Sea of Faith

by Stephen O'Shea

  Yamina: Julien, Histoire de VAfrique du Nord, discounts this story as legendary (345) but cites E. F. Gautier's claim that it underscores the revulsion felt by the Greek aristocracy for these marauding nomads. The invaders, led by Ibn Sa'd, were encouraged to return to Egypt thanks to an enormous bribe raised by the Byzantines of northern Tunisia.

  "If a ship lies still . . .": Cited in Ernie Bradford, Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 309. Lewis, in Arabs in History, writes: "The Arab historians tell us that the first Caliphs were unwilling to authorize expeditions across the sea, and Umar is quoted as forbidding his generals to advance to any place 'which I cannot reach on my camel'" (126).

  the magnetic compass: Bradford, Mediterranean, 316—18.

  By 649 Muawiya . . . had weighed anchor: Francesco Gabrieli, Muhammad and the Conquests of Islam, trans. Virginia Luling and Rosamund Linell (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), 176. The sea battle of Phoenix is known in Arab historiography as Dint as-Sawari.

  Nine hundred pack-camels: Ostrogorsky, Byiantine State, 104.

  switching clothes: The anecdote is related by Theophanus in Chronographia, quoted in George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byiantine State, trans. Joan Hussey (Oxford: Blackwell, 1968), 104.

  he was the second or third convert to Islam: L. Veccia Vaglieri, "Ali b. Abi Talib," Encylo-pedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, i960), 1:381-86. Veccia Vaglieri states that Ali would have to have been ten or eleven years of age at the time of his conversion to rival Abu Bekr in seniority.

  Following months of negotiation: If not years. The tenor, length, and location of the negotiations are among the most controversial elements of subsequent Islamic historiography. See Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Centuries (London: Longman, 1986), 78—79.

  The son of Abu Sufyan and Hind became the caliph: Muawiya may have styled himself caliph, but later Arab historians, in an attempt to discredit the Umayyads, refer to his descendants as kings, reserving the title of caliph for the Abbasids and their successors.

  though one historian playfully suggests: Norwich, Byzantium, 99—100: "On 15 September 668, while he was lathering himself in his bath, one of his Greek attendants, in a fit of uncontrollable nostalgia, felled him with the soap-dish." Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byiantine State and Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997), states that Constans demanded an "extraordinary amount of revenue and obedience from the Sicilians"; hence their wish to see him out of the way (322).

  the exact nature of its constituent ingredients will never be known: As might be expected, Greek fire has excited the imagination of many historical sleuths. See in particular C. Zenghelis, "Le feu gregeois et les armes a feu des Byzantins," Byiantion 7 (1932).

  one recent historian of the Byzantines sees Gibbon, then raises him one: Norwich, Byiantium, 100.

  "The last of the Merovingians . . .": Henri Focillon, L'An Mil (Paris: Denoel, 1984), 7.

  52,000 Christian soldiers: Walter E. Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic conquests (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 125. Fredegarius wrote: "But during the very night the army of Heraclius was smitten by the sword of the Lord: 52,000 of his men died where they slept." Kaegi notes that "the sword of the Lord" might be a reference to Khalid ibn al Walid's sobriquet.

  rois faineants, or do-nothing monarchs: The term came into usage in the nineteenth century. The story goes that their laziness was such that they couldn't be bothered to get around on horseback; instead they sat in a cart pulled by four oxen. Hence Focillon's remark cited above.

  a nursery rhyme that has him putting his breeches on backward: The song, which has many verses depicting the ineptitude of the king, apparently dates from the French Revolution and was obviously composed to make the monarchy look ridiculous: "Le bon roi Dagobert /A mis sa culotte a l'envers; / Le grand saint Eloi/Lui dit: O mon roi! / Votre Majeste/Est mal cu-lottee. / C'est vrai, lui dit le roi, / Je vais la remettre a l'endroit." (Good King Dagobert / Put his breeches on backward / The great St. Eloi/Said to him: "O my King! / Your Majesty / Is badly breeched." / "Tis true," the king replied, / "I'll put them right way round.")

  many of the Franks' Germanic cousins clung to their traditional beliefs: This was true throughout Christendom, even in Rome. Peter Brown writes: "In the city with the longest Christian tradition in the Latin west, collective memory still looked past the great basilica-shrine of Saint Peter to the world of Romulus and Remus. . . . On reaching the top of the flight of steps that led up to the courtyard of St. Peter's, many Catholic Christians would still turn their backs to the saint's basilica, to bow, with a reverential gesture, to the rising sun." Rise of Western Christendom, 95.

