The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives

Carole Hillenbrand

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781135956134
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Coinciding with the 900th anniversary of the Crusades, this book is the first general introduction to some of the wider aspects of the history of the Crusades. Prepared by Carole Hillenbrand, a leading authority with a world-wide reputation, The The Crusade is unique in covering the Crusades from the Muslim perspective; it is also a timely reflection on how the phenomenon of the Crusades influenced the Muslim world, then and now--militarily, culturally, and psychologically. The Crusades discusses a group of themes designed to highlight how Muslims reacted to the alien presence of the Crusaders in the heart of traditional Muslim territory. Ideological concerns are examined, and the importance of the concept of jihad is assessed in the context of the gradual recovery of the Holy Land and the expulsion of the Crusaders. There are also chapters devoted to an analysis of the warfare--arms, battles, sieges, fortifications--on the basis of written sources and extant works of art. Also extensively discussed is the complex issue of the interaction between Muslims and Crusaders in a social, economic, and cultural setting. The epilogue traces the profound impact of the Crusades on Muslim consciousness up to the present day. The Crusades is also lavishly illustrated with 500 black-and-white pictures and two full color-plate sections.

CHAPTER ONE

Prologue

The history of the Middle Ages has no more imposing spectacle than the wars undertaken for the conquest of the Holy Land,¹ (Michaud)

General Introduction

THE CRUSADES, as the Western viewpoint sees them, were a series of campaigns – at least eight of them – motivated by the desire on the part of western European Christians to bring the holy places of Christendom and, above all, Jerusalem under their protection. In the West the Crusades are thought to have lasted from 1095, when Pope Urban II made his famous call to arms, until the fifteenth century and even later, although many pinpoint the fall of Acre in 1291 as the termination of serious Crusader activity against the Muslim Levant.

From the outset, the Crusades formed important chapters in two distinct but interconnected histories, Occidental and Oriental. In the first, they were part of the evolution of medieval western Europe. Their significance has long been recognised and studied by many generations of Western scholars. Indeed, the Crusades are an undeniably fashionable area of Western medieval studies – this is hardly surprising in view of the fact that they were a Western phenomenon.² In the Muslim East, the Crusades played a transient but unforgettable role which has left its impact on the Islamic consciousness until the present day; but it must be emphasised that the body of scholarship produced on them in the Middle East is incomparably less. The Muslim world has approached the subject less globally and in more piecemeal fashion. The full, composite story of the Crusades needs, of course, the drawing together of evidence from both sides of the divide to illuminate each other. Such a task needs to be redone in each generation. But it will be helped without doubt by a fuller understanding of the Muslim perspective.

This book is the first full-length monographic treatment of the Crusades as seen by the Muslims – a study devoted not to establishing the bare chronological facts, vital though they are, but rather to evoking the detailed response of the Muslims to the Crusader presence. As a pioneering venture, it cannot hope to do more than sketch an outline for future research.

Figure 1.1 Horseman, enamelled glass beaker, c. 1260, Aleppo, Syria

The Approach of This Study

This book is intended primarily for students and the general public, although it is hoped that specialists will also find something of interest in it. As its title suggests, only Islamic perspectives of the Crusades will be discussed. Through the evidence of Islamic sources only, an attempt is made to enter the mind-set of the medieval Muslims who suffered the impact of the Crusades and to tease out from the sources some hints at least of how the Muslims felt and how they reacted to the unprecedented experience of western European intervention in their lands and in their lives. It may seem an affectation, an exaggeratedly one-sided stance, to view the phenomenon of the Crusades from a solely Muslim perspective. Yet such a stance is timely, since so much of the scholarship on the Crusades has been unabashedly Eurocentric and has been penned by scholars of the medieval West. This study hopes to redress the balance. Such a focus should yield new insights into a phenomenon which left an indelible mark on the Muslim Near East psychologically and ideologically, even if the actual military occupation of the Crusaders touched only a small area of the Islamic world.

No aspect of Mediterranean history has been studied more thoroughly than the Crusades, and given their Western origins it is natural that they should have generated so much scholarship in the West. Yet on the Muslim side too, although medieval writers did not view them as being so momentous – coupling them jointly with the Mongol scourge as hated interventions into the Islamic world by infidel outsiders from outside – there is still much to be said. Beyond the establishment of chronologies and events, the background and context of Syria and Egypt in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries need further study. Moreover, although lip-service is paid to the phenomenon of Muslim-Crusader cross-cultural relations, there is still more to be done in this area.

What is the justification for presenting, or attempting to present, just the Muslim side? A few words of introductory background are needed. For the non-Muslim reader living in a so-called secular age in different parts of the world at the end of the twentieth century – indeed on the eve of the 900th anniversary of the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusading armies – there is great benefit to be derived from an examination of the way in which one medieval religious ideology shaped history by confronting another similarly deep-felt religious ideology. It is also salutary for the heirs to the Judaeo-Christian tradition in the West to view the Crusades through the eyes of the Muslims who were the victims of this onslaught on their territories from a completely unexpected quarter. Nowadays, when Christian ‘fanaticism’ is normally regarded as the preserve of extreme sects whose activities are given sensationalist treatment by the media, and with Muslim movements declaring jihad and a return to fundamental Islamic principles frequently in the headlines and represented negatively, it is worth returning to the period of the Crusades to see what lessons can be learned and what insights gleaned.

