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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2017
In this study I examine the presentation of Saladin and the Crusades within the genre of Persian universal histories produced from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. While a number of recent studies have begun to explore the place of the Crusades in the historical memory of the Islamic world, to date little attention has been given to the question of the manner in which the ensuing Mongol conquests affected subsequent Muslim memory of the Crusades. In this article I argue that historiographers of the Mongol and post-Mongol eras largely sought to legitimate the conquests through evocation of heresy and by celebrating the Mongols’ role in combating alleged heretical elements within Muslim society, most notably the Ismāʿīlīs. While Saladin is universally remembered today first and foremost for his re-conquest of Jerusalem from the Crusaders, within the context of the agenda of Persian historiography of the post-Mongol era the locus of his significance was shifted to his overthrow of the Ismāʿīlī Fatimid dynasty in Egypt, to the almost complete exclusion of his role in the Crusades. This article challenges long-standing assumptions that the figure of Saladin was largely forgotten within the Muslim world until the colonial era, and instead presents an alternative explanation for the supposed amnesia in the Muslim world regarding the Crusades in the pre-modern era.
1 Maalouf, Amin, The Crusades through Arab Eyes, translated Jon Rothschild (London, 1984)Google Scholar; Hillenbrand, Carole, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (New York, 2000)Google Scholar; Christie, Niall, Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity's Wars in the Middle East, 1095-1382, from the Islamic Sources (New York, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cobb, Paul M., The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades (Oxford, 2014)Google Scholar; Mallett, Alexander, Popular Muslim Reactions to the Franks in the Levant, 1097–1291 (Farnham, 2014)Google Scholar. Idem., (ed.) Medieval Muslim Historians and the Franks in the Levant (Leiden, 2015).
2 Some of the most challenging revisionist work in this regard has been undertaken by Paul Chevedden; see his “The Islamic Interpretation of the Crusade: A New (Old) Paradigm for Understanding the Crusades” Der Islam 83 (2006), pp. 90–136; “The Islamic View and the Christian View of the Crusades: A New Synthesis,” History 93, no. 310 (2008), pp. 181–200.
3 For example, see Paul, Nicholas and Yeager, Suzanne M., (eds.), Remembering the Crusades: Myth, Image, and Identity (Baltimore, 2012)Google Scholar; Bull, Marcus Graham and Kempf, D., (eds.), Writing the Early Crusades: Text, Transmission and Memory (Woodbridge, 2014)Google Scholar.
4 Hammad, Mona and Peters, Edward, “Islam and the Crusades: A Nine Hundred-Year-Long Grievance?”, in Seven Myths of the Crusades, (ed.) Andrea, Alfred J. and Holt, Andrew (Indianapolis, 2015), pp. 127–149Google Scholar.
5 For an analysis of these competing discourses see Bhatia, Umej, Forgetting Osama bin Munqidh, Remembering Osama bin Laden: The Crusades in Modern Muslim Memory (Singapore, 2008)Google Scholar. See also Riley-Smith, Jonathan, “Islam and the Crusades in History and Imagination, 8 November 1898–11 September 2001,” Crusades 2 (2003), pp. 151–168Google Scholar.
6 See Shagrir, Iris and Amitai-Preiss, Nitzan, “Michaud, Montrond, Mazloum and the First History of the Crusades in Arabic,” Al-Masāq 24, no. 3 (2012), pp. 309–312CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sivan, Emmanuel, “Modern Arab Historiography of the Crusades”, in Interpretations of Islam: Past and Present, (ed.) Sivan, Emmanuel (Princeton, 1985), pp. 3–43Google Scholar.
7 Hillenbrand, Carole, “The Evolution of the Saladin Legend in the West”, Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph 58 (2005), p. 13Google Scholar.
8 This same term has been calqued in modern Persian as Janghā-yi ṣalībī. For examples of modern Iranian scholarship on the Crusades see Sharafī, Sharārah, Janghā-yi ṣalībī va ʿilal-i ān (Mashhad, 1378 A.Hsh./1999)Google Scholar; ʿṬāhirī, Abdullāh Nāṣirī, ʿ Ilal va āthār-i janghā-yi ṣalībī (Tehran, 1373 A.Hsh./1994)Google Scholar; Idem., Naqsh-i Ismāʿīlīyan dar janghā-yi ṣalībī (Tehran, 1387 A.Hsh./2008).
9 On the latter see Lewis, Bernard, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York, 2003), pp. 47–52Google Scholar.
