CIVILIZED / BARBARIAN - AN INSIGHT INTO THE DARK MEMORIES OF CHRISTIAN CRUSADES THROUGH MUSLIM EYES
CIVILIZED / BARBARIAN - AN INSIGHT INTO THE DARK MEMORIES OF CHRISTIAN CRUSADES THROUGH MUSLIM EYES

Summary/Abstract: Civilized / barbarian - An insight into the dark memories of Christian Crusades through Muslim eyes. This study starts from the well-known imaginary Persians of Montesquieu and makes an attempt to compare and adjust their fashionable sham identity of Muslims, as accredited by the French writer, to that of the real Muslims voiced in Tariq Ali’s novel The Book of Saladin, 1998 (Verso, 2010). The novel tells the story of retaking Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, under the ruling of the Muslim warrior Salah al-Din (westernized Saladin). Starting from the “clash of civilizations” much-discussed issue and after an unbiased data-confronting research, the British Pakistani Tariq Ali appears as a reliable narrator of the historical truth and an honest revealer of the horrific marks left upon the Muslim and European conscience by the crimes committed in the Middle Ages by the Christian Crusaders. His novel also includes a wide variety of reflections on issues of great interest concerning the value system of Islam, and ultimately raises a “who’s who” question on what should we call “civilized” and what “barbarian”.

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