Today, the city of Jerusalem is seen as so important that people are willing to kill and die to control it. And that struggle goes back centuries. Nearly a thousand years ago, European Christians embarked on what became known as the First Crusade: an unprecedented, massive military campaign to take Jerusalem from Muslims and claim the holy city for themselves. They won a shocking victory – but it didn’t last. A Muslim leader named Saladin raised an army to take the city back. What happened next was one of the most consequential battles of the Middle Ages: A battle that would forever change the course of relations between the Islamic and Christian worlds, Europe and The Middle East.

In this episode, we travel back to the front lines of that battle to explore a simple question: What is Jerusalem worth?

Guests:

Paul Cobb, Professor of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades

Jonathan Phillips, Professor of Crusading History at Royal Holloway University of London and author of The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin

Suleiman Mourad, Professor of Religion and Middle East Studies at Smith College and author of Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period: An Anthology

Tom Madden, Professor of History and Director of the Center of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at St. Louis University, and author of The Concise History of the Crusades

Love Throughline? Please help us out by taking this quick survey! npr.org/throughlinesurvey

To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.