The Crusades- Islamic Perspectives

by Carole Hillenbrand

  In the sermon preached on the reconquest of Jerusalem, Ibn Zaki stresses the theme of purification at regular intervals: ‘I praise Him … for his cleansing of His Holy House from the filth of polytheism and its pollutions.’90 He speaks of the ‘perfume of sanctification and glorification’ in the mosque and calls on the faithful to ‘purify the rest of the land from this filth which hath angered God and His Apostle’.91

  In a letter to the caliph, ‘Imad al-Din allows himself the literary device of replacing rose-water with the believers’ tears: ‘The Rock has been cleansed of the filth of the infidels by the tears of the pious.’92

  The Holy Land Itself

  Muslim sources usually speak of Jerusalem as ‘al-Quds’, ‘Bayt al-Muqaddas’ or ‘Bayt al-Maqdis’. All these names stress the sanctity (q d s in Arabic means ‘to be holy’) of the city. They also speak of alard al-muqaddasa (the Holy Land), referring to the wider area around Jerusalem which is replete with shrines and memories of prophets and saints. With Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem, the Muslim sources extend the images of purification to include the Holy Land itself and they play on the similarity between the names al-Quds and al-muqaddas.

  Plate 5.6 Aqsa Mosque, Ayyubid mihrab area restored by Saladin, 583/1187–8, Jerusalem

  (Creswell Photographic Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, neg. C. 5000)

  This theme is highlighted by Ibn Jubayr who addresses a victory ode in this vein to Saladin:

  You have conquered the sacred part (al-muqaddas) of His earth. It has become pure (tahir) again.93

  Not just Jerusalem but its hallowed environs, the home of saints and prophets, has also become pure again. The Qur’an proclaims:

  They question thee concerning menstruation. Say: It is an illness, so let women alone at such times and go not in unto them till they are cleansed. And when they have purified themselves, then go in unto them.94

  Such a deep-rooted taboo is echoed in the powerful language used by Saladin’s scribe, the Qadi al-Fadil, in his triumphal letter to the caliph in Baghdad announcing Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem: ‘It has become the sacred, pure land, when once it was the menstruating (tamitha) one.’ Not just Jerusalem but the Holy Land itself are included here.95

  The Image of ‘the Other’: What’s in a Name?

  Cultures define themselves as different from other cultures by using a variety of interconnecting criteria. The terminology by which they exclude groups and individuals may also vary.

  When they arrived in the Near East, the Crusaders began to be called Ifranj or Firanj by the medieval Muslims. Originally, this term probably signified the inhabitants of Charlemagne’s empire, but at a later stage it was widened to embrace people from western Europe in general. The country of the Franks, that is those Christian European territories situated beyond the Pyrenees, was known as Ifranja by the Arabs and Firanjistan by the Persians and the Turks.96 Incidentally, in modern Arabic the verb tafarnaja, derived from the root Ifranj, means ‘to become Europeanised’, whilst the term al-ifranji has been used as one of the words for syphilis. As well as these terms, the Crusaders were known by a variety of stereotyped pejorative and abusive epithets: devils, dogs, pigs and other beasts.

  Religious differences are particularly highlighted in some of the titles given to the Franks. Muslim writers were long used to branding heretics as ‘accursed’ (la’in). The Isma‘ilis, in particular, were given such a label,97 and it was easy to shift it to the Franks.98 Exactly when the Muslim chroniclers began to use such formulae when writing about the Franks is difficult to pinpoint, especially since, as already noted, the earliest surviving sources date from the middle of the twelfth century only. Perhaps as a result of experiencing first-hand the Franks’ attack on his home town of Damascus and the heightened atmosphere of jihad during the reign of Nur al-Din in Syria, Ibn al-Qalanisi adds for the first time the formula ‘God forsake them’ when referring to the Franks in his account of the year 553/1158–9.99 Thereafter it becomes standard practice amongst the chroniclers.

