Haddad, W. Z. (1983), 'The Crusaders through Muslim eyes', The Muslim World, Vol. 73, no.

3‐4, pp 234-252.

THE CRUSADERS THROUGH MUSLIM EYES

Although it was the Mamluks wh_o dealt the coup de grace to the
Crusaders after a struggle of forty-one years, the encounter between
the Crusaders and the Muslim world of the Near East lasted for 195
years. Consequently the Muslim image of the Crusaders had been long
in the making. It was reinforced by the common experience of the
community regardless of the changes in regimes or dynasties that
assumed power in various Muslim provinces surrounding the four
principalities created by the Crusaders in Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, and
the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
To analyze the image that had crystallized in the Muslim mind by
the time of the Mamluks, I have chosen to look at selected works
representing three areas within a vast field of writings, including two
authors from the pre-Mamluk and three from the Mamluk period.
First, from among the historians: the famous lbn al-Athir (1160-1234), 1
al-Maqrizi (1364-1442), 2 and lbn lyas (1448-1524).3 Second, represent­
ing a genre of literature classed as memoirs, the reflections of Usama b.
Munqidh (1095-1188). 4 A third category is that of apologetic and
polemic writing, illustrated by the work of the Maliki jurisconsult and
Ash'arite theologian al-Qarafi (1227-1285). 5

I.

The Muslim historians in recounting events that took place during

the two-century encounter between the local population and the
Crusaders initially perceived the latter as alien intruders who were bent
on senseless destruction. Unlike other conquerors, the Crusaders were

1 'IZ7 al-Din lbn al-Athir, Af-Kiimil.fi 1-tiirikh (Beirut: Dar $adir and Dar Bayrut Ii

'Hiba'a wa '1-nashr. 1966), Vols. X, XI and XII. Henceforth referred to as Tiirikh.

: Ta4i al-Din A�mad b. 'Ali al-Maqnzi, Kitiib a/-suluk Ii ma' r/fat duwol al-muluk, ed.
MuI:tammad Mu�\afa Ziyiida (Cairo: Ma\ba'at lajnat al-ta'lif wa '1-tarjma wa '1-nashr,
1934. 1939. 1941). Vol. I. parts 1-2; Vol. I. part 3; and Vol. II. parts 1-2, respectively.
Henceforth referred to as Suliik.
'MuI:tammad b. AI:tmad b. lyiis al-l:fanafi, Badiit al-zuhur.fi waqiit al-duhur, ed.
with an introduction by MuI:tammad Mu�tafa (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1975), Vol. I,
part I. Henceforth referred to as Waqii ,<.
• Kitiih al-f 1ihiir Ii Usiimii h. Munqidh. ed. with an introduction by Philip Hitti
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1930).
1 Shihab al-Din AI:tmad b. Idris al-Maliki al-QarAfi, Kitiib al-ajwiba al-ftikhira (/i 1-
radd 'a/ti al-as' ila al:f�jira). on the margin of Kittib al:fariq bayn al-makhluq wo 1-
khiiliq, by al-l;liijj 'Abd al-Ral:tmAn B!jajl ZAda (Cairo: Maiba'at al-mawsifit, n.d.).
Hereafter al-Qariifi's text is referred to as Ajwiha.
234
 THE CRUSADERS THROUGH MUSLIM EYES 235

not interested in maintaining their hegemony over the area in order to

collect taxes; rather, their purpose appeared to be the establishment of
resident colonies through the displacement of the Muslim population.
While they displayed no interest in converting the Muslims to
Christianity, their fanaticism was such that they massacred the male
inhabitants of entire cities that resisted their conquest.
The Muslim historians chronicle the encounters and battles in a
factual, dispassionate and descriptive manner. The severest remark Ibn
al-Athir has to add when he is reporting a Crusader breach of a truce is
an occasional imprecation, “May God curse them” (Idanahurn Allcih)
or “May God abandon them” (khadhalahum AIlcih).6This is the same
imprecation he uses in commenting on what he perceives to be useless
encounters between Muslim princes fighting to expand their territory,
each at the expense of the other. (By the time of Ibn IyBs, in fact even
of the earlier al-Maqrizi, these curses disappear from usage-the
Crusaders being no longer a threat to Muslim provinces.)
The historians decry the division among the Muslims that led to the
intrusion of the menacing Crusaders’ presence in their midst. Their
ultimate goal and underlying desire was to liberate the land and send
the Crusaders back home. Ibn al-Athir rightly attributes the success of
the Crusaders to “the preoccupation of the military and the kings of
Islam in fighting each other. They were of differing opinions and
inclinations, and thus their possessions were squandered.”’
With the establishment of the Fatimid (Ismricili ShTites) Caliphate in
Cairo in 969, the Sunni Caliphate in Baghdad was weakened and the
sectarian rivalries intensified. The news of the first Crusader assault in
1097 against the Sunni Seljuks in Anatolia was received with joy in
Cairo. They sent an envoy to the Crusaders in Antioch to congratulate
them on their victory and to try to reach an agreement with them not
to trespass on Fatimid territory. The following year, 1098, the
Crusaders returned the honor by sending a delegation to Cairo. This,
however, did not stop them from their goal, the conquest of Jerusalem
which they achieved on July 15, 1099, occupying that coveted city
which had been won by the Fatimids from the Seljuks only three years
earlier. Even this, however, did not unite the Muslims against “the
infidels.” The division among Muslims persisted until years later when
S a h h al-Din the Ayyubid was able to unite them under the Islamic
banner of jihcid only then were they able to defeat the Crusaders.

