The Crusades and the Near East

by Kostick, Conor

  52 RCEA, VIII.49 (## 2882, flax fibres fabric from Egypt 495/1102; now at the Abbaye de Cadouin), 128–9 (## 2985, al-Ghamri Mosque, Mahalla al-Kubra, 515/1121), 129 (## 2986, Masjid Musa, Nile Valley, Egypt, 515/1121).

  53 Bernard Moritz, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Sinai-Klosters im Mittelalter nach Arabischen Quellen, Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1918, pp. 50–1 (the door of a sermon pulpit in the Mosque of St Catherina Monastery, Sinai, 500/November 1106); republished in RCEA, VIII.69 (## 2912).

  54 RCEA, VIII.146–7 (## 3011); Caroline Williams, ‘The Cult of ‘Alid Saints in the Fatimid Monuments of Cairo – part 1: The Mosque of al-Aqmar’, Muqarnas 1, 1983, 39–60 at 43; Caroline Williams, Islamic Monuments in Cairo: A Practical Guide, Cairo: AUC, 1993, p. 198; I.A. Bierman, Writing Signs: The Fatimid Public Text, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, p. 110.

  55 RCEA, VIII.94 (## 2952 Baghdad, a magic cup 506/1112), 142–3 (## 3007, Diyarbakir, the Great Mosque 518/1124).

  56 Jean Sauvaget, ‘Les inscriptions arabes de la mosquée de Bosra’, Syria 22, 1941, 53–65

  at 59–61 (the mosque of Umar 506/1112); republished RCEA, VIII.93–4 (##

  2951).

  57 ‘Ali ibn Tahir ibn Ja‘far al-Sulami (1039–1106), Kitab al-Jihad in Suhayl Zakkar (ed.),

  ‘Arba‘a kutub fi al-jihad min ‘asr al-hurub al-salibiyya, Damascus: al-Takwin lil-tiba‘a wal-nashr, 2007.

  58 Robert Irwin, ‘Islam and the Crusades (1069–1699)’, in Jonathan Riley-Smith (ed.), The Oxford History of the Crusades, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 220–1; Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999, pp. 71–4; Niall Christie and Deborah Gerish, ‘Parallel Preachings: Urban II and al-Sulami’, Al-Masaq 15, 2003, 139–42; P.E. Chevedden,

  ‘The Islamic Interpretation of the Crusade: A New (Old) Paradigm for Understanding the Crusades’, Der Islam 83, 2006, 90–136 at 94; Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp.

  139–40; Joseph Drory, ‘Hanbalis of the Nablus Region in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, Asian and African Studies 22, 1988, 93–112; D. Talmon-Heller, ‘Islamic Preaching in Syria during the Counter-Crusade (Twelfth–Thirteenth Centuries)’, in Iris Shagrir, Ronnie Ellenblum and Jonathan Riley-Smith (eds), In laudem hierosolymitani: Studies in Crusades and Medieval Culture in Honour of Benjamin Z.

  Kedar, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, p. 65.

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  59 Emmanuel Sivan, ‘La Genese de la contre-Croisade: un traite damasquin du debut du XIIe siecle’, Journal Asiatique 254, 1966, 197–224; Niall Christie, ‘Motivating Listeners in the Kitab al-Jihad of ‘Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami (d. 1106)’, Crusades 6, 2007, 1–14.

  60 al-Sulami, Kitab al-Jihad, fol. 174a in Sivan, Journal Asiatique 254, 1966, 207.

  61 Kevin Reinhart, ‘Like the Difference between Heaven and Earth: Hanafi and Shafi‘i Discussions of Fard and Wajib in Theology and Usul’, in B.G. Weiss (ed.), Studies in Islamic Legal Theory, Leiden: Brill, 2002, p. 226.

  62 al-Sulami, Kitab al-Jihad, fol. 174b–175b, in Sivan, Journal Asiatique 254, 1966, 208.

  63 Michael Lecker, ‘The Futuh al-Sham of ‘Abdallah b. Muhammad b. Rabi’a al-Qudami’, BSOAS 57, 1994, 356–60 at 357.

  64 Pseudo-Waqidi, Futuh al-Sham, Beirut: Dar al Jil, 1997, I.65–6.

  65 Bertsch, Counter-Crusade, pp. 156–9.

  66 Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntazam, XVII.120; Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil, VIII.584–5 [Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, I.154]; Ibn al-Qalanisi, Dhayl ta’rikh dimashq, p. 173

  [Gibb, pp. 111–12; Le Tourneau, pp. 103–4] and note 6, above.

  67 These jihad slogans were articulated as the Caliphate failed to face the Byzantine offensive in northern Syria (932–65), a frontier land that for centuries separated the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 132–4.

  68 Stevenson, The Crusaders in the East, pp. 96–105.

  69 Carole Hillenbrand, ‘The Career of Najm al-Din Il-Ghazi’, Der Islam 58, 1981, 250–91.

  70 On the defeat of Bursuq and the equilibrium in northern Syria (1115–18), see Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, London: Penguin Books, 1971 [1952], II.130–5.

  71 Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil, VIII.642–3 [Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, I.203–5]; R.L. Nicholson, ‘The Growth of the Latin States, 1118–1144’, in M.W. Baldwin (ed.), History of the Crusades vol. 1: The First Hundred Years, Wisconsin: Wisconsin University Press, 1969, p. 413; Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, pp.

  108–9.

  72 Professional foreign troops served as the cornerstone of the Muslim camp, and they carried out the majority of the fighting against the Franks. This is clearly reflected in the description of the kadi riding on a mare while the professional cavaliers mounted horses.

  73 Ibn al-‘Adim, Zubdat al-halab fi ta’rikh Halab, 3, Sami Dahhan (ed.), Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1951–68, II.185, 188–9; Zakkar (ed.), al-Mawsu‘a, XVI.7144.

  74 Ibn al-‘Adim, Bughya, VIII.3662.

  75 Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, p. 412.

  76 Jean Sauvaget, ‘La Tombe de l’Ortokide Balak’, Ars islamica 5.2, 1938, 207–15 [a rereading of RCEA, VIII.142 (## 3006 Aleppo, 518/1124)].

  77 The Muslim environment read the verses of the Qur’an not in segments but rather in Qur’anic context.

  78 Qur’an, al-Tawba (Repentance), IX.21 (translation from A.J. Arberry (tr.), The Koran, London: Allen and Unwin, 1963). The implications of this verse are better understood when reading it together with the preceding and following verses: ‘Those who believe, and have emigrated, and have struggled in the way of Allah with their possessions and their selves are mightier in rank with Allah; and those they are the triumphant’;

  ‘Therein they will dwell forever and ever; surely with Allah is a mighty wage.’

  79 Qur’an, Al Imran, III.169 (tr. Arberry). The next few verses provide a description of the martyrs’ circumstances: ‘Rejoicing in the bounty that Allah has given them, and 49

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  joyful in those who remain behind and have not joined them, because no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow, joyful in blessing and bounty from Allah, and that Allah leaves not to waste the wage of the believers.’ See also Daniella Talmon-Heller,

  ‘Muslim Martyrdom and Quest for Martyrdom in the Crusading Period’, Al-Masaq 14, 2002, 131–9.

  80 An epithet of a Muslim who died fighting for the cause of (true) Islam, republished in RCEA, VIII.234 (## 3118, an epitaph from Badajoz, Spain 539/March 1145 reads:

  ‘this is the tomb of the shahid who was killed unjustly by the Veiled [the al-Murabitun (Almoravids) dynasty, 448–541/1056–1147]’).

  81 Suliman Murad and J.E. Lindsay, ‘Resuming Syria from the Infidels: The Contribution of Ibn Asakir of Damascus to the Jihad Campaign of Sultan Nur Al-Din’, Crusades 6, 2007, 51–4.

  82 RCEA, VIII.236 (## 3122, an inscription on furniture from Diyarbakir 539/

  1144–5).

  83 RCEA, VIII.159–60 (## 3025, Damascus 521/1128).

  84 RCEA, VIII.165 (## 3033, Damascus, Bab al-Barid 524/1130).

  85 Jean Sauvaget, ‘Inscriptions arabes du Temple de Bel à Palmyre’, Syria 12, 1931, 143–8; RCEA, VIII.182 (## 3056, Bel Temple in Palmyra 527/1133).

