The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

About the Book

In August 1099, Abu Saad al-Harawi, a judge from Damascus, stormed into the Caliph’s court in Baghdad, condemning its luxury while Muslims in Syria and Palestine were slaughtered by the Frankish invaders.

With this charged scene, Amin Maalouf opens his exhilarating narrative history of two centuries of war that, nearly a millennium later, still cast their shadow on Arab-Western relations. The Crusaders’ first major triumph came with the sack of Jerusalem in 1099. After two days of carnage, not a single Muslim was left alive within the city walls. Yet it would take another fifty years before the Arab East mounted a united resistance.

Maalouf recounts in gripping detail the fall of city after city: Antioch, betrayed from within; Tripoli, besieged and stripped of its priceless library; Ma’arra, where the Franj committed unspeakable atrocities. Against this devastation, he sketches vivid portraits of the Arabs who rose in response: Nur al-Din, the ‘Saint-King’ who forged the first united defence of Muslim nations, and Saladin, the reluctant leader who would ultimately reclaim Jerusalem.

About the Author

Amin Maalouf is an award-winning French Lebanese novelist, essayist and memoirist. His novels have been translated into more than fifty languages and include The Rock of Tanios, which won  France’s most prestigious literary award, the Prix Goncourt. Maalouf is a member of the Académie française and in 2010 was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature for his entire oeuvre.

Reviews

'Well-researched and highly readable.'
Guardian

‘A useful and important analysis adding much to existing western histories … worth recommending to George Bush.’
London Review of Books

'Maalouf tells an inspiring story ... very readable ... warmly recommended.'
Times Literary Supplement

‘A wide readership should enjoy this vivid narrative of stirring events.’
The Bookseller

'Very well done indeed ... Should be put in the hands of anyone who asks what lies behind the Middle East's present conflicts.'
Middle East International