<Li> Popularists limit the Crusades to only those that were characterised by popular groundswells of religious fervour--that is, only the First Crusade and perhaps the People's Crusade . </Li> <P> A common term for Muslim was Saracen; before the 16th century, the words "Muslim" and "Islam" were rarely used by Europeans . In Greek and Latin, "Saracen" originated in the early first millennium to refer to non-Arab peoples inhabiting the desert areas around the Roman province of Arabia . The term evolved to include Arab tribes, and by the 12th century it was an ethnic and religious marker synonymous with "Muslim" in Medieval Latin literature . Frank and Latin were used during the Crusades for Western Europeans, distinguishing them from Greeks . Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al - Athir refer to the Crusades as the "Frankish Wars" (ḥurūb al - faranǧa حروب الفرنجة). The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية, lit . "campaigns of the cross", is a loan translation of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography . </P> <P> The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the Arabian Peninsula and had united much of Arabia into a single polity by his death in 632 . Arab power expanded rapidly in the 7th and 8th centuries largely by military conquest . This influence spread to the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, the Iberian peninsula and the Pyrenees . Jerusalem was taken from the Byzantine Empire after a siege in 637 </P> <P> Tolerance, trade, and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian kingdoms waxed and waned . Pilgrimages by Catholics to sacred sites were permitted, Christian residents in Muslim territories were given Dhimmi status, legal rights, and legal protection . These Christians were allowed to maintain churches, and marriages between faiths were not uncommon . The various cultures and creeds coexisted and competed, but the status quo was disrupted by the western migration of the Turkish tribes . The 1071 victory over the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert was once considered a pivotal event by historians but is now regarded as only one further step in the expansion of the Great Seljuk Empire into Anatolia . Though Catholic pilgrims and merchants reported that the frontier conditions between the Syrian ports and Jerusalem became increasingly inhospitable . </P>

Who went on crusades to the holy land