  According to Lewis, the term ‘infidel’(kafir)is the term of ultimate exclusion from the Islamic community, defining the difference between Muslims and the rest of the world. Certainly the term kafir(with its plural kuffar) is frequently used of the Franks. The term is accompanied in the sources by standard phrases of abuse addressed to either groups or individuals, such as ‘May God curse them’, ‘May God send them to perdition’. Whether such maledictions were deeply meant or perfunctory is hard to say, but at key moments of religious intensity and political triumph they are clearly meaningful. As with other groups of Christians, the Franks are called ‘polytheists’(mushrikun) and the ‘enemies of God’. Sibt b. al-Jawzi labels them ‘people of stubbornness’ whilst Ibn al-Dawadari derides them as ‘worshippers of crosses’.100 They are also described as ‘the people of the Trinity’ (ahl al-tathlith),101 ‘the servants of the Messiah’,102 and ‘polytheist dogs’.103

  The Christian Symbol of the Cross

  There is no doubt that the symbol of the cross epitomised Christianity for the Muslims. In the popular Muslim mind Christianity was clearly identified by the cross. A Christian king in one of the folk epics is given the trumped-up name ‘Abd al-Salib (slave of the cross),104 a name modelled on the plethora of Muslim names which involve the use of ‘Abd in conjunction with one of the ninety-nine beautiful names of God (such as ‘Abd al-Wahhab) but which in a Christian context has pejorative undertones.

  Whilst the Muslims had long been used to the presence of the Oriental Christians in the Near East, the arrival of the Franks brought new experiences in which the cross played a much more prominent role than hitherto. Clearly there was a marked difference between the cross as a symbol of the faith of the indigenous Oriental Christians who were a tolerated minority under majority Islamic rule and the cross as a symbol of the conquests and occupation of a foreign invader, the Franks.

  Whilst the Muslim sources do not mention the cross being worn by individual Frankish soldiers as part of their martial garments, it is clear from many references that the cross became a more visible symbol after the arrival of the Crusaders. Once a town had been taken by the Franks, it was often Christianised by the conversion of Muslim buildings into Christian ones and by the erection of new churches. Ibn al-Qalanisi remarks that after the conquest of Ma’arrat al-Nu‘man by the Franks in 492/1099 ‘they erected crosses over the town’.105

  Figure 5.30 The arms of Jerusalem (‘arg. a cross potent between four crosslets or’) on a brass basin made by an Arab craftsman for Hugh de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem and Cyprus (1324–59); probably Egypt or Syria

  For their part the Muslims heralded their victory by gaining possession of their enemy’s emotional focus. A typical example occurred after the victory of Mawdud and Tughtegin over the Franks in 506/1113 near the bridge of al-Sannabra, when the Muslims triumphantly seized the tent-church of the Franks.106 Both sides felt the overwhelming need to destroy the symbols of the other’s faith.107 Breaking crosses was a symbolic act in which Christianity was defeated and Islam triumphant. Saladin is praised in Ibn Jubayr’s victory ode for breaking ‘their cross by force’ at Hattin.108 Ibn Abi Tayyi’ describes the cross captured at Hattin: ‘Saladin brought back as booty the cross of crosses, which is a piece of wood covered with gold and encrusted with precious stones on which, they allege, their God was crucified.’109 The gilded cross on the Dome of the Rock was not pulled down gently. Ibn Shaddad makes it clear that it was hurled to the ground, despite its immense size.110

  After the fall of Jerusalem, Saladin sent the caliph in Baghdad important trophies of his great victory. The crowning piece was the cross on top of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem: ‘The cross which was of copper and coated with gold was buried beneath the Nubian gate [in Baghdad] and thus was trodden upon.’111

  The Contrasting Symbols of the Cross and the Qur’an

  Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597/1200) and his grandson use the highly charged emotional atmosphere of the siege of Damascus
by the Franks in 543/1148 as an opportunity to score propaganda points. Here the Cross and the Qur’an are used as palpable symbols of the opposing faiths.

  These two sources highlight the way in which the most potent Islamic religious symbol, the Qur’an, could sustain morale and build up faith in adversity. Its triumph is inevitable. On the occasion of the siege of Damascus the Syrian ‘Uthmanic Qur’an – an object of the first importance, indeed a much–treasured relic – was used as a rallying force in the Great Mosque. As Sibt b. al-Jawzi writes: ‘The people assembled in the mosque, the men, women and young boys, and they opened the ‘Uthmanic Qur’an.112 They scattered ashes on their heads and wept and abased themselves. God answered them.’113

  [Incidentally, Ibn al-Dawadari mentions that when the Franks had captured Ma’arrat al-Nu⅛an in 492/1098 the Muslims took the ‘Uthmanic Qur’an for safe-keeping to Damascus.] Both chroniclers also insert the following story immediately afterwards:

  There was with the Franks a tall priest with a long beard who gave them guidance … He mounted his donkey and hung a cross round his neck and put two crosses in his hands and hung a cross round the neck of his donkey. He placed in front of him the Gospels and [more] crosses [and the Holy Scriptures].

