The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World (review)

Abstract

from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World. Edited by Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh. (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. 2001. Pp. vii, 297. $48.00.) This collection originated in a symposium held at Dunbarton Oaks in May, 1997. fifteen papers printed here range over such issues as holy war, relations between Byzantium and other peoples, commercial relations with Latins and Muslims, and western influences on art and architecture. volume opens with an introduction on The Historiography of the Crusades by Giles Constable. This essay is especially valuable since the last forty years have witnessed major changes in the study of the crusades, many of which have come quite recently. Not even the fundamental idea of crusade has escaped revision in the works of scholars like Hans Eberhard Mayer, Joshua Prawer, Jean Richard, Jonathan Riley-Smith, and Christopher Tyerman. work of some Byzantinists has also contributed to a better understanding of the place of the crusades in the history of the empire. This has been especially true of the work of Ralph-- Johannes Like, Paul Magdalino, and a number of the contributors to this collection. But it is fair to say that Byzantine scholarship has, in the past, been too concerned about emphasizing its uniqueness, even to the point of overlooking the often close relations between East and West. Of course, there were differences, but these have too often swallowed up essential pieces of a complex history in which common needs brought about co-operation. While many of the essays in this volume make substantial contributions in specific areas, their agenda still lags behind recent trends in crusade historiography. Roy Parviz Mottahedeh and Ridwan al-Sayyid provide a discussion of the treatment of jihad by Muslim intellectuals prior to the crusade that illustrates its evolution not merely over time but also in varying circumstances. As an idea, jihad possessed a definable content in early Islam, but never seems to have been embraced entirely in practical terms. George Dennis concentrates on the role of the Byzantine emperors as defenders of the Christian people. He revisits the reasons why Byzantine wars against the Muslims had a different character from those in the West. His presentation of the Byzantine circumstances is most helpful, but he is less satisfactory in dealing with the West. imperial presence in the East and the Papacy in the West made all the difference. fragmentation of political authority in the West combined with the traditional relations between the Byzantine emperors and the papacy were critical in shaping the Western role in the war against the Muslims in the East. In essays by Malcolm C. Lyons and Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, we get views of the crusaders and the Byzantines from the Muslim perspective. …