Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

by Tariq Ali

  It is now eight whole years since the crescent was removed from the Alhambra and the last fortress belonging to the sect of Mahomet reconquered for our Holy Father. Your Highnesses asked me to respect the terms of the Capitulation signed by the Sultan and yourselves when he surrendered to a superior moral force. Her Majesty will recall her injunction to her most loyal servant: ‘As our most trusted Bishop you will be seen not solely as the servant of the Church, but as the eyes and ears of your King in Granada. You will behave in such a fashion that it can never be said that you brought dishonour to our name.’ I understood Her Majesty to mean that the followers of the false Prophet were to be treated kindly and permitted to worship in their usual fashion. I have never told Your Majesties an untruth. I believe that the kindness shown by my predecessor was misunderstood by the Moors. They showed no inclination to convert to our holy faith. It was for that reason that I decided they must be taught that the time was past for idolatries and heresies. Her Majesty will recall our discussions in Toledo, when I explained the nature of the al-koran. I stressed that the books of this sect and its rituals and superstitions were a bottomless sea. In every house, in every room, they display the commandments of their prophet in rhymed couplets. It was Her Grace who first expressed the view that such evil books and the poisonous doctrines contained within them should be consigned to the fires of hell. I do not believe that any other person in Granada could have organized the public burning of all the al-korans and everything else related to that book.

  I am not suggesting that as an individual I am indispensable for the task assigned to me by Your Majesties and our Holy Church. How can any single person be essential to a Church such as ours? Nonetheless I took a vow when I became Archbishop of Toledo. I pledged that I would convert every follower of Mahomet to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ. I plead for your help to fulfill my vow and to be given all the powers necessary to execute my mission.

  The Captain-General, that most noble Count of Tendilla whose family produced our most astute Cardinal Mendoza, my honoured predecessor, argues incessantly that since Your Majesties have won the war it is only a matter of time before the Moors adopt our language, customs and religion. When I pointed out to him that three Moorish women had been seen by one of my priests in the act of urinating over crucifixes which had been removed from church, he replied: ‘What else do you expect, Archbishop? After all, you decided to burn their books. This is their revenge. Blasphemous outrage, but better they do that than castrate you in the market-place.’

  It is attitudes such as these which are heard within our own ranks. The Count has few enough Christians in his court, but those that attend on him mock openly at our Church, denounce it as corrupt, joke about the number of Bishops and friars who live in sin, procreate and then appoint their sons to positions inside the Church. Even Don Pedro Gonzales de Mendoza, the Cardinal who on his death-bed advised Your Majesty to appoint me in his place, the man who defended your cause before you came to the throne, the noble ancestor of our brave Captain-General; even this holy person had seven children by two ladies of the highest rank. Don Pedro, as Her Majesty knows, was commonly referred to as our ‘third monarch’ and could do no wrong in the eyes of those who served him. The other day a Moor accosted me in the gardens near the palace and asked in a most courteous fashion: ‘Are your children healthy and well, Your Grace? How many of them are there?’ He meant well, perhaps, but I felt like plucking out his blaspheming tongue and sending him to roast in hell.

  I am aware, of course, that this is an ancient disease, much encouraged in the past by that most learned of Bishops, Gregory of Tours, whose family, six hundred years after the birth of Our Lord, controlled the Church in central France for many years.

  Our Cardinals and Bishops, and those who serve under them, have, for these last six centuries, been swimming in a sea of sin. Even after we had reclaimed most of our lands, Granada became an oasis in which the Mahometans could indulge day and night in the excesses of the flesh. Mahomet’s followers have become accustomed to besporting themselves like farm animals. It is this example of never-ending iniquity which has infected our Church and done our cause the most grievous injury. That is another strong reason for not letting these evil fashions survive in our lands. I beg Your Majesties’ permission to proclaim the edicts of our faith in this kingdom and to appoint an apostolic Inquisitor to begin his work amongst these people, so that any person can come forward and report to us if he has heard or seen any other person, alive or dead, present or absent, say or act in a manner which is heretical, rash, obscene, scandalous or blasphemous.

