Saladin and Madame Vincent, our two heroes, will take you on a series of thrilling adventures, into contact with illustrious characters from different eras. Both access, thanks to a magic ring passed down from generation to generation, another world. It is during their sleep that dreams allow them to open this window which overlooks the past. Saladin, a brilliant 5th grade student, fights a fierce battle against his History and Geography teacher. It is the battle of memories in which each of the two protagonists revivifies the History with which they identify. The Muslim world for one, the Christian world for the other, as if these two worlds had never coexisted!! They will also show you all the richness and diversity of the historical heritage of Islam. You will understand, then, that History, instead of dividing us, brings us together. If you're ready, let the adventure begin!
Paul Valéry (1871-1945) wrote: “History is the most dangerous product that the chemistry of the intellect has developed. Its properties are well known. It makes people dream, it intoxicates people, gives them false memories, exaggerates their reflexes, maintains their old wounds, torments them in their rest, leads them to the delirium of grandeur or that of persecution, and makes nations bitter, proud , unbearable and vain.” Learning history is, for many, off-putting. Too many dates, too many places, too many events to remember; it is a certain fact. All these questions led us to consider that we could enjoy visiting and revisiting History in a more fun way. The adventures that follow have been designed to help you, whoever you are, teenager or adult, to discover some of the great figures and events of Arab-Muslim history without having the pretension of transmitting to you a body of knowledge, which the volume of this modest book cannot bear. The purpose of this book is to arouse in you the desire to take a closer interest in your History, in our History in all its universal dimension.
Divided into 21 acts and embellished, at the end of the work, with 19 biographies succinctly presenting the lives of the historical figures cited, “Saladin and the Magic Ring” transports the reader to numerous horizons. Saladin accompanies the great traveler Ibn Battûta (1304-1377) on his journey. He travels, according to his wanderings, from one era to another and meets in person the historian Ibn Khaldoun, the Andalusian surgeon Aboulcassis, the geographer al Idrissi, King Roger II, etc. However, a strange character in the past repeatedly tries to take his life.
Authors biography
A doctor from Paris IV Sorbonne University, Lyess Chacal is a specialist in Islamic thought. He has been interested for years in the work of Ġazālī (1058-1111), whose thought was the subject of his Doctoral thesis published in September 2018 under the title Illusion and deception in Islam, a study of human vanities. .. He is notably the author of a translation, The Book of Repentance, taken from Ġazālī's major work Revivification of the Sciences of Religion; an essay on the latter's thoughts entitled The Muslim ideal according to Ghazâlî and more recently a complete biography of this author.
It is above all the author's 30 years of experience in different educational environments (colleges, high schools, training centers, etc.) which make the work interesting. An educator at heart, Lyess Chacal has held numerous responsibilities as educational coordinator of a training center and especially as Director of Education at a private college. The world of college that he addresses in his novel is a world that he knows inside and out. His knowledge of the psychology of young audiences is undeniable. His skills combined with his university training on the Arab-Muslim world make this novel a general public work of real interest.
