Cataloged from PDF version of article.Although most people who encounter terms such as identity, group identity,
ethnic, groups, nations or religious groups believe that they know, at least roughly, what
these terms mean, the terms are in fact slippery and difficult to define. The confusion is
not limited to readers of the mass media they are difficult terms for the academic world,
as well. Exact definition of these terms remains as elusive as ever. The more academics
have tried to define such terms, the more such terms have taken new meanings, which do
not necessarily bring either better or worse definitions of these terms. In this study, I
have tried to investigate the terms whereby one might argue to define identity, group
identity, the concept of ethnicity, groups, nations or religious groups in the crusading
era. The way the chroniclers of the First and Third Crusades identify Muslims
constitutes the basic and the most important part of this thesis.
My point of departure is to look at the terms used for Muslims by the chroniclers
and to understand the contemporary meanings of these terms in order to analyze what
changed between these two periods separated as they are by some ninety years. Not only
does it throw a different and particular light on Latin Christian attitudes to Muslims
compared with the more detached, more purely Western-based and more academic
“western views of Islam” literature, but it contributes also to the study of “identity”, and
particularly “group identity” in the Middle Ages. After describing the difficulties that
historians might encounter and what they need to take into consideration in studying this
terminology, I have concentrated on the religious and the ethnic terms the chroniclers
used for Muslims in their accounts of the First and Third Crusades. This is a study where
I have attempted to show how it is not sufficient for historians to use the terms in his or
her sources without explaining the earlier meanings they had for the people who used
them. In this connection, this is an attempt to provide an already investigated topic with
a distinct, new perspective showing how historians should approach the terms with their
original meanings in the times they were used.Gündoğdu, BirolM.S
