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Claude Cahen
 
 
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Claude Cahen (1909 – 1991) was a French
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 orientalist. He specialized in the studies of the Islamic Middle Ages
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
, Muslim sources about the Crusades
Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious war waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal opponents. Crusades were fought mainly against Muslims, though campaigns were also directed against Paganism Slavic peoples, Jews, Eastern Orthodox Church, Mongols, Catharism, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, and political enemi...
, and social history
Social history

Social history is an area of history study, considered by some to be a social science, that attempts to view historical evidence from the point of view of developing social trends....
 of the medieval Islamic society (works on Futuwa
Futuwa

Futuwa is a name of Sufi Islamic virtue that has some similarities to chivalry and Charity . Futuwa emphasize honesty, peacefulness, gentleness, generosity even in poverty, avoidance of complaints and hospitality in life....
 orders).

Claude Cahen was born to a French Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish family. Cahen was married and had six children, including the historian Michel Cahen who wrote a biography of his father. Cahen was a member of the French Communist Party
French Communist Party

The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. Although its electoral support has greatly declined in recent decades, it remains the largest party in France advocating communist views, and retains a large membership and considerable influence in French politics....
 from the 1930s until 1960, and remained an active Marxist
Marxism

Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism holds at its core a Marxist analysis of Critique of capitalism and a theory of social change....
 afterwards.






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Claude Cahen (1909 – 1991) was a French
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 orientalist. He specialized in the studies of the Islamic Middle Ages
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
, Muslim sources about the Crusades
Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious war waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal opponents. Crusades were fought mainly against Muslims, though campaigns were also directed against Paganism Slavic peoples, Jews, Eastern Orthodox Church, Mongols, Catharism, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, and political enemi...
, and social history
Social history

Social history is an area of history study, considered by some to be a social science, that attempts to view historical evidence from the point of view of developing social trends....
 of the medieval Islamic society (works on Futuwa
Futuwa

Futuwa is a name of Sufi Islamic virtue that has some similarities to chivalry and Charity . Futuwa emphasize honesty, peacefulness, gentleness, generosity even in poverty, avoidance of complaints and hospitality in life....
 orders).

Claude Cahen was born to a French Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish family. Cahen was married and had six children, including the historian Michel Cahen who wrote a biography of his father. Cahen was a member of the French Communist Party
French Communist Party

The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. Although its electoral support has greatly declined in recent decades, it remains the largest party in France advocating communist views, and retains a large membership and considerable influence in French politics....
 from the 1930s until 1960, and remained an active Marxist
Marxism

Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism holds at its core a Marxist analysis of Critique of capitalism and a theory of social change....
 afterwards. Despite his origins, he neither self-identified as Jewish, nor supported the State of Israel.

In 1954 he published "An Introduction to the First Crusade" in the Oxford
Oxford

Oxford is a City status in the United Kingdom, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. It has a population of 151,000. The rivers River Cherwell and River Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre....
 journal
Journal

__FORCETOC__A journal has several related meanings:* a daily record of events or business; a private journal is usually referred to as a diary....
 Past and Present
Past & Present

Past & Present is a British historical Academic journal, which was a leading force in the development of social history. It was founded in 1952 by a combination of Marxist and non-Marxist historians....
. Cahen has been called "the doyen of Islamic social history and one of the most influential Islamic historians of [his] century," and "the best historian of the Middle East in the twentieth century." Mark Cohen
Mark R. Cohen

Mark R. Cohen is a Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His research specialty is Jews in the Muslim world. He is considered to be one of the leading scholars of the history of Jews in the Middle Ages under Islam....
 describes him as a distinguished Islamic historian. He was a prisoner of war in World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
. The Festschrift Itineraires d'Orient: Hommages a Claude Cahen, edited by Raoul Curiel and Rika Gyselen, appeared in 1995 as an honor to his "distinguished career." and an issue of the journal Arabica (43/1 (1996)) was dedicated to him. That journal also includes a nearly complete bibliography of his works.