  Failing this, I must inform Your Majesties that it will be necessary to destroy all the public baths in the city. It is bad enough that the Mahometans flaunt these dens of sensuousness in our faces every single day. You will recall how our soldiers, on discovering that Alhama possessed more baths than any other city in this peninsula, decided that the best way to save the town was to destroy it, and this they did with the words of our Saviour on their lips. The obscenities painted on the side of the baths added fervour to their already strong determination. It was in these circumstances that our crusaders eradicated every remnant of sin.

  Matters in Granada are much more serious, and not simply on the spiritual level. These accursed baths are also their regular meeting places to talk amongst themselves and engage in plots of sedition and treason. There is a great deal of unrest in the city. Every day my faithful conversos bring me reports of conversations in the Albaicin and the Moorish villages which are dotted, like the plague, in the Alpujarras.

  My own inclination would be to end the discontent by arresting the ringleaders and burning them at the stake. What a tragedy befell our Church with the death of Tomás de Torquemada. The noble Count, however, is of a totally different disposition. For him Torquemada was nothing more than a Jewish converso trying desperately to prove his loyalty to the new faith. The Count is opposed to any firm measures against the heathen in our midst. He imagines that by speaking their language and dressing as they do he will win them over to our ways. Her Majesty will perhaps understand that I can neither comprehend nor appreciate the logic underlying such behaviour. Many of our knights, who fought like lions when we took Alhama, are permanently engaged in carefree and jocund revelry in Granada. They believe that their war is over. They do not understand that the most decisive stage of our war has only just begun. It is for that reason that I request Her Majesty to authorize the measures listed below and kindly to inform the Captain-General of Granada, Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, that he is not to obstruct any action taken by the Church.

  – We must instruct the Moriscos to cease speaking Arabic, either amongst themselves in private or for the purpose of buying and selling in the market. The destruction of their books of learning and knowledge should make such an edict easily enforceable.

  – They must be barred from keeping slaves bred in captivity.

  – They should not be permitted to wear their Moorish robes. Instead they must be made to conform in dress and the way they carry themselves to the Castilian manner.

  – The faces of their women must under no circumstances be covered.

  – They must be instructed not to keep the front doors of their homes closed.

  – Their baths must be destroyed.

  – Their public festivals and weddings, their licentious songs and their music must be disallowed.

  – Any family which produces more than three children must be warned that all extra progeny will be placed in the care of the Church in Castile and Aragon so that they can be brought up as good Christians.

  – Sodomy is so widespread in these lands that in order to root it out we must be severe in the extreme. It should, in normal circumstances, be punished with death. Where the act is committed on animals a period of five years as a galley-slave would be adequate punishment.

  These measures may appear to contradict the terms of the Capitulation agreed by us, but this is the only lasting solution to th
e disease which has eaten into our souls for so long. If Your Most Gracious Majesties are in agreement with my proposals I would suggest that the Holy Inquisition opens an office in Granada without further delay and its familiars be dispatched to this sinful city immediately to collect evidence. Two, or at the most, three autos de fe will make these people understand that they can no longer trifle with the power which God has willed to rule over them.

  I await an early reply and remain Your Majesties’ most faithful servant, Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros.

  Ximenes folded the paper and affixed his seal to the parchment. Then he called for his most loyal friar, Ricardo de Cordova, a Muslim converso who had converted at the same time as his master, Miguel, and had been gifted by him to the Holy Church. He handed him the letter.

  ‘Only for the eyes of the Queen or King. Nobody else. Clear?’

  Ricardo smiled, nodded and left the room.

  Ximenes was thinking. What was he thinking? His mind was dwelling on its own frailties. He knew that he was not smooth of speech or letter. He had never been adept at coupling fire with water. The grammar he had studied as a boy in Alcala had been of the most primitive variety. Later at the university in Salamanca he had devoted himself to a study of the civil and canonical law. Neither there nor in Rome had he acquired a taste for literature or painting.

