THERE ARE MANY WAYS of rendering Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Mongolian into English. I have generally opted for the most commonly used ‘short’ forms of names rather then the more scholarly forms simply because the vast swathe of names that the reader encounters whilst reading any history of the medieval Middle East means that any familiar faces are welcome.
For city and country names I have used the nomenclature of the period. The Crusader cities are given their Frankish names rather than the Arabic, as this is how they are most commonly denoted in other texts that the reader might be led to review. Persia has been preferred over Iran simply because the medieval entity of Persia covered a larger geographical area than modern Iran does and denotes the area of the pre-Islamic Persian-Sassanian Empire more closely than do the borders of the present-day state. Similarly, medieval Syria was far larger than the modern state of the same name and embraced all of Lebanon and modern Israel.
Of course, the events of the medieval Middle East were recorded by contemporary Islamic writers in the Arabic calendar, which is based on a lunar cycle and dated from the hijra – the Prophet’s flight from Mecca to Medina. I have, however, used the Christian calendar and all dates are Anno Domini as I want the reader to be able to parallel the events described with what was happening in Europe at the same time.