The Crusades Through Arab Eyes: Part I

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, by Amin Maalouf, originally published in 1983, takes a new approach to telling an old history from the point-of-view of Muslim historians.
Throughout the text, Maalouf focuses on how Muslims perceive the nearly 200-year-long slaughters by Western religious zealots that took Arab cities and holy grounds, regardless of how violent the means and how those perceptions have lead to contemporary ideological wars in the Middle East.
Through Arab Eyes presents a compelling history of the series of wars by European Christians that sought to seize holy places under Muslim control between the 11th and 13th centuries. Maalouf tells the story of the seizure of Muslim people and their lands. Between the two disparaging accounts —the Arab view, a bloody slaughter from the historical accounts of exclusively Muslim experts and the same events portrayed as dignified religious conquests by Western historians — Maalouf pulls off not only a convincing argument but one that explores the breach of the Islamic nations by Christian crusaders. Part one, “Invasions” reveals that the Muslim people’s incomprehension of the crusades themselves and the lack of organization among their ranks, lead to their devastation during the invasions.
To understand the Muslim perspective from which this book is told, it’s worth knowing a thing or two about its author, Amin Maalouf. Maalouf is perhaps the best-fit person to construct a book like this. He is Lebanese-born and a native Arabic speaker — and French nationality, which held some of the most barbarous armies during the 11th century invasions of Muslim holy grounds. He has a unique position to see the crusades from both sides, and presents a text that shines light on the exclusively Arabic view of the ideological religious invasions that have, in many ways, set the stage for