Through Arab eyes

A few years ago, a Beirut editor and journalist thought Western readers might like to see how Arabs viewed that historic event known so well in the West as the Crusades. Western historians remember the Crusades as an epic struggle to re-conquer the Holy Land. Whereas Arabs regarded those incursions as brutal, destructive and unprovoked invasions by barbarian hordes.

When we consider the reaction in the Muslim world to the victory of Saladin at the head of a powerful Muslim army over the Crusaders – the greatest victory ever won by a non-European society against the West – we get a sudden glimpse of those crowds on television the other week cheering and carrying on over the destruction of the World Trade Center.

The Arab version of the Crusades tells in florid terms the story of how the Muslims overcame their rivalries and were able to unite long enough to win a holy war. Author Amin Maalouf has combed through the works of Arab chroniclers of the Crusades, many of them eyewitnesses and participants in the events they describe.

The translation from Arabic to French to English reads admirably smoothly. The stories are intriguing and entertaining, giving a vivid portrait of a society nearly destroyed by internal conflict and thoroughly shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture – an alien culture that the Muslim world still seems forced to struggle with after more than a thousand years.

Read Maalouf attentively and you can find many a fascinating insight into the historical forces that even today continue to shape Arab and Islamic consciousness. Maalouf picks up his history in 1096, carrying the first part of his book to 1100 A.D. The contemporary Arab historians and chroniclers never spoke of “the Crusades,” but of the Frankish wars, or Frankish invasions. The word designating the Franks was transcribed in many ways, according to region, author and period. For the sake of consistency, Maalouf chose to use the briefest form, Franj, a word used in colloquial Arabic even today to designate Westerners, and the French in particular.

Maalouf gets his tale off vividly in high style – the recounting of the taking of Jerusalem by the French on July 15, 1099 after a 40-day siege. And a bloody business it was, even when reading from Frankish accounts. Two days later, as Maalouf reports, when the killing stopped, not a single Muslim had been left alive within the city walls. And the Jews fared no better. Although at first the Jews endeavored to defend their quarter, sword in hand, they were driven back with the rest of the Jewish population into the main synagogue. The Franks barricaded all the doors, stacked up wood around the building and set it aflame. Those who managed to escape were cut down in the neighboring alleyways. The rest were burned alive.

The sack of Jerusalem, starting point of a millennial hostility between Islam and the West, aroused no immediate reaction. It would be nearly half a century before the Arab East would mobilize against the invader and before the call to jihad would be sounded. One of the mightiest Muslim warriors, Saladin, a Kurd, has earned a place in western history and literature, noted for a rare graciousness of manner while being nonetheless a fierce warrior. Maalouf opens his section titled “Invasion” with a quote from Saladin: “Regard the Franj! Behold with what obstinacy they fight for their religion, while we, the Muslims, show no enthusiasm for waging holy war.”

But the time came all too soon when Saladin aroused Muslim enthusiasm for holy war – an enthusiasm that still seems to be with us after another millennium.