Religion cycle – personal faith and private military

Before I start explaining the next cycle I think I need to further elaborate on why states are inherently religious.

And what I mean by state (dictionary definition): of or relating to the central civil government or authority.

Meaning, when people gather up they form a state. A state can be a nation, a trade union, a monastic organization, or a one-world government.

Religion comes in layers; every generation updates religious traditions by either adopting something new or discarding something old. This should be obvious to everyone who has studied Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. If you open the first page of the Bible you quickly notice that stories of genesis are ancient and have little to do with modern Judaism. Moses is the first character who we can find relevant in all three major religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And he even doesn't appear in genesis! Yet Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, and the descents of Abraham are known by everyone.

The reason why Moses is the first relevant character is that he was the first person who founded the law (according to the Bible): the Mosaic law. Ten commands are widely referred to even today. Naturally, states uphold the law and rules, therefore some states, not all of them, are connected to the religion cycle. Why is that, I don't know. In other words, states and organizations are moral structures, and when we humans lose confidence in these man-made structures they will crumble, and a new cycle will start as we look for new moral authority.

Personally, I didn't invent the name "religion cycle" but Martin Armstrong did. I haven't spoken to him so I don't know his reasoning for the name nor how deep his research really goes regarding the cycle. The only thing I do is expanding his existing theory and trying to sink it (with no success, perhaps you readers can do it for me).

The year is 931.9 AD and a new cycle emerges. The old order has literally collapsed. In the east Sunni Caliphate had fallen under the control of Shia Moslems and had lost almost all political power. I think it is unnecessary to say Caliphate had lost credibility, and this same theme recurred in Christendom.

Eastern Orthodox Chruch in Constantinople was doing a little better than the Caliphate. It had compromised its position after multiple military defeats by First Bulgarian Empire and had to acknowledge the independence of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople had lost their universal rule over their eastern believers.

Further in the west in Rome things were catastrophic: the pornocracy ruled Papacy. Yes, you read that correctly. Pornocracy! This is one of those rare moments of history when the reality is weirder than fiction. A Game of Thrones looks childish. The whole story is too long and surreal to write here so I will make a quick summary. In the official history of Papacy, this period is known as Saeculum obscurum (dark ages), but the more popular term is pornocracy (rule of whores). In short Roman aristocratic families prostituted, humiliated, and murdered Popes as they wished. You can google the whole story out, I recommend reading it with a beer and not losing faith in humanity.

Therefore, it is no wonder that ordinary people looked at their religious leaders with disgust and turned away from them. On the cherry on the top, for Christians first millennium was almost at the end many waited for the second coming of Christ. This was an era of personal piety and faith, it was a perfect time to make a pilgrim before the world ends. This cycle is about the era of weak states and strong individuals who rode on the horse of history and shaped the world.

The new cycle begins in 931.9 AD. In the Islamic world origins of this cycle were laid down in the previous cycle. If you thought that fragmentation of the Caliphate by Turkish slave-soldiers would have taught Islamic rulers not to hire independent warlords, you were wrong. Orings of the Seljuk dynasty are hidden in mystery as there were no scholars in wast Pontic steppes. But Seljuk, founder of the Seljuk dynasty and Great Seljuk Empire (there were many Empires at this era, seems like empires are no exception when it comes to inflation) is assumed to be a Khazarian warlord who migrated to Central Asia where he converted to Islam. Yes, you read this right. The founder of the greatest Islamic Empire for this cycle was a shamanist barbarian, and the brutality of his followers would be the main trigger for crusaders in the following centuries.

At the same time in the Christian world, we have also the trouble of starting this cycle As commoners turned away from the corrupted church they pilgrimed to the graves of saints and further. The ultimate destination wasn't Rome nor Constantinople but the Holy Land and Jerusalem itself. Because this is a cycle of common people we have very few writings about how ordinary people pilgrimed, it took a century for the elite to start to follow the trend which we today know as crusades.

Personal faith took a more practical form: monasteries. In 910 AD Duke of Aquitaine William I founded Benedictine Abney of Cluny. This seeming footnote of history spiraled out of control and even overshadowed the Roman Catholic Church. In history, this is known as Cluniac reforms which changed the medieval monastic system. Seeds of the scientific revolution were laid down by these pious men and women.

