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The Academic Historiography of the Crusades and the Twenty-First Century Debate on Religious Violence

21st-century journalists, politicians, and terrorists have found the crusades to be a remarkably versatile point of reference when they consider religiously articulated violence in the modern world. This article will explore how recent academic historiography relates to and can better inform modern debates about geopolitics, the role of religion in political life, as well as the broader question of how scholars can meaningfully participate in those debates. Historians need to walk a fine line between taking religious experience seriously while also rejecting simple explanations that see religion as especially culpable in inspiring violence, and that portray such violence as an irrational return to the “medieval”. The various sections of the article provide a few key examples of recent controversies over religious violence, and situate both traditional and recent crusades historiography within a contemporary political context. It will be argued here that recent crusades scholarship has provided nuanced and dynamic accounts of crusading piety that can be used to reject simplistic explanations of religious violence as pre-modern, and as inherent in particular faith traditions.

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1 (page 12) p. 12 Definition

• Published: October 2005
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In November 1095, a decree was issued that marked a new beginning in western Christianity's use of war to further religious mission. The significance of this lies in Pope Urban's sermon at the end of the council where he instituted the ceremonial granting of crosses. ‘Definition’ charts the impact this had on how the wars have been described since. The memory of Urban's rhetoric played a central role in how events prompted by his speech have been portrayed. His decree explicitly proclaimed a holy war in which the effort of the campaign could be regarded as equivalent to strenuous penance provided it had been undertaken devoutly.

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Rethinking the Crusades

William Urban | Oct 1, 1998

It may be a commonplace to say that interpretations of historical events often tell us as much about the historian's own era as about the age that is supposedly being described, but it is at best only partly true. Sometimes there is a certain inertia in interpretations, a rigor mortis grip by the dead hand of the past. This seems to be especially true regarding the Crusades, one of the greatest adventures of Western civilization, fraught as they were by impressive feats of arms and spectacular defeats. Today's historians have been slow to see connections between medieval efforts to protect commerce, ensure access to holy places, and build coalitions that could give potential aggressors pause, and modern international peacekeeping operations. Instead, historians continue to emphasize aspects of the crusading experience that apply better to the first decade of our century than to the last.

Just as great books go out of print, so stimulating theories go out of date. Teachers may find it harder to buy legal-sized yellow note pads, but the harried lecturer recycling outdated material will exist forever. Instant updates are possible only in Orwell's 1984 . In the case of the medievalist, there are good reasons for a time lag: not only is there an age difference between lecturer and audience, but in the age of specialization, faculty have more incentive to publish for their peers than to address their students or the educated general public. This observation, crudely put, is more subtle than it might appear; issues that seem burning bright in the ivory tower are, for average citizens, hazy faraway flashes from the lighthouses of the mind. Students and educated laity expect to see the relevance of anything they read or watch. As Jonathan Riley-Smith noted in The Crusades: A Short History (1987), "history is a reconciliation of the past with the present; otherwise it would be incomprehensible to those for whom it is written. And since the present is always in a state of flux it follows that interpretations and judgments alter with time" (256). Our current interpretations of the Crusades, powerful though they were in their day and capable as they still remain of providing important insights into their motivations and outcomes, are at least a generation out of date.

Current Textbook Interpretations

Many textbooks present the still dominant view that the Crusades were a form of European colonialism. To cite from one of the better textbooks, Robert Lerner, Standish Meacham, and Edward Burns, Western Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture (13th edition. New York: Norton, 1998), "The rise and fall of the crusading movement was closely related to the fortunes of the high-medieval papal monarchy. Thus, the Crusades can be seen as part of a chapter in papal and religious history. In addition, the Crusades opened the first chapter in the history of western colonialism" (322–23). They conclude, "Western colonialism in the Holy Land was only the beginning of a long history of colonialism that has continued until modern times" (329). The understandable modern Arab nationalist version is that Israel is the new crusader state, a military/religious embodiment of European colonialism; this finds increasing support on American campuses even though more than half of the Hebrew-speaking population of Israel is descended from Near Eastern Jews (inaccurately referred to as Sephardic) and, therefore, fits poorly into the stereotypical view of the Israeli citizen as a Zionist, an escapee from the Holocaust, or an emigrant from Russia. The crusader states, too, had Near Eastern roots in the Armenian and Arab Christian communities, with whom the Franks occasionally intermarried, and in their frequent alliances with Moslem states.

A subtheme to colonialism emphasizes Realpolitik, power politics, and Christian fanaticism. To give but two examples from good textbooks: John McKay, Bennett Hill, and John Buckler, in A History of Western Society (1995), 282–86, emphasize the role of the papacy in secular affairs in Europe and in religious leadership over the Orthodox Church: "the papacy claimed to be outraged that the holy city was in the hands of unbelievers" and "the papacy actually feared that the Seljuk Turks would be less accommodating to Christian pilgrims than the Muslims had been" ( sic, 282). "Crusades were also mounted against groups perceived as Christian Europe's social enemies. In 1208, Pope Innocent III proclaimed a Crusade against the Albigensians, a heretical sect" (284). Lynn Hunt, Thomas Martin, R. Po-chia Hsia, and Bonnie Smith in their Challenge of the West (1995) also emphasize the papacy's desire to lead and quote the pope's admonition to "wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves" (355). They use this latter point to summarize the goals of the First Crusade (357). The later Crusades are in the section subtitled "European Aggression Within and Without" (401–05). All this surely reflects our mistrust of authority figures, the secularization of modern society (by which all religious motivation is suspect), and the attractions of socialism, pacifism, and nonviolence. The story we tell about the Crusades is that of ambitious nobles and merchants; intolerant Christians who kill innocent Jews, peaceful Arabs, and nonconventional Christians (heretics); and scheming popes. Most of these villains are half-competent fools and knaves who enrich themselves through taxes and trade, excusing their excesses through pious hypocrisy.

In these stories the Turks are somehow forgotten, as though they were not a dangerous enemy at that time, or are confused with Arabs, while the Armenians, Byzantines, and other Near Eastern Christians are ignored for lack of time and space to discuss them. What is emphasized most strongly is the moral superiority of "natives," non-Christians, and nontraditional Christians. Secondly, the victimization of culturally superior Moslems by ethnocentric Westerners whose crudeness is equaled only by their love of violence and cunning. Lastly, any questioning of this thesis is dismissed as racism.

Anticolonialism and Political Correctness

In short, an aging collection of anticolonial sentiments has merged with mild political correctness (opposition to violence, skepticism toward Western religious traditions and practices, concern for social issues reflecting race, gender, class, and ethnicity) to dominate current historiography of the Crusades.

This is prominently reflected in the film media, most notably in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves and Terry Jones's History of the Crusades. 1 It is also somewhat out of touch with Generation X. My students prefer Errol Flynn's Robin Hood to Costner's and enjoy Men in Tights . Jones's much better but strongly antiwar BBC series praised Baibar's use of slave troops against the crusaders. What would he have said if crusaders had adopted that practice? On the whole, Jones is far the better scholar (and arguably the better actor), but he remains a child of the sixties—like so many of us who are active teachers today. 2

Not that political correctness is completely wrong; by one definition, it is simply good manners taken to extremes. Moreover, it has deep roots in our religious and moral heritage. The Crusades, however, are unlike other areas of history, especially American history, where differing interpretations relevant to contemporary life can be easily found to present to students. Is there a widely distributed right-wing interpretation of the Crusades? Certainly not in the high-quality institutions of higher education on the American continent; certainly not in meetings of the professional associations of medievalists. Not that we need extremist views, but Western Civ and World Civ instructors (ever more often graduate students or adjunct faculty) often have only a scanty background in medieval studies and, although the Web provides many sites on the Crusades that reflect a wide variety of interpretations, we may expect that for a while yet most instructors will continue to rely heavily on textbooks.

Not that comparing the Crusades to European expansion in early modern times or 19th-century colonialism was ever fully satisfactory, but the concept did fit well with the historians' 20th-century worldview until quite recently, and even the worldview of those who disagreed strongly with Marxist theories about colonialism and neocolonialism. It had the advantage of retaining some connection with the previous generation's emphasis on the struggle between church and state while turning upside down those historians' beliefs as to what the holy wars were all about. Medieval colonialism was once a new and exciting idea, even a provocative one; moreover, it supported the perceived duty of socially involved scholars to challenge or even overturn some of the foundational beliefs of traditional Western society. By such reasoning historians could use the Crusades as another example of Western civilization run amok; they could even explain the Vietnam War. Since modern historians of the Crusades were better trained than their predecessors and had access to more materials, they could write better histories; that made it all the easier to dismiss the work of past generations as inconsequential.

Overlooked in this was the awkward fact that until the 1700s there was a desperate struggle between Christendom and Islam. As the West gained the upper hand in the 1800s, the way was opened for Romanticists to emphasize individual heroism—Walter Scott's Richard and Saladin—and exotic climes and self-sacrificing idealism—Kipling's India and the White Man's Burden. Without doubt, 19th-century imperialism benefited from the widespread belief that European civilization must be defended and extended. European states cooperated in the war against slavery in Africa and Asia, against banditry in Central America, and in defense of the rights of Christian minorities and Christian missionaries in China and Africa. Perhaps no single episode pulled all these themes together as well as "Chinese" Gordon's doomed enterprise at Khartoum. The British public was divided over the wisdom of becoming involved in the Sudanese wars, but within a few years Britain's traditional pro-Turkish policy was reversed, and in 1918 the public celebrated Allenby's capture of Jerusalem, a feat that had eluded even Richard the Lionheart.

Once the French and British divided up the Near East between them (with a few scraps for Italy), the parallels of this undeniably crass imperialism to the medieval crusader states seemed very clear to interwar scholars. Add to this the rise of pacifism, socialism, and communism, all of which were popular in the universities of the thirties, and it was inevitable that a message would go out that the elimination of Western colonialism (later, neocolonialism) was a necessary step toward the Future's triumph over the Past. One did not have to be a Leninist to see the germ of truth in this argument and its effectiveness in getting a student audience's attention. In the sixties a rebirth of pacifism, the nuclear stalemate, and Vietnam caused many to question whether any war was ever worth fighting. The last moral credibility of the Crusades vanished. The Cold War persuaded some that calls to serve a higher purpose were only pretexts, and others began to believe that even the best of intentions will go astray.

The Contemporaneity of the Crusades

The late 1980s should have been a watershed for this dour view of the ways that modern politics intersect with the history of the Crusades. Pope John Paul II became an active and effective force against communism, not just in his support of Solidarity in Poland, but in his insistence on emphasizing the moral aspect of commonly accepted practices (abortion, for example) and traditional beliefs against utilitarian and progressive philosophies. This raised the struggle of systems above the pettiness of power politics. It should have suggested that the Crusades might have been more than efforts to profit from international trade.

My own eyes were opened at two historical conferences held under papal authorization in Rome in 1986 and 1987. The conferences were ostensibly on the conversion of the Baltic peoples, discussions of the church's role in crusades against paganism and Orthodoxy, but the real purpose was to remind modern Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians that the church had not forgotten them. (For months after each conference Radio Moscow had regular tirades about the church's interference with internal Soviet policies, and the Soviet Union's 1986 traveling trade show included a huge exhibit showing how happy Estonians were and how their culture was being protected and preserved.) As a historian specializing in the Baltic, I found this interplay of history and modern politics fascinating; as a non-Catholic I found the spectacular Mass conducted by Lithuanian bishops not only uplifting but also a reminder that the Soviet empire was held together by ties less secure than those invisible ones connecting subject peoples to the church.

About this same time I was becoming aware that the terms "imperialism" and "neoimperialism" increasingly failed to explain satisfactorily why some postcolonial states were unable to get organized; that intellectuals once unable to see the evil side of communism had begun to realize that something was rotten east of Denmark; and that the rise of religious fundamentalism in the Islamic world and the wackiness of New Age paganism might cast doubt on the belief that non-Christian religions and nontraditional Christianity were always benign.

Meanwhile, the United Nations was becoming more active. Sudan and Somalia revealed that aid and police-force actions without the will to use military power must fail. Bosnia suggested that diplomatic offers to host peace talks and declarations of arms embargoes were not much more useful in the 1990s than they had been 60 years earlier in Ethiopia and Spain. Rwanda showed that peoples few had heard of could kill unimaginable numbers of tribal enemies without resort to modern weaponry; Cambodia demonstrated that peoples could kill their own kind with equal ferocity. The international community found itself in an awkward position, trying to think of ways to stop genocide, terrorism, intolerance, even the slave trade, without sending in military forces. Moreover, the international community was being asked to protect the environment, secure greater access to good water, prevent overfishing and protect the rain forest, dispose of existing nuclear bombs and biological agents, and to save the world economy from dictators like Iraq's Saddam Hussein, who portrayed himself as the champion of Islam against the West. Surely, I thought, these challenges will affect what we choose to teach about the past, especially about the Crusades.

I began to ask my students why we refer to some of our national movements as crusades. Their responses were interesting. No answer at first, of course, since there seemed to be little connection between Innocent III and Carry Nation, but once the hurdle of the irrelevant example was overcome, they showed that they understood why the term is so attractive. There are, in fact, four characteristics of movements we call crusades: (1) a moral cause, often based on Christian principles; (2) a long-term commitment to the cause by a dedicated minority; (3) victory achieved only by suffering and struggle against determined, entrenched enemies who have powerful belief systems of their own; and (4) results that are not always what the crusaders expected—the law of unexpected consequences coming into play.

My own classroom experience further suggests that today's students are not terribly excited about discussions of imperialism and power politics. Those topics may yet be powerful at institutions where a strong Marxist presence is traditional; but by and large, students from Middle America do not conjure up visions of fat capitalists wearing striped pants and smoking cigars. Their mental image is Bill Gates, Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, and Donald Trump and IBM, Coca-Cola, and other multinational corporations, many foreign-owned. They see offsetting efforts by labor unions, nongovernmental organizations, mafias, and terrorist organizations. In short, as far as their very practical minds are concerned, the reality of today's world has worn down the imperialist and power politics interpretation on one side; ethnic and gender politics have eroded them down elsewhere. I have learned that students are interested in practical historiography: how current political, religious, and social concerns affect the way they have been taught to see the past. Most do not want to be told that their high school teacher was wrong (God forbid that they should be confused) and many have a keen eye for bias (though they are not always sufficiently knowledgeable or sophisticated to understand its full implications), but they all appreciate being enabled to see better what messages are being sent. History is a bit like advertising, it seems: if students like the sales pitch, they may buy it, but they like to see inside the package first. Alumni tell me that they have found it useful to know that historical interpretations have changed and will always be subject to change, and to understand that whatever we teach as "the latest thing" now will be a decade out of touch in 10 years. They appreciate having been given as much original material as possible, because those do not change as rapidly or thoroughly.

