Author Description

Few historians have written on the sack of Jerusalem in AD 614 - the monstrous massacre that occurred as the holy city of Jerusalem suffered the conflicting attentions of the Roman and Persian Empires in their death throes. The bloodbath at Mamilla, where the largely Arab inhabitants of Jerusalem were bought as slaves and slaughtered as cattle, is an event so horrific that many historians have sought to consign it to a footnote in the greater narrative sweep of history. In this dramatic new presentation of these events, Yasmine Zahran brings the tragic personal narratives to life, frequently through the medium of an envisaged first person account that empathises with key protagonists. For all its vividness, Lament for Jerusalem is a meticulously researched piece of scholarship, flowing easily from the pen of a historian who has written considerably on related areas of Middle Eastern history. The sack of Jerusalem is given further historical context in a preface by Robert Hoyland, Professor at the Oriental Institute at the University of Oxford.