Syria in Crusader Times: Conflict and Co-Existence

Presenting numerous interconnected insights into life in Greater Syria in the twelfth century, this book covers a wide range of themes relating to Crusader-Muslim relations. Some chapters deal with various literary sources, including little-known Crusader chronicles, a jihad treatise, a lost Muslim history of the Franks, biographies, letters and poems. Other chapters look at material culture, from coins to urban development, internal relations between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims and between Crusader and Oriental Christians, and the role of the Turkmen. New insights into the career of Saladin are revealed, for example through the work of a little-known propagandist at his court, and Saladin's use of gift-giving for political purposes, as well as neglected aspects of the rule of his family dynasty, the Ayyubids, which succeeded him. Special attention is paid to the Christians residing in the Middle East, from Italians to Melkites and Armenians.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgments Part 1: Sources 1. Hamdan al-Atharibi’s History of the Franks revisited, again, Paul M. Cobb 2. Legitimate authority in the Kitab al-jihad of ʿAli b. Tahir al-Sulami, Kenneth Goudie 3. Politics, religion and the occult in the works of Kamal al-Din Ibn Talha, a vizier, ‘alim and author in thirteenth-century Syria, A.C. Peacock Part 2: Christians 4. Adapting to Muslim rule: the Syrian Orthodox community in twelfth-century north Syria and the Jazira, R. Stephen Humphreys 5. The afterlife of Edessa: remembering Frankish rule, 1144 and after, Christopher MacEvitt Part 3: Convivencia 6. Diplomatic relations and coinage among the Turcomans, the Ayyubids and the Crusaders: Pragmatism and change of identity, Taef Elazhari 7. Symbolic conflict and cooperation in the neglected chronicle of a Syrian Prince, Luke Yarbrough 8. A critique of the scholarly outlook of the Crusades: The case for tolerance and co-existence, Suleiman A. Mourad Part 4: War and Peace 9. The portrayal of violence in Walter the Chancellor’s Bella Antiochena, Thomas Asbridge 10. Infernalising the enemy: images of hell in Muslim descriptions of the Franks during the Crusading period*, Alex Mallett Part 5: Cities 11. Sunnites et Chiites à Alep sous le règne d’al-Salih Isma‘il (569-577/1174-1181): entre conflits et réconciliations, Anne-Marie Eddé 12. The War of Towers: Venice and Genoa at war in Crusader Syria, 1256-58, Thomas F. Madden 13. Gaza in the Frankish and Ayyubid periods: the run-up to 1260 CE, Reuven Amitai Part 6: Saladin’s men 14. Picture-poems for Saladin: ‘Abd al-Mun‘im al-Jilyani’s mudabbajat, Julia Bray 15. Ayyubid Realpolitik and political-military vicissitudes versus counter-crusading ideology in the memoirist-chronicler al-Katib al-Isfahani, Lutz Richter-Bernburg 16. Assessing the evidence for a turning point in Ayyubid-Frankish Relations in a letter by al-Qaḍi al-Fadil, Bogdan C. Smarandache Part 7: Key personalities 17. Saladin, Generosity and Gift-Giving, Jonathan Phillips 18. Hülegü: the new Constantine? Angus Stewart Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Carole Hillenbrand is Honorary Professorial Fellow, Professor Emerita at the University of Edinburgh and Professor of Islamic History at the University of St Andrews since 2013. In 2005 she became the first non-Muslim scholar to be awarded the prestigious King Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies, reflecting her ‘revolutionary approach to the largely one-sided subject of the Crusades’. She is author of The Crusades (EUP, 1999), The Waning of the Umayyad Caliphate (Albany, 1989), A Muslim Principality in Crusader Times (Brill, 1990), and co-editor (with C. E. Bosworth) of Qajar Iran, (Edinburgh, 1984) and editor of The Sultan's Turret (Brill, 1999).

Review :
The book gathers contributions dealing with topics spanning across Medieval Syria and its many constituent societies. It is a stellar line-up including leading scholars working in different specialisms...which have a great deal to offer one another and yet where there has previously been little collaboration. Emphasising variety in contemporary experiences of living and thought that transcended faith boundaries, this refreshingly rich, eclectic collection of essays releases Syria from misleading stereotypes of binary homogeneous religious, political and cultural confrontation to present a layered and nuanced picture of a region characterised by complex diversity and exchange.