If, as most historians believe, historical interpretations often reflect current concerns, what does this suggest that future interpretations of the Crusades will be? When medieval popes, monarchs, and common laity realized that the Holy Land could not be defended without warriors and the West was too far away to send timely help in the form of volunteer armies, those individuals created crusading orders. In the past few years we have sent international peacekeeping forces to Kuwait, Bosnia, and Liberia; we are organizing rapid-response units that when deployed consist of real warriors, not merely observers and potential hostages. We are coming to understand that, individually, nation states are unable to provide protection for commerce, tourism, religious pilgrims, or even national borders; only international efforts can be effective against religious fanaticism, organized criminality, and political radicalism. Nevertheless, as in the Middle Ages, when Christian alliances with Moslems against coalitions of Moslems and Christians existed, today we are occasionally frustrated and often confused by the intricacies of local politics, and our best efforts are handicapped by the lack of resources and resolve.

A Time for Reassessment

This suggests that the time is ripe for a reassessment of the Crusades in light of our present concerns. There are four plausible directions this reassessment will take.

• The present interpretations will persist as long as instructors order traditional textbooks and continue to repeat unthinkingly in lectures the concepts they themselves were taught in college years ago. Although campus culture wars suggest that "conservative" values are already widespread among today's students, years will pass before many of them join tomorrow's faculty, years more before they teach the graduate school seminars. Even then, this interpretation will probably not die out because there are aspects of the Crusades which were imperialistic, and because power politics were undoubtedly important.
• Present trends in multiculturalism and "history from below" might result in less and less textbook space being given to the Crusades; if so, the events themselves, as well as the comments about morality, may slowly vanish into the footnotes.
• If Islamic fundamentalism becomes a serious threat, this will be reflected in our classrooms and textbooks by giving the Crusades more prominence and more favorable interpretations. I remember well the student reactions during the Iranian hostage crisis: If Urban the instructor had followed the example of Urban II, my campus might have been less safe for our Moslem students; fortunately, no one contemplated blaming people they knew for events far away. It may well be that some extremely astute professors have been well aware of this danger all along and, therefore, have retained the old interpretations out of fear of what new ones might bring.
• The least contentious likelihood, the one suggested in this essay, is to look for connections between our efforts to resolve today's most difficult international problems and the crusaders' experiences as medieval peacekeepers. This would not completely supplant the older tradition, but would certainly complement it. The risk is small, that of complicating an already long and complex episode in world history, an episode too burdened with details to be made easily comprehensible, too loaded with outdated political baggage to interest many students, and so foreign to the world of today that Hollywood can pass off its version of the events as reality. But, if we take a sufficiently broad view of those events, tie them to what students who read newspapers read daily, historians may find more justification for the crusaders' efforts, be less inclined to mock their motivations, and even perhaps express regret that their high ideals resulted in such demoralizing failure. The study of the Crusades may actually create more sympathy for our own moral dilemmas, lack of unity, and mistakes.

It is not that we need a definitive interpretation of the Crusades. That is a mirage that will disappear before we can reach it. But the more we understand how our present interpretations have come about, the more we will have the context in which to do our own thinking. The more this makes the past relevant to the present, the more likely students are to remember what we say and to think about it. We encourage our students to venture beyond the memorization of facts and concepts. We should do the same by periodically rethinking the meaning of critical moments in the past.

1. Teaching through movies (as opposed to the study of film) has become practical only recently. Consequently, it is only recently that articles on movies have appeared in the pages of the American Historical Review and Perspectives . See Lorraine Attreed and James Powers, "Lessons in the Dark: Teaching the Middle Ages with Film," Perspectives (January 1997): 11–16. Libby Haight O'Connell, "The History Channel and History Education," Perspectives (October 1995): 15, 22, reported that the History Channel will allow free copying of Terry Jones's History of the Crusades, and also that Theodore Rabb, then president of the National Council for History Education, had authorized production of teaching materials for this series that will be distributed free of charge to 20,000 teachers.

2. Though better known as a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jones has written Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (London: Methuen, 1980).

William Urban teaches in the Department of History at Monmouth College.

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Religion and Diplomacy During the Crusades Research Paper

For nearly four centuries, the state system ushered by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648AD gave way to a new era of socio-economic and political dispensation determined by the diplomatic relations among the states. 1 Under the terms of the treaty, the three-decade-long war of the 17 th Century Europe was summarized, leading to the recognition of the territorial sovereignty of the states that made up the Holy Roman Empire. The pact saw 300 of the Roman Empires’ princes become entirely sovereign within their spheres of influence. The golden era of the ancient Roman Empire renaissance diplomacy settled with the French inversion of Italy in 1494. 2

This renaissance era was characterized by the struggle for dominion among the sovereign powers of Europe and the Hapsburg Empire. The failure by the Catholic Church to influence its own reform agenda manured the field for the regrouping of the protestant ideology. The first pinch was felt in 1534 against the whims of the papal power when King Henry VIII instituted a separationist movement under the banner of the Anglican Church. This move came about after the Catholic Church strongly opposed his highly publicized divorce with Catherine of Aragon. 3 Following these developments, a widespread movement begun in Germany and was led by Martin Luther had the backing of many aristocrats and rulers of the time – the majority of whom were from Northern Europe. This conflict of interest sparked off a rebellion leading to the Thirty Year’s War. After the treaty of Westphalia, religious leaders took center stage to spearhead a long-lasting peace process that would not let the states to degenerate into another war with such catastrophic magnitude.

From the experiences and the memoirs of the English diplomatic representation of the 17 th century, it was conspicuously established that the role that religion is capable of playing in foreign policy is second to no other concept reached upon in history. 4 Much of this conviction was informed by their ability to cushion conflict into a cessation of hostilities, much of which was realized with preferential ease. 5

William Godolphin, Henry Saville, and William Trumbull were categorically instrumental in these processes owing to their potentiality to the task and their positioning between diplomacy and religion. To ascertain their centrality to the contribution of these diplomatic ties, their respective taskforces were extensively distributed for a religious course under diplomacy. The diplomatic consciousness that informed the early church made all these key figures to be dispersed in most of the Catholic nation-states during the 17 th century, while in these states, they positioned themselves in intermediate social ranks acting as a bridge between the church and the state. However, what mattered then was familiarity with the concept of parliamentary politics, and indeed this made these religious leaders go easily in-between the state and the masses. 6 On the other hand, these religious leaders were restricted by virtue of their positions to issue their positioning openly on various issues of politics of the state and the people.

At the height of the 17 th century AD, the Christian Commonwealth Empire had disintegrated, leading to vestiges in forms of autonomous states. 7 With not many functions attributable to the Roman Catholic Pope and the Roman Empire as the sole mediators of the regional conflicts, conceptual gaps were evinced in the international conflict management and diplomatic representation. Having seen the impending trouble, the Dutch philosopher at the time, Hugo Grotius volunteered a most comprehensive theory that he opined and hoped would be useful as part of the endearing process that might fill these gaps and end the inevitability of any future wars. 8

Accordingly, he instituted the schools of natural law, arguing that it is through these platforms that international law could be realized. The philosopher categorically insinuated that individuals must first possess natural rights for them to be protected against external aggression. In defending his claim, the philosopher pointed out that humanity is entitled to these natural laws by virtues ordained by God. Under these schemes of things, Grotius aimed to inspire the people to nurture a minimum moral unanimity capable of making the society to reach out to full stature and to overcome the divisions emanating from the religious interest groupings. 9

Following Grotius’s assessment of humanity, other like-minded religious thinkers began to explore his ideology with the conception that whenever individual people are empowered by natural rights, they posthumously become sovereign entities. Grotius, in his work, saw the need for humanity to be more empowered, thereby coming up with the theory of international law that would guarantee the basis of going to war and setting the peace process. 10 Under his assumptions, he opined that nation, just as individual people, have to be bound by certain established natural law. These natural laws, he opined, would safeguard individual rights and nurture order in the opinion of the masses. Through Grotius’ teachings, diplomatic sanity was influenced throughout Westphalia and beyond.

Essentially the Treaty of the Westphalia amicably settled the religious tussle that was evidenced in vast territorial Germany. It was, however, the last attempt seen largely by observers as an effort by the Catholic Hapsburgs to arrest Protestantism. 11 The treaty also confirmed the centrality of the Catholicism dynasty in the south while Protestantism got its footing in the north, German certainly became sharply divided along ideological lines. It was also an attestation to the fact that the Catholic and the Lutheran princes, as seen in the Augsburg accord, had the ability to determine the type of religion prevailing in their territories, as a consequence, Princes were empowered to choose Calvinism. 12

This never pointed to anything close to the freedom of religion, though it was widely perceived as a major breakthrough towards religious liberalism. In addition, before the treaty of Westphalia was instituted, there were other competing forces – most remarkably were those of the international religious groupings like the Ecclesiastical Catholic faith-led organizations. In Europe, religious passion moderated greatly after the ratification of the Westphalia Treaty. In other words, religious rhetoric was subsequently toned down, leading to the versatility of the church. The competing factions never quit their demand for a complete revolution, though, and the enthusiasm to dynamism by the orthodoxy forces continued to wage sporadic revolts. 13

War across Europe was essentially not abandoned in its entirety, but religion ended up becoming a less contributory factor in the subsequent wars. It must, however, be reiterated that as much as the religion was a major contributor in sparking off the Thirty Years War, it was equally a major factor in the mediation process that saw the diplomatic signing of the Treaty of the Westphalia and the eventful ceasing of hostilities. 14

The interplay of religion and politics in the Westphalia oligarchy has been quintessential of a more complex yet conventional theory that provokes wisdom. More than anything, the seeming religious conflicts recorded from the ancient governmental establishment to the current times could be interpreted in terms of conflicts of interests. These conflicts have been played upon by religious prejudice, whose main interpretation of religious ethics has been to inspire a greater zeal through sacrifice and offertory from the masses. This point of view often suggests that the archetypical balance of power in the Westphalia was not necessarily the direct opposite of Christian dominion. 15 Rather, the most candid expression to it would be the religious conflicts that heralded it into a full-blown war. The pedigrees and the consequences of the apparent conflicts in these wars were, by extension, a farce and instigation of religious embodiment.

Westphalia is perhaps among the most referenced historical nation-states in ancient international diplomatic relations 16 . This is because the sovereignty of the nation-states was established with the states enjoying their dominion as autonomous political units. After the treaty of Westphalia was institutionalized, the dominion of the Roman Catholic Empire under the stewardship of the Pope was replaced by a system of independent states. Observers reckon that the Westphalia treaty was a turning point in the life of the ancient Roman Empire and which marked the beginning of the modern-day autonomous nation-states. After the exhaustive three-decade war that saw the destruction upon the land, the Westphalia negotiations took shape as all the warring factions felt the need to draw a ceasefire. 17

The resultant compromised reached upon never satisfied all the factions involved in the truce; this is because it was perceived that the basis of an all-round compromise, which was after all the bone of contention throughout the negotiations, had not been reached either. However, the peace deal that ushered the negotiations was because of the extensive negotiations that took another five years to accomplish. 18 The diplomatic crescendo was structured and orchestrated, with the first six months having entirely been dedicated to reaching out for the consensus of procedure that, in fact, proved contentious as the participants held various personal, yet strategic interests based on their different states.

The 17 th century Westphalia Treaty succeeded mainly in the light of the religious policy of protection and direct public concern aimed at building sovereign nation-states presided upon by a religious cardinal. 19

The rudimental cardinal policy of natural law was the basis of liberty from political and economic want. With the signing of the peace treaty in Westphalia, the principle of forgiveness became a duty that was preached all over Europe. Under these considerations, it was widely seen that in the concept of religious forgiveness, there would be a mutual benefactor in the realization of economic growth as well as political maturity. Seen from a religious standpoint, the concept of the treaty was a model that viewed real or perceived enemies from the benefit of the other, a principle that endeared nation-states to one another virtually capitalizing on the shared benefits rather than the differing factors. 20 Moreover, while the confessional allegiances remained vital, it was enough with the states, and for the better part of the 17 th century, religious wars were a forgone experience in the Roman Empire. 21

As concerns the political settlement, the peace process was remarkably a legalistic and conservative act. 22 Under these considerations, the treaty was intended to be a restatement of old rights that would safeguard the nation-states from degenerating into conflicts of such magnitude. Much of the accentuation had been given to the princess who had by then become autonomous by law.

This did not entirely mean that all doors of innovation were shut. In fact, the expansion of the empire into numerous electorates was the beginning of the reform process, and the subsequent increment of the number of imperial electors was seen as a move to make a representation of the state to be expansive. In the culminating series of events, the several smaller imperial states created by the new trends in leadership created a feeling that these states were too insignificant to exploit fullness of the privileges and freedoms they had been granted, majority of these smaller states had favored the protectorate of the Holy Roman Empire. Consequently, they looked upon the empire and frequently sought protection from the empire, given that he was no longer seen as a predator. 23 Due to these facts, the Franco-Swedish efforts to maul the imperial institutions were amicably resisted, and the states became more inclined to the imperial throne.

While religion has always been the decisive aspect in domestic politics, its effect on diplomatic relations is still being debated in international fora to ascertain this presumption. Observers of the Westphalia diplomatic efforts opine that one of the major effects of the reformation process was to empower the sovereign states to fasten their grip on matters of religion and politics of the church. The peace process in the Westphalia passed out as a fundamental step in these processes. Whenever the diplomatic circumstances prevailed upon, the European princes became very instrumental in the processes that resulted in the amicable solution of war. Under these developments, the princesses were empowered to pick their allies in the concept of the peace process whenever there is a need to do so.

Bibliography

Engle, Eric. “The transformation of the international legal system: the post-Westphalia legal order.” The Quarterly Review of Literature 23, no. 23 (2004): 23-45. Web.

Holsti, Kenneth. “From states systems to a society of states: The evolution of international relations.” International Relations Journal 1, no. 2 (2010): 1-9. Web.

Jeng, Ndey. Why Has the Westphalia State Failed to Function Effectively in Africa? . 2010. Web.

