Amin Maalouf The Crusades Summary

Amin Maalouf’s The Crusades through Arab Eyes depicts the 11th century crusades by the Catholic church through the eyes of the Arabic people. Through Maalouf’s collection of historical stories and data, readers are presented a gruesome picture of the early Invasion and the overcoming of the struggles that plagued early Muslim leaders. His representation gives insights into the Muslim people and their views of the western civilization invading them, and when compared with historical occurences before and after the crusades, the reader can begin to understand their cause and why they ended.

The medieval period is regarded by some as the most gruesome period in human history. In its early development, it saw the fall of the Great Roman empire

There were many different tactics used by Muslim leaders to attack the Crusaders, but the most successful tactics involved ambush upon narrow regions. Kilij Arslan had some of the most successful ambushes upon the crusaders. Maalouf describes a gruesome scene where a group of soldiers, women and children had been wondering through the desert and were suffering from dehydration by saying, “When they had glimpsed a glistening body of water, they hurled themselves towards it in complete disarray. Kilij Arslan was waiting for them on the banks. The Franj never fully recovered from this triple massacre.” (pg. 65) This blood for blood attitude led to deception and hatred towards both the crusaders and the Muslims. It did not help that many Muslim leaders were still far from united in their fight and even had fleeing troops during their battles. The separate armies “accused each other of cowardice and scuffles broke out” showing the schism between their goals while also demonstrating their lack of positive morale within troops. This continued for many years until a sequence of great leaders were determined to unite the empire of Islam against the evil