Description

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf

In August 1099, Abu Saad al-Harawi, a judge from Damascus, burst into the presence of the Caliph of Baghdad, and berated him and his dignitaries for living in luxury while their fellow Muslims in Syria and Palestine were dying at the hands of the Frankish invaders. With this episode, Amin Maalouf begins his exhilarating narrative history of two centuries of wars that, nearly a millennium later, continue to shape relations between the Arab world and the West.

The first major victory of the Frankish Crusaders or Franj as they were known, was the sack of Jerusalem in 1099. After two days of bloodshed, not a single Muslim was left alive within the city walls. Yet it would take another 50 years for the Arab East to mobilise itself against the invader. The Muslim world was ruled by a loose coalition of princes and caliphs whose interests were often contradictory, with some even siding with the invaders. Maalouf describes the dreadful fall of city after city -Antioch, which was betrayed by one of its inhabitants; the siege of Tripoli, and the destruction of its priceless library; and the atrocities committed by the Franj at Ma’arra in Turkey. He gives brilliant portraits of the Arab rulers, from Nur al-Din, the Saint-King, who began the first united defence of Muslim nations, to Saladin, the reluctant leader who first defeated the Crusaders.

Features;

• Folio Society First Impression
• Publisher Folio Society, London; 2012
• Red Buckram Hardback, 305pp
• With 24 pages of colour plates
• Size 240 x 160mm, 1.2kg

Condition: Fine – Superb Unmarked Copy

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