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This article re-examines two texts centred around the Islamic concept of  jihād , both written in the crusading period. Both of these texts, namely ʿAlī b. Ṭāhir al-Sulamī’s  Book of the Jihad  and Ibn ʿAsākir ’s  The Forty Hadiths for Inciting Jihad , are most often interpreted in light of a preconceived anti-crusader mindset of their authors and audiences without taking into consideration the broader context of their production and reception. This contribution aims at offering a reinterpretation of this view by discussing the specific production and usage contexts of these two books. It is argued that the two authors, their contemporaries, and scholars in subsequent centuries understood these books much more as part of the flourishing cultural practice of hadith transmission than as political or military “propaganda” endeavours. To this end, the two  jihād  texts are discussed in the broader context of their respective authors’ biographies and their scholarly fields of activity. Second, the rather meagre audience of the two books is scrutinised based on the audition certificates on the two surviving manuscripts. The central claim of this article is that we have no positive evidence that the production and reception of the two  jihād  texts was linked to anti-crusader sentiments. Rather, the evidence points towards their embeddedness in the Damascus-centred hadith culture.

The Reception of Jihād Literature in the Crusading Period