Kurbalija, Jovan. Golden age of diplomacy and technology . 2013. Web.

McDougall, Walter. Religion in diplomatic history . 2010. Web.

Onnekink, David. War and religion after the Westphalia, 1648-1713 . London: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2009. Web.

Vaughan, Michael. After Westphalia, whither the nation state, its people and its Governmental institutions? Brisbane: The University of Queensland, 2011. Web.

• Michael Vaughan. After Westphalia, whither the nation-state, its people, and its Governmental institutions? Brisbane: The University of Queensland, 2011. Web.
• Jovan Kurbalija. The golden age of diplomacy and technology . Web.
• David Onnekink. War and religion after the Westphalia, 1648-1713 . London: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2009. Web.
• Jovan Kurbalija. The golden age of diplomacy and technology . p. 2.
• Kenneth Holsti. “From state systems to a society of states: The evolution of international relations.” International Relations Journal 1, no. 2 (2010): 1-9. Web.
• Walter McDougall. Religion in diplomatic history. Web .
• Eric Engle. “The transformation of the international legal system: the post-Westphalia legal order.” The Quarterly Review of Literature 23, no. 23 (2004): 23-45.
• Ndey Jeng. Why Has the Westphalia State Failed to Function Effectively in Africa? Web.
• Eric Engle. “The transformation of the international legal system: the post-Westphalia legal order.” The Quarterly Review of Literature 23, no. 23 (2004): 23-45. Web.
• Ndey Jeng, Why Has the Westphalia State Failed to Function Effectively in Africa? Web.
• Post-Westphalia and Its Discontents
• Contours of a Failed State and Ameliorative Measures
• The Nation-State Today: Arguments by Mann and Meadwell
• The Battle of Bosworth
• Outcomes of the Wars of the Roses
• Why The Crusades Failed
• The Medieval Siege Warfare
• Crusaders Liberate Nicaea From the Evil Seljuk Turks
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Visiting Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion?

You must join the virtual exhibition queue when you arrive. If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

The crusades (1095–1291).

Reliquary Cross

Keystone from a Vaulted Ceiling

Sword Pommel with the Arms of Pierre de Dreux (ca. 1187–1250), Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond

King Louis IX Carrying the Crown of Thorns

Pyxis Depicting Standing Saints or Ecclesiastics and the Entry into Jerusalem with Christ Riding a Donkey

A Knight of the d'Aluye Family

Gemellion (Hand Basin) with the Arms of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

Scene from the Legend of the True Cross

Leaf from a Gospel Book with Four Standing Evangelists

The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, Queen of France

Jean Pucelle

Initial A with the Battle of the Maccabees

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi

Godfroy de Bouillon

Colin Nouailher

The Crusaders Reach Jerusalem (from a set of Scenes from Gerusalemme Liberata)

Designed by Domenico Paradisi

Jérusalem, Saint Sépulcre, abside

Auguste Salzmann

Jérusalem, Saint Sépulcre, détails des chapiteaux

[Interior, Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem]

Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters , The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2001 (originally published) February 2014 (last revised)

The First Crusade Most historians consider the sermon preached by Pope Urban II at Clermont-Ferrand in November 1095 to have been the spark that fueled a wave of military campaigns to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control. Considered at the time to be divinely sanctioned, these campaigns, involving often ruthless battles, are known as the Crusades. At their core was a desire for access to shrines associated with the life and ministry of Jesus, above all the Holy Sepulcher, the church in Jerusalem said to contain the tomb of Christ ( 2005.100.373.100 ). Absolution from sin and eternal glory were promised to the Crusaders, who also hoped to gain land and wealth in the East. Nobles and peasants responded in great number to the call and marched across Europe to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire . With the support of the Byzantine emperor, the knights , guided by Armenian Christians ( 57.185.3 ), tenuously marched to Jerusalem through Seljuq-controlled territories in modern Turkey and Syria. In June 1099, the Crusaders began a five-week siege of Jerusalem, which fell on July 15, 1099 ( 92.1.15 ). Eyewitness accounts attest to the terror of battle. Ralph of Caen, watching the city from the Mount of Olives, saw “the scurrying people, the fortified towers, the roused garrison, the men rushing to arms, the women in tears, the priests turned to their prayers, the streets ringing with cries, crashing, clanging and neighing.”

The Crusaders took over many of the cities on the Mediterranean coast and built a large number of fortified castles across the Holy Land to protect their newly established territories ( 28.99.1 ), while also establishing churches loyal to Rome. For the Crusaders, the Dome of the Rock was the Temple of Solomon; the Aqsa mosque was converted to use as a palace and stables.

The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem established by the Crusaders boasted fifteen cathedral churches. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, for example, became the seat of a Western Christian bishop in 1110 ( 1988.1174.9 ).

Artists from different traditions met in the city of Jerusalem, with, for example, Syrian goldworkers on the right of the market near the Holy Sepulcher, and Latin goldworkers on the left (Conder 1896). Indeed, metalwork from this period sometimes combines an Islamic aesthetic with Christian subject matter ( 1971.39a,b ). Some pieces even bear an inscription indicating that they were made by an Islamic goldsmith for a Christian. Precious works of art fashioned for the churches of Europe celebrated their links to the Holy Land ( 2002.18 ; Toulouse Cathedral Limoges Reliquary ).

Second and Third Crusade In 1147–49, the Second Crusade, championed by the Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux ( 1975.1.70b ), attempted to take Damascus in Syria. The campaign was a dismal failure because the Muslims had regrouped. Led by Salah al-Din (Saladin), Muslim forces advanced across Syria and finally retook Jerusalem in October 1187. Saladin was credited by his personal secretary with allowing the Patriarch of Jerusalem to leave the city with the church’s treasure, explaining: “If we make excuses [to confiscate this wealth] they [the Franks] will accuse us of treachery … let us not make them accuse people of faith of breaking their oaths. Let them go. They will talk about our benevolence” (Mohamed el-Moctar, in Paul and Yaeger, 2012, p. 209).

Entering the city, a vizier of Saladin marveled at how the Crusaders had beautified Jerusalem: “the care of the unbelievers had transformed [it] into a Paradise garden … those accursed ones defended with the lance and sword this city, which they had rebuilt with columns and slabs of marble [ 2005.100.373.86 ], where they had founded churches and the palaces of the Templars and the hospitallers … One sees on every side houses as pleasant as their gardens and bright with white marble and columns decorated with leaves, which make them look like living trees” (quoting Kadi el-Fadel in Hamilton, 1979).

By the end of the Third Crusade (1189–92), Crusader forces had gained Cyprus and the coastal city of Acre. Saladin guaranteed access to Jerusalem to European pilgrims and welcomed Jews back to the city as well.

The chronicle of the Spanish-born Ibn Jubayr, who traveled to Mecca from 1183 to 1185, speaks of the ease of trade in the Holy Land, even in times of military hostilities: “the Muslims continuously journeyed from Damascus to Acre (through Frankish territory), and likewise not one of the Christian merchants was stopped and hindered (in Muslim territories) … The soldiers engage themselves in their war, while the people are at peace” (as cited in Paul and Yaeger, 2012, p. 34).

The Fourth Crusade With each crusade, relations between the Byzantines and the Western forces became more estranged. The Fourth Crusade set out in 1202 with Egypt as its goal. After choosing sides in a dynastic dispute in Byzantium, however, the Crusaders turned their siege upon Byzantium’s capital, Constantinople, to collect an enormous sum of money that had been promised for their support. The city was sacked in 1204, its rich treasures divided between the Venetians (the lion’s share of which remains in the Treasury of San Marco, Venice), the French, and other Crusaders. The Latin Empire of Constantinople was established with Baldwin of Flanders as emperor. In 1261, the Byzantines regained the city .

Later Crusades Successive crusades were launched to the Holy Land. The knight Jean d’Alluye traveled to the Holy Land around 1240, but the circumstances of his voyage are not known ( 25.120.201 ).

The Seventh and Eighth Crusades, in 1248 ( 38.60 ) and 1270, were sponsored by Louis IX , who died in Tunisia ( 54.1.2 ; 37.173.3 ). In 1271, Sultan Baibars captured Montfort Castle ( 28.99.1 ), and in 1291, the Crusader city of Acre fell, ending the era of Latin Crusader kingdoms. Calls for new crusades over the next centuries were increasingly ignored, despite the renown in which Crusaders and the Holy Land were held in legend ( 1993.65.4 ; 23.21.4 ; 25.120.528 ; 25.120.529 ; 54.1.1 ; Belles Heures Heraclius leaf, folio 156 ).

Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “The Crusades (1095–1291).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/crus/hd_crus.htm (originally published October 2001, last revised February 2014)

Further Reading

Burgoyne, Michael Hamilton. Mamluk Jerusalem: An Architectural Study . London: World of Islam Festival Trust, 1987.

Conder, Claude R., trans. "The City of Jerusalem." Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society 6 (1896).

Dandridge, Pete and Mark Wypyski. "Sword and Dagger Pommels Associated with the Crusades, Part II: A Technical Study." Metropolitan Museum Journal 46 (2011), pp. 145–51.

Folda, Jaroslav. The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Folda, Jaroslav. Crusader Art in the Holy Land: From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Goss, Vladimir P., ed. The Meeting of Two Worlds: Cultural Exchange Between East and West During the Period of the Crusades . Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1986.

Grabar, Oleg, and Benjamin Z. Kedar eds. Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem's Sacred Esplanade . Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2009.

Hamilton, Bernard. Monastic Reform, Catharism, and the Crusades . London: Valorium Reprints, 1979.

Hillenbrandt, Carole. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.

La Rocca, Donald J. "Sword and Dagger Pommels Associated with the Crusades, Part I," Metropolitan Museum Journal 46 (2012), pp. 133–44.

Paul, Nicholas, and Suzanne Yeager, eds. Remembering the Crusades: Myth, Image, and Identity . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

Prawer, Joshua. The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.

Rozenberg, Silvia, ed. Knights of the Holy Land: The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem . Exhibition catalogue. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1999.

Additional Essays by Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters

• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Art for the Christian Liturgy in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Classical Antiquity in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Private Devotion in Medieval Christianity .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ The Art of the Book in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ The Cult of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Stained Glass in Medieval Europe .” (October 2001)

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• Arms and Armor—Common Misconceptions and Frequently Asked Questions
• Art and Death in Medieval Byzantium
• Art and Death in the Middle Ages
• The Birth of Islam
• The Byzantine City of Amorium
• The Byzantine State under Justinian I (Justinian the Great)
• Byzantium (ca. 330–1453)
• Carolingian Art
• Classical Antiquity in the Middle Ages
• Constantinople after 1261
• Italian Painting of the Later Middle Ages
• Jews and the Arts in Medieval Europe
• Medieval Aquamanilia
• Ottonian Art
• Patronage of Jean de Berry (1340–1416)

List of Rulers

• List of Rulers of Byzantium
• List of Rulers of Europe
• Anatolia and the Caucasus, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Arabian Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Balkan Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Central Europe (including Germany), 1000–1400 A.D.
• The Eastern Mediterranean, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Egypt, 1000–1400 A.D.
• France, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Iberian Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Italian Peninsula, 1000–1400 A.D.
• Western North Africa (The Maghrib), 1000–1400 A.D.
• The Route of the First Crusade
• Crusader Settlements
• 11th Century A.D.
• 12th Century A.D.
• 13th Century A.D.
• Architecture
• Ayyubid Art
• Floral Motif
• Funerary Art
• Gelatin Silver Print
• Gilt Copper
• Islamic Art in the Medieval Period
• Low Countries
• Medieval Art
• Parchment / Vellum
• Photography
• Plant Motif
• Relief Sculpture
• Rock Crystal
• Saint John the Evangelist
• Sculpture in the Round
• Stained Glass
• Virgin Mary

Artist or Maker

• Ferloni, Pietro
• Lippi, Fra Filippo
• Nouailher, Colin
• Paradisi, Domenico
• Pucelle, Jean
• Salzmann, Auguste
• Van Oostsanen, Jacob Cornelisz.

The Purpose of the Crusades: a Historical Analysis

This essay about the Crusades explores the multifaceted purposes behind these medieval military campaigns. It examines the religious fervor, political ambitions, and economic interests that drove Europeans to take up the cross, highlighting the complex interplay of faith, power, and commerce. The essay also reflects on the darker aspects of the Crusades, acknowledging the violence and suffering they caused, while underscoring their lasting impact on history and human nature.

How it works

In the grand tapestry of human history, few chapters command as much intrigue and controversy as the Crusades. These medieval military campaigns, shrouded in religious zeal and political ambition, continue to captivate scholars and laypersons alike. Yet, amidst the clash of swords and the fervor of holy fervor, lies a deeper inquiry into the purpose of these tumultuous events – a purpose as multifaceted as the era from which they emerged.

The Crusades, often portrayed as a singular quest for religious redemption, are a mosaic of motivations that defy easy categorization.

Yes, religious fervor undeniably stirred the hearts of many who took up the cross, driven by the promise of spiritual salvation and the sanctity of reclaiming Jerusalem from Muslim rule. The impassioned sermons of Pope Urban II, rallying knights and peasants alike to the cause, echo through the corridors of history, emblematic of the fervent faith that propelled the Crusades forward.

Yet, to view the Crusades solely through a religious lens would be a disservice to the intricate web of political intrigue and economic ambition that underpinned these endeavors. The Byzantine Empire, beset by the encroaching Seljuk Turks, sought aid from the West, presenting European powers with an opportunity to expand their influence into the fertile lands of the Near East. The establishment of the Crusader States following the First Crusade speaks to the geopolitical aspirations that drove Western powers to intervene in distant lands.

Economic factors, too, played a pivotal role in the Crusades. The allure of trade routes to the East, long monopolized by Islamic powers, tantalized the burgeoning commercial interests of Italian city-states such as Venice and Genoa. The Crusades provided a convenient pretext for these maritime powers to assert their dominance in the Mediterranean, forging alliances and carving out lucrative trade concessions in the wake of military conquests.

Moreover, the Crusades served as a pressure valve for the simmering tensions and feudal rivalries that characterized medieval Europe. Knights and nobles, accustomed to waging war amongst themselves, found a new sense of purpose in the call to arms against a common enemy. The Crusades offered an opportunity for martial glory and territorial expansion, drawing ambitious men from across Europe to the banner of the cross.

