The Book of Saladin by Tariq Ali is quite a tale. Intelligent, passionate, erotic, earthy, and irreverent, the tumultuous times and the remarkable man who lived in the midst of it all come to life on the pages. I enjoyed the layered and conflicting views of religion and morality in the book, not to mention the large cast of entertaining and very human characters. A whole panoply of emotions and events, including lots and lots of sex, make for a fun reading experience.

One thing that strikes me about the book is that there is so much talking in it. The constant dialog between the characters, that chorus of infinitely varied voices reminded me of what Azar Nafisi called the democratic aspect of the novel in Reading Lolita in Tehran. Not in the sense that the work depicts democracy of any sort, of course, but in that so many voices are represented and heard.

The whole story is really a series of conversations when you think about it, developed through councils of war, letters, intellectual discussions, and heartfelt confessions. Each of the myriad voices has something interesting to say about the times and about the human condition, whether one agrees with what is said or not.

My beef with the book is that it seems a bit cursory at times, something that may be an unavoidable result of choosing a scribe and historian's pen for the narrative. While the characters are quite interesting and I love the idea of many of them, too often I feel I can't get under their skin beyond what they have to say of themselves or what others say of them. In that respect words and conversations, the strength of this novel, may have gotten in the way of the experience of the novel--those flashes of atmosphere and nuance that words can never reach.

In the end I would call The Book of Saladin just what the Salah al-Din of the book commissioned it to be: A record of his life as put to paper (or is it parchment?) by a faithful scribe. It is a very entertaining record that weaves in and out of history and imagination, but in the end the truth of these people will remain just out of reach, glimpsed, as through a veil, through the rich cadence of words and ideas that both reveal and obscure them.

Ali's Salah al-Din, the hearty, flawed, and likable man from the fringes of a civilization he would come to lead, decided on a humble scribe and scholar of history to pen the story of his life over one of the best prose-writers of his time. I like to think that the result is one he would like better than something that would better satisfy the voyeuristic conceit of the modern novel-reader. Nevertheless, being truer to my sensibilities than his, I give this fictional record four stars out of five.

This book has changed a few of my thought processes. I am not a fan of historical fiction by any means, in fact I bought this book on a whim as I had an interest in the Muslim world hit me without warning, and I don't regret it in the least. Not because it is historical fiction, but because it has help to expand my mind. I've always been interested in the Crusades since I was a very young child, but I've never stopped to think about the Islamic side of the story. I've always concentrated on the Western histories and legends of this time. This book allowed me to see how Western people could be viewed as barbaric, and how the Islamic culture was really very more advanced in many ways to the stream of warriors coming out of Europe.

In this book we follow the tale of a fictional Jewish scribe as he journeys with Salah al-Din from Cairo through to the retaking of Jerusalem and finally to his death. Along the way we are exposed to many characters and customs of that noble society. I admit, I don't know how much of it was fact and how much was the author's prerogative, but it has definitely made me want to read more of Tariq Ali's works, and to study the Islamic culture a little closer. By all means read this book if you've only studied one side of the Crusader Coin.

This book has changed a few of my thought processes. I am not a fan of historical fiction by any means, in fact I bought this book on a whim as I had an interest in the Muslim world hit me without warning, and I don't regret it in the least. Not because it is historical fiction, but because it has help to expand my mind. I've always been interested in the Crusades since I was a very young child, but I've never stopped to think about the Islamic side of the story. I've always concentrated on the Western histories and legends of this time. This book allowed me to see how Western people could be viewed as barbaric, and how the Islamic culture was really very more advanced in many ways to the stream of warriors coming out of Europe.

In this book we follow the tale of a fictional Jewish scribe as he journeys with Salah al-Din from Cairo through to the retaking of Jerusalem and finally to his death. Along the way we are exposed to many characters and customs of that noble society. I admit, I don't know how much of it was fact and how much was the author's prerogative, but it has definitely made me want to read more of Tariq Ali's works, and to study the Islamic culture a little closer. By all means read this book if you've only studied one side of the Crusader Coin.

A fascinating and well told tale of the Muslim ruler Saladin who recaptured the city of Jeruselum from the Christians, a feat he accomplished by bringing together, or crushing, the various Arab tribes that hated and mistrusted each other more than the enemy that had invaded their lands. A great insight into a person of power, savvy,strength and faith in a time and place of great interest and dynmaics.

A must read for anyone interested in the stories of this epoch.

