This situation basically continues for a few hundred years, as Byzantium tries to retake some of its former possessions and Christians grow complacent with the lack of any serious attacks against their holdings in lifetimes. Even if a single military commander had the tactical knowhow and might of Saladin they would be more interested in using that to maintain their own holdings or fight against bigger threats than some Christian enclaves on the coast. Perhaps a great plague comes through and depopulates entire regions.

The loss of territory to the Europeans in the First Crusade kicks off a period of brutal Civil Wars and assassination plots in the Abbasid Empire, and rather than uniting against the foreign invaders they tear each other apart for regional power. As I doubt there would be any ways for such a thing to happen, I’ll focus on the idea of the inhabitants of the region just being absolutely awful at commanding armies. So as I understand it this is more a question about if the European kingdoms and empires set aside domestic issues for a politically unified religious force in the Middle East. Use the tag for posts where you're asking how something could have happened different rather than what if it happened differently. Use the tag to signify double blind what-ifs. Use the tag to indicate points of divergence based on different landscapes.

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What if the crusader states survive