Guest Lecture by Suleiman A. Mourad

From the venue:

Suleiman A. Mourad, Myra M. Sampson Chair Professor of Religion and Middle East Studies,
Smith College;

The “Counter-Crusade” and Ibn ‘Asakir of Damascus;

Ibn ʿAsakir of Damascus (1105-1176) is a towering figure of medieval Islamic scholarship. He was an authority on the prophetic Hadith, and his multi-volume History of Damascus is a monumental work of traditional Islamic historiography. His activism helped Sultan Nur al-Din (d. 1174) secure the allegiance of a large sector of the Sunni religious scholarly establishment in Syria, and paved the way for the rise of Saladin and the Ayyubids. The lecture will address Ibn ʿAsakir’s role in the Sunni religious awakening in the Levant and his contribution to the “Counter-Crusade” through religious propaganda and historical “revisionism”.