10 See Mallett, Alexander, “Islamic Historians of the Ayyūbid Era and Muslim Rulers from the Early Crusading Period: A Study in the Use of History,” Al-Masāq 24, no. 3 (2012), pp. 241–252CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 See Abouali, Diana, “Saladin's Legacy in the Middle East before the Nineteenth Century,” Crusades 10 (2011), pp. 175–189Google Scholar; Heidemann, Stefan, “Memory and Ideology: Images of Saladin in Syria and Iraq,” in Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East: Rhetoric of the Image, (ed.) Gruber, Christiane J. and Haugbolle, Sune (Bloomington, 2013), pp. 57–81Google Scholar; Phillips, Jonathan, “Vor der Orientreise Wilhelms II: Die Erinnerung an Saladin und die Kreuzzüge im Nahen Osten vom 15. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert,” in Kreuzzüge des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit: Realhistorie - Geschichtskultur - Didaktik, (ed.) Hinz, Felix (Hildesheim, 2015), pp. 67–86Google Scholar. Among some earlier works on this subject are the studies on the Crusades in Arabic folklore by Lyons, Malcolm C., “The Crusading Stratum in the Arabic Hero Cycle,” in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, (ed.) Shatzmiller, Maya (Leiden, 1993), pp. 147–161Google Scholar; Idem., “The Land of War: Europe in the Arab Hero Cycles,” in The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, (ed.) Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy P. Mottahedeh (Washington, D. C, 2001), pp. 41–51.
12 Hillenbrand, “The Evolution of the Saladin Legend in the West”, pp. 1–13.
13 Irwin, Robert, “The Arabists and Crusader Studies in the Twentieth Century,” in Cultural Encounters during the Crusades, (ed.) Jensen, Kurt Villads, et al. (Odense, 2013), pp. 283–298Google Scholar.
14 Lane-Poole, Stanley, Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (London, 1898)Google Scholar.
15 Among Gibb's many studies on the subject see The Life of Saladin (Oxford, 1973). For a critical assessment of Gibb's scholarship see Holt, P. M., “Saladin and His Admirers: A Biographical Reassessment”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 46, no. 2 (1983), pp. 235–239CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Ehrenkreutz, Andrew S., Saladin (Albany, 1972), p. 234Google Scholar.
17 Idem., Saladin, p. 235.
18 Eddé, Anne-Marie, Saladin, translated by Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, 2011)Google Scholar.
19 This survey will not encompass contemporary literature concerning the later Crusades from the thirteenth century onwards. For an overview of the role of Persia and the Mongols in the later Crusades see Cahen, Claude, “The Mongols and the Near East,” in A History of the Crusades, vol. 2: The Later Crusades, 1189–1311, (ed.) Setton, Kenneth M., et al. (Madison, 1969), pp. 715–734Google Scholar; Jackson, Peter, “Crusades, in relation to Persia,” Encyclopædia Iranica 6 (1993), pp. 433–434Google Scholar.
20 Waldman, Marilyn R., Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative: A Case Study in Perso-Islamicate Histoiography (Columbus, 1980), pp. 1–16Google Scholar.
21 The most complete account of these events is Lev, Yaacov, Saladin in Egypt (Leiden, 1999)Google Scholar. See also Ehrenkreutz, Andrew S., “Saladin's Coup d’État in Egypt,” in Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies in Honor of Aziz Suryal Atiya, (ed.) Hanna, Sami A. (Leiden, 1972), pp. 144–157Google Scholar.
22 For an overview of Persian historiography in the Mongol and post-Mongol eras see Melville, Charles P., “Historiography iv: Mongol Period,” Encyclopædia Iranica 12 (2004), pp. 348–356Google Scholar; Idem., “The Mongol and Timurid Periods, 1250–1500,” in A History of Persian Literature, vol. 10: Persian Historiography, (ed.) C. P. Melville (London, 2012), pp. 155–208.
23 Morgan, David O., “Persian as a Lingua Franca in the Mongol Empire,” in Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order, (ed.) Spooner, Brian and Hanaway, William L. (Philadelphia, 2012), pp. 160–170Google Scholar.
24 On Persian historiography in the pre-Mongol era see Daniel, Elton L., “Historiography iii: Early Islamic Period”, Encyclopædia Iranica 12 (2004), pp. 330–348Google Scholar; Meisami, Julie Scott, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century (Edinburgh, 1999)Google Scholar.