  Karl Martiaux: This was his name at baptism. Thus the idea that he was given the sobriquet of Martel after the battle of Poitiers—an etymology repeated since the Middle Ages—is misleading. See Lucien-Jean Bord's Les Merovingiens: Les rois inconnus (Vouille: Editions de Chire, 1981X217.

  unholy man of war: Bord, in Les Merovingiens, gives a laundry list of Martel's depredations (237).

  al-maghrib: Also al-Maghreb. See Hussain Mones, "La conquete de I'Afrique du Nord et la resistance berbere," L'Histoire generale de VAfrique (Paris: UNESCO, 1990), maintains that it means "west of the land of Islam" (3:251). For Baltasar Porcel in his lyrical Mediterranee: Tu-multes de la Houle, trans. Nelly Lhermillier (Paris: Actes Sud, 1998), the term is an abbreviation of Jazirat al-Maghrib, "the island where the sun sets." Most reference books refer to it merely as meaning "the west," as in sunset.

  The forces of his son: Muawiya's son, and Huseyn's enemy, was Caliph Yazid.

  built on Jewish holy ground by Christian artisans for the glory of Islam: No other rock on earth has as great a bibliography. I recommend a superb and erudite historical fiction: Kanan Makiya, The Rock: A Tale of Seventh-Century Jerusalem (New York: Pantheon, 2001).

  according to quasi-legendary accounts: The famous ride is not disputed. Just how far Ukba went, however, is. V. Christides, "Ukba b. Nafi," Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 10:789—90.

  "My God I call you to witness . . .": Gabrieli, Conquests of Islam, 182.

  one historian dryly notes: Julien, Histoire de VAfrique du Nord, 350.

  Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: The historian lived 1332-1406. His monumental work on the Berbers is Ibn Khaldun, Histoire des Berberes et des dynasties musulmanes de VAfrique septen-trionale, trans. Baron de Slane, 4 vols. (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1925—26).

  the most remarkable personage of the century leading to Poitiers: Mones, "La conquete de I'Afrique du Nord": "Mi-reine, mi-sorciere, le teint sombre, la chevelure abondante, des yeux immenses, qui, d'apres les auteurs anciens, viraient au rouge tandis que ses cheveux se dressaient sur sa tete lorqu'elle etait en colere ou poussee par ses demons, c'etait un vrai personnage de le-gende" (265). (Half-queen, half-witch, with a dark complexion and flowing hair, as well as huge eyes, which, according to ancient authors, turned red as her hair stood on end whenever she was angered or possessed by her demons, she was a true character of legend.) rotten egg: The baroque tale is told in many Arab chronicles, but it has left some historians entirely skeptical and others slightly ambivalent. The "Julian-is-fiction" argument is given in

  Roger Collins, The Arab Conquest of Spain: yio—ygy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 35-36; the call for cautious acceptance of at least some of the story is found in Joseph F. O'Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973), 52.

  two French historians: Jean-Henri Roy and Jean Devoisse, La bataille de Poitiers, octobre 733 (Paris: Gallimard, 1966). I have relied extensively on this exhaustive and painstaking work to reconstruct the events of the battle.

  he disappears from history at this point: Bernard F. Reilly, The Medieval Spains (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 52. Rodrigo's wife, however, does not disappear. She weds the son of Musa ibn Nusayr, who became the emir o
f al-Andalus.

  eighteen hundred vessels (and 120,000 besiegers): Treadgold, Byiantine State, 304. The staggering numbers are generally accepted by most historians.

  "Here you are, o sons of Ishmael . . .": Quoted by Evariste Levi-Proven9al in La Penin-sule iberique au Moyen Age d'apres le Kitab ar-rawd al-Mi'tar al-Aktar, d'Ibn Abd al-Munim al-Himyari (Leiden: Brill, 1938), 34. The chronicler al-Himyari also claimed that Musa Ibn Nusayr planned on heading back to Damascus by land, fighting his way all around the north shore of the Mediterranean.

  a cool-headed young commander named Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi: This information appears in the Arab chronicles covering the period as well as the all-important Mozarab Chronicle of j54. See Philippe Senac's Les Carolingiens et al-Andalus: VIIF-IX 6 siecles (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2002), 17.

  one papal source: The figure appears in the Liber Pontificalis of Pope Gregory II. The pope is said to have sent three holy sponges to Duke Eudo prior to the battle, thereby making him one of the first papally sanctioned warriors for Christ and Christendom.

  lightning strikes up the Rhone Valley: And beyond. The Burgundian city of Autun was sacked in 725, marking the northernmost point of advance in this century of conquest.

