Why the Crusades Started with Seljuk Turks in 1071

Crusader killing Seljuk Turk in Jerusalem
The Seljuks of Asia Minor were the only Turks that continued to speak Turkish
and became the forerunners of the Ottoman Turks. These Seljuks fighting
in Syria and Palestine became Arabized by using Arabic as their language.  The Seljuks
of iran used Persian for a language.  

Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

First, there was an empire we need to know more about.  It was the Saljuqs or Seljuks. The Seljuk Empire (Persian: آل سلجوق‎, translit. Āl-e Saljuq, lit. 'House of Saljuq') or the Great Seljuq Empire was a high medieval Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim empire, originating from the Qiniq branch of Oghuz Turks. At its greatest extent, the Seljuk Empire controlled a vast area stretching from western Anatolia and the Levant to the Hindu Kush in the east, and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf in the south.  They were the Muslims that Crusaders came to fight, the Seljuk Turks in 1071.  
                                                                       

                                                                       
                           Causes of the Crusades are many.

1. They were a reaction of the Christian West to the aggression of Muslim Middle East.
2. The Continuous strife between the Sunni Saljuqs of Syria and the Shi'a Fatimids of Egypt made Christian pilgrims be in danger to visit holy places in Palestine.
3. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed by Fatimid caliph, Hakim.
4. The growing power of the Saljuqs in Asia Minor threatened the trade that Genoa, Pisa and Venice had been carrying on with the East.  They helped the Crusaders in the expansion of their commerce. 
5.  Islam was now showing signs of weakness in Europe.  In 1050, Castile and Aragon had taken Andalusia from the Muslims of Spain.  In 1060 the Normans had taken Sicily.  In 1080 the Muslims had all but lost command of the Mediterranean.  
6. There was a religious motivation among the Crusaders.  They wanted to free the birthplace of Christ and to convert the Muslims and Jews.  They did it with swords and only people like St. Franc is of Assisi were bothered by this method of conversion by force or death.
7. Many European knights, princes and nobles had no land in Europe.  This gave them the chance to own land.  
8. Many Crusaders went for adventure of seeing the world and gaining fabled riches of the East.
9. Masses in Europe were oppressed and bored and wanted a change.
10. In 1094 when Emperor Alexius Commemis was in trouble with the Saljuqs of Turkey, Pope Urban II called to arms in 1095 and most of Europe came to fight.
                                                     

The siege of Jerusalem 

July 15, 1099 and the Crusaders fought their way to Jerusalem, stormed it and massacred Muslims, Jews, and Christians.  Godfrey became king of Jerusalem.  In time Christian kingdoms were fighting among themselves.  Sometimes the Muslims  and Christians helped each other and they were all fighting someone.  
                                                                             

Bernard of Clairvaux, O. Cist was a French abbot and a major leader in the reform of Benedictine monasticism that caused the formation of the Cistercian order. "After the Christian defeat at the Siege of Edessa, the pope commissioned Bernard to preach the Second Crusade. The last years of Bernard's life were saddened by the failure of the crusaders, the entire responsibility for which was thrown upon him. Bernard died at the age of 63, after 40 years as a monk...

The 2nd Crusade was organized to to succor the Crusading Kingdom from 1147 to 1149. Similar outbreaks took place in France and the Rhineland as the results of the agitation of a monk called Rudolf.  They were restrained in their size through the humanitarian efforts of Bernard of Clairvaux.  At the outset of this Crusade, the Pope urged that the debts of crusaders to the Jews should be remitted, and this became a regular demand on at the beginning of an attack.
                                                              

Kurdish leader. First Sultan of Egypt and Syria, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty

Saladin came forward, a Muslim Kurd, who captured Cairo and put an end to the Fatimid rule.  He was a  Sunni.  He declared his independence in Egypt in 1175 and formed the Ayyubid principality.  He defeated the Crusaders in the battle of Hittin on July 4, 1187 and retook Jerusalem, Antioch, Tripoli and Tyre.   
                                                        

