The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

Compare Zangi, Nur al-Din, and Saladin. How does Maalouf characterize these men? How are they similar or different in their attitudes and achievements? What is their wider significance in the narrative?

Maalouf often explores the problem of leadership in the Crusades, particularly within the Muslim world. How does Maalouf define weak leadership, and how does he define effective leadership? What role does leadership play in the success or failure of crusading in his analysis?

How did religious and political motivations overlap with one another, for both European crusaders and Muslim leaders? How do these different elements complicate the understanding of the Crusades as a religious conflict?

Describe the political condition of the Muslim world in western and southwestern Asia at the dawn of the Crusades. How does Maalouf present this world? In what ways did the Crusades change it, and why?

Maalouf asks in his Epilogue, “Afterwards, the centre of world history shifted decisively to the West. Is there a cause-and-effect relationship here? Can we go so far as to claim that the Crusades marked the beginning of the rise of Western Europe […] and sounded the death knell of Arab civilization?” (261). What are the strengths and weaknesses of Maalouf’s claims? What other factors might he have overlooked in his concluding analysis?

What is the historical and contemporary value of studying the Crusades through the eyes of the Muslim historians who recorded their history? How does Maalouf’s approach compare to more traditional Eurocentric narratives of the era?

Why did the later Crusades fail? What factors—political, religious, social, and/or economic—contributed to crusading’s collapse as both a military venture and as a chivalric ideal?

Maalouf’s approach in the book is ideological as well as historical: He wishes to correct some misconceptions about the Crusades, and he also wishes to advance a particular view of their nature and ongoing influence. What is Maalouf’s ideological stance in the text? How does his stance inform some of his assumptions, arguments, and/or presentation of the subject matter?