Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022): 622-630 Book Review James E. Lindsay and Suleiman A. Mourad offer a new collection of primary source texts spanning the period between the eleventh and four- teenth centuries and covering Muslim relations with Western Christians as well as Muslim perceptions of the latter. The collection has been carefully edited and offers primary sources geared towards the study of the crusade wars, their aftermath, and Muslim reactions thereto, though the reader soon learns that this is no ordinary anthology of “crusade sources.” The editors have included less commonly consulted genres of texts, such as letters, poetry, and inscriptions. And, of the * I thank Luke Yarbrough, Malika Dekkiche, and the Editorial Staff at Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists for their corrections and careful copy-editing. Any errors that remain are mine. 1. Current English-language anthologies available to students of the crusades include: The Crusades: A Documentary Survey, ed. and trans. James A. Brundage (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962; repr., 2020); Storici Arabi delle Crociate, ed. and trans. Francesco Gabrieli (Torino: G. Einaudi, 1957); Arab Historians of the Crusades: Selected and Translated from the Arabic Sources, trans. E. J. Costello (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969; repr., 1984, 2010); The Crusades: A Reader, 2nd ed., ed. S. J. Allen and Emilie Amt (Toronto: corpus of extant chronicles, Lindsay and Mourad have selected many that are rarely available to Anglophone audiences (e.g., al-ʿAẓīmī’s Taʾrīkh Ḥalab), while retaining some essential and well-known works (e.g., Ibn al-Athīr’s al-Kāmil fī al-taʾrīkh). This is a welcome departure from the canon of sources used in current anthologies, particularly with regard to the Christian campaign “to liberate the Church of God” (ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei) now known as the First Crusade (1096–1099) and with regard to the thirteenth century, a period that often receives less coverage despite the efflorescence of Mamluk historiogra- phy.1 This canon has traditionally focused Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period: An Anthology. Edited and translated, with an Introduction, by James E. Lindsay and Suleiman A. Mourad. (Indianapolis; Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2021). ISBN: 9781624669842. xxvii+291 pp. $63.00 cloth; $21.00 paper; $16.95 ebook. Bogdan C. Smarandache* Équipe Islam médiéval, Unité Mixte de Recherche 8167 Orient et Méditerranée © 2022 Bogdan C. Smarandache. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives License, which allows users to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the original authors and source. Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022) 623 • Bogdan C. SmarandaChe on Western chronicles and excerpts of Islamic texts that provide Islamic perspec- tives on Western Christians and thereby serve as foils for the events under focus— events whose narrative arcs have been heavily shaped and memorialized by Latin Christian authors.2 Instead, Lindsay and Mourad’s carefully selected sources guide the reader in understanding not only how Muslims perceived and reacted to wars of conquest, but how Islamic society persisted beyond and despite the short-lived Latin Christian presence in the Near East.3 Lindsay and Mourad open the volume with a brief discussion of the historiography of the crusades and the anthology’s central themes. They discuss their objective of “bring[ing] to light a disparate selection of sources that […] introduce the student of Crusades history to a more complex understanding of the Crusades and the interactions between Franks and Muslims— which ranged from animosity to amity— in the broader context of Islamic history” University of Toronto Press, 2014). In addition, there are other source readers that contain chapters on the crusades, such as: Readings in Medieval History, 5th ed., ed. Patrick J. Geary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016); Reading the Middle Ages: Sources from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, 3rd ed., ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018). On the term ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei and the conceptualization of the campaign of 1096–1099, see Paul E. Chevedden, “Crusade Creationism versus Pope Urban II’s Conceptualization of the Crusades,” The Historian (2013): 1–46. 