During the period of An-Nahda (the 19th - early 20th centuries) Arab public figures frequently referred to historical examples from the age of the Crusades, drawing parallels between that time and modern relations between Europe and the Muslim world. Having analysed the works of the major Muslim reformers, pan-Arabists and pan-Islamists of that period, we have come to the point that they viewed the Crusades as a penalty for the distortion of Islam, the cause of future prosperity and progress of the West due to its contact with a superior Muslim civilization. They also considered the Crusades a source of religious fanaticism in the Middle East or a prototype of modern military conflicts, such as the Mahdist War or the Crimean War. The image of the Crusades that formed in the Arab social thought of the19th - early 20th centuries largely predetermined a strong interest of Arab politicians and religious figures of the 20th - 21st centuries to this historical epoch.