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In Medieval Muslim Historians and the Franks in the Levant seven leading scholars examine the historical writings of seven medieval Muslim historians whose works provide the core chronographical texts for reconstructing the events of the crusading period, 1097-1291. Each chapter examines the life of and influences on each historian, their overall writings, and their historical works related to the Crusades. Each historical text is examined for the current state of modern research, the sources and working method of the author, and its use and relevance for crusader studies and other fields of research. This volume will be of use to anyone studying the events of the Crusades, of Islamic History, or of Arabic Historiography in the medieval period. Contributors include: Frédéric Bauden, Niall Christie, Anne-Marie Eddé, Konrad Hirschler, Alex Mallett, and Françoise Micheau, Lutz Richter-Bernburg
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.
Steven Runciman characterized intellectual life in the Frankish Levant as 'disappointing'; Joshua Prawer claimed that the Franks refused to open up to the East's intellectual achievements. The present collection, the second by Benjamin Kedar in the Variorum series, presents facts that require a modification of these still largely prevailing views. The earliest laws of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were influenced by Byzantine legislation; medical routine in the Jerusalem Hospital, unparalleled in Europe, had counterparts in Oriental hospitals; worshippers of different creeds repeatedly converged; multi-directional conversion recurred time after time. Several articles deal with groups that did abstain from intercultural contacts: Muslim villagers, Frankish clerics and hermits. One article dwells on the asymmetry of Frankish and Muslim mutual perceptions. The volume concludes with studies of specific locations: one argues that Acre was considerably larger than hitherto assumed, another compares its Venetian and Genoese quarters and attempts to locate the remains of a main street, a third reconstructs the history of Caymont.
Building upon previous volumes by the same editor, this book contains studies of nine of the most important Arabic-language textual sources for the Crusades and the Frankish presence in the eastern Mediterranean in the period 1097-1291.
While research on the crusades tends increasingly to bifurcate into study of the crusade idea and the crusading expeditions, and study of the Frankish states the crusaders established in the Levant, Benjamin Kedar confirms-through the articles reproduced in this latest selection of his articles-his adherence to the school that endeavours to deal with both branches of research. Of the ten studies that deal with the crusading expeditions, one examines the maps that might have been available to the First Crusaders and their Muslim opponents, another discusses in detail the Jerusalem massacre of July 1099 and its place in Western historiography down to our days, a third sheds light on the largely neglected doings of the Fourth Crusaders who decided to sail to Acre rather than to Constantinople, while a fourth exposes unknown features of the well-known sculpture of the returning crusader-most probably Count Hugh I of Vaudémont- who is embracing his wife. Of the ten studies that deal with the Frankish Levant, one proposes a hypothesis on the composition stages of William of Tyre's chronicle, another provides new evidence on the Latin hermits who chose to live in the Frankish states, a third examines the catalogue of the library of the cathedral of Nazareth, while a fourth calls attention to convergences of Eastern Christians, Muslims and Franks in sacred spaces and offers a typology of such events, and a fifth proposes a methodology for the identification of trans-cultural borrowing in the Frankish Levant.
Muslims and Crusaders combines chronological narrative, discussion of important areas of scholarly enquiry and evidence from Islamic primary sources to give a well-rounded survey of Christianity’s wars in the Middle East, 1095–1382. Revised, expanded and updated to take account of the most recent scholarship, this second edition enables readers to achieve a broader and more complete perspective on the crusading period by presenting the crusades from the viewpoints of those against whom they were waged, the Muslim peoples of the Levant. The book introduces the reader to the most significant issues that affected Muslim responses to the European crusaders and their descendants who would go on to live in the Latin Christian states that were created in the region. It considers not only the military encounters between Muslims and crusaders, but also the personal, political, diplomatic, and trade interactions that took place between the Muslims and Franks away from the battlefield. Engaging with a wide range of translated primary source documents, including chronicles, dynastic histories, religious and legal texts, and poetry, Muslims and Crusaders is ideal for students and historians of the crusades.
Eleven distinguished contributors have produced essays which deal with the organisation of the crusade in Europe, internal developments in the Crusader Levant, issues of the contemporary Muslim East, and Crusader-Muslim confrontation in twelfth-century Syria. Some break new ground entirely, for instance Malcolm Lyons' investigations of the Arab Hero cycles and Penny Cole's work on Crusader preaching. Others offer important new perspectives on well-known themes: Jonathan Riley-Smith on Crusader ideology and Peter Edbury's revisionist view of the events leading up to the battle of Hattin. Still others offer important overviews which will be appreciated by a broad readership of medieval historians.
"In The Race for Paradise, Paul M. Cobb offers an accurate and accessible representation of the Islamic experience of the Crusades during the Middle Ages. Cobb overturns previous claims and presents new arguments, such as the idea that the Frankish invasions of the Near East were something of a side-show to the broader internal conflict between Sunnis and Shi'ites in the region. The Race for Paradise moves along two fronts as Cobb stresses that, for medieval Muslims, the contemporaneous Latin Christian expansion throughout the Mediterranean was seen as closely linked to events in the Levant. As a consequence of this expanded geographical range, the book takes a broader chronological range to encompass the campaigns of Spanish kings north of the Ebro and the Norman conquest of Sicily (beginning in 1060), well before Pope Urban II's famous call to the First Crusade in 1095. Finally, The Race for Paradise brilliantly combats the trend to portray the history of the Crusades, particularly the Islamic experience, in simplistic or binary terms. Muslims did not solely experience the Crusades as fanatical warriors or as helpless victims, Cobb writes; as with any other human experience of similar magnitude, the Crusades were experienced in a great variety of ways, ranging from heroic martyrdom, to collaboration, to utter indifference."--Publisher information.
During much of the twelfth century the Crusaders dominated the military scene in the Levant. The unification of Egypt and Syria by Saladin gradually changed the balance of power, which slowly begun to tilt in favour of the Muslims. This book examines the development and role of Muslim fortresses in the Levant at the time of the Crusaders and the Mongol invasion, situating the study within a broad historical, political and military context. Exploring the unification of Egypt with a large part of Syria and its effect on the balance of power in the region, Raphael gives a historical overview of the resulting military strategies and construction of fortresses. A detailed architectural analysis is based on a survey of four Ayyubid and eight Mamluk fortresses situated in what are today the modern states of Jordan, Israel, Southern Turkey and Egypt (the Sinai Peninsula). The author then explores the connection between strongholds or military architecture, and the development of siege warfare and technology, and examines the influence of architecture and methods of rule on the concept of defence and the development of fortifications. Drawing upon excavation reports, field surveys and contemporary Arabic sources, the book provides the Arabic architectural terminology and touches on the difficulties of reading the sources. Detailed maps of the fortresses in the region, the Mongol invasion routs, plans of sites and photographs assist the reader throughout the book, providing an important addition to existing literature in the areas of Medieval Archaeology, Medieval military history and Middle Eastern studies.