No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2008
In the pages of the Islamic chronicles which tell of the deeds of the crusaders, one figure stands apart. A man who not only is said to have attacked pilgrim caravans in a time of truce and insulted Muhammad himself, but who also, it is reported, had the audacity, temerity, and insanity (or possible genius) to threaten the very heart of the Islamic world – the cities of Mecca and Medina, and the ‘Islamic’ Red Sea. This man was Reynald of Châtillon, lord of Oultrejourdain, erstwhile Prince of Antioch, and he is described, amongst other things, as “one of the most devilish of the Franks, and one of the most demonic, and he had the strongest hostility to the Muslims”. The raid on the Red Sea and purported attempts to attack Mecca and Medina are believed to be one of the main reasons why Reynald is so despised in the Arabic chronicles. The intention of this article, therefore, is to examine the raid anew, using the Arabic material available, in order to try to contribute to an understanding of the raid, and to establish whether, indeed, Reynald even did try to attack the holy cities of Islam, and whether the criticism of him is justified.
1 al-Athir, Ibn, al-Kamil fi-l Tarikh, ed. Tadmuri, U. A. (Beirut, 2006), vol. IX, p. 452.Google Scholar
2 Hillenbrand, C., The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh, 1999), pp. 344–345.Google Scholar
3 See Newbold, D., ‘The Crusaders in the Red Sea’, in Sudan Notes and Records 26 (1945), pp. 13–27Google Scholar; Leiser, G., ‘The Crusader Raid in the Red Sea in 578/1182-3’, The Journal of the American Research Center in Cairo, 14 (1977), pp. 87–100Google Scholar; W. Facey, ‘Crusaders in the Red Sea: Renaud de Chatillon's Raids of AD 1182–3’, People of the Red Sea: Proceedings of the Red Sea Project II, (BAR International Series no. 1395, 2005), pp. 87–98.
4 See, among others, Hamilton, B., ‘The Elephant of Christ: Reynald of Chatillon’, Studies in Church History 15: Religious Motivation, ed. Baker, D. (Oxford, 1978), pp. 97–108Google Scholar; Hillenbrand, C., ‘The Imprisonment of Reynald of Chatillon’, in Texts, Documents and Artefacts: Islamic studies in honour of D.S. Richards, ed. Robinson, C.F. (Leiden, 2003), pp. 79–102Google Scholar; Lyons, M.C. & Jackson, D.E.P, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War (Cambridge, 1982), pp 157–158Google Scholar; and Hamilton, B., The Leper King and his Heirs (Cambridge, 2000), especially pp. 159–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 88, and Baldwin, M.W., Raymond III of Tripoli and the Fall of Jerusalem, 1140–1187 (Princeton, 1936), pp. 61–62.Google Scholar
6 Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 98, n. 3.
7 Mayer, H. E., The Crusades (Second Edition), tr. Gillingham, J. (Oxford, 1972), pp. 114–115Google Scholar, and Runciman, S., A History of the Crusades (Hammondsworth, 1965), vol. II, pp. 436–437.Google Scholar
8 Edbury, P. W. and Rowe, J.G., William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 17–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 See Hamilton, ‘The Elephant of Christ’, pp. 97–108; Hillenbrand, ‘The Imprisonment of Reynald of Chatillon’, pp. 79–102; and Hamilton, The Leper King and his Heirs, especially pp. 159–185.
10 See, among others, Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, pp. 94–96; Facey, ‘Crusaders in the Red Sea’, pp. 92–94; and Hamilton, The Leper King, pp. 182–184.
11 For a discussion of this fortress, see Pringle, D., ‘The Castles of Ayla (Al-Aqaba) in the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk Periods’, in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras IV, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 140, ed. Vermeulen, U. and Steenbergen, J. van (Leuven, 2005), pp. 333–353.Google Scholar
12 al-Jawzi, Sibt Ibn, Mir'at al-Zaman, ed. unidentified (Hyderabad, 1951), vol. VIII, part I, p. 369Google Scholar, Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi-l Tarikh, p. 468, and Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, quoted in Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 89.
13 Jubayr, Ibn, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, ed. and tr. Broadhurst, R. (London, 1952), p. 52Google Scholar; Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi, Mir'at al-Zaman, p. 369; and Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, quoted in Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 89.
14 See the letter of the qadi al-Fadil to the Caliph, quoted in ibid., p. 90; Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi, Mir'at al-Zaman, p. 369; and Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi-l Tarikh, p. 468.
15 Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi, Mir'at al-Zaman, p. 369.
16 Ibn Jubayr, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, p. 52, claims to have been an eyewitness to the executions in Cairo.
17 Hillenbrand, ‘The Imprisonment of Reynald of Chatillon’, pp. 95–101.
18 Ibid., p. 95.
19 Lyons and Jackson highlight the letter from al-Fadil to Saladin that reports that the preparations took two years, see Lyons and Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War, p. 185.
20 Although Tayma is around two hundred kilometres from what is generally regarded as Reynald's territory, it is over four hundred and fifty kilometres from his fortress at Kerak.
21 Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi-l Tarikh, p. 452.
