Salahadin's army

[Rivkin]

Originally Posted by M.carter

Yes but you must remember that most of the medieval european historians generalized the whole middle east under the term 'Turks',
as most crusades that were launched, encountered turkish lands and armies at first.

It's not exactly true. For example "The Siege and Capture of Antioch" 1097-1098 by Raymond d'Aguiliers:
"After Bohemund had besieged a certain village, be heard some of his peasants suddenly fleeing and shouting, and when he had sent knights to meet them, they saw an army of Turks and Arabs close at hand."

The quote from the source mentioned in the first post (cocnerning Saladin's conquest of Egypt):
"He then put all of the Caliph's children to the sword, so that he might be subject to no superior but might rule as both caliph and sultan. He was afraid, since the Turks were hated by the people, that sometime when he went to visit the Caliph, the Caliph might order his throat to be slit."

Arab armies are mentioned a lot when it comes to the Crusades, and often clearly distinguished from Turks. I did not however see anything mentioning arabs as one of the main sources for Saladin's army (to be precise - never seen anything about arab units in Saladin's army).
Moreover Saladin and his people (turks) clearly mentioned separately from the local people who "hate" them.

We can assume that all medieval european sources, and all modern western authors are making a mistake when they identify at least significant parts of Saladin's army as turks, or when they talk about mass introduction of mamluks into pre-Saladin Egypt (like Bernard Lewis above) or about Saladin's mamluks.

They can all be confused concerning the distinction in between of turks and arabs. But is it really likely ?

Originally Posted by M.carter

As I said, yes there were mamluks in Saladin's army, but they were only his personal bodyguard, probably numbering no more than 500 cavaliers. Mamluks had only appeared in the Islamic world, the policy of turkish slave warriors was only started by Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma'mun, and was stopped after his death,

So all of those sources I've cited about black and white mamluks in Egypt, like Sanders, Lewis, and the sources they cite - do they all lie ?

Originally Posted by M.carter

Speaking of martial races, you cannot deny that arabs werent martial, during the early Ummayad period, they ALONE and I repeat, ALONE forged the

If you mean the quote from Lewis:
"In recruiting barbarians from the "martial races" beyond the frontiers into their imperial armies, the Arabs were doing what the Romans and the Chinese had done centuries before them. "

then - do you think by "martial" races beyounf the frontiers Lewis meant arabs ? How they happened to be beyound the frontiers of their own empire ? Why he needs to specially call them "martial races" beyound the frontiers, especially in the paragraph dealing with alans and other tribes ?

Concerning the arab martial race - it's a different topic. I think we have enough problems dealing with the nationality of Saladin's warriors.