Yet, for all their lofty aspirations, the Crusades were not without their dark shadows. The brutal sack of Jerusalem during the First Crusade stands as a stark reminder of the atrocities committed in the name of religious fervor. The clash of civilizations between Christian and Muslim forces left a legacy of bloodshed and suffering that lingers in the collective memory to this day.

In the annals of history, the purpose of the Crusades remains a subject of debate and interpretation. They were a product of their time – a time of faith and fanaticism, ambition and aggression. To understand the Crusades is to grapple with the complexities of human nature itself – the capacity for both noble idealism and ruthless violence.

As we look back on this tumultuous chapter in history, we are reminded that the true purpose of the Crusades defies easy categorization. They were a reflection of the hopes and fears, the aspirations and contradictions, of an age long past. In seeking to understand the Crusades, we are confronted not only with the distant echoes of the past but with the enduring complexities of the human experience.

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Professor Whalen’s Medieval Research Page

At the start of a research paper, rather than “forming a thesis” or an argument, really what you’re doing is “asking a question.” After all, how can you form a proper argument  before  you’ve read the materials?

Let’s say that you’re interested in the First Crusade and Christian attitudes toward Muslims. What you are essentially asking is a basic research question: What was the importance of the First Crusade for Christian attitudes toward Muslims? How did the crusade change (or not) Christian views of Islam? From here, you might develop an entire set of related questions: How did Christians view Islam before the First Crusade? Did the clergy on the crusade view Muslims in a different way from the laity? Did crusader views of Muslims inform their perceptions of other non-Christians, such as Jews?

To find some answers, you might investigate some Christian chronicles of the First Crusade. Unless you know Latin, you’ll need to read them in translation. Thus the search begins.

Reference Works(Davis Library Reference Section)

Dictionary of the Middle Ages.  Ed. Strayer. 13 vols. 1982–1988. D114 .D5 1982

Encyclopedia of Early Christianity.  Ed. Ferguson. 2 vols. 1997. BR162.2 .E53 1997

Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages.  Ed. Vauchez. 2 vols. 2000. CB351 .E53 2000

Women in the Middle Ages.  Ed. Wilson and Margolis. 2004. HQ1143 .W643 2004

You might also start out by looking at a survey of your topic. In this case, for example, you could find a lot of basic information in Jonathan-Riley Smith,  The Crusades:A Short History  (New Haven, 1987).

Medieval Sources in Translation (Davis Library Stacks)

• Author’s name (Guibert of Nogent / Fulcher of Chartres / etc.)
• Genre (e.g. sermons / chronicles / theology / apologetics / polemics / etc.)
• Subject (e.g. crusades / predestination / resurrection / marriage / etc.)
• Series titles (Medieval Texts and Studies / Medieval Texts in Translation / Oxford Medieval Texts / Crusade Texts in Translation / etc.)
• Some helpful tags: early works to 1800 / sources / translated / translation / English

If you’re searching for primary sources, you might also try the following site at Fordham, the Medieval Sources Bibliography .

After clicking on “Search the Site,” pay special attention to the search parameters: If you already know the name of your author (e.g. Guibert of Nogent), you can search that way. Be sure to click on the box “Translated into English.” There is an option to limit your dates (for example, onoy primary sources written between the years 1000–1200); and a menu for Subject Headings (which includes the Crusades).

Finally, there are two somewhat dated bibliographies of English sources in translation, both available in the David stacks:

Farrar, Clarissa Palmer. Bibliography of English translations from medieval sources. New York, Columbia university press, 1946. Z6517.F3 c. 2 Ferguson, Mary Anne. Bibliography of English translations from medieval sources, 1943–1967. Series: Records of civilization, sources and studies ; no. 88. New York, Columbia University Press, 1974. Z6517.F47. Finally, one can get started searching for sources consulting the Medieval Internet Sourcebook, which includes citations to print versions of the primary sources on the website (typically, in my assignments, students cannot rely exclusively on the Medieval Internet Sourcebook, but it might get you started in your hunt).

Search Engines for Scholarly Articles

The International Medieval Bibliography (IMB): a top-notch search engine for secondary literature, updated to include all but the most recent articles. NOTE: unlike JSTOR, the site does not include actual articles, but provides citations that will need to be tracked down in Davis Library. In terms of content, this site is far superior to JSTOR. Access the IMB via the Electronic Resources section on the Davis Library homepage.

Bibliography of the History of Art: similar to the IMB, but for art history. Also accessed through the Electronic Resources section on the Davis Library homepage.

Feminae – Medieval Women’s and Gender Index: search engine and resources with an emphasis on women’s and gender history.

L’Année philologique: search engine for secondary literature dealing with the patristic era and early Christianity, materials too early for the IMB. Also accessed through the Electronic Resources section on the Davis Library homepage. When using, start with the “full text” search mode (essential a k-word search option).

Again, be patient! If you search for “Guibert of Nogent” on the IMB in the “all index terms” line, you get zero hits. If you type “Nogent,” you get 134 hits. If you type “Nogent” and “crusade” in the subject line, you get 12 hits. If you look closely at the entries for those citations, you’ll see that the IMB generally lists his name as “Guibert de Nogent.” Now try that search in the “all index terms.” While “Guibert of Nogent” results in zero hits, “Guibert de Nogent” yields 105.

Please note: these sites do not include articles, just citations. Sometimes there is a link to the digital version of the text, sometimes not. If not, you need to find the volume or journal in the Davis library by searching the Davis catalog. JSTOR, of course, can be helpful and includes actual Pdf files of the articles, but JSTOR only offers a limited selection of the possible scholarship. Trust me—JSTOR does not cover all of your bases for a research paper.

Online Resources

The Internet simply has not supplanted the library as a source for research projects, not yet anyway. That’s why I generally forbid my students from using Internet resources for their research papers. However, it would be foolish not to admit that the Internet provides a possible starting point and source of inspiration for formulating research questions and finding materials. Not to mention, it’s convenient. Some helpful sites:

UNC Libraries Guide to Medieval & Early Modern Studies Online: If you want to explore resources beyond this homepage, this would be a good starting point.

The Labyrinth : A vast online resource at Georgetown with links to numerous other websites, including secondary literature and sources in translation.

Internet Medieval Sourcebook: An extensive site of sources in translation, often from older (frankly outdated) collections (with links to online Ancient History, Women’s History, Saints Lives Sourcebooks and more). Offers a starting point for research but NOT appropriate for your average research paper.

The Douay-Rheims Bible : If you’re using a Bible for a medieval paper, use this one, which includes both English and the Vulgate Latin text.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library : Collection of sources in translation for early Christian history, many from the Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (see above under Early Christian Sources in Translation).

This style sheet provides simplified examples of the format used for annotation and bibliographies in the Chicago Manual of Style.

Annotation Format

Book (Primary Source)

Robert of Clari, The Conquest of Constantinople, trans. E. H. McNeal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936).

Book (Secondary Source)

Peter Brown, The Cult of Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).

Article, Journal

Peter Brown, “A Dark-Age Crisis: Aspects of the Iconoclastic Controversy,” English Historical Review 88 (1973): 1–34.

Article, Edited Volume

Robert Lerner, “The Medieval Return to the Thousand-Year Sabbath,” in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. Bernard McGinn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), pp. 234–55.

Note: Please use the “article, edited volume” format for a primary source that is translated and excerpted in a source-book or collection of primary source documents, including the medieval author and the title of their work, along with the title of the source collection, the modern editor and/or translator, publisher, date, etc. If your medieval work does not have an author, list the author as “anonymous,” and be sure to include the editor and/or translator of the text.

Citations should be in footnotes (not endnotes or internal citation). Footnotes should be consecutively numbered. Insert footnotes at the end of the sentence in question (using the “reference” option on the menu for Word documents). Cite a work the first time that you make any reference to it (including but not limited to direct quotations), providing a full citation of the work. Subsequent references to that work such use an abbreviated form of citation. Provide page numbers when quoting a source, or even when summarizing an important point from the text (play it safe and cite more rather than less).

AVOID multiple notes per sentence, and place notes at the end of the sentence.

For example:

Bibliography Format

When applicable, divide your bibliography into two sections, one for primary sources and one for secondary sources. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE FORMAT FOR ANNOTATION AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES.

Follow this example:

Primary Sources

Robert of Clari. The Conquest of Constantinople. Trans. E. H. McNeal. New York: Columbia University Press, 1936.

Secondary Sources

Brown, Peter. The Cult of Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Brown, Peter. “A Dark-Age Crisis: Aspects of the Iconoclastic Controversy.” English Historical Review 88 (1973): 1–34.

Lerner, Robert. “The Medieval Return to the Thousand-Year Sabbath.” In The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. Bernard McGinn, 234–55. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002.

NOTE: As a rule of thumb, provide your reader with more and not less information: Include volume numbers, edition numbers, editors and translators etc. Precise formats for more complicated works can be found in the Chicago Manual of Style.

The Bible does not have to be included in your Bibliography. In your text, you can use standard biblical abbreviations and internal citation (2 Thess. 4:3; Gen. 14:13–25, etc.).

If you use JSTOR, please don’t include the link in your citation or bibliography: this is simply not necessary. The original journal is the “real” citation.

The Crusades Research Paper

View sample crusades research paper. Browse other  research paper examples and check the list of history research paper topics for more inspiration. If you need a history research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Feel free to contact our custom writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality assignments for reasonable rates.

The crusades were traditionally viewed as holy wars conducted from 1095 to 1291 that attempted to liberate (from Muslim control) and protect sites in the Holy Land sacred to Christendom. Soon they took on a broader mission: defending Christian order, under the sign of the cross, against unbelievers and enemies of the church. Many twenty-first-century scholars have adopted a “pluralist” view that recognizes an Age of Crusades spanning five hundred years.

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The word “crusade,” derived from the Old Spanish cruzada, is best translated as “an undertaking marked by a cross” and most commonly means a Christian holy war. The original goal of the crusades was the liberation of Jerusalem and other sites in the Middle East sacred to Christendom, but by the early thirteenth century the crusade had evolved into an institution of the Roman Catholic Church with a more general mission: upholding and extending Christian order against all unbelievers and enemies of the church everywhere. As a result, Latin Christian Europe came into conflict not only with the Islamic world but also with the non-Christian peoples of the Baltic, the Byzantine Empire, the Rus’ (a Slavic polity centered in Kiev), and even nonconformist Christians at home, such the Cathars of Languedoc, the so-called Albigensian heretics. Crusading also took on a missionary element, largely due to the impetus of the new mendicant orders, specifically the Franciscans and Dominicans. Consequently, crusading zeal and objectives impelled the Roman Church to send diplomats and missionaries to Mongolia and China between the mid-thirteenth and mid-fourteenth centuries and played an equally significant role in propelling Europe’s transoceanic voyages of discovery of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Likewise, Catholic Iberia’s overseas policies in the Americas, along the coastal shores of Africa, and in South and East Asia were colored by crusading values.

Historians debate the dates encompassed by the crusades and the crusaders’ theaters of operation. One school, known as the “traditionalists,” limits the crusades to the period that began with the calling of the First Crusade in 1095 and ended with the destruction of the last crusader strongholds on the mainland of Syria-Palestine in 1291. Traditionalists further limit the crusades to holy wars fought between Latin Christians and Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa during these two centuries. For the traditionalists, true crusades had Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land as their exclusive focal points. The other school, known as the “pluralists,” which is in current ascendancy in scholarly circles, has a broader view. Pluralists count as crusades the Spanish Reconquista, holy wars launched against pagans and other perceived enemies in the Baltic and Eastern Europe, and wars called by the papacy against heretics and political enemies in Western Europe. They also greatly expand the chronological limits of the crusades, finding proto-crusades well before 1095 and a vibrant crusading tradition well after 1291. Some take the Age of the Crusades down to as late as 1798, when Napoleon captured the island of Malta from the Order of the Hospital of Saint John, a religious order that assumed military functions in the twelfth-century crucible of the crusades. The perspective of this research paper is pluralist, but only goes so far as seeing the struggles between Catholic Europe and the Ottoman Empire of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the last vestiges of crusading. Given this span of over five hundred years, it was only natural that crusading, as ideal and reality, was in constant flux. As an idea and an institution, the crusade took a century to develop into full theoretical and institutional form—essentially during the pontificate of Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216). Even after it had achieved this level of coherence, crusading continued to respond to new stimuli and challenges.

Despite such evolution, certain crusade constants were in place from the beginning and remained an integral part of crusading to the end. These were: (1) the belief that a crusade was a holy war waged on behalf of Jesus Christ and given legitimacy by the Roman papacy; (2) the certainty that one achieved a close relationship with Jesus through this act of love; (3) the belief that this was also a penitential act of self-sacrifice that earned spiritual merit, chief of which was a plenary indulgence, or full remission of the church-imposed penance due for sins; (4) the fact that its participants, women as well as men, enjoyed a special, quasi-clerical status by virtue of their crusade vows; (5) and the obligation and right to wear a cross, thereby becoming a crucesignatus—one signed with a cross.

Throughout these centuries of crusading, hundreds, even thousands of crusades of every size, make-up, and objective were launched. In light of the personal nature of crusading—a penitential act of love and sacrifice—arguably every crusader was a crusade unto him- or herself. Given this reality, medieval Europeans did not assign numbers to their crusades—not even the major ones. Western historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, laboring under the assumption that true crusades were only those that were directed toward the liberation or defense of Jerusalem, could not resist the temptation to enumerate what they considered to be the major crusades, but even then they were not able to reach complete consensus regarding how they should number the crusades that took place after the first five, namely after 1221. Some counted seven major crusades between 1096 and 1272; others, as this paper does, counted eight. Each was a large, papally blessed expedition that had as its intended mission (regardless of what diversions it might have taken) the engagement of Muslim enemies in or around the Holy Land. That noted, we can gain perspective on the inadequacy of this numbering system by first looking at a series of crusades in Iberia that are not counted among the canonical eight.

The Reconquista: Iberia’s Crusades

The crusades can be said to have roots in the struggle in Iberia between Christians and Moors. In April 711 an Islamic force crossed the strait separating Africa and Spain, and by 715 most of the peninsula, except for the northwest, was in Muslim hands. Christian counterattack, however, was underway by century’s end. These earliest battles were not crusades, but they were the opening rounds of the Reconquista, a series of Iberian wars between Muslims and Christians that became official crusades in the early twelfth century and lasted down to 1492. These early struggles, particularly those of the eleventh century, provided a model for the First Crusade. In 1064 an army of Spaniards and French captured and plundered Barbastro, with the support of Pope Alexander II, who offered the soldiers a plenary indulgence for their efforts.