* Tririkh, X, 343, 373, 394, 411, etc.; XII, 482.

7 Ibid., X. 373.
 236 THE MUSLIM WORLD

That, however, did not put a n end to attempts of undermining the

Ayyubid regime by Fatimid agents who sought new alliances with the
Crusaders to achieve their purpose.8
With the passage of time, the Crusaders who settled in the
principalities and the Kingdom of Jerusalem became part of the
indigenous political kaleidoscope. They participated regularly in the
power struggle that characterized the period as various princes and
rulers schemed and plotted against their competitors in order to
enhance their power or expand their domain. Like the Muslim princes
around them, they sought to maintain a balance of power as rivalries
arose among the Crusaders themselves. The historians tell us of battles
fought between one Crusade principality allied to a Muslim ruler
against another Crusade principality and its Muslim ally. When, for
example, Ridwan, the ruler of Aleppo, was threatened by Jswali, the
ruler of MQil, he turned to Tancrid of Antioch for help. Jiiwali,
unable to face two armies, sought help from Baldwin of Edessa whom
he had captured in a previous battle but whom he had released in lieu
of a ransom; he was now willing to forgo the rest of the ransom.
Tancrid of Antioch won the battle for his ally Ridwan, while Jawali’s
army fled to Baldwin’s territory for safety. Baldwin, in defeat, offered
hospitality, medical care t 0 - m wounded, and clothed those in need
before departure?
It is worth noting that none of the contemporary historians calls the
Crusaders by this name. They are all simply referred to as al-Faranj or
al-lfranj, that is, “the Franks.” Thus the Crusaders were identified
primarily as foreigners rather than Christians, though a t times they are
designated as kuffGr or infidels.10 They are portrayed as courageous

” Ibid.. 273; Ibn al-Athir indicated that the Fatimids welcomed the Crusaders a s a
buffer between themselves and the Seljuks of Anatolia. Ibid., 656-57; he writes that the
I s d i l i s (Sevener Shi‘ites) in Banfis, Syria, conspired with the Crusaders of Tyre to
deliver Damascus t o their hands in lieu of Tyre, so as to put the Crusaders between them
and the Sunni Muslims. The conspiracy discovered, the i s d i l i s , fearing reprisal, invited
the Crusaders t o take over their city and allow them to live in their territory in security.
Even two years after the fall of the Fatimids, Fatimid agents conspired with the
Crusaders of Sicily and the Palestinian coast t o regain Egypt. The Crusaders, led by
William I1 (d. 1175) landed in Alexandria in 1173. but the mission failed. Tirikh, XI,
3 9 8 4 1 , 4 1 2 - 1 4 . Sultik, I, 53, 55-57; WaqriP, 240. All of this explains Lewis’s remark
about William of Tyre “who reports that the Fatimids were always friendlier to the
Franks than were the Sunni Muslims, and notes the glee of the Fatimid envoys on
hearing the Seljuk defeat at Nicea.” Bernard Lewis. “Egypt and Syria.” in The
Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. I: n e Central Islamic Land, ed. P.M. Holt et al.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), chap. 2, 196.
Tirikh, X. 464-66.
’‘) Ibid.. 310. 373. 345. 593. passim. Cf. SulGk. 1. 12, 43, 49, 50. 55, 57, 315 and

Wuqi i‘. 22 1-22. 23 1-32. 243.

 THE CRUSADERS THROUGH MUSLIM EYES 237

warriors, ferocious and fanatic, representing “something new and

unfamiliar in the Islamic Orient, where men of different religions had
long lived peacefully side by side.”]’
These historians, aware of Islamic codes for war-fare and laws of
diplomacy developed over centuries of confrontation with the
Byzantines and saddened by the unnecessary suffering of the non-
combatants, portray the Crusaders as barbarians since they evidence
no restraint or allegiance to a war ethic that would spare the civilian
population from annihilation. The chronicles report about the
occupation of cities taken by force where the Crusaders indiscriminately
massacred Muslims who could not flee and looted their homes:
Antioch, Acre, Haifa, A r s ~ Suraj,
, Jubayl, among others, and most
significantly Jerusalem where, because of the sanctity of the city,
Muslim historians expected a different kind of behavior on the part of
the Crusaders.12 The reconquest of Jerusalem in 1187 by S a k h al-Din
and the sparing of the Crusader population from massacre by Muslims
is cast “in conscious contrast to the Crusaders’ behavior.”l3 Moreover
the Crusaders were not trustworthy, for even when they gave their
guarantee of security to a city that had surrenderred, as was the case of
the city of Jubayl, they tortured the citizens and confiscated their
wealth.14
According to the reports, when the Crusaders encountered Salah al-
Din they came to respect him “for his unfailing chivalry and his fidelity
to his word.”l5 Nonetheless, we are told, “this did not prevent them
from repeated displays of bigotry and treachery; most notably when
they retook Acre on terms . . . and Richard had the garrison
massacred, including women and children. . . .”I6
The historians clearly do not provide a complete picture of the
Crusaders because of their concentration on reporting battles,
massacres, pillage, and breaches of treaties and truces. They are willing
to give credit to the opposing warrior when due, but tend to
concentrate on what they perceive to be dishonorable conduct and
excessive cruelty.

‘I Lewis. “Egypt and Syria.” in Holt. Conihridge History. 1. 196-97.