  He then said [to the army] ‘The Messiah has promised me that I will be victorious today.’

  Predictably, this figure, absurdly encumbered with crosses, and his donkey (also wearing a cross), came to a sticky end. Ibn al-Jawzi writes: ‘When the Muslims saw him they displayed zeal for Islam and they all attacked him and killed him and the donkey. They took the crosses and burned them.’114

  The message is clear and the juxtaposition of these two anecdotes is quite deliberate.

  On other occasions the antithesis of the Cross and the minaret is used. The Ayyubid poet Ibn al-Nabih writes of al-‘Adil as follows: ‘Through him God has destroyed the Cross and its followers. Through him the minaret of the community of Islam is lifted.’115

  The Cross as a Symbol of Misfortune for Muslims

  As the prime outward symbol of Christianity, the cross carried with it misfortune to Muslims who became associated with it. Muslims who fought under it were inevitably doomed to defeat. The chroniclers make great play of this at the infamous battle of Gaza in 642/1244 when the Muslim armies of Damascus and Hims fought under the banners of the Franks against the Khwarazmians and the Egyptian forces. This whole episode is recorded mournfully by Sibt b. al-Jawzi:

  Crosses were above their heads and priests with the battalions were making the sign of the cross over the Muslims and offering them the sacrament. In their hand were chalices and drinking vessels from which they gave them to drink… As for the lord of Hims… he began to weep, saying ‘I knew when we departed under the crosses of the Franks that we would not prosper’.116

  In the Mamluk period, Baybars’ ill-fated naval attack on Cyprus in 670/1271 is seen by some chroniclers as divine retribution for the Muslims’ having resorted to the trick of putting the cross on the ships’ flags.117

  The Central Importance of the Cross

  Describing the King of Jerusalem, the Qadi al-Fadil realises the central importance of the cross, both to the King and his followers:

  Their despot was taken prisoner, bearing in his hand the object in which he placed his utmost confidence, the strongest bond by which he held to his religion, namely, the cross of the Crucifixion, by which were led to battle the people of arrogance.118

  The Qadi continues: ‘They did not ever go forward into a danger without having it in their midst; they would fly around it like moths around the light.’119

  It is incidentally noteworthy that in this Muslim rhetoric the Islamic counterweight to the Christian cross is either the Qur’an or the minaret. It is not, as it was much later to become, the crescent, although as early as the eleventh century, when the Armenian cathedral of Ani in eastern Anatolia was converted into a mosque, the cross on its dome was taken down and replaced by a silver crescent.120

  Plate 5.7 Jami‘ al-Nuri, window-frame in sanctuary, 566–8/1170–3, Mosul, Iraq

  Christianity’s Use of Images

  There is frequent mention in Islamic sources of the pictures and statues of the Christians which were used in their worship. The stance of Muslim writers towards such pictures is almost uniformly hostile. A contrast is drawn between the constituent parts of the mosque and what is found in a church.

  Ibn al-Nabih declares of the Ayyubid prince al-Ashraf:

  You have purified its [Damietta’s] high mihrab and minbar from their filth after its feet [the minbar’s] had trembled.

  And you have begun to destroy the statue of the Messiah on it in spite of those who kiss it as if it were a deity.121

  In the popular epic Sirat al-amira Dhat al-Himma a Muslim hero enters a church where a picture drops tears on to the Gospel.122

  Al-’Umari mentions the power of Christian religious pictures to move and persuade. He relates under the year 585/1189 that the Franks at Tyre had sent to Europe asking for reinforcements: ‘They had drawn a picture of the Messiah and an Arab beating the Messiah who had made him bleed. They said: “this is the Prophet of the Arabs beating the Messiah”.’123

  Al-’Umari does not say whether this picture was sent as part of the message to Europe to muster support or whether it was for local consumption. Apocryphal as this story may well be, it is an indication of Muslim views on the pernicious power of visual images and the gullibility of the Christians in believing in their powers.