2. On the invention of Western crusade narratives, see Carol Symes, “Popular Literacies and the First Historians of the First Crusade,” Past & Present 235 (2017): 37–67 and the overview article by Elizabeth Lapina, “Crusader Chronicles,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the Crusades, ed. Anthony Bale, 11–24 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). On the use of Islamic sources to corroborate Western narratives, see Paul E. Chevedden, “The Islamic View and the Christian View of the Crusades: A New Synthesis,” History 93 (2008): 181–200. 3. One is reminded of Carole Hillenbrand’s decision to include images of Islamic visual and material culture in The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1999), which challenged the over-emphasis on the impact of the crusaders and their military incursions. 4. For a study devoted to this campaign, see Suhayr Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Nuʿayniʿ, al-Ḥurūb al-ṣalībiyya al-mutaʾakhkhira: Ḥamlat Buṭrus al-Awwal Lūsinyān ʿalā al-Iskandariyya, 1365 M/747 H (Giza: ʿAyn, 2002), reviewed by Niall Christie in Mamlūk Studies Review 10, no. 1 (2006): 199–201. The third volume of the “Wisconsin history” of the crusades helped widen the chronological scope of crusade studies: History of the Crusades, ed. Kenneth M. Setton, vol. 3: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed. Harry W. Hazard (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975). (p. xiv, my italics; see also p. xviii). In fact, they provide this varied picture but also go far beyond it, as I hope to show further below. In outlining the focus of the anthology, they acknowledge that historians have been extending the scope of crusade studies to cover a widening arena of Christian militant activity. In this regard, the authors’ decision to include al-Nuwayrī al-Iskandarānī’s account of Peter of Cyprus’ (r. 1358–1369) attack on Alexandria in 767/1365 (pp. 149–55) challenges popular narratives that end the “crusades period” at 1291 (p. xiii).4 In their introduction, the editors also devote a section to a discussion of jihad in the context of Muslim responses to Latin Christian expansion, drawing on their extensive expertise in this area. Without reservation, Lindsay and Mourad assert that, when the authors of the period used the word jihad, “they invariably meant warfare against the enemies of God and the Muslims” (p. xvi, see also p. 249). Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022) Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period • 624 Lindsay and Mourad have used careful wording to explain that most jurists considered the duty to wage jihad to be incumbent upon all (able) Muslims, even those engaged in more contemplative or esoteric forms of jihad. I agree that the term jihād and its cognate jihād fī sabīl Allāh—one could add the explicit variant jihād al-Ifranj (“jihad against the Franks”) used by Ibn Munqidh (d. 584/1188)—must be read as exhortations to fight the Franks, Mongols, Shīʿīs, Nizārī Ismaʿilis, Nuṣayrīs, or Druzes, depending on the (Sunnī) author’s perspective and context and specifically in the aftermath o f t h e L a t i n C h r i s t i a n c o n q u e s t s o f 1096–1099. Indeed, the cognate mujāhid (“jihad fighter”) springs up in several inscriptions in Chapter 6 (nos. 1, 7, 8, 11, 12) and in all cases the term suggests military activity against those whom the ruling elite who commissioned the inscriptions deemed enemies, though the aforementioned groups are never mentioned explicitly.5 However, this use of mujāhid was not universal even in the period in question. The Mamluk sultan 5.  N.b., James Lindsay and Suleiman Mourad have translated the term ابــو العزائــم in the Ayyūbid inscription at the shrine of Isaac and Rebecca (Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, no. 5, 5:40) as “fearless warrior” (p. 207). More generally, the root of م – ز – can suggest resoluteness (or something pertaining to ع enchantment). I wonder if this term can be translated as “the Resolute One” or if it is a laqab-patronymic like Abū Bakr or Abū Ḥarb. William Edward Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 8 vols. (London: Williams, 1863), 5:2038–39; W. M. Thackston, An Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic: An Elementary Grammar of the Language (Bethesda, MD: IBEX Publishers, 1994), 181. 