The Crusades were a very violent time in the History of the Arab world. Most of the books that you read today on the subject, especially in the western world, were written by western historians. Western historians always referred to this period as the Crusades to reclaim the Holy Land from the barbarian Muslim people. I set out to find a view from the opposite side of the table, and was successful.
The Crusades through Arab Eyes was written by an Arab historian and not a western historian. Amin Maalouf wrote this book in 1984. It was written to finally give the point of view from the Muslim side. The content of the book is based exclusively on the testimony of Arab historians and chroniclers. These historians and chroniclers refer to this period not as the Crusades but as the Frankish wars or the Frankish invasions.
These invaders were referred to as the Franj, which is an Arabic word that is used today to describe Westerners and the French. The author states that he wanted to write from a "hitherto neglected point of view, what might be called the true-life novel' of the Crusades, of those two centuries of turmoil that shaped the West and the Arab world alike, and that affect relations between them even today. These chroniclers that Amin used for information were often eyewitness accounts of what was going on.
At the beginning of the Crusades the invading Franks had the momentum. The Muslims seemed to be asleep and unwilling to work together to repel the invaders. The Franks were driven by their religion to reclaim the holy lands and the Muslims did nothing. "Regard the Franj! Behold with what obstinacy they fight for their religion, while we, the Muslims, show no enthusiasm for waging holy war". This statement was made by Saladin one of the great Muslim leaders of this period. Muslims did not seem to want to fight for their religion and were willing to allow the Christians in their lands as long as the Christians left them alone. The Muslims bribed the Frankish leaders with gold and lavish gifts, which actually made the Franks even greedier.
The Franks slaughtered cities. The people of the cities that they took over were slaughtered. Even the people that were Christian were killed or sent out of the city. The Muslims didn't know what to think about the ruthlessness that the Christians showed. "Every time the Franj took one fortress, they would attack another. Their power mounted relentlessly until they occupied all of Syria and exiled the Muslims of that country" Fakhr Al-Mulk Ibn Ammar, ruler of Tripoli.
The Franks weren't simply settling on conquering one country, they wanted them all. In most western history books we see the Crusaders wanting to take over the holy places, but in this book Amin shows us that they wanted to take over the whole region and not just the holy places. Amin's book also paints the picture naturally that the Muslims were the victims, which in most cases they were. Muslims allowed peoples of all religions to worship in the holy places, but the Franks wanted to take charge of the holy places and only allow Christians to worship there.
These accounts go back and forth; in the Christian version the Muslims were the barbarous heathens, and according to the Muslims the Christians were murdering, cruel infidels. It's all a matter of what you were taught that pushed you in either direction. However Amin makes a real case in showing that the Muslims simply wanted to live and allow all worship in the holy lands.
Towards the end of his book Amin discusses the reasons for the fall of Islam. At this time in history, the Muslim world was the intellectual center of the world. All the leading educated people wanted to go there. At the end of the Crusades the Arab world seemed to have won a stunning victory. If the Franks sought to control or curb the thrust of Islam, they in fact did the opposite. The Muslims drove them out and within a few hundred years were on the doorsteps of the western world, even conquering Constantinople.
However the exact opposite happened. Amin goes so far as to say "That the Crusades marked the beginning of the rise of Western Europe, which would gradually come to dominate the world, and sounded the death knell of Arab civilization". The Arabs had started to lose their way before the Crusades which is one of the weaknesses Amin talks about in his book. Another weakness was the fact that Muslims couldn't get anything stable started. All their clans and kingdoms were politically unstable, where the Franks on the other hand came in and immediately created a stable situation. Amin also points out that "Although the epoch of the Crusades ignited a genuine economic and cultural revolution in Western Europe, in the Orient these holy wars led to long centuries of decadence and obscurantism.
Assaulted from all quarters, the Muslim world turned in on itself. "It became over-sensitive, defensive, intolerant, sterile-attitudes that grew steadily worse as world-wide evolution, a process from which the Muslim world felt excluded, continued". This statement by Amin gives us insight on why the Muslims still view us with hostility today. This hostility will never go away because the Muslim world is bitter towards us because we are a great nation and they still reminisce about past glories.