ABSTRACT
The period which began with the First Crusade and the foundation of the Frankish states saw increasingly close relations between the Muslim rulers in the Near East and Christendom. The formal hostility between the representatives of Islam and Christianity, expressed in the ideology of the jihad on the one side, of the crusade on the other, was only one aspect of the .dealings between the two groups, to both of which practical commercial needs and political considerations were of immediate importance. The basic concept of Islamic international law, the division of the world into two warring communities, the Muslims in daral-Isldm and the infidels in daral-harh, while never abandoned in theory, was sufficiently modified in practice to allow of peaceful contacts and diplomatic relations. Hence, although no permanent settlement with a Christian power could be contemplated by the jurists, a truce (hudna) for a period ofup to ten years was permissible, and such an agreement might be renewed on its lapse. In fact it was only with the neighbours ofMuslim rulers that ahudna was no more than a precarious armistice.
