Figure 6.8 Musicians, Blacas ewer, inlaid brass, 629/1232, Mosul, Iraq
Saladin treated the Templars and Hospitallers especially severely after the battle of Hattin in 583/1187;23 indeed, during Saladin’s time they are mentioned more frequently in the Islamic sources. Ibn al-Athir remarks in his account of the massacre of the prisoners: ‘These were singled out to be killed only because they fought more fiercely than all the [other] Franks’. On a later occasion he refers to them as the ‘firebrand (jumra) of the Franks’.24
‘Imad al-Din, Saladin’s close companion, rises to baroque heights of long-winded exultation after Hattin. Amongst the many images of the dismembered Frankish corpses he declares: ‘The faces of the Templars were glowering and their heads were beneath the soles of our feet.’25 Saladin himself said of the Hospitallers and Templars:
I will purify the earth of these two filthy races (jins). For their custom has no use and they will certainly not desist from aggression and they will not serve in captivity. They are the most wicked of all the infidels.26
In the Ayyubid period Ibn Wasil reveals an awareness of the Hospitallers as a distinct order, speaking of ‘the Hospitallers’ House’27 (bayt al-istibar) and ‘brothers’28 (al-ikhwa). As Humphreys suggests, such remarks show ‘a rising level of knowledge and sophistication’ about the Franks amongst the Muslims.29 These two orders continue to be mentioned occasionally in the Mamluk period until the fall of Acre.
Muslim Views of the Frankish Leadership
The official nature of many medieval Islamic historical sources – chronicles and biographical dictionaries alike – presents obituaries and biographies of prominent Muslim figures in a very stereotyped way as if they are the heroes in a shadowy epic rather than people with individual characteristics. So it is not surprising that on the occasions when Crusader leaders receive a special mention in the Islamic sources they appear as even more wooden figures. Nevertheless some of them are discussed, and it is worth analysing how and why.
Figure 6.9 Roundel on ivory box, twelfth century, Sicily or Spain
Frankish Leaders who are Praised by Medieval Muslim Writers
Baldwin the Little
The death of ‘Baldwin the Little, King of the Franks and lord of Jerusalem’ is reported by Ibn al-Qalanisi under the year 526/1131-2. The account is almost sympathetic and certainly shows respect for Baldwin’s abilities:
He was an old man whom time had worn down with its hardships, and who had suffered many rigours of fortune from its vicissitudes and calamities. On many occasions he fell into the hands of the Muslims as a prisoner, in times both of war and of peace, but he always escaped from them through his famous devices and historic stratagems. After him there was none left amongst them possessed of sound judgement and capacity to govern.30
Richard the Lionheart
Warm praise is showered by Muslim authors on Richard the Lionheart. Under the year 587 Ibn al-Athir writes: ‘He was the man of his age as regards courage, shrewdness, endurance and forbearance and because of him the Muslims were sorely tested by unprecedented disaster.’31
Thus Richard is portrayed as a redoubtable opponent, and a worthy foe for the likes of Saladin. The same respect for Richard is shown by Ibn Shaddad, who speaks of him as follows: ‘He possessed judgement, experience, audacity and astuteness. His arrival aroused apprehension and fear in the hearts of the Muslims.’32
St Louis
King Louis IX of France (Raidafrans – roi de France),33 St Louis, whom Ibn Wasil describes as ‘one of the greatest princes of the West’ and ‘a very devout observer of the Christian faith’,34 receives many plaudits in the Islamic sources. He is especially praised for his conduct when he was taken prisoner in 648/1250-1 since he opted to share the fate of his men when he could have escaped.35 Sa’d al-Din Juwayni, in his fragmentary eyewitness memoirs, writes: ‘If the Frenchman [Louis] had wanted to escape, he could have done so but he remained in the heart of the mêlée, to protect his men.’36
According to Juwayni, Louis refused to don a robe of honour offered to him by a sovereign whose realm was less strong and extensive than his own and he also declined to attend a banquet where he would have been the butt of ridicule.37 Juwayni describes Louis as endowed with ‘judgement, firmness, religion in the Frankish sense [of the term]; they [the Franks] had great trust in him, and he [had] a fine physical bearing’.38
This positive opinion is shared by Ibn al-Furat who describes Louis as ‘an extremely intelligent, sensible and alert man’.39
The French scholar Anne-Marie Eddé gives a detailed picture of how St Louis is presented in the Islamic sources. He is a powerful and courageous king, with deep Christian convictions: ‘This Frenchman is the most powerful of the princes of the West; a zealous faith animates him.’ Thus Frederick II is said to have described him to the sultan al-Salih to warn him about the arrival of the Seventh Crusade.40
Figure 6.10 Panel from Umayyad ivory casket, early eleventh century, Spain
Frederick II
The rulers of Sicily attract praise and admiration from the Muslim chroniclers.41 Notable among them was Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, the Holy Roman Emperor, King of Jerusalem, a fascinating and enigmatic Crusader ruler, who has had much ink spilt about him and is given great prominence in Islamic sources. Having been brought up in Sicily, he had a widely cosmopolitan outlook and was openly interested in Arabic and Islam, to such an extent that he was accused of being pro-Muslim.
