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Ibn Warraq: Walter Scott, The Talisman, the Crusades, Richard I of England and Saladin: Myths, Legends and History (Part 33)

Aug 17, 2012 3:35 am By Robert Spencer

Walter Scott, The Talisman, the Crusades, Richard I of England and Saladin: Myths, Legends and History
by Ibn Warraq
Part 33
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 / Part 31 / Part 32

Holt continues, “With Ehrenkreutz’s book (which was published some months before Gibb’s) there appears a reaction against the eulogies of Saladin, of which the “˜standard biography” by Stanley Lane-Poole is a notable example. Ehrenkreutz himself has an established reputation for his scholarly work in the monetary and economic history of the medieval Middle East. “¦His approach is in accordance with present-day trends in historical writing on the period: the treatment of the Crusader states as one among several military and political factors in the region, the presentation of Saladin and his predecessors, Nur al-Din and Zangi, as Middle Eastern war-lords operating within a complex web of local politics, the concept of jihad less as a motive for their actions than as the content of their propaganda. A balanced reassessment of Saladin is needed, and Ehrenkreutz makes several contributions to this, particularly on the economic aspects of the period.” [Ibn Warraq’s emphasis]

However, Holt takes issue with Ehrenkreutz’s manner of presentation with its colloquialisms: “Although the work is based on a wide range of both primary and secondary sources, and is very fully and usefully documented in its notes, the author seems to have written for a general rather than an academic readership. He is not averse to colloquialisms.”

C.3.2. Dr. Hans Eberhard Mayer [born 1932] was Professor of Medieval and Modern History at the University of Kiel. His research contributed significantly to the shift in modern scholarly understandings of the crusades in the later half of the twentieth-century. Mayer’s most influential work was The Crusades, first published in English in 1972. He is considered the leading historian of the Crusades writing in German today. A festschrift, with articles from all the greatest historians of the Crusades in the West, was presented to him in 1997. [1]

In his review of Ehrenkreutz’s biography of Saladin [2], Mayer also finds Ehrenkreutz’s manner of presentation grating, and his introduction of modern conceptions into the Middle Ages where they do not apply illegitimate. Mayer thinks Ehrenkreutz’s decision to limit the account of Saladin’s war against the Crusaders to 29 pages leads to misleading statements. Mayer takes issue with Ehrenkreutz’s analysis of the siege of Tyre, and the reasons for Saladin’s haste in capturing Jerusalem. So much for Mayer’s negative criticisms of Ehrenkreutz’s work. Not only does Mayer have substantial praise for certain aspects of Ehrenkreutz’s thesis, contradicting D.S.Richards, but also concludes that many others had arrived at similar conclusions before him.

Mayer writes, “The book is an attempt at Entmythologisierung [demythologising], of stripping Saladin of the halo with which Lane Poole in his classical biography had surrounded him. In this the book has the merit of assembling what has been done already in this field into one convenient volume, thus presenting to the general public a fairer view of Saladin than did Lane Poole. For the scholar there is not much that is new and has not already been said in the writings of Minorsky [3], Cahen [4] and Prawer [5]. On the scholarly level, the revision was accomplished by them rather than by Ehrenkreutz”.

[1] Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan Riley-Smith, Rudolf Hiestand (eds.), Montjoie. Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer, Aldershot. 1997.
[2] Hans Eberhard Mayer. Review of Saladin by Andrew S. Ehrenkreutz, in Speculum [Published by Medieval Academy of America], Vol. 49, No. 4 (October, 1974) pp.724-727.
[3] Vladimir Minorsky [1877-1966]. Studies in Caucasian History: I. New light on the ShaddÄdids of Ganja. II. The ShaddÄdids of Ani. III. Prehistory of Saladin. London: Taylor’s Foreign Press, 1953.
[4] Claude Cahen, La Syrie du Nord a l”époque des croisades et la principuaté franque d”Antioche. Paris, 1940 ; « Ayyubids » s.v. in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2ed. I:796-807, Leiden, 1960.
[5] Joshua Prawer. Histoire du royaume latin de Jérusalem. Traduit de l’hébreu par G. Nahon. Revu et complété par l’auteur. Imprint Paris, Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1969-70

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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