European Religion

Just as many more sayings and doings of the Lord existed prior to and alongside the canonical Gospels, so were there, prior to and alongside the subsequently selected or canonical acts, many other narratives professing to record the doings and sayings of the apostles and disciples of the Lord. This is one such gnostic text which had been lost for centuries.

Surah al-Fatihah (Arabic: سُورَةُ الْفَاتِحَة ‎) is the first chapter (surah) of the Quran. Its seven verses (ayat) are a prayer for the guidance, lordship and mercy of God. This chapter has an essential role in Islamic prayer (salat). The primary literal meaning of the expression "al-Fatihah" is "The Opener," which could refer to this Surah being "the opener of the Book" (Fatihat al-kitab), to its being the first Surah recited in full in every prayer cycle (rakʿah), or to the manner in which it serves as an opening for many functions in everyday Islamic life.

When a Crusader army of Western European Franks took Jerusalem by storm on July 15, 1099, it was one of the more unexpected conquests in history. Everything seemed to be against them for the previous three years of crusade, right up to the final siege, and yet they finally prevailed. And when they did, they massacred most of the population before establishing a Christian realm in a region that had been taken over by the Muslims in 634.

Of the many campaigns during the Middle Ages, few are as remarkable or seemingly impossible to win at the start as the First Crusade (1095-99), and the true crowning achievement of that crusade, which resulted in two centuries of Western European Christian states in the Middle East and the permanent firing of the European imagination, was the conquest of Jerusalem on July 15, 1099 after three weeks of siege.