As Spain was the land that gave the papacy inspiration for the crusade, it was fitting that in 1118 Pope Gelasius II granted unambiguous crusader status to an expedition against Muslim Saragossa. For the almost four hundred years that followed, Christian crusaders, both Spanish and foreign, waged holy war against a variety of Islamic powers in the peninsula. In the process, crusading left a deep imprint on Iberian Christian culture. Finally, on 2 January 1492, the combined crusader forces of the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, captured Granada, the last Moorish stronghold on the peninsula.

One of the witnesses of the Catholic monarchs’ triumphal entry into the city on 6 January was a Genoese sea captain who understood that now, with the dream of the total reconquest of Spain realized, the Catholic monarchs might fund his enterprise to reach the court of the Mongol Great Khan of Cathay by sailing west, little realizing that the Mongols had been thrown out of China in 1368. In their ignorance, Columbus and many others believed that reestablishing direct contact with the Great Khan would be a positive step toward the recovery of Jerusalem—a natural extension of the victory at Granada.

The Jerusalem Journey: The “First Crusade”

In response to pleas for help from the Byzantine emperor, Alexius I, whose lands in Anatolia (present- day peninsular Turkey) were being lost to Seljuk Turkish advances, Pope Urban II delivered a sermon at Clermont in France on 27 November 1095 calling upon the knighthood of the West to aid the Christians of the East and also to liberate Jerusalem. Convinced that “God wills it,” the pope offered everyone who made the journey to the East a full indulgence. Thus was born the First Crusade in 1096, a phenomenon that many Western contemporaries referred to as the “Jerusalem journey” and saw as a special type of penitential pilgrimage—an armed pilgrimage with military as well as spiritual objectives.

Between 1096 and 1101 three major waves of crusaders, each numbering in the tens of thousands, marched east. The first and third waves met with disaster, but the second wave, known also as the Crusade of the Great Lords, managed to capture Jerusalem on 15 July 1099.

Jerusalem and a number of other key sites captured by the second wave became the nuclei for four crusader states: the county of Edessa (1097–1150); the principality of Antioch (1098–1268); the kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291); and the county of Tripoli (1109–1289). Although free of control from any mother country in Europe, these four states of Outremer (the land across the sea) are often cited as examples of early European overseas colonialism. Whatever they were, the four states were Western Christian enclaves in lands where the populations were predominantly Eastern Christian and Muslim.

Some intermarriage and cultural exchange on a personal level took place, as was evident in the Franks (as all Western, or Latin, Christians were known to Easterners) who were born and raised in the crusader states. Called derisively poulains (young colts) by newcomers from the West, these native-born colonists were often indistinguishable in dress and manners from their non-Frankish neighbors.

Italian maritime cities, most notably Genoa, Pisa, and Venice, established huge trading emporiums in such key port cities as Acre (Palestine) and Tyre (south Lebanon), from which they transported to Europe Eastern goods in unprecedented quantity. The textiles, spices, dyes, slaves, and sugar that flowed into Europe not only enriched and made possible the growing power of these three commercial giants, they also sharpened the European taste for the goods of Asia.

One taste that knew no limits was the desire for sugar. Western colonists learned from their Muslim neighbors how to grow sugarcane on large slave plantations and how to refine it. In the late fifteenth century and following, Europeans would create sugar-producing slave plantations and mills off the west coast of Africa and in the Americas, thereby radically altering the demographic and ecological faces of these lands.

Despite poulains, Italian merchants, and sugar production, the crusader states were not major avenues for cultural exchanges between Western Europe and the Levant (the eastern shores of the Mediterranean). The great influx of ancient Greek and Islamic learning that entered Western Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, for example, originated in Muslim Spain and Sicily and not in the crusader East.

One of the most significant consequences of the crusader states is that all four, but especially the principality of Antioch, brought their Frankish lords into direct competition with the Byzantine Empire, whose emperor claimed lordship over lands now occupied by Westerners. In one of world history’s most ironic turn of events, the crusades, which began as an effort to aid Eastern Christians, ended up dividing the Byzantine and Latin branches of Christendom.

On their way to the Holy Land, early crusaders passed through Byzantine territory, and the presence of often-disorganized crusader forces in an alien land resulted in a series of misunderstandings and conflicts, some quite bloody. The result was that by the Third Crusade (1188–1192) the emperor of Byzantium, Isaac II, entered into an apparent conspiracy with Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria, to harass and destroy German forces crossing Anatolia. Isaac’s plan failed, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I, chose not to attack Constantinople. The imperial capital was not so fortunate a little more than a decade later. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the army and fleet of the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) found itself attacking, capturing, and pillaging the city on 12–13 April 1204. This act, and the establishment of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, which held the city until August 1261, completed the rupture between the churches and peoples of Byzantium and the West.

One of the many significant results of the Fourth Crusade was the conquest of most of Greece and the Greek islands by Western crusader forces and the establishment of the Venetians (and later the Genoese) in the Black Sea, which became the West’s point of entry into the markets of Central Asia and beyond. Portions of mainland Frankish Greece, as occupied Greece is often called, remained in Western hands until the mid-fifteenth century, and some Greek islands were Western possessions until the end of the seventeenth century.

Meanwhile, Islam and the Christian West continued to struggle in the Holy Land and Egypt. Muslim conquest of Edessa in 1144 occasioned the Second Crusade (1147–1149), which failed to achieve any success in the East but which also became the opportunity for the crusader West to expand the scope of enemies against whom it waged holy war.

Crusades in the Baltic

Soldiers of the Second Crusade (1147–1149) fought on three fronts: Iberia, where they participated in the capture of Lisbon in 1147; the Middle East, where they failed miserably in an aborted attempt to take Damascus in 1148; and the Baltic, where Christian Europe began a series of crusades of conquest, colonization, and conversion that lasted from 1147 to 1525. During these almost four hundred years, German and Scandinavian crusaders waged war against various pagan and Christian peoples along Europe’s northeastern frontier. Unlike the crusades in the Middle East, the Baltic Crusades contained an overt missionary purpose. Also, unlike the crusades in the Levant and the Reconquista, the Baltic Crusades were not fought to recover land previously held by Christians. These were wars of conquest and expansion, although they were often justified as defensive reactions to cross-border incursions. Unlike the crusader states of the Latin East, lands conquered along the Baltic were systematically settled and culturally transformed, at least to the point that their indigenous peoples were converted to Latin Christianity. First Wends (a Slavic people), Livs, Letts, and Estonians, and later Prussians and Finns, underwent conquest, dispossession, colonization, and conversion.

Not all of the Baltic Crusades ended in success. Due to intensified animosities between Rome and Constantinople, by the early thirteenth century the Roman Church considered all Christians who followed the Byzantine rite, including Russians and Ukrainians, to be schismatics who rejected the Godordained authority of the Roman pope. Consequently, from 1240 to 1242 Swedish, Danish, German, and Estonian crusaders participated in a series of papally authorized expeditions against the Christian Rus’. Led by Prince Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod, the Rus’ threw back the invaders in 1242.

Reconquering Jerusalem

On 2 October 1187 the armies of Saladin retook Jerusalem and came close to driving the Franks totally into the sea, thereby occasioning the Third Crusade (1188–1192), the Crusade of the Kings, so-called because of the involvement of King Richard I Coeur de Lion (Lion-Hearted) of England, King Philip II of France, and Emperor Frederick I of Germany and Italy. The Third Crusade was unable to recapture Jerusalem, but it did reconquer significant portions of the Syrian-Palestinian coast, thereby giving the truncated crusader states another century of life. The capital of the kingdom of Jerusalem now shifted to the port city of Acre.

The North African Campaigns

By the end of the Third Crusade, Western strategists understood that Jerusalem could not be rewon without first conquering Egypt, the heart of the empire bequeathed by Saladin to his heirs. The main body of the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was headed for an assault on Egypt before it was diverted to Constantinople. The Fifth Crusade (1217–1221) reached Egypt, where it enjoyed early success, but then ended in disaster. The same was true of the Seventh Crusade (1248–1254), whereas the Eighth Crusade (1270– 1272), the West’s last major crusade before the fall of the crusader states, ended anticlimactically after the death outside Tunis of its principal leader, King Louis IX of France, the thirteenth century’s most celebrated crusader, whom the Roman Catholic Church canonized as a saint in 1297.

New Types of Crusades

The only thirteenth-century crusades to the East to succeed in rewinning Jerusalem were the Sixth Crusade (1227–1229), in which Emperor Frederick II successfully negotiated the transfer of Jerusalem into Frankish hands (1229–1239), and the so-called (and unnumbered) Barons’ Crusade (1239–1241), in which crusader leaders again negotiated the return of Jerusalem, which Islamic forces had taken back in 1239. This time Christians held the city for only three years. In 1244 Muslim mercenaries out of Central Asia, the Khorezmian Turks, whom the Mongols had driven west, recaptured Jerusalem in a bloodbath, and the city remained in Muslim hands until 1917.

In the early thirteenth century the Roman papacy began to employ full-fledged crusades to fight enemies at home—heretics, such as the Cathars of southern France (the Albigensian Crusade of 1209–1229), and political enemies who threatened papal secular authority in Italy, such as Emperor Frederick II and his descendants (1240–1269). Crusades such as these continued well into early modern times, in such incarnations as the five Anti-Hussite Crusades (1420–1431) and various Holy Leagues formed by the papacy in the sixteenth century.

The Mongols

On another front, the thirteenth-century papacy sought first to launch crusades against and then to ally with a new force from the East—the Mongols, who overran large portions of Christian eastern Europe in a campaign that lasted from 1236 to 1242. Fortunately for the West, the Mongols withdrew back to the Volga in 1242. This withdrawal took place, however, only after they destroyed a combined Polish and German army and then a Hungarian army.

Tales of atrocities convinced western Europeans that the Mongols were the forces of the Antichrist as foretold in the Book of the Apocalypse. In response, Pope Gregory IX called a crusade against them in 1241, and his successor Innocent IV renewed it in 1243, but both were futile gestures. Western Europe was too engaged with internal struggles, namely papal crusades against Frederick II, to rouse itself against a foe, even a demonic foe, that had mysteriously retreated.

Fearing the Mongols would return, the pope and King Louis IX of France dispatched several missions to them. Beginning in 1245 and lasting to 1255, the embassies were charged with discovering Mongol intentions and converting these so-called devil’s horsemen to Catholic Christianity. The envoys, who were mainly Franciscan friars, encountered only Mongol indifference. To the Mongol mind, the West had only one option: submission.

Following the Mongol capture of Baghdad in 1258, these horsemen from the steppes of inner Asia drove as far west as northern Galilee (in modern Israel), where an Egyptian army defeated and turned them back at the Battle of Ayn Jalut in 1260. Given this setback, the Mongol il-khans (rulers subordinate to the Great Khan) of Persia were now willing to discuss an alliance with the Christian West against Islamic Egypt. Because the Mamluk sultans of Egypt were placing increasing pressure on the rapidly deteriorating crusader states, the West was willing to ally with the Mongols against Islam, provided they converted to Christianity. With this dream in mind, King Louis IX of France set off on his ill-fated Eighth Crusade, confident that he and the emir of Tunis, who presumably would convert to Christianity, would link up with the Mongol il-khan of Persia, and together they would liberate Jerusalem.

In 1287 the il-khan of Persia dispatched an ambassador to the West to offer yet another alliance proposal. Known as Rabban (Master) Sauma, the envoy was a Turkish monk and native of northern China who belonged to the Assyrian Church of the East, an ancient branch of Christianity known incorrectly to those outside its fold as “Nestorianism.” Sauma met with the kings of France and England, as well with Pope Nicholas IV, and received warm expressions of encouragement from all three. He left Rome in April 1288 with several papal letters for the il-khan. Shortly thereafter, in 1289, the pope sent Friar John of Montecorvino to the il-khan’s court. Before anything could come of these negotiations, the il-khan, Arghun, died, and his successor embraced Islam in 1295. All hopes for a Mongol-Latin crusade were dashed.

Rebuffed by the Mongol il-khanate of Persia, Friar John set off for the court of the Mongol Great Khan in China in 1291, arriving there, by way of India, in 1294 or 1295. Too late to meet Khubilai Khan, who died in 1294, the Franciscan friar set up a mission church in the Mongol capital of Dadu, also known as Khanbalik, which was located in the heart of present-day Beijing. This mission, which later spread to southern China, enjoyed imperial protection until the Chinese evicted the Mongols in 1368. Although the succeeding Ming dynasty (1368–1644), which reasserted Chinese rule, was hostile to all foreign elements associated with the hated Mongols, this mission church probably continued to exist until the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. In its more than a century of existence, the mission attracted only a few Chinese converts, but it served resident merchants from the West—largely Italians—and it also succeeded in convincing a number of “Nestorian” Turks to accept the authority and rites of the Roman Church.

After 1294–1295 the Mongol Empire underwent substantial changes for the worse, and before the fourteenth century ended, the empire was dead. Christian Europe, however, was unaware of the Mongol Empire’s fate and never forgot the dream of linking up with the Great Khan. Many motives drove Columbus to sail west toward the Indies, but certainly one of them was the dream of a crusade alliance with the Mongols against Islam.

Early Modern Explorations and Colonization

Similar crusade motives helped drive Portuguese explorations along the African coast. Henry, prince of Portugal, known as the Navigator (1394–1460), used the resources of the Order of Christ, a Portuguese crusader-military order founded in 1319, to finance the fleets that he sent out. The prince, who crusaded in North Africa in 1415, 1437, and 1458, justified this use of crusade-dedicated resources because, as his contemporary biographer, Gomes Eannes de Azurara, noted, he wanted to know the extent of the lands held by the Muslims, and he sought yet unknown Christian princes who would ally with Portugal in the struggle against Islam.

In like manner, although the Spanish conquistadors who conquered major portions of the Americas and the Portuguese adventurers who sailed though the Indian Ocean were driven by many motives, not least of which was a desire for gold and glory, it is not difficult to find in their accounts crusading themes and sentiments that were already more than four hundred years old.