6. Linda S. Northrup, “Al-Bimāristān al-Manṣūrī – Explorations: The Interface between Medicine, Politics and Culture in Early Mamluk Egypt,” in History and Society during the Mamluk Period (1250–1517): Studies of the Annemarie Schimmel Research College I, ed. Stephan Conermann, 107–42 (Bonn: V & R Unipress, 2014). 7. Hillenbrand, Islamic Perspectives, 107, 161–62; Paul L. Heck, “‘Jihad’ Revisited,” The Journal of Religious Ethics 32, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 95–128, at 99. 8. One example is the Aleppan chronicler Ibn Abī Ṭayyiʾ (d. 726/1230). See Claude Cahen, “Une chronique chiite au temps des Croisades,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 79, no. 3 (1935): 258–69; M. C. Lyons and D. E. P. Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 44; Anne-Marie Eddé, Saladin (Paris: Flammarion, 2008), 16, 48, 52. 9. Such sources could include pro-Fatimid verses by ʿUmāra al-Yamanī (d. 569/1174), though not a Shīʿī Qalāwūn (r. 678–689/1279–1290) described his foundation of a hospital in Cairo and the appointment of its Muslim personnel as acts of jihad.6 It may be helpful for students new to the period, or to the study of Islam, to include discussion of changes in the term's usage over time.7 Even with frequent references to jihad in the context of Muslim responses to Frankish military campaigns, students using this anthology will be encouraged to consider the legitimization of warfare b y M u s l i m s a g a i n s t o t h e r M u s l i m s (Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā, pp. 54–57) or to confront other aspects of interfaith relations, such as diplomacy (Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij, p. 143). Regarding the former, providing a full range of Islamic perspectives for the period is complicated by the absence of Shīʿī perspectives on t h e F r a n k s . 8 C o m m e n t a r y f r o m S h ī ʿ ī circles at the time of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s rise to power in Egypt could provide interesting c o u n t e r p o i n t s t o m o s t n a r r a t i v e s emphasizing the sultan’s achievement in terms of campaigning against Franks or dissolving the Fatimid caliphate.9 Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022) 625 • Bogdan C. SmarandaChe Lindsay and Mourad then provide a brief overview of the range of authorial voices and perspectives in the volume, which is expanded in an extensive survey of sources in Appendix C (pp. 225–42).10 They note that “the voice of the uneducated Muslim masses” remains underrepresented (p. xvii); however, the edition and translation of Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn’s (569–643/1173–1245) a l ‐ Ḥ i k ā y ā t a l ‐ m u q t a b a s a f ī k a r ā m ā t mashāyikh al‐Arḍ al‐Muqaddasa (The Cited Tales of the Wondrous Doings of the Shaykhs of the Holy Land) by Daniella Talmon-Heller provides a window into diverse reactions to the Frankish presence. Other sources cited in Alex Mallett’s Popular Muslim Reactions to the Franks in the Levant, 1097–1291 may also be useful in this regard.11 The editors then discuss the organization of the sources in the anthology into six chapters dealing with different genres of text: 1. Travel Literature and Geographical Guides 2. Jihad Books and Juridical Directives 3. Chronicles, Memoirs, and Poetry himself, or the Fatimid diploma of investiture issued to Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn when he was appointed as wazīr in 564/1169. Dwight Reynolds, Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 95–96; Eddé, Saladin, 49–50, n. 42 (p. 597), 195. 10. This appendix is an immensely useful resource and complements previous surveys of sources, particularly Carole Hillenbrand, “Sources in Arabic,” in Byzantines and Crusaders in Non-Greek Sources, 1025–1204, ed. Mary Whitby, 283–340 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Isabel Callejas Martín, “Los ayubíes (564 h./1168– 658 h./1260): un recorrido historiográfico,” En la España Medieval 38 (2015): 399–467. N.b., al-Maqrīzī’s Kitāb al-Sulūk li-maʿrifat duwal al-mulūk (described on p. 234) runs up to 844 AH (= 1440–1441 AD) in Muḥammad ʿ Abd al-Qādir ʿAṭā’s edition. See also Hillenbrand, “Sources in Arabic,” 321. 