Armstrong 14-15

This is such a minor detail, but the linguist in me has been really interested in Armstrong's transliteration of Arabic terms. Just for example, she describes the waqf and the awqaf, which, from the very little I know of Arabic (and from the context), I would guess that these are the singular and plural forms. (Banan, help me out!). Armstrong also uses symbols that I wouldn't even know how to find on my computer to indicate certain sounds in Arabic that we don't have in English. I don't know if I just didn't notice this when she was writing about Hebrew words, but I thought it was interesting. I also don't remember ever seeing such commitment to transliteration in other texts, and I think it is a cool way to try and keep the integrity of the original language. Just in general, Armstrong's consistent use of non-English terms has been an effective way to immerse readers in the cultures she is describing.

I was also fascinated by the idea of the waqf. I don't remember ever learning about this before. I've always heard and learned and read about Islam's emphasis on charity, but I did not know about this specific institution for carrying it out. I know that charity can often just be an ideal that never really gets carried out, and I think it's an awesome idea to have a consistent and established way to give to others.

Another question I have is about the perspective of Jerusalem from the rest of the Muslim world. In these chapters, Armstrong kind of makes it sound to me like nearly everyone viewed Jerusalem as the center of Islam. When she talks about the crusaders trying to dislodge the Muslims from Egypt, she says "The mere presence of Crusaders in the Near East was enough to inspire dread throughout the region... Al-Muazzam was convinced that the Crusaders would take back Jerusalem, slaughter the population, and dominate the whole Islamic world" (301). Was that just a paranoid ruler's perspective, or if Jerusalem had been captured would the Crusaders really have been likely to dominate the whole Islamic world? And I have been thinking too that we have been reading about Jerusalem from the perspective of people in Jerusalem, and it makes me wonder what people outside of Jerusalem and without any specific ties thought of the city...