The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades

Synopsis

In The Race for Paradise, Paul M. Cobb offers a new history of the confrontations between Muslims and Franks we now call the "Crusades," one that emphasizes the diversity of Muslim experiences of the European holy war. There is more to the story than Jerusalem, the Templars, Saladin, and the Assassins. Cobb considers the Arab perspective on all shores of the Muslim Mediterranean, from Spain to Syria. In the process, he shows that this is not a straightforward story of warriors and kings clashing in the Holy Land, but a more complicated tale of border-crossers and turncoats; of embassies and merchants; of scholars and spies, all of them seeking to manage a new threat from the barbarian fringes of their ordered world. When seen from the perspective of medieval Muslims, the Crusades emerge as something altogether different from the high-flying rhetoric of the European chronicles: as a cultural encounter to ponder, a diplomatic chess-game to be mastered, a commercial opportunity to be seized, and as so often happened, a political challenge to be exploited by ambitious rulers making canny use of the language of jihad.

Copyright:

2014

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

363 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780190614461

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

Date of Addition:

01/07/21

Copyrighted By:

Paul M. Cobb

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Military, Nonfiction, Religion and Spirituality, Social Studies

Submitted By:

Worth Trust

Proofread By:

Worth Trust

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.