Now if only the Crusaders had re-conquered those Muslim (and taken over Hindu and Buddhist)lands, we’d be rid of barbaric rituals, customs, caste, Sharia Law, and the rest of the crap.
I would bet you that the muslims built large armies of Africans for the front lines as fodder and fighters for all areas of conquest and defense. Had that labor pool of Africa not been raided, the odds would have been much different.
The Crusades were a disaster for Christianity because they hastened the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and made the schism between East and West permenant.
What pray tell was the justification of the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in 1204?
Or the burning of Greek monks at the stake?
The Byzantine Emperor petitioned the Pope for a united front against Islam, but instead the Franks turned on the Byzantines.
Had Christendom been united and the West helped rebuild the Byzantine Empire, it might not have fallen in 1453.
Byzantium signed the Union of Florence hoping for a new Crusade, but all that happened was the West turned its back on its Christian brethren in the East.