Crusades-Encyclopedia Return to Table of Contents    Return to Crusades-Encyclopedia Manaqib Rashid ad-Din
According to Italian scholar Francesco Gabrieli, the Syrian author Manaqib Rashid ad-Din was a member of the notorious Isma'ilite sect known as the Assassins during the time of the Kurdish leader Saladin.(1)  Gabrieli notes,               We use this name [Manaqib Rashid ad-Din] to refer to a writer of the Isma'ilite sect in Syria               (the Assassins). The Virtues of our Lord Rashid ad-Din, as the full title of his work may be               translated, is a collection of recollections and anecdotes about the Great Master Rashid as-Din               Sinan, a contemporary of Saladin and thus leader of the sect in Syria at the time of Saladin's               greatest power. These records, in which edification is given a much more important place               than historical information, were collected in 1324 by an obscure follower of the sect, Shaikh               Abu Firas of Mainaqa, at a time when the influence of the Isma'ilites was on the wane. (2) [Continued.....] Third Crusade- Crusades-Encyclopedia Saladin- Crusades-Encyclopedia Assassins- Crusades-Encyclopedia Crusades Chroniclers and Authors of Primary Source Texts- Crusades-Encyclopedia 1. Francesco Gabrieli. Arab Historians of the Crusades. trans. E. J. Constello. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984) xxxi. Originally published in Italian in 1969. 2. Ibid, xxxi. (C) Andrew Holt, December 2005- Permission is granted for electronic copying or distribution in print for educational or personal use. No permission is granted for commercial use.