Book Review of Book of Saladin by Tariq Ali - Essay Example

Book Review of “Book of Saladin” by Tariq Ali Tariq Alis, “Book of Saladin”, novel is a rich and teeming chronicle set in twelfth-century Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem. The Book of Saladin is the fictional memoir of Saladin, the Kurdish liberator of Jerusalem, as dictated to a Jewish scribe, Ibn Yakub. Saladin grants Ibn Yakub permission to talk to his wife and retainers so that he might portray a complete picture of him in his memoirs. A series of interconnected stories follow, tales brimming over with warmth, earthy humor and passions in which ideals clash with realities and dreams are confounded by desires. At the heart of the novel is an affecting love affair between the Sultans favored wife, Jamila, and the beautiful Halima, a later addition to the harem. The novel charts the rise of Saladin as Sultan of Egypt and Syria and follows him as he prepares, in alliance with his Jewish and Christian subjects, to take Jerusalem back from the Crusaders. It is a medieval story, but much of it will be cannily familiar to those who follow events in contemporary Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad. Betrayed hopes, disillusioned soldiers and unreliable alliances form the backdrop to The Book of Saladin. This is the second of a planned quartet of historical novels depicting the confrontation between Islamic and Christian civilizations. The first, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, recounted the story of the fall of Islam in Spain. It has been translated into several languages and was awarded the Archbishop San Clemente del Instituto Rosalia de Castro Prize for the Best Foreign Language Fiction published in Spain in 1994. The Book of Saladin is the most historical of the three books, based on the rise and career of Salah al-Din. The novel’s characters are a mix of real and imagined people: Saladin and his family were real people, as was Ibn Maymun, or Maimonides as we know him. Saladin’s wives, his old retainer Shadhi and Ibn Yakub, the narrator, are all Ali’s creations. Ali notes in his introduction that he has remained faithful to historical events, but has tried to imagine the players’ inner lives. The book is split into three sections, with each chapter given a descriptive title, much like old chronicles had. Ali begins with Saladin’s rise to power as the conqueror of Fatimid Egypt. Though claiming universal leadership of the Muslim community, the caliph in Baghdad led only one of three Muslim dynasties at the time; the other two were the Umayyad dynasty established in Spain and the Fatimids in Egypt. The Fatimids, a Shi’i dynasty that founded Cairo and opposed the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad, were a major problem for the caliph. By destroying the Fatimids, Saladin not only strengthened the Abbasid caliphate (though he operated largely independently of the caliph), but also provided the Muslims with a southern approach to Palestine from which they could attack the Crusaders in Jerusalem. In order not to panic the caliph, Saladin slowly consolidated his power in Cairo. He was eventually appointed sultan of Egypt and Syria, from which base he was able to lead his troops and retake Jerusalem in 1187. Bringing together troops from across the Muslim world, Saladin showed himself an expert planner and logistician. At the time of his death he, and not the caliph, was the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world. His descendents, following the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258, established the Ayyubid caliphate in Egypt, which was the major dynasty in Islam until the rise of the Ottomans. The book opens with the narrator, Isaac ibn Yakub, sharing a light meal and deep conversation with his friend, Ibn Maymun. Their evening is interrupted by a knock at the door. Saladin—whom Ibn Yakub does not recognize—has come at this late hour with an astonishing request: that Ibn Yakub serve as his personal chronicler. Saladin does not trust his court chroniclers to record what he actually says and does; they are, he notes, known for their embellishments and for writing what they think will please the sultan. Thus begins Ibn Yakub’s long and close relationship with the sultan. Saladin refuses Ibn Yakub entrance only to councils of war, and this for the latter’s safety and that of his family. Ibn Yakub is present during family gatherings, is allowed access to Saladin’s wives and is present as Saladin pronounces judgment in legal cases. A close friendship ensues, with Ibn Yakub faithfully noting Saladin’s history. He is present at the fall of Jerusalem, where the Jews are as happy as the Muslims that the Christian hold on the city has been broken. Saladin is shown as a wise and careful leader, ruthless when need be in battle but lenient and just in his legal rulings. Again, the cosmopolitan nature of Cairo and Damascus is shown, with Jews not only living peacefully among their Muslim neighbors, but having access to and receiving fair treatment at the hand of Saladin. Maimonides was the sultan’s personal physician and Saladin chose a Jew as his personal chronicler. Animosity between the two religions was virtually unknown. The major factional disputes, in fact, are within the Muslim camp. While retaking Jerusalem is the major focus of the Muslim community, all involved recognize that whoever does so will be held in the highest esteem. Saladin’s rise, therefore, is pitted with danger and must be negotiated with tact and careful planning. An