11. Diyāʾ al-Dīn, al-Ḥikāyāt al-muqtabasa fī karāmāt mashāyikh al-Arḍ al-Muqaddasa, ed. and trans. Daniella Talmon-Heller as “The Cited Tales of the Wondrous Doings of the Shaykhs of the Holy Land by Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿ Abd al-Wāḥid al-Maqdisī (569/1173–643/1245): Text, Translation and Commentary,” Crusades 1 (2002): 111–54; Alex Mallett, Popular Muslim Reactions to the Franks in the Levant, 1097–1291 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014). 4. Biographies 5. Correspondences, Treaties, and Truces 6. Inscriptions Each text is followed by a set of questions about that text, and the end of each chapter includes broader questions that link multiple texts in that chapter. Instead of summarizing the sources included in each chapter, I point to some highlights and teaching points that can be especially enlightening for students new to the field. First, the editors’ decision to begin with geography in Chapter 1 is refreshing and functions well in terms of framing the study of the period without reference to the crusades and by demonstrating the limited or perhaps circumscribed effect that the expansion of Latin Christendom had upon some authors, or at least on their writings. For example, readers can compare the descriptions of Acre and Ascalon in al-Harawī’s Kitāb al-Ishārāt (pp. 1–14) and Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī’s Kitāb Muʿjam al-buldān (pp. 28–39), bearing in mind each text’s genre and purpose. The former scarcely acknowledges the presence of the Franks Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022) Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period • 626 or, at least, minimizes their impact, whereas the latter accords them greater attention—at least in the excerpts provided. T h e R i ḥ l a o f I b n J u b a y r ( p p . 1 5 – 2 7 ) provides a third perspective by bringing snapshots of co-existence in Acre and other areas to bear on our understanding of the period. Furthermore, the ability of al-Harawī and Ibn Jubayr to move between sites controlled by the Franks—something that has elicited a range of conclusions by modern historians—provides further insight into Frankish-Muslim encounters between periods of hostility. A n o t h e r i n s t r u c t i v e c o u n t e r p o i n t p r e s e n t e d i n M u s l i m S o u r c e s i s t h e timeless problem of collaboration with the enemy. Comparison between Ibn Jubayr’s reaction to Muslims living comfortably “under Frankish rule” (pp. 18–19) and Abū al-Fawāris Ḥamdān’s defence of residing “in a village whose people are not noble” ( p p . 7 6 – 7 7 ) p r o v i d e s a n o t h e r u s e f u l launching point for investigating different Muslim reactions to the aftermath of the First Crusade and the Frankish presence. That Ibn Jubayr describes a feast arranged by a generous host (who happens to be a village headman, raʾīs, appointed or confirmed in his appointment by the Franks!) adds to the complexity of the overall picture. Students comparing these texts might be led to believe that Muslims did indeed live comfortably under Frankish lords, following the depredations of the Latin Christian invasions of 1096–1099, and that this reality elicited different responses from Muslim observers, depending on their allegiance to a particular vision of an ideal society. Many sources do support these conclusions. However, the text al‐Ḥikāyāt a l ‐ m u q t a b a s a c i t e d a b o v e , a l t h o u g h compiled a generation or two after the Frankish-Muslim encounters described in its reports, suggests that the Franks were very capable of lordly oppression. A question that may arise in courses on Christian-Muslim political relations i n t h e m e d i e v a l p e r i o d p e r t a i n s t o c ult ures of t rus t and d iplom ac y and how they manifested in various political circumstances, interfaith and intrafaith. Taken as a whole, the evidence from Chapter 3 suggests that the Franks were overwhelmingly less reliable in terms of honoring diplomatic agreements, although certain Mamluk sultans can also be accused of such diplomatic mischief. According to the sample of texts in Muslim Sources, t h e F r a n k s h o n o r e d f o u r s u r r e n d e r agreements: • S a f e p a s s a g e g r a n t e d t o t h e defenders of Tyre (p. 36); • S a f e p a s s a g e g r a n t e d t o t h e defenders of the Tower of David (pp. 65, 67); and, • S a f e p a s s a g e g r a n