                                     Philip II of France

King of France from 1180 to 1223, and the first to be called by that title

Jews suffered greatly in the 1st, 2nd and in 1188, Philip Augustus treated them with exceptional severity during the Third Crusade.  " The fall of Jerusalem started the 3rd Crusade from 1189 to 1192.  The leaders were 3 powerful monarchs of Europe;  Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, 
                                                       

Richard the Lion-hearted

Richard the Lion-hearted of England, and Philip Augustus of France.  By 1229 the Crusaders had recaptured Jerusalem and the coastal cities.  A slave in Cairo ,Aybak, founded the Mamluk (slave) kingdom of Egypt in 1250.  
                                                      

Mamluk King/Sultan Baybars I, former slave, 1260-1277
Most famous Sultan of Egypt
He checked the Mongol invader Hulagu and stopped
the Crusaders.
He was one of many slave rulers ruling Egypt from 1250 to1517.

The 4th slave king Baybars  I, 1260-1277 started many campaigns, took several cities in Palestine and captured Antioch in the north.  They kept pressing on and by 1291 the last of the Crusaders had been driven out.  This Crusade got the support in England where it led to preliminary attacks by the assembled crusaders on the Jews in various places, especially York in 1190.  
                                                       

The Jews were also subjected to attacks by the Shepherds' Crusades of 1251 and 1320. Later crusaders involved the Jews only incidentally, though the so called Shepherds' Crusade in 1320 resulted in widespread attacks on the Jews in Southern France and Northern Spain.  The crusaders may be said to have begun the age of unmitigated suffering for medieval Jewry.  Through the impetus which they gave to the Italian maritime republic and to international intercourse, they helped to displace the Jewish merchants from their former favored position and so stimulated the economic decline of the Jews.  

The demand for credit on the part of those involved stimulated Jewish financial operations in some countries of Europe.  
                                                                           

"Jews fought side-by-side with Muslim soldiers to defend Jerusalem against the Crusaders. Saint Louis University Professor Thomas F. Madden, author of A Concise History of the Crusades, claims the "Jewish Defenders" of the city knew the rules of warfare and retreated to their synagogue to "prepare for death" since the Crusaders had breached the outer walls. According to the Muslim chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi, "The Jews assembled in their synagogue, and the Franks burned it over their heads." One modern-day source even claims the Crusaders "[circled] the screaming, flame-tortured humanity singing 'Christ We Adore Thee!' with their Crusader crosses held high." However, a contemporary Jewish communication does not corroborate the report that Jews were actually inside of the Synagogue when it was set fire. This letter was discovered among the Cairo Geniza collection in 1975 by historian Shelomo Dov Goitein. Historians believe that it was written just two weeks after the siege, making it "the earliest account on the conquest in any language." However, all sources agree that a synagogue was indeed burned during the siege."
                                                         

The Crusades spanned nearly 200 years.  The Muslims called the Crusaders the FRANKS.The Crusaders went home and newly acquired tastes and the traders took advantage of the situation.  Soon the marketplaces of  Europe displayed exotic merchandise like:  sugar, pepper, cloves, ginger,  rugs, tapestries, muslin, velvet, satin, mirrors, rosaries, and perfumes  of many kinds.  Franks learned the use of carrier pigeons from the Muslim, and the Muslims learned the use of the crossbow and the wearing of heavy mail from the Franks.  
                                                       

Fair children in Alzatri Refugee Camp in Syria

Along with the good stuff, the 200 years of intermittent warfare caused a lot of ill will on both sides, and war propaganda was rampant.  There might have been some intermarriages or results of rape, as there were large numbers of blue-eyed blondes in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.  


Resource:  Middle East Past & Present by Yaha Armajani, Thomas M. Ricks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_the_Crusades
The Source by James Mitchener
http://www.nobility.org/2018/10/11/godfrey-of-bouillon-is-chosen-as-king-of-jerusalem/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_of_Clairvaux
https://honorshistory10.weebly.com/the-early-crusades.html  all sins would be taken away with they fought.
Update: 4/21/19 language