The Intensification and Reorientation of Sunni Jihad Ideology in the Crusader Period ─ Ibn 'Asakir of Damascus (1105-1176) and His Age, With an Edition and Translation of Ibn 'Asakir's The Forty Hadit

The Intensification and Reorientation of Sunni Jihad Ideology in the Crusader Period examines the important role of Ibn As kir, including his "Forty Hadiths for Inciting Jihad," in the promotion of a renewed jihad ideology in twelfth-century Damascus as part of sultan N r al-D n s agenda to revivify Sunnism and fight, under the banner of jihad, Crusader and Muslim opponents. This jihad vision was exclusively centered on selected quranic verses and prophetic hadiths. Ibn As kir and other Sunni scholars in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Syria departed from the earlier scholarly focus on legal nuances and aversion to invoke jihad in intra-Muslim conflicts. They championed this intensification and reorientation of jihad ideology in mainstream Sunni scholarship, and gave it a lasting legacy.

Suleiman A. Mourad, Ph.D. (2004), is Professor of Religion at Smith College. His publications include Jerusalem: Idea and Reality (Routledge, 2008); Early Islam between Myth and History (Brill, 2005), and Sirat al-sayyid al-Masi? li-Ibn ?Asakir al-Dimashqi (Dar al-Shuruq, 1996).James E. Lindsay, Ph.D. (1994), is Associate Professor of History at Colorado State University. His publications include Historical Dimensions of Islam (Darwin Press, 2009); Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World (Greenwood, 2005); and Ibn ?Asakir and Early Islamic History (Darwin Press, 2001).