I! Tarikh. 272-75. 372-73. 324-25. 282-86. Cf. SuWk, 1. 96-97, 587.
l3 Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1979).
11. 267.
l4 Tarikh. X. 372.
I5 Hodgson. Venture. 11, 267. See Sullik. 1, 96-97.
Ih Hodgson. Venture. 11. 267. Cf. Sulrik, 1. 105.
 238 THE MUSLIM WORLD

11.

Unlike the chronicles of the historians which provide a panoramic

view of the Crusaders as part of the power politics of the region, the
Memoirs recounted by Us&@ b. Munqidh give us a more intimate and
authentic insight into a Muslim warrior’s long and personal experience
of the foreign intrusion. UamB was a warrior of long experience who
had been raised on the concepts of Arab chivalry, gallantry, and
proper aristocratic behavior.” He had been appointed by different
rulers to serve on various diplomatic missions to Crusader colonies as
well as to other Muslim states. The prevailing unsettled conditions of
his time with alternating periods of peace and war (including a
Crusader attack on his hometown Shayzar) found him passionately
fighting the Crusaders at times, while at others he visited them in
Haifa, Acre, Nablus, Asqalon and Jerusalem, and in time appeared to
have developed a friendship with the knights Templars.l* U S a ’ s
frank, curious and acutely observant reflections of the Crusaders
provide us with one of the very few contemporary accounts of the
perceptions of the Muslim public of the cultural and military encounter
’
between the East and the West.19 Yet we must remember that his
accounts are marginal anecdotes within the context of reminiscences of
a long and active life (ninety-two out of the ninety-three years he lived
fell in the Crusade period). They dwell on incidents where the
expectations, values and norms of the two cultures clashed, enhancing
the view of the “foreigner” not only as different but also as uncivilized,
especially regarding sexual norms, where the Crusader is deemed below
contempt.
The disdain of the conqueror’s mores endowed the Muslims with a
feeling of innate superiority and a passionate adherence to their own
moral system based on the assurance of the possession of truth. This
helped preserve a certain elan in the community which despite its
political disintegration continued to reject the conqueror’s values as

USm b. Munqidh was born July 4, 1095 in Shayzar, northern Syria, one year
before the first crusade was launched. and died on November 16, 1188, one year after
SaPh al-Din (Saladin) had regained Jerusalem. For a biography of USam&, see: Philip
K. Hitti. A n Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades:
Memoirs qf Uscimah Ibn-Munqidh (Kitrib ol-ftibcir) (New York: Columbia University
Press. 1929). Introduction, pp. 3-21. All quotations from Uam are taken from Hitti’s
translation. henceforth referred to as Memoirs.
IX Menzoirs. p. 161.
Iy Ibid.. p. 14.
 THE CRUSADERS THROUGH MUSLIM EYES 239

inferior and did not show any interest in assimilating them. In fact this
attitude reduced the enemy to a sub-human level.
Mysterious are the works of the Creator, the author of all things!
When one comes to recount cases regarding the Franks, he
cannot but glorify Allah (Exalted is He) and sanctify him, for he
sees them [the Franks] as animals possessing the virtues of
courage and fighting but nothing else; just as animals have only
the virtues of strength and carrying loads. I shall now give some
instances of their doings and their curious mentality.20

The denigration of the Crusaders does not appear to be primarily an

epithet to reduce the enemy to size in order to psychologically cope
with his dominance; rather, it reflects the inability or unwillingness of
the Muslims to accept the Crusaders’ moral and value system which
they judge as unfit for civilized human social behavior. This, however,
is not a blanket rejection of all foreigners, rather, we note that Us-
distinguished between the knights whom he held in high esteem and the
later Crusaders recruited from among the common people of Europe.
He also made a distinction between the Crusaders of long residence
and those more recently arrived. The former were favored because they
had in essence recognized the superiority of the Muslim culture by
becoming acculturated. They had adopted the more comfortable Arab
dress, learned to enjoy the Arab cuisine, and some even gave up the
eating of pork.*’ They had, he observed with approval, taken up the
Muslim custom of cleanliness and frequent bathing. In contrast the
new comers were dirty, uncouth, rude and fanatic.22 His preference for
the knights Templars was not solely due to their chivalry and rank, but
was also influenced by their tolerance of his religious practices. They
always gave him a place inside the Dome of the Rock (which had been
transformed into a church) and respected his need to pray in his own
way. On one occasion, a Crusader interrupted U d m at prayer twice
by trying to force him to face the east rather than the direction of the
qibla. The Templars had to interfere and remove the Crusader from
the church to enable U s 2 m to finish his prayers.23 As to his view of
Crusaders’ religiosity, he perceived them as devout in their faith,
especially as demonstrated in their sincere desire to make the

*O Ibid.. p. 161.
21 Ibid., pp. 163-66, 169-70.
22 Ibid., pp. 163-64, 166.
23 Ibid.. p. 164.
240 THE MUSLIM WORLD

pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He was, however, astonished about their

