117. Cf. Thorau, The Lion, 207.
118. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, IV, 523; for another reference to the Franks’ reliance on the cross, cf. Abu Shama, RHC, IV, 264.
119. Quoted by M. Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, Paris, 1829, II, 481.
120. Cf. EP: hilal.
121. Ibn al-Nabih, Diwan, 458.
122. Lyons, The Arabian Epic, III, 372.
123. Al-’Umari, Lundquist, 34.
124. Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 105.
125. Atabegs, 66–7.
126. Al-Harawi, trans. Sourdel-Thomine, Guide, 69.
127. Ibn Wasil, ΓV, 249.
128. Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, II, art.: Usama ibn Munqidh, 797.
129. Quoted in Gabrieli, 84; citing the text from H. Derenbourg, Ousama ibn Mounkidh, un émir syrien au premier siècle des Croisades, Paris, 1889, vol. I, 528–9.
130. Gabrieli, 84.
131. According to Sivan, L’Islam, 114.
132. Al-Qalqashandi, Subh, VI, 528.
133. Cf. Sivan, L’Islam, 112.
134. Lit.: even if only one man of us remains.
135. Ibn Shaddad, RHC, III, 275.
136. Quoted by Abu Shama, RHC, III, 429–30.
137. Al-Qalqashandi, Subh, 6, 500; quoting ‘Imad al-Din.
138. For an excellent review of this apologetic literature, cf. F.-E. Wilms, Al-Ghazalis Schrift wider die Gottheit Jesu, Leiden, 1996, 216 ff.
139. Cf. Berkey, The Mamluks as Muslims’, 166–7; M. Fierro, The treatises against innovations (kutub al-bida’)’, Der Islam, 69 (1992), 204–46.
140. Berkey, The Mamluks as Muslims’, 168; D. Little, ‘Coptic conversion to Islam under the Bahri Mamluks, 692–755/1293–1354’, BSOAS, 39 (1976), 552–69.
141. Ibn Taymiyya, Al-jawab al-sahih li-man baddal din al-Masih, Cairo, 1322.
142. Ibn Taymiyya, Lettre à un roi croisé, trans. J. R. Michot, Louvain, 1995, 142.
143. Ibid., 145.
144. Indeed, they are a topos of anti-Christian polemical writing, as for example in the work of al-Jawbari, a Damascene dervish and alchemist who flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century and whose writings may well have been read by Ibn Taymiyya (ibid., 147).
145. T. F. Michel, A Muslim theologian’s response to Christianity, New York, 1984, 206.
146. R. Gottheil, ‘An answer to the Dhimmis’, JAOS, 41 (1921), 383–487.
147. Ibid., 386.
148. Ibid., 439.
149. Ibid., 451.
150. Ibid., 415.
151. Sea of Precious Virtues, 231.
152. Ibid.
153. Ibid.
154. Ibid.
155. Called al-Qusyan in Arabic after the man whose son was raised from the dead by St Peter. Cf. Gabrieli, 8.
156. Ibn Taghribirdi, Nujum, V, 147–8.
157. Ibn Taghribirdi, Nujum, V, 148.
158. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, II, 635–6.
159. Sura 17: 111.
160. Sura 112.
161. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, IV, 637.
162. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, IV, 524.
163. Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, XI, 362.
164. Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, XI, 364.
165. Cf. the discussion below.
166. Cf. Sivan, L’Islam, 128, n. 162.
167. Al-Harawi, trans. Sourdel-Thomine, Guide, 68–9.
168. Quoted by al-Qalqashandi, Subh, VII, 128.
169. Fath, 69.
170. Cf. Sivan, L’Islam, 128, 168, citing Sibt b. al-Jawzi, Mir‘at, Paris ms. 5866, fol. 237a.
171. Ibid.
172. ‘Imad al-Din, Fath, 49.
173. ‘Imad al-Din, Fath, 52.
174. ‘Imad al-Din, Fath, quoted by Gabrieli, 154.
175. Gabrieli, 148; Qur’an 20: 60.
176. Fath, 48–9.
177. Gabrieli, 149.
178. Ibn Wasil, IV, 251.
179. Ibn Wasil, ΓV, 251.
180. Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 9.
181. Sura 78: 40.
182. J. Sublet, Sultan Baibars, Paris, 1992, 138; Quatremère’s translation of Baybars’ letter came from the chronicler al-Nuwayri. Cf. Quatremère, I, 190–4, esp. 193; cf. also Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 124.