  86 RCEA, VIII.188 (## 3063, Busra, al-Khidr Mosque 528/1134).

  87 RCEA, VIII.199–200 (## 3077, Busra, madrasa 540/1136).

  88 RCEA, VIII.194–5 (## 3072, Damascus, waqf 529/1135).

  89 RCEA, VIII.195–6 (## 3073, Hama, mosque 529/1135).

  90 Ibn al-Qalanisi, Dhayl ta’rikh dimashq, p. 245 (AH 529/1134–5): ‘It was said that

  [Shams al-Muluk Isma‘il] went to every excess in indulgence of imm
orality . . . and his character transformed to eagerness to prosecute the jihad against the heretical foe’

  [Gibb, p. 228; Le Tourneau, p. 217].

  91 His biography in Ibn al-‘Adim, Bughya, pp. 251–72.

  92 The great Saljuq Sultan affirmed his position as governor of Mosul and Aleppo (523/May 1129). Ibn al-‘Adim, Bughya, p. 254 (quoting al-Azimi).

  93 Tughtekin, who ruled Damascus for a quarter of a century, died in 522/1128.

  94 Stevenson, The Crusaders in the East, p. 129.

  95 Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, IX.22–3 [Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, I.282].

  96 Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, IX.23 [Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, I.283].

  97 Stevenson, The Crusaders in the East, pp. 137–38.

  98 Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, XI.52 [Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, I.336] uses the term aman (safe conduct). On this term, see Majid Khadduri (tr.), The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani’s Siyar, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966, p. 158.

  99 Ibn al-Qalanisi, Dhayl ta’rikh dimashq, p. 259 [Gibb, p. 243; Le Tourneau, p. 239].

  100 W.R. Taylor, ‘A New Syriac Fragment Dealing with Incidents in the Second Crusade’, The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 11, 1929–30, 122–3.

  101 Ibn al-‘Adim, Bughya, pp. 262–63 (quoting Ibn al-Harrani, Ta’rikh Harran).

  Compare this with a challenging tradition by Ibn al-‘Adim, who transmitted accounts of forced labour and unpaid corvee.

  102 RCEA, VIII.213–14 (## 3092, Damascus, madrasat al-sadat 533/1138).

  103 RCEA, VIII.228 (## 3111 Baalbek, interior tour 537/1143).

  104 RCEA, VIII.232–3 (## 3117, Damascus, madrasat al-sadat 538/1144); 254–5 (##

  3146, Busra, Mosque Dayr al-Muslimin 544/1149).

  105 RCEA, VIII.229–30 (## 3112, the mausoleum of Sheik Muhassin, Aleppo 537/August 1142).

  106 Scott Redford, ‘How Islamic Is It? The Innsbruck Plate and Its Setting’, Muqarnas 7, 1990, 119–35.

  107 Matti Moosa, ‘The Crusades: An Eastern Perspective, with Emphasis on Syriac Sources’, The Muslim World 93, 2003, 265.

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  108 Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, IX.162–3 [Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, II.25].

  109 It is evident that Nur al-Din’s jihad policy became deeply rooted in the collective conscience of medieval Muslims. See also the eulogy of the Amir Nasir al-Din al-Qaymari (d. 665/December 1266), who is said to have participated in the Holy War against the Franks in the coastal plains and is portrayed as murabit. Alam al-Din al-Birzali (665–739/1267–1339), al-Muqtafa ala kitab al-rawdatayn, ‘Umar al-Tadmuri (ed.), Beirut: al-Maktaba, 1428/2006, I.151.

  110 See the account of an army (‘ askar) from Damascus that joined Nur al-Din’s offensive against Antioch (544/1149). The commander of this united force was Mujahid al-Din Buzan. This surname clearly indicates the spread of jihad ideas among the Islamic professional military elite. Ibn al-Qalanisi, Dhayl ta’rikh dimashq, p. 304 [Gibb, pp.

  290–1]; Gaston Wiet, ‘Notes D’épigraphie syro-musulmane: III. Inscriptions de la citadelle de Damas’, Syria 7, 1926, 47.

