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Ibn Warraq: Walter Scott, The Talisman, the Crusades, Richard I of England and Saladin: Myths, Legends and History (Part 31)

Aug 15, 2012 5:06 am By Robert Spencer

Walter Scott, The Talisman, the Crusades, Richard I of England and Saladin: Myths, Legends and History
by Ibn Warraq
Part 31
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 / Part 20 / Part 21 / Part 22 / Part 23 / Part 24 / Part 25 / Part 26 / Part 27 / Part 28 / Part 29 / Part 30

C.3 ANDREW S. EHRENKREUTZ.

Andrew S.Ehrenkreutz’s Saladin could not be more different. But before I delineate his thesis, and his assessment of Saladin’s career, I need to establish Ehrenkreutz’s credentials. In the foreword to a new edition of Gibb’s biography of Saladin, Robert Irwin refers to Ehrenkreutz’s work only to dismiss it with a quotation from a hostile review of Ehrenkreutz’s Saladin by D.S. Richards, a very distinguished scholar, expert on the Arabic sources for the Crusades, and Emeritus Fellow of St. Cross College, University of Oxford. Richards wrote, “One approaches Ehrenkreutz’s work with ready sympathy, hoping for a satisfactory re-examination of Saladin’s career, because, seductive though it maybe, Gibb’s view seems just too good to be true. There are, however, such a number of inaccuracies, major and minor mistakes, slanted or unsupportable interpretations of texts, that one’s sympathy evaporates and one begins to feel that perhaps Gibb’s Saladin is more acceptable figure after all”. [1]

The review is well-worth reading, and well-argued. Significantly, Richards takes issue with Gibb’s interpretation as well. [2] Different interpretations of the life of Saladin depend on what we can justifiably assert about his motives — the inner view. Richards tells us that Gibb himself expressed “doubts about the possibility of penetrating the façade of available Muslim historiography into the secret rooms of individual personalities. Hence the basis of Gibb’s writings on Saladin was a close analysis of the various sources, and he came to the conclusion that certain contemporaries, above all “˜ImÄd al-DÄ«n and BahÄ” al-DÄ«n, though recognized at the outset to be favourable, as opposed, say, to Ibn al-AthÄ«r, could be relied upon to give an honest, inside view of Saladin as man and statesman, and to enable us today to form a clear picture of his motives.” [3]

But, argues Richards, “It may well be that Gibb went too far in this. For example, with the dispatches and letters of al-QÄdÄ« al-FÄdil, despite his own caveat, perhaps Gibb drew too close a tie between the public pronouncements and “˜Saladin’s real purposes and ideals”. Perhaps too he overestimated the concreteness of some elements in the sources.” [4]

But then Richards follows with his substantial criticism of Ehrenkreutz’s work: “Ehrenkreutz has two interesting passages (pp. 3 and 237) on aspects of the chronicles of the time that link them up with the “˜Mirror for Princes” genre, suggesting that historical characters are presented with the attributes, and in the typical situations, of the ideal types of that literature. That the historians of the time had a moralizing, didactic end in view is often made quite clear in their own writings. “¦Ehrenkreutz manifestly believes that Gibb did go too far, but, while Gibb’s attitude to his sources is clear and consistent, I do not find this to be true of Ehrenkreutz. His criticism of Gibb’s view of Saladin [5] implies that he rejects the evaluation of the special nature of the sources that made that inner view possible. On what basis then does Ehrenkreutz proceed to give a radically different inner view of Saladin without fresh documentation of the required nature?”

[1] D.S.Richards, The Early History of Saladin in Islamic Quarterly, 17, 9173, pp.158-159.
[2] For example, Ibid, pp. 157, 158.
[3] D.S.Richards, op,cit.,p.141.
[4] Ibid.,p.141
[5] Ehrenkreutz did not have access to Gibb’s Life of Saladin, under discussion in my essay, since it was published a year after Ehrenkreutz’s work. Ehrenkreutz was referring to Gibb’s essays such as The Achievement of Saladin, The Rise of Saladin, The Armies of Saladin, etc.

To be continued.

Ibn Warraq is the author of numerous books, including Why the West Is Best and Why I Am Not A Muslim.

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