[Marxism] Crusades

[eg577@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Here's how the Scott film appeared to my irreligious eyes.

Like Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, this is a blockbuster which creates the
placebo "political criticism outside the mainstream" effect, similar to the
"decaf coffee" effect Zizek talked about before
(<http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=632_0_4_0_C>). Doesn't the
whole anti-religious fanaticism stance of the movie boil down to the
anachronic introduction of the Reformation? "The kingdom of God is in your
brain and heart."

The blurb at the end of the film was also imbecilic: Crusades continued,
there was an uneasy peace between Richard and Saladin, after 1000 years no
permanent peace in the Kingdom of Heaven, blah blah. Of course: history is
written through religious wars. Yeah well: civilizations clash over
Jerusalem today. Surely: Palestinians have huge armies and F-16s.

The orientalist portrayal of the Ayyubi coalition was blinding. Scott
seemed to be saying, "Hey look, I have dirty evil wretched Anglo-Saxons
here, and beautiful well-dressed trimmed-bearded civilized Muslim men with
make-up around their eyes there." Eccentric Middle Eastern music, praying
scenes washed in aesthetics, accentless Arabic... Of course, the historical
episode was a smart strategic choice: Egpyt and Mesopotomia were far better
places to live back then, compared to Europe. The unstable Ayyubi coalition
was militarily more than a match, and in terms of multi-religious politics,
Selahaddin (as well his mentor, Nuraddin) was far to the "left" of the
Crusaders.

Another orientalizing effect: We observe the complex politics of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem (and despite the bastardized fiction, the lines of
contention are accurate), but the Muslims look politically simple, with
clear objectives. The only tension shown is between a fanatical Jihadist
faction (which mezhep/order, which ethnic group, unclear) and Selahaddin,
which is another bastardizing of the contentious politics inside the Ayyubi
coalition.

It may be useful to remind what is historically fucked up in the movie, to
my knowledge:

1. Crusaders

Balian of Ibelin (Balian ibn Barzan) was a noble. Along with some other
native Christian houses, he truly disliked the fanatic factions, but for
pragmatist reasons, rather than humanitarian ones: Selahaddin was looking
for an excuse to declare Jihad, which would help him strengthen his hand
against the rival Zangid dynasty (more on this later) and bring in the cash
he needed for his forces.

Allied with Raymond of Tripoli (doesn't appear in the movie, but Jeremy
Irons plays a similar figure, Tiberias) and King Baldwin IV, he wanted
stability in Jerusalem. Good for business. And he had no relationship with
Queen Sibyl, Balian had a wife, Maria, and children. Sibyl, on the other
hand, is no angel: After Baldwin the Leper dies, her little son, Baldwin V
is throned, but she conspires with Guy to usurp power. For reasons I do not
know, the child king dies soon, and Sibyl thrones her husband, greatly
enjoying the royal act.

When Selahaddin grabs the Jihad opportunity after the massacres by
Templars, Balian fights in the infamous Hattin War (where King Guy is
captured). He barely escapes death, and flees to the city of Tyre. His
lands are also occupied by this time. He wants to take his family out of
Jerusalem and approaches Selahaddin for safe passage. The Kurdish leader
makes a deal with him: Balian promises that he'll not mobilize his men
during the siege of Jerusalem, and that he will work to arrange a bloodless
surrender of the city. When Balian reaches Jerusalem, it's the Patriarch
Heraclius who persuades Balian to organize the defense. Heraclius even
performs a ceremony to clear Balian of his oath.

When the city is surrendered by Balian in 1187, two small details: (1)
Selahaddin demands and takes a ransom for each head safely leaving the city
(to Tripoli). This amounts to 30,000 dinars, which should be a lot, because
the Muslim leader's commanders inform him that the churches are moving out
of the city treasure worth 20,000 dinars. Selahaddin argues against taking
more money out of the Latins, though. (2) About 15,000 Syrian and Greek
Christians, who prefer Selahaddin to the fanatics, along with most of the
the Jews, remain in the city. Balian remains in Tripoli and first conspires
with Guy against Conrad for the throne. Then with his wife Maria, he
conspires against Guy, has Maria's sister Isabella marry Conrad, who
becomes the next King of Jerusalem. After Conrad's assassination by the
Ismailiyya tarikat, he becomes advisor to King Henry, etc. etc.