Afonso Albuquerque, Portuguese viceroy of India, a commendador of the Order of Santiago, an Iberian crusader-military order that had been founded in Leon in 1170, and who had fought Muslims in Morocco, the Atlantic, and Italy prior to going to the Indian Ocean, won a singular victory over an Arab fleet off of Hormuz in 1507. According to a posthumous compilation of his papers, when Albuquerque’s sailors fished the bodies of Muslim sailors from the waters, they found about eighty who had been killed by arrows, although no one in the Portuguese fleet had possessed a bow or knew how to use one. The source then notes: “It seems that Our Lord desired on that day to perform this miracle so that He might show the captains, who shrank from engaging in this business, how certain of victory over their enemies are they who fight with true faith against infidels.” That putative miracle and sentiment could just as easily have been recorded and expressed by any chronicler of the First Crusade. But a sixteenth-century poet, Luis Vaz de Camoes, who had lost an eye fighting Moors in North Africa, was as impressed by this reported incident as any twelfth-century crusade historian would have been. He noted in his great national epic, the Lusiads, which placed the exploits of Portuguese mariners in the Indian Ocean into the context of the crusades, that this miracle showed “How God will fight for them who fight for Him.”

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• CAREER FEATURE
• 20 May 2024

How religious scientists balance work and faith

• Anne Marie Conlon

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In Varanasi, India, biotechnologist Anurag Chaurasia collects water samples from the River Ganges, which is sacred to Hindus. Credit: Shri Kashi Vishwanath Baba

For the past 20 years, Elaine Howard Ecklund has studied scientists’ attitudes towards religion. What she’s found, through more than 40,000 surveys and nearly 2,500 confidential interviews, is that there are more religious scientists than many people would expect. In one study, at least 30% of respondents declared a religious affiliation ( E. H. Ecklund et al. Socius https://doi.org/mvrv; 2016 ).This study surveyed scientists from eight countries and regions, including the United Kingdom, India, Hong Kong, Turkey and the United States. Globally, around 85% of the population identifies as religious (see go.nature.com/3yatbk5 ). Ecklund’s research has also found that scientists are not always open about their faith at work or in education settings. “I think there is the perception sometimes that other scientists won’t take you seriously if you talk about your faith,” says Ecklund, a sociologist based at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Confidentiality, says Ecklund, allowed the scientists she surveyed to be more open about their faith than they might otherwise have been. “They were almost waiting to talk about it,” she says. “They feel like there’s so much silence within the scientific community about religion — it felt somewhat of a relief to talk about their own approach to religion in a safe environment.”

Ecklund has also found that many scientists are quite open to their colleagues’ beliefs. “Atheist scientists are much less negative about religion than we might be led to believe by the loudest voices, which we often think are the most numerous ones. And that’s often not the case,” she says. For example, her 2016 study found that in the United States, two-thirds of scientists do not view the science–religion relationship as one of conflict.

Serving science and the Church as the Pope’s astronomer

Ecklund has found that attitudes to faith in the workplace vary by country. For example, she says, “Indian scientists assume that there’ll be more discussion of religion within scientific contexts. So, there’s sometimes blessings over experiments. There is an assumption that staff in a lab will want to have time off for spiritual and religious holidays.”

Nature spoke to five religious scientists about how they navigate faith at work. Their experiences differ, but none felt a conflict between their beliefs and their science. Although none had experienced any direct discrimination on the basis of their religion, some did admit to being less open about their faith in particular professional contexts.

Many say that science and religion work in harmony as ways of understanding the world. Anurag Chaurasia, a biotechnologist with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in Varanasi, recalls how, as a graduate student, he and his classmates would follow the guiding principles of the Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita to help them find direction. When experiments went awry, for example, their professor would instruct them: “Read the first message of this book, ‘Do your duty without being attached to the fruits of your action; do your duty selflessly.’” This guidance, says Chaurasia, taught him and his colleagues perseverance and how to handle failure. Bhagavad Gita principles also shaped group yoga sessions to aid relaxation and support good mental health, and brought them together as a team.

Re-examination

Mikaela Lee, a technical instructor in biomedical sciences at Solent University in Southampton, UK, says that her strong Christian faith informs her world view. “The way I approach science, personally, is as a way to glorify God and find out more about his creation,” she adds.

Raised in California as an evangelical Christian, Lee experienced how a more conservative set of beliefs can be in conflict with science. “I grew up believing in creationism, that God created the world. Evolution was kind of like a dirty word in my church,” she says. “But I also believed that we, as human beings, had almost an obligation to study the natural world and discover things about it, especially for medical research. And as I got older, I decided that you couldn’t take bits and pieces: you either had to accept all of the science or none of it.” This led her to adjust her religious beliefs to accommodate scientific evidence.

“The evidence that I saw was quite convincing. When we studied evolution in school, it kind of clicked in my brain. And it doesn’t just make sense. It’s beautiful. It’s elegant. That was the tipping point for me.” Lee found herself re-examining many of the conservative beliefs that she’d been taught growing up. After moving to the United Kingdom for university in 2018, she joined the more liberal United Reformed Church, which, she says, has many scientist members.

Climate scientist Benjamin Grandey has been able to have conversations about his religious faith at work thanks to an open workplace culture. Credit: Benjamin Stephen Grandey

For climate scientist Benjamin Grandey, who is based in Singapore, his Christian faith informs his science: “My theology helps me to appreciate the value of why science works, because I believe in a God who has made a very ordered Universe, and that he has given us, as human beings, the ability to understand a lot about that Universe.” For example, Grandey points out that mathematics, a human construct, is “so good at providing tools to describe physical phenomena in the world beyond our minds”.

Assumed atheism

Sociologist Christopher Scheitle surveyed more than 1,300 graduate students about their experiences and their attitudes to religion. He found that many religious people studying science struggle to be open about their faith, reporting a culture of ‘assumed atheism’ that often led them to conceal their religion for fear of being judged or discriminated against (see go.nature.com/4brey69 ). “I remember having several conversations with students who were very thoughtful about hiding the fact that they were religious,” says Scheitle, who is based at West Virginia University in Morgantown. One said that she purposely avoided revealing her religious beliefs until she had established herself as a scientist. “Her fear was that if people knew early in the programme, she would immediately be labelled as ‘not a serious scientist’.”

Religion and science can have a true dialogue

Their fears were understandable, because the culture of assumed atheism meant that other students and professors felt they could speak dismissively about religion, Scheitle says. “Among students who are more religious, it is a fairly common experience that they hear offhand negative or stereotypical comments about religion or religious people,” he adds, either in the classroom or in the laboratory or departmental offices.

As Scheitle notes in his 2023 book The Faithful Scientist , when people conceal a part of their identity, it can be isolating. “Research has found that this concealment itself often ends up being harmful to their own psychological well-being and to their sense of connection to others,” he writes.

Some graduate students that Scheitle spoke to have established their own communities, who meet for prayer and discussions on faith. Those who were open about their faith admitted having awkward interactions with their non-religious peers. “You can tell [that some co-workers] get uncomfortable, and they change the subject,” said one chemistry student. “It’s not something that’s deterred me from being who I am, but I hate the awkward interactions.”

Suzanne Kalka is open about her Pentecostal faith and has worked with organizations that promote harmony between science and religion in her role as a science educator based in Manchester, UK. One of these organizations is God and the Big Bang , which runs school workshops to encourage students to discuss the compatibility of science and faith. But in her previous career as a science teacher, Kalka says that she felt less free to discuss her religion. She taught mainly in secular schools, and, especially in her early career, felt a need to prove herself, deciding not to put her role at risk by singling herself out through her religious beliefs. “It’s tough, because you’re living two lives — you don’t want to risk your scientific credibility by being openly religious. I didn’t wear any kind of outward signs of any religious belief. I lived a very compartmentalized life. I wanted to be seen to be a very competent teacher of science.”

People of faith are allies to stall climate change

Towards the end of her teaching career, Kalka decided that she wanted to be more forthright about her faith. She took a role in a Church of England school and found that she could be more open. “But even there,” she added, “it was a minority of science teachers who had any religious belief at all, and it was never discussed.”

Kalka thinks that science teachers who are religious still find it difficult to be open about their beliefs. Her advice to them is to offer examples of famous scientists who combined a life of faith with their scientific achievements. She cites data showing that 75% of scientists who won a Nobel prize between 1901 and 2000 were of Judaeo-Christian faith (B. A. Shalev 100 Years of Nobel Prizes ; 2002).

An accepting culture

Faadiel Essop says that growing up in apartheid South Africa made him think more broadly about things. In the 1990s, his country rejected its history of government-sanctioned racial segregation, and he thinks that this has led to a more sensitive, tolerant society, in which he feels able to express his Muslim faith and identity. “There’s a lot of space for you to express yourself in general in society.”

A medical physiologist at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa, and the director of the university’s Centre for Cardio-metabolic Research in Africa, Essop says there’s a strong culture of acceptance and a willingness to make accommodations for religious practices, both at Stellenbosch and across Africa more generally. Essop travels across the continent regularly for scientific meetings and says that he’s seen both Muslims and Christians being “quite comfortable to express their religion”.

Faadiel Essop says there’s a culture of openness in discussions of faith in South Africa. Credit: Wilma Stassen

Closer to home, his university colleagues are sure to provide him with halal foods (those permitted by Islamic law) at meetings or events, and the teaching schedule leaves gaps on Fridays for congregational prayers. This year, the head of his department came to speak to him before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to discuss the daily fasts that he would be undertaking. “There is that empathy. It’s not necessary, but it’s nice. It shows that he’s got an interest, and I can explain what I do.”

An open workplace culture has also helped Grandey to be comfortable discussing his faith at work. The climate physicist moved to Singapore after growing up and completing his studies in the United Kingdom. He has found that office environments that are culturally diverse, in which people are open to discussing their personal lives, leave room for conversations about faith, too.

“In my last workplace, the Singapore–MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, it was very international, very diverse. I remember enjoying many stimulating conversations with colleagues from other Asian countries who had not had much exposure to Christianity. They were very open to learning about what I believed as a Christian, and sharing about their own beliefs, too,” says Grandey, who is now a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University.

Risks of ruling out religion

Essop sees the often-strict divide between science and religion, especially in places where he’s lived and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a barrier to the free exploration of ideas. Discussing evolution and the origins of life, for example, in such environments could lead to stilted conversation.

“That’s where religion has been sidelined in a way, because the two, work and religion, are viewed as separate domains. Personally, I think they’re an integrated whole.”

From her studies, Ecklund thinks that accepting the existence of religion in a scientific context can help to encourage diversity. “Our studies show that people may be kept out of science to some extent because they’re religious, either that they don’t ever go into science, because they think religious people can’t be scientists, or that they feel like they have to hide that they’re religious.”

Sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund studies scientists’ attitudes towards religion. Credit: Michael Stravato

Women and people of colour — groups that the scientific community strives to attract and retain — are more likely to identify as religious. “By raising suspicion about religious people, we, as scientists, may be inadvertently keeping racial and ethnic minorities and women out of science,” she says.

Essop has devised a graduate teaching module on the philosophy of science and “influences that can shape science”. He encourages other educators and researchers to fold spiritual and philosophical elements into academic discussions, because he thinks an approach to science that considers other belief systems will nurture more-inclusive attitudes in his students.

“We’ve got to look at more-holistic training,” he says, and at other systems – such as Indigenous knowledge, which has inspired “an awakening” of interest around the world. “We’re looking at science a bit differently — that it’s not just an absolute thing, but instead we consider many facets.”

Nature 629 , 957-959 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01471-0

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Cultural Relativity and Acceptance of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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Main Article Content

There is a debate about the ethical implications of using human embryos in stem cell research, which can be influenced by cultural, moral, and social values. This paper argues for an adaptable framework to accommodate diverse cultural and religious perspectives. By using an adaptive ethics model, research protections can reflect various populations and foster growth in stem cell research possibilities.

INTRODUCTION

Stem cell research combines biology, medicine, and technology, promising to alter health care and the understanding of human development. Yet, ethical contention exists because of individuals’ perceptions of using human embryos based on their various cultural, moral, and social values. While these disagreements concerning policy, use, and general acceptance have prompted the development of an international ethics policy, such a uniform approach can overlook the nuanced ethical landscapes between cultures. With diverse viewpoints in public health, a single global policy, especially one reflecting Western ethics or the ethics prevalent in high-income countries, is impractical. This paper argues for a culturally sensitive, adaptable framework for the use of embryonic stem cells. Stem cell policy should accommodate varying ethical viewpoints and promote an effective global dialogue. With an extension of an ethics model that can adapt to various cultures, we recommend localized guidelines that reflect the moral views of the people those guidelines serve.

Stem cells, characterized by their unique ability to differentiate into various cell types, enable the repair or replacement of damaged tissues. Two primary types of stem cells are somatic stem cells (adult stem cells) and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells exist in developed tissues and maintain the body’s repair processes. [1] Embryonic stem cells (ESC) are remarkably pluripotent or versatile, making them valuable in research. [2] However, the use of ESCs has sparked ethics debates. Considering the potential of embryonic stem cells, research guidelines are essential. The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) provides international stem cell research guidelines. They call for “public conversations touching on the scientific significance as well as the societal and ethical issues raised by ESC research.” [3] The ISSCR also publishes updates about culturing human embryos 14 days post fertilization, suggesting local policies and regulations should continue to evolve as ESC research develops. [4]  Like the ISSCR, which calls for local law and policy to adapt to developing stem cell research given cultural acceptance, this paper highlights the importance of local social factors such as religion and culture.

