The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

Schocken

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes
Amin Maalouf
1989

The Summary
Drawing from the chronicles of historians and Muslim scholars, Amin Maalouf chronicles the events of the Crusades as they affected the local populations and shaped conscious thought in the medieval Arab community.

The Good
I found The Crusades Through Arab Eyes incredibly informative.  Evenly paced with a narrative-like quality that kept me intrigued, Amin Maalouf's historiography provides a thorough look at the Arabic world during the Crusades.  While Maalouf makes his stance clear, providing a comprehensive examination of Arab life and warfare, he also takes great care to provide an overview of the European crusaders and the native populations, revealing both the greatest victories and the worst failures.

With properly cited resources, expansive investigation into different cultural facets, and highlights of all major events and historical figures, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes is an excellent resource.  Additionally, it provides a glossary of frequent terms and an index, which makes it an invaluable research tool.

Honestly, I enjoyed reading The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.  Although it took me a couple attempts to begin reading it, I enjoyed the style in which Maalouf presents his novel and, more importantly, I liked the knowledge and facts the author provides.  He's carefully detailed in his depictions of history and he pulls directly from primary resources, providing glimpses into the diaries and first hand accounts of historians who witnessed events.

The Bad
If Maalouf is frequently critical of the Franj - the European Crusaders from the west, who invaded the Muslim East - he's merely documenting a different version of events, showing the effects on individual communities and the results of foreign occupation.  The Crusades Through Arab Eyes is a fine resource; however, if you're looking for a book that builds up the Crusaders (or may otherwise romanticize their activities), you really won't find it here.

Maalouf is fair in his assertions, but he's clearly biased in his subject.  Which, honestly, isn't necessary a bad thing.  His research is clearly more interested in the regions and historical figures affected by the Crusades, rather than the Crusaders themselves.

The Ugly
Well, if you know anything about the Crusades, then you probably have vague idea as to how gruesome warfare - and, subsequently, survival - became.  Honestly, I only had to make it to the third chapter to learn about the Siege of Ma'arra, a Muslim city in Syria, to find some of the goriest details.  These were dark and chaotic times indeed - and they remained as such for over two hundred years.

Think about it:  two hundred years of violence doesn't paint a pretty picture.