forever traumatized

I give this a lower rating only because it is a turgid read. Apart from that, the book is an invaluable resource for those wishing to get a first-hand view into the medieval Arab perspective, not just about war but also social life, religion, hunting, poetry and more. This book was written after the Second Crusade (circa 1160) by Usamah Ibn-Munqidh who came from the stronghold of Shayzar in Syria. He was a warrior, traveler, a bit of an anthropologist - and a gentleman as he likes to say. The book is also an essential read for anyone wanting to understand contemporary conflicts in the Middle East.

Üllar Peterson teeb head tööd Eesti islamineitsiliku ühiskonna harimiseks. Tema uuringud, tõlkeraamatud ja artiklid pole igapäevalugemine, kuid häda saabudes on riiulist haarata. Puudutagu see vajadus poliitika kujundamist või sõjalist väljaõpet (viitan Petersoni artiklitele ajakirjas Sõjateadlane).

Usama elust lugedes tundsin häirivat sarnasust arvutimängudega. Raamatusündmuste keskmes on pidev sõdimine eilsete liitlaste - tänaste vastaste, eri sektide, religioonide, ideoloogiate, maaomanike, röövlite ja ristisõdijate vahel. Kõik on kõigi vaenlased nagu serveripõhises tulistamismängus.

Üheksa möödunud sajandi jooksul pole inimkond paremaks muutunud - nii nagu toimusid lahingud 12. sajandi Süürias, nii toimuvad ka praegu, 21. sajandil Süürias, Iraagis, Iraanis, Liibanonis. Ning selle õhutajaks islamisektantlus, põlvest-põlve indoktrineeritavad vastuolud šiitide, sunniitide, alaviitide ja muude -iitide vahel. Üheksa sajandi jooksul pole ei inimkond, ega islam inimnäolisemaks muutunud.

Raamatu lõpuosa sisaldab sügavat mõtisklust vananemis üle ning olustikupilte tollasest jahipidamisest. Väärt, mõtlemisainet pakkuv raamat

You'd think a first hand-account of fighting in the Crusades would be fascinating, but actually this was pretty dull. The professor, who had failed to read it himself before assigning it, apologized for how boring it was!

A great book! You need to read it in large chunks to get the right feel since the anecdotes are all related by themes. Reading them one at a time or even three or four at a time will not do.

The Book of Contemplation is, by the way, not really about the crusades; it's about Fate. The crusades are just a backdrop for the stories illustrating Fate's sovereignty.

That having been said, this book has been well translated to bring out Usama's incessant humour. Read this:

""A Reminiscence about that Aged Retainer

That Hamadat, mentioned earlier, was delightful to talk with. My father (may God have mercy upon him) told me, 'I once said to Hamadat one morning while we were on the road to Isfahan, ""Commander Hamadat, have you eaten anything today?""

'""Yes, sir. I had a bit of crust soaked in broth,"" he replied.

'So I said, ""But we've been riding all night, and we neither stopped nor did we light a fire. So how did you come by that broth-soaked crust?""

'""Well sir,"" he replied, ""I made it in my mouth. I chewed up some bread in my mouth and drank water on top of it, which made it like a broth-soaked crust.""'"" (62)

Another of my favourites is right before the section ""Cheetahs versus Leopards"":

""One of the special qualities of the leopard is that if it wounds a man, and a mouse urinates on the wound, the man will die. A mouse never gives up trying to reach a man wounded by a leopard . . ."" (124)

Continue reading and you will find copious tales about spear-throws, animals, hunting expeditions, curious Frankish traits, and other fascinating material.

Highly recommended for anyone reading this review.

Really neat but kind of meandering (which might be the point). The author tells about his life through an endless number of anecdotes and pearls of wisdom, skipping from place to place and time to time with only vague themes or similarities to link them. It is life as a collection of footnotes, not as a cohesive novel. Most of it is startlingly prosaic but there are a few moments of beautiful poetry (especially when bemoans the lot of a lifelong soldier subjected to the ravages of old age).

Destiny had forsaken me, leaving me like
An exhausted pack-camel abandoned in the wastes.
My eighty years have sapped all my strength
So that when I try to stand, I am broken.
I perform my prayers seated, for bowing
If I tried it, would be, for me, impossible.
This condition has warned me
That a journey is coming, and its time is nigh.

Slightly repetitive in his description of warfare and hunting, ibn Munqidh was nonetheless an interesting character with a life of great interest to those wanting to read about the day-to-day life of the period. Interesting observations and anecdotes make the book worth reading overall.

Of particular interest are a Christian attempting to 'clean' a tent infested with fleas using fire, with predictable results (p. 99); a man releasing a newly captured leopard at a drinking party, with predictable results (p. 124) and a demented old woman attempting to clean the smell of cheese out of a headscarf, only for her son to point out that she was not using a piece of soap but rather a piece of cheese, hence the cheese smell (p. 199).