I.     Global Cultural Perspective of Embryonic Stem Cells

Views on ESCs vary throughout the world. Some countries readily embrace stem cell research and therapies, while others have stricter regulations due to ethical concerns surrounding embryonic stem cells and when an embryo becomes entitled to moral consideration. The philosophical issue of when the “someone” begins to be a human after fertilization, in the morally relevant sense, [5] impacts when an embryo becomes not just worthy of protection but morally entitled to it. The process of creating embryonic stem cell lines involves the destruction of the embryos for research. [6] Consequently, global engagement in ESC research depends on social-cultural acceptability.

a.     US and Rights-Based Cultures

In the United States, attitudes toward stem cell therapies are diverse. The ethics and social approaches, which value individualism, [7] trigger debates regarding the destruction of human embryos, creating a complex regulatory environment. For example, the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibited federal funding for the creation of embryos for research and the destruction of embryos for “more than allowed for research on fetuses in utero.” [8] Following suit, in 2001, the Bush Administration heavily restricted stem cell lines for research. However, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 was proposed to help develop ESC research but was ultimately vetoed. [9] Under the Obama administration, in 2009, an executive order lifted restrictions allowing for more development in this field. [10] The flux of research capacity and funding parallels the different cultural perceptions of human dignity of the embryo and how it is socially presented within the country’s research culture. [11]

b.     Ubuntu and Collective Cultures

African bioethics differs from Western individualism because of the different traditions and values. African traditions, as described by individuals from South Africa and supported by some studies in other African countries, including Ghana and Kenya, follow the African moral philosophies of Ubuntu or Botho and Ukama , which “advocates for a form of wholeness that comes through one’s relationship and connectedness with other people in the society,” [12] making autonomy a socially collective concept. In this context, for the community to act autonomously, individuals would come together to decide what is best for the collective. Thus, stem cell research would require examining the value of the research to society as a whole and the use of the embryos as a collective societal resource. If society views the source as part of the collective whole, and opposes using stem cells, compromising the cultural values to pursue research may cause social detachment and stunt research growth. [13] Based on local culture and moral philosophy, the permissibility of stem cell research depends on how embryo, stem cell, and cell line therapies relate to the community as a whole . Ubuntu is the expression of humanness, with the person’s identity drawn from the “’I am because we are’” value. [14] The decision in a collectivistic culture becomes one born of cultural context, and individual decisions give deference to others in the society.

Consent differs in cultures where thought and moral philosophy are based on a collective paradigm. So, applying Western bioethical concepts is unrealistic. For one, Africa is a diverse continent with many countries with different belief systems, access to health care, and reliance on traditional or Western medicines. Where traditional medicine is the primary treatment, the “’restrictive focus on biomedically-related bioethics’” [is] problematic in African contexts because it neglects bioethical issues raised by traditional systems.” [15] No single approach applies in all areas or contexts. Rather than evaluating the permissibility of ESC research according to Western concepts such as the four principles approach, different ethics approaches should prevail.

Another consideration is the socio-economic standing of countries. In parts of South Africa, researchers have not focused heavily on contributing to the stem cell discourse, either because it is not considered health care or a health science priority or because resources are unavailable. [16] Each country’s priorities differ given different social, political, and economic factors. In South Africa, for instance, areas such as maternal mortality, non-communicable diseases, telemedicine, and the strength of health systems need improvement and require more focus. [17] Stem cell research could benefit the population, but it also could divert resources from basic medical care. Researchers in South Africa adhere to the National Health Act and Medicines Control Act in South Africa and international guidelines; however, the Act is not strictly enforced, and there is no clear legislation for research conduct or ethical guidelines. [18]

Some parts of Africa condemn stem cell research. For example, 98.2 percent of the Tunisian population is Muslim. [19] Tunisia does not permit stem cell research because of moral conflict with a Fatwa. Religion heavily saturates the regulation and direction of research. [20] Stem cell use became permissible for reproductive purposes only recently, with tight restrictions preventing cells from being used in any research other than procedures concerning ART/IVF.  Their use is conditioned on consent, and available only to married couples. [21] The community's receptiveness to stem cell research depends on including communitarian African ethics.

c.     Asia

Some Asian countries also have a collective model of ethics and decision making. [22] In China, the ethics model promotes a sincere respect for life or human dignity, [23] based on protective medicine. This model, influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), [24] recognizes Qi as the vital energy delivered via the meridians of the body; it connects illness to body systems, the body’s entire constitution, and the universe for a holistic bond of nature, health, and quality of life. [25] Following a protective ethics model, and traditional customs of wholeness, investment in stem cell research is heavily desired for its applications in regenerative therapies, disease modeling, and protective medicines. In a survey of medical students and healthcare practitioners, 30.8 percent considered stem cell research morally unacceptable while 63.5 percent accepted medical research using human embryonic stem cells. Of these individuals, 89.9 percent supported increased funding for stem cell research. [26] The scientific community might not reflect the overall population. From 1997 to 2019, China spent a total of $576 million (USD) on stem cell research at 8,050 stem cell programs, increased published presence from 0.6 percent to 14.01 percent of total global stem cell publications as of 2014, and made significant strides in cell-based therapies for various medical conditions. [27] However, while China has made substantial investments in stem cell research and achieved notable progress in clinical applications, concerns linger regarding ethical oversight and transparency. [28] For example, the China Biosecurity Law, promoted by the National Health Commission and China Hospital Association, attempted to mitigate risks by introducing an institutional review board (IRB) in the regulatory bodies. 5800 IRBs registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry since 2021. [29] However, issues still need to be addressed in implementing effective IRB review and approval procedures.

The substantial government funding and focus on scientific advancement have sometimes overshadowed considerations of regional cultures, ethnic minorities, and individual perspectives, particularly evident during the one-child policy era. As government policy adapts to promote public stability, such as the change from the one-child to the two-child policy, [30] research ethics should also adapt to ensure respect for the values of its represented peoples.

Japan is also relatively supportive of stem cell research and therapies. Japan has a more transparent regulatory framework, allowing for faster approval of regenerative medicine products, which has led to several advanced clinical trials and therapies. [31] South Korea is also actively engaged in stem cell research and has a history of breakthroughs in cloning and embryonic stem cells. [32] However, the field is controversial, and there are issues of scientific integrity. For example, the Korean FDA fast-tracked products for approval, [33] and in another instance, the oocyte source was unclear and possibly violated ethical standards. [34] Trust is important in research, as it builds collaborative foundations between colleagues, trial participant comfort, open-mindedness for complicated and sensitive discussions, and supports regulatory procedures for stakeholders. There is a need to respect the culture’s interest, engagement, and for research and clinical trials to be transparent and have ethical oversight to promote global research discourse and trust.

d.     Middle East

Countries in the Middle East have varying degrees of acceptance of or restrictions to policies related to using embryonic stem cells due to cultural and religious influences. Saudi Arabia has made significant contributions to stem cell research, and conducts research based on international guidelines for ethical conduct and under strict adherence to guidelines in accordance with Islamic principles. Specifically, the Saudi government and people require ESC research to adhere to Sharia law. In addition to umbilical and placental stem cells, [35] Saudi Arabia permits the use of embryonic stem cells as long as they come from miscarriages, therapeutic abortions permissible by Sharia law, or are left over from in vitro fertilization and donated to research. [36] Laws and ethical guidelines for stem cell research allow the development of research institutions such as the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, which has a cord blood bank and a stem cell registry with nearly 10,000 donors. [37] Such volume and acceptance are due to the ethical ‘permissibility’ of the donor sources, which do not conflict with religious pillars. However, some researchers err on the side of caution, choosing not to use embryos or fetal tissue as they feel it is unethical to do so. [38]

Jordan has a positive research ethics culture. [39] However, there is a significant issue of lack of trust in researchers, with 45.23 percent (38.66 percent agreeing and 6.57 percent strongly agreeing) of Jordanians holding a low level of trust in researchers, compared to 81.34 percent of Jordanians agreeing that they feel safe to participate in a research trial. [40] Safety testifies to the feeling of confidence that adequate measures are in place to protect participants from harm, whereas trust in researchers could represent the confidence in researchers to act in the participants’ best interests, adhere to ethical guidelines, provide accurate information, and respect participants’ rights and dignity. One method to improve trust would be to address communication issues relevant to ESC. Legislation surrounding stem cell research has adopted specific language, especially concerning clarification “between ‘stem cells’ and ‘embryonic stem cells’” in translation. [41] Furthermore, legislation “mandates the creation of a national committee… laying out specific regulations for stem-cell banking in accordance with international standards.” [42] This broad regulation opens the door for future global engagement and maintains transparency. However, these regulations may also constrain the influence of research direction, pace, and accessibility of research outcomes.

e.     Europe

In the European Union (EU), ethics is also principle-based, but the principles of autonomy, dignity, integrity, and vulnerability are interconnected. [43] As such, the opportunity for cohesion and concessions between individuals’ thoughts and ideals allows for a more adaptable ethics model due to the flexible principles that relate to the human experience The EU has put forth a framework in its Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being allowing member states to take different approaches. Each European state applies these principles to its specific conventions, leading to or reflecting different acceptance levels of stem cell research. [44]

For example, in Germany, Lebenzusammenhang , or the coherence of life, references integrity in the unity of human culture. Namely, the personal sphere “should not be subject to external intervention.” [45]  Stem cell interventions could affect this concept of bodily completeness, leading to heavy restrictions. Under the Grundgesetz, human dignity and the right to life with physical integrity are paramount. [46] The Embryo Protection Act of 1991 made producing cell lines illegal. Cell lines can be imported if approved by the Central Ethics Commission for Stem Cell Research only if they were derived before May 2007. [47] Stem cell research respects the integrity of life for the embryo with heavy specifications and intense oversight. This is vastly different in Finland, where the regulatory bodies find research more permissible in IVF excess, but only up to 14 days after fertilization. [48] Spain’s approach differs still, with a comprehensive regulatory framework. [49] Thus, research regulation can be culture-specific due to variations in applied principles. Diverse cultures call for various approaches to ethical permissibility. [50] Only an adaptive-deliberative model can address the cultural constructions of self and achieve positive, culturally sensitive stem cell research practices. [51]

II.     Religious Perspectives on ESC

Embryonic stem cell sources are the main consideration within religious contexts. While individuals may not regard their own religious texts as authoritative or factual, religion can shape their foundations or perspectives.

The Qur'an states:

“And indeed We created man from a quintessence of clay. Then We placed within him a small quantity of nutfa (sperm to fertilize) in a safe place. Then We have fashioned the nutfa into an ‘alaqa (clinging clot or cell cluster), then We developed the ‘alaqa into mudgha (a lump of flesh), and We made mudgha into bones, and clothed the bones with flesh, then We brought it into being as a new creation. So Blessed is Allah, the Best of Creators.” [52]

Many scholars of Islam estimate the time of soul installment, marked by the angel breathing in the soul to bring the individual into creation, as 120 days from conception. [53] Personhood begins at this point, and the value of life would prohibit research or experimentation that could harm the individual. If the fetus is more than 120 days old, the time ensoulment is interpreted to occur according to Islamic law, abortion is no longer permissible. [54] There are a few opposing opinions about early embryos in Islamic traditions. According to some Islamic theologians, there is no ensoulment of the early embryo, which is the source of stem cells for ESC research. [55]

In Buddhism, the stance on stem cell research is not settled. The main tenets, the prohibition against harming or destroying others (ahimsa) and the pursuit of knowledge (prajña) and compassion (karuna), leave Buddhist scholars and communities divided. [56] Some scholars argue stem cell research is in accordance with the Buddhist tenet of seeking knowledge and ending human suffering. Others feel it violates the principle of not harming others. Finding the balance between these two points relies on the karmic burden of Buddhist morality. In trying to prevent ahimsa towards the embryo, Buddhist scholars suggest that to comply with Buddhist tenets, research cannot be done as the embryo has personhood at the moment of conception and would reincarnate immediately, harming the individual's ability to build their karmic burden. [57] On the other hand, the Bodhisattvas, those considered to be on the path to enlightenment or Nirvana, have given organs and flesh to others to help alleviate grieving and to benefit all. [58] Acceptance varies on applied beliefs and interpretations.

Catholicism does not support embryonic stem cell research, as it entails creation or destruction of human embryos. This destruction conflicts with the belief in the sanctity of life. For example, in the Old Testament, Genesis describes humanity as being created in God’s image and multiplying on the Earth, referencing the sacred rights to human conception and the purpose of development and life. In the Ten Commandments, the tenet that one should not kill has numerous interpretations where killing could mean murder or shedding of the sanctity of life, demonstrating the high value of human personhood. In other books, the theological conception of when life begins is interpreted as in utero, [59] highlighting the inviolability of life and its formation in vivo to make a religious point for accepting such research as relatively limited, if at all. [60] The Vatican has released ethical directives to help apply a theological basis to modern-day conflicts. The Magisterium of the Church states that “unless there is a moral certainty of not causing harm,” experimentation on fetuses, fertilized cells, stem cells, or embryos constitutes a crime. [61] Such procedures would not respect the human person who exists at these stages, according to Catholicism. Damages to the embryo are considered gravely immoral and illicit. [62] Although the Catholic Church officially opposes abortion, surveys demonstrate that many Catholic people hold pro-choice views, whether due to the context of conception, stage of pregnancy, threat to the mother’s life, or for other reasons, demonstrating that practicing members can also accept some but not all tenets. [63]

Some major Jewish denominations, such as the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements, are open to supporting ESC use or research as long as it is for saving a life. [64] Within Judaism, the Talmud, or study, gives personhood to the child at birth and emphasizes that life does not begin at conception: [65]

“If she is found pregnant, until the fortieth day it is mere fluid,” [66]

Whereas most religions prioritize the status of human embryos, the Halakah (Jewish religious law) states that to save one life, most other religious laws can be ignored because it is in pursuit of preservation. [67] Stem cell research is accepted due to application of these religious laws.

We recognize that all religions contain subsets and sects. The variety of environmental and cultural differences within religious groups requires further analysis to respect the flexibility of religious thoughts and practices. We make no presumptions that all cultures require notions of autonomy or morality as under the common morality theory , which asserts a set of universal moral norms that all individuals share provides moral reasoning and guides ethical decisions. [68] We only wish to show that the interaction with morality varies between cultures and countries.

III.     A Flexible Ethical Approach

The plurality of different moral approaches described above demonstrates that there can be no universally acceptable uniform law for ESC on a global scale. Instead of developing one standard, flexible ethical applications must be continued. We recommend local guidelines that incorporate important cultural and ethical priorities.

While the Declaration of Helsinki is more relevant to people in clinical trials receiving ESC products, in keeping with the tradition of protections for research subjects, consent of the donor is an ethical requirement for ESC donation in many jurisdictions including the US, Canada, and Europe. [69] The Declaration of Helsinki provides a reference point for regulatory standards and could potentially be used as a universal baseline for obtaining consent prior to gamete or embryo donation.

For instance, in Columbia University’s egg donor program for stem cell research, donors followed standard screening protocols and “underwent counseling sessions that included information as to the purpose of oocyte donation for research, what the oocytes would be used for, the risks and benefits of donation, and process of oocyte stimulation” to ensure transparency for consent. [70] The program helped advance stem cell research and provided clear and safe research methods with paid participants. Though paid participation or covering costs of incidental expenses may not be socially acceptable in every culture or context, [71] and creating embryos for ESC research is illegal in many jurisdictions, Columbia’s program was effective because of the clear and honest communications with donors, IRBs, and related stakeholders.  This example demonstrates that cultural acceptance of scientific research and of the idea that an egg or embryo does not have personhood is likely behind societal acceptance of donating eggs for ESC research. As noted, many countries do not permit the creation of embryos for research.