To highlight more the importance and power of Cluniac monasteries the world's first mass peace movement was lead by them, known as “Peace and Truce of God.” This movement was aimed to reduce and control violence in the collapsed Carolingian Empire.

Personally, I had no idea this movement even existed before I began researching cycles. The ruling class writes history, and of course, they don't want people to know men and women have the power to command both kings and religious leaders. That kind of knowledge can be dangerous.

The setback came in 989.1 AD. Details and years are not clear but around these times growing Seljuk dynasty had allied with a Persian Samanid Empire against Qarakhanid Central Asian khanate. Seljuks and Samanids suffered a defeat which resulted in almost destruction of the Samanid Empire and Seljuks suffering a noticeable defeat. Serious – yes, decisive – no. This is how cycles work and Seljuk horse lords recovered in no time.

In Christendom, I must admit there are no direct records to prove the setback on pilgrimage. I have to look at other sources to find evidence of a setback and drawing conclusions from these sources.

After centuries of decline Byzantine (Roman) Empire was recovering. Soldier-emperors Nikephoros II and John I Tzimiskes almost managed to recover Jerusalem itself back to the Empire from Moslems. Perhaps this failure was a setback or the future fallout of failure. Because of warfare and the lawlessness of the land (disintegration of Abbasid Caliphate took centuries), pilgrimage became much more dangerous. Religious tension rose and culminated under the Egyptian Fatimid Caliphate. In the year 1009 Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of all churches and synagogues of his realm which included the Holy Land and Egypt. Because of this act, he is today known as “mad Caliph” and “Nero of Islam”. The Church of Holy Sepulchre (where Christ by tradition died and was buried) was demolished only to be reconstructed twenty years later. It was under his son Al-Zahir li-i'zaz Din Allah that both parties (Fatimid Caliphate and Byzantine Empire) agreed on the reconstruction of the destroyed church.
Either way, the destruction of the holiest church send shockwaves across Europe, this was one of the many events that would eventually lead to the crusades.

Luckily, we have evidence of the setback of the Cluniac monastery order. Now, you reader have to understand modern Southern France was a borderland back then where Christians and Moslems clashed constantly. Iberia was mostly under Islamic rule and Reconquista hadn't begun yet.

The Abbot Majolus was returning from Italy over the Alps and was captured by Saracen raiders who held a fort between Marseilles and Nice. The Abbot and monks accompanied him were ransomed and returned back to safety. The capture and mistreatment of Abbot shocked both lords and commoners alike and in no time and the fort was captured.

The golden age of the Seljuk Empire dawned in the year 1086.7 Before that house of Seljuk had demolished Ghaznavids that ruled roughly modern Persia, clashed with Byzantines which would later escalate out of control and allied with the Abbasid Caliph capturing Bagdad. Two decades later Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan met the Byzantine army at Manzikert and utterly defeated it capturing the Emperor. Left defenseless the Seljuks conquered the whole Asian part of the Empire stopping only at the Agean sea as their horses could not cross the seas. This was the golden age of the Great Seljuk Empire and as fate with the Empire is, a civil war between three brothers and one nephew followed ending the golden age of seemingly unstoppable conquest.

Back in Europe Catholic Church was finally recovering from an almost constant set of political and religious failures: pornocracy at the start of the cycle, rule of Pope Benedict IX (he was elected as the Pope three times and once even once sold the Papacy), Great Schism (to us it sounds much more serious than people took it back then, it is difficult historians to find a person who took mutual excommunications seriously. Politics were dirty today and even back then).
The Golden age of the Catholic Church took place under Pope Gregory VII, and of course, he was a monk from the Cluniac monastery order. It is difficult to find people from history who in such a short time in office accomplished as much as Pope Gregory VII did, Julius Caesar perhaps as dictator of Rome before his assassination.
Gregory VII's rule can be coined under Gregorian reforms that completely transformed the Roman church as we recognize it today: selling offices was forbidden and celibacy of priests was enforced. On top of that Gregory VII excommunicated the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, this whole set of events is better known as investiture controversy. Pope's move either caught Henty completely off-guard or his vassals used this as an opportunity to ignore their feudal liege limiting his power. Either way, Henty was forced to humiliate himself and went on a journey known as the walk to Canossa to beg forgiveness.

