Paul Cobb, a Kroc Institute faculty fellow and an associate professor of Islamic history, was among 187 artists, scholars, and scientists awarded Guggenheim Fellowships in early 2006.

Cobb, who is also a fellow of the Medieval Institute, has a special interest in Muslims in the age of the Crusades. His latest book is a biography of an eyewitness to the Crusades, a medieval Muslim from Syria named Usama, whose memoirs Cobb first encountered as an undergraduate in an Arabic class. Titled Usama ibn Munqidh: Warrior-Poet of the Age of Crusades (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006), Cobb’s book is the first biography in English of Usama.

Cobb says his research drew him further into Usama’s life and inspired him to write an intimate history of Usama’s clan, the Banu Muniqdh. Usama’s memoirs were rich in details about family life and the family castle still stands in Syria. “The memoirs were tough to understand, but very funny and moving,” Cobb said. “I subsequently learned that Usama, who was quite famous in his day as a poet and warrior,
was from an aristocratic family of some notoriety in medieval Syria.” Additional research took Cobb “into all sorts of fascinating texts and strange locales in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt.”

Cobb’s work is aided by his ability to use Arabic, Persian, Greek, Syriac, French, German, and “enough Turkish and Italian to sweet-talk the archivists.” In addition to the family history, his research has spawned other projects including a new English translation of Usama’s memoirs for Penguin Classics titled Islam and the Crusades: Usama ibn Munqidh and Ibn Jubayr. He will spend his fellowship year in South Bend, using the time to write.

Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.