Medieval Muslim Historians and the Franks in the Levant

Alex Mallett (Ph.D. 2009, University of Edinburgh) is Associate Professor in the Faculty of International Research and Education and a member of the team of the Chair of the State of Qatar for Islamic Area Studies at Waseda University, Tokyo. He has also edited a second volume Medieval Muslim Historians and the Franks in the Levant (Leiden, 2024). He is the author of Franks and Crusades in Medieval Eastern Christian Historiography (Turnhout, 2021).

"Medieval Muslim Historians and the Franks in the Levant …does not offer translations, but rather supplies detailed introductions to seven of the most important Arabic authors of the crusading period. [...] Thus, this work would perhaps be better classified as a reference work rather than as an essay collection. […]. Medieval Muslim Historians is an excellent resource for those studying the Islamic sources for the Crusades and will prove very helpful to many. The essays supply considerably more background than the current encyclopaedia entries in circulation on these authors (which in most cases would formerly have been the only general summaries available to non-Arabic-speaking historians). Thus this book stands alongside Mallett's contributions to the magisterial Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History as another substantial contribution to the provision of reference works in the field." - Nicholas Morton, in: Al-Masāq, 27:3 (2015)"... a welcomed addition to the existing texts and monographs on this field and certainly accomplish the goal to be an important and appreciated reference work for those who are interested in the study of the narratives of Muslim historians and chronicles of the crusading period." - Robert Celestre, in: Eurasian Studies 13 (2015)"This is a very useful book. […]. After an introduction by the editor, we have contributions by Niall Christie on Ibn al-Qalānisī, Lutz Richter-Bernburg on ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, Françoise Micheau on Ibn al-Athīr, Alex Mallett on Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Anne-Marie Eddé on Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Konrad Hirschler on Ibn Wāṣil and, finally, Frédéric Bauden on al-Maqrīzī. Each essay discusses the life of the author, the scope of his writings, the earlier and current editions and translations of the texts and the attitudes of the historians to the Franks. Anyone embarking on the study of the Crusader states in the Levant will find this a helpful guide. For the non-Arabist, it will provide background and context for works which are otherwise only names in footnotes. […]. This volume in an excellent introduction…" - Hugh Kennedy, in: EHR, cxxxi. 550 (2016)