The Crusades- Islamic Perspectives

by Carole Hillenbrand

  The sole topic here is Jerusalem, the Cross and the Land. As for Jerusalem, it is our belief that we will not give it up even if we are down to our last man.134 As for the Land, it will be returned to us from here until the other side of the Jordan. As for the Cross, for you it is a piece of wood of no value. For us it is important, so let the sultan graciously restore it to us and we will feel at peace and be at rest from this constant toil.135

  The Muslim propagandists acknowledge that the Franks possess true religious fervour. In 585/1189–90 ‘Imad al-Din quotes a letter which was written to rouse the Muslim faithful to jihad. In it he presents the Franks’ zeal for their faith as a model for the flagging morale of the Muslims. He praises them for realising their goals, for displaying courage, and for spending their wealth in the cause of religion:

  There has remained no king in their countries and islands, no ruler or great man, who has not kept pace with his neighbour in the area of troops and has not outstripped his peer in endeavour and effort. They have put at nought the sacrifice of their hearts’ blood and lives in the safeguarding of their religion … They did what they did and they sacrificed what they sacrificed purely and simply to defend him whom they worship and to honour their belief.136

  When the Muslims seized ‘the True Cross’ in 583/1187 it seems that its role as a focus for the Franks in battle was understood, at least by important Muslims such as al-Qadi al-Fadil and ‘Imad al-Din. Calling it the Cross of the Crucifixion (salib al-salbut), ‘Imad al-Din says: ‘They fight beneath that Cross most stubbornly and faithfully and they see it as a covenant on which they build the strongest and surest of contracts.’137

  Muslim Polemic and Propaganda about Frankish Christianity

  There was a well-established tradition of interfaith public debate and of Muslim writings against Christianity long before the coming of the Franks, from the Umayyad period onwards. Indeed, the inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock, dated 72/691, attack the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity. Muslim writers, using the Qur’anic revelation, had focused in particular on the Christian doctrines of the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity as the basis for their polemical tracts.138

  Figure 5.32 Page of Qur’an made for the Mamluk sultan Sha‘ban, c. 1370, Cairo, Egypt

  The attitudes of Muslim writers in the period of the Crusades had been moulded by this tradition, but it is important to examine to what extent these pre-existing views formed on the basis of long acquaintance with Oriental Christianity were modified by prolonged co-existence with the Crusader newcomers.

  The Muslim polemical writings against Christianity should not, however, be viewed in isolation, as a separate propaganda initiative so to speak. The Mamluk period in particular witnessed a spate of treatises condemning innovations in Islamic beliefs and practices.139 There was deep concern to define the identity of Islam in the wake of the Turkish and Mongol invasions and the presence of the parvenu Mamluks in Egypt and Syria. Treatises were composed condemning popular religious practices, theosophical Sufism, philosophy, heresies and innovations. Indeed, Ibn Taymiyya, the central figure in this debate, attacked all these with his customary vigour. Above all, he was convinced that ‘right religion’ was essential for the spiritual welfare and social stability of the Islamic community. The attacks on Christianity formed part of this ongoing debate about the nature of true Islam and the defence of it against all comers. The Mamluk period may well have brought with it substantial numbers of Coptic converts to Islam who carried over Christian practices and modes of thought into their new religious life as Muslims: the Muslim view was that such trends should be eschewed at all costs.140

  Ibn Taymiyya’s tract against Christianity called The Right Answer to Those who Alter the Religion of the Messiah is massive and may be viewed as the most comprehensive work of its kind.141 It fits into his overall defence of the True Faith. Ibn Taymiyya lived through the double catastrophe of the Crusades and the Mongol onslaught on the Islamic world, and his attacks on Christianity, on its doctrines and practitioners alike, are uncompromisingly hostile. Writing about Christianity he declares:

  They have divided up into sects on the subject of the Trinity and of the union [of the divinity and humanity of Christ]; they have separated on things that no intelligent [individual] could believe and that no tradition reports.142