25 Nīshāpūrī, Ẓahīr al-Dīn, Saljūq-nāmah, (ed.) Morton, Alexander H. (Cambridge, 2004)Google Scholar.
26 al-Dīn, Rashīd, Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh: Tārīkh-i Āl-i Saljūq, (ed.) Rūshan, Muḥammad (Tehran, 1386 A.Hsh./2007)Google Scholar; Idem., The History of the Seljuq Turks from the Jāmiʿ al-Tavārīkh: An Ilkhanid Adaption of the Saljūq-Nāma of Ẓahīr al-Dīn Nīshāpūrī, (ed.) Clifford E. Bosworth, translated by Kenneth Allin Luther (Richmond, 2001). On the relationship between the work of Nīshāpūrī and Rashīd al-Dīn see Luther, Kenneth Allin, “The Saljūqnāmah and the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh,” in Proceedings of the Colloquium on Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh, (ed.) Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (Tehran, 1971), pp. 26–35Google Scholar.
27 Kirmānī’s addition does makes one brief mention of Saladin, in reference to his role in helping to settle a rebellion in the city of Urmiya; see Rashīd al-Dīn, History of the Seljuq Turks, p. 153.
28 On the latter see Nīshāpūrī, Saljūq-nāmah, pp. 58–59; Rashīd al-Dīn, History of the Seljuq Turks, pp. 84–86. On the Qara-Khitay see Biran, Michal, The Empire of the Kara-Khitai in Eurasian History: Between China and the Islamic World (Cambridge, 2005)Google Scholar.
29 Alī Rāvandī, Muḥammad b., Rāḥat al-ṣudūr va āyat al-surūr, (ed.) Iqbāl, Muḥammad (Leiden, 1921)Google Scholar. On this work see also Meisami, Persian Historiography, pp. 237–256.
30 On the “Mirror for Princes” genre see Lambton, Ann K. S., “Islamic Mirrors for Princes,” Quaderno dell'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 160 (1971), pp. 419–442Google Scholar. See especially pp. 426–428 on the Baḥr al-favāʾid.
31 Baḥr al-favāʾid, translated by Meisami, Julie Scott as The Sea of Precious Virtues: A Medieval Islamic Mirror for Princes (Salt Lake City, 1991), pp. 13–35Google Scholar.
32 Baḥr al-favāʾid, pp. 56–57 (italics in original). I have slightly modified Meisami's translation here.
33 A derogatory term for Zoroastrians, but also a more general term of abuse for non-Muslims.
34 Baḥr al-favāʾid, p. 251.
35 Suleiman Ali Mourad and James Lindsay, E., The Intensification and Reorientation of Sunni Jihad Ideology in the Crusader Period: Ibn ʻAsākir of Damascus (1105-1176) and His Age, with an Edition and Translation of Ibn ʻAsākir's The Forty Hadiths for Inciting Jihad (Leiden, 2013)Google Scholar.
36 On the text see Meisami, Persian Historiography, pp. 188–209.
37 Mujmal al-tavārīkh va al-qiṣaṣ, (ed.) Muḥammad Taqī Bahār (Tehran, 1318 A.Hsh./1939), pp. 484–487. Meisami suggests that the illustrations may have been a later addition to the manuscript.
38 Bakrān, Muḥammad b. Najīb, Jahān-nāmah, (ed.) Riyāhī, Muḥammad Amīn (Tehran, 1342 A.Hsh./1963), p. 67Google Scholar.
39 On this genre see Afshār, Iraj and Bosworth, Clifford E., “ʿAjāʾeb al-Maklūqāt,” Encyclopædia Iranica 1 (1984), pp. 696–699Google Scholar.
40 Hamadānī, Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd, ʿ Ajāʾib-nāmah (ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt va gharāyib al-mawjūdāt), (ed.) Ṣādiqī, Jaʿfar Mudarris (Tehran, 1375 A.Hsh./1996), pp. 477–478Google Scholar.
41 Juvaynī, ʿAtāʾ Malik, The History of the World Conqueror, translated by John A. Boyle (Manchester, 1958), pp. 16–17Google Scholar. I have relied upon Boyle's translation here with some minor modifications.
42 Idem., History of the World Conqueror, p. 19.
43 Idem., History of the World Conqueror, p. 105.
44 For example, this response is in evidence in the writings of the Damascene jurist ʿAlī b. Ṭāhir al-Sulamī, on which see Christie, Niall, “Motivating Listeners in the Kitab al-Jihad of ʿAli ibn Tahir al-Sulami (d. 1106),” Crusades 6 (2007), pp. 3–14Google Scholar; Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, pp. 71–73.