A man's soul will always shudder at such dangers and loathe them. But once a man of courage enters the fray of battle and wades among its throngs, all that shaking, shuddering and changing of colour disappears. (p. 98)

The Franks had amassed their troops in great numbers against Banias, and they were accompanied by their patriarch. The patriarch had pitched a large tent to use as a church in which they could pray. An old deacon was responsible for maintaining the church and he had covered the floor using rushes and grass, which infested the place with fleas. It then occurred to that deacon to burn the rushes and grass so as to burn up the fleas. So he set the rushes and grass – which had all dried out – on fire. The flames rose higher and higher and caught on the tent, leaving it a pile of ashes. Reason was surely not present in this man. (p. 99)

§ A Leopard Runs Amok at a Drinking-Party

A man from Aleppo captured a leopard and brought it in a sack to the lord of Qadmus, which belonged to one of the Banu Muhriz. The latter was engaged in a drinking party at the time. So the man opened the sack and the leopard came out and attacked the people in the sitting-room. As for the lord, he was near an opening in the tower, so he went in through it and closed the door. The leopard roamed through the house, killing some and wounding others until they killed it. (p. 124)

My grandfather, Sadid al-Mulk ‘Ali (may God have mercy upon him), had a serving-girl called Lu’lu’a, who raised my father, Majd al-Din Murshid (may God have mercy upon him). And when he grew up, he moved out of the house of his father and she moved with him. Then I was brought into the world and that same servant, now an old woman, raised me until I grew up, got married and moved from the house of my father (may God have mercy upon him), and she moved out with me. Then I was blessed with children, whom she in turn raised. She was (may God have mercy upon her) one of the most pious women, constantly fasting and praying...

...She lived until she was almost a hundred years old and never missed her prayers, may God have mercy upon her!
I once went in to see her in the rooms I had set aside for her in my residence. In front of her was a wash-basin and she was washing a headscarf for use in prayer.
‘What’s that, mother?’ I asked.
‘My son,’ she replied, ‘this headscarf has been handled by someone with cheese on their hands. For no matter how much I wash it, it still gives off an odour of cheese.’
‘Show me the block of soap that you’re washing it with,’ I said.
So she took the soap out from the headscarf and, sure enough, it was a piece of cheese which she had thought was soap. Every time she rubbed that headscarf with cheese, it gave off its odour.
‘Mother,’ I said, ‘that’s a piece of cheese, not a piece of soap!’
She looked at it and said, ‘You’re right, my son. I didn’t think it was anything except soap.’
Blessed thus is God the most truthful of all speakers: ‘If We extend anyone’s life, We reverse his development.’ (p. 199-200)

"War conducts itself, my boy."

Widely considered the best work of the Muslim perspective of the Crusades, which was basically a bunch of filthy religious fanatics trying to invade the beaches of the eastern Mediterranean. Ibn Munqidh's writings, collected here in part, has a timeless charm whether he is talking about war, faith, or the crazy shit he saw in his many wanderings through the medieval Levant. Most historians will likely value him for his lengthy sections on the wars with the "Franks" and his relations with Europeans during one of the many times Muslims and Christians actually fought together against other Muslims and Christians. Much of this is anecdotal, not historically-minded, IM is just telling us stories about crazy battles where one knight turns away hundreds, lions attack people at random, and all kinds of hilarious little stories that make you realize that all of our silly human foibles are timeless. "A Leopard Runs Amok at a Drinking-Party" is a good example.
My favorite parts were the ones of thieves and assassins and the tricks of witches and fighters which IM delights in recounting. These anecdotes are interspersed with the poetry he was famous for which makes for an even more enjoyable read.

Las Cruzadas no son el centro de éste libro. El centro de éste libro es ibn Munqidh.
Ibn Munqidh es fascinante, sea como individuo, como observador o como escritor. Normalmente soy algo impaciente con las autobiografías (se puede apreciar a Vico y no soportar su autobiografía, estoy seguro), pero el desorden diseñado de ésta la convierte en algo distinto.
Habría que decir algo inteligente, pero no se me ocurre nada. Munqidh ha pasado a ser uno de ésos escritores que conforman la visión del mundo de uno. ¿Siria? Al Ma'arri, desde luego, pero también Munqidh. ¿Cruzadas? Entre ésos años paseaba un tal Munqidh, apuntando lo que le parecía bien e intrigando como el que más. ¿Caos? Munqidh lo vio y lo sufrió, aunque lo convirtió en un fatalismo un tanto excéntrico. ¿Autobiografías? Puff. No sé si he leído alguna mejor.

I read the first few books of this (11-180) for a class on "Race and Racism in/and the Middle Ages," and it's fascinating! I highly recommend it for a well-written, complex, and sometimes even funny account of the First and Second Crusades from an Islamic perspective.

Usama is a great teller of anecdotes. Let me stress the fun side of this book. I notice Penguin have dropped the first title on my copy, A Book of Contemplation. He may have jotted down these anecdotes in an arrangement that can be pretended to exhibit the 'inscrutability of fate' in human life -- but that just means he collects eye-witness, as often as not his own, on incidents bizarre, unusual or otherwise worthy of remark.

If you like fighting tales -- and I know a few of you do -- he gives, on a page or two pages, those both strange and true.

The Franks feature, but he isn't writing about them. If you're after an Arab source with views of Franks, it's perhaps more precious for not being self-consciously about Franks.

A treasure, and you can just dip in, a lucky dip, each tale is titled to whet your curiosity. I valued the real-life fighting incidents in Joinville's Crusade account, but that has only glimpses next to this.

okay so interesting but there are so many names that are so long and it does lowkey sound like the babbles of an old man sometimes which ig it technically is but it’s interesting and offers a unique opinion and insight but tbh introduction was the best most informative part