ABSTRACT
The question of the Near East on the eve of the Crusades invites a general comparisonbetween mediaeval Islam and mediaeval Europe. At the same time, it recalls the title of the first chapter in Peter Holt, The Age of the Crusades, namely 'The Near East on the eve of the First Crusade'.1 That chapter describes the disintegration of the two great empires of the Fatimids and the Seljuks by the end of the eleventh century, with special reference to the political fragmentation of Syria, a land ruled by 'petty princes and governors ... men of narrow vision and little experience'.2 Between the Charybdis of the comparison and the Scylla of the description, the middle way is an account of the background to that fragmentation in the broad course of Islamic history.
