Muslim military inferiority during the Middle Ages

[sumskilz]

The Arab Muslims, as opposed to the Turkish Muslims and others, did not seem very effective against Europeans. It was non-Arabic Muslims like Saladin (A Kurd) who drove out the Crusaders.

So the there is some truth to the Op Ed of the thread, if you were to change it to "Arab Muslim inferiority in the later middle ages". The Arab Muslim armies do not seem as effective as the European ones, at least from the late 11th century onward. The Turks were able to conquer most of the Arab world.

By the time of the crusades, the vast majority of professional soldiers were slave-recruited. Since it wasn't permissible to enslave Muslims, these slaves came from the fringes of the Muslim world or beyond, which meant that professional soldiers weren't Arabs. Settled Arabs served in town militias, and Bedouins sometimes acted as scouts and raiders. The latter weren't dependable, since their loyalty was primarily to their tribes, and were willing to fight on whatever side they saw the most profit in. Arabs who were career soldiers seem to have been a minority. The Fatamid heavy infantry I previously mentioned were sub-Saharan Africans. Their professional cavalry were Turks and Rum (Anatolian Greeks, Armenians, etc.).

William of Tyre described a Muslim army that defeated Amalric of Jerusalem in Egypt as consisting of "twelve thousand Turks of whom nine thousand were heavily armored and wore helmets, while the other three thousand used only bows and arrows". Note the ratio of heavy to light troops there.

[Cookiegod]

The Arab Muslims, as opposed to the Turkish Muslims and others, did not seem very effective against Europeans. It was non-Arabic Muslims like Saladin (A Kurd) who drove out the Crusaders.

So the there is some truth to the Op Ed of the thread, if you were to change it to "Arab Muslim inferiority in the later middle ages". The Arab Muslim armies do not seem as effective as the European ones, at least from the late 11th century onward. The Turks were able to conquer most of the Arab world.

OMG. So Saladin is a Kurd, and you magically assume every soldier of his to be Kurdish as well?! Or that Saladdin after toppling the Fatimid dynasty from one day to the next changed his fighting style?

The Arabs were very effective. Period. Hence why they overran half the world. That they after overextending themselves weren't able to conquer the rest does not mean that the rest was somehow stronger than those that had fallen. And yes, like sumskilz states the main change from the Fatimid armies to the Ayubbid armies were the adoption of Turkic troops and Turkish tactics. Not from one day because the dynasty had changed. But as a process and because the Seljuks had proven themselves to be extraordinarily strong and effective.

And since that change from Fatimids to Ayubbids was broadly speaking from heavier to somewhat lighter, this change is yet another counter evidence to the hypothesis of the OP, which assumed lighter equipment to mean inferiority on the battlefield.

The Iberians, the Christians and Moors alike, both continued to rely very heavily on both mounted and infantry skirmishers.

[Common Soldier]

Most of the Arab conquest occurred in the early middle ages. The Arabs were stopped by the Franks and also by the Byzantines repeatedly at the walls of Constantinople. Nor were the Arabs able to prevent the reconquest of Spain.

Military technological rapidly advanced during the muddle ages and after the early Arab success, which was aided by a couple of fortunate circumstances, Arab advance stalled. Byzantinium and Persia were both exhausted by fighting each other, and Visigothic Spain was riven by civil war. When the Arabs met the Franks, who were not exhausted as the Byzantines were, or riven by civil strife, the Arabs got stopped cold. It was Turks, not the Arabs, who threatened Europe.

As I said, it was non Muslims who defeated the Crusaders. We know that Arabs frequently employed non Arab soldiers, such as the Mamelukes in Egypt. It is was the non-Arabic Mamelukes who stopped the Mongols, not the Arabs. The Arabs folded like a house of cards against the Mongols.

Simply because Saladin fought in Arab lands does not mean that his army was entirely or even mostly composed of Arabs. As we can see in Egypt, that was not the case, the armies that defended Egypt was not Arabic.

As a matter of fact, had you investigated, you would have found that the bulk of Saladin's army was not Arabs.

https://history.stackexchange.com/qu...-saladins-army

[Cookiegod]

There isn't any evidence for an actual civil war having taken place in the Visigothic kingdom during the invasion. Only some tales from centuries after, contradicted by more trustworthy sources.

The Arabs weren't stopped cold, they managed to establish footholds all across the Mediterranean, including modern day France and Italy. The emirate of Bari lasted an impressive 25 years before finally being forced out by the might of the joined forces of Franks and Lombards under the command of an emperor.

The Muslims weren't stopped cold by the battle of Poitiers, they kept going both offensively and defensively for a number of years. It took another 15 years and the entire might of the already extremely powerful Franks to force the Arabs out of what from their perspective was a fringe outpost beyond the Pyrennees which they had no roots in.