  Ibn Taymiyya castigates priests and monks, including patriarchs, metropolitans and bishops, for their hypocrisy towards kings.143 The charlatanism of monks comes under particular fire.144 A trick allegedly practised by the Christians was the putting of kohl on the Virgin’s eyes for tears: ‘They put kohl in water moving with a very slight movement, which then flowed slowly so that it ran down the picture of the Virgin and came out of her eyes. People thought it was tears.’145

  Interesting evidence is also found in a work entitled An Answer to the Dhimmis and to Those who Follow Them, written by the late thirteenth-century or early fourteenth-century writer Ghazi b. al-Wasiti.146 In the medieval Islamic world, polemical treatises abound in which medieval Muslim or Christian scholars engage in a refutation of their opponents’ beliefs. But this work of al-Wasiti is significant because it was written just after the expulsion of the Crusaders. Predictably, the work aims to prove the superiority of Islam, and this is done mainly through illustrative anecdotes dating back to early periods of Islamic history but also set in the author’s own time. The work is vehemently hostile to the Copts.

  On the first page of his tract, the author establishes a clear link between the Oriental Christians and the Crusaders. He states that he wishes to bring to light the harm the Christians have caused Islam: ‘desiring to cleanse the days of the exalted [Mamluk] sultanate of their [the Christians’] filthiness, just as it has blotted out their strong, well-defended kingdoms and their lofty, towering fortifications’.147

  Ghazi, who comments sharply on the ubiquitous Copt who can be seen ‘at the buzzing of every fly’,148 accuses the Christians of ‘being spies of the un-eyelashed Tartars’ (that is, the Mongols) and of paying the ransoms for Crusader captives – royal princes, rich women and notables – from Tripoli.149 The whole tone of this work is vituperative and strongly anti-Christian. Anecdote after anecdote proclaims the duplicity and perfidy of the Copts, culminating in the final invective: ‘In the polytheist [i.e. Christian] are four attributes: lack of religion, abundance of treachery, deceiving of Muslims and alienating people of (true) faith.’150 But the anti-Christian polemic did not just emerge in apologetic works written by religious lawyers. There is valuable evidence in other literary genres.

  The Sufi and legal circles of Aleppo at the time of Nur al-Din, where there was a heightening awareness of jihad, included the Persian author of the Sea of Precious Virtues, and he devotes a complete section to a refutation of the Byzantines and the Franks. In chapter 1 of this section, entitled ‘On the iniquities of the Christians’, the anonymous author writes:

  The most amazing thing in the world is that the Christians say that Jesus is divine, that He is God, and then say that the Jews seized him and crucified him. How then can a God who cannot protect himself protect others?151

  This kind of argumentation is nothing new in Islamic polemic against Christianity, but the fact that it is placed in a work of spiritual guidance to the ruler, the genre of Mirrors for Princes, is unusual and must be a result of direct confrontation with the Franks, who are mentioned specifically and grouped with the Byzantines.

  The demolition of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ is nothing short of vitriolic: ‘Anyone who believes that his God came out of a woman’s privates is quite mad; he should not be spoken to, and he has neither intelligence nor faith.’ It sounds too as if the author has either visited a particular Christian church or heard about it: ‘In a church they have painted a picture of Jesus hanging from a cross, and chained it to a wall in prison and another similar picture in a church that has numerous pictures in it.’152

  This work contains stereotypical allegations of
loose living amongst Christian women, reminiscent of the stories of Usama. The author accuses the Christians of allowing a woman without a husband to indulge in fornication, alleging that the Christians say: ‘A woman knows best about her own affairs; her private parts are hers; if she wishes, she can guard them, and if she wishes she can bestow them.’153

  Christian judges fix the rate for copulation and lust as follows: ‘four fils for each act of coition and one fils for each ejaculation’.154 The author also accuses Christian women of fornicating with priests at night and of not veiling their faces. These passages reveal a deep revulsion for the Christians and a contempt for both their absurd doctrines and the immoral ways which come from a false revelation.