Figure 1.2 (above and opposite) Signs of the zodiac on the Wade Cup (a: Taurus, b: Cancer, c: Virgo, d: Scorpio, e: Capricorn, f: Pisces), inlaid brass, c. 1230, Iran

The Crusades shaped western European perceptions of the Muslim world just as decisively as they formed Muslim views of the West. These stereotypical images of the old ‘enemy’ are deeply entrenched and need to be aired and scrutinised in order to be understood and modified. It is undoubtedly time to balance the western European view with the Islamic perspective. Riley-Smith rightly identifies the problem when he writes that the history of the Latin East would be transformed if Islamic studies were given the prominence they deserve: ‘It is curious how peripheral they have so far proved to be – how many Crusade historians have bothered to learn Arabic?’³ Riley-Smith then also criticises the attitude of Islamicists themselves, ‘to most of whom the Crusades and the Latin settlements are of marginal significance’.

So both sides need to be better informed. Indeed, there is much to be gained by modern scholars of the Islamic Middle Ages studying the period of the Crusades. Such research throws light on a range of historical issues and themes – military history, politico-religious ideologies and the evolution of border societies. Over and above all this is the moulding of socio-cultural attitudes between the Middle East and the West which have survived until the present day.

The intention is that this book will be of interest not only to non-Muslims but also to the many Muslims who cannot read Arabic. Both groups may find some of their preconceptions about the Crusades modified by the evidence presented. Muslims may well be surprised at the way in which their medieval counterparts co-existed, indeed on occasion collaborated with the invading Franks, whilst non-Muslims will have cause to ponder on the ideological heritage which the Crusades have left in the Near East. This book does not aim to be especially radical, original or comprehensive. It attempts, instead, to present some ideas and themes for those who wish to pursue this fascinating topic in greater depth, having acquired a clearer idea of the neglected side of the question.

In a way this book needs no justification. So many popular books have been written about the Crusades from the Western side that any new general work which highlights the Muslim viewpoint, so sadly under-represented, should be a welcome addition to our knowledge of the subject. In Britain the popularity of Terry Jones’s television series Crusades (early 1990s) and book on the Crusades (in which he stressed to a wide audience the high level of Islamic civilisation at the time of the Crusades) points to considerable interest in this subject.⁴

There are many different but complementary perspectives which together cast fresh light on the phenomenon of the Crusades. At the basic level the political and military story needs to be told. The ideology and motivation of both sides need to be examined. The social and economic interaction between Crusader and Muslim also provides more nuanced insights into the reality of life in the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Levant. Last but by no means least – indeed perhaps the most important theme of all – is the nature of warfare in this period, since the advent of the Crusaders in Muslim territory involved wars which they first won and then lost.

Figure 1.3 (above and opposite) Signs of the zodiac on the Wade Cup (a: Aries, b: Gemini, c: Leo, d: Libra, e: Sagittarius, f: Aquarius), inlaid brass, c. 1230, Iran

It is, of course, vital to avoid viewing Islamic history, or for that matter any other kind of history, exclusively from the Western perspective. Even Orientalists who know Arabic and are knowledgeable about Islam have often been rightly criticised in the past for having a colonialist agenda and for being unable to represent honestly the views of the indigenous peoples of the Middle East. Thus it might be argued that the writing of the Islamic view of the Crusades should be left on the whole to Muslim scholars themselves. This is, of course, a reasonable point of view and the fact that this book is the work of a Western scholar does not imply disagreement with such a view. But there has been no spate of books written from the Islamic side about the Crusades by internationally respected contemporary Muslim scholars themselves. It is a sad fact that the best Muslim historians have, as it happens, specialised in other areas.

But just as it is important for the history of the Christian West to be studied and written about by scholars of non-Western origins, so too there is benefit in Western scholars writing about aspects of medieval Islamic history. What matters is the methodology used: a careful reading of a wide range of sources ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Expanded Contents List
• List of Colour Plates
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Note on the Illustrations
• Glossary of Islamic Terms
• Glossary of Arabic Military Terms
• Chronological List of Major Medieval Islamic Authors Mentioned in the Text
• Chronological Table of Important Events until the Fall of Acre in 690/1291
• Dynastic Tables
• Key to Abbreviations Used in the Text
• Sources for the Illustrations
• CHAPTER 1: Prologue
• CHAPTER 2: The First Crusade and the Muslims’ Initial Reactions to the Coming of the Franks
• CHAPTER 3: Jihad in the Period 493-569/1100-1174
• CHAPTER 4: Jihad in the Period from the Death of Nur al-Din until the Fall of Acre (569-690/1174-1291)
• CHAPTER 5: How the Muslims Saw the Franks: Ethnic and Religious Stereotypes
• CHAPTER 6: Aspects of Life in the Levant in the Crusading Period
• CHAPTER 7: Armies, Arms, Armour and Fortifications
• CHAPTER 8: The Conduct of War
• CHAPTER 9: Epilogue: The Heritage of the Crusades
• Bibliography
• Index