Pope Clement III to ask for aid in repelling the invading Seljuk Turks and stopping the attacks of Christian pilgrims, the Pope holds his own version of the “Council of Clermont” in Italy (as opposed to France as it was in our universe), asking for both military and diplomatic volunteers. Instead of the People’s Crusade attempting to reach Jerusalem, the first envoy sent from Europe is an armed force protecting a group of emissaries sent to Syria in 1096. Seeking audience with Kilij Arslan I, the Sultan of Rûm and his brother Tutush I, the envoy is received peacefully and is allowed to meet with the rulers of the region in a diplomatic court. Through the brokering of mutually beneficial political and economic deals, a treaty is worked out that is designed to protect both pilgrims to the Holy Land as well as its native inhabitants (primarily by putting the city under a joint-style of martial law, where the city is policed by both a European and Turkish military force working in unison), as well as for European powers to purchase ownership of parts of the city and its surrounding areas. This effectively averts the First Crusade of 1096, as well as the entirety of the Crusades altogether.

Though strained at times, Jerusalem becomes a relatively peaceful area of transit and pilgrimage, housing both Muslims and Christians, and serving as a lucrative hot-bed of businesses for both Europe and the Middle East. New routes of trade between the two regions are established, and the technology invented in one region now more quickly spreads to the other. Native businesses spring-up in the Middle East where familiar European-style goods, services and comforts (from hotels that offer a Euro-centric style and aesthetic, to craftsmen making textiles and armor) are offered to pilgrims in exchange for gold, funneling wealth into the region. A monument is erected to commemorate the historic brokering of peace in what becomes known as “The Council of Twin Powers” in the form of a large public mural in Jerusalem showing a European armored knight holding up a broadsword which is crossed by the scimitar of a Turkish soldier standing side-by-side with him, with each figure flanked by a gathering of Christian and Muslim worshippers on each of their sides.