ignorance, discovering that only their priests seemed to know the
scriptures and the theology of the faith, while the rest were content to
imitate them in their ritual. Where the Crusaders’ beliefs conflicted
with the Muslim doctrines of monotheism and the understanding of
the role of Jesus as limited to that of a prophet, U4m&did not hesitate
to call them infidel. Once during a visit to the Dome of the Rock in
Jerusalem, with al-Amir Mucin al-Din, a Crusader asked the Arab
prince if he wished “to see God as a child?“ The accommodating prince
was then led to a wall whereupon the Crusader pointed to a portrait of
“Mary with Christ (may peace be upon him)” as a n infant in her lap.
He then said, “This is God as a child.”Z4 Usiimii, reflecting his distaste
for the remark, adds “But Allah is exalted far above what the infidels
say about Him!’”’
Another difference between East and West that astonished Ua-
and elicited, as indicated earlier, his condemnation was in the area of
Crusader sexual and social mores. He found it incredible that a people
whom he perceived to be fanatical in religion and courageous in
warfare, willing to risk their lives for a cause, were so lacking in rigor
or even jealousy in their mores. This not only reflected the Islamic
perception of the essential grounding of morality in the context of
religion, its prescriptions and proscriptions; but also in the Arab
definition of honor as inextricably bound to the man’s ability to
protect his woman from access to other males.26
Besides the discrepancy between Eastern and Western concepts of
morality and the proper relation of the sexes to each other, the
difference in the sense of personal privacy in the two cultures also
shocked him. Islamic law had clearly legislated that the private parts of
the body should not be displayed. Conversely, he reports, some
Crusaders-especially the knights-having apparently learned to enjoy
cleanliness, disapproved “of girding a cover around one’s waist while in
the [public] bath.’”’ A knight visiting a bath in al-Ma‘arra was
annoyed with the owner Salim’s modesty and pulled off his waist
towel. This revealed Salim’s freshly shaved pubes, which pleased the
knight enough to require S l i m to shave him in a similar fashion. This
was shocking enough for Salim. When the knight sent for his wife to
join him in the men’s bath, and asked SBlim to shave her too, he was

Zd I bid.
25 Ibid.
Ih Ibid.. pp. 1 6 4 4 5 .
2’ Ibid., p. 165.
 THE CRUSADERS THROUGH MUSLIM EYES 241

even more astonished but could not but oblige for he was handsomely
paid for his services.28 UamB, from his moral perspective, found this
outrageous, and, in view of his knowledge of the Crusaders’ daring,
quite incomprehensible. He exclaims:
Consider now this contradiction! They have neither jealousy nor
zeal but they have great courage, although courage is nothing but
the product of zeal and of ambition to be above ill repute.29

His censure of their “inferior” concept of moral behavior did not

keep him from noting with approval the few Crusaders who were
acculturating by appropriating the salubrious customs of the Arabs.30
This, however, was not sufficient, for he goes on to show that
acculturation does not necessarily lead to assimilation nor does the
total immersion in a culture lead to an alteration in the essential
identity of the person. When conditions seem right, the person will
revert to his or her original identity. For this UsBm gives the example
of a Crusader woman who was taken captive and married to al-Amir
Shihslb al-Din b. Salim, the lord of the Castle of Ja‘bar. She gave birth
to a son, Badran, who at his father’s death became the governor of the
town, while she was the real power behind him. Yet, rather than
remaining in this prestigious position, her fanaticism finally led her to
flee to Saruj in the Crusader province of Edessa where she married a
mere Crusader shoemaker.3’
Another Crusader captive, a lad, converted to Islam and practiced it
genuinely. Usfim’s father married him to a pious Muslim girl and paid
all expenses. The man had two sons and was very happy with them.
Nonetheless, he fled five years later to the Crusader town of Afamiya
with his wife, children and all of his belongings, and immediately
thereupon they reverted to Christianity.32
The discrepancies and differences in the value systems of the two
cultures were not restricted to the personal level, they were also evident
on the diplomatic front. The treachery and perfidy of the Crusaders
were evident also in their unwillingness to abide by treaties or be
faithful to agreements. One incident was experienced personally and
painfully by Usiimii. After obtaining written guarantees from the
Crusader king for safe conduct for his own family which was moving

2% Ibid., pp. 165-66.

29 Ibid.. p. 166.
Ibid., pp. 169-70.
Ibid.. pp. 159-60.
32 Ibid.. p. 160.
242 THE MUSLIM WORLD

from Cairo to Damascus, UsiiM was outraged when the Crusaders

attacked the boat at Acre, despite its being “a Frankish vessel,” and
pillaged it. “In the vessel were jewelry, which had been entrusted to the
women, clothes, gems, swords, weapons and gold and silver amounting
to about thirty thousand dinars. The king took it all.”33 The safe
arrival of the family, however, “made the loss of money . . . a
comparatively easy matter to endure-with the exception of the books,
which were four thousand volumes, all of the most valuable kind.
Their loss has left a heartsore that will stay with me to the last day of
my life.’” This tendency to treachery and lack of adherence to treaties,
he notes, may be reserved to those outside their group. Their
faithfulness to one another was worthy of note (given his experience of
Muslim chieftains internecine intrigues). Thus he notes Baldwin’s
chivalry with approval. During a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Roger, lord
of Antioch, beseached Baldwin to promise him that should he (Roger)
die before Baldwin, the latter would rule over Antioch; and if Roger
were to survive Baldwin, Jerusalem would revert to him. Roger was
killed in battle against Najm al-Din flgMzi b. Urtuq, so Baldwin seized
power in Antioch.35 Seven years later “a lad in rags” disembarked at
al-Suwaydiyya, Antioch’s seaport, and introduced himself as Bohe-
mond’s son. UsZimii graphically describes Baldwin’s response:
Baldwin thereupon delivered Antioch to him, left it and pitched
his tents outside the city. Our envoy, who was then visiting him,
stated to us on his oath that he, that is, King Baldwin, bought the
fodder for his horses that night from the market, while the
granaries of Antioch were overflowing with provisions. Baldwin
then returned to Jerusalem.36