Figure 6.11 Scenes of courtly life, Cappella Palatina, ceiling, c. 1140, Palermo, Sicily
Ibn Wasil, who served as a Mamluk envoy to Frederick’s son, Manfred of Sicily, and who was proud of his experience and knowledge of Europe, has left some first-hand impressions of how the Muslims viewed Frederick when he arrived in Acre in Shawwal 625/September 1228. He writes as follows:
Amongst the kings of the Franks the Emperor was outstanding; a lover of wisdom, logic and medicine, inclining towards the Muslims because his place of origin and upbringing was the land of Sicily and he and his father and his grandfather were its kings and the majority of that island are Muslims.42
Figure 6.12 Musician, Cappella Palatina, ceiling, c. 1140, Palermo, Sicily
Figure 6.13 Board game players, Cappella Palatina, ceiling, c. 1140, Palermo, Sicily
Ibn Wasil dwells on Frederick’s intellectual prowess and his relationship with the Ayyubid sultan al-Malik al-Kamil. He relates how Frederick sent mathematical problems to al-Malik al-Kamil which took a whole team of Muslim scholars to solve.
Dialogues used to take place between the two of them on diverse topics. In the course of that the Emperor sent al-Malik al-Kamil complicated philosophical, geometrical and mathematical problems by which he might test the learned men he [al-Malik al-Kamil] had with him. Al-Malik al-Kamil showed the mathematical problems he had received to Shaykh [‘Alam al-Din] Qaysar b. Abi’l-Qasim, the leading proponent of this art, and he showed the rest to a group of learned men and they answered everything.43
Presumably we are to infer from this that Frederick himself was able to answer the knotty questions he had sent. Indeed, al-Maqrizi also stresses the emperor’s own personal intellectual powers in this particular field: ‘This king was knowledgeable, penetrating deeply into the science of geometry, arithmetic and mathematics.’44 Ibn Wasil also stresses that Frederick was unusually interested in Islam. Ibn al-Furat reports on the rift between Frederick and the Pope (Innocent IV) and on an assassination attempt allegedly instigated by the Pope on Frederick because ‘the Emperor had abandoned Christianity and favoured the Muslims’.45
Figure 6.14 Wrestlers, Cappella Palatina, ceiling, c. 1140, Palermo, Sicily
Frederick’s upbringing in Sicily, of course, naturally predisposed him in the Muslim view to a higher level of civilisation than other Frankish leaders. So much attention is devoted to him in Muslim sources precisely because he is a Frankish leader deeply immersed in Islamic culture, a ‘Mozarab’ so to speak, the next best thing to a Muslim himself. I
ndeed, Ibn al-Furat remarks that the rumours were that Frederick was ‘a secret Muslim’.46 The geographical ‘accident’ (of being raised in Sicily) had allowed him to acquire some of the attributes of a more favourable ‘clime’,47 in the same way as the second and third generations of ‘Orientalised’ Franks referred to by Usama were ‘better’ than the ones newly arrived from Europe.48
Manfred
Manfred of Hohenstaufen, Frederick II’s bastard son and successor, shared many of his father’s attitudes, as well as his intellectual brilliance, and he maintained friendly contact with Egypt. In Ramadan 659/August 1261, Baybars sent Ibn Wasil to Manfred. Ibn Wasil shows a lively interest in the affairs of Sicily and the relationship between its idiosyncratic rulers and the Pope: ‘All these [the Sicilian rulers] were loathed by the Pope, the caliph of the Franks, the lord of Rome, because of their inclination towards the Muslims.’49 Ibn Wasil writes of his visit as follows: ‘I stayed with him [Manfred] and was honourably treated. I met him several times and found him to be distinguished, liking the rational sciences, memorising ten articles from the book of Euclid on geometry.’50
Ibn Wasil is impressed that Manfred has begun to build a ‘house of knowledge’ in which to study the exact sciences.51 Perhaps Ibn Wasil made a connection between this enterprise and the storied ‘House of Wisdom’ (Dar al-hikma) founded by the ‘Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad.