183. Sivan, L’Islam, 205–6.
184. Al-durr al-thamin fi manaqib al-muslimin wa mathalib al-mushrikin.
185. Sivan, L’Islam, 107.
186. Sivan, L’Islam, 205–6.
187. Usama b. Munqidh, Kitab al-i‘tibar, ed. P. Hitti, Princeton, 1930, 132: yahujja.
188. M. G. S. Hodgson, Rethinking World History, ed. E. Burke III, Cambridge, 1993, 14.
CHAPTER SIX
Aspects of Life in the Levant in the Crusading Period
Peace was not, however, the favourite subject of the Muslim historians – nor perhaps of any historian.1 (Gabrieli)
Introduction
IN THE PERIOD before 1100 there had been two major frontier areas where Christians and Muslims could and did exert influence on each other’s society: the frontier between Muslim al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms of northern Spain, and the frontier between Muslim Sicily and Christian Italy. An interesting frontier society would soon also develop between Muslim Anatolia and Christian Byzantium. In such border areas a chivalric code developed in which both sides often respected the other during protracted periods of mutual warfare.
The Crusading situation was different. Despite being linked by sea with Europe, the Crusader states were set amidst a Muslim world whose population vastly outnumbered theirs. Crusaders from northern Europe who arrived in Syria and Palestine in 1099 represented a novel phenomenon. They brought a kind of war which was markedly different from the often almost stylised skirmishes on the long-established frontiers of Islam in Spain, eastern Anatolia and southern Italy. The First Crusade crashed into the very heartlands of Islam, and the establishment of four Crusader states in the Levant therefore presents the historian with an opportunity to study the socio-cultural interplay between the Muslims and the ‘barbarians’ from Europe over a period of two centuries. How were these European, Christian, feudal ‘proto-colonies’ going to co-exist with the Muslims who almost literally surrounded them and against whom they were numerically a tiny force? And how did the Muslims, their ‘victims’, view them close up, as opposed to their preconceptions of the denizens of the frozen, barbarian lands of the north?
Figure 6.1 Mounted hunter and groom carrying game, Cappella Palatina, ceiling, c. 1140, Palermo, Sicily
The Crusades brought the Muslims of the Middle East into an enforced and close proximity to the Franks from western Europe. It might therefore be expected that these new circumstances would have given the Muslims more accurate and detailed information about their enemy.2 This chapter will examine to what extent this was so. We have already examined the stereotypical Muslim images of the Franks in Chapter 5. Yet despite the pervasiveness of these stereotypes, it is worth analysing the Franks as a social phenomenon, both as individuals and groups, in order to see if the Muslims gradually developed a more nuanced view of them.
Figure 6.2 Groom carrying game, Cappella Palatina, ceiling, c. 1140, Palermo, Sicily
The Visual Landscape of Frankish Occupation
The Islamic sources are generally silent about the visual impact made by the Frankish presence in the Near East, but it takes only a little effort of the imagination to reconstruct the Muslim reaction, even if only speculatively. There is surprisingly little mention of the physical appearance of the Franks, the colour of their skin and hair, the strange clothing they wore before some of them at least adopted Islamic dress, and a host of other external features that must have marked them out immediately from the Muslims or indeed the indigenous Christian groups of the Near East. The different colouring of hair and skin of the Franks in the Levant is barely mentioned in the Islamic sources. Occasionally the colour of their eyes attracts attention as in earlier writings (see Chapter 5). ‘Imad al-Din, for example, refers to the Franks as the ‘blue-eyed enemy’.3 As alread
y mentioned, Muslim folk literature speaks of the Franks’ clean-shaven faces.4
Figure 6.3 Silk cloth with lions and harpies, c. 1100, Muslim Spain
All kinds of visible signs must have acted as a constant reminder to the Muslims in Frankish-held territory that they were under occupation, although there is little comment made in the sources about this. Such signs may well have included markers on the roads in what chroniclers describe as ‘Frankish script’ and shop fronts with similar alien words written on them. The religious architecture of the Franks, as evidenced by the cathedral of Tartus (cf. figure 6.43) and the church of St Anne in Jerusalem, would also have looked dramatically intrusive in an urban landscape in which the Oriental Christian churches blended modestly. In secular architecture, too, the advent of the Franks brought some rude surprises.
