History of the Crusades (Volume I)

From the call of Clermont to the death of Salah ad-Din (1095 - 1193)

Author: HE Zaimeche Al-Djazairi - Editions: Ribat

Editor's note on the cover

Rarely has an event unleashed so many passions: the Crusades, an exotic and glorious epic of brave knights for some, a civilizational cataclysm or first colonial experience for others, remain one of the most controversial episodes in History.

In this first volume, the author explores the causes – geopolitical, religious or social – which pushed hundreds of thousands of lords, men of arms or the Church and simple faithful to leave their distant Europe to fall with a bang on a Muslim world then fragmented and paralyzed by divisions, sectarianism and lethargy. The route of the Crusader armies to the Holy Land, strewn with war crimes going as far as cannibalism, is also retraced, as is the birth and development of the Latin States of the East.

And then, against all expectations, Islamic civilization is reanimated by one of its astonishing periodic renaissances: we thus discover the little-known but decisive role of the Seljuks in the initial response, and the gradual rise in power of the great architects of the counter-crusade and the reunification of the Muslim East, Imâd ad-Dîn and Nûr ad-Dîn, father and son – all brought to fruition by the illustrious Salah ad-Dîn, whose determined pursuit of the work of those who preceded it led to the recapture of Jerusalem... Opening the way, in reaction, to new crusades. As usual, the author also returns to the numerous modern manipulations in the historical interpretation of events.