  111 Yehoshua Frenkel, ‘The Qur’an Versus the Cross in the Wake of the Crusade: The Social Function of Dreams and Symbols in Encounter and Conflict (Damascus, July 1148)’, Quaderni di Studi Arabi 20–1, 2002–3, 105–32.

  112 Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, pp. 117–41.

  113 Yaacov Lev, ‘The Social and Economic Policies of Nur al-Din (1146–1174): The Sultan of Syria’, Der Islam 81, 2004, 218–42.

  114 Nikita Elisséeff, ‘Les monuments de Nur al-Din’, BEO 13, 1949–51, 5–50; Yasser Tabbaa, ‘Monuments with a Message: Propagation of Jihad under Nur al-Din (1146–1174)’, in V.P. Goss (ed.), The Meeting of Two Worlds, Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1986, pp. 223–40; V.P. Goss, ‘The Mosque of Nur al-Din in Mosul 1170–72’, Annales Islamologiques 36, 2002, 339–52.

  115 Hadia Dajani-Shakeel, ‘al-Quds: Jerusalem in the Consciousness of the Counter-Crusader’, in Goss, The Meeting of Two Worlds, pp. 205–6.

  116 Nikita Elisséeff, ‘La titulature de Nur al-Din’, BEO 14, 1954, 155–96.

  117 Claude Cahen, Orient et Occident au temps des Croisades, Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1983, p. 120.

  118 Abu Shama, al-Rawdatayn, in Zakkar (ed.), al-Mawsu‘a XVIII.8092–3.

  119 See his representation in Anonymous, Bahr al-Fawaid (da’irat al-ma‘arif) shamil kalam watasawwuf wa-fiqh wa-siyasat, M.T. Danish-Pazhuh (ed.), Tehran: University of Tehran Press, 1345/1966, pp. 79–80. On this work, see Geert Jan van Gelder,

  ‘Mirror for Princes or Vizor for Viziers: The Twelfth-Century Arabic Popular Encyclopedia ‘Mufid al-‘ulum’ and Its Relationship with the Anonymous Persian ‘Bahr al fawa’id’, BSOAS 64, 3, 2001, 313–38.

  120 Nikita Elisséeff, ‘Un document contemporain de Nur ad-Din: sa notice biographique par Ibn Asakir’, BEO 25, 1972, 134–5.

  121 Abu Shama, al-Rawdatayn, in Zakkar (ed.), al-Mawsu‘a, XVIII.8066, and Nur al-Din’s letter to the Caliph at XVIII.8095.

  122 Ibn al-Qalanisi, Dhayl ta’rikh dimashq, p. 305 [Gibb, p. 294; Le Tourneau, p. 307].

  123 Lyons and Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War, p. 74.

  124 Qiwam al-Din al-Fath b. ‘Ali al-Bundari (d. 643/1245), Sana al-barq al shami (mukhtasar al-barq al-shami lil-‘Imad al-isfahani) R. Sesen et al. (ed.), Istanbul: Markaz al-Abhat li-l-Tarih wa-l-Funun wa-l-Taqafa al-Islamiya, 2004, pp. 80–1. On this source, see Peter Malcolm Holt, ‘Saladin and His Admirers: A Biographical Reassessment’, BSOAS 46, 1983, 236, 238, who quotes a memorandum by Imad al-Din al-Isfahani; Abu Shama, al-Rawdatayn, in Zakkar (ed.), al-Mawsu‘a, XVIII.8143–4, 8148 (quotes Ibn Abi Taiy); Jamal al-Din Muhammad b. Salim Ibn Wasil (d. 697/1298), Mufarrij al-kurub fi akhbar bani ayyub, 3, Jamal al-Din al-Shayyal (ed.), Cairo: al-Idarah al-’Ammah li-Thiqafa, 1954 [Volumes 4 and 5 S.A.F.

  Ashur and H.M. Rabi (ed.), Cairo: al-Idarat al-’Ammat li-Thiqafa, 1972–7], II.7–8.

  125 Gibb, ‘The Arabic Sources for the Life of Saladin’.

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  126 Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, IX.398 [Richards, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, II.226]; see also Ibn al-‘Adim, Zubda, III.758–9.

