1. The crusades were a defensive move in reaction to hundreds of years of violent jihad that spread Islam by force to the heart of Europe. True, the battles were bloody but that is they way they waged warfare back then. For a more accurate view read Robert Spencers Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam.
   Rating: 1 / 5

2. I bought the book for my daughter for a college class. She is very satisfied with it’s condition and the speed at which it arrived.
   Rating: 5 / 5

3. When trying to understand the crusades we must distinguish between the geopolitical situation the west was responding to and the resourses and manpower available to it.Western christians at that time wre experiencing a tremendous sensc of loss.The middle east,north Africa, Spain and portions of the Byzantine Empire which had been Christian were how lost to Islam.Also they were experiencing fear and foreboding.Clearly, unless something was done, they were next.
   Then, in 1071, the Turks,newly converted to Islam, defeated the Byzantine army and its Papal allies at the battle of Manzikert in Asia Minor.With this defeat of christian forces, there was no credible Christian force between the turks and Rome.With muslim armies in the south of France and the Mediterranean sea being a muslim lake, the fall of all of Europe to Islam seemed only a matter of time.It was then that the Papacy,being the only unifying force in western Europe,called for the defence of christian civilization by striking back at Islam.
   Unfortunately,western europe did not possess the resources, material and/or human, to execute such a project in a civilized manner.Still,in the opinion of this reviewer,the crusades were a justifiable responce to previous Islamic aggression.Europeans had a right to defend themselves.It was a noble cause to some extent ignobly executed.Its good to see the crusades through their eyes too.
   Rating: 2 / 5

4. Not a bad book, that paints muslims colourfully as a poor little people constantly crushed by evil christians. It starts in 1099 with first crusade. and shows how cruel and evil crusaders were. But our dear Amin Maalouf forgets a “little” detail. For about 300 years muslims were conquering Europe and this was just an answer. In 732 muslim army tried to conquer France and was (thankfully) stopped by Charles Martel at Tours. Muslims conquered Spain, Asia Minor, attacked Byzantine empire. Poor little peacefull muslims, arent they? THEY ARE NOT. And this books is not objective in any way.
   Rating: 3 / 5

5. It is very important to have a book detaling the crusades from the arab or muslim point of view. But is also sheds sometime on the entire problem with the crusades and all clashes between Islam and CHristendom. From Lepanto to the Johad that almost took Paris to the siege of vienna, to the Ottoman colonization of Europe or te European clonization of Africa to the Muslim slave trade in Africa there are rarely if ever books using Arabic sources. This is not because they do not exist, it is because Western authors choose to use thier own slef hating hyperbole rather than read what actually happaned. Most books on the crusade in fact tell most of the story from the arabic point of view but dont use Arabic sources, they simply decided as post modern authors that the crusades are ‘bad’ and therefore they must be judged as such. Little attempt is made ever to understand the motives of the crusaders, or their humanity, or the fact tha they were doing nothing different to Muslims that had been done t Christians since 632 AD. Instead authors have decided that while Saladin remains ‘pure and honorable’ a trait he was given by crusader writers, the crusaders are ‘currupt’ and ‘immoral’ and ‘savage’ and that they are only in the deed for money.

   So it is worthwhile to have a book using the Arab sources from the Arab point of view, no matter the polemics the Arabic judgement of the crusades is the one adopted by the west anyway, so it might as well be read strait from the propogandists mouth than passed off as scholarhsip as most books on the crusades are.

   Seth J. Frantzman
   Rating: 4 / 5

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.