  Figure 5.33 Mamluk joggled voussoirs, fourteenth century, Cairo, Egypt

  The Religious Gullibility of the Franks

  The chronicles too contain many illuminating anecdotes. Even a Frankish victory can be used for scoring propaganda points with the hindsight of later Muslim reunification and successes. The famous story of the Holy Lance at the siege of Antioch in 491/1098 is exploited by some Muslim chroniclers who use the legend as an example of Christian gullibility. The lance, which according to Crusader sources served as a powerful emotional focus for the dispirited Franks in their victory at Antioch, is shown by Ibn al-Athir (d. 630/1233) to be the cynical trick of a Christian monk. He had buried the lance in St Peter’s Church in Antioch beforehand, promised the Franks victory if they found it, and then led them to the place where they could uncover it.155

  Later on, Ibn Taghribirdi (d. 874/1470) tells a similar story of the same incident but he involves the Frankish leader, St Gilles, in the trickery:

  St Gilles, the leader of the Franks, was cunning and sly and he arranged a ruse with a monk, saying: ‘Go and bury this lance in such-and-such a place. Then tell the Franks after that: “I saw the Messiah in a dream saying ‘In such-and-such a place there is a lance buried, so go and look for it, for if you find it the victory is yours. It is my lance’”.’ So they fasted for three days and prayed and gave alms. Then he [the monk] went up to the place and the Franks were with him and they searched for it. The lance appeared. They shouted and fasted and gave alms and went out to the Muslims and they fought them until they drove them out of the town.156

  Unlike Ibn al-Athir, who makes no comment on the ultimate Frankish victory which seems to be linked with a trick, Ibn Taghribirdi comments more honestly:

  The amazing thing was that the Franks when they sallied forth against the Muslims were extremely weak from hunger and lack of food so that they ate carrion, and the forces of Islam were extremely strong and plentiful; and [yet] they defeated the Muslims.157

  The Intensification of anti-Christian Propaganda in Saladin’s Time

  Questions of doctrine became more prominent during Saladin’s time: the arguments focused as usual on two key themes, the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity. In the first sermon pronounced in the newly conquered Jerusalem Ibn Zaki quoted selected Qur’anic verses which emphasise God’s Oneness158 – ‘Praise be to Allah, who hath not taken unto Himself a son, and who hath no partner in the Sovereignty’159 – and the Sura of Unity itself, the very heart of the Qur’anic message:

  Plate 5.8 Jami’ al-Nuri, dark blue marble columns in sanctuary. The octagonal columns date from 566–8/1170–3; the composite columns with lyre-shaped capitals were probably incorporated from an earlier building but at a later date. Mosul, Iraq

  Say: He is Allah, the One!

  Allah, the eternally Besought of all!

  He begetted not nor was begotten.

  And there is none comparable unto Him.160

  These quotations are precisely the ones with which the Umayyad caliph had adorned the interior of the Dome of the Rock in 72/691. It is likely enough that Ibn Zaki’s sermon, which was delivered at the Aqsa mosque, near the Dome of the Rock, deliberately evoked these echoes and that some of his audience would have noted them.

  Later in the sermon Ibn Zaki returns to his attack on Christianity. Describing Jesus as an honoured prophet, he nevertheless roundly denies his divinity: They are surely infidels who say: Verily God is Christ, the son of Mary.’161

  The contrasting symbols of Islam and Christianity are used to powerful effect in the Qadi al-Fadi?s letter to the caliph. Speaking of Saladin, he writes:

  From their places of prayer he cast down the cross and set up the call to prayer. The altars were replaced by minbars and the churches converted into mosques; the people of the Qur’an succeeded to the people of the cross.162

  The Propaganda Value of Saladin’s Magnanimity

  The Muslims had a long memory. The events of 1099 were alive in their minds eighty-eight years later when Saladin entered Jerusalem in triumph. The temptation for vengeance, to obliterate the collective memory of the horror and shame of the Frankish conquest, must have been very strong. Three or four generations of Muslims would have heard about this event and its significance would have been buried deep in their minds, not as a mere political and military fact but as a shame and violation of two of the most Holy Places of Islam.