Not surprising, also this period was also the Golden age of Cluniac monasteries. As the order had grown very powerful and wealthy, some monks of the order yearned to return back to the originality and simplicity of the times of Saint Benedict. This is how the Cisterian order was founded.

Very likely part of the golden age of this cycle, a decade later Byzantine Emperor Alexious I Komnenos asked help from Pope Urban II against roaming Seljuks at the council of Piacenza. Later in chronicles, this request has been propagandized to epic proportions by crowds hailing “Deus vult!”. In reality, nobody could foresee the massive armies this call would gather up. The first army to appear in Constantinople was lead by Peter the Hermit, and this crusade is known as the People's Crusade. As the name suggests it consisted mostly of peasants and was poorly lead. The end was horrible: the whole army was massacred by the Sultanate of Rum, only a handful managed to return back to Constantinople. The second army that appeared soon after was better organized, this is known as Princes Crusade or better as the first crusade. Eventually, these religious adventures against all odds in alien land managed to capture the holy city Jerusalem and formed the first Crusader States in the Middle East.
The people's and prince's crusades were popular movements motivated by personal zeal unlike the rest of the crusades that were clearly pure military campaigns.

The final peak of this cycle came in 1143.9. Ahmad Sanjar was the final ruler of The Great Seljuk Empire and it collapsed as quickly it had been formed. Son of the previous Sultan, Malik-Shah I, who had ruled the Empire during the golden age before descending into chaos, Ahmad Sanjar must have had a lot on his mind to restore his father's Empire. With the assist of five kings (it is not clear were they vassals or allies) Ahmad defeated the ruling Sultan of the Great Seljuk Empire and took it for himself. Despite Ahmad being the last ruler he also was the longest-ruling Sultan of the Empire and became a sort of legendary person after his death.
Everything seemed to be under control until Ahmad suffered an unexpected defeat against northern Kara Khitan. This is how every nomadic Empire collapses; horse lords of the northern steppes find good easy land in the south and become soft by city life. Their end will be as their start: to be defeated by the very same brutal forces they had once been. Yet the collapse of the Empire rarely comes from outside but inside: Ahmad was defeated by his very own troops. This collapsed the Great Seljuk Empire into anarchy. Ahmad himself lived a couple of years more in custody to see his realm implode until he died and with him died his father's Empire as well.

The final peak in the Holy land went the following:

The politics had taken power over religious zeal and the question was who would rule these new states? In eyes of the Byzantine Emperor, these were Imperial lands. After all when Crusaders had met Emperor Alexious I, they had sworn an oath to him, and thus the Emperor was the de jure ruler of new Crusader States. Surprisingly western Crusaders disagreed with this view and saw new Crusader states instead of their own Feudal Kingdoms. Crusader state Edessa was the first to fall back to Moslems. The second crusade would be the final peak of this cycle and it would be the greatest crusades of them all.

But, as you know dear reader this is the peak, and the final peak fails always. Unlike previous crusades (there had been minor crusades between the first and the second crusades), this crusade was lead by the King of France and the Holy Roman Emperor. Eager for glory both monarchs aimed to repeat the success of the first crusade and so they failed to cooperate with disastrous results: crusading armies were not defeated only once but twice. The first defeat came in Anatolia by the Sultan of Rum which ended up almost canceling the whole crusade. Wisely Westerners decided to regroup and eventually all parties met in Jerusalem. As mentioned local politics had taken control of events and instead of aiming to reconquer Edessa crusaders were marched to Damascus. The siege of Damascus was an absolute failure that not only destroyed the crusading army but damaged the morale of westerners as well. Everyone blamed each other and felt betrayed, plus crusading states gained new enemies. Forty years later from the peak Saladin forced Jerusalem to capitulate and crusades would never renew their success in Holy Land.

In Europe Clunic order also reached its peak under the Abbot Peter the Venerable. I have many times mentioned that the peak is the greatest moment of the cycle, so allow me to show what Wikipedia says. I think whoever wrote the following capsulated the peak better than I could have: