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Title	:	The Crusades Through Arab Eyes
Author	:	Amin Maalouf
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 293 pages
Published	:	April 29th 1989 by Schocken (first published 1983)
Categories	:	History. Nonfiction. Religion. Islam

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

Amin Maalouf

Paperback | Pages: 293 pages

Rating: 4.19 | 6960 Users | 573 Reviews

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This was a challenging reading experience, and I struggle to put into words why.

I loved Maalouf's reflections on identity and cultural belonging, In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, to the extent that I read it with students several times. I admired his autobiographical work Origins, which offers an explanation for his deep understanding of the diverse strands that make up an individual personality, shaped by numerous family patterns, education and personal experience.

I thought I would love his well-researched, brilliantly detailed account of the crusades from the perspective of the Arab world as well. It promised to deliver new angles on a topic I had already studied with interest from the more common European standpoint, giving me a unique opportunity to gain better insight into the other side of the story that features the origin of East-West, Islam-Christian clashes - with lasting effects reaching into our contemporary world and history writing.

I had to force myself to read on however. On multiple occasions, I was about to break it off altogether. Why?

It was not the fact that all names and events seemed strangely distorted, told without the overarching context I was used to. That was quite charming, actually, once I got used to it. I had no issues whatsoever with the narrative bias either, as that was what I expected and hoped for.

What made me cringe, over and over again?

The interchangeable actors in a play filled with shortsighted power struggles, hubris, greed, stupidity and violence.

It does not really MATTER that the perspective has changed from a European to an Arab setting. The reckless, faithless, brutal rapists and killers are just the same on both sides of the conflict. Yes, it is true that the crusaders are guilty of invasion, and the Arab local community is innocent. In that respect, the Christian rulers and their followers certainly are more guilty than the defenders of their own territory. But the outcome for the narrative is the same. One sequence of treason, violence, cowardice and war after the other, with no end in sight. What that means for civilians, and most of all women and children, I do not want to describe in detail.

Such a completely meaningless, utterly idiotic conflict, forced upon people by criminal kings and churches in Europe, carried out by armies full of violent, uneducated brutal men, claiming to be acting in the name of an all-powerful god. Both sides were convinced that they were divinely justified to kill and ravage according to their current political needs.

The book was, to be short and precise, too depressing to make a rewarding read.

As it focuses on the military aspects rather than on cultural questions, I missed the erudite and balanced prose that I am used to from Maalouf, and had to work my way through countless sieges, all quite similar, regardless of which side won, and which side suffered more - depending on occasion.

I believe it is important for this book to exist, and to be read, especially by European historians, but it was hard - very hard - to digest.

Point Books To The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

Original Title:	Les Croisades vues par les Arabes
ISBN:	0805208984 (ISBN13: 9780805208986)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Richard I of England, Saladin

Rating Based On Books The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

Ratings: 4.19 From 6960 Users | 573 Reviews

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Recommended reading for an alternative look on the Crusades - just supported with copious quotes by Arab historians, no "Western" sources. Extremely interesting to see this clash of cultures from the "other" side - "our" extremely brutal fighters with little moral qualms, slaughtering everyone in their path in most brutal ways, the "early" Arabs being wholly unprepared and completely confused by so much religious zealotry. Especially the epilogue, linking this story to modern developments of the

For those in the West, the Crusades were a series of military expeditions that Western Christians launch against Muslims to reclaim the Holy Land, however for the Arabs and the rest of the Muslim world, the Crusades were a shocking event. The Crusades through Arab Eyes is a narrative history by Amin Maalouf to give Westerners a glimpse of how the Muslim world in general saw the Crusades as they were happening over two hundred year span.Maalouf starts his narrative in Anatolia with the beginning

Phew, this read dragged on! Not that it was dullthe subject matter, in fact, is of great appeal to mebut I felt forced to put it aside repeatedly in favour of more enthralling fictional narratives, only to go back pages and refresh my memory whenever I picked it up after a long pause. The writing is not entirely typical of most heavy historical accounts, but rather more fluently flowing in its chronicling. The frequent shifting back and forth between recounting the overall events and providing

Before the world as we know it now, a West dominated world, there were the Crusades.Maalouf charts 200 years of non stop war and intrigue in a highly readable fashion. One wishes he could talk more about the lives of the common men and women in those times. But his interest seems to be concentrated only in the top leaders and their achievements or failures. The scope is large and detail generally scant, at times the focus being too much on summarizing Arab-written histories of those times.

From ReemK10

Excellent alternative view of the crusades. Pair it up with a western history of the crusades to get a better view of the era. Interesting historical figures on Islamic side come into focus and they had tough time getting their resistance effort together.

My rating is 4.5 stars. The focus on the Arabs' point of view is very interesting and the author included an excellent epilogue connecting those medieval events with nowadays.