2. Ayyubis

Selahaddin is a figure whose legacy is still up for grabs among Kurdish and
Turkish nationalists in Turkey. The historical record, to my knowledge,
established that Selahaddin was a wild card: He was from a Kurdish tribe,
like most Kurds, he belonged to the Shafii Sunni order. He rose in the
ranks of the Syrian army, a rare occurrence for a Kurd, even back then,
Kurds were despised and distrusted by Turkish and Arabic tribesmen. Before
his emergence to power, the Muslim leadership of the region was in the
hands of the Zangid dynasty (Hanafi Sunnis, descendants of the Seljuk
Turks), led by Nuraddin. Even during Selahaddin's consolidation of his
position within the Abbasid Khalifate through his military actions in
Egpyt, Nuraddin did not trust him. Meanwhile, Selahaddin successfully
crushed the rebel Shiite tribes in Egypt by 1171, and officially
"Sunnified" the region. Nuraddin wanted to exert his own influence over
Selahaddin's newly found autonomy, bu he died in 1174. Selahaddin used this
opportunity and occupied by October 1174 and declared himself the true
successor of Nuraddin. This move permanently pissed off the Turkish Zangids.

The mythical, glorified "Saladin" known in the Christian West is largely
derived from the Arab and Kurdish propagandists of his court, but there is
also a substantial body of scholarship from the Zangid circles and from
third-party Muslim observers. Selahaddin fought viciously against Muslim
tribes either to counter the attacks by the Zangids, or to force the terms
of unification and of Jihad on non-aligned ones. These struggles take up
more than 12 years of his leadership after 1174, while his head-on clash
with the Crusaders comprise only 5 years, 1187-1192. Before he could bring
together an uneasy Ayyubi coalition of Arab, Turkish and Kurdish tribes by
mid-1180, his army shed a lot of Muslim blood (oftentimes sanctioned by the
Khalif in Baghdad), and he twice escaped attempts on his life by Rashiddin
Sinan's Ismailiyya Assassins.

The theologico-politics of Jihad after late-1170s is too complex, I am only
an amateurish quick reader and cannot say I understand the whole thing. But
it is obvious that his court favored the Shafii debates on how to deal with
the Latin forces in the Middle East, rather than the interpretations of the
Hanafi scholars. I suspect, again, only through my quick reading, that this
politics is overdetermined by the financial crisis in Egypt: The huge
military expenditure for the forced unification of the Muslim tribes was
financed dominantly by the Egyptian gold mines, operated by Fatimi, Mamlouk
and other African slaves. By early-1170s, these mines were exhausted and a
crisis of the dinar, the dominant Fatimi currency, commences. (see A.
Ehrenkreutz, "The crisis of the dinar in the Egypt of Saladin", Journal of
American Oriental Society, 76 [1956], 178-84.) Yemen was conquered in 1173
by Selahaddin's brother, but the land's resources did not bring in the
needed goodies. Ayyubis depend on Syria for some time, then are pressed for
conquering more land, first in Mesopotamia, then in Christian-controlled
territories.

The Kurdish leader's decentralized bureaucracy, ruled through patronage,
did not help the situation. By the time Jerusalem was taken, his forces
appear to be over-extended (too many inland Christian fortresses needed to
be occupied). He could not secure the port-city of Tyre, and Conrad's
forces, later Richard's forces, arrived through there soon after Jerusalem
surrendered. From what I understand, the more the military expenses
accumulate after mid-1180s, the more intense Jihadist propaganda gets. The
Encyclopedia of Islam entry on Saladin mentions that the relations between
the Khalifate in Baghdad and Selahaddin were tense. Selahaddin was, by the
time the Jihad officially began, more of a pragmatist interested in
mobilizing troops controlled by allied warlords through the religious
rhetoric. Baghdad was not happy about that.

emrah

Reading:

- Basic facts: Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 8, "Saladin", pp. 910-914.
- Life of Saladin, 1973, by H. A. R. Gibb.
- Saladin : the politics of the holy war, 1982, by Malcolm Cameron Lyons
and D. E. P. Jackson.
- Emphasizing Kurdish roots of Saladin's court: Issue on Saladin,
International Journal of Kurdish Studies, vol. 13, no. i, 1999.
- A myth-busting article: "Saladin and his admirers: a biographical
reassessment", by P. Holt, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies, 46 (2), 1983.
- On the recovery of Jerusalem:
<http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/salahdin.html>

_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism