Is the Poetry of the Time of Saladin a Reliable Source of his Deeds? هل يصلح الشعر أن يکون مصدرا موثوقا به لأعمال صلاح الدين؟ | ||||
| Journal of Medieval and Islamic History | ||||
| Article 1, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2007, Page 3-37 PDF (467.5 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jmih.2007.152051 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Author | ||||
Tarek M. Muhammad
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| History Dept., Faulty of Arts, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. postal code 1156. | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| Saladin's (1137-1193 AD / 531-588 AH) conquest of Jerusalem, which came in the heels of his sweeping victory over the Crusaders in 1187 AD earned him a respectable reputation not only in the East but in the West as well. Fifty-six years ago H. Gibb said about Saladin: "the life and achievements of Saladin constitute one of the great moments in the history of the crusades. In literature, he appears most frequently as a conquering hero, who fought his enemies victoriously and in the end beat them to a standstill. But a closer examination of his actual life reveals him not only as a conqueror but as a man who struggled with enemies of his own side who finally joined him and fought along with him under his sole command." But, recently, D. Nicolle had a mixed viewpoint when he says: "Saladin has traditionally been seen in Europe as a paragon of virtue and a hero. Recently, however, a critical view has portrayed him as an ambitious, ruthless, and devious politician, and less brilliant as a commander than once thought. As usual, the truth probably lies between these extremes, though all agree that Saladin was the greatest man in the history of the twelfth century Middle East". So, his career became an important subject to both history and literature. Although the details of the life of Saladin are now obvious to the historians through the valuable studies of H. Gibb, M. C. Lyons, and D. E. Jackson, the recent study of Y. Lev, and others there are hardly any studies of the literary treatment of his deeds by his contemporary poets or poet statesmen. When these modern historians, who are known in the field of the crusader studies, wrote about Saladin's deeds they mainly depended on the chronicles of Saladin's biographers such as ibn Shaddâd, who was the judge of the army of Saladin and had the prime influence in forming the view of Saladin held by the European historians; Abû Shâma, who glorified the exploits of the Zangids and Saladin respectively; al-Iṣfahânî, who was Saladin's private secretary, ibn al-Athîr who presented a counterblast to the writings of Saladin's admirers, and ibn abî Ṭayyi’, besides the other historical sources, whether Greek, Latin, Syriac or Arabic. They paid a little attention to the poetic sources which reflect clearly that most of the poets of the time of Saladin also played a vital role, besides the deeds of Saladin himself, in the construction of his reputation. These poets wrote several hundreds of poems in the praise of the achievements of Saladin and of course, they omitted his defeats. Some of them were propagandists and the others were truthful poets. This article aims to show how the poets of the time of Saladin dealt with his deeds, i. e. whether the poetry of the time of Saladin is a reliable source of his deeds or not. This study will show that most of the poets of the time of Saladin had various aims from composing their poetry on Saladin. On the other hand, they presented some historical events and omitted others. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Saladin; Crusades; Arab Poets; Arabic Poetry; Islamic Egypt | ||||
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