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Ibn Warraq: Walter Scott, The Talisman, the Crusades, Richard I of England and Saladin: Myths, Legends and History (Part 35)

Aug 20, 2012 5:18 am By Robert Spencer

Walter Scott, The Talisman, the Crusades, Richard I of England and Saladin: Myths, Legends and History
by Ibn Warraq
Part 35
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 / Part 33 / Part 34

However Lapidus” main criticisms of his work are that (1) Ehrenkreutz overstates the case against Saladin, whose priority has to have been the conquest of Muslim states before he could even contemplate the liquidation of the Crusaders, and (2) Ehrenkreutz fails to put Saladin into the context of the society of his times, and thus cannot adequately evaluate Saladin’s person and career.

But Lapidus agrees with Ehrenkreutz that “Saladin, as he emerges in Lane Poole and Gibb, heroic and pure, is surely a product of romantic imagination. Professor Ehrenkreutz makes it clear that Saladin, from youth to old age, was a ruthless, ambitious and energetic seeker after power, a pragmatist rather than an idealist in politics.”

Then, irony of ironies, Lapidus accuses Ehrenkreutz of also harbouring a streak of romanticism about Saladin: “Yet the temptation to hagiography lives on. Ehrenkreutz himself speaks of the “˜”¦valor, determination, and inspiring leadership of Saladin”¦.”(p.43)”. Ehrenkreutz also wrote, “[Saladin] revealed himself not only as a competent and courageous field commander, but as an inspiring leader of men”¦.” (p.44).

Lapidus continues, “In little ways, Professor Ehrenkreutz shows that he too has a streak of romanticism about Saladin — albeit a reverse romanticism about Saladin attracted by political and military adventure, which may be amoral and surely leads to disaster, but fascinating nonetheless. Saladin wasn’t a good good-guy, he was a bad good-guy”.

The final assessment is that though there is still place for a new contextual biography of Saladin, ” [Ehrenkreutz’s] contribution to a meticulous and precise biographical account of the events of Saladin’s life is much appreciated”.

C.3.4. Wilferd Madelung [born 1930] was a professor of Islamic history at the University of Chicago, and Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford from 1978 to 1998. He is the author of many works, including Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran, 1988; and Religious and Ethnic Movements in Medieval Islam, 1992. Madelung wrote a joint review of Gibb and Ehrenkreutz. [1]

Madelung wrote, “Gibb’s treatment of the Ayyubid sultan [i.e. Saladin, son of Ayyub] in many respects followed the precedents set by S.Lane-Poole who, in 1898, wrote the first well-documented biography of Saladin as an enthusiastic admirer of his chivalrous virtues. It is against this romantic view of the Ayyubid that Professor Ehrenkreutz proposes to offer a more sober, realistic assessment of his aims and accomplishments. While his earlier biographers concentrated most of their attention on Saladin’s struggle with the crusaders in the last phase of his life, Ehrenkreutz carefully investigates his youth and early career. Against Lane-Poole’s characterization of Saladin as a naïve and retiring youth who against his will was thrust by events into a position political and military leadership, [Ehrenkreutz] shows that Saladin’s early training, his ambition, and various positions of responsibility held earlier made him a most suitable candidate for the succession of his uncle Shirkuh as leader of the Syrian troops in Egypt and Fatimid vizier. Against Gibb’s view that Saladin’s campaigns against the Zangids in Syria and Mesopotamia were necessitated by their hostility and willingness to cooperate with the crusaders, whose expulsion always was his primary aim, Ehrenkreutz argues that Saladin was rather motivated by insatiable ambitions of territorial expansion against his Muslim neighbours for which he squandered the resources of Egypt while showing little concern for jihad against the infidels except for propaganda purposes.”

[1] Wilferd Madelung. Review of: Saladin by Andrew S. Ehrenkreutz; Hamilton Gibb. The Life of Saladin from the works of “˜ImÄd ad-DÄ«n and BahÄ” ad-DÄ«n in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 34. No.3 (Jul., 1975), pp.209-212.

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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