Richard White

HIST 3950

2 April 2013

Book Report

Usama ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation: Islam and the Crusades, translated by Paul

Cobb (London: Penguin Books, 2008) 339 pages.

Usama ibn Munqidh was a Muslim faris or cavalier from Northern Syria who

experienced and wrote a great deal during the Crusades. His most famous work, The Book of

Contemplation, survives as a rare look into the Holy Land during the Crusades from a Muslim

perspective. Ibn Munqidh was born on 4 July 1095 at his family’s castle at Shayzar. His family,

the Banu Munqidh, were an established aristocratic Arab clan who had the means to bring ibn

Mundiqh up with an education typical of the warrior elite. While he had no formal education, his

family provided him with tutors who taught him the equivalent of a liberal education: literary

arts including rhetoric, grammar, and poetry—and estate affairs such as administration, hunting,

and combat. Ibn Mundidh was the Arab Muslim equivalent of a medieval Christian knight—a

gentleman of status, expected to fight to defend his property and honor of his family. When ibn

Munqidh was exiled from his castle in his mid-thirties by his uncle to prevent him from

inheriting the estate, he took his skills to the road and adopted a life typical of a faris; he was a

noble mercenary.

His nose for political intrigue brought him under the service of many high-ranking

patrons in Egypt and Syria, his last and most famous being Saladin himself, though he frequently

had good relations with the “Franks”—the Western European Crusaders who found themselves

in a tumultuous Near East—but only during the short truces when he was not actively fighting

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them. It is this relationship with the European Crusaders that makes ibn Muqidh’s writings so

significant. He wrote about them extensively (“may God curse them”), both praising and

castigating them, offering a fascinating look at Crusaders from the perspective of the Muslims

they were waging holy war against.

The Book of Contemplation is a non-fictional autobiographical collection of narratives.

Written in a form of Middle Arabic filled with colloquial and foreign words, the result is a series

of short anecdotes with a decided readability. Written not for general consumption but for his

patron, Saladin, the book contains praise for the Kurdish re-conqueror of the Holy Land. Writing

for the patron was the key to funding and distributing the book and it was distributed and quoted

at least into the 14th century but then was mostly forgotten until the badly damaged remains were

found in Spain and translated into French in the late 19th century. Since then it has been

translated into a variety of European languages including this second English translation.

In its essence, Ibn Munqidh’s The Book of Contemplation is an autobiographical

mediation on Fate: some may survive a sword strike to the face, but some will die from a pin

prick. “Glory be to He who determines fates!”

The book is organized into four parts. Part One, which is almost entirely lost and begins

mid-sentence, is about the great events and calamities in ibn Munqidh’s life. It begins with a

fragmented account of a battle with the Franks under the service of Atabeg Zangi and continues

with accounts of his service under the Burids of Damscus, the Fatamids of Cairo, and Nur al-

Din. Part Two is entitled Wonders of Warfare, Against the Infidels and Muslims and contains

numerous anecdotes on combat on various meandering themes, from cavalry tactics to hunting

lions, women in battle, the marvels of Frankish medicine, examples of cowardice and bravery,

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and much more. Part Three, Curious Tales: Holy Men and Healers, contains more anecdotes on

medicine and also stories of prophets appearing in dreams. The final part is entitled Episodes of

Hunting and contains a series of hunting anecdotes, a subject ibn Munqidh seemed to love.

As stated earlier, Part One is mostly lost, but what remains is a rough timeline of ibn

Muqidh’s service under various patrons. The fragment that The Book of Contemplation begins

with is excellent in setting the tone for the entire tome: “. . . there were not many Muslim

casualties in that battle. However, a messenger named Ibn Bishir . . . happened to be wearing a

gilded cuirass, so a Frankish knight, named Ibn al-Daqiq, thrust him through the chest with his

spear such that it stuck out through his back (may God have mercy upon him). But a large

number of Franks were killed. The atabeg (may God have mercy upon him) ordered that their

heads be collected in a field opposite the fortress: they totaled three thousand,” (ibn Munqidh,

11). Right away we are introduced to the carnage of life in the Holy Land during the Crusades.

Also, for those not exceptionally well-educated in the Crusades, we may immediately learn

something: a European knight is known by an Arabic name. I guess that this particular knight

may have been known for being overly particular, but my Arabic skills are rudimentary. Though

clearly not intended to be an attention grabber as this fragment was originally well into Part One,

it ironically functions well as one.

The very next passage is a story of his home estate of Shayzar being under siege by the

Byzantines, referred to as Romans. “[They] and the Franks (may God forsake them) made an

alliance agreeing to march on Shayzar and besiege it,” (ibn Munqidh, 11). Here we see that even

growing up ibn Munqidh had to defend his own home from Christians, showing the instability of

the region and how ibn Munqidh became indoctrinated with the defense of his lands against the

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Europeans from a young age. It is hard to imagine a more fascinating perspective about the

Crusades to be reading from.

Part Two contains numerous small anecdotes about battles he saw or heard about,

between Christians, Muslims, and animals. They are so exceedingly numerous that it is no doubt

ibn Munqidh spent most of his life in combat. He begins with an introduction saying is only

writing down the stories he remembers, because in his old age he became forgetful. So many

stories are recorded here that I can only imagine what must be in the stories he forgot. A student

can learn much from these passages: how to properly thrust someone with a spear when mounted

(let the horse do the work for you, refrain from thrusting with your arms), that it is possible (and

highly lauded) to fell two mounted combatants with one spear thrust. In fact, the particular man

who accomplished such a feat was pardoned for crimes against his patron for this one act. We

also learn of ibn Munqidh’s father in this section who he writes was a great warrior and pious

calligrapher. Ibn Munqidh writes of bravery, cowardice, and curious things he saw in battle such

as men beating the odds in combat. For example, one man routing four or two men routing ten.

He is impressed by these unlikely feats and writes examples of them from Franks and Muslims.

Interestingly, ibn Munqidh writes about the status of the Knight in Frankish society for the

benefit of the non-European reader who might be unfamiliar. He writes, “The Franks (may God

confound them) have none of the human virtues except for courage. They have neither

precedence nor high rank except for that of the knights . . . it is they who are masters of legal

reasoning, judgment and sentencing.” He continues later, “You see, if a knight is tall and thin,

they find him more impressive,” (ibn Munqidh 76-77).

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Part Three is focused on healing, both physical and spiritual, and the super-natural. Some

parts read like ghost stories. For example, ibn Munqidh writes of a tale he heard about a holy

man whose dying request was his body to be taken to the desert and for people to call out a name

and inform him the holy man is dead and to request him to present himself. Sure enough, from

nowhere a man appeared, prayed over his body, and left, no one talking to him or ever seeing

him again. He also writes of the healing power of dreams, and particular instances of medicine.

For example, he relates a story he heard where a boil on someone’s neck was cured by drinking

raw eggs. “Glory be to the Almighty, the Afflicter, the Healer!” ibn Munqidh writes (ibn

Munqidh, 194).

Part Four is a series of anecdotes about hunting: the chase and the use of birds of prey.

He praises exceptional hawks, exceptional cheetahs, and exceptional hunting dogs. Like the

earlier parts, these stories are a compilation of amazing things that happened during the course of

many hunts. The theme of fate continues into this part, with stories of hunting birds capturing

smaller birds only to return to their master and fall over dead, similar to some anecdotes he

related about warriors he knew. “Glory be to He who determines all fates!” (ibn Munqidh, 230).

The collection of stories has no formal conclusion. It merely ends with a seemingly unrelated

story of a group of warriors deceiving a hospitable prince of a citadel and capturing it. Such is

fate.