22 Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 88.
23 Facey, ‘Crusaders in the Red Sea’, p. 91.
24 See above.
25 Michael the Syrian was Patriarch of Antioch from 1165 until his death in 1199, and his chronicle relates events up until the death of Saladin in 1193, suggesting that, by the time of Reynald's raid, his writing was dealing with near-contemporary events. See Moosa, M., ‘The Crusades: An Eastern Perspective, with Emphasis on Syriac Sources’, Muslim World 93:2 (2003), pp. 249–289CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The chronicle is found in Michael the Syrian, The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, 4 vols., ed. and tr. J.B. Chabot (Paris, 1899–1924).
26 Ibid., vol. III, p. 366.
27 Hamilton, ‘The Elephant of Christ’, p. 102.
28 Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. II, pp. 436–437, and Baldwin, Raymond III of Tripoli, pp. 61–62.
29 Reynald attacked the island of Cyprus, which was in Byzantine hands in the year 1156, and he raided Muslim territory in 1160 in a rather foolhardy action which led to his capture and sixteen-year imprisonment. See William of Tyre, Chronicon, ed. R.B.C. Huygens (Brepols, 1986), vol. II, pp. 823–825 and 283–284; Kinnamos, John The Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, ed. and tr. Brand, C. M. (New York, 1976), p. 136Google Scholar; and Armenia and the Crusades: The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, ed. and tr. A. Doustorian (London, 1993), p. 272.
30 Hillenbrand, ‘The Imprisonment of Reynald of Chatillon’, pp. 79–102.
31 Ibid., pp. 98–100.
32 Michael the Syrian, The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, vol. III, p. 366.
33 See Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi-l Tarikh, p. 18, and Hamilton, ‘The Elephant of Christ’, pp. 106–107.
34 For a general account of the early problems of Saladin, see Lyons and Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War, especially pp. 71–200.
35 To illustrate how close Baha al-Din was to Saladin, he writes in The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, ed. and tr. D.S. Richards (Ashgate, 2002), p. 81, that “I joined him [Saladin] in obedience to his command, and when I was with him, he expressed his delight at my arrival and behaved very hospitably”. Richards himself writes that Baha al-Din “was his [Saladin's] intimate and close confidant, being seldom absent for any length of time”, p. 2.
36 Ibid., p. 74.
37 See Barber, M., ‘Frontier Warfare in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: The Campaigns of Jacob's Ford, 1178–1179’, in The Crusades and their Sources: Essays Presented to B. Hamilton, ed. France, J. and Zajac, W. (Ashgate, 1998), pp. 20–21.Google Scholar
38 Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi-l Tarikh, p. 468, and Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi, Mir'at al-Zaman, p. 369.
39 Ibn Jubayr, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, p. 52.
40 William of Tyre, Chronicon, vol. II, pp. 823–825; Kinnamos, John The Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, ed. and tr. Brand, C. M. (New York, 1976), p. 136Google Scholar; Harris, J., Byzantium and the Crusades (London, 2003), pp. 105–106.Google Scholar
41 Ibn Jubayr, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, p. 52.
42 Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 97.
43 Facey, ‘Crusaders in the Red Sea’, p. 93.
44 al-Maqrizi, , kitab al-mawa'idh wa'l i'tibar bi-dhikr al-khitat wa'l-athar, (Bulaq, 1853), vol. II, pp. 85–86.Google Scholar
45 Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 97.
46 Ibid., p. 88, See also Lyons and Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War, pp. 56–57.
47 Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 87.
48 Facey, ‘Crusaders in the Red Sea’, p. 93.
49 Ibid. He even posits that the crusaders landed at or near Yanbu, even further north of Medina, thus stretching the idea even further.
50 Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 88.
51 Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi, Mir'at al-Zaman, p. 369.
52 Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 95. It is difficult to provide definite proof of this due to the lack of evidence in the sources, but it does appear to be a cogent argument.
53 Hamilton, The Leper King, pp. 180–181.
54 In 1157, Reynald single-handedly ruined the chances of the crusaders to capture Shaizar. This was because he believed it was part of his sphere of influence, while the ruler-in-waiting, Thierry of Flanders, refused to pay him homage. Reynald refused to carry on his part in the siege unless his overlordship was recognised, and caused it to be abandoned. See William of Tyre, Chronicon, vol. II, p. 837.
55 Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, pp. 9–10 and 32.
56 See above.
57 al-Fadil, quoted in Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 90.
58 al-Fadil, quoted in ibid., p. 91.
59 Irwin, R., ‘Islam and the Crusades, 1096–1699’, in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, ed. Riley-Smith, J. (Oxford, 1995), p. 235.Google Scholar
60 Due to the lack of exact datings in William of Tyre's work, it is a matter of uncertainty as to the precise time Reynald was absent, but he is definitely absent for the period when the raid is said to have taken place.
61 al-Fadil, quoted in Leiser, ‘The Crusader Raid’, p. 90.
62 Although the sources do not confirm this, common sense suggests that this is where the information came from, as he was the most senior official who was an eyewitness, and had to report back to his superiors in Cairo, one of whom would have been al-Fadil.