t e d t o t h e defenders of Jabala and Latakia (p. 72). However, several violations by the Franks are also recorded in the Arabic texts included in the anthology: • Safe passage promised to the inhabitants of Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān (p. 64); • Safe passage promised to the inhabitants of Acre (p. 105); and, • Safe passage promised to the inhabitants of Damietta (p. 109). In contrast, Muslim leaders honored a l l a g r e e m e n t s d e s c r i b e d i n t h e anthology: Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022) 627 • Bogdan C. SmarandaChe • S a f e p a s s a g e g r a n t e d t o t h e Turkoman defenders of Jerusalem (p. 67); • Safe passage granted to Eschiva of Bures and her retinue (p. 95); • Safe passage granted to the Franks occupying Damietta (p. 113); • S a f e p a s s a g e g r a n t e d t o t h e defenders of Crac de Chevaliers (p. 144); and, • S a f e p a s s a g e g r a n t e d t o t h e inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon, Atlit, Beirut, and Haifa (p. 147). Ibn Jubayr’s account suggests that Baldwin IV and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn honored a truce concluded ca. 580/1184 (p. 16).12 Frederick II and al-Malik al-Kāmil honored the second “Treaty of Jaffa” ratified in 626/1229 (pp. 117, 121–22), and al-Malik a l - Ṣ ā l i ḥ I s m ā ʿ ī l , a l - M a l i k a l - M a n ṣ ū r , and al-Malik al-Nāṣir Dāʾūd and “the Franks” (possibly represented by Philip of Montfort, Balian of Ibelin, and the Templar Master Armand de Périgord13) honored a truce concluded in 640/1243 (p. 128). This sampling brings to mind a major challenge of any source anthology, namely the degree to which a necessarily minute selection of texts can stand in for the huge mass of written material that 12. ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣbahānī, quoted in Abū Shāma, Kitāb al-Rawḍatayn fī akhbār al-dawlatayn al-nūriyya wa-l-ṣalāḥiyya, ed. Ibrāhīm Zaybaq (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1997), 3: 290. An attack by rebellious Franks on a group of Bedouin herders under safe passage recorded in the Lyon Eracles/Old French Continuation must have amounted to a violation of this very truce. La Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184–1197), ed. Margaret Ruth Morgan (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1982), 18; The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation, trans. Peter W. Edbury (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), 12. 13. Mary Nickerson Hardwicke, “The Crusader States, 1192–1243,” in History of the Crusades, ed. Kenneth M. Setton, Vol. 2: The Later Crusades, 1189–1311, ed. Robert Lee Wolff and Harry W. Hazard, 522–54 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 554; Steven Runciman, “The Crusader States, 1243–1291,” in ibid., 557–98, at 559–61. See also Peter Thorau, The Lion of Egypt: Sultan Baybars I and the Near East in the Thirteenth Century, trans. P. M. Holt (New York: Longman, 1992), 19 and n. 25 (p. 22). survives, not to mention the many more accounts that are lost. Overall, I think that the selection of agreements and cases of violations in Muslim Sources accurately reflects a tendency of Frankish leaders to break agreements that does not find many parallels among Muslim leaders. Students will not fail to notice this discrepancy, which provides a useful glimpse of the possibilities and limitations of interfaith diplomacy. Biographical dictionaries on various scholars and Muslim leaders in Chapter 4 provide a further perspective that has been largely unavailable to students of the period. The six biographical entries included will help students appreciate the breadth of Islamic literature in the period and serve as an introduction to this genre of literature in particular. Mourad a n d L i n d s a y h a v e a l s o i n c l u d e d I b n ʿAsākir’s entry on Jesus to show “Jesus’s importance to the Islamic conception of history—especially sacred history in the Holy Land—but also the important role that he plays in the Islamic conception of the End of Days” (p. 157). With this text in mind, students might revisit the excerpt of al-Harawī’s Kitāb al-Ishārāt in Chapter 1 and thereby develop an appreciation of Islamic perspectives on prophetic history in tandem with Islamic perspectives on sacred landscapes. Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022) Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period • 628 I imagine that the final chapter on inscriptions will be hugely appreciated; it is rare that students of the crusades or medieval Islam are given the opportunity to engage with this medium. Mourad and Lindsay consider the Fatimid inscription in their sample (no. 1) as an exemplar of the caliphate’s “highly inflated” display of authority (p. xxii). Other tendencies are discernible, such as the militant tone or “warrior theme” emphasized in some inscriptions and the emphasis on piety found in others. These monumental texts provide a window into the diverse systems of titulature and ideologies of various Muslim sovereigns and invite comparison of the self-representation of rulers with other portrayals and records of their deeds. Another notable feature of the volume is the use of new and original translations for Arabic terms, including Monarch for al-Malik (p. 30, n. 112); Juridical Directive for fatwā (p. 54); Chief Commander for atabeg (p. 72, n. 31); The Rhymed Prose for al-Maqāmāt (p. 97); and the sprightly translation of “Trailblazer of the Religion” for the khiṭāb (honorific title) Sābiq al-Dīn (p. 194). Many students might first encounter the term fatwā in online content or news reports, which raises concerns about the various translations and definitions that Western sources might propose for the term. “Juridical directive”— an alternative to “legal opinion” widely u s e d i n c u r r e n t s c h o l a r s h i p — d e f t l y i n d i c a t e s t h e i n s t r u m e n t ’ s t e c h n i c a l f u n c t i o n a n d l e g a l v a l u e w i t h o u t suggesting binding force. Mourad and 14. The definition of zāwiya (p. 256) might be expanded to include structures for Ṣūfī teaching. See Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī al-taʾrīkh, ed. Carolus Johannes Tornberg, 13 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1851–76; repr. Beirut: Dar Ṣādir, 1965), 11: 503; The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr for the Crusading Period from al-Kāmil fī’l-taʾrīkh, trans. D. S. Richards, 3 vols. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 2: 298; Eddé, Saladin, n. 60 (p. 668), cf. 266. L i n d s a y i n c l u d e t r a n s l i t e r a t i o n s f o r many technical terms, including al-Ṣāḥib (p. 19, fn. 85), dhimmī (p. 23), sulṭān (p. 51, n. 15), al-Rāfiḍa (p. 55, n. 26), Khātūn (p. 74, n. 60), and mihmandār (p. 209). The glossary (Appendix D) contains many of these terms as well as others introduced throughout the text and is yet another extremely helpful resource packed into this volume.14 Some terms that might be of interest to students and researchers are left unglossed: girdle (p. 25, but see n. 94), chamberlain (p. 25), monotheist ( p . 4 2 ) , g a r r i s o n e d w a r r i o r ( p . 4 2 ) , c o m m u n i t y ( p p . 4 5 , 5 1 , 5 2 ) , A g e o f Ignorance (p. 45), hypocrites (pp. 47, 56), officer (p. 72), village estate (p. 76), authority (p. 84), nation (p. 97), ethnicities ( p . 1 2 6 ) , e x c o m m u n i c a t e ( p . 1 2 6 ) , volunteers (p. 154), statehood and kingship (p. 171), dominion (p. 198), frontier warrior (pp. 206, 209, 211), the friend of the commander of the faithful (p. 208), and partner of the commander of the faithful (p. 212), but the editors have made it very easy to look up these terms in the original Arabic texts (see below). The volume allows multiple configur- ations in terms of how courses on the crusades or on Islamic history during the crusades might be organized. Lindsay has suggested one possible approach by assigning, alongside Muslim Sources, Paul M. Cobb’s Race to Paradise, which provides an overarching narrative and additional c o n t e x t f o r s t u d e n t s e n g a g i n g w i t h the texts in the anthology (Lindsay has kindly shared his syllabus on the Hackett Publishing Company webpage featuring Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022) 629 • Bogdan C. SmarandaChe Muslim Sources15). In some cases, students using this anthology might seek a little more context on particular references. For example, students new to the period might not be familiar with the troubled history of Najrān (p. 38), whose inhabitants were evicted from their town by ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (r. 13–23/634–644).16 The f o u r t h q u e s t i o n o n p . 