What part did texts play in the political and military struggles that convulsed Syria during the Crusades? And what difference did it make when a text that narrated those struggles was authored by a prince and warrior – a leading agent in the grand events of the age – rather than by a scholar? This essay will explore these questions through the lens of a chronicle written by an Ayyubid prince of Hamah, al-Malik al-Mansur Muhammad (d. 617/1220): Midmar al-haqa’iq wa-sirr al-khala’iq (‘The arena of truths and secret of created things’). The Midmar has received only sporadic attention since 1968, when the only known section of it first appeared in print, treating, in lacunose fashion, the years 575–82/1179–86. Most of the foregoing work on the text has been done by just two scholars, the Egyptian historian Hasan Habashi, its editor, and the German Islamicist Angelika Hartmann. But like other Arabic historiography of the era, the chronicle bristles with just the sort of conflict and cooperation with which the present volume is concerned. It describes events not only in Syria, where Saladin's campaigns take centre stage, but also in North Africa and Iraq, for both of which it is a uniquely precious source. What is more, the unusual perspective of its author, the learned prince al-Mansur, might be expected to lend special interest to its version of events, much as the better-known work of al- Mansur's great-grandson Abu’l-Fida owes some of its interest to its author's position as ruler of Hamah.

The continued neglect of the Midmar in modern scholarship makes it difficult to say quite what the work adds to our knowledge of events in Syria. Recently, however, an additional manuscript section of it has been discovered in Tunis. Although only the North African portions of this new section have been edited, it is clear that its contents will profoundly change our understanding of the work, and perhaps also our narrative of the years 582–6/1186–91, in Syria, North Africa and (in particular) Iraq. Our limited knowledge of the sources, methods and agendas of the Midmar, especially in its unpublished portion, would render hazardous any effort to analyse historical events in Syria as the work represents them.