What is fascinating here is that the singular achievements of both Manfred and his father seem to have some sub-conscious link in Ibn Wasil’s mind with their natural inclinations towards Islam and their contact with Muslims. He remarks in the same breath that many of Manfred’s attendants were Muslims and that the call to prayer and the prayer itself took place openly in the ranks of Manfred’s own army.52
Frankish Leaders about whom Muslim Writers give Neutral or Inconclusive Evidence
Baldwin I
Al-Maqrizi, in his voluminous biographical dictionary the Kitab al-muqaffa’, actually devotes an entry to Baldwin, King of Jerusalem. It contains no assessment of the character or achievements of this important Frankish leader. One suspects that the obituary is included by al-Maqrizi because Baldwin fought against the Fatimids and actually died in Egyptian territory. In particular, al-Maqrizi tells two well-known anecdotes about Baldwin’s exploits: his battle against the Fatimid army in 495/1101, in which he was routed, and his flight to a reed thicket from which he managed to escape, although the Muslims set fire to the thicket and he received burns to his body. He is thus presented as a redoubtable foe. Later, in 512/1118, Baldwin raided Egypt again but died on the way home. His entrails, and his reputation with them, lingered on in local Egyptian folklore for long afterwards:
The Franks were afraid of publicising his death and so they concealed it. They took him [away to Palestine] after they had torn open his belly and stuffed it with straw. They buried what was in his belly in a swamp … The common people called it Baldwin’s swamp and the place of his grave is marked with a stone.53
Figure 6.15 Hunter with dog, lid of ivory casket, eleventh-twelfth centuries, Muslim work from south Italy
Bohemond VI
Also typical of the rather unsatisfactory, even inconsequential nature of the information provided by Muslim medieval writers on the Crusader leaders are two obituaries given by the chronicler al-Yunini (d. 1326). The first concerns Bohemond VI, prince of Antioch and count of Tripoli. According to al-Yunini, Bohemond died during the first ten days of Ramadan 673/February-March 1275 and was buried in the church in Tripoli. Al-Yunini continues: ‘He was good-looking and pleasant in appearance. I myself saw him in Ba’albakk in the year 658/1260.’54
Perhaps the clue to the inclusion of this information at all is the fact that the author had actually seen Bohemond in person and was proud of it. He is certainly prepared to comment favourably on his physical appearance. Al-Yunini then adds that when the Mamluk sultan Qalawun captured Tripoli in 688/1289, Bohemond’s bones were dug up and strewn around the streets of the city.55
Guy II
Al-Yunini also wrote an obituary of Guy II, the lord of Jubayl (d. 681/1282). The actual notice does not shed much light on the personality involved. The stereotypical phrases give very little away: ‘He was one of the famous knights amongst the Franks, beloved of them for his courage and generosity. He was one of the revered knights in Tripoli.’56
Such reports as these are lacklustre and lifeless; but beneath the surface there is a lack of active hostility and even grudging praise for the elite of the enemy’s knightly classes.
Raymond of Tripoli
Orientalised Franks were often branded as treacherous by both sides. One such example was Raymond of Tripoli (d. 1187), whom Ibn Shaddad describes as intelligent and perspicacious.57 According to ‘Imad al-Din, Raymond took refuge in 580/1184-5 with Saladin, offered him help against the people of his own religion (milla) and became one of the sultan’s followers. ‘Imad al-Din then adds: ‘His sincere intentions towards the Muslims strengthened to such an extent that were it not for fear of his co-religionists he would have become a Muslim.’58
Figure 6.16 Seated prince, lustre dish, twelfth century, Syria
Ibn Jubayr praises Raymond’s skills in government. He remarks that Baldwin IV, the leper, lived in seclusion, having delegated the administration of his government to his uncle, the Count (Raymond) who ‘supervises all with firmness and authority’.59 Ibn Jubayr then sums up Raymond’s character as follows:
The most considerable amongst the accursed Franks is the accursed Count, the lord of Tripoli and Tiberias. He has authority and position among them. He is qualified to be king, and indeed is a candidate for the office. He is described as being shrewd and crafty.60
High praise indeed for an infidel. Yet the Qadi al-Fadil roundly condemns Raymond at Hattin: ‘He fled [the battle of Hattin] for fear of being struck by lances and swords. Then God took him in his hands and killed him according to his promise and sent him to the kingdom of death in hell.’61
Figure 6.17 Seated prince, inlaid brass basin signed by Ibn al-Zayn, c. 1300, Syria
Reynald of Sidon
Reynald of Sidon, the lord of Shaqif, is mentioned in the Muslim sources as being another Crusader who had taken the trouble to learn about the culture in which he was living. Under the year 585/1189–90 Abu Shama mentions that Reynald of Sidon went to see Saladin personally to conciliate him in order to buy time to rebuild the defences of his fortress. This he managed to do by impressing Saladin and his entourage, and in spite of the Muslims’ subsequent discovery of this man’s devious motives in visiting Saladin, Abu Shama is still sufficiently laudatory about Reynald’s abilities:
He was one of the great ones and most intelligent of the Franks. He knew Arabic and he had some acquaintance with histories and traditions. He had a Muslim with him who used to read to him and make him understand and he had perseverance. He used to debate with us on the rightness of his religion and we would argue its falsity. He was good to be with, cultivated in his speech.62
Here then was a Frank who had succeeded in achieving a certain mastery of Arabic.
Figure 6.18 Sign of Libra, Mamluk mirror, inlaid metal, fourteenth century, Syria(?)
Crusader Leaders who are Reviled in the Muslim Sources
Conrad of Montferrat
Conrad of Montferrat, the lord of Tyre, is known as ‘the Marquis’ and is singled out in the Islamic sources for special condemnation and invective. Under the year 583/1187–8, Ibn al-Athir writes soberly of Conrad’s achievements in rallying the Franks against Saladin: ‘He [Conrad] had ruled them [the people of Tyre] well and gone to great extremes to fortify the town. He was a human devil, good at administration and defence, and he had great courage.’63
Ibn Shaddad shares these views, calling him ‘the most intrepid and the most powerful of them [the Franks] in war and the most proven of them in administration’.64
Abu Shama, on the other hand, fulminates virulently against Conrad, most probably because it was he wh
o saved Tyre from Saladin’s attacks and thereby caused the Muslims a very serious reverse. In an outburst of venom and rhetorical floridness he writes:
Tyre exchanged [masters] from the count to the marquis, like exchanging the Devil for Satan … The marquis was one of the greatest tempters of unbelief and the most seductive of its devils, the most rapacious of its wolves, the most vicious of its jackals, the most unclean of its dogs; he is the epitome of the wily tyrant. It was for him and the likes of him that the Inferno was created.65
Reynold of Chatillon
By far the greatest acrimony and hatred are reserved for the archvillain of the Crusading ruling class, Reynald of Chatillon, known in the Arabic sources as Arnat. Reynald, the lord of Karak and al-Shawbak, earned undying notoriety and opprobrium amongst Muslims for his lack of the chivalric values recognised by both sides and above all for his activities in the Red Sea where he threatened the very heart of the Islamic world, the two Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina.
Saladin’s biographer, Ibn Shaddad, describes Reynald as ‘an infidel, tyrannical, powerful and violent’,66 whilst Ibn al-Athir, usually restrained in his judgements, calls him ‘one of the devils and defiant ones amongst the Franks and the most hostile of them towards the Muslims’.67 One of the two episodes on which the Muslim chroniclers dwell with shock and horror is Reynald’s seizing of a caravan from Egypt during a period of truce between Crusaders and Muslims. According to Ibn Shaddad, when Reynald had seized those travelling with the caravan, Ibn Shaddad writes:
The Crusades- Islamic Perspectives Page 39
