Summary
Amin Maalouf: Christian barbarians in the Holy Land
We know what we learned about the Crusades (11th - 13th centuries) at school in history class. But we learned it as Westerners, descendants of the Crusaders. And how were those incursions into their lands perceived by the local inhabitants of the Islamic faith, and recorded by Arab historians?
The crusaders were called "Franj". For the Muslims, they were just barbarians invading their holy lands and massacring the populace in the name of some god of theirs. These incursions of Christian barbarians from the West into the heart of the Muslim world marked the beginning of a long period of decline of Islamic culture. The consequences of that, like any rape, are still present today in Islamic countries.
Amin Maalouf, born in Lebanon and living in Paris, winner of the 1993 Goncourt prize, is recognized as an expert on the Arab world and relations between the West and the Middle East.
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