Another area in which Uama finds Crusader practice reprehensible

is in the treatment of the elderly, especially women. His curiosity about
the Crusader way of life had taken him to Tiberius to watch the
celebration of “one of their feasts.’’ One of the events was a contest
between “two aged women” who were made to race to the end of a
field which had a roasted pig. Each woman “was accompanied by a
detachment of horsemen urging her on. At every step they took, the
women would fall down and rise again, while the spectators would

33 Ibid.. p. 61.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.. pp. 14849.
M Ibid.. p. 150.
 THE CRUSADERS THROUGH MUSLIM EYES 243

laugh. Finally one of them got ahead of the other and won that pig for
a prize.”37
Besides customs and practices Usam2 noted the legal system utilized
by the Crusaders and deemed it incapable of arriving at a logical and
just basis for determining guilt. A trial by duel which took place in
Nablus, for example, brought an old peasant, accused of guiding
certain Muslim thieves in a Crusader village, against a strong
blacksmith who was chosen by the villagers to represent the accuser.
The result was not unexpected, but the scene was bloody and ended in
the death of the accused.38 Another trial U S - reported was an ordeal
by water when a young man born of a Crusader father and a Muslim
mother was charged with attacking Crusader pilgrims and killing them,
and was tried according to the Crusaders’ procedure. Tied with a rope
around his hands and shoulders, he was dropped in a tank of water,
the idea being that if he sank he would be pulled out with the rope and
declared innocent, and if he floated he would be declared guilty as
charged! The young man was unsuccessful in his attempts to sink, and
was duly punished by the “pierc[ing] of his eyeballs with red-hot
awls.”39
On the other hand, Ustima was impressed, though puzzled, by the
resolution of a case he had brought against a Crusader who had
trespassed on his land and carried away some of his sheep during a
period of truce. Though pleased with the judgment rendered in his
favor to be compensated for his loss, he was bemused by the manner of
arriving at the judgment. Instead of a judge, his case was tried by a
jury of peers. King Fulk, before whom the case was brought, appointed
six or seven knights to decide the case for him. The knights retired by
themselves and consulted together until they agreed. Then they
returned to the audience chamber of the king and said, “ ‘we have
passed judgment to the effect that the lord of &nyas should be fined
the amount of damage he wrought.’ The king accordingly ordered him
to pay that fine.”40 USm appears to have missed the concepts
underlying the Western sense of justice. He wrote, “such judgment,
after having been pronounced by the knights, not even the king nor
any of the chieftains of the Franks can alter or evoke. Thus the knight
is something great in their esteem.”41

37 Ibid.. p. 167.
3” Ibid.. pp. 167-68.
39 Ibid.. pp. 1 6 8 4 9 .
40 Ibid.. pp. 93-94.
41 Ibid., p. 94.
244 THE MUSLIM WORLD

Another area of cultural differences noted by Us~lmFtwas in the

medical field. The Crusaders’ medical practice was not only primitive
compared to Arab medicine of his time, but also appeared to be
heavily based on superstition. A Crusader lord of al-Munaytira (in the
Lebanon) requested UsSmii’s uncle (the king of Shayzar) to send him a
physician. Dr. ThSbit, an Arab Christian, was sent and found two
patients who needed his help: a knight with an abscess in his leg which
he started treating with a poultice, and a woman suffering from
imbecility for whom he prescribed a special diet instead of the staple of
garlic and mustard eaten in the area. Both patients improved. But
suddenly a Crusader physician appeared and took charge of the
patients. He ordered that the knight’s leg be amputated, whereupon the
knight died. As for the woman, he attributed her sickness to the devil,
and stopped her diet. Her condition worsened. So he made an incision
in her head and rubbed salt on the bone, and soon she also
But UsZinCi, a fair and honest observer, often followed a n anecdote
of derision with one of praise, approval or admiration. Thus having
criticized the Crusaders’ judicial system, he praised the sense of justice
of the knights. Attacking their unfaithfulness to agreements with
outsiders, he approved of their loyalty to promises made to each other.
His criticism does not appear to proceed from prejudice as much as
from his assurance of the superiority of the foundational principles of
Islamic civilization. Where credit was due, he gave it. In the field of
medicine, after illustrating their crude and often fatal practices, he
cited some more successful treatments. In one case he noted not only
the Crusader medical knowledge but the altruistic manner in which it
was shared. It appeared that the son of an artisan of his home town
Shayzar who suffered from scrofula was noticed by a Crusader in
Antioch who stipulated:
Wilt thou swear by thy religion that if I prescribe to thee a medi-
cine which will cure thy boy, thou wilt charge nobody fees for
prescribing it thyself! In that case, I shall prescribe to thee a medi-
cine which will cure the boy. . . . The man took the oath. . . .43

The Crusader then proceeded to prescribe the treatment which healed

the boy.

