Were the Crusades motivated primarily by religious factors? The Crusades were a series of military campaigns and wars between Christians and Muslims that lasted almost 200 years. The main motivations for these crusades were to control the Holy Land in Jerusalem, also through the belief that all their sins would be forgiven, and others to help the struggling Church in the East. Although there were other driving factors of the Crusades, such as political and economic interests, the most important factor was their religious interests and the defense of their Holy Land. One of the main goals of the Crusades was to reconquer the city of Jerusalem, their Holy Land. The city of Jerusalem was important to both Christianity and Islam because it represented the center of their respective religions. Additionally, during the fourth century, the city of Jerusalem was depicted on most maps as the center of the world. “The Jews cherished it (Jerusalem) as Zion, God's own city, and as the place where King Solomon had built his great temple. Muslims associated it with the prophets who preceded their founder Mohammed and considered it their third holy city, after Mecca and Medina (“The Divine Campaigns” 57). “It was a meeting place for those who had been scattered, the goal of the great pilgrimage or crusade, where God dwells among his people” (Mayer 136). Christian attacks on Muslims in the city of Jerusalem were of no use as they simply lacked the manpower to capture the city. From a Muslim perspective, the Crusades “ultimately helped Islamic leaders impose unity and religious orthodoxy in a divided region” (“The Divine Campaigns” 59). Overall, the Christians were unable to achieve the main objective of their great pilgrimage...... middle of paper ...... had to pass through the very hostile territory of Anatolia. Additional support from the Christian Church was not only driven by the religious factors that accompanied Byzantium's control, but it also included the great source of wealth, power, and land that the Byzantine Empire controlled. Although aiding the Byzantine Empire was not the primary goal, the people of the Crusades cared enough to help keep their Christian religion alive throughout the world. Since these later Crusades began to lose their importance and religious motivator, the motivations of these later Crusades became corrupted, their motivations became greed for land, power and money. Although the later crusades did not follow the basics of the first and original crusade, there was still the underlying religious factor that caused everyone to fight for their personal religion..