God's Armies
Crusade and Jihad: Origins, History, Aftermath
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
With ramifications on geopolitics today, a vivid chronicle of the Christian and Islamic struggle to control the sacred places of Palestine and the Middle East between the seventh and thirteenth centuries.
Crusade and jihad are often reckoned to have represented two sides of the same coin: each resonated on the opposing sides in the holy wars of the Middle Ages and each has been invoked during the war on terror.
A chronicle of the Christian and Islamic struggle to control the sacred places of Palestine and the Middle East between the seventh and thirteenth centuries, this dynamic new history demonstrates that this simple opposition ignores crucial differences. Placing an equal emphasis on the inner histories of Christianity and Islam, the book traces the origins and development of crusade and jihad, showing for example that jihad reflected internal tensions in Islam from its beginnings. The narrative also reveals the ways in which crusade and jihad were used to disguise ambitions for power and to justify atrocity and yet also inspired acts of great chivalry and heroic achievement. The story brims with larger than life characters, among them Richard the Lionheart, Nur al-Din, Saladin, Baybars, and Ghengiz Khan.
Lambert concludes by considers the long after-effects of jihad and crusade, including the role of the latter in French imperialism and of the former in the wars now afflicting the Middle East and parts of Africa. This vivid, balanced account will interest all readers who wish to understand the complexities of the medieval world and how it relates our own.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this readable, although not groundbreaking, survey of the history of military interaction between the Middle East and Western Europe, Lambert (Christians and Pagans), formerly a professor of theology and medieval history at the University of Bristol, provides a chronological overview of the development of Islam, starting with a brief biography of Mohammed, before focusing on the crusades and papal history in Western Europe. He touches on the development of the caliphate and the succession of Islamic leadership after the death of Mohammed. He mentions the various groups that sought to interpret Mohammed's original vision, including Sufism, and the ninth-century split in Shiism. His consideration of jihad is interesting but not very detailed. The bulk of the volume is focused on Islamic history presumably the least familiar to the audience of nonspecialists Lambert anticipates but he also retells the story of the Crusades from 1095 to the fall of Acre in 1291. The coverage of the crusader period is the most detailed, and Lambert touches only briefly on the Ottoman Empire and Suleiman the Magnificent, moving through the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries in a single chapter. The book would have benefited from a reduction in scope; the amount of material is simply overwhelming. Despite this, readers will find a reasonably good introduction to the topic, and Lambert's suggested "further reading" will be of great use to those looking to dig deeper.