The Crusades Through Arab Eyes » (REISSUE)

The author has combed the works of contemporary Arab chronicles of the Crusades, eyewitnesses and often participants. He retells their story and offers insights into the historical forces that shape Arab and Islamic consciousness today.

Library Journal

This welcome addition to the numerous volumes on the Crusades is a well-written and absorbing history by a Lebanese journalist for the general reader. It makes extensive use of contemporary Arab sources to examine the Crusade era from the Arab viewpoint. The Arabs found the Franks duplicitous, brutal, and unrefined. However, in contrast to the Franks, few Arabs learned their adversary's language or showed interest in their culture, an observation Bernard Lewis treats more fully in his Muslim Discovery of Europe ( LJ 9/1/82). Maalouf interprets the Crusades as a turning point in Arab-Muslim history. Parochialism in the Muslim Middle East and the current division between the West and the Middle East are dated to this prolonged period of hostile contact. Recommended for public and academic libraries. J. Anthony Gardner, California State Univ. Lib., Northridge