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Usama ibn Munqidh: “A Muslim View of the Crusaders”

( 1185 ) Commentary by J. Tia Wheeler, University of St. Andrews, U.K.
  • “There was a respected Frankish knight who had come from their country just to go on pilgrimage and then return home.… He said to me: ‘My brother, I am leaving for my country. I want you to send your son … with me to my country, where he can observe the knights and acquire reason and chivalry. When he returns, he will be like a truly rational man.’” - “The Franks’ Lack of Intelligence”
  • “For the woman, I prescribed a special diet and increased the wetness of her humours. Then a Frankish physician came to them and said, ‘This fellow don’t know how to treat them.’ … So he took a razor and made a cut in her head in the shape of a cross. He then peeled back the skin so that the skull was exposed and rubbed it with salt. The woman died instantaneously.” - “The Marvels of Frankish Medicine”
  • “One day, I went into the little mosque, recited the opening formula ‘God is great!’ and stood up in prayer. At this, one of the Franks rushed at me and grabbed me and turned my face towards the east, saying, ‘Pray like this!’ … So the Templars came in again, grabbed him and threw him out.” - “Newly Arrived Franks Are the Roughest”
  • “We came to the home of one of the old knights who came out in one of the first expeditions of the Franks.… He presented a very fine table, with food that was extremely clean and delicious. But seeing me holding back from eating, he said, ‘Eat and be of good cheer!’ For I don’t eat Frankish food: I have Egyptian cooking-women and never eat anything except what they cook.” - “Franks That Are Acclimatized Are Better”
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Crusader castle fortification in Al Karak (in modern-day Jordan) (Library of Congress)

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