  Othello meets Desdemona: Another story of love across the lines of religion has yet another Munuza falling in love with the daughter of Pelayo, the victor at the battle of Covadonga, which prevented the Muslims from overrunning Asturias. (Covadonga, in nationalist histories, is taken to be the first battle of the reconquista, the Christian reconquest of Iberia.) In the story, Pelayo's daughter, not enamored of this Munuza, poisons herself to escape his attentions.

  for to his north his troubles were multiple, and they all stemmed from one root: Charles Martel: On Martel and Eudo, see Paul Fouracre, The Age of Charles Martel (Harlow: Pearson, 2000), 81-89.

  Martel's greatest apologist: The chronicle of Fredegarius was continued at the behest of Martel's half-brother, Count Childebrand. Thus whoever wrote the continuation had a very good reason to make the actions of the Franks look good.

  their allies hunted down Munuza and killed him: Or they forced him to commit suicide. Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of alAndalus (London: Longman, 1996), 24. In the Chronicle of 384 Munuza throws himself from a cliff to escape capture. See Kenneth Baxter-Wolf, ed. and trans., Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1990), 143.

  Lampegie . . . was packed off to the women's quarters on Straight Street: She subsequently married the son of Caliph Hisham. See Syed Imaduddin, A Political History of Muslim Spain (Karachi: Najmah, 1984), 41.

  the caliph raised Abd al-Rahman: Caliph Hisham, one of the last of the Umayyads of Syria (724-43)-73 in 732 or, according to some, 733: There has been considerable debate about the precise date. The two candidates are October 25, 732, and October 17, 733. The Chronicle of y54 mentions that it took place on a Saturday in October. Most of the Frankish annals concerning the period give 732 as the date. But eleventh-century Arab chronicles—the battle is late in appearing in Arab histories—vary on which year after the hijra the battle took place. All concede that it was in the first days of the month of the Ramadan. Proponents of 733 also state that Abd al-Rahman called for the gathering in Pamplona for 732 and thus would probably have set out the following year. As no argument seems definitive, I have kept the "traditional" date of 732—that is, the one given in the annals composed in the years immediately after the battle.

  Little else is known with certainty: My reconstruction of the battle relies principally on Roy and Devoisse, La bataille de Poitiers, 212-235, and on the Chronicle of j54, in Baxter-Wolf, Conquerors and Chroniclers, 144—45.

  Mozarab: The term is derived from the Arabic musta'rib, which means "Arabized."

  CHAPTER 3: Córdoba,

  Convivencia: The term is mostly used for descriptions of medieval Spanish polities ruled by Christians but showing tolerance for Muslim subjects and neighboring Muslim emirates. I think it is a particularly evocative term, so I have used it throughout this book to describe any place where Muslim, Christian, and Jew got along, regardless of who was in power. The term came into general usage through the work of historian Americo Castro in the 1940s, who boldly maintained in his classic Espaha en su historia that Spanish history was the story of intermingling rather than an endless crusade in the search for Christian unity.

  its Carolingian stirring under Martel's grandson Charlemagne all too brief: Charlemagne's achievement was irreparably truncated in 843 at the Treaty of Verdun, when a three-way division of his kingdom was decided, thereby guaranteeing more than a millennium of intra-European warfare.

  by the Irish or whomever: See Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civiliiation (New York: Anchor, 1996).

