After Saladin’s death his empire gradually crumbled to pieces, and under Ghenghis Khan an invasion took place of hordes of Mongols and Tartars, of whom the Ghuz had been merely the precursors.  They overran China and Russia, Persia, and parts of Western Asia.  The effete Caliphate at Bagdad was overthrown, but to Islam itself fresh life was imparted.  The rapid decline of the Mongol power at the end of the thirteenth century gave free scope to the rise of the Ottoman Turks, who had been driven from their haunts east of the Caspian Sea.  Like their kinsmen the Seljuks they settled in Asia Minor, and embraced the Mohammedan faith, an example which many Mongols followed.  The converts proved trusty warriors to fight the cause of Islam, which gradually attained the zenith of success.  On May 29, 1453, Constantinople was captured by the Turks, and an end was made of the Byzantine Empire.  Eastern Europe was subsequently overrun by them, and it was not until John Sobieski defeated the Turks under the walls of Vienna in 1683 that their victorious career was checked.

Then at last the tide of Islam turned, and its fortunes have been ebbing ever since.  At the present day little territory remains to them in Europe.  India and Egypt are now subject to England; Russia has annexed Central Asia; France rules Algiers and Tunis.  One wonders whether there will be a pause in this steady decline of Islam, and whether the prophetic words of Scripture will continue to hold good:  “He will be a wild man, his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”

This brief consideration of the struggle between Cross and Crescent may serve to indicate the importance of the revival of Islam, which took place between the Second and Third Crusades, at the time when Benjamin wrote his Itinerary.

II.  THE OBJECT OF BENJAMIN’S JOURNEY.

We may ask what induced Benjamin to undertake his travels?  What object or mission was he carrying out?

It must be explained that the Jew in the Middle Ages was much given to travel.  He was the Wandering Jew, who kept up communications between one country and another.  He had a natural aptitude for trade and travel.  His people were scattered to the four corners of the earth.  As we can see from Benjamin’s Itinerary, there was scarcely a city of importance where Jews could not be found.  In the sacred tongue they possessed a common language, and wherever they went they could rely upon a hospitable reception from their co-religionists.  Travelling was, therefore, to them comparatively easy, and the bond of common interest always supplied a motive.  Like Joseph, the traveller would be dispatched with the injunction:  “I pray thee see whether it be well with thy brethren, and bring me word again.”

If this was the case in times when toleration and protection were extended to the Jews, how much stronger must have grown the desire for intercommunication at the time of the Crusades.  The most prosperous communities in Germany and the Jewish congregations that lay along the route to Palestine had been exterminated or dispersed, and even in Spain, where the Jews had enjoyed complete security for centuries, they were being pitilessly persecuted in the Moorish kingdom of Cordova.