The Impact of Islam

by Emmet Scott

  If what generations of Muslims have believed about Muhammad and his life is to be taken as real history, then it is extremely unlikely the Jews could have assisted the forces of Islam in their conquest of Spain. The massacres of Jews said to have been carried out by the Prophet in the early seventh century would scarcely have endeared him and his followers to Hebrews anywhere, especially when we consider the vibrant international links of that same people. Indeed, no people on earth was better placed to know of events at the other side of the Mediterranean than the Jews, and those of Spain would have been very much aware of Muhammad’s behavior long before the first Muslim armies landed on Spanish soil. Thus, if the deeds of Muhammad as recounted in the Qur’an and the Hadiths are historical, the accounts of their co-operation with the Muslim invaders cannot possibly be true. Yet co-operate they did, as Muslim, Christian and Jewish records of the invasion all agree.[7]

  What then is the solution?

  The whole topic of Islam’s origins is briefly examined in the Appendix to the present volume. Without going into details here, it should be sufficient to note that there is very good evidence to show that the entire narrative of Muhammad’s life, as well as the story of Islam’s early expansion beyond Arabia, is almost certainly an elaborate fiction. Muhammad himself almost certainly never existed, so his massacres of Jews in the Arabian Peninsula cannot have occurred. Furthermore, a religion or cult very similar to Islam – variously described as Arab Christianity or Ebionitism – flourished in Arabia between the fourth and sixth centuries and almost certainly was the first “Islam” encountered by archaeologists. This Arab “Christianity” was in most respects almost identical to Judaism and was quite different to the Trinitarian Christianity familiar to all. Circumcision, along with almost all the other rules delineated in the Code of Moses, was mandatory; and it seems that it was this version of “Christianity” which gained possession of the entire Middle East and North Africa from the middle of the seventh century. In Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited I showed there were grounds for believing that the Arabs did not conquer Persia, as conventional history believes, but that the Sassanid monarch of Iran, Chosroes II, converted to “Arab Christianity,” or what we might call proto-Islam, at the beginning of his great war against the Eastern Roman Empire in 602. One of the most important events of that war was the conquest of Jerusalem in 614, which was followed by a general massacre of the Christian inhabitants of the city. We are told that the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem, as well as Arab allies of Chosroes II, participated in the massacre.

  If the Persian forces who captured Jerusalem at this time fought under a king who was a Muslim, or proto-Muslim, and if the anti-Semitic sections of the Qur’an and hadiths had yet to be written, it is conceivable that the Jews of Syria/Palestine, North Africa and Spain would have viewed the Muslim conquerors of these regions as allies, and have actively assisted them. By the middle of the eighth century however the Islamic canon of sacred scriptures was firmly established and the Jews, formerly allies of the Muslims – with whom they shared so much in common – were now viewed as enemies. From that time onwards their treatment differed little from that accorded to the dhimmi Christians, and indeed their lot may even have been more oppressive.

  If we move forward to the tenth and eleventh centuries we arrive in an epoch during which the war for possession of the Iberian Peninsula raged as never before. This conflict was to grow into a real clash of civilizations, as Christians and Muslims called in the assistance of co-religionists from far and wide. The Shrine of Santiago de Compostela became a rallying symbol for the Christians of the north and for those of France and Germany, who crossed the Pyrenees to join the struggle against Islam. Their Christian allies in Spain already had the conviction that the Jews were inveterate allies of the Muslims – a belief, as we said, probably encouraged by the Muslims themselves. These Frankish and German warriors also came into contact with Muslim anti-Semitic attitudes – attitudes which they themselves began to imbibe.

  Now, it is an acknowledged fact that it was in Spain that the warriors who later joined the First Crusade learnt to persecute the Jews. In Runciman’s words, “Already in the Spanish wars there had been some inclination on the part of Christian armies to maltreat the Jews.”[8] He notes that at the time of the expedition to Barbastro, in the mid-eleventh century, Pope Alexander II had written to the bishops of Spain to remind them that there was all the difference in the world between Muslims and Jews. The former were irreconcilable enemies of the Christians, but the latter were ready to work for them. However, in Spain “the Jews had enjoyed such favour from the hands of the Moslems that the Christian conquerors could not bring themselves to trust them.”[9] This lack of trust is confirmed by more than one document of the period, several of which are listed by Runciman.

  Just over a decade after the Christian knights of France and Germany had helped their co-religionists in Spain to retake the city of Toledo from the Muslims, some of them prepared to set out on the First (official) Crusade. Before they did so, a few of them took part in the mass murder of several thousand Jews in Germany and Bohemia – an atrocity unprecedented in European history.

  In view of the fact that these pogroms were committed by warriors some of whom had learned their trade in Spain, and in view of the fact that such atrocities were hitherto unknown in Europe, we may state that there is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that the Christians had been influenced by the Muslims. This is all the more probable in view of Islam’s history (from the mid-eighth century) of virulent and violent anti-Semitism. And if the Europeans were influenced in this by the Muslims, this was by no means the only novelty learned by them from their Muslim foes. As we saw in the previous chapter, there are good grounds for believing that the very idea of “Holy War,” previously unthinkable in Christian terms, was at least partly derived from the Islamic notion of jihad.

  To conclude, I am not trying to argue that anti-Semitism did not exist among Christians before the rise of Islam. Obviously it did. Far less am I trying to excuse the appalling behavior of “Christians” toward the Jews in Europe from the eleventh century onwards. No one is to blame for the massacres and pogroms which disgraced the name of Europe for almost a thousand years but the Europeans themselves. Yet in tracing the origins of this sickening hatred we cannot turn a blind eye to the similarly appalling record amongst the Muslims, as well as to the undoubted influence of Islam upon Christendom. Furthermore, it is beyond question that the terrible struggle between the two intolerant ideologies of Christianity and Islam which began in the seventh century, had a profoundly detrimental effect upon the Jews; and it was then, and only then, that the virulent and murderous anti-Semitism so characteristic of the Middle Ages entered European life.

  [1] See Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi, p. 61. Also, Bernard Lewis, The Jews and Islam, p. 54.

  [2] Robert Spencer, Religion of Peace? Why Chrisianity is and Islam isn’t (Regnery, 2000), p. 113.

  [3] See Cyril Mango, Byzantium: the Empire of New Rome, p. 92.

  [4] Runciman, op cit., p. 134.

  [5] Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi, p. 87.

  [6] See e.g. Hugh Trevor-Roper, op cit., p. 143.

  [7] See e.g. Fletcher, op cit., p. 24.

  [8] Runciman, op cit., p. 135.

  [9]Ibid. Favor or not, however, the Jews had already suffered appalling mistreatment at the hands of the Spanish Muslims well before the Crusades, as we saw in Chapter 4.

  7

  The Medieval Theocracy

  It is a fact that all ancient societies were to some degree or other theocracies, where spiritual and temporal power was united in one figure or small group. Ancient Egypt, for example, was a theocracy of the most absolute kind, as was ancient Babylonia and ancient China. Even Greece and Rome, whilst much less theocratic than these earlier cultures, were nonetheless by modern standards theocratic. Some Gree
k states, it is true, such as classical Athens, had democracies, and these were generally not guided by religious authority, yet even here there was a strong theological input into governance – certainly by modern standards. Socrates, we must remember, right at the peak of Athens’ democratic Golden Age, was put to death for blasphemy.

  One of the main criticisms of course leveled against Europe in the Middle Ages was its theocracy, or reputed theocracy. The power of the church at this time tends to be viewed by modern Westerners as a dead weight which imposed a tyranny on men’s minds. Religious dissension, it is held, was not tolerated and the free exploration of nature and her laws inhibited by the church’s stranglehold.

  The strange fact is that neither of these accusations are true to the degree that is generally believed. A few well-known cases, such as that of Giordano Bruno and Galileo, have cast an altogether unfair light on the epoch. Yes, there were some constraints and there was a degree of church influence on public life that would be unthinkable in modern times, but the fact is that Europe in the Middle Ages was one of the least theocratic societies of the time. And in an earlier age it was even less so.

  When Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century the bishops and prelates had little power. The emperors continued to be the real masters of the state, and churchmen could at best hope to gain the emperor’s ear. The fall of the Western Empire in 476 changed little of this. Indeed, if anything the influence of the church diminished. The barbarian kings of the Goths, Vandals and Franks, who came to dominate the Western provinces, were invariably Arian heretics not well disposed to the Catholic prelates who represented the majority of the population. Their sane and just view of religious affairs is perhaps no better illustrated than by the fact that the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great compelled the citizens of Ravenna to rebuild several synagogues, at their own expense, after these had been damaged in a riot. The gradual conversion of the Frankish and then Gothic kings to Catholicism certainly did increase the influence of the bishops, but they were still very much subordinate to the temporal authority. Indeed, as Henri Pirenne stressed at great length, the late Roman culture which prevailed in the West until the early seventh century was heavily secular. Literacy was widespread and the state employed a secular rather than a clerical bureacracy. Secular literature flourished, as did the philosophical tradition of pagan Greece and Rome. Thus for example Boethius, perhaps the greatest thinker of the West during the sixth century, spent many years working on a synthesis of Aristotle and Plato. So suffused with the spirit of classical paganism is Boethius’ thinking that not a few modern commentators have doubted whether he was a Christian at all and have suspected secret paganism. And yet this same Boethius was and is regarded as a Saint by the Catholic Church.

  The church then, at this time, was certainly more open-minded than in later centuries and occupied a subordinate role to that of the king. Yet by the tenth century things had changed dramatically. Pirenne maintained that, following the closure of the Mediterranean to European trade by Muslim piracy in the seventh century, the Frankish and Gothic kings lost a great deal of their tax income and were thus weakened vis à vis the barons and minor aristocrats, who now gained in power and independence. The kings desperately needed a counterbalance, and the support of the church carried great weight. With the church on their side the kings could – just about – keep the barons under control. But there was necessarily a trade-off. The church might keep the king on his throne, but it gained in return an increasing influence over the king.

  Pirenne also suggested that with the closure of the Mediterranean to normal trade the supply of papyrus from Egypt was terminated and this produced a dramatic decline in literacy throughout Europe, which in turn led to an increasing dependence upon the church to supply writing skills and education. Secular literacy all but disappeared, and it is a fact that by the middle of the ninth century the Imperial Chancellory was dependent upon clerics for all written work. These clerics, who were under the direction of a head chaplain, were referred to as the Kapelle (“chapel”). From 975 the office of chancellor to the emperor was always held by the Archbishop of Mainz. The clerics in the Hofkapelle (“court chapel”) also undertook political and diplomatic missions and many attained important feudal positions.

  In years to come, the empire itself (refounded, it is said, by Charlemagne in 800) would be renamed the Holy Roman Empire – an appropriate title; for the new Western Empire represented a symbiotic union, at the heart of Europe, of spiritual and temporal authorities. The crowning of the emperor – for which the inauguration of Charlemagne became the model – was an event loaded with religious significance and symbolism. The Ottonian emperors of the tenth century were rulers Dei gratis, and they made the church the main instrument of royal government. Their authority would henceforth not simply be derived from their own military and economic strength, as it had been under the Caesars and Germanic kings of the fifth and sixth centuries, but, to some degree at least, upon the sanction and approval of the church. Eventually the kings of Europe became subordinate to the pope, who could even, in extreme cases, dethrone them. Everything a medieval ruler did, or proposed to do, he had to do with the sanction of the church. Even powerful and independent warriors, such as William of Normandy, could only proceed with a project like the invasion of England after gaining papal approval.

  The Ottonian emperors thus laid the foundations of a kind of theocracy; yet even now the church had to fight for her position, a struggle which commenced in the tenth century, and which ended in the eleventh, with papal victory. “They [Church reformers] fought to secure ultimate control of a self-contained, independent, dominant, monarchical Church. Such a contest was a frontal challenge to the old system of the Roman Empire. It was a frontal attack on the kings who presumed that they had inherited the rights of the Roman emperors. It was an indirect attack on the emperor of Constantinople who, in the East, continued to maintain the old system [of secular supremacy] and was now called schismatic for his pains.”[1]

  Yet this European theocracy was never comparable to that of Islam. Even at the peak of his power the pope had little temporal authority: he invariably had to appeal to the secular rulers for support. And by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the popes were frequently at the mercy of German emperors and French kings. By contrast, the caliphs, and later the sultans, united absolute spiritual and temporal authority in themselves.

  The high point of the medieval church’s power came in the early thirteenth century and in the person of Innocent III (1198 – 1216). This man judged between rival emperors in Germany and had Otto IV deposed. He laid England under an interdict and excommunicated King John for refusing to recognize Stephen Langdon as Archbishop of Canterbury. His two most memorable actions however were the establishment of the Inquisition and the launching of the notorious Albigensian Crusade, which led to the elimination of the Cathar movement. Innocent III then, the most powerful of medieval theocrats, was a proponent of Holy War, and an enforcer of absolute doctrinal conformity. Apostasy under Innocent III became a capital offense. During his time too the other Crusades, against Islam in Spain and in the Middle East, continued to rage.

  Fig. 6. Innocent III, founder of the Inquisition

  In establishing a body to root out heretics, Innocent III seems to have been influenced by similar bodies established in Spain by the Muslim Almohads, fifty years earlier. The Inquisition employed torture, a novelty in Europe at that time, but common practise in the Islamic world.

  Ironically, Innocent’s attitude to apostasy and doctrinal conformity – as well as to “Holy War” – was completely in accord with Islamic notions, and we must consider to what extent these extreme positions of the European theocracy were influenced by the Islamic one. For Islam itself was, of course, from the very beginning, theocratic in a way that Europe never was – even in the time of Innocent III. In Islam, there was no “re
nder unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Right from the start, in the person of Muhammad, spiritual and temporal power was united. After Muhammad, under the caliphs, the same situation pertained. Every caliph was, first and foremost, a “commander of the faithful.” And doctrinal conformity was enforced in Islam from the beginning in a way that it never was in Europe: here apostasy and heresy were always seen as capital offenses.[2] The most notorious, though by no means the only, example of this is found in the fate of Mansur Al-Hallaj (858 – 922), the Persian mystic, whose death mimicked that of Christ – though before being crucified Al-Hallaj was first, it is said, blinded and otherwise tortured. And the killing of political and religious opponents, or those who deviated in any way from orthodox Islam, continued throughout Muslim history. So it was with infidels such as Christians and Jews who, though theoretically dhimmi, or “protected,” were in fact always the subject of violent attack. We know, for example, that in 704 or 705 the Caliph Walid (705-715) “assembled the nobles of Armenia in the church of St Gregory in Naxcawan and the church of Xrain on the Araxis, and burned them to death. Others were crucified and decapitated and their wives and children taken into captivity. A violent persecution of Christians in Armenia is recorded from 852 to 855.”[3] There even existed, as we have seen, in Spain and North Africa, at least from the time of the Almohads (early twelfth century), a commission of inquiry, a veritable “inquisition,” for rooting out apostates. We are told that the Jews, who had at this time been forced to accept Islam, formed a mass of “new converts” who nevertheless continued to practice their own religion in secret. But the “Almohad inquisitors, doubting their sincerity, took away their children and raised them as Muslims.”[4]