Of course, the Muslims were well used to seeing towers, castles and fortifications, but not on the same scale as quickly became apparent after the Frankish conquests. As an embattled minority seeking to establish themselves in an alien landscape the Franks took over existing structures as well as building many new castles – in the countryside, on strategic routes, near and even on occasion in the sea – in their efforts to defend themselves. The plethora of Frankish defensive structures, built in the western European style all over their territories, must have been a constant reminder of their presence to the Muslims. These buildings must have appeared, initially at least, until the Muslims became more accustomed to the Franks, as unwelcome excrescences on the Muslim landscape – tangible symbols of foreign, infidel occupation.
The Language Barrier
The Islamic sources suggest that very few Muslims were concerned to learn the languages of the Crusaders. In fact, although there is some awareness of their ethnic diversity on the part of the Muslim chroniclers – English (Inkitar), French (Faransis), Germans (Alman), Venetians (Banadiqa) and others are mentioned – there seems to be no perception that there was more than one ‘Frankish language’. Usama writes dismissively: ‘These people speak nothing but Frankish; we do not understand what they say.’5 On another occasion he declares: ‘A Frankish women hung on to me, prattling in their language, and I did not understand what she was saying.’6
Figure 6.4 Cock-fight, Cappella Palatina, ceiling, c. 1140, Palermo, Sicily
The Muslim chroniclers, however, make some effort to produce the names of the Crusader leaders: St Louis, for example, is known as ‘Raidafrans’ which al-Maqrizi explains as ‘a term in the language of the Franks signifying “King of the Franks”‘.7
Whilst it is understandable that the Muslims would not wish to speak the language of the ‘accursed Franks’, it is less impressive that there does not seem to be much mention of the Arab knights learning Turkish, the language of their military overlords, nor that the Turks learned much Arabic. Usama is unabashed in admitting that he cannot understand either Frankish or Turkish.8 In view of all this, it is perhaps not surprising that there is a certain lack of veracity in the conversations recorded in the Islamic sources. Dialogues in high-sounding Arabic which could never have actually taken place are put into the mouths of Turkish commanders and sultans.
On the Crusader side, however, there is mention from time to time in the Islamic sources of Frankish leaders who had taken the trouble to learn Arabic. Such knowledge could prove very useful, as in the story of Richard the Lionheart who was saved by one of his companions, William de Pratelles, when they had fallen into a Muslim ambush. William shouted out that he was the king (malik) and was taken prisoner whilst Richard got away.9 There is, however, no information on whether the Franks, for their part, were aware of the linguistic range of the local Muslim military classes with whom they were in contact, and who often spoke Turkish and Kurdish rather than Arabic.
Figure 6.5 Dancer, Fatimid ivory carving, eleventh century, Egypt
It seems likely that the Franks used local dragomans (interpreters) for official encounters at a high level with Muslim princes and generals. These dragomans were often local Oriental Christians who must have mastered a number of languages. Baybars is reported to have used an interpreter who knew how ‘to write in Frankish script’.10 The ‘Old Man of the Mountain’, the Syrian leader of the Assassins, had taught two of his followers how to speak the Frankish language.11
The Franks needed expertise in Arabic both to ensure their survival and to promote their commercial aims. Their leaders needed to know about enemy movements and their merchants wanted to find out about trading possibilities and conditions. No wonder, then, that the officials at the customs house in Acre spoke and wrote Arabic.12 Nor were warfare and commerce the only incentives for acquiring the local language. Captivity, too, often enabled the Franks to learn Arabic. Raymond of Tripoli, for example, had languished in a Muslim jail long enough to learn Arabic. And while information on mixed marriages is scarce, there can be little doubt that this was another factor that encouraged some Franks, at least, to become proficient in Arabic. To judge by the laconic references to such matters in the sources, however, the Muslim historians did not regard it as important that the Franks should be able to communicate efficiently in Arabic. All this merely confirms that strong sense of the otherness of the Franks which the Muslims felt.
Differences between the Franks
It is unrealistic to expect the medieval Islamic chroniclers to give us detailed portraits of individual Franks: even their descriptions of Muslims are stereotyped. But it is interesting to note that the Islamic sources begin to draw a distinction between those Franks who have lived for some time in the Levant and those who have recently arrived from Europe.
Usama makes such a distinction between Orientalised and Western Franks in a much-quoted passage of his Memoirs: ‘Everyone who is a fresh emigrant from the Frankish lands is ruder in character than those who have become acclimatized and have held long association with the Moslems.’13
Figure 6.6 Seated ruler, Cappella Palatina, ceiling, c. 1140, Palermo, Sicily
This is an interesting remark since it suggests clearly that the Franks who have lived for one or two generations in the Muslim world have been influenced and, above all, improved by their environment and their association with Muslims. In the story which Usama then gives to illustrate the truth of his general statement, a Frank recently arrived from Europe reprimands Usama for not praying to the east and forcibly tries to turn Usama’s face towards the Christian direction of prayer. It is the Templars, long used to Muslim ways and whom Usama describes as his friends, who rush to pull Usama’s assailant away from him, apologising that this man is ‘a stranger who has arrived in these days from the country of the Franks’.14
The Muslim awareness of this difference between the Franks played an important role in the events of the Second Crusade, when – for the first time since the fall of Jerusalem – significantly large armies of Franks came from Europe to the Near East. Indeed, in 543/1148 they slaughtered and pillaged within Damascus itself before the Muslims gained the upper hand. A distinction is drawn on this occasion, and frequently thereafter, between two different groups of Franks: the ‘coastal Franks’ (al-faranj al-sahiliyyun) and the ‘western Franks’ (al-faranj al-ghuraba’).
The governor of Damascus, Mu’in al-Din Ünür, is mentioned as persuading the ‘Syrian Franks’ to lift the siege of Damascus. Clearly, therefore, he knew how to drive a wedge between the Orientalised and Western Franks. One of the chief reasons for the failure of the Second Crusade has been shown to be the difference in outlook and aims between the two kinds of Franks,15 and despite the very incomplete picture of the Second Crusade given in the Muslim sources, this aspect of affairs is clearly understood on the Muslim side.16
This whole episode is recorded in some detail by Ibn al-Athir, who writes as follows:
Mu’in al-Din contacted the Western Franks saying to them: ‘The prince of the East [meaning Sayf al-Din Ghazi, Zengi’s son] has come. If you retreat [well and good]. If not, I will hand over the town to him and then you will rue t
he day’. He [also] contacted the Franks of Syria saying to them: ‘Why are you helping these people [meaning the Western Franks] against us when you know that if they take Damascus they will take what coastal territories are in your hands …’ The coastal Franks met the King of the Germans [Alman] and made him afraid of Sayf al-Din and the multitude of his troops and the continuous supply of reinforcements coming to him … They [the Syrian Franks] kept on like this until he [Conrad] retreated from the town.17
Figure 6.7 (above and opposite) Fatimid ivory combs, eleventh–twelfth centuries, Egypt
Perhaps predictably, the Muslims tended to feel a greater rapport with, or at least to show more willingness to negotiate and ally with, the Orientalised Franks with whom they were more familiar. Such a policy was used on occasion both to strengthen different rival groups of Muslims and to cause internal divisions among the Franks.
A similar distinction between the Franks continues to be made in the Ayyubid period. The ‘Western Franks’ are sometimes seen as conducting different policies from the ‘Oriental Franks’. According to Ibn Nazif al-Hamawi, the ‘Western Franks’ restored the port of Sidon in the year 625/1227-8 without the consent of the ‘coastal Franks’.18
Muslim Views on the Crusader Religious Orders
The Muslim sources single out the Hospitallers (Isbitariyya19) and the Templars (Dawiyya20). Other military orders established in the Levant pass without comment. It is not clear when the Muslims first picked out the Hospitallers and Templars as two separate groups within the Frankish armies. Usama mentions without an exact date the Templars residing in the Aqsa mosque.21 Ibn al-Qalanisi records under the year 557/1157 that a Frankish squadron sent to Banyas included ‘seven hundred horsemen of the bravest of the Hospitallers, the serjeantry and the Templars’.22 He does not, however, explain who they were or how long they had been in Syria. This lack of specific comment may indicate an assumption that his readers were by now well used to the sight of these knightly orders (the Hospitallers, for example, had established themselves in Krak des Chevaliers in 539/1144) or it could spring from the usual lack of Muslim curiosity about the differences between the Frankish invaders.
The Crusades- Islamic Perspectives Page 38