  "In the name of the most merciful God . . .": Cited in Ernie Bradford's Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 328. The caliph's displeasure was incurred when Nicephorus decided to stop paying tribute money to the Muslims in exchange for peace in Anatolia. This Nicephorus (reigned 802-11) is thought to have been of Ghassanid Arab descent—the same people who fought and lost alongside the Byzantines at Yarmuk.

  not one left the table alive: The well-known tale is told best in Adolf Friedrich von Schack's Poesiay arte de los Arabes en Espahay Sicilia (Madrid: Hiperion, 1988).

  the black flag of revolt: The instigator of the revolt was one Abu Muslim, an Iranian. He rallied many shia to his standard, promising them a restoration of the legitimate line of descent from the Prophet. Both he and they were betrayed by the Abbasids, who, after an initial flirtation with shia messianism, kept to their sunni ways. Bernard Lewis, magisterial as usual, sums up the displacement of the Umayyads by the Abbasids in his The Arabs in History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993): "It came about not as the result of a palace conspiracy or coup d'etat, but by the action of an extensive and successful revolutionary propaganda and organization, representing and expressing the dissatisfactions of important elements of the populations with the previous regime, and built up over a long period of time. Like most revolutionary movements it was a coalition of different interests, held together by a common desire to overthrow the existing order, but doomed to break up into conflicting groups once victory was obtained. One of the first tasks of the victorious Abbasids was to crush the disappointed extremist wing of the movement which had brought them to power. Abu Muslim, the chief architect of the revolution, and several of his companions were executed and an emeute by their followers suppressed" (84).

  an enormous classical corpus of Greek and Roman thought: It is thought that Nestorian Christians, persecuted by their former Byzantine masters, were instrumental in translating these works into Arabic and Persian. See Richard E. Rubenstein, Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages (New York: Harcourt, 2003), 77. Of the contribution of the Nestorians, Rubenstein writes: "The result was a transfer of culture similar, in some respects, to that caused by alternating waves of refugees from Nazi- and Communist-dominated lands in the twentieth century."

  "We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth . . .": Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi's profession of intellectual faith is cited in Albert Hourani's invaluable A History of the Arab Peoples (New York: Warner Books, 1991), 76.

  Baghdad's many contributions to mathematics: Algorithm comes from a contraction of the name of al-Khwarizmi, one of the most capable of all mathematicians. He lived in Baghdad from about 780 to 850 and was a scholar at the House of Wisdom there. He dedicated his famous treatise on algebra Hisab al-jabr w'al-muqabala to Caliph al-Mamun, under whose patronage he worked. Our word algebra comes from the word al-jabr in the title (which means "completion"). This operation, together with the other main operation al-muqabala, meaning "balancing," and also mentioned in the title, were the main procedures in solving linear and quadratic equations.

  siren song of reason:
Hourani, Arab Peoples, briefly discusses Abu Bakr al-Razi, another ninth-century Baghdadi thinker, whose respect for reason led him to the audacious conclusion that "human reason alone could give certain knowledge, the path of philosophy was open to all uses, the claims of revelation were false and religions were dangerous" (78).

  Abul Abbas: Charlemagne was apparently grief-stricken when the elephant died in July 810. See Franco Cardini's Europe and Islam, trans. Caroline Beamish (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 14—15.

  Abd al-Rahman ibn Muawiya al-Dakhil: Given the name of the Arab protagonist at Poitiers, yet another Abd al-Rahman in our narrative might seem providentially confusing. It is, in fact, a fairly common name meaning "servant" or "slave" (abd) of the Merciful One (al-Rahman). Khalid ibn al-Walid's son, who was Muawiya's standard-bearer at the battle at Siffin, was named Abd al-Rahman. So too, more recently, was the "blind sheikh" behind the first plot to blow up the World Trade Center in New York City.

  his brother turned back in midstream: This sad story is told with great brio by Antonio Munoz Molina in Córdoba, de los Omeyas (Barcelona: Planeta, 2003), 63-64. Almost all our information on the life of Abd al-Rahman I comes from Akhbar Madjmua, an anonymous tenth-century compilation of traditions. For a brief historiographical discussion on its reliability as a source, see Pierre Guichard's Al-Andalus 311—1492 (Paris: Hachette, 2000), 46-47.

  distaff kinsmen in Morocco: His mother's tribe were called the Nafza, who lived near Ceuta—which had already served as a jumping-off point for the conquest of Iberia. It carried no stigma to be the son of a concubine or captive, as long as one's father was of the ruling Arab tribe. In fact, the concubine was immediately "promoted" to full-fledged status within the clan once she had produced a son and therefore an heir.

  crucified between a pig and a dog: The poor fellow was Abd al-Malik ibn Qatan. See Guichard, Al-Andalus, 41. Apparently this method of execution was not an isolated incident of malevolent genius. According to Richard Fletcher's Moorish Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), a rebel allied with Ibn Hafsun met the same grotesque fate at the hands of the Cordobans in 888 (48).