The following book review of Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period: An Anthology, by James E. Lindsay and Suleiman A. Mourad, first appeared in the Middle East Quarterly.
“This anthology,” say professors James E. Lindsay and Suleiman Ali Mourad, “is an attempt to bring to light a disparate selection of sources that in our assessment introduce the student of Crusades history to a more complex understanding of the Crusades and the interactions between Franks and Muslims—which ranged from animosity to amity—in the broader context of Islamic history.”
The authors succeed, including by presenting several Muslim sources, “many translated here into English for the first time.” In six chapters which cover a broad range of topics and genres—including travel and geographical literature, jihadist and juridical directives, chronicles and poetry, treaties and truces—the authors give an account of the Crusades, from an exclusively Muslim perspective.
Not only is the book balanced, reproducing the (admittedly few and circumstantial) accounts of amity; it is objective, and does not dissemble over those topics that most concerned Muslim authors, for example, jihad. After properly dismissing the otherwise much vaunted “spiritual” or “greater” jihad as being “without foundation,” Lindsay and Mourad assert, “When the authors of the Muslim sources in this anthology used the word jihad, they invariably meant warfare against the enemies of God [Allah] and the Muslims.”
For students of the Crusades, the book offers several important features, including appendixes (an especially useful one is titled “Quranic Verses on War and Peace”), biographical overviews, glossaries, and maps. The authors end each chapter with pedagogical questions to get the reader to think. Especially helpful are the many scholarly footnotes to assist the non-specialist in navigating what may seem a strange terrain, including one that exposes a little known pun among Muslims, who referred to Christendom’s most sacred church in Jerusalem, the Church of Resurrection (qiyama) as the Church of Refuse (qumama).
Those interested in current events and questions will find that the book unwittingly demonstrates a certain continuity with the present. It confirms that much of the behavior that is now presented as being aberrant or “radical” to Islam—intrinsic animosity for non-Muslims, expectations of cowed (or dhimmi) behavior from subjugated Jews and Christians, the destruction or transformation of churches into mosques, the temporal nature of truces (or the eternal nature of jihad), praise for jihadist “martyrdom” and the allure of the houri—were the norm for the illustrious Muslim authors excerpted in this much welcomed volume.
I can’t stand to see a book, ANY BOOK,it could be a piece of Holocaust denying kiddie porn and it would still bother me-left like the book in the photograph. It’s bad for the spine. Close it and put a bookmark in it, Mr. Ibrahim. Warmest best wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year.
Thanks Raymond, those Muslim sources are very interesting.
Why wasn’t my comment posted?
Thanks. Happy holidays.
As for the Crusades for Europe during a specific time point during the Middle Ages its need to be made clear the that it’s true that many of the crusaders did terrible horrific things . As did their vicious enemies who were the Muslim warriors of the armies of Islam.
The point is that not the Bible that inspired the cruel violence and killing that the Crusaders. What the Crusades had been by the popes of the Roman Catholic Church. For those pope were liars who had no right to promise the men who they sent out on the crusades that if they died fighting for the church in battle they would go to heaven. That is not how the Bible teaches as the way to heaven, John 14:6. Furthermore, Jesus taught peace and not war, Matthew 5:9.
As for the Muslims, armies of Islam they had been inspired their cruel horrible violence and killing from the Quran as in 2:191 4:89.9:123. 47: 4 . Likewise, it was that “holy book” of Islam, the Quran that gave the promise that is lie that if a Muslim warrior. , a jihadist, dies fight for Islam he will then go to a paradise. 2:111,112.
That’s the difference between those two opposing military forces.
On the day of September 9 2016 a man I know who works as a security guard at a public place told me a Muslim actually had the nerve to walk over to him and said to him a Muslim “Joke” about 9/11. As if it was a funny subject. It’s wrong to even try to “joke” about 9/11
The first was “What is the difference between September 11, 20001 and a cow?” answer “You don’t keep milking a cow after fifteen years.” Not only is that “joke” awful but those Muslims trying to be funny by say that cruel thing do have some gall because they have no room to talk . For they are still are “milking” the topic of the crusades and the crusades have been over for well more than seven hundred years. What gall they have!
Well, I have heard several people defending Islam who have not studied the topic or even read the sacred Muslim scriptures like the Koran. It is good when books reveal that it is not a religion of peace, pace George Bush. There is no point in masochistic self-hatred of people in America or certain other countries who think somehow we should accept terror and crime, illegal migration and abuse of our people as deserved punishment for how bad we are. I am not aware of much self-incrimination by most countries in the world, whether communist, Muslim, third world, Chinese, Indian or whatever. They all try to defend their borders and their societies against terror and crime. They do not just say, let them do this, we deserve punishment for our crimes. I hear and read that sort of argument too often in America. The mayor who said they should allow destruction by rioters as compensation for the sins of slavery or imperialism or capitalism, etc. We need to call a spade a spade, engage in constructive criticism, but not masochistic self-condemnation.
In short, there are good reasons to read about Islam critically. However, I do not really want to know all that much about Islam, to be honest, there is much more to know about than I want to know. So, I prefer the short form to the long form.
The Crusades pitted Christians against Muslims. Today, in Occupied Palestine, aka, Apartheid Zionist Israel, including Jerusalem, Jews have replaced Muslims as victimizers of Roman Catholics and other Christians, including in Bethlehem. the birthplace of Jesus.
It is understandable that Jews don’t want to be seen as victimizers of Christians, be they Palestinian Christians, or otherwise, out of well-founded fear, and given that Zionist Israel exists at the pleasure of Christian America and the Christian West, and don’t like to talk about it, much less acknowledge it. So, Jews take every opportunity to blame Muslims for victimizing Christians. It should be obvious to anyone with eyes, ears, and a brain to see this flawed, self-serving narrative and agenda of pro-zionist Jews. Some day, America and the West will wake up and smell the coffee. Before that happens, and a just but difficult solution is imposed, Jews should work towards a just and peaceful resolution to the conflict Just sayin’.
The Crusades didn’t go far enough and had to wait centuries for Allenby to defeat the Moslems and enter Jerusalem
Take that up with Lawrence of Arabia. Just sayin’.
And Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Just about all of what you point out is astonishingly appropriate and that makes me ponder the reason why I had not looked at this with this light previously. This particular article truly did switch the light on for me as far as this issue goes. But at this time there is actually one particular position I am not necessarily too comfy with and while I try to reconcile that with the core idea of the issue, permit me observe what all the rest of your visitors have to point out.Well done.
thanks to the author for taking his clock time on this one.