Popular Muslim Reactions to the Franks in the Levant, 1097–1291

Alex Mallett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317077978
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

The issue of Muslim reactions to the Franks has been an important part of studies of both the Crusades and Islamic History, but rarely the main focus. This book examines the reactions of the Muslims of the Levant to the arrival and presence of the Franks in the crusading period, 1097-1291, focussing on those outside the politico-military and religious elites. It provides a thematic overview of the various ways in which these 'non-elites' of Muslim society, both inside and outside of the Latin states, reacted to the Franks, arguing that it was they, as much as the more famous Muslim rulers, who were initiators of resistance to the Franks. This study challenges existing views of the Muslim reaction to the crusaders as rather slow and demonstrates that jihad against the Franks started as soon as they arrived. It further demonstrates the difference between the concepts of jihad and of Counter-Crusade, and highlights two distinct phases in the jihad against the Franks: the 'unofficial jihad' - that which occurred before uniting of religious and political classes - and the 'official jihad' - which happened after and due to this unification, and which has formed the basis of modern discussions. Finally, the study also argues that the Muslim non-elites who encountered the Franks did not always resist them, but at various times either helped or were unresisting to them, thus focussing attention away from conflict and onto cooperation. In considering Muslim reactions to the Franks in the context of wider discourses, this study also highlights aspects of the nature of Islamic society in Egypt and Syria in the medieval period, particularly the non-elite section of society, which is often ignored. The main conclusions also shed light on discourses of collaboration and resistance which are currently focussed almost exclusively on the modern period or the medieval west.

PART I

Chapter 1
Resistance to the Franks in Besieged Cities

Comparatively speaking, the medieval Middle East was a highly urbanised society, the landscape dotted with cities and large towns of sizes rare in Europe. These were centres of industry, defence, trade, religious scholarship, administration and government, and the historians on whom we rely for information came almost exclusively from the latter three arenas and the cities that fostered them.¹ And because of the importance of these cities in the landscape of the medieval Middle East, it was natural that the efforts of the Frankish armies would be directed against them. Thus, as the urban centres were both home to Muslim writers and frequently the target of Frankish attacks, the majority of evidence for resistance comes from this environment, and accounts of resistance to Frankish sieges, in particular, contain some very detailed information on the role of non-elite groups in the struggle.² The contribution that they made has, however, been ignored by historians of the crusading period.³ This chapter will help to demonstrate the vital role they played.

Violent Resistance

As the main army of the First Crusade proceeded across Asia Minor from Constantinople, the first incident of resistance it encountered was not from a large Muslim army, but from a more ad hoc group defending the city of Nicaea. The town’s ruler, the Rūm Seljuq sultan Qilij Arslān, had invaded neighbouring territory controlled by another petty Muslim dynasty, the Dānishmendids, taking his army with him and leaving the town relatively undefended.⁴ Consequently, resistance to the joint crusader–Byzantine force, both before and after the battle outside the town in which Qilij Arslān was defeated, was carried out by at least part of the population in concert with the small garrison that had been left behind to guard it.⁵ Although the townspeople were predominantly Christian,⁶ there was a sizeable number of Muslims as well, not all of whom were from martial forces.⁷ During the siege these Muslims showed themselves to be ‘courageous fighters’ through their resistance⁸ and, although precisely how this resistance manifested itself is unclear, there was at least some popular, violent resistance by non-elite Muslims towards the Franks in this first encounter between the two sides.

