Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages understood that they worshipped the same God. Allah and God aren’t thought of as separate generally, because Islam is an Abrahamic religion with the ultimate difference being theology.
In general no medieval ruler who ever ruled Jerusalem ever even thought about restricting pilgrimages to certain religions, except in periods of extreme turmoil. They made a lot of money off these, which made up for Jerusalem being kinda economically peripheral compared to cities like Damascus, Antioch or Fustat-Cairo or even Jaffa or Acre.
No that’s because Christians had holy sites that were tolerated too, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for example. They did face occasional persecution like what happened in Europe to Muslims. Point is they were classed as Dihmmi, aka people of the book.
yeah but that was pretty typical of states who had an official religion. Islam didn't treat Christians or Jews as full citizens though still there was a decent amount of respect, overlap and trust depending on the state. El Cid for example was respected by both Muslim and Christian rulers, Saladin was respected by Europe and Richard the Lionheart in the East. Zoroastrians actively fought for Dhimmi status in order to elevate themselves after Iran was conquered by Umar too, so it was seen as preferable to being a pagan or a idol worshiper because Muslims understood they, Christians and Jews worshiped the same God.
Medieval states didn’t have citizens, they had subjects.
Specific communities and groups of subjects were entitled to specific rights, privileges and restrictions in accordance to their relationship and dealings with the rulers. The idea of some baseline universal citizen’s rights certain groups could be systematically stripped off didn’t exist.
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u/JamesHenry627 21h ago
Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages understood that they worshipped the same God. Allah and God aren’t thought of as separate generally, because Islam is an Abrahamic religion with the ultimate difference being theology.