  Saladin is presented by Ibn al-Athir as wanting initially to exact vengeance on the Franks:

  They [the Franks] agreed to ask for peace terms and to hand over Jerusalem to Saladin, so they sent a group of their notables and leaders to ask for peace. When they mentioned that to the sultan he refrained from concurring with them and said: ‘I shall deal with you only in the way you dealt with its inhabitants when you conquered it in the year 492 with killing and taking prisoners and other similar offences’.163

  Yet for Ibn al-Athir and other Muslim chroniclers of this event, the propaganda value of the bloodless conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin counts for much more than the temptation, soon overcome, to exact vengeance. For them it is important to display the subsequent magnanimity of Saladin’s conduct not just as a personal characteristic of his but also as a demonstration of the superiority of Muslim conduct over Christian conduct, of Islamic values over Christian values.

  Thus Saladin is shown to have honoured his assurances of safety to the Franks and to have granted safe-conduct to high-ranking Crusader ladies. He is shown to be the epitome of chivalry and Muslim honour:164

  When the great patriarch of the Franks left with only God knows what from the churches, including the Rock and the Aqsa and the Refuse,165 and he [personally] had an equivalent amount of money, Saladin did not put any obstacle in his way. He [Saladin] was told to take what he [the patriarch] had with him in order to strengthen the Muslims thereby and he said: ‘I will not act treacherously towards him’.

  The Importance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

  The old word play on the name of this church – called the Church of the Resurrection (kanisat al-qiyama) in Arabic (colour plate 7) but satirised by the Muslims since the seventh century as the Church of Refuse (kanisat al-qumama) – was fully exploited to debunk the Franks in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.166

  Al-Harawi visited Jerusalem in 569/1173 and writes about this church:

  As for the places of pilgrimage of the Christians, the most important of them is the Church of Refuse … For the Christians the tomb is situated there which they call the tomb of the Resurrection (qiyama) because they locate in this place the resurrection of the Messiah; in reality the site was Refuse (qumama), the place of refuse because the sweepings of the area were thrown there;it was a place outside the city where the hands of malefactors were cut off and thieves were crucified: that is what the Gospel says. And God alone knows the truth.167

  Saladin’s adviser, the Qadi al-Fadil, knew the religious purpose of the Franks’ coming to Jerusalem. In his famous triumphal letter to the caliph on Saladin’s behalf he speaks of ‘kings bearing crosses, groups from across the sea, throngs of different kinds of infidels’; their aim was to ‘liberate the Tomb and restore the [Church of] Refuse (qumama)’.168

  Figure 5.34 Coin of the Mamluk sultan Lajin, 1290s, Cairo, Egypt
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  Saladin decided not to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 583/1187 although some Muslims more zealous than he pressed for him to do so. In his usual hyperbolic rhymed prose ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani records:

  He [Saladin] parleyed with the people with him about it [the Church of the Holy Sepulchre]. Amongst them were those who advised that its structures should be demolished, its traces should be blotted out, the way to visiting it should be blinded, its statues should be removed, its errors should be obliterated, its candelabras should be extinguished, its Gospels should be destroyed, its seductions should be removed and its pronouncements should be exposed as lies.169

  These advisers went on to say that with the actual building destroyed it would no longer be the focus for Christian visitation and pilgrimage: The Franks will stop wanting to make pilgrimage there and thus we will finally succeed in being at peace in respect to them.’170

  However, Saladin was obviously swayed by those who said that the church should be kept intact, arguing that it would not be possible to stop the Franks coming to Jerusalem ‘since what they adore is the sanctity of Jerusalem of which the Refuse is only the noblest place’.171

  ‘Imad al-Din is well aware of the importance of this church to the Franks. He puts the following words into the mouths of the Franks defending the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: They said: “We will die beneath the tomb of our Lord and we will pass away out of fear that it will pass from us. We will defend it and we will fight for it. We have no alternative but to fight.”‘172 During the actual fighting the Franks express the same sentiments.173 The church is a symbol for which they are fighting: