The Crusades- Islamic Perspectives

by Carole Hillenbrand

  Lasting evidence of trading links between the Muslim world and Europe is found in the words of Arabic (or Persian) origin which have become embedded in European languages – financial terms such as cheque, tariff, douane and the names of textiles such as damask, fustian, taffeta, cashmere, samite, organdy and muslin. The profusion of these names is a clear enough indication of the key importance of the textile trade.257 The word fondaco (from the Arabic funduq – inn) denotes an inn with ample storage space which the Italian ‘merchant nations’ were allowed to have in certain Muslim cities.258 The so-called Arabic numerals were first used in Europe around 1200 by notaries charged with drawing up commercial contracts for use in the Islamic world.259 Certain terms of key importance in navigation, such as zenith, azimuth and astrolabe, also betray the European debt to Arabic technology in this field.

  Trade in the Period 492–690/1099–1291 – the Evidence of the Islamic Sources

  It is fortunate that transcriptions of the texts of the actual commercial/diplomatic treaties drawn up between Muslims and Franks have survived. They give a precise flavour to the actualities of such links, and their details reveal an array of practical needs and considerations. On the other hand, the Islamic chronicles are disappointingly meagre in their information on this topic. Even within the usual rigid limits of Islamic historiography, the chroniclers reveal little about trade. Perhaps this deficiency is caused by the fact that trade was such an integral part of daily life that it occasioned little comment, just as so many other aspects of the social relations between Muslim and Frank remain unmentioned in the sources.

  It is true, however, that some chroniclers had become aware that the Franks had not just come out of religious zeal and desire for military conquests. Ibn al-Furat, for example, mentions in his account of the arrival of Franks in the 1120s those who had come by sea ‘for trade and visitation’.260 Having obtained possession of the Syrian ports, the Franks continued to strike and circulate coins (bezants) in imitation of Muslim dinars. The Muslim biographer Ibn Khallikan notes that when the Franks took Tyre in 518/1124 they continued for three years to strike coins in the name of the Fatimid caliph al-Amir.261 Such a procedure no doubt was based on the practicalities of trade; indeed, with their so-called ‘Tyre dinars’ the Crusaders imitated Muslim coinage from the middle of the twelfth century for over a hundred years.262

  Trade had always been an honourable activity within the Islamic context: after all, the Prophet himself had engaged in commerce. Merchants were respected members of the community. Their honoured status is confirmed in the Crusading period by the scholar ‘Ali al-Harawi who counsels Saladin’s son, al-Malik al-Zahir, to give special consideration to merchants who are ‘the providers of everything useful and the scouts of the world’.263

  Figure 6.63 Crusader gold coin imitating Ayyubid issues. Inscribed in Arabic on the obverse: ‘Struck at Acre in the year 1251 of the Incarnation of the Messiah’ and on the reverse ‘We take pride in the Cross of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. In Him is our salvation, our life and our resurrection, in Him our safety and redemption’

  It is clear that on an everyday level the Muslims and the Franks engaged in trade with each other throughout the period of Crusader occupation and beyond it. The trade was both local and international. The Spanish Muslim traveller Ibn Jubayr observes in 580/1184:

  One of the astonishing things that is talked of is that though the fires of discord burn between the two parties, Muslim and Christian, two armies of them may meet and dispose themselves in battle array, and yet Muslim and Christian travellers will come and go between them without interference.264

  Clearly, then, the theatre of war did not extend into civilian life at this time. There are good reasons for this. Muslim-Western Christian trade was of enormous benefit to both sides, even in times of heightened military hostility. Saladin’s attitude towards the Crusader mercantile communities, as expressed in a letter written to the caliph in Baghdad in 1174, shows a clear grasp of the economic advantages to be gained from trading with the enemy:

  The Venetians, the Pisans and the Genoese all used to come, sometimes as raiders, the voracity of whose harm could not be contained …, sometimes as travellers trying to prevail over Islam with the goods they bring, and our fearsome decrees could not cope with them … and now there is not one of them that does not bring to our lands his weapons of war and battle and bestows upon us the choicest of what he makes and inherits.265