45 On this theme see Hamblin, William, “To Wage Jihād or Not: Fatimid Egypt during the Early Crusades,” in The Jihād and its Times, (ed.) Dajani-Shakeel, Hadia and Messier, Ronald A. (Ann Arbor, 1991), pp. 31–40Google Scholar; Brett, Michael, “The Fatimids and the Counter-Crusade, 1099–1171,” in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras, vol. 5, (ed.) Vermeulen, Urbain and D'Hulster, K. (Leuven, 2007), pp. 15–26Google Scholar; Abu-Munshar, Maher Y., “Fāṭimids, Crusaders and the Fall of Islamic Jerusalem: Foes or Allies?”, Al-Masāq 22, no. 1 (2010), pp. 45–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
46 The text mistakenly reads here 566.
47 Juvaynī inexplicably misreports the name of the ruling ʿAbbāsid caliph of the time, who was not al-Nāṣir li-Din Allāh (r. 1180–1225) but rather his predecessor, al-Mustaḍī bi-Amr Allāh (r. 1170–80).
48 The tenth day of the month of Muḥarram.
49 Juvaynī, History of the World Conqueror, pp. 664–665.
50 al-Athīr, ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn, al-Kāmil fiʾl-tawārīkh, (ed.) Tornberg, C. J., 12 vols. (Leiden, 1851-76), xi, pp. 241–244Google Scholar; Idem., The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr for the Crusading Period from al-Kāmil fīʾl-taʾrīkh, vol. 2: The Years 541–589/1146–1193: The Age of Nur al-Din and Saladin, translated by Donald S. Richards (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 196–198.
51 Shaddād, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Ibn, al-Nawādir al-Sulṭāniyya waʾl-Maḥāsin al-Yūsufiyya, translated by Richards, Donald S. as The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin (Aldershot, 2001), p. 47Google Scholar.
52 Idem., al-Nawādir al-Sulṭāniyya, pp. 77–78.
53 Juvaynī, History of the World Conqueror, pp. 724–725. Juvaynī’s claim that the execution of Khūrshāh marked the extinction of the Ismāʿīlīs is an exaggeration, as significant members of the community survived and remained active in subsequent decades; see Virani, Shafique N., “The Eagle Returns: Evidence of Continued Ismāʿīlī Activity at Alamūt and in the South Caspian Region following the Mongol Conquests ” Journal of the American Oriental Society 123, no. 2 (2003), pp. 351–370CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Juvaynī’s exaggeration of the extant of Hülegü’s achievements would seem to further testify to his authorial agenda: the vast harm caused by the Mongol conquests could not be compensated by a mere partial success against the forces of heresy, but only through the depiction of a complete and total victory.
54 Juvaynī, History of the World Conqueror, p. 638. The “conquest of Khaybar” refers to one of the pivotal military victories of the early Muslim community in the year 629.
55 Jūzjānī, Minḥaj al-Dīn, Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī, (ed.) Ḥabībī, ʿAbd al-Ḥayy, 2 vols. (Kabul, 1342 A.Hsh./1963), i, pp. 288–293Google Scholar.
56 Both terms referring to the Ismāʿīlīs.
57 Jūzjānī, Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī, i, p. 290.
58 Idem., Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī, i, p. 291.
59 Idem., Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī, i, pp. 292–293.
60 On this process see Kumar, Sunil, “The Ignored Elites: Turks, Mongols and a Persian Secretarial Class in the Early Delhi Sultanate,” Modern Asian Studies 43, no. 1 (2009), pp. 45–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
61 For a survey of some of these narratives see Eddé, Saladin, pp. 160–166.
62 For example, see Ibn Shaddād, al-Nawādir al-Sulṭāniyya, pp. 35–38.
63 On this text see Lewis, Bernard, “The Use by Muslim Historians of Non-Muslim Sources”, in Historians of the Middle East, (ed.) Lewis, Bernard and Holt, P. M. (London, 1962), pp. 183–184Google Scholar. The work has been published both in a text edition and a French translation; see al-Dīn, Rashīd, Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh: Tārīkh-i Afrānj, (ed.) Sīyāqī, Muḥammad Dabīr (Tehran, 1339 A.Hsh./1960)Google Scholar; Idem., Histoire universelle de Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh Abūʾl-Khair: Histoire des Francs, translated by Karl Jahn (Leiden, 1951).
64 Jahn, Karl, “Rashīd al-Dīn's Knowledge of Europe”, in Proceedings of the Colloquium on Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh, (ed.) Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (Tehran, 1971), pp. 9–25Google Scholar. See also Boyle, John A., “Rashīd al-Dīn and the Franks,” Central Asiatic Journal 14 (1970), pp. 62–67Google Scholar.