Manifestations of such co-operation between a Muslim town’s inhabitants and the martial forces inside the city in the face of a Frankish siege are witnessed throughout the crusading period in the Levant. At Antioch in 490/1097–491/1098 the population fought the crusading army on a number of occasions,⁹ and it is implied that the whole town was mobilised for the defence, as even the Armenian and Syrian Christians were ordered to fight the Franks.¹⁰ The resistance continued in the citadel after the rest of the city had fallen, and must have been carried out at least in part by members of the general population who fled there for safety when the rest of the city fell.¹¹ Such joint resistance also occurred during the siege of Damascus in the Second Crusade, which occurred in 543/1148, as the people of the town fought against the Frankish besiegers alongside the city’s army.¹² Similarly, in the campaigns of the Franks in Egypt in 562/1166–67, Shīrkūh and Saladin found the people of Alexandria helping the garrison to resist the Franks,¹³ and in the siege of the city of Ḥamā in 573/1177–78 the general population of the town joined the military force and fiercely resisted the Franks, leading to the latter’s withdrawal.¹⁴

The potency of such efforts and the vigour with which they were exercised by the townspeople is demonstrated at the time of the Fifth Crusade, during the Frankish siege of Damietta. The blockade was met with desperate resistance from the people,¹⁵ and is given a particularly heroic feel by the description of the conditions inside the town at the time, of the famine, illness, and corpses that filled the city.¹⁶ The strength of the popular resistance during this siege is emphasised by al-Maqrīzī’s comments that ‘the general population attacked the Franks more fiercely than the army’.¹⁷

In addition to action taken in concert with standing martial forces, some Frankish sieges during the crusading period seem to have been resisted by the townspeople alone. During the procession of the army of the First Crusade through Syria in 491/1098–492/1099 sieges were often met by violent resistance from the Muslim inhabitants, as was the case at ‘Arqā¹⁸ and Sarūj,¹⁹ although the chronicles give few details. At Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān ‘its people’, some of whom were from the surrounding countryside, fought the Franks fiercely,²⁰ causing them great difficulties. Although the Franks did take over the city this only came about due to ‘timidity and despair’ that came over some of the defenders, who consequently gave up.²¹ During the siege of Jerusalem, resistance was carried out by the inhabitants,²² while ‘a group of Muslims’ who had fled into the citadel continued to hold out after the rest of the city had fallen.²³ Similarly, Ibn al-Athīr reports very briefly that when the Franks were pillaging Aleppo’s hinterlands and threatening the city itself in 513/1119–20, the population of the town wanted to go out and fight the Franks themselves, although they were prevented from doing so by the ruler.²⁴

The fall of Jerusalem did not, of course, mark the end of Frankish military activity in the Levant; indeed it had only just begun. Over the following decades, dozens of sieges of Muslim towns were carried out, and in most of them the general population took part in the resistance. Such popular resistance occurred at Ḥamā in 511/1117–18, when the townspeople forced the Franks to depart,²⁵ and at Banyas in 534/1139–40, where the inhabitants fought the Franks from the city’s walls.²⁶ Likewise, the people of Ascalon fought against the Franks at the siege of that city in 547–48/1153;²⁷ at Damietta in 564–65/1169 some of the townsfolk went into a tower constructed inside the city in order to resist Frankish attacks;²⁸ and popular resistance continued at the time of the Third Crusade, particularly at Acre, where, Bahā’ al-Dīn claims, the people were determined to defend the city.²⁹ Likewise, Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī writes that Frankish sieges of al-Ṭūr and Sidon in 614/1217–18 were in both instances defeated by the townspeople.³⁰

Although most instances of Muslim resistance are recounted in general terms, with little detail, there are occasional glimpses of how they resisted. During the protracted siege of Tyre the inhabitants shot thousands of arrows against the besieging Frankish forces during the initial days of the siege.³¹ Similarly, the people of Acre shot arrows from the walls of the city against the Franks who were investing the town during the Third Crusade,³² and it is reasonable to assume that these were not the only instances in which the defending inhabitants fought off the Franks using this method.

The other main method of violent resistance which is described was by making sorties from the besieged city against the surrounding forces. The near-contemporary chronicler al-‘Aẓīmī writes that at Ḥamā in 511/1117–18 the townspeople went out to the Franks who were besieging the town armed with swords and violently removed them.³³ At Tyre in 505/1111–12 the people made a ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• PART I
• PART II
• Bibliography
• Index