2 0 3 r e g a r d i n g the significance of penalties for truce violations might be challenging to address without more context on the lead-up to Qalāwūn’s decision to attack the remaining Frankish territorial holdings in the Coastal Plain.17 Overall, the questions seem to gradually become more difficult (see p. 115, for example), which should encourage progressively more critical reading on the part of students. It was wonderful to be able to find some of the inscriptions online on the “Discover Islamic Art” section of the Museum With No Frontiers (MWNF) website. One concern might be the longevity of hyperlinks, in which case it would help to have an item name and 15. The course is called HIST 201 Approaches to History: The Islamic Near East during the Crusader Period. See “Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period: An Anthology,” Hackett Publishing Company website, accessed July 22, 2022, https://hackettpublishing.com/muslim-sources-of-the-crusader-period. 16. Anver M. Emon, Religious Pluralism and Islamic Law: Dhimmīs and Others in the Empire of Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 103; Fred M. Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 236. 17. On this episode, see Linda S. Northrup, From Slave to Sultan: The Career of Al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn and the Consolidation of Mamlūk Rule in Egypt and Syria (678–689 A.H./1279–1290 A.D.) (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1998), 156–57; Peter M. Holt, Early Mamluk Diplomacy, 1260–1290: Treaties of Baybars and Qalāwūn with Christian Rulers (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 73; cf. Marwan Nader, “Urban Muslims, Latin Laws, and Legal Institutions in the Kingdom of Jerusalem,” Medieval Encounters 13 (2007): 243–70, at 268–69. 18. On internal politics and reactions to Christian-Muslim diplomatic agreements concluded in 626/1229 and 641/1244, see Suleiman A. Mourad, “A Critique of the Scholarly Outlook of the Crusades: The Case for Tolerance and Coexistence,” in Syria in Crusader Times: Conflict and Coexistence, ed. Carole Hillenbrand, 144–60 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), at 147–49. Mohamad El-Merheb makes a similar observation with regard to depictions of King Louis IX of France in Arabic accounts of the king’s invasion of Egypt in 647/1249; Mohamad El-Merheb, “Louis IX in Medieval Arabic Sources: The Saint, the King, and the Sicilian Connection,” Al-Masāq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean 28, no. 3 (2016): 282–301, at 298–99. number for secondary reference (e.g., Madrasa al-Ṣalāḥiyya, PA 33). T h i s a n t h o l o g y s h o w s t h a t t h e c r u s a d e s , h o w e v e r d e f i n e d , d i d n o t constantly preoccupy the Islamic world. The reactions of Muslim leaders were v a r i e d a n d c o m p l e x w h e n e v e r a n y Western Christian powers threatened Muslim lives and livelihoods. And internal politics were as important as the Frankish factor in shaping contemporary Muslim accounts of the Frankish invasions and subsequent settlement.18 The volume is innovative and immensely informative. It is also accessible, readable, and easy to use. Editions and translations used in the volume are clearly identified in the first footnote of any primary source text or by consulting the bibliography. The volume also has an index organized by honorific titles (khiṭābs), names, place names, terms and events, and Qurʾānic and Biblical references. The placement of brackets around Qurʾānic verses is another nice detail that, as Lindsay and Mourad explain, https://www.museumwnf.org/ https://hackettpublishing.com/muslim-sources-of-the-crusader-period Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022) Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period • 630 replicates pre-modern ways of marking out verses of the Qurʾān as a sign of deference (p. 2, n. 4). Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period: An Anthology merits recognition for outstanding content put together b y J a m e s L i n d s a y a n d S u l e i m a n Mourad and for its excellent presentation, layout, and formatting, which attests to the careful work of editors and staff a t t h e H a c k e t t P u b l i s h i n g C o m p a n y . I learned a lot from this volume and can imagine how much it will benefit its readership, students and researchers in particular.