  This comment further suggests that there was no effective military or political control imposed by the Western powers as to what should and should not be traded with the other side. Accordingly, Muslims and Franks traded with each other, crossed each other’s territories and imposed taxes on each other’s merchants. Whilst Saladin was conducting the siege of Karak in 580/1184 the caravans still continued to pass from Egypt to Damascus, ‘going through the lands of the Franks without impediment from them’.266 Even during Saladin’s vigorous siege of Karak, it is noteworthy, according to Ibn Jubayr, that business continued as usual: ‘One of the strangest things in the world is that Muslim caravans go forth to Frankish lands, while Frankish captives enter Muslim lands.’267

  According to Ibn Jubayr, Muslim merchants journeyed from Damascus to Acre (also through Frankish lands) and similarly Christian merchants were not hindered in Muslim territory. Both sides imposed a tax on the goods of the other in return for ‘full security’.268 Ibn Jubayr goes so far as to say that the ordinary people and the merchants are not involved in the disputes of kings: ‘Security never leaves them in any circumstances, neither in peace nor in war. The state of these countries in this regard is truly more astonishing than our story can fully convey.’269

  Figure 6.64 The Islamic heartlands showing the main trade and hajj routes

  Despite Ibn Jubayr’s positive evidence, there were infringements of the agreements allowing merchants safe-conduct through enemy territory. Saladin’s scribe discusses the problem of Muslim trade going through Frankish territory. Writing to Baghdad, he says in 1177:

  No reply has come to our letter about the need to stop the passage of the Muslim caravans … These merchants are risking their lives, reputations and goods and they also take the risk of strengthening the enemy.270

  What he does not say is that these merchants took such risks in the hope of considerable profit. A letter from Saladin to ‘Adud al-Din, the caliph’s vizier, dated the same year, notes that Saladin had escorted a large number of Muslim merchants, thereby preventing them from having to pay the heavy taxes which their goods would have incurred if they had gone through Frankish territory.271

  How much attention do the Islamic sources give to the phenomenon of what Heyd describes as soaring European trade with the Levant?272 What was carried in Frankish ships? Usama’s memoirs contain an anecdote which mentions how Baldwin III sent out some men to break up and pillage a Frankish ship near Acre bearing Usama’s family. The ship was loaded with ‘women’s trinkets, clothes, jewels, swords and other arms, and gold and silver to the value of about 30,000 dinars’.273

  The fall of Acre to the Muslims under Saladin in 583/1187 offers Muslim chroniclers the opportunity to reflect on its role as a trading entrepôt under Crusader rule. Ibn Shaddad reports that Saladin at Acre ‘took possession of what was in it in the way of riches, treasures and merchandise because it was the location of trade’.274 Ibn al-Athir gives more precise detail:

  Figure 6.65 Lutanist, Seljuq stone sculpture, thirteenth century, Turkey

  The Muslims plundered what remained of what the Franks had not been able to carry. The vast amount of it cannot be counted. They saw there a lot of gold, jewels, silk stitched with gold (siqlat), Venetian sequin (al-bunduqi), sugar, weapons and other kinds of commodities, for it was a destination for Frankish and Byzantine traders and others from lands near and far.275

  This is a very useful indication of the range of goods in which the Franks of Acre had traded – Ibn al-Athir explicitly mentions al-bunduqi. He also makes it clear
that Acre was an international entrepôt.

  Ibn Jubayr had been in no doubt about the commercial importance of Acre when he visited it in 1184. Prefacing his description with a pious imprecation – ‘may God exterminate (the Christians in) it and restore it (to the Muslims)’276 – he continues as follows:

  Acre is the capital of the Frankish cities in Syria, the unloading place of ‘ships reared aloft in the seas like mountains’277 and a port of call for all ships. In its greatness it resembles Constantinople. It is the focus of ships and caravans, and the meeting-place of Muslim and Christian merchants from all regions.278

  Ibn Jubayr is impressed by the Crusader custom-house at Acre and he way in which its officials conducted their business:

  We were taken to the custom-house which is a khan prepared to accommodate the caravan. Before the door are stone benches, spread with carpets, where are the Christian clerks of the Customs with their ebony ink-stands ornamented with gold. They write Arabic, which they also speak.279

  The examination of the merchandise and baggage was obviously through and it was not only the merchants whose belongings were earched:

  The baggage of any who had no merchandise was also examined in case it contained concealed [and dutiable] merchandise, after which the owner was permitted to go his way and seek lodging where he would. All this was done with civility and respect, and without harshness and unfairness.280

  “This is high praise for the Crusader port administration.

  In sharp contrast is Ibn Jubayr’s description of the chaotic and orrupt customs administration in Muslim Alexandria which he ncountered first-hand in the spring of 1183. He describes the treatment received by the Muslim travellers and merchants as follows:

  The Customs was packed to choking. All their goods, great and small, were searched and confusedly thrown together, while hands were thrust into their waistbands in search of what might be within … During all this, because of the confusion of hands and the excessive throng, many possessions disappeared.281

  Figure 6.66 Seljuq silk chasuble with lions in roundels, thirteenth century, Turkey

  Ibn Jubayr is at pains to point out that this disgraceful business is the only flaw that he encountered in Saladin’s Egypt and he places the blame squarely on the customs officials.282

  Evidence of the spice trade is given by Ibn Jubayr, who met caravans bearing merchandise from India through Yemen to ‘Aydhab on the shores of the Red Sea: ‘The greater part of this was the loads of pepper, so numerous as to seem to our fancy to equal in quantity only the dust.’283

  Figure 6.67 Urban khans, al-Hariri, al-Maqamat (‘The Assemblies’), 634/1237, and c. 1230, probably Baghdad, Iraq

  Trade in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Periods

  According to Cahen, Acre did not rival Constantinople or Alexandria for most of the twelfth century. The real surge in Levantine trade seems to have begun in the 1180s and continued until the late 1250s.284 The Ayyubid princes promoted commercial links with the Italian maritime cities and maintained as much as possible peaceful relations with the Crusader states of Syria. Despite their militant ideological stance, the Mamluks encouraged trade with the Christian powers of Europe and this trade was an integral part of Mamluk success. Reference has already been made to the treaties signed by the Mamluk sultans and European powers. At a practical level, the demands of commerce outweighed ideological scruples. In Baybars’ time, for example, the majority of mamluks came from the Qipchaq steppe. The greatest part of this slave-trade between the Crimea and Egypt was carried out by Genoese vessels.285

  The important trading links forged during the period of military confrontation between Europe and the Muslim world were to outlast the fall of Acre and to have significant repercussions on Mamluk Egypt in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is difficult to say whether such trading links would have been fostered without the impetus provided by the Crusades; what is certain is that waves of Crusaders were brought to the Levant in the ships of the Italian maritime republics and that the mercantile colonies set up in the Crusader Levantine ports survived long after 1291. Since by this date the entire Levant was under the political suzerainty of the Mamluk sultans of Egypt, whose capital was Cairo, it is not surprising that Egypt itself, which was the entrepôt for the lucrative Indian Ocean trade, was involved in this enterprise. It is also not surprising that after the fall of Acre in 1291, the Mamluk sultans decided not to uproot the European trading communities in the Levant, preferring instead to encourage trade with Europe.

  Figure 6.68 Shop front, with details of its woodwork, fifteenth century, Cairo, Egypt

  Of course, from the European side, there were ideological inhibitions and strong hostility in some quarters to the continuance of commercial relations with the enemy; indeed, successive popes tried hard to terminate trade between the Italian maritime republics and the Muslim Levant. But papal pronouncements were powerless to prevent this mutually beneficial trade from continuing.286 In Alexandria, for example, the hostels of the European trading communities remained open and new commercial treaties were concluded between East and West.

  The first century of Mamluk rule in Egypt (1250–1350) – with its firm government and official protection of the mercantile classes – witnessed remarkable prosperity. Such prosperity would have been well-nigh impossible if there had not been continuing trade links with Europe. The relationship was one of mutual need. Trade with Europe enabled the Mamluk empire to maintain its standing army and its fleets. European merchants provided the Muslim Levant with timber for constructing ships, and with the metals needed to manufacture weapons and siege-machines. Mamluk Egypt also imported silk from Spain and Sicily. On the European side, merchants were keen to visit the Near Eastern trading centres in order to obtain the Eastern spices – above all pepper and ginger – which western Europe craved and which were brought from the Orient – from India and beyond – via the eastern Mediterranean. Europe also exported foodstuffs, especially cereals.287

  But the trade extended far beyond spices and the sinews of war. It encompassed all kinds of luxuries. The Italian textile industry, which flourished in such cities as Lucca, was galvanised by the flood of precious stuffs with motifs of Islamic and even Chinese origin. Called panni Tartarici in the medieval European texts, they brought exotic and wondrous designs of dragons and phoenixes into the local repertoire. Countless late medieval and Early Renaissance religious paintings prominently display colourfully patterned Near Eastern rugs as table and floor coverings. While their expense clearly made them status symbols, they also created an Oriental ambience of mystery and alien luxury. The same effect was deliberately sought by the inclusion of Arabic inscriptions in the hems of the robes of the Virgin Mary and saints in the devotional paintings of artists like Gentile da Fabriano (d. 1427). Imported Mamluk dishes with official Arabic inscriptions around the rim (‘Glory to our Lord the Sultan’) doubled as haloes for sacred personages in such paintings, and there was even a workshop of Muslims in Venice producing versions of Mamluk metalwork tailored to Italian taste.288 For centuries Italy had the largest collections of Islamic art in Europe, a legacy of the thriving late medieval trade with Mamluk Egypt and of the acquisitive instincts of the great Italian aristocratic families. Thus the Medici collection of Islamic objects formed the nucleus of today’s holdings of the Bargello Museum in Florence. This infiltration of Islamic motifs and objects into western Europe was a lasting side-effect of the vigorous trade between East and West.

  Figure 6.69 (left and above) Musicians, Cappella Palatina, ceiling, c. 1140, Palermo, Sicily

  The European mercantile communities, then, stayed put and became a vital part of the Muslim economy. Moreover, they were allowed to conduct business openly even though on a practical, daily basis their movements on occasion were restricted in the same way as those of the Oriental Christians. Their contacts with local Muslims were also deliberately limited. Nevertheless, even while war continued to rage between the Muslim Levant and Christian Europe, internatio
nal trading did not cease to take place in the eastern Mediterranean.289 When this trade did slow down it was not as a result of restrictive measures on the part of the Muslims but much more as a consequence of the fifteenth-century maritime discoveries which gave western Europe direct access to the markets of the Orient.

  Figure 6.70 Musicians, Blacas ewer, 629/1232, Mosul, Iraq

  Figure 6.71 Seljuq mirror, cast bronze. The contemporary obsession with astrological images reflects the abnormal and terrifying frequency of eclipses and other celestial phenomena in the Near East at this period. Twelfth-thirteenth centuries, Turkey or Iran

  Did the Presence of the Franks Have an Impact on the Muslim Treatment of the Oriental Christians?

  The Qur’an proclaims unequivocally: ‘O ye who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you.’290 Yet the relationship between Muslims and those of other faiths, notably Christianity and Judaism, in the centuries before the coming of the Franks, was much more complex than one of complete holding back and exclusivity on the part of the Muslims.

  It has often been alleged that the direct inheritance of the Crusades was a rise in religious fanaticism and persecution and that it was the Crusades which were directly responsible for the loss of that spirit of religious tolerance which had generally prevailed in the Islamic world before 1099. This whole hypothesis needs close scrutiny and begs a number of questions. First, is it true that the Muslims before the Crusades were tolerant towards those people of other faiths who were allowed to live within the Islamic community (the umma)?. Secondly, was there a direct link between the arrival and settlement of the Crusaders within Islamic territory and Muslim religious persecution of non-Muslims during and after the Crusading period? What do the Islamic sources themselves say on the matter of the treatment of the Oriental Christians by the Muslim authorities in the period 1099–1191? Did the idea of Crusade, with its strong overseas associations, have any impact on the behaviour of the Muslims towards the long-established local Oriental Christians? These are all vast questions and they defy pat answers.