Critical Essay on Amin Maalouf's "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes"

Introduction

The book The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Maalouf narrates the invasion of Islam by the Crusaders from 1096 to around 1300 when the Muslims managed to repel the invaders. The book is full of stories of violence and tragedy. The invasion took place along the Mediterranean region from Southern Turkey to modern Egypt. The Christian invaders were referred to as the Crusaders and they lost the battle due to selfish desires to glorify themselves individually and making petty revenge. The Crusaders were driven by political and religious desires. The Muslims viewed the attackers who were from the west as The Franj. They perceived all the people from the west as violent and barbarians. The Muslims regarded the Christians as barbarian following their inhuman acts in the region. The Muslims desired to take their land from the infidels. Due to hunger, the Crusaders would butcher and eat the Muslims. They also that the invaders were one huge united group which was not the case. Maalouf narrative depicts the crusaders who were from the west as barbaric and deconstructs their heroic image by showing their atrocity to the Muslims. The book depicts how the Arab Muslims perceive the war between the Crusaders and the Muslims.

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To start with, the clash between the Muslims and the Christian was largely driven by their religious and spiritual differences. The Crusaders who were Christian disregarded the Muslims religious beliefs and wanted to conquer them and convert them to Christians. The Islam disregarded the Christians and disputed their faith too. As a result of the conflict, they engaged in a series of battles between the 11th and the 13th century. The Christians sought to take the holy lands belonging to the Muslims.

In the 11th century, the occupation of Turks in the Middle East including Jerusalem who had converted to the Islamic faith was seen as a threat to Christians by Pope Urban II. The Turks were thought to be aiding Christian invaders by hosting them in their community. Following the Pope's sentiment, he appealed to his Christian believers to invade the Muslims and flash them from the Holy Land in return for saving their soul.

The Crusaders started by successfully conquering Jerusalem in 1099 which was the holy city. The division among the Muslims aided the process because it was easy to defeat them. For example, Yaghi Siyan and the Muslim sentinel who guarded the city towers were not in good terms. The ruler of Jerusalem opened the gates and windows for the crusaders who accessed Jerusalem and killed children, women, and men in the city. Yaghi Siyan, a Jerusalem ruler escaped on a horseback. The Crusaders proceeded on to the city of Maarath where the dwellers rested the attack for almost two weeks before allowing them to the city. This was on condition that the crusaders could kill them however, the Crusaders committed atrocities to the people by even making acts of cannibalism and killing the families in the city.

Following the barbaric nature of the crusaders, many Muslims allowed them to pass through their city without resistance which would have resulted in a death of many Muslims. However, Jerusalem dwellers did not give in to the crusaders. They opposed them and as a result, the dwellers were killed and their treasures were looted by the crusaders. The Jews in Jerusalem hid in a temple but the Crusaders locked them inside before setting it on fire.

As a result of the high levels of violence perpetrated by the crusaders, the Muslims feared them greatly. They regarded them as barbarians. The Crusaders were highly cruel and inhuman as depicted by their act of massacre in their invasions. During this period, the Muslims in the region had successfully succeeded in scientific knowledge. The Muslims were highly disorganized and perfidious. The invasion of the crusaders continued for decades until leaders such as Saladin, Nur al-Din, and Zangi came up and lead them in the resistance. As the invasion continued,

some of the crusaders returned to Europe and that weakened them. The new Muslim leaders who were resolute began to fight back the crusaders and recovered some of their lost territories.

Saladin was one of the strongest leaders who emerged and lead the Muslims against the crusaders. He recovered the Holy City of Jerusalem through a conciliatory tone whereby the inhabitants paid ransom to avoid war. The poor people were freed and were not required to pay the ransom. The Crusaders' orphans and widows were also assisted using the payments received as ransom before being released out of the holy city. Saladin held the Christians temples in high regards. He respected them and allowed Christians to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem any time they wished to do so.

Despite the rise of strong Muslim leaders like Saladin, some crusaders did not cease attacking the Muslims. They continued until they were completely defeated and expelled in 1291 from the Muslim lands. The barbaric act of crusaders led to a huge hatred between the Christians and the Muslims for many years after the war. The cannibalism episode brought about by Maalouf in his narrative depicts how barbaric the crusaders were to the Muslims.

Maalouf referred to the invaders as uncivilized compared to the Arabs due to their inhuman acts. He argues that the Arabs were civilized and the Arabs attempted to spread the civilization to the French by quoting the Damascene chronicler Usamah Ibn Munqidh and the hygiene to law. Some French doctors who had a call to cure the sick were instead cited having killed their patients which is contrary to a duty of a doctor. The Crusaders were cruel while the Arabs were magnanimous. For example, on several occasion, Saladin freed the Frankish people who were poor and could not afford to pay a ransom. He also freed King Guy on condition that he would keep the promise of peace made to Saladin. On the other hand, the French had tortured the patriarch of Antioch and mutilated the priest of Cyprus who was a Greek. The French would spread religious propaganda, attacked Constantinople and during the raid, they looted churches and killed monks and priests.

In the middle east, unlike in the western world, a man's honor was tied to the sexual behaviors of their wives. The invaders further aggravated their assaults on the Arab not only by physical assault but also by sexually assaulting their women. Raping of the Arabic women had a negative psychological impact on men. The book by Maalouf plays a role in demeaning women. They are rarely mentioned by names and the few references to them is subjected to their sexuality. They are silenced, victimized, and are subjected to the honor of their men. Women are the one who was affected most by the crime perpetrated by the crusaders. The narrative by Maalouf is only about men and thus ignore women in all aspects. Maalouf failed to give a detailed description of rapes and other sexual assaults committed against women during the invasion. Failure to capture the names of women in the book historically silences them out.

Maalouf shows the complex political disposition during the invasion by the crusaders. For example, Maalouf who identified himself as a Christian of Abraham decently was discriminated by the Arabic Muslims who feared that they would betray them to the French who were Christians. The French also feared them since they were Arabs despite being Christians. The Arab Christian discrimination and double victimization are revealed in the battle of Antioch where they were shunned away by the Muslim Arabs. On the other hand, the western Christian did not welcome them in their camp. Ethnicity, therefore, played a big role in the crusade and Muslim confrontation. Several alliances were made between the Arab Christians and the western Christians who were the crusaders. However, they were short-lived and they would be broken shortly after. The leaders of both camps used the alliances in pursuit of personal interests.

The book by Maalouf shows that while the western world was intolerant of other people and religions, the Muslims were receptive of the other people even during the era of crusade invasion. However, even during the war, the Muslims had a culture of letting the Crusaders go on condition that they could not be violent. Maalouf illustrates how the two functions borrowed culture from the other or influenced each other culturally. The Muslims contributed to the western civilization and so did the western Christians.

Conclusion

By large, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes depicts what the Arabs went through during the Crusaders' invasion. It shows a struggle of ideologies. It ignores the role women played during the era which is quite unfortunate because women played a critical role during the invasion. The book silences them from history. It also depicts the Muslims as victims of the crusaders even though by the end of the era, they managed to chase away the crusaders and they in fact captured back their lost lands and cities. The book cast aspersion to the Arabic civilization. It depicts as if the western brought civilization to the Arabs yet during the period, the middle east was already civilized and civilization indeed declined after the invasion by the French. The crusade is presented as a beginning of incursion of the Middle East region by the Western forces. As it is today, the Arabs did not join forces to fight the western forces or the foreign aggressors. During the crusades invasion, the Arabs were divided ethnically where the Christian descendants of Abraham origin could not be trusted by the other Arabs. Maalouf argues that the Middle East or the Arabs remain captive of the same forces that led to their downfall. For example, the region lacks rule of democracy and as a result, it is faced with violence which emanates from the politics of succession. He further perpetuates stereotypes by referring to the west as the natural enemies and the pope as the supreme commander of the crusades. The term natural enemies fail to recognize the latter events that have made the Arabs have a negative attitude towards the west.

Bibliography

Maalouf, Amin. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. EBSCO Publishing, 2018. PDF e-book.