Research Guides: RLST 3250 Mediterranean Religion Before Modernity (Catlos): Course Information

Course Description

Through a series of studies of historical actors, groups and cultures across the Mediterranean in the Age of the Crusades, this course offers an innovative approach to the multi-faceted history of Muslim-Christian-Jewish relations. It invites students to reassess established paradigms regarding cultural, ethnic and religious identity, and to reappraise their own assumptions regarding such forces and their role in human history.

Required Texts

Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors by Brian A. Catlos
Call Number: DE94 .C37 2014
ISBN: 9780809058372
An in-depth portrait of the Crusades-era Mediterranean world, and a new understanding of the forces that shaped it InInfidel Kings and Unholy Warriors puts the reader on the ground in the Mediterranean world of 1050-1200. We experience the sights and sounds of the region just as enlightened Islamic empires and primitive Christendom began to contest it.
The Travels of Ibn Jubayr by J.C. Broadhurst
Call Number: DS46 .I26 2001
ISBN: 8187570555
The Travels of Ibn Jubayr by J.C. Broadhurst
eBook
Islam and the Crusades by Usama Ibn Munqidh; Paul M. Cobb (Edited and Translated by, Translator, Introduction by, Notes by); Usama ibn Munqidh
Call Number: DS97.3 .U8313 2008
ISBN: 9780140455137
Islam and the Crusadescontains the autobiographical works of Usama ibn Munqidh, a twelfth-century Arab aristocrat. Full of detail, wit and melancholy, Usama's narrative anecdotes illustrate the inscrutability of God's will in life, as well as providing a memorable record of Islam's long encounter with the Crusaders, known to Usama only as the Franks. Paul M. Cobb's accessible translation is accompanied by an introduction that places Usama's writings in their historical and literary context, explains the poetry of his language and examines the divisions between Islamic sects at the time. This edition also contains maps, a chronology of the author's life, a family tree, suggested further reading and a glossary.