insurrection by Nubians is put down with absolute force, all the rebels killed and their section of Cairo left in ruins as a lesson to others. And although a Kurd himself, Saladin recognizes the troubles that his fellow countrymen could give him when they join his army for the attack on Jerusalem. Famed as great horsemen, the Kurds also are known to be headstrong and no recognizers of authority. It is only after several mock battles that Saladin is sure that he can trust them when the time comes. The Christians holding Jerusalem are shown to be cruel leaders. Upon conquering the city, they massacred all the Jewish and Muslim inhabitants, sparing neither women nor children. Under siege, they again turn against the native population of the town. Thýir leaders are haughty and vain, unwilling and unable to recognize the Muslims as anything other than inferior curs. Ali reminds us that even the Crusaders’ military powers have been vastly overrated, and that Richard the Lion heart was much despised—and his military skills questioned—by Christians of the day FROM THE CRITICS Umber Khairi These astonishing stories are packed into the narratives forty-two chapters, sometimes to dizzying effect. Nearly every chapter has tales of love, jealousy, betrayal or war...Ali creates an elaborate, vibrant narrative; in tone the book resembles The Arabian Nights as much as Arabic historiography...enjoyable story. -- Literary Review Publishers Weekly A very different novel from Fear of Mirrors reviewed above, Alis earthy, lusty saga about the fall of Jerusalem to Muslim forces in 1187 rewrites Eurocentric history by focusing on the historical figure Salah al-Din (better known as Saladin), the Kurdish upstart who used his position as sultan of Egypt and Syria to retake the Holy City from Crusaders. Through Saladins confidences told to a fictive character--Isaac ibn Yahub, his Jewish scribe, who narrates the story--we not only learn of the sultans marital woes (his favorite wife is having a lesbian affair with another concubine), we also view the Crusades from a non-Christian point of view. In this fiercely lyrical second installment of a projected tetra logy (following Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree), Ali exposes deep wounds between Christian, Muslim and Jewish civilizations that have yet to heal. A digressive arabesque weaving tales of political intrigue, gay and straight love, betrayal, cross-dressing, rape, assassination and crimes of passion, his tale ripples with implicit parallels to our age: Saladin prepares for "the mother of all battles"; his army wages a holy war to liberate Palestine; the Muslim nations are bitterly divided into mutually hostile factions. Some may feel Ali takes liberties too freely, as when Ibn Yahub walks in on his adulterous wife having sex with Maimonides, the celebrated Jewish philosopher; yet, throughout, the main characters sustain a fruitful dialogue on life after death, history, the oppression of women and the nature of spiritual and romantic love. Kirkus Reviews Ali, a historian, academic, satirist, filmmaker, screenwriter, playwright, and novelist, here continues the tale, begun with Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree (1993, not reviewed), of Islam’s confrontation with Christianity. The style of this second entry in a projected trilogy or quartet is smooth indeed as Ali chronicles the days of Saladin in 12th-century Cairo, Damascus, and Jerusalem. Yet the emotional flow of the fictional memoir is often rendered in banalities, as when young Saladin (real name: Salah al-Din) is abandoned by his mistress for an older man: "So I rode back to Damascus in a jealous rage, weeping tears of anger and of sadness No doubt. But such feelings have been rendered rather more intensely by writers ranging from Dostoevsky to Salinger. Even so, one is carried along by the sheer gallop of the storytelling and dead-on sense of time and place. In volume one, Islam lost Spain after ruling the Iberian peninsula for 300 years. As a Kurdish warrior, Salah al-Din claims his most outstanding conquest in the liberation of Jerusalem in 1187; the city had fallen to the First Crusade in 1099 and left Islam shaken, reeling, panicked. His story is told to a Jewish scribe named Ibn Yakub, who also interviews other members of Salah al-Dins court, including his wife. At length, Salah al-Din becomes Sultan of Egypt and Syria; his story is rounded out with a letter detailing the character and devilments of the despised Richard n the Lion-Arsen Independent An arresting tapestry of Saladins times, interweaving imaginative reconstruction, fictionalized history and Arabian Nights-style erotic fantasy. Sunday Times [London] Ali overturns demonizing stereotypes of Salah-al-Din, portraying instead the barbarian Western invaders. Whether depicting erotically charged harem intrigue or siege warfare, The Book of Saladin is an entertaining feat of revisionist storytelling. New Statesman Tariq Alis novel creates an authentic-seeming court, full of intrigue, dominated by a man who is charismatic yet not a hero of romance . . . It gives a feeling of how it must have been to be in the company of a great but harried genius and also paints a pluralistic and tolerant Islam, a world of philosophical inquiry as well as military prowess. Edward W. Said grippingly well told, brilliant paced, remarkably convincing in its historical depiction of a fateful relationship, it is a narrative for our time, haunted by distant events and characters that are closer to us than we dreamed. . Read More