  127 A.S. Ehrenkreutz, Saladin, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1972; H.A.R.

  Gibb, The Life of Saladin: From the Works of Imad ad-Din and Baha ad-Din, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973; H.A.R. Gibb, Saladin Studies in Islamic History, Y. Ibish (ed.), Beirut: Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 1974; Yaacov Lev, Saladin in Egypt, Leiden: Brill, 1999.

  128 Lyons and Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War, pp. 93–5, 99.

  129 Gaston Wiet, ‘Les inscriptions de Saladin’, Syria 3, 1922, 307–28. Imad al-Din al-Isfahani writes, ‘History would do well to be dated from this second hijra’ in Zakkar (ed.), al-Mawsu‘a, XIII.5817–18; A Cairene poet said: ‘If this conquest were to have happened in the days of the Prophet, miraculous words and Qur’anic verses would certainly come down from heaven.’ Abu Shama, al-Rawdatayn, in Zakkar (ed.), al-Mawsu‘a, XIX.8571.

  130 Gary La Viere Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid in the Red Sea in 578/1182–83’, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 14, 1977, 87–100; Marcus Milwright,

  ‘Reynald de Chatillon and the Red Sea Expedition of 1182–83’, in Niall Christie and Maya Yazigi (eds), Noble Ideals and Bloody Realities: Warfare in the Middle Ages, History of Warfare 37, Leiden: Brill, 2006, pp. 235–59.

  131 Abu Shama, al-Rawdatayn, in Zakkar (ed.), al-Mawsu‘a, XVIII.8337–40.

  132 al-Bundari, Sana al-barq al-shami, p. 110; Abu Shama, al-Rawdatayn, in Zakkar (ed.), al-Mawsu‘a, XCIII.8199 (quotes Imad al-Din).

  133 C.E. Bosworth, ‘Abu ‘Abdallah al-Khwarazmi on the Technical Terms of the Secretary’s Art’, p. 138 [reprinted in his Medieval Arabic Culture and Admini
stration, London: Variorium, 1982, article XV]; see also musalaha etmek in the Ottoman treaties. V.L. Ménage, ‘On the Constituent Elements of Certain Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Documents’, BSOAS 48, 1985, 288.

  134 A turning point was his conquest of Aleppo (in 579/1183). Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, p. 172.

  135 Stevenson, The Crusaders in the East, p. 236; R.L. Nicholson, Joscelyn III and the Fall of the Crusader States 1134–1199, Leiden: Brill, 1973, pp. 212–15.

  136 See Qur’an XL.35: ‘So do not faint and call for peace; you shall be the upper ones, and Allah is with you’. And see the verses III.139 and IV.104: ‘faint not in seeking the enemy; if you are suffering, they are also suffering as you are suffering; and you have hope from Allah for that for which they cannot hope’.

  137 O.R. Constable, ‘Funduq, Fondaco and Khan in the Wake of Christian Commerce and Crusade’ in A.E. Laiou and R.P. Mottahedeh (eds), The Crusaders from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, 2001, p. 145.

  138 John Tolan and Philippe Josserand, Les relations des pays d’Islam avec le monde latin: du milieu du Xe siecle au milieu du XIIIe siecle, Rosny-sous-Bois: Bréal, 2000, pp. 82–95 provide a popular summary of this international trade.

  139 B.M. Kreutz, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991, pp. 82–3.

  140 Claude Cahen, Orient et Occident au temps des Croisades, p. 109.

  141 William Heywood, A History of Pisa: Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921, pp. 108, 113–14.

  142 Enrica Salvatori, ‘Corsairs’ Crews and Cross-Cultural Interactions: The Case of the Pisan Trapelicinus in the Twelfth Century’, Medieval Encounters 13, 2007, 33–9.

  143 Claude Cahen, ‘Les Marchands etrangers au Caire sous les Fatimides et les Ayyubides’, in Colloque international sur l’histoire du Caire, Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization, 1974, pp. 97–100.

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  144 Jamal al-Din Muhammad b. Salim Ibn Wasil (d. 697/1298), Mufarrij al-kurub fi akhbar bani ayyub, II.491 (ll. 13–18).