Proper communication and education regarding the process and purpose of stem cell research may bolster comprehension and garner more acceptance. “Given the sensitive subject material, a complete consent process can support voluntary participation through trust, understanding, and ethical norms from the cultures and morals participants value. This can be hard for researchers entering countries of different socioeconomic stability, with different languages and different societal values. [72]

An adequate moral foundation in medical ethics is derived from the cultural and religious basis that informs knowledge and actions. [73] Understanding local cultural and religious values and their impact on research could help researchers develop humility and promote inclusion.

IV.     Concerns

Some may argue that if researchers all adhere to one ethics standard, protection will be satisfied across all borders, and the global public will trust researchers. However, defining what needs to be protected and how to define such research standards is very specific to the people to which standards are applied. We suggest that applying one uniform guide cannot accurately protect each individual because we all possess our own perceptions and interpretations of social values. [74] Therefore, the issue of not adjusting to the moral pluralism between peoples in applying one standard of ethics can be resolved by building out ethics models that can be adapted to different cultures and religions.

Other concerns include medical tourism, which may promote health inequities. [75] Some countries may develop and approve products derived from ESC research before others, compromising research ethics or drug approval processes. There are also concerns about the sale of unauthorized stem cell treatments, for example, those without FDA approval in the United States. Countries with robust research infrastructures may be tempted to attract medical tourists, and some customers will have false hopes based on aggressive publicity of unproven treatments. [76]

For example, in China, stem cell clinics can market to foreign clients who are not protected under the regulatory regimes. Companies employ a marketing strategy of “ethically friendly” therapies. Specifically, in the case of Beike, China’s leading stem cell tourism company and sprouting network, ethical oversight of administrators or health bureaus at one site has “the unintended consequence of shifting questionable activities to another node in Beike's diffuse network.” [77] In contrast, Jordan is aware of stem cell research’s potential abuse and its own status as a “health-care hub.” Jordan’s expanded regulations include preserving the interests of individuals in clinical trials and banning private companies from ESC research to preserve transparency and the integrity of research practices. [78]

The social priorities of the community are also a concern. The ISSCR explicitly states that guidelines “should be periodically revised to accommodate scientific advances, new challenges, and evolving social priorities.” [79] The adaptable ethics model extends this consideration further by addressing whether research is warranted given the varying degrees of socioeconomic conditions, political stability, and healthcare accessibilities and limitations. An ethical approach would require discussion about resource allocation and appropriate distribution of funds. [80]

While some religions emphasize the sanctity of life from conception, which may lead to public opposition to ESC research, others encourage ESC research due to its potential for healing and alleviating human pain. Many countries have special regulations that balance local views on embryonic personhood, the benefits of research as individual or societal goods, and the protection of human research subjects. To foster understanding and constructive dialogue, global policy frameworks should prioritize the protection of universal human rights, transparency, and informed consent. In addition to these foundational global policies, we recommend tailoring local guidelines to reflect the diverse cultural and religious perspectives of the populations they govern. Ethics models should be adapted to local populations to effectively establish research protections, growth, and possibilities of stem cell research.

For example, in countries with strong beliefs in the moral sanctity of embryos or heavy religious restrictions, an adaptive model can allow for discussion instead of immediate rejection. In countries with limited individual rights and voice in science policy, an adaptive model ensures cultural, moral, and religious views are taken into consideration, thereby building social inclusion. While this ethical consideration by the government may not give a complete voice to every individual, it will help balance policies and maintain the diverse perspectives of those it affects. Embracing an adaptive ethics model of ESC research promotes open-minded dialogue and respect for the importance of human belief and tradition. By actively engaging with cultural and religious values, researchers can better handle disagreements and promote ethical research practices that benefit each society.

This brief exploration of the religious and cultural differences that impact ESC research reveals the nuances of relative ethics and highlights a need for local policymakers to apply a more intense adaptive model.

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[36] Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies.  https://www.aabb.org/regulatory-and-advocacy/regulatory-affairs/regulatory-for-cellular-therapies/international-competent-authorities/saudi-arabia

[37] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: Interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia.  BMC medical ethics ,  21 (1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

[38] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: Interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics , 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

Culturally, autonomy practices follow a relational autonomy approach based on a paternalistic deontological health care model. The adherence to strict international research policies and religious pillars within the regulatory environment is a great foundation for research ethics. However, there is a need to develop locally targeted ethics approaches for research (as called for in Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics, 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6), this decision-making approach may help advise a research decision model. For more on the clinical cultural autonomy approaches, see: Alabdullah, Y. Y., Alzaid, E., Alsaad, S., Alamri, T., Alolayan, S. W., Bah, S., & Aljoudi, A. S. (2022). Autonomy and paternalism in Shared decision‐making in a Saudi Arabian tertiary hospital: A cross‐sectional study. Developing World Bioethics , 23 (3), 260–268. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12355 ; Bukhari, A. A. (2017). Universal Principles of Bioethics and Patient Rights in Saudi Arabia (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/124; Ladha, S., Nakshawani, S. A., Alzaidy, A., & Tarab, B. (2023, October 26). Islam and Bioethics: What We All Need to Know . Columbia University School of Professional Studies. https://sps.columbia.edu/events/islam-and-bioethics-what-we-all-need-know

[39] Ababneh, M. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K., Rababa’h, A., & Al Demour, S. (2021). Understanding and attitudes of the Jordanian public about clinical research ethics.  Research Ethics ,  17 (2), 228-241.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120966779

[40] Ababneh, M. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K., Rababa’h, A., & Al Demour, S. (2021). Understanding and attitudes of the Jordanian public about clinical research ethics.  Research Ethics ,  17 (2), 228-241.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120966779

[41] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[42] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[43] The EU’s definition of autonomy relates to the capacity for creating ideas, moral insight, decisions, and actions without constraint, personal responsibility, and informed consent. However, the EU views autonomy as not completely able to protect individuals and depends on other principles, such as dignity, which “expresses the intrinsic worth and fundamental equality of all human beings.” Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[44] Council of Europe. Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No. 164) https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=treaty-detail&treatynum=164 (forbidding the creation of embryos for research purposes only, and suggests embryos in vitro have protections.); Also see Drabiak-Syed B. K. (2013). New President, New Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Policy: Comparative International Perspectives and Embryonic Stem Cell Research Laws in France.  Biotechnology Law Report ,  32 (6), 349–356. https://doi.org/10.1089/blr.2013.9865

[45] Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[46] Tomuschat, C., Currie, D. P., Kommers, D. P., & Kerr, R. (Trans.). (1949, May 23). Basic law for the Federal Republic of Germany. https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80201000.pdf

[47] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Germany . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-germany

[48] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Finland . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-finland

[49] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Spain . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-spain

[50] Some sources to consider regarding ethics models or regulatory oversights of other cultures not covered:

Kara MA. Applicability of the principle of respect for autonomy: the perspective of Turkey. J Med Ethics. 2007 Nov;33(11):627-30. doi: 10.1136/jme.2006.017400. PMID: 17971462; PMCID: PMC2598110.

Ugarte, O. N., & Acioly, M. A. (2014). The principle of autonomy in Brazil: one needs to discuss it ...  Revista do Colegio Brasileiro de Cirurgioes ,  41 (5), 374–377. https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-69912014005013

Bharadwaj, A., & Glasner, P. E. (2012). Local cells, global science: The rise of embryonic stem cell research in India . Routledge.

For further research on specific European countries regarding ethical and regulatory framework, we recommend this database: Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Europe . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-europe   

[51] Klitzman, R. (2006). Complications of culture in obtaining informed consent. The American Journal of Bioethics, 6(1), 20–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265160500394671 see also: Ekmekci, P. E., & Arda, B. (2017). Interculturalism and Informed Consent: Respecting Cultural Differences without Breaching Human Rights.  Cultura (Iasi, Romania) ,  14 (2), 159–172.; For why trust is important in research, see also: Gray, B., Hilder, J., Macdonald, L., Tester, R., Dowell, A., & Stubbe, M. (2017). Are research ethics guidelines culturally competent?  Research Ethics ,  13 (1), 23-41.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016116650235

[52] The Qur'an  (M. Khattab, Trans.). (1965). Al-Mu’minun, 23: 12-14. https://quran.com/23

[53] Lenfest, Y. (2017, December 8). Islam and the beginning of human life . Bill of Health. https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2017/12/08/islam-and-the-beginning-of-human-life/

[54] Aksoy, S. (2005). Making regulations and drawing up legislation in Islamic countries under conditions of uncertainty, with special reference to embryonic stem cell research. Journal of Medical Ethics , 31: 399-403.; see also: Mahmoud, Azza. "Islamic Bioethics: National Regulations and Guidelines of Human Stem Cell Research in the Muslim World." Master's thesis, Chapman University, 2022. https://doi.org/10.36837/ chapman.000386

[55] Rashid, R. (2022). When does Ensoulment occur in the Human Foetus. Journal of the British Islamic Medical Association , 12 (4). ISSN 2634 8071. https://www.jbima.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2-Ethics-3_-Ensoulment_Rafaqat.pdf.

[56] Sivaraman, M. & Noor, S. (2017). Ethics of embryonic stem cell research according to Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, and Islamic religions: perspective from Malaysia. Asian Biomedicine,8(1) 43-52.  https://doi.org/10.5372/1905-7415.0801.260

[57] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[58] Lecso, P. A. (1991). The Bodhisattva Ideal and Organ Transplantation.  Journal of Religion and Health ,  30 (1), 35–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27510629 ; Bodhisattva, S. (n.d.). The Key of Becoming a Bodhisattva . A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/BodhisattvaWay.htm

[59] There is no explicit religious reference to when life begins or how to conduct research that interacts with the concept of life. However, these are relevant verses pertaining to how the fetus is viewed. (( King James Bible . (1999). Oxford University Press. (original work published 1769))

Jerimiah 1: 5 “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…”

In prophet Jerimiah’s insight, God set him apart as a person known before childbirth, a theme carried within the Psalm of David.

Psalm 139: 13-14 “…Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”

These verses demonstrate David’s respect for God as an entity that would know of all man’s thoughts and doings even before birth.

[60] It should be noted that abortion is not supported as well.

[61] The Vatican. (1987, February 22). Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation Replies to Certain Questions of the Day . Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

[62] The Vatican. (2000, August 25). Declaration On the Production and the Scientific and Therapeutic Use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells . Pontifical Academy for Life. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/documents/rc_pa_acdlife_doc_20000824_cellule-staminali_en.html ; Ohara, N. (2003). Ethical Consideration of Experimentation Using Living Human Embryos: The Catholic Church’s Position on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Human Cloning. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology . Retrieved from https://article.imrpress.com/journal/CEOG/30/2-3/pii/2003018/77-81.pdf.

[63] Smith, G. A. (2022, May 23). Like Americans overall, Catholics vary in their abortion views, with regular mass attenders most opposed . Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/23/like-americans-overall-catholics-vary-in-their-abortion-views-with-regular-mass-attenders-most-opposed/

[64] Rosner, F., & Reichman, E. (2002). Embryonic stem cell research in Jewish law. Journal of halacha and contemporary society , (43), 49–68.; Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[65] Schenker J. G. (2008). The beginning of human life: status of embryo. Perspectives in Halakha (Jewish Religious Law).  Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics ,  25 (6), 271–276. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-008-9221-6

[66] Ruttenberg, D. (2020, May 5). The Torah of Abortion Justice (annotated source sheet) . Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/234926.7?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

[67] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[68] Gert, B. (2007). Common morality: Deciding what to do . Oxford Univ. Press.

[69] World Medical Association (2013). World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. JAMA , 310(20), 2191–2194. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2013.281053 Declaration of Helsinki – WMA – The World Medical Association .; see also: National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (1979).  The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html

[70] Zakarin Safier, L., Gumer, A., Kline, M., Egli, D., & Sauer, M. V. (2018). Compensating human subjects providing oocytes for stem cell research: 9-year experience and outcomes.  Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics ,  35 (7), 1219–1225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-018-1171-z https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6063839/ see also: Riordan, N. H., & Paz Rodríguez, J. (2021). Addressing concerns regarding associated costs, transparency, and integrity of research in recent stem cell trial. Stem Cells Translational Medicine , 10 (12), 1715–1716. https://doi.org/10.1002/sctm.21-0234

[71] Klitzman, R., & Sauer, M. V. (2009). Payment of egg donors in stem cell research in the USA.  Reproductive biomedicine online ,  18 (5), 603–608. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1472-6483(10)60002-8

[72] Krosin, M. T., Klitzman, R., Levin, B., Cheng, J., & Ranney, M. L. (2006). Problems in comprehension of informed consent in rural and peri-urban Mali, West Africa.  Clinical trials (London, England) ,  3 (3), 306–313. https://doi.org/10.1191/1740774506cn150oa

[73] Veatch, Robert M.  Hippocratic, Religious, and Secular Medical Ethics: The Points of Conflict . Georgetown University Press, 2012.

[74] Msoroka, M. S., & Amundsen, D. (2018). One size fits not quite all: Universal research ethics with diversity.  Research Ethics ,  14 (3), 1-17.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016117739939

[75] Pirzada, N. (2022). The Expansion of Turkey’s Medical Tourism Industry.  Voices in Bioethics ,  8 . https://doi.org/10.52214/vib.v8i.9894

[76] Stem Cell Tourism: False Hope for Real Money . Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI). (2023). https://hsci.harvard.edu/stem-cell-tourism , See also: Bissassar, M. (2017). Transnational Stem Cell Tourism: An ethical analysis.  Voices in Bioethics ,  3 . https://doi.org/10.7916/vib.v3i.6027

[77] Song, P. (2011) The proliferation of stem cell therapies in post-Mao China: problematizing ethical regulation,  New Genetics and Society , 30:2, 141-153, DOI:  10.1080/14636778.2011.574375

[78] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[79] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2024). Standards in stem cell research . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/5-standards-in-stem-cell-research

[80] Benjamin, R. (2013). People’s science bodies and rights on the Stem Cell Frontier . Stanford University Press.

Mifrah Hayath

SM Candidate Harvard Medical School, MS Biotechnology Johns Hopkins University

Olivia Bowers

MS Bioethics Columbia University (Disclosure: affiliated with Voices in Bioethics)

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