Multiculturalism in the Levant

Coming into this course I guess I had pictured the Middle East to be populated solely with people of the Islamic faith during the pre-Crusade era; this image, I have found out, is very far from the truth. Obviously there was a dominant Muslim culture to be found there, with the Seljuk empire present, but there were also peoples of other cultures--some, as it turns out, who practiced Christianity. Most notable were the Armenians and Syriacs, who had been on the fringes of the Roman Empire but were some of the first societies to adopt Christianity as their religion. The Armenians were thriving in Southeast Asia Minor when the first Crusaders began to appear, and indeed there were Armenian inhabitants all the way into Northern Syria. These groups and others, such as the Bedouins, often aided the Crusaders on their ventures. During the first Crusade, for example, the Crusaders were given information and guides by these peoples as they made their way to Jerusalem. Perhaps the first Crusade would not have been so successful without these minor groups coming to the Crusaders' aide... This just goes to show that history is usually complicated, and one can't regard a certain region as having the same culture among all of its inhabitants.