Islamwas used for a religious war of Muslims against unbelievers, and it was believed by some Muslims that the Quran and Hadith made this a duty. "Franks" and "Latins" were used by the peoples of the Near East during the crusades for western Europeans, distinguishing them from the Byzantine Christians who were known as "Greeks". "Saracen" was used for an Arab Muslim, derived from a Greek and Roman name for the nomadic peoples of the Syro-Arabian desert. Crusader sources used the term "Syrians" to describe Arabic speaking Christians who were members of the Greek Orthodox Church, and "Jacobites" for those who were members of the Syrian Orthodox Church. The Crusader states of Syria and Palestine were known as the "Outremer" from the French outre-mer, or "the land beyond the sea". Crusades and the Holy Land, 1095–1291 The Crusades to the Holy Land are the best known of the religious wars associated with the term, beginning in 1095 and lasting some two centuries. These Crusades began with the fervent desire to wrest the Holy Land from the Muslims, and ran through eight major numbered crusades and dozens of minor crusades over the period. Background The Arab-Byzantine wars from 629 to the 1050s resulted in the conquest of the Levant and Egypt by the Muslim Rashidun Caliphate. Jerusalem was captured after a half-year siege in 637. In 1025, the Byzantine emperor Basil II was able to extend the empire's territorial recovery to its furthest extent in 1025, with frontiers stretching east to Iran. The empire's relationships with its Islamic neighbours were no more quarrelsome than its relationships with the Western Christians, after the East-West Schism of 1054. The political situation in the Middle East was changed by waves of Turkic migrationin particular, the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the 10thcentury. Previously a minor ruling clan from Transoxiana, they were recent converts to Islam who migrated into Persia. They conquered Iran, Iraq and the Near East to the Seljuk Empire. Byzantium's attempted confrontation in 1071 to suppress the Seljuks' sporadic raiding led to the defeat at the Battle of Manzikert, eventually the occupation of most of the Anatolian peninsula. In the same year, Jerusalem was taken from the Fatimids by the Turkish warlord Atsiz, who seized most of Syria and Palestine throughout the Middle East. The Seljuk hold on the city resulted in pilgrims reporting difficulties and the oppression of Christians. First