42 Ibid., p. 162.
43 Ibid.. p. 163.
 THE CRUSADERS THROUGH MUSLIM EYES 245

For the third synoptic view of the Crusaders we turn to the

celebrated Maliki jurisconsult and Ash‘arite theologian Abb ’I-‘Abbas
S h i b b al-Din Ahmad b. Idris b. ‘Abd a l - R a h ~ nal-Sankji al-
QarBfi. Born in Cairo in 1227, he witnessed the Mamluk assumption of
power in Egypt and their struggle against invasions by the Mongols
and the Crusaders. During his lifetime, the Crusaders reconquered
Damietta and marched on Cairo; thus he had seen too much killing
and suffering to forget or forgive the Crusaders. He died in 1285, six
years prior to the final expulsion of the Crusaders.
Al-QarBfi’s views of the Crusaders are briefly but clearly expressed
in his polemical work AI-Ajwiba al-fikhira fi ’I-radd ‘alri 7-as’iIa al-
fijird4 (“The Magnificient Answers in Refutation of the Insolent
Questions”). It is an image that is informed by his special interest and
determined by the disciplines of his profession as a jurisconsult and
theologian. Hence, unlike the historians and the regular observer, his
perspective is focused on theological, ethical and legal issues.
Confident in his Islamic faith and convinced of the superiority of its
doctrinal assertions, its jurisprudence and ethics, he finds the
Crusaders ignorant, stupid, immoral and heretical.45 Repeatedly he
attempts to demonstrate that the principles of their faith are not based
on reason and do not conform to the divine precepts of either Torah or
the Gospel-even as these scriptures have survived in their present
“corrupt” condition.
With disdain al-Qarrlfi reports an example of legal practice among
the Crusaders which he considers abominable; its implementation was
not based on any divine precept and it defied any common sense of
reason and justice.

44 This work is ostensibly written as a response to a letter written by the Melkite

bishop. Paul of Sidon to a Muslim friend in Sidon. [For Bishop Paul’s letter, see Paul
Khoury. Paul D’Aniioche: EvFque Melkiie de Sidon ( X I F s.) (Beirut: The Catholic
Press. 1964.1The refutation of the letter comprises only one unit out of four in the book.
The second unit responds to fifteen other questions often raised by Christians and Jews.
In the third unit. he raises, in turn, one-hundred questions (which turn out to be one
hundred and seven) to Jews and Christians regarding matters of doctrine. law and
practice. The final unit is devoted to the discussion of fifty references from the Jewish
and Christian scriptures in which he attempts to demonstrate the validity and foretelling
of the mission and prophethood of Muhammad. He rarely refers to the Crusaders as
lfrunj, o r Franks; rather, he addresses them as Na@B or Christians, but the context
makes it clear when he is addressing the Crusaders alone and when as a part of
Christendom.
45 A.jwiha. pp. 82. 97, 158. 179.
246 THE MUSLIM WORLD

In Acre, the seat of their kingdom, the Christians are all agreed
that if a man accuses another of homicide, the two men are
brought forth and their heads are shaven. Then they are handed
pick-axes and a horn with a sharp end, and are led to the gate of
Tora where they begin to beat each other on the head. Anyone
who knocks the other down, sits on his chest and plants the horn
in his eyes. The guardian of the homicide victim then takes his
eyes. They believe that the one defeated in this duel is the guilty
one, and the victor is the truthful one!4n

Al-Qariifi concludes:
Observe then these laws! Can you imagine that they can be
enacted among a people who have any brains? This practice
continues without it occurring to anyone that the wronged man
may wane in strength at the meeting of the wrongdoer.
Moreover, they d o not find these statutes in the Gospel or the
Torah; rather they follow their own rules in inventing their
religion.47

As to the matters of faith, al-Qaflfi is comprehensive and lucid,

bringing together all previous arguments used by his predecessors
during centuries of apologetic-polemic debate with the Christians,
utilizing quotations from the Gospels where appropriate. He refutes
the Christian concepts of the incarnation, the divinity of Christ, the
trinity, the efficacy of the atonement through the crucifixion of Christ
and the concept of original sin.48 He also demonstrates, through
linguistic analysis, that the Christian creed is self-contradictory and has
no basis in the Gospel, proving to his own satisfaction the insufficiency
of miracles as a proof of the divinity of C h r i ~ t . 4 ~
The Crusaders' religious practices, especially the claim during Holy
Communion of "eating the body of the Lord and drinking his blood,"
are depicted as repugnant, illogical, and at times blasphemous.50 The
Christian disobedience of God's law led to their neglect of the

40 Ibid.. pp. 4-5; cf. 192-93.

47 Ibid.. p. 5.
4X Ibid.. pp. 154. 158. 171-76, 195-96, 199.

4y Ibid.. pp. 158-68.

5" Ibid.. pp. 169. 229-31. Al-QaBfi argues that Christians are more vicious to Christ
than were the Jews. The Jews killed him once (according to both Christians and Jews);
but Christians continuously mutilate him. Ibid., p. 231.
 THE CRUSADERS THROUGH MUSLIM EYES 247

prescribed dietary laws, and their turning to the east in prayer instead
of to their qibla, Jerusalem.51
The Christian leadership of the church is addressed with special
invective. The bishops are being held responsible for not utilizing
reason and logic in ascertaining proper Christian doctrine, and they are
accused of having fashioned and adopted practices based on their own
whims and inclinations.’* Other criticisms were addressed to priests,
monks, and the Christian masses who approach God without ritual
purification (ablutions), who make the sign of the cross and prostrate
themselves before statues (noting that even the disciples did not
prostrate themselves before Christ who is more worthy than statues
made of stone and wood), who celebrate feast days (such as the feast of
Michael, the feast of the cross, the feast of lights, among others) and
who fast on unprescribed days.53 He also attacked the celibacy of
monks and nuns as a deviation.54
Besides their responsibility in maintaining the deviant teachings of
Christianity the bishops are censured for continuous alterations in the
doctrines of the church, especially in the “ten” councils referred to in
The History [of Christianity] by a certain al-Masiw, who reports on
the bishops of the church meeting at Constantinople and Alexandria to
define the Christian faith. Al- Qadi observes that:
Whenever they agreed that such and such is the true faith, after a
while they reject it and attribute infidelity to whosoever held to it;
and they affirm another creed. They, therefore, follow the
insinuations of their bishops and not the message of their Lord.55

