The brotherhood of warrior monks, the Knights Templar is legendary in the western world, from their defence of Christendom to their bloody downfall. And yet there existed a group that the Arab cronicler Ibn Wasil called 'Islam's Templars - the Mameluks. These muslim defenders of the faith were elite soldier slaves in the service of the Egyptian sultans, who held back Crusader and Mongol invasions and who rose to great power and influence, ridding the Holy Land of Christian authority. In the Knights Templar and the Mameluks, Gordon Napier relates the intertwined history of two groups of warriors who fought for their respective faiths and made the Holy Land their battlefield. He compares the aristocratic Templars with their enslaved counterparts, two factions at once alike ande dissimilar, and reveals their respective ethos, the men who fought and the evolution of the brotherhoods, as well as their famous battles.
- ISBN10 0752469797
- ISBN13 9780752469799
- Publish Date 26 May 2012 (first published 25 May 2012)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint The History Press Ltd
- Format eBook
- Pages 224
- Language English