Working simultaneously on two levels, Saladin represents the best kind of biography—a portrait of a man who is said to have made an age, and the most complete account we have to date of an age that made the man. Unlike biographies that focus on Saladin’s military exploits, especially the recapturing of Jerusalem from European Crusaders in 1187, Eddé’s narrative draws on an incredible array of contemporary sources to develop the fullest picture possible of a ruler shaped profoundly by the complex Arabian political environment in which he rose to prominence. The result is a unique view of the Crusades from an Arab perspective.
Saladin became a legend in his own time, venerated by friend and foe alike as a paragon of justice, chivalry, and generosity. Arab politicians ever since have sought to claim his mantle as a justification for their own exercise of power. But Saladin's world-historical status as the ideal Muslim ruler owes its longevity to a tacit agreement among contemporaries and later chroniclers about the set of virtues Saladin possessed—virtues that can now be tested against a rich tapestry of historical research. This tension between the mythical image of Saladin, layered over centuries and deployed in service of specific moral and political objectives, and the verifiable facts of his life available to a judicious modern historian is what sustains Anne-Marie Eddé's erudite biography, published to acclaim in France in 2008 and offered here in smooth, readable English translation.
Anne-Marie Eddé is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris, and was Professor of Medieval History at the University of Reims.
What People are Saying About This
Georgia Makhlouf
[A]n impressive biography of Saladin … supported by a multiplicity of sources, known or previously unknown: chronicles, travel narratives, letters, poems, administrative treatises. . . . Although [Eddé] is intent on placing that extraordinary figure within his context, on understanding his conception of power and how he founded his dynasty, she endeavors above all to analyze the discourses of which he has been the object from the Middle Ages to the present, discourses serving to fashion his myth. The result of that exacting and rigorous undertaking is at once accessible to the non-specialist and compelling, allowing us to rediscover a Saladin richer and more complex than that of his Western or Eastern legend. — Georgia Makhlouf, Le Jour
Chrysostome Gourio
A central figure in the history of the Crusades, an enlightened sovereign, a reunifier of the Muslim world, Saladin … is more than an icon in the East, he is the greatest figure of its glorious past and the model of the ruler par excellence. Profoundly attached to Arab values, he is awash with unparalleled glory and respect from the time of his reign until the present, and from his own territories to Europe. That cannot fail to raise problems when it comes to writing his biography. In fact, between hagiographical accounts emerging directly from his close circle and hostile criticism from his fiercest detractors, there was no objective middle course. This book constitutes the first step on that path: rigorous without being academic, resituating the man within his context and noting the influences exerted on him, it proposes to discover, beyond the usual panegyrics, the hidden face of Saladin, a portrait in light and shadow. — Chrysostome Gourio, Libraire Le Comptoir des Mots