Al-Qarrifi perceived the Christians/ Crusaders’ most fundamental

weakness t o be their imitation of their forerunners beginning with Paul

5 1 Ibid., pp. 170-79. 180, 189. 192. Al-Qadfi points out that Christians argue that the
body must remain in its natural created state, therefore uncircumcised; yet they practice
castration or even cutting of the sex organ of males. However, he affirms, the Torah
explicitly prescribes killing of the uncircumcised as uncircumcision is an indication of
their infidelity. Ibid., pp. 170, 179.
52 Ibid., pp. 158, 173-74. 179, 191-93, 224ff. Al-Qadfi shows awareness of the
existence of Christian fiqh or canon law (most probably the Coptic Church’s laws!)
which he says, is just a few more than five-hundred laws-far too few for the guidance of
the community-and judges that they d o not come from and are not based upon Jesus’
teachings. Sound as they may be in themselves, they are still invalid because they derive
from human effort and conjecture. Ibid., pp. 225-27 definitely refer to Crusaders’
Christian practice.
x Ibid., pp. 66, 180-82, 186-88, 203, 227-29. 232-33.
s4 Ibid., p. 189.
55 Ibid., p. 4.
248 THE MUSLIM WORLD

to whom he attributes the corruption of the message of Christ and the

departure from the Mosaic Law. Paul, he affirmed, was a zealous Jew
who persecuted Christians and harbored great hatred towards
Christianity, and when that failed, he resorted to devising devious
methods to undermine the pure faith of Christ. Most insidious, in al-
Qadfi’s opinion, are Paul’s innovations in doctrines which introduced
into Christianity the substitution of the concept of trinity in place of
teachings of pure monotheism, the teaching about the sonship of
Christ and Mary as wife of God, and the abolition of circumcision.
Al-Qadfi believes that even the sacrament of baptism has not been
sanctioned by the scriptures; rather it had been arbitrarily adopted to
replace circumcision, which Jesus, his disciples and the early Christians
practiced, and which was given as a sign to Abraham as a n eternal
symbol of covenant between God and the belie~ers.5~ Furthermore,
based on spurious legends, he ascribes to Paul the split of Christianity
into four sects: Nestorians, Jacobites, Melkites, and “Believers”
(Arians!).57
In short, on the basis of reason, al-QadB declares the “evident
invalidity” of the Christian religion and attributes its survival to the
Christians’ ignorance and blind imitation of their bishops as well as to
lack of reflection on and investigation of the soundness and validity of
these bishops’ teaching. He concludes by raising the rhetorical
question:
What can one say about a people who believe that their God
created His mother, and that His mother had given birth to her
Creator?58

Al-Qariifi was convinced that the Christian clergy, knowing that their
religion rests on no sure foundation, devised schemes and tricks to
evoke wonder among the believers deceiving them through the alleged
occurrences of miracles in their churches and shrines. Whereas
previous apologetics had focused on Byzantine and local Christians,
al-Qarafi gives several examples which show some acquaintance with
Crusader centers. To each reported miracle he appends a rational

I bid., p. 232.
J7 Ibid.. pp. 170-75, 177, 183. Al-Qarafs, however, does not hesitate t o quote Paul’s
letters to show that even according to Paul Christians were not following their religion.
Ibid., p. 191.
5” Ibid.. p. 3; cf. pp. 5, 158, 191.
 THE CRUSADERS THROUGH MUSLIM EYES 249

explanation showing the stupidity and gullibility of the Crusader

Christian masses. Describing a miracle in Sicily, he writes:
They put frescoes which weep at the reading of the Gospel; tears
flow down the eyes of the figures in the fresco and are seen by the
masses and the elite alike. They believe this happens because of
its knowledge of the gravity of the G0spel.5~

But then he adds:

These figures have thin hollow spaces inside them, connected
from the back to a skinbag full of water. This is squeezed by a
deacon (at the required moment, unseen) and the water flows in
the fine tube into the eyes.60

A variant on this trick, also used in Sicily, is the statue that produces
milk at the reading of the GospeL6’ While in Constantinople, a great
cross was suspended in mid-air. The Christians allegedly attributed this
phenomenon to “the sanctity of the place and as a proof of the
greatness of this religion, for this cannot be found in other religions.”
In this case it took some Muslim delegates who went to Constantinople
to uncover the deception. They discovered that magnets were being
used in the six directions. They called the Christians’ bluff, and asked
that the walls be pulled down, whereupon the cross fe11!62
In the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem the great claim of a miracle was
the annual spontaneous appearance of light on the Saturday before
Easter. In this case too, the Muslims exposed the trick by uncovering
the fine wick soaked in oil inside a tube that was installed stretching
from the roof to the lantern in the Sepulchre. At the appropriate time a
deacon sitting unseen on the roof would light the wick spreading the
flame through the tube and into the outlet in the tomb! Al-QarSfi
reports that al-Malik a l-Mu‘aem, the brother of al-Malik al-KBmil,
learned about this and wanted to stop it. However, he refrained after
being told that if it were to stop he would lose a sizeable amount of
money which was due him (that is, the tax).h3
In this and other examples al-QarSfi attempted to illustrate that the
bishops and priests are not only attempting to trick the simple people

sy Ibid., p. 6; cf. p. 126.

