Table Of ContentNOTE TO USERS
Page(s) not included in the original manuscript
are unavailable from the author or university. The
manuscript was microfilmed as received.
274
This reproduction is the best copy available.
UMI
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
COUNTER-CRUSADE: A STUDY OF TWELFTH CENTURY
JIHAD IN SYRIA AND PALESTINE
by
Margaret E. Bertsch
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in the
University of Michigan
1950
Committee in charge:
Professor Palmer A, Throop, Chairman
Professor Preston W. Slosson
Doctor John W. Hall
Professor William H. Worrell
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
TABLE OP CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I ARABIC HISTORIOGRAPHY .............. 1
II GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OP THE ARABIC
HISTORIANS OP THE TWELPTH CENTURY CRUSADING
PERIOD ..................................... 43
III "HOLY WAR" AGAINST THE CRUSADES ..............I35
IV THE MUSLIM CORE ............................ 232
CONCLUSION ....................................... 347
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................... 383
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
CHAPTER I
ARABIC HISTORIOGRAPHY
In order "to investigate the historians of twelfth
and thirteenth century Islam who wrote on the crusading
period of the twelfth century, and to try and discover
what the Islamic reaction to the crusades was, it is
necessary to have some idea of the general outlines of
Arabic historiography. The developments of history
written in the Persian language by Muslims is not being
considered, but only history composed by Muslims who
wrote in Arabic, although they were not exclusively of
Arab extraction by any manner of means.
History to the modem scholar may be defined as
"a prose narrative in chronological sequence and causal
relationship, written in a critical spirit of inquiry
for the whole truth," a definition which takes into ac
count the developments in method and aim of the nine
teenth century particularly, with its emphasis on
"scientific" history. The Islamic historians up to and
beyond the period with which this paper is concerned had
no such concept of history. The term which is used to
signify "history" in Arabic is cilm at-ta^ rikh, or the
"science of history." cIlm itself derives from a stem
which signifies "to mark, distinguish by a mark," and
1
I
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
2
also "to know something, to be instructed about some
thing." The term employed here signifies "science" or
"knowledge."^- The basic meaning of ta-*rikh is reveal
ing; it derives from a stem meaning "to put the date to,
write the history of...." The noun itself signifies the
"epoch of a fact, the date of a letter, history, chroni-
9
cle." Literally speaking, then, the term signifies the
"certain knowledge of dating," of "chronicling," or some
such meaning. Basically, by definition, and to a certain
extent by concept, surely, "history" to a Muslim was con
cerned first and foremost 7*ith chronology. It was the
accurate arrangement by date of certain events. And it
is significant that most Islamic history was arranged by
year, with little or no attempt to use a topical arrange
ment which would highlight causal relationship. It will
be seen that to the Muslim, the -use of history was primar
ily as a teacher of theological, political, or military
lessons; it was the manifestation of Allah*s divine plan
for the world, and it was the record of the victories of
Islamic fighters and their subsequent administration of
conquered territories.3 This type of historical writing
^Pere J. B. Belot, Vocabularie Arabe-Brancais....
(14th ed.; Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique, 1929T,
pp. 519-520.
2Ibid., p. 6.
3Cf. K. A. R. Gibb, "cIlm at-Ta*rikh," Encyclopedia
of Islam (Leyden: E. J. Brill, Supplement Cl^eOTT
Pp. 234-5; 236;
B. S. Margoliouth, Lectures on ArabicHistorians
(Calcutta: University of Calcutta, l93t>)* PpV ^ T ^ f .
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
3
does, on occasion, employ a topical arrangement, but
mainly to show how Allah has been working, rarely to re
veal causation in human terms.
The general outline of Islamic historiography through
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries includes three main
periods, according to the survey of the subject given by
E. A. R. Gibb<>^ The first period, from the origins to
the third century A. H., roughly the seventh to the early
ninth centuries after Christ, saw the first developments
of history, as Islam understood history. There was no
tradition of historical writing among the Arabs at all,
in any true sense of the word. The two main pre-Islamic
influences on subsequent writing of this genre were the
northern tribal traditions of the great battles of the
tribes, "the days" or aiyam, and the tales of military
victories of the Arabs generally told in prose and verse
and containing all "the old exaggerations and inexacti
tudes. Prom these two precedents derived the accounts
of the conquests of Islam which appeared in this first
period, a type of historical writing which never dis
appeared. In the second century of the Muslim era some
few men also used philology in an attempt to recover,
explain, and classify the old tribal traditions and pre-
Islam ic poetry, but this type of approach did not attract
many scholars or remain a permanent method.D
^Gibb, "Ta^rikh," p. 233.
5Ibid., p. 234.
6Ibid., p. 236.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The second type of historical literature which ap
peared was of an eminently practical purpose to a culture
which was built upon a religion, accounts of the life of
the Prophet Muhammed. As all of Islamic life was based
on the directions given in the Koran and on the personal
instructions of Muhammed, after his death it became neces
sary to record what he had said and done on certain occa
sions to supplement the Koran itself, and to serve as a
guide for daily life when the Holy Book did not suffice.
At first this need did not call forth biographies proper,
but what are called hadith. The word derives from a
verbal stem h-d-th, meaning "to take place, to happen,”
which in the derived form, hadith, signifies "the narra
tion of a fact, a tradition.”7 In other words, a hadith
is the reporting of a tradition concerning Muhammed, his
observation on a certain matter, his action in a given
situation, his advice as to special problems. Collec
tions of hadith were made to meet the needs of Islam
after the Prophet*s death and in order to substantiate
the traditions a special technique was worked out, the
isnad technique. This latter term comes from a stem
s-n-d, "to lean on something;" in the form used here it
means ”to cause someone or thing to lean on something
else," hence its nominative significance-- "the citation
of an authority."® The ishad is the authority for the
- __
Belot, op. cit., pp. 106, 107*
8Ibid.. p. 345.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
5
given tradition, the citing of the source of the tradi
tion, which properly should go from the narrator8s own
contemporary source back to the Prophet himself, or to
one of his friends or a member of his family who would
have been able to know exactly what the Prophet did say
or do, A complete hadith would then be in the form of:
"so and so told me, and he heard it from so and so, and
he heard it from so and so.... that the Prophet said.,*."
The actual saying of the Prophet thus leans on the author
ity of that chain of transmitters.
This method was borrowed and used by historians and
became one of the most outstanding historical techniques
in Islam, and in the hands of honest men it was a healthy
influence. The men of science and law had, necessarily,
to be extremely careful about their sources, and the
practice passed on into biography, which developed parti
cularly from hadith studies, and to history proper. It
is to be noted that there is quite a difference between
the accurate indication of sources and the careful re
production of what those sources offer, and an investi
gation of the sources themselves. As time passed and
there was an ever greater hiatus between the author and
his sources, as well as a tremendous increase in the
number of sources available, the Muslim scholars became
more and more impressed with the necessity of the faith
ful reproduction of the source along with its identifi
cation. This, however, was as far as most men went,
which left the matter of the reliabilitjr of the information
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
6
proffered up to the source itself.9 Some men evidently
were aware that this left something to be desired.
Al-Maqrizi, for instance, the great historian of Egypt
who died in 1442, included this statement in his history
after distinguishing between the types of information
which he had used, oral information from his acquaint
ance, written works, and his own experience.
*A11 quotations from various scholarly works,
which I have included in my work, have been pro
vided with the indication of their source. This
relieves me of the responsibility for the accuracy
of the statements made in the quotations and ex
empts me from any share of guilt in the mistakes
they contain. *3-0
The hadith method thus does not guarantee accurate
information because little or no attempt was made to
check on the validity of the ultimate source. Besides
this weakness in the method a second appears because,
as time went by and the necessity for adducing propheti
cal support for any given opinion became vital, many
such isnads became anything but truthful because of the
impossibility of actually proving, without written
9Franz Rosenthal, The Technique and Approach of
Muslim Scholarship ("Analecta Orienialis dommentationes
Scientificae de Rebus Orientus Orientis Antiqui," 24
[Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1947J), pp. 41-
53.
For further information on the Muslim awareness
of the problems of textual accuracy in the use of manu
scripts, ibid., pp. 22-40.
^■°A1-Maqrizi, Mawaciz, 1. 4, and Memoires de
1!Institut francais*"#*archeologie oriental du Caire, 30,
10 f. (19ii), quoted in Rosenthal, op. cit. , p.T5T
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
7
records, -that such men had actually heard such statements
uttered, or because of pure intention to fabricate. But
the aim to prove all statements in this manner remained.
As a result, in many histories, as for example in that
of Abu Shama, the same material is repeated with a vary
ing authority, or a slightly different version may be
given with its own authority; there is no attempt to
synthesize and choose the best authority and version, as
the reader was to do that for himself just as he did when
studying a collection of hadiths. In fact, although the
hadith method was certainly not foolproof, it was the
best technique which was utilized by Muslim historians,
and its absence renders any history subject to grave
suspicion,
The subject matter of the hadith was also of great
influence on historical writings; it pertained especially
to military expeditions and to religious practices. So
influential was the military tradition— the old aiyam
example giving direction to the subject matter of history--
that the early biographical works are called maghazi,
"military expeditions, wars.’1^1' The first written biog
raphy of the Prophet, the beginning of Arabic written
literature, was reputedly composed by Ibn Ishaq, who
died in 150, 151, or 152 A. H.12
1:LBeiot, op. cit,. p. 549*
12
Margoliouth, op. cit., p. 84.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