  Michelangelo’s frescos left him completely unmoved. Despite himself he had been greatly impressed by the abstract geometric patterns on tiles he had seen in Salamanca and later in Toledo. When he thought about such matters, which was not very often, he confessed to himself that it would have been far more natural to worship the Lord as a concept. He did not like the cluster of images inherited from paganism and clothed in the colours of Christianity.

  If only he had possessed the epistolary skills of his illustrious predecessor, Cardinal Mendoza. His letter to Isabella and Ferdinand would have been written in the most flowery and fashionable language. The monarchs would have been so moved by the literary quality of the composition that they would have accepted the dagger concealed underneath the verbiage as a necessary adjunct, but he, Ximenes, could not and would not deceive his Queen.

  He had become Isabella’s confessor when Talavera was sent as Archbishop to Granada, and to her great pleasure and surprise had not betrayed any feeling of agitation or anxiety on being conducted to her presence. Nor had she noticed in his facial expression, or the manner in which he approached her, the slightest trace of servility. His sense of dignity and the piety which exuded from every pore of his body were unmistakably genuine.

  Isabella knew that she had a fervent priest, his inflexible temperament akin to her own. Talavera had treated her with respect but had not been able to conceal his despair at what he took to be a combination of cupidity and prejudice. He had always tried to lecture her on the virtues of tolerance and the necessity of coexistence with their Muslim subjects. Ximenes was made of sterner stuff. A priest with an iron soul and, moreover, a mind like her own. Isabella invited him to take charge of her conscience. She poured out her heart to him. Ferdinand’s infidelities. Her own temptations. Fears for a daughter whose mind appeared to desert her without warning. All this the priest heard with a sympathetic face. On one occasion alone had he been so stunned by her revelation that his emotions overpowered his intellect and a mask of horror covered his face. Isabella had confessed an unsatisfied carnal urge which had gripped her some three years before the Reconquest of Granada. The object had been a Muslim nobleman in Cordova.

  Ximenes recalled that moment with a shudder, giving silent thanks to his Lord Jesus Christ for sparing Spain that particular calamity. If a Moor had entered the Queen’s chamber, who could predict the turn that History might have taken? He shook his head violently as if the very thought was heretical. History could have moved in no other direction. If Isabella had blunted her own capacities, then a sharper instrument would have been found.

  Ximenes was the first truly celibate Archbishop of Spain. One night in Salamanca, during his university days, he had heard the noises which often marked a male dormitory in those excitable times and realized that his fellow students were busy mimicking the behaviour of overheated animals. The pleasure that some of the mating couples were giving each other was there for all to hear. Ximenes had felt a twinge of excitement below his groin. The shock had been enough to send him to sleep, but when he woke the next morning, he was horrified to discover his nightshirt drenched in what could only be his own seed. What made it worse was a sinful coincidence. The liquid imprint bore an uncanny resemblance to the map of Castile and Aragon.

  For two whole days, Ximenes had been beside himself with dread and anxiety. At church, later that week, he described the scene to his confessor, who, much to the disgust of the future Archbishop had roared with laughter and responded in a voice so loud that it had made Ximenes tremble in embarrassment.

  ‘If I ...’ the friar had begun with a laugh, but then, observing the pale, trembling young man before him, he had hesitated to search for a more sombre conclusion to the sentence. ‘If the Church were to treat sodomy as an unforgivable sin, every priest in Spain would go to hell.’

  That encounter in the confessional, much more than the events in the dormitory, had led Ximenes to take a vow of celibacy. Even when he was working at Siguenza on the estates of Cardinal Mendoza, at a time when a priest was expected to pick any peasant woman or boy he desired, Ximenes resisted temptation. Unlike a eunuch, he could not even take pride in his master’s penis. Instead he turned to monasticism, embracing the Franciscan order to underline his heartfelt commitment to an austere and pious life.