Ibid. p. 6.
Ibid.
62 Ibid., pp. 6-7.
63 Ibid.. pp. 7-8.
 THE MUSLIM WORLD

into believing but that they are collaborating with the political leaders,
sharing the income collected at special manufactured religious
“manifestations” of the power of faith.
Other reports about clergy collusion in deceiving the innocent
includes the report of one of the churches where
each year, on a certain day, God’s hand appears in the sanctuary,
and people shake hands with Him. Once, one of their kings
entered and shook hands but held the hand strongly, and said:
“By God, 1 shall not let this hand alone until I see the face of its
owner.” The bishops said “Don’t you fear God? Have you
abandoned the Christian religion?” Despite their intimidation, he
refused to let go of the hand until he saw its owner. When they
tired of trying to persuade him, they told him that it was the hand
of one of their monks. He killed him, and prohibited them from
repeating this act; and they did cease from doing it.-

Al-Qadfi also accused the bishops and priests of being untrust-

worthy. They do not keep the secrets of the sacred confessions: either
they exploit people by robbing them of their money, knowing their
sins, or that shame remains with that family for generations when the
clergy divulges their confessions. This, he emphasized, is well-known in
“Acre and all their cities.’vs
His strongest attack, however, was on what he perceived to be the
clergy’s usurpation of power which belongs to God. For him, the
practice of excommunication was an affront to the Almighty who
alone can determine whether people’s reward will be eternal salvation
or damnation.66
In his refutation of the Crusades and Christianity, al-Qadfi
demonstrated a thorough knowledge of Christian (and Jewish)
scripture, creed, rites, ritual, theology and polemics, on the one hand,
and of customs, laws, religious practice and the militancy of the
Crusaders, on the other; he spared no punches in his invective
refutation of Christians and their Christianity. But his invective against
the Crusaders was more pointed, their threat being constant during his
lifetime. He found them obstinate in that they apparently saw the truth
but remained perfidious. “None of the children of Adam is like unto

M Ibid., pp. 8-9.

M Ibid.. p. 181.
66 Ibid.. pp. 5-6, 192, 224-25.
 THE CRUSADERS THROUGH MUSLIM EYES 251

them in combining infidelity with madness.”b7 Finally al-Qari%fi

observed that the Crusaders show great love for fighting-proving
themselves to be cruel and ferocious-“whereas they were commanded
by Christ to turn the other cheek.” “AS for Muslims,” he adds, “they
have been commanded to fight and thus abide by their revelation!’6x

The Muslim image of the Crusaders was shaped over decades of

intimate encounter-in war and peace, in confrontation and collusion,
in hatred and intimacy. Throughout, whether it is in historical
narratives, memoirs or polemical diatribes, the image continues to be
clouded by the Crusader being the strange other, never indigenized or
assimilated.
One looks in vain for an in-depth personal acquaintance with the
Crusaders, with their thoughts, fears and hopes, life-style or personal
aspirations. Of all the writers, U d m 5 was the closest t o them; yet he,
too, did not speak their language and very few of the Crusaders
understood his. UdmB’s anecdotes about them, with few exceptions,
dwell on the odd and the bizarre. He recounts what is different in the
Crusaders’ public behavior and customs, leaving the reader to
conjecture about their daily life, family structure and system of
government. So even here the personal and cultural interchange was
very modest, while the other reporters were even more limited in their
personal contacts with the Crusaders, The historians, while accepting
the Crusaders as actors in the political conflicts surrounding them, d o
not appear to regard them as part of a permanent reality. They were a
nuisance at best and with time, when the Muslims would unite, they
would be removed from the area. Influenced heavily by the Muslim
code of honor and the guidelines of the shar7a for conduct in times of
war, they viewed the Crusaders as courageous but unrestrained and
often treacherous warriors. They find support for this conclusion in
such acts as the reckless murder of the civilians, the capture of Muslim
women and children, the confiscation of property, and-most symbolic
of all-the conversion of Muslim mosques into churches.69
There is no doubt that the Mamluks viewed the Crusaders from a

*’Ibid., p. 196.
“Ibid., p. 125; cf. pp. 191-92. AI-QarBfi further indicates that “the Jews brag about
fighting against the infidels. Why, then, deny the Muslims the same right?” Ibid., p. 127.
69 See note 12 above, and Turikh, XI, 551; Sukik, I, 1011-12, 315; WaquP, 229, 231,
259, 277,282-83.
252 THE MUSLIM WORLD

position of superiority: superiority of culture, law, religion, human

relations, appreciation of the fine luxuries of life. The only virtue they
could find in them was their courage and valor in battle, but even this
they saw marred by indiscriminate and brutal massacres ,of defenseless
civilians, and the breaches of promise and the breaking of treaties.
Yet, while the material does not show an intimate knowledge of the
Crusaders, it does afford us with countless examples of the various
areas of concern that come to the fore in the consciousness of people
when two different cultures are confronting each other. We get
glimpses of passionate allegiance to one's own values and norms and
the conviction of their superiority over those that challenge them, and
a meticulous investigation of other claims to truth in order to
denegrate and refute their accuracy and validity.
It is worth noting, finally, that there appears to be unanimity among
the authors we have investigated in their rejection of any possible
influence in religious, ethical, moral or social values: they found little,
if anything, to learn from the Crusaders.

Hartford Seminary WADI' Z. HADDAD

Hartfbrd, Connecticut