An Arabic memoir gives the fullest Muslim view of Crusader-era life

Evidence

A still better known autobiography is that of Usama ibn Munqidh, a local ruler in northern Syria in the twelfth century, who wrote what is probably the most informative single book in Arabic about what life was like in Syria at the time of the Crusades and what kind of human relationships existed between Muslims and Crusaders. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1892