Yes Saladdin's army wasn't exclusively Arab, and I never claimed it to have been so, but his armies were pretty much identical to the last Fatimids before him, which you implicitly contrast to him by saying that it took a non Arab to beat the crusaders.

To say that the Europeans would have fared better against the Turks and Mongols is a claim that isn't really supported by much. The Crusader record against the Seljuks is very much mixed. The Mongols proved their worth against European armies repeatedly.

The army marching against Baghdad, btw., was a huge behemoth that looked nothing like the horde you seem to imagine.

And yes, of course it's true that warfare evolved during the medieval era (both in Muslim lands and Christian ones), but 1) that goes for both sides and 2) the Iberians kept a preference for light skirmishers. If they had had no uses, they would not have persisted.
Yet they did on both sides. Why is that I wonder?

[Common Soldier]

By the time of the crusades, the vast majority of professional soldiers were slave-recruited. Since it wasn't permissible to enslave Muslims, these slaves came from the fringes of the Muslim world or beyond, which meant that professional soldiers weren't Arabs. Settled Arabs served in town militias, and Bedouins sometimes acted as scouts and raiders. The latter weren't dependable, since their loyalty was primarily to their tribes, and were willing to fight on whatever side they saw the most profit in. Arabs who were career soldiers seem to have been a minority. The Fatamid heavy infantry I previously mentioned were sub-Saharan Africans. Their professional cavalry were Turks and Rum (Anatolian Greeks, Armenians, etc.).

William of Tyre described a Muslim army that defeated Amalric of Jerusalem in Egypt as consisting of "twelve thousand Turks of whom nine thousand were heavily armored and wore helmets, while the other three thousand used only bows and arrows". Note the ratio of heavy to light troops there.

The native Arab troops do not have seemed especially effective, but perhaps their being militia rather than professional soldiers might have been the main reason.

Still, the reason the Arab world turned to non Arab soldiers might have been that Arabs just were not effective in the style of warfare that had evolved in the middle ages.

It is interesting that the Arab states had to rely on peoples from the outside, much as the later Roman empire had to rely on barbarians for its armies. The use of slave soldiers probably discourage free Arabs from volunteering, because if the soldiers were mostly slaves, it must have been regarded as a lowly occupation.

I wonder why the Islamic relied so much on slave soldiers? Other societies did not rely on slave soldiers, but the Muslim world seemed to like using slave soldiers, the Ottomans also relied on slave soldiers as well.

[Conrad82]

Conrad as an example to you I provided the Almughavars and their quite astonishing successes. Your only counter argument was that they were Christian, which I'm aware of, but which absolutely doesn't matter given that your theory was based on the assumption that the Muslim inferiority was due to their lighter equipment.

... And I replied to you, that the fact light troops could win engagements against heavier troops in a determined setting didn't mean that light troops were generally effective against heavy troops. That is, if the Almoghavars would have fought the knights in, let's say, an open plain instead of a swamp, they would have been anihilated. This is what I said, but apparently I wasn't clear enough, or you weren't able to understand what I was saying. Likewise, seeing how the majority of engagements between Muslims who used light troops tactics and Christian who focused more on heavy cavalry were won by the latter, both during the Reconquista and the Crusades, even when the Muslims outnumbered their foes, tend to prove that there was obviously a problem with the kind of tactics Muslims were using. Not to mention their lack of effectiveness when they used other tactics such as spearmen vs heavy cavalry (in the case of the Almohads and the Almoravids, as I explained earlier.)

The fact that there were plenty engagements won by the Muslims with lighter troops doesn't interest you

Please tell me about these "plenty engagements"

the fact that lighter troops could and did win against heavier troops decisively under the right circumstances doesn't interest you

... And you are repeating the exact same thing I acknowledged.

The fact that the Muslims did field a large variety of heavy troops doesn't interest you. You get pointed out several of the differences between the armies and say you're aware of e.g. the way the Rashidun armies fought, and yet at the same time your claim of them not changing much flies straight in the face of that fact.

... And yet again you answer arguments that no one has made. I was clear enough about that You should really read more carefully, that way you will avoid wasting your time answering arguments that no one makes, and I will avoid wasting my time in pointing that out.


That said, do you really think it is useful bring up the Rashidun army when, by the times of the Crusades, such a model has all but ceased to exist? Don't you think it would be a more useful exercise to try to find out why this model ceased to exist and was replaced by the model seen in the Crusades, which was only sucessful because the Muslims had almost always the advantage in numbers and were fighting in their home turf?

Ehm. Then tell me what answer it is you're looking for. I have a feeling that it's just a "yes".