65 Jahn, “Rashīd al-Dīn's Knowledge of Europe”, p. 22.
66 al-Dīn, Rashīd, Compendium of Chronicles: A History of the Mongols, translated by Wheeler M. Thackston, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1998), i, pp. 166–173Google Scholar.
67 Idem., History of the Mongols, i, p. 173.
68 Daftary, Farhad, “Persian Historiography of the Early Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs”, Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 30 (1992), pp. 91–97Google Scholar.
69 Like Juvaynī, Rashīd al-Dīn misreports the name of the ruling ʿAbbāsid caliph of the time.
70 One of the main gates of medieval Baghdad.
71 al-Dīn, Rashīd, Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh: Qismat-i Ismāʿīlīyān va Fātimīyān va Nizārīyān va Dāʿīyān va Rafīqān, (ed.) Dānishpazhūh, Muḥammad Taqī and Zanjānī, Muḥammad Mudarrasī (Tehran, 1388 A.Hsh./2009), pp. 74–75Google Scholar.
72 Kāshānī, Abū al-Qāsim, Zubdat al-tavārīkh: Tārīkh-i Ismāʿīlīyah va Nizārīyah va Mulāḥidah, (ed.) Dānishpazhūh, Muḥammad Taqī (Tabriz, 1343 A.Hsh./1964), pp. 115–119Google Scholar.
73 Qazvīnī, Ḥamdullāh Mustawfī, Tārīkh-i guzīdah, (ed.) Navāʾī, ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn (Tehran, 1362 A.Hsh./1983), p. 516Google Scholar. Qazvīnī also composed a geographical compendium titled Nuzhat al-qulūb, which in its description of Jerusalem does include a very brief mention of the city's capture by the Crusaders and of how Saladin “brought the land back into the path of Islam”; see Idem., The Geographical Part of the Nuzhat al-Qulūb, translated Guy Le Strange (London, 1919), p. 18.
74 Vaṣṣāf, Shihāb al-Dīn ʿAbdullāh, Taḥrīr-i Tārīkh-i Vaṣṣāf, (ed.) Āyatī, ʿAbd al-Muḥammad (Tehran, 1346 A.Hsh./1967), pp. 52–53Google Scholar.
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76 Idem., Majmuʿ al-tavārīkh al-sulṭānīyah: qismat-i khulafā-yi ʿAlavīyah-i Maghrib va Miṣr va Nazāriyān va Rafīqiyān, (ed.) Muḥammad Mudarrasī Zanjānī (Tehran, 1364 A.Hsh./1985), pp. 184–187.
77 Mīrkhwānd, Muḥammad b. Khwāndshāh, Rawḍat al-ṣafā fī sīrat al-awliyā va al-mulūk va al-khulafā, 7 vols. (Tehran, 1339 A.Hsh./1960), iv, pp. 196–198Google Scholar.
78 Idem., Rawḍat al-ṣafā, iv, pp. 594–199.
79 Khwāndamīr, Ghiyāth al-Dīn, Ḥabīb al-siyar fī akhbār afrād bashar, (ed.) Siyāqī, Muḥammad Dabīr, 4 vols. (Tehran, 1333 A.Hsh./1955), ii, pp. 459–460Google Scholar.
80 Quoted in Phillips, “Vor der Orientreise Wilhelms II,” p. 78.
81 Daftary, Farhad, The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines, 2nd edition (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 241–243CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
82 For a critical survey of the development of the “Assassins legend” in European historiography see Idem., The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismāʿīlīs (London, 1994).
83 The most thorough study on this struggle to date remains Hodgson, Marshall G. S., The Secret Order of Assassins: The Struggle of the Early Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs Against the Islamic World (Philadelphia, 1955)Google Scholar. On relations between the Ismāʿīlīs and the Crusaders see Lewis, Bernard, “The Ismāʿīlites and the Assassins”, in A History of the Crusades, vol. 1: The First Hundred Years, (ed.) Setton, Kenneth M. and Baldwin, Marshall W. (Madison, 1969), pp. 99–134Google Scholar; Daftary, Farhad, “The Ismaʿilis and the Crusaders: History and Myth,” in The Crusades and the Military Orders: Expanding the Frontiers of Medieval Latin Christianity, (ed.) Hunyadi, Zsolt and Laszlovszky, József (Budapest, 2001), pp. 21–42Google Scholar; Smarandache, Bogdan, “The Franks and the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs in the Early Crusade Period,” Al-Masāq 24, no. 3 (2012), pp. 221–239CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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85 On these conflicts see Lewis, Bernard, “Saladin and the Assassins,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 15, no. 2 (1953), pp. 239–245CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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