Cowardice is glorified as worshiping ‘non violence’. Weakness is everywhere in the west is depicted as ‘tolerance’ and a sort of automatic default. Like the Asiatic subjects of various emirs who stood around waiting for the Mongols to kill them instead of overwhelming them by sheer numbers.
To be fair, the emirs were often mercurial and cruel. The people didn’t want to fight for the emirs.
Also notable was sometimes the people overthrew the emirs and surrendered to the Mongols - at which point they were often treated far better than they were under the emirs.