Any answer supported by reliable sources (that is, not because you are the only saying it) will do

With regards to Guadalete, the betrayal myth is just that. A myth that was made up centuries after the fact, with no evidence of it being real, but plenty of indicators that it was not.

Please elaborate. But even if it is a myth, it isn't terribly important to the topic: that was one battle won against a decrepit kingdom among the many that would be lost in the centuries to come.

Combat prowess is but one of many factors affecting the outcome of a battle. There's a ton of things going on before a battle, for example. Including small warfare.

I know that, yes. Not that it does anything to prove my argument wrong.

The fact of the matter is that after a certain point the Muslim states had become too weak and disunited to exploit their victories, and the Christian states were able to choose the location of the battles on their terms.

Not really. Christians had the upper hand almost during the entire Reconquista period. They started expanding when they were a rump state in the north. They kept having the upper hand against the Almohad and Almoravid empires when they were at the peak of their power. Even when the Ummayad empire was united and powerful, the best they could do was to prevent the Christians from expanding for a time. And what does the location of battles have to do with anything? This is completely nonsensical. If a realm is not united, its generals will feel compelled to fight where the ennemy wants them to instead of avoiding it if they feel the need to? This is completely absurd.

The Christians were much better at allying with each other, and the Muslims were hampered by the fact that they had a large non-Muslim population they increasingly oppressed as time moved on.

... Which again has nothing to do with the tactics you use in a battle, and whether or not the battle is won. Which is the point of this thread.

The Arab Muslims, as opposed to the Turkish Muslims and others, did not seem very effective against Europeans. It was non-Arabic Muslims like Saladin (A Kurd) who drove out the Crusaders.

Not really, the Turks were as effective as the Arabs. There was a particular instance of a battle that took place during the first Crusade where an army of horse archers several times bigger than the Crusader one was almost completely annihilated because they managed to move to a place where their retreat was cut off by a lake, a sea, or whatever, and their capacity to fight at close range, in part due to their lack of armour, was so dismal that even a much smaller Crusader force could win hands down. During the battle of Arsuf, a Muslim chronicler reported that the horse archers arrows were so ineffective against the crusaders that you could see many of them with "one to ten" arrows sticking from their armours and yet kept on walking, while Crusader crossbowmen devastated the Ayyubid army, which was much bigger. In the end, the battle was won by a heavy cavalry charge - and an unplanned one at that.


The truth is, the Turks were able to waste Europeans until the latter grow familiar with the tactic; after that, most victories were a matter of having bigger numbers.

It was non-Arabic Muslims like Saladin (A Kurd) who drove out the Crusaders.

What does the ethniticity of a commander have to do with anything?

This wasn't really the case broadly speaking. Relevant to the crusades/East Mediterranean, you're thinking of the tactics of the Turkic tribal element in Seljuk and Ayyubid armies. The core of the Fatimid army, for example, were slave-recruited heavy infantry. The professional slave-recruited cavalry were armed and fought in a manner similar to late Roman heavy cavalry. The Arab militias of local towns were primarily armed with large shields and spears. Likely the reason the light Turkic cavalry and their tactics play such a central role in Western historiography is because their tactics proved to be particularly effective against the crusaders on several occasions

Pretty much every army in the world had a core of superior troops - i.e. heavy, another entirely different thing is the tactics employed by the army. Did the Fatimid army have a ratio of light/heavy troops similar to Western Europe? I don't think so. Was the effectiveness of these heavy troops similar?


I cannot remember where I saw this, but there is one particular instance where a Crusader army wiped off a Fatimid army because it was mainly made up of archers and light infantry, which made them sitting ducks for the European heavy cavalry.

The problem is only, that the reconquista faced mostly arabian speaking berber armies (Almohads and Almoravids).


Warfare of the Berbers were since the times of the numidians, mauri and gaetuli hit and run skirmishing tactics.


So consequently they were lacking a heavy armoured shock cavalry like knights.

As was already stated, Iberian muslims, whose equipment and tactics were in much of the period similar to Christians ones, were just as effective at stopping the Reconquista. Equipment and tactics can explain part of the problem, but it can't explain everything.

[Conrad82]

I wonder why the Islamic relied so much on slave soldiers? Other societies did not rely on slave soldiers, but the Muslim world seemed to like using slave soldiers, the Ottomans also relied on slave soldiers as well.

Because many of the Islamic peoples were tribal, which means that if you are going to form an army and you want it to be loyal to you, it will be a much better idea to rely on foreigners who have no ties to any personal rival to your rule who happens to be a different tribe than you. Also -- a high standard of living, which means you have enough money to pay the stae to hire soldiers instead of having to become a soldier yourself; which in turn leads to complacency and the loss of any motivation to go to war; all of which creates a vicious circle. The post-conquest Arabs have nothing to do with their ancestors who lived a harsh desert life and created for a time one of the biggest empires the world has seen.