  In 665/1266–7 Baybars went up to the citadel of Safad to pray in a tower. As Ibn al-Furat relates, Baybars saw there a large idol which, according to the Franks, protected the citadel. They called it Abu Jurj (George’s father): ‘He ordered that it should be torn out and smashed, and the place was purified of it, its site being turned into a mihrab/124

  Figure 5.31 (above and opposite) Shields, Firdawsi, Shahnama (‘Book of Kings’) manuscripts, c. 1330–45, Shiraz, Iran

  What the Muslims Knew about Christianity

  Despite Islamic conviction that theirs was the one true faith, Muslims at the time of the Crusades had some knowledge of the tenets of Christianity and the Church. Ibn al-Athir mentions the different ecclesiastical centres of the Oriental Christians. When mentioning the conquest of Edessa, he writes:

  This Edessa is one of the noblest and most admired cities for the Christians. It is one of the ecclesiastical sees for them: for the noblest of them is Jerusalem, then Antioch, then Rome and Constantinople and Edessa.125

  Al-Harawi knows that Bethlehem is the place of Jesus’birth.126 Ibn Wasil in his account of his visit as Baybars’ envoy to Manfred of Sicily in Ramadan 659/1261 shows considerable interest in the Papacy and tries to explain it to his Muslim readers:

  The Pope in Rome is for them [the Franks] the caliph of Christ, taking his place. To him belongs the declaring of what is forbidden and what is licit, the cutting and the separating [i.e. the power to excommunicate]. He it is who puts the crowns of royalty on kings and appoints them. Nothing is established for them in their law except by him. He is celibate and when he dies someone takes his place who is also characterised by the attribute of celibacy.127

  In his little-known work, the Book of the Stick (Kitab al-‘asa), described by Irwin as a ‘rhabdophilis’s anthology’,128 Usama praises the piety of Christian monks of the Chapter of St John whom he saw praying in a church near the tomb of John the Baptist in Sebastea in the province of Nablus:

  After saying my prayers, I came out into the square that was bounded on one side by the Holy Precinct. I found a half-closed gate, opened it and entered a church. Inside were about ten old men, their bare heads as white as combed cotton. They were facing the east, and wore (embroidered?) on their breasts staves ending in crossbars turned up like the rear of a saddle. They took their oath on this sign, and gave hospitality to those who needed it. The sight of their piety touched my heart, but at the same time it displeased and saddened me, for I had never seen such zeal a
nd devotion among the Muslims.129

  As usual, however, Usama’s comments about ‘the other side’ are never unstinting in their praise. He goes on to mention Sufis whose number and degree of devotion far exceed those of the Christian monks:

  For the moment I thought there was no one there. Then I saw about a hundred prayer-mats, and on each a Sufi, his face expressing peaceful serenity, and his body humble devotion. This was a reassuring sight, and I gave thanks to Almighty God that there were among the Muslims men of even more zealous devotion than those Christian priests. Before this I had never seen Sufis in their monastery, and was ignorant of the way they lived.130

  Once again Usama cannot resist the temptation to make a telling and damaging comparison which asserts the superiority of Islam.

  There can be little doubt that, by Saladin’s time at least, the Muslims knew that the Franks were fighting a religious war just as they were. As Ibn Shaddad writes: ‘Each of the two enemies sold his life for the delights of the next life, preferring eternal life to that of this world.’131

  Al-Qalqashandi, quoting a letter dated 1190, speaks of the Franks: ‘Everyone summoned himself [to the jihad] before being called.’132

  When the Franks first arrived in the Near East, it seems very clear that the Muslims had little idea of why they had come. As we have seen, certain clearly identifiable visual elements associated with the Franks are often mentioned in the sources, such as crosses, gospels and priests. Gradually, however, Muslim knowledge of the enemy’s views seems to have become greater and based on more solid information. By the time of Saladin’s reconquest of Jerusalem, the Franks’ perception of the conflict is used by Muslim writers as a linchpin in their propaganda of the 1180s.133 The alleged text of a letter from Richard the Lionheart himself to Saladin is recorded by Ibn Shaddad: