Hi! I think you need to be more specific in your question if you want a useful answer, and as the moderator reply indicates, probably frame it differently (the boring, very simple answer to why we in the West tend to focus more on European warfare is that Western history education is Eurocentric). While "the crusades" refer to a particular phenomenon (arguably too broad in its own right) of religious warfare, there is no series of wars known as "the jihads". You may be under the common misconception that "jihad" means "holy war". In fact, "jihad" means "struggle", and can refer to one struggling with adherence to their faith, to struggling for justice in your own society, and indeed, to waging war to expand "the abode of Islam" (Dar al-Islam).
Two things then make your question difficult to answer. One: Muslim leaders have framed conflicts in terms of "jihad" up to and including the present day. This does not directly correspond to anything in Christianity since the framework Islam works within is very different, but the idea behind it can perhaps be loosely compared to the legalistic musings of when warfare is acceptable published by the likes of Aquinas and Luther. This means that we could count as a "jihad" an absolute plethora of wars waged for many different reasons in every corner of the world. Even World War I was declared a holy war by the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, while "jihad" is useful as a concept, it's not useful as a category of warfare.
Two: I suspect that you are, per your timeframe, actually talking about the early Islamic conquest of Muhammad and his immediate successors, resulting in the vast realms of the Umayyad and 'Abassid empires. The problem you face here is simply that the theory of "jihad" as offensive warfare is only known to have existed from the very late 8th century. See a discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2irrug/what_would_jihad_mean_to_early_muslims_in_the/ with useful contributions by /u/Raaaghb /u/textandtrowel /u/shlin28
The actual causes of those expansions are complex and not entirely agreed on (particularly whether they should be framed as "Arab" or "Islamic" conquests) but the best and most convincing work I have come across on it is Hoyland's In God's Path. For a contrary view, Donner's Muhammad and the Believers is interesting, although I find his writing on the actual warfare to appear fuelled by wishful thinking and not terribly compelling. However his theory on the collective identity of Muhammad's early followers is actually very interesting.
I hope that will help you frame your question more precisely!
Hi there! You’ve asked a question along the lines of ‘why didn’t I learn about X’. We’re happy to let this question stand, but there are a variety of reasons why you may find it hard to get a good answer to this question on /r/AskHistorians.
Firstly, school curricula and how they are taught vary strongly between different countries and even even different states. Additionally, how they are taught is often influenced by teachers having to compromise on how much time they can spend on any given topic. More information on your location and level of education might be helpful to answer this question.
Secondly, we have noticed that these questions are often phrased to be about people's individual experience but what they are really about is why a certain event is more prominent in popular narratives of history than others.
Instead of asking "Why haven't I learned about event ...", considering asking "What importance do scholars assign to event ... in the context of such and such history?" - the latter question is often closer to what to what people actually want to know and is more likely to get a good answer from an expert. If you intend to ask the 'What importance do scholars assign to event X' question instead, let us know and we'll remove this question.
Thank you!