Al-ʿAẓīmī’s Taʾrīkh for the Crusading Period: The Years 489–508/1095–1115

Modern scholarship into the initial Muslim responses and reactions to the Crusades is significantly hampered by the comparative dearth of contemporary source material. In particular, there are no surviving chronicles from the first fifty years, with one exception: al-ʿAẓīmī’s Taʾrīkh (“History”), a local history of northern Syria completed in 1144. This article presents the first English translation of al-ʿAẓīmī’s chronicle for the first two decades of the crusading period (489–508/1095–1115). In so doing, it will both provide scholars with access to further evidence for the events of the early years in northern Syria and, in particular, allow investigations into how the Franks were viewed by Muslims in this initial period.