A fascinating and well told tale of the Muslim ruler Saladin who recaptured the city of Jeruselum from the Christians, a feat he accomplished by bringing together, or crushing, the various Arab tribes that hated and mistrusted each other more than the enemy that had invaded their lands. A great insight into a person of power, savvy,strength and faith in a time and place of great interest and dynmaics.

A must read for anyone interested in the stories of this epoch.

Tariq Ali is a gifted author and makes for a colorful tale - in fact I have the trilogy. A must read !

Astra Z

Tariq Ali is a gifted author and makes for a colorful tale - in fact I have the trilogy. A must read !

Astra Z

A beautifully written novel: Tariq Ali gives us a fictionalised reconstruction of the life of Salah al-Din (Saladin), who regained Jerusalem in 1187.

The novel will be best enjoyed if readers can suspend any negative personal views and perceptions of the life and times of Salah al-Din and read this as fiction in an historical setting.

The language enables the reader to participate as an observer in events of the time and to appreciate the events from a different perspective. The major characters are well drawn, and much of the reasoning seems entirely plausible.

After reading this novel, I found I wanted to know more about the life and times of Salah al-Din.

All of the books of the Islam Quintet are worth reading: this novel stands out because many of us have some knowledge (or think we do) of the events depicted in the novel.

Highly recommended.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Tariq Ali's "The Book of Saladin" is the second in his "quintet" about Islam. Don't let that put you off, though, as there is no set order to read the series in - no characters carry over from one book to the next and the continuity throughout is in fact the relationship between Islam and other religions during times of upheaval.

As the name suggests, "The Book of Saladin" is about that famous adversary of the Crusaders, the Kurdish Yusuf Salah-ad-din Ibn Ayyub who founded the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt. The basis of this novel is that Saladin has hired a Jewish writer to record his life and times as he leads the battle to re-take Jerusalem from the "Franj" (Crusaders, one of the many Arabic words used in the book and explained in the glossary).
The reader is therefore treated to a series of stories-within-stories, and knowing Ali's sense of humour (he is an electric public speaker) the parallel to the "Arabian Nights" is probably more than a fortuitous coincidence. Our narrator leads his own life over the years of his acquaintance with Saladin, along with its attendant highs and lows while recording Saladin's memories and hearing stories from his loyal retainers and members of his harem. All of these strands combine and separate in various ways to create a narrative experience quite hard to describe in words.
While the novel ends on a somewhat pessimistic note, this is probably only to be expected, as this was hardly a glorious time for either side involved in the conflict.

While certain characters - particularly Maimonides, who makes a cameo appearance - suffer from being relatively two-dimensional, the central characters are all eminently believable. In the case of Saladin, this is quite a feat as the volume of ink devoted to him over the centuries is quite spectacular and separating the man from the myth is a difficult task. The reader will almost certainly find themselves cheering when the Sultan wins a victory, whether on the battlefield or in the court chambers.

Ali's eye for detail is also deployed to great effect here. Ayyubid Cairo is evoked lovingly, as are the other locations which play important roles in the plot. Similarly, while the court intrigues of the time are confusing at best, Ali makes a noble attempt at simplifying things for the casual reader without an interest in the politics of the time. The frequent use of Arabic terms for events and places can be disconcerting to the reader with no background in the history of the region, however the glossary will help to overcome that - and the terms become easy to understand soon enough.
His sense of humour, too, plays an important part in this novel. Ali has a particular fondness for what can sometimes be described as "dirty jokes", as his description of Richard I of England clearly demonstrates. His dialogue between a heretical (Cathar, I believe) crusader and Saladin is hilarious, even to the extent of offensive comments being made in perfect Latin.

In short, this is a book which can be heartily recommended. For newcomers to Ali's writings, this is as good a place to start as any - possibly better than some other offerings, at that. This is also a great demonstration of "how the other half lives", in that the humanity of the "saracens" during the crusades is often overlooked. Knowledge of that humanity is, in my opinion, something we need now more than ever.

It took me a long time to read this book, as I kept falling asleep after a few pages. Despite the dramatic historical events, the narrative itself is quite flat. The author tries to counteract this with a liberal sprinkling of sexual exploits...many of them homosexual. This recurring theme became as tedious as the rest of the narrative. I found myself losing track of characters and having to constantly search for earlier references to try to figure out who they were. Perhaps the rather pedantic writing of the narrator was a deliberate literary device. The book has a lot of archaic-sounding phrases and reads like it was translated from another language...all of which was probably intentional. Deficiencies of style, plot construction, and focus have been noted by other reviewers. For some people, the political merit seems to outweigh the literary failings, but this wasn't the case for me.