ABSTRACT
The Crusaders also shored up a tiny state called Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, formed in southwest Anatolia by Armenian Christians who had fled from the conquering Seljuks. The Crusades impact on Islam's heartland paled in comparison to a dreadful disaster—the invasion of the Mongols, who had built up a great empire under Genghis Khan and his heirs. The effect of the Mongol invasions on the Middle East was even worse. As the Crusades have inspired so many popular novels, films, and television programs, one may know something about what seems a romantic episode in the history of medieval Europe. Some Muslim rulers even formed alliances with the Crusaders against their own coreligionists. Fatimid Egypt usually had close ties with the Crusader states because of the lucrative trade going on between Alexandria and such Italian ports as Venice and Genoa. Shirkuh had a nephew aiding him, Salah al-Din, known to the West as Saladin.