  Cardinal Mendoza, when informed of the exceptional self-restraint of his favourite priest, grunted his disapproval: ‘Parts so extraordinary’—it was generally assumed that this was a reference to the intellectual qualities of Ximenes—‘must not be buried in the shade of a convent.’

  Ximenes walked up and down the room. From his arched window he could see the cathedral which the masons were building on the ruins of an old mosque overlooked by the palace. He was thinking elevated thoughts, but unforeseen and unwanted images will sometimes break into the mind’s core, disrupting even the most lofty meditations. Ximenes had been informed of a deeply offensive act of sacrilege committed in Toledo a month before, when a follower of Islam, imagining that he was unobserved, had been caught in the act of dipping his bared penis into the holy font. On being apprehended by a couple of vigilant friars, he had made no effort to deny what he had done or plead for mercy or indicate that he deeply regretted his rash behaviour. Instead he claimed he was a recent converso and had been instructed by an old Christian friend to perform this special type of ablution before he offered prayers in the cathedral.

  The offender had refused to name his friend. He was tortured. His lips remained sealed. The Inquisition found the story unconvincing and handed him over to the civil authorities for the final punishment. He had been burnt at the stake some days ago. The image of the offensive act continued to haunt Ximenes. He made a mental note to send for the papers of the Inquisition referring to this particular case.

  Ximenes was not bereft of a conscience. The man who was proposing himself as the cruel executioner of Islamic Gharnata had once himself been a victim. He had spent time in an ecclesiastical prison on the orders of the late Cardinal Carillo. The Cardinal, who was soon to be succeeded by Archbishop Mendoza, had asked Ximenes to abdicate a minor position in the Spanish Church, to which he had been appointed by Rome, in favour of one of the circle of sycophants which surrounded Carillo. Ximenes refused. His punishment had been six months’ solitary confinement. The experience had left the priest sensitive to questions such as the difference between guilt and innocence, and it was this that made him reflect on the death of the man in Toledo who had cleaned his private parts in the holy water. Perhaps he had been innocent, but no Catholic would have sent him to the cathedral with those instructions. It must have been one of those French heretics who had e
scaped punishment. The prelate’s eyes began to gleam as he felt he had uncovered the real truth. He would study the papers closely.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Enter.’

  A soldier entered and whispered in his ear.

  ‘Send him in.’

  Ibn Hisham entered the room. He went straight to the Archbishop who extended his hand. Ibn Hisham bent on one knee and kissed the ring. Ximenes lifted him up and indicated a seat.

  ‘My uncle Miguel left firm instructions that I must call on Your Grace and pay my respects.’

  Ximenes looked at the newest converso from the ranks of Granada’s nobility and attempted a smile.

  ‘How were you christened by the Bishop of Cordova?’

  ‘Pedro de Gharnata.’

  ‘Surely you mean Pedro de Granada.’

  Pedro nodded, his eyes betraying the sadness and humiliation which he had inflicted upon himself. He saw the half-triumphant, half-contemptuous look on the face of the man whose hand he had kissed and he wanted to be dead. Instead he smiled weakly, cursing himself for his servility.

  Ximenes looked at him and nodded.

  ‘Your visit was unnecessary. I have already intimated to your uncle that you would be permitted to carry on your trade. I am a man who keeps his word. Tell me something, Pedro. Did your daughter convert to our faith as well?’

  Pedro de Granada began to sweat. The devil knew everything.

  ‘She will on her return from Ishbi ... I mean Sevilla, Your Grace. We are awaiting her return.’

  ‘Bless you, my son. Now if you will excuse me it is time for evensong, and after that I have other business to which I must attend. Just one more thing. As you probably know, seven of our priests on their way to Holy Communion last week were ambushed. A deluge of human excrement contained in wooden buckets was emptied over their heads. Do you by any chance know the names of the young men who perpetrated this act?’