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Off Topic => Historical Discussion => Topic started by: Yazid on December 16, 2013, 09:53:40 pm

Title: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Yazid on December 16, 2013, 09:53:40 pm
I'm genuinely interested in this, and it's quite comedic in value.

http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/20B/Usamah.html

If anyone can like to more, please feel free.

Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Leshma on December 20, 2013, 02:08:50 am
Quote
case illustrating their curious medicine is the following:
The lord of al-Munaytirah wrote to my uncle asking him to dispatch a physician to treat certain sick persons among his people. My uncle sent him a Christian physician named Thabit. Thabit was absent but ten days when he returned. So we said to him, "How quickly hast you healed your patients!" He said:
"They brought before me a knight in whose leg an abscess had grown; and a woman afflicted with imbecility. To the knight I applied a small poultice until the abscess opened and became well; and the woman I put on diet and made her humour wet. Then a Frankish physician came to them and said, 'This man knows nothing about treating them.' He then said to the knight 'Which wouldst you prefer, living with one leg or dying with two?' The latter replied, 'Living with one leg.' The physician said, 'Bring me a strong knight and a sharp axe.' A knight came with the axe. And I was standing by. Then the physician laid the leg of the patient on a block of wood and bade the knight strike his leg with the axe and chop it off at one blow. Accordingly he struck it--while I was looking on--one blow, but the leg was not severed. He dealt another blow, upon which the marrow of the leg flowed out and the patient died on the spot. He then examined the woman and said, 'This is a woman in whose head there is a devil which has possessed her. Shave off her hair.' Accordingly they shaved it off and the woman began once more to eat their ordinary diet--garlic and mustard. Her imbecility took a turn for the worse. The physician then said, 'The devil has penetrated through her head.' He therefore took a razor, made a deep cruciform incision on it, peeled off the skin at the middle of the incision until the bone of the skull was exposed and rubbed it with salt. The woman also expired instantly. Thereupon I asked them whether my services were needed any longer, and when they replied in the negative I returned home, having learned of their medicine what I knew not before."

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Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Ronin on December 20, 2013, 05:34:58 pm
Leshma, is that quote from Amin Maalouf's book? I remember reading it there.

Edit: Just checked the link. This is all from from Amin Maalouf's book. I suggest you to read it. It's a nice book.
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: LordBerenger on December 20, 2013, 05:36:49 pm
ALLAHU AKBAR!
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Utrakil on December 20, 2013, 06:28:08 pm
nice piece of history. Thanks for sharing.
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Duster on December 20, 2013, 06:55:07 pm
Nice find, very entertaining, especially the bit with the frank finding another man in his bed :lol:
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Yazid on December 21, 2013, 07:53:01 am
Nice find, very entertaining, especially the bit with the frank finding another man in his bed :lol:

seems like a frank alright! :P
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Zlisch_The_Butcher on December 21, 2013, 08:57:32 am
If Frank found another man in his bed Frank would fuck him.
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Ronin on December 22, 2013, 02:34:23 pm
I was thinking the same and tried to find the english title of this book.

Read it like 4 times already in the last years, it's really, really nice.
Haha same, except the reading it for 4 times part.

I also suggest to read Erns W Heine's book, the one about Alamut and Hashashins. I can't say I know about it's historical accuracy but I really liked it. I couldn't find the English title of the book though, german titles everywhere.

Asha Atu As-Sirra, is my favourite chapter of course :P
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Kafein on January 16, 2014, 12:14:54 pm
That eastward guy is hardcore
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Turkhammer on January 16, 2014, 07:37:35 pm
So how did the Arabs get stuck in the 12th century?
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: BASNAK on January 16, 2014, 09:13:21 pm
So how did the Arabs get stuck in the 12th century?

Ottomans and then the western powers occupation after WW1 are to blame I'd say.
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Christo on January 16, 2014, 09:41:33 pm
So how did the Arabs get stuck in the 12th century?

islam
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Kafein on January 22, 2014, 09:25:52 am
So how did the Arabs get stuck in the 12th century?

Pretty much the same way Europe got stuck in the 4th
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Kalam on January 28, 2014, 12:38:56 am
Some suggest it was the Mongol invasion of the Middle East.
Title: Re: 12th century Arabs firsthand opinion of Crusaders
Post by: Bobthehero on March 13, 2014, 09:27:46 am
Yeah, the Muslims taugh a lot to the Europeans about medecine back then, and the European applied some of their own stuff in other domains (architecture), iirc it had to with curved corridors in towers making them hard to take over or something like.

I am curious if there's something like that but from the other perspective.