The following essay reflects on Kedar’s ” Subjected Muslims of the Frankish Levant”, devoted to the analysis of Muslims’ lives in this region and the dynamics of relationship between them and Frank authorities. It will attempt to demonstrate how his use of critical approach regarding the evaluation of historical sources contributed to the validity of the arguments proposed. In addition to that, the essay will employ the comparative analysis between his work and the first volume of Faris’s “History of the Crusades” by evaluating their utilization of historical sources and namely, the highly valued travel notes of Ibn Jubayr. Such approach gives an opportunity to observe some fallacies that Kedar, unlike Faris, was able to avoid when conducting a historiographical research. The main research focus of Kedar is the changes in the lives of the Muslim population under the rule of Franks.
In order to address this question, he puts efforts to analyze both, Frankish and Islamic sources that could shed a light on the current dynamics of their relationship. Interestingly enough, from the very beginning the author demonstrates the awareness about the scarcity of such evidences, which was resulted due to the eventual collapse of the Frankish regimen . As the result, Kedar recognizes the problem of the hasty generalization that some scholars are tempted to follow due to such lack of historical evidence. He, then, proposes the way to to avert such fallacious approach by encouraging the analysis from different perspectives. One of the examples could be Saladin’s secretary’s extracts, which provide interesting insights on the current events. According to them, Saladin was the one, who achieved the ‘restoration of the Muslims prayers. However, he validly suggests that based on that source alone one should not conclude that Islamic customs and traditions were entirely abolished. Thus, it can be seen that he managed to avoid a full reliance on the source since it would prevent the reasonable reconstruction of the existing social and political environment. Kedar continues to apply the proposed tools of critical analysis and the further example could be the evaluation of the role of the so-called qadi. The author references only to the evidence about famous qadi Mansur b. Nabil, who assisted sultan Saladin during the reconquer campaign.
Although, he identifies the source scarcity problem and thus, explains such limited records. Still, Kedar was able to realize that their absence does not necessarily imply qadi Nabil’s uniqueness. In other words, he proposes that it should not then be commonly agreed that there were not any others qadis in the Muslim society because the fact that testimony on this matter may have not simply survived should be taken into account. Another example of his critical approach to historiographical analysis could be his explanation on the significant lack of their violent revolts under the Frankish rule. Again, the author suggests that such relative peace does not allow one to conclude that Muslim population was satisfied with the Frankish dominance. In order to support this statement Kedar utilizes the evidences on the massacre and oppression of Islamic population during the conquest, i.e. before the strategy of relative tolerance was implemented. This gives the legitimacy to assume that Muslims would prefer to accept their dominance to impede the risk of further repression. The author also utilizes the records on civil discrimination towards Islamic population to obviate being blinded with the relative peace.
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According to jurisdiction documents, in case the Christian man or woman is abused by a Muslim, the latter would be exposed to death penalty. In contrast, these records do not mention that the Christian people would be similarly punished in reverse situation. The rationality of Kedar’s approach can be further supported through the comparative analysis with the works of other scholars like Faris, who was also addressed the issue of the lives of Muslims around the 12th century. Unlike Kedar, the latter does not seem to provide more critical insights on the current conditions of the Islamic citizens. This can be evident from their utilization of records of Ibn Jubayr. Faris in his work uses his notes in order to show that there was a relative tolerance between the Muslims and dominating Franks. He, however, does not provide possible explanations like those of Kedar, which were discussed earlier, to support such claim. Consequently, such generalization undermines the justification of his argument. In contrast, when referring to the travel notes of Ibn Jubayr, Kedar recognizes the factors that could affect his interpretation and hence, potentially distort the reality. When describing the lives of Muslims under Frankish authority the author mentions that Jubayr was in Franks controlled cities like Tyre and Acre for the very short period of time. Therefore, he realizes that there was not enough time for Jubayr to really appreciate the lives of Muslims there and investigate reasonable explanations on their conditions.
Further problems of hasty generalization in Faris’s work could be observed when considering his analysis on the development of Arab culture in different spheres like science, literature and others in this period. Based on the limited set of historical evidence he concludes there was a lack of creativity and that there were no significant contributions to the prosperity of this civilization. Unlike Kedar, he does not seem to take the scarcity of resources into account, and, as the consequence, he assumes that the absence of evidence of cultural achievements in these records guarantees the validity of such conclusions. Therefore, his work shows how Kedar was able to critically analyses the addressed issues and avoid weakly justified conclusions relative to other scholars. To sum up, the paper tried to justify the credibility of that Kedar’s view on Islamic world under the Frankish rule by analyzing his historiographical tools utilized. The essay appreciated the author’s awareness of potential challenges that should be considered first before the reasonable conclusions are drawn. Finally, by using the comparative analysis, it also demonstrated that unlike some historians he was able to avert oversimplified generalizations regarding the issue addressed.