[athanaric]

Still, the reason the Arab world turned to non Arab soldiers is that Arabs just were not effective in the style of warfare that had evolved in the middle ages.

Are you sure that was the reason? Because it strikes me as much more likely that the (Muslim) Arabs, as the main beneficiaries of the Muslim social order, would turn to outsiders to do their dirty work, particularly if (as you alluded to in your next paragraph; I'm just assuming it's the case) soldiering wasn't considered very presitigious or desirable in their society. In other words, a socioeconomic reason rather than a matter of selecting for combat effectiveness (after all, why shouldn't Arabs be able to adapt if they had to?).

[sumskilz]

Pretty much every army in the world had a core of superior troops - i.e. heavy, another entirely different thing is the tactics employed by the army. Did the Fatimid army have a ratio of light/heavy troops similar to Western Europe? I don't think so. Was the effectiveness of these heavy troops similar?

The majority of their army were slave-recruited professionals who had done nothing but train as soldiers their entire lives since about eight years old. Units were uniformly equipped by the state. But in any particular engagement, these were supplemented by local militias and irregulars of various backgrounds.

I cannot remember where I saw this, but there is one particular instance where a Crusader army wiped off a Fatimid army because it was mainly made up of archers and light infantry, which made them sitting ducks for the European heavy cavalry.

You're thinking of the Battle of Ashkelon in 1099, but that's not exactly what happened. The crusaders surprised the Fatimid army at dawn in their camp, and charged the Fatimid infantry before they could form up. The Fatimid infantry would have been wearing mail sewed in between two layers of quilted armor if they had time to get it on. They were trained to skirmish or fight in close order with large shields. They threw javelins before engaging in close combat. In this case the crusaders' cavalry charge was completely unexpected and the battle was over before the Fatimid heavy cavalry were even ready to join the fight. The Fatimids took massive casualties and the crusaders relatively few. It seems like it was more of a failure of leadership than combat ability.

The Fatimids were a Shiite Muslim dynasty ruling over a largely Sunni Muslim and Christian population. In the several decades preceding the arrival of the crusaders they had been through multiple famines and civil wars. From 1094, they were "ruled" by a puppet caliph who had been placed on the throne by an Armenian vizier named Al-Afdal, who was actually in charge. During the crisis, they lost all their territory in the Levant to the Seljuks. So it's probably safe to assume that their weakness was largely political.

[Common Soldier]

There isn't any evidence for an actual civil war having taken place in the Visigothic kingdom during the invasion. Only some tales from centuries after, contradicted by more trustworthy sources.

I am not aware of these earlier Muslims accounts that you refer to. Can you provide them?

My experience is that we don't have a lot of "early" accounts of the Arab conquests, and I would question their reliability. In the Battle of Tours, the Arab figures for the number of Frankish troops are no more reliable than the Frank numbers for the Arabs.

The Arabs weren't stopped cold, they managed to establish footholds all across the Mediterranean, including modern day France and Italy. The emirate of Bari lasted an impressive 25 years before finally being forced out by the might of the joined forces of Franks and Lombards under the command of an emperor.

The Muslims weren't stopped cold by the battle of Poitiers, they kept going both offensively and defensively for a number of years. It took another 15 years and the entire might of the already extremely powerful Franks to force the Arabs out of what from their perspective was a fringe outpost beyond the Pyrennees which they had no roots in.

Yes, the Arabs were stopped cold. The fact that the Arabs never again launched a raid/invasion of such magnitude into France proves they were stopped cold. And managing to hang on to a few possessions does not change the fact that the Arabs were rapidly expanding before Tours and were not after Tours proves the case.

And it is BS to claim the Arabs were not interested north of the Pyrenees, since if that were true, the Muslims would not have launched that invasion/large scale raid in the first place.

Yes Saladin's army wasn't exclusively Arab, and I never claimed it to have been so, but his armies were pretty much identical to the last Fatimids before him, which you implicitly contrast to him by saying that it took a non Arab to beat the crusaders.

You are being less than honest here. I never said that Saladin army had no Arabs, but I was correct in that that his army was largely non Arabic. Your claim that you never said that Saladin's army was not exclusively Arabic does not go far enough. Arabs played only a minor, secondary role.

And your implied claim that Saladin was just like the Arabs of Fatimid's armies is not true. The bulk of Saladin's army was different in fighting style and equipment from the Arab forces. Turcomen horse archers used composite bows seem to be more powerful than the the bows used by Arabs.

It was the Turks, not the Arabs, that gave problems to the Crusaders. And while the Arabs were unable to stop the Mongols, the non- Arab Mamelukes were able to stop them.

To say that the Europeans would have fared better against the Turks and Mongols is a claim that isn't really supported by much.

The Mongols never expanded beyond Hungary, nor were the Mongols ever able to conquer all of Hungary, and the Mongols failed in achieving one of their key objectives, the capture of the Hungarian king. The richest parts of Europe were untouched by the Mongols, nor did Mongols attempt take Constantinople. When the Mongals tried invading Hungary again, the Mongols were soundly defeated Meanwhile, the jewel of Islam, Baghdad was captured and destroyed by Mongols. So yes, the Arabs did fare far worse against the Mongols. Buda and Pest do not begin to compare to Baghdad, and the major cities of Europe, Venice, Paris, London, Rone were untouched by Mongols.

The Crusader record against the Seljuks is very much mixed. The Mongols proved their worth against European armies repeatedly.

In the Mongol second invasion of Hungary, they were soundly defeated and the Mongols never got to Western Europe. The Seljuks are not Arabs, so it was irrelevant to our conversation.

The Arabs, after the early middle ages were not much of a military power. If the Turks had converted to Christianity Islam might have become a minor religion. It was the Turks that the saved the Mideast from European conquest. When Turkish power fell, most of the Middle East fell under European control.

The army marching against Baghdad, btw., was a huge behemoth that looked nothing like the horde you seem to imagine.

I never said anything about the size of the army marching against Baghdad, so you have no idea what I thought.

And yes, of course it's true that warfare evolved during the medieval era (both in Muslim lands and Christian ones), but 1) that goes for both sides and 2) the Iberians kept a preference for light skirmishers. If they had had no uses, they would not have persisted.
Yet they did on both sides. Why is that I wonder?

The fact that it was the Muslims who largely copies the Christian armies in Spain and not the reverse showed that the Arab Muslims were acknowledging the military superiority of the European Christians. Spanish Christian armies were similar to other European armies of the time, while Iberian Muslim armies were equipped differently than Arab Muslims of Syria, for example.

[Common Soldier]

Note, I do not say medieval Muslims armies were less advance or inferior to medieval European medieval armies.

But I do say that a case could be made made that later medieval Arab warriors were not as good. For whatever reason, Arabs seem to have preferred others to do their fighting for them after their initial wave of conquest.

Even the Reconquest of Spain was delayed by Berber warriors rather than Arab ones.

[Common Soldier]

Note, after the Islamic golden age, we don't see a lot of technological innovation in the Islamic world. While the Turks were quick to adopt the latest military innovations from Europe, like the matchlock, the Arab world seems somewhat slower.

Arab armor in the 15th century was not much different in the 15th century than the 11th century, but European armor and weapons were vastly different in the 2 centuries. Only the Turks really kept up for awhile and at times were the leaders.

[Conrad82]

It was the Turks, not the Arabs, that gave problems to the Crusaders. And while the Arabs were unable to stop the Mongols, the non- Arab Mamelukes were able to stop them.

I difer. It was the Arab militias, if we can call them that who stopped or at least delayed the Crusaders when they laid siege to the cities, specially at the beginning of the Crusades. At the beginning, Turks were basically unable to do anything else than fighting each other, running away or trying to appease the Crusaders, and it befell to the Arab civilian / militia population to defend their cities when they realized their Turkish "protectors", who in many cases were nothing but thugs who preyed on them, wouldn't be of any use.

The fact that it was the Muslims who largely copies the Christian armies in Spain and not the reverse showed that the Arab Muslims were acknowledging the military superiority of the European Christians

I disgress there as well. I can't quantify how much each side copied from the other but Christians did copy some elements of Muslim warfare, the tactic of feigned retreat being oen of them.

[Common Soldier]

I difer. It was the Arab militias, if we can call them that who stopped or at least delayed the Crusaders when they laid siege to the cities, specially at the beginning of the Crusades. At the beginning, Turks were basically unable to do anything else than fighting each other, running away or trying to appease the Crusaders, and it befell to the Arab civilian / militia population to defend their cities when they realized their Turkish "protectors", who in many cases were nothing but thugs who preyed on them, wouldn't be of any use.

The armies that drove the Crusaders out were primarily non-Arabic. Whether that was simply because the armies were professional soldiers, which were mostly non Arabic or whether the fighting style of these non Arab troops were effective, is up for debate.

I suspect that it was the later. The Turks were known for using powerful bows. I have not read any accounts that extoll the power of the Arab bows, and I suspect that the Arab bows were not as powerful as Turkish bows.
We have accounts of how the Crusader armor was effective against Muslim bows, yet we know mail armor was not effective against powerful longbows, test have show that, which is why knights started wearing plate armor in the 14th century. Turkish bows were similar in power to powerful longbows. Perhaps accounts of the Crusader armor stopping dozens of arrows were agaibst weaker Arab bows, and not more powerful Turkish ones? Just speculation.

I disgress there as well. I can't quantify how much each side copied from the other but Christians did copy some elements of Muslim warfare, the tactic of feigned retreat being oen of them.

I was talking about military technology, not tactics. I know Muslim sources talk about Ferengi (French) crossbows, which the Muslims adopted .

In the case of Spanish Arabs, you see illustrations showing them sometimes using kite shields instead of the more typical rounded shield used by Arabs. And sone of the Spanish Muslims are shown wearing European style mail hauberks.

[Common Soldier]

Are you sure that was the reason? Because it strikes me as much more likely that the (Muslim) Arabs, as the main beneficiaries of the Muslim social order, would turn to outsiders to do their dirty work, particularly if (as you alluded to in your next paragraph; I'm just assuming it's the case) soldiering wasn't considered very presitigious or desirable in their society. In other words, a socioeconomic reason rather than a matter of selecting for combat effectiveness (after all, why shouldn't Arabs be able to adapt if they had to?).

Could be. I meant to say the reason "might of been", not is. Perhaps non Arab soldiers were more effective because they were professional soldiers while most Arabs were militia. Like the late Roman Empire, finding citizens willing to be soldiers was difficult, so the Romans increasingly turned to using barbarians.

Still, I suspect the bows of the non Arab soldiers might have been more powerful than the typical Arab bows, ehich is why they might have been more effective

[antaeus]

This thread might as well be saying "Why are all the people of Asia, from Tel Aviv to Vladivostok, from Murmansk to Kuala Lumpur" universally bad at Rugby?

There are so many variables in it's initial questions so as to make it almost impossible to answer in a coherent way. It's universalist nonsense.

Bohemond captured Antioch through slight of hand. But he still had his behind handed to him in the end. And that has absolutely nothing what so ever to do with why Muhammad al-Nasir lost Cordoba. Which in turn had absolutely nothing to do with how Louis II managed to defeat the Emirate of Bari.

I mean, do we blame Brexit on the Seven Years War?

Sheesh.

[Conrad82]

The armies that drove the Crusaders out were primarily non-Arabic. Whether that was simply because the armies were professional soldiers, which were mostly non Arabic or whether the fighting style of these non Arab troops were effective, is up for debate.


I suspect that it was the later. The Turks were known for using powerful bows. I have not read any accounts that extoll the power of the Arab bows, and I suspect that the Arab bows were not as powerful as Turkish bows.


We have accounts of how the Crusader armor was effective against Muslim bows, yet we know mail armor was not effective against powerful longbows, test have show that, which is why knights started wearing plate armor in the 14th century. Turkish bows were similar in power to powerful longbows. Perhaps accounts of the Crusader armor stopping dozens of arrows were agaibst weaker Arab bows, and not more powerful Turkish ones? Just speculation.

I do not think so. You have said yourself that Arabs were not a main part of the Muslim armies of the time, so we have to guess the majority of the army at, let's say, the battle of Arsuf, was Turkish; at least most of it, if not all, was cavalry, and knowing what took place in the battle, it is safe to assume most was cavalry archers; the Muslim account of the battle doesn't mention any particular kind of archer being any more effective than the rest, so that and the fact that crusades won the battle after hours of being pelted by arrows lead us to assume that composite bows weren't any more effective than any other bow used in that battle. Also, afaik, the Muslim horse archers neutralized heavy cavalrymen, not by shooting at the soldier, but rather at the mount, which explains why they were so ineffective in that particular battle, since Richard took good care of protecting his heavy cavalry with a screen of well armoured infantry, which offered a far harder target.


I was talking about military technology, not tactics. I know Muslim sources talk about Ferengi (French) crossbows, which the Muslims adopted .


In the case of Spanish Arabs, you see illustrations showing them sometimes using kite shields instead of the more typical rounded shield used by Arabs. And sone of the Spanish Muslims are shown wearing European style mail hauberks.[/QUOTE]
Yes, and the Christians copied military "technology" from Muslims in addition to tactics. Namely the Berber way of mounting;


I would also like to answer some things you said in previous posts, as I forgot to do it before:

It was the Turks, not the Arabs, that gave problems to the Crusaders. And while the Arabs were unable to stop the Mongols, the non- Arab Mamelukes were able to stop them.

I do not know of any independent Arab entity of the time that faced the Mongols besides the Abbassid caliphate; which I don't think we can take as an example, since the fall of Baghdad was mainly due to the caliph' exceptional stupidity, as he neglected to fortify the city believing that if the Mongols attacked it, every Muslim in the world would come to his aid.

Note, after the Islamic golden age, we don't see a lot of technological innovation in the Islamic world. While the Turks were quick to adopt the latest military innovations from Europe, like the matchlock, the Arab world seems somewhat slower.


Arab armor in the 15th century was not much different in the 15th century than the 11th century, but European armor and weapons were vastly different in the 2 centuries. Only the Turks really kept up for awhile and at times were the leaders.

Again, was there a significant Arab independant political identity civilized enough (i.e. no the Bedouins ot the Arabian desert) that would have been able to develop or acquire such technology? Equip its soldiers with adequate armour?


I don't think the Arab decline can be used to explain the performance of the Muslim world against Europe, nor can their decline be explained by the quality of their warfare. The Rashidun army did pretty well against the Byzantines, which at the time was the closest thing to later European armies; and there is no reason to think that same Rashidun army would have been unable to stave off the Turks or anyone else; but when the Turks invaded, the Arab empire was broken, ripped apart by sectarian strife, tribal strife, dynastic strife and inter-ethnic strife. The Turks managed to take over, not because their tactics were superior, but simply because there was no decent army to prevent them from doing so. The Turks were not better than any other Muslim at stopping the crusaders. Let's remember the Europeans wrok havoc in their home turf of Anatolia and founded states there as they did in the Holy Land; and if the crusaders reached the Holy Land through Anatolia, well, it's because the Turks were unable to prevent them from passing through their territory.

Even the Reconquest of Spain was delayed by Berber warriors rather than Arab ones.

There was never an exclusively Arab army in Spain and the south of France. Both the successes and the failures were accomplished by mixed armies so we cannot blame the failures in Spain to the Muslims in question being Arab. Also, from a certain point on, it is more accurate to talk of Andalusians rather than Arabs: a new identity which is the result of the mixing of Arabs, berbers, native Muslims, and even Jews and Slavs throughout the generations.


The berberbs of the Almoravid and Almohad dinasties didn't do any better than those who came before them, and their success, which were short lived, had more to do with them unifying Al Andalus for a while than anything else. There is no reason to think they would have done it worse had they been Arabs. Actually, of the Muslim groups involved in Spain, they seem to have been the more reluctant to adopt the necessary changes in warfare. Basically they were skirmishers and spearmen. For some reason, throughout the period they wore less protection than their non-Berber Muslim brethren; according to an historical text, only the elite among them worse some armour.


Why I wonder? Was it due to lack of money? I find it unlikely, as far as I know, Muslim soldiers were equipped by the state, and other Muslims - the rank and file ones, not the elite - were entitled to receive armour. Maybe the the state didn't invest as much money in them, but I find this explanation unlikely as well, since even if it was true, I would guess they would acquire proper armour when they worked as mercenaries, or even by just looting; and anyway this didn't seem to change in the times of the Berber dynasties, when the rulers were Berber as well and you would expect them to care about their own people.


Maybe they just didn't want to wear armour, pure and simple. They may have thought it was cowardly, or they didn't bother to adapt to it.


Of course, lack of armour can't be a factor that turns the tide of a battle. It cannot explain crushing defeats such as las Navas or Rio Salado, when Spanish heavy cavalry crushed the Muslim vanguard lines even tough they were made from spearmen, and supposedly disciplined ones at that. Also, lack of morale doesn't seem to be a factor unless everyone knows the battle is completely lost, as they were religious fanatics and warriors hardened by constant warfare. It might be completely dumb, but I'm thinking the reason might simply be that the spears were too short? After all, it doesn't suffice to have spearmen, you need their spears to be longer than the lances used by the charging cavalrymen, else you are pretty much doomed in the event of a frontline charge. It also seems their spears were made of bamboo rather than wood, and I wouldn't be suprised to learn that bamboo is far more frail than wood.


Who knows, maybe they never bothered to change them? XD


Perhaps a certain reluctance to change, to adopt the hated ennemy' innovations, was one factor that can explain everything. I recall a text written, I believe, by Ibn Al Athir complaining that the Andalusians had adopted the crossbow and abandoned the "fine" Arab bow.


Maybe the OP is not accurate and it should rather say "Why was Christian Europe superior to pretty much everyone else in the Middle Ages". Maybe the factor that explains this is simply the knight: the tank of the Middle Ages which other peoples attempted to copy but few succeeded. A type of soldier who ruled the battlefields until the infantry was able to oppose them.

This thread might as well be saying "Why are all the people of Asia, from Tel Aviv to Vladivostok, from Murmansk to Kuala Lumpur" universally bad at Rugby?

There are so many variables in it's initial questions so as to make it almost impossible to answer in a coherent way. It's universalist nonsense.

Bohemond captured Antioch through slight of hand. But he still had his behind handed to him in the end. And that has absolutely nothing what so ever to do with why Muhammad al-Nasir lost Cordoba. Which in turn had absolutely nothing to do with how Louis II managed to defeat the Emirate of Bari.

I mean, do we blame Brexit on the Seven Years War?

Sheesh.

Not really, you didn't quite understand it. We are not discussing why Al-Nasir lost Cordoba and how the Emirate of Bari was defeated, we are discussing why every Muslim in Spain besides Al-Nasir lost his city and why every emirate or whatever in Europe was defeated, while the Muslims struggled to retain the Holy Land owing basically to superior numbers, fighting at home, and occasionally taking advantage of their foes' lack of unity. It is common sense to think that if the same thing happens in several places, several times, and the same people is involved, then there might be a single explanation, or a single set of explanations that might explain it. You not being able to realize that doesn't mean these explanations don't exist, but I'm sure it would change if you spent your time thinking about that instead of spending your time making smart-assed, useless comments

Like... if the people of Asia are not good at Rugby, it is simply because they do not have a tradition of playing Rugby. See how easy this is?

[antaeus]

Not really, you didn't quite understand it. We are not discussing why Al-Nasir lost Cordoba and how the Emirate of Bari was defeated, we are discussing why every Muslim in Spain besides Al-Nasir lost his city and why every emirate or whatever in Europe was defeated, while the Muslims struggled to retain the Holy Land owing basically to superior numbers, fighting at home, and occasionally taking advantage of their foes' lack of unity. It is common sense to think that if the same thing happens in several places, several times, and the same people is involved, then there might be a single explanation, or a single set of explanations that might explain it. You not being able to realize that doesn't mean these explanations don't exist, but I'm sure it would change if you spent your time thinking about that instead of spending your time making smart-assed, useless comments

Like... if the people of Asia are not good at Rugby, it is simply because they do not have a tradition of playing Rugby. See how easy this is?

Actually, you don't get it. I'm talking in metaphors. I was giving random examples to show how disconnected the events you are referring to are.

So disconnected as to render any generalisations irrelevant. Even within the Spanish reconquest of Spain, that's a 700 year time span where entire ethnic identities evolved. The United States has only existed for half that time yet we don't sit here wondering how the war of 1812 contributed to the withdrawal from Vietnam (another metaphor).

I do get the argument you're trying for. I have thought about it. I just think it's pointless.

[Conrad82]

... And I was answering with another metaphor to prove you were wrong. It seems you are the one who doesn't get it You used metaphors to say the events I talk about are not connected, and i used metaphors to prove that this is not absurd, but that rather you think it is because you are unable to find a connection yourself (i.e. the lack of rugby tradition. Did it even occur to you?)

The United States has only existed for half that time yet we don't sit here wondering how the war of 1812 contributed to the withdrawal from Vietnam

We don't because it didn't, it is completely absurd. And it is just as absurd that you try to imply that looking for a link between 1812 and the Vietnam war is the same than looking for a common reason to explain something that has consistently happened throughout time. What does it have to do with anything? It is silly nonsense.

[antaeus]

We don't because it didn't, it is completely absurd. And it is just as absurd that you try to imply that looking for a link between 1812 and the Vietnam war is the same than looking for a common reason to explain something that has consistently happened throughout time. What does it have to do with anything? It is silly nonsense.

I've highlighted the important parts.

Because you're trying to discover a consistent theme of military weakness that only works if you ignore the vast time scale you're looking at and in particular ignore the occurrences that disagree with your hypothesis. Islamic states were established, grew and lasted for centuries and fell within your time period. They developed distinct ethnic identities. These states won countless victories during their time, they built vast cities, some conquered vast swathes of territory spanning from Sub Saharan Africa to Spain. They defeated Christian armies and yes, they conquered Christian lands. They also fought between each other, and allied with Christian states against other Christian states, and against other Islamic states. They repeatedly solved the military problems of their times with differing strategies, sometimes failing, sometimes winning. But to see the loss of Granada to Isabella and Ferdinand's canons as somehow consistent with a narrative born in Pelayo's resistance 700 years earlier is to look for meaning in the snow.

I appreciate your desire to build historical narratives. But to develop a narrative of systemic military weakness that spans centuries, you have to put a little bit of time into exploring where the historical record throws up things that are anomalous to your narrative. Can you do that for me? Explain away the exceptions to your rule?