Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  The Arabs were driven south, but still they resisted. In the south of Spain they carved out a little kingdom, the kingdom of Granada, and held on there. It was a little affair, this kingdom, so far as size went, but it reproduced Arab civilization in miniature. The famous Alhambra still stands in Granada, with its beautiful arches and columns and arabesques, a reminder of those days. It was originally called in Arabic “Al-Hamra”, the red palace. Arabesques are the beautiful designs you often see on Arab and other buildings influenced by Islam. The painting of figures was not encouraged by Islam. So the builders took to making fancy and intricate designs. Often they wrote Arabic verses from the Quran over the arches and elsewhere and made of them a beautiful decoration.

  The Arabic script is a flowing script which lends itself easily to such decoration.

  The kingdom of Granada lasted for 200 years. It was pressed and harassed by the Christian States of Spain, especially Castile, and sometimes it agreed to pay tribute to Castile. It would probably not have lasted so long if the Christian States had themselves not been divided. But in 1469 AC a marriage took place between the rulers of two of these principal States, Ferdinand and Isabella, and this united Castile, Aragon and Leon. Ferdinand and Isabella put an end to the Arab kingdom of Granada. The Arabs fought bravely for several years till they were surrounded and hemmed in in Granada. Starved out, they surrendered in 1492 AC.

  Many of the Saracens or Arabs left Spain and went to Africa. Near Granada, overlooking the city, there is a spot which still bears the name of “El ultimo sospiro del moro”, the last sigh of the Moor.

  But a large number of Arabs remained in Spain. The treatment of these Arabs is a very dark chapter in the history of Spain. There was cruelty and massacre, and the promises made to them about toleration were forgotten. About this time the Inquisition, that terrible weapon which the Roman Church forged to crush all who did not bow down to it, was established in Spain. Jews, who had prospered under the Saracens, were now forced to change their religion and many were burnt to death. Women and children were not spared. “The infidels” (that is the Saracens), so says a historian, “were ordered to abandon their picturesque costume, and to assume the hat and breeches of their conquerors, to renounce their language, their customs and ceremonies, even their very names, and to speak Spanish, behave Spanishly, and re-name themselves Spaniards”. Of course there were risings and revolts against these barbarities. But they were mercilessly crushed.

  The Spanish Christians seem to have been very much against washing and bathing. Perhaps they objected to these simply because the Spanish Arabs were very fond of them and had erected great public baths all over the place. The Christians even went so far as to issue orders “for the reformation of the Moriscos” or Moors or Arabs, that “neither themselves, their women, nor any other persons, should be permitted to wash or bathe themselves either at home or elsewhere; and that all their bathing-houses should be pulled down and destroyed”.

  Apart from the sin of washing, another great charge brought against the “Moriscos” was that they were tolerant in religion. It is extraordinary to read of this, and yet this was one of the main charges in an account of the “Apostacies and Treasons of the Moriscos” drawn up by the Archbishop of Valencia in 1602, when he was recommending the expulsion of Saracens from Spain. Referring to this he says, “that they [the Moriscos] commended nothing so much as that liberty of conscience in all matters of religion, which the Turks, and all other Mohammedans, suffer their subjects to enjoy”. What a great compliment was thus paid unwittingly to the Saracens in Spain, and how different and intolerant was the outlook of the Spanish Christians!

  Millions of Saracens were driven out forcibly from Spain, mostly into Africa, some to France. But you must remember that the Arabs had been in Spain for seven hundred years; and during this long period they had become to a large extent merged in the people of Spain. Originally Arabs, they had gradually become more and more Spanish. Probably the Spanish Arabs of later years were quite different from the Arabs of Baghdad. Even today the Spanish race has much of Arab blood in its veins The Saracens had also spread to the south of France and even to Switzerland, not as rulers, but as settlers. Sometimes even now one comes across an Arab type of face among the Frenchmen from the midi.

  Thus ended not only Saracen rule in Spain, but also Arab civilization. For, even earlier, this civilization had collapsed in Asia, as we shall presently see. It influenced many countries and many cultures, and left many a bright souvenir. But it did not rise again by itself in after-history.

  After the Saracens left, Spain, under Ferdinand and Isabella, grew in power. Soon afterwards, the discovery of America brought vast wealth to it, and for a while it was the most powerful country in Europe, dominating others. But its fall was rapid and it sank into insignificance, and while the other countries of Europe advanced, Spain remained stagnant, dreaming still of the Middle Ages and not realizing that the world had changed since then.

  An English historian, Lane Poole, writing of the Saracens in Spain says:

  For centuries Spain had been the centre of civilization, the seat of arts and sciences, of learning and every form of refined enlightenment. No other country in Europe had so far approached the cultivated dominion of the Moors. The brief brilliancy of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of the Empire of Charles, could found no such enduring pre-eminence. The Moors were banished; for a while Christian Spain shone, like the moon, with a borrowed light; then came the eclipse, and in that darkness Spain has grovelled ever since. The true memorial of the Moors is seen in desolate tracts of utter barrenness, where once the Moors grew luxuriant vines and olives and yellow ears of corn; in a stupid, ignorant population where once wit and learning flourished; in the general stagnation and degradation of a people which has hopelessly fallen in the scale of nations, and has deserved its humiliation.

  This is a hard judgment. About a year ago there was a revolution in Spain and the King was removed. There is a republic there now. Perhaps this young republic will do better, and bring Spain again into line with other countries.

  62

  The Crusades

  June 19, 1932

  I told you in a recent letter (No. 57) of the declaration by the Pope and his Church Council of a holy war against the Muslims for the recovery of the city of Jerusalem. The rising power of the Seljuq Turks frightened Europe, and especially the Constantinople government, which was directly threatened. Stories of the ill-treatment of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem and Palestine by the Turks excited the people of Europe and filled them with anger. So a “holy war” was declared, and the Pope and the Church called upon all the Christian peoples of Europe to march to the rescue of the “holy” city.

  Thus began the Crusades in 1095 AC, and for more than 150 years the struggle continued between Christianity and Islam, between the Cross and the Crescent. There were long periods of rest in between, but there was almost a continuous state of war, and wave after wave of Christian Crusaders came to fight and mostly to die in the “holy” land. This long warfare yielded no substantial results to the Crusaders. For a short while Jerusalem was in their hands, but later it went back to the Turks, and there it remained. The chief result of the Crusades was to bring death and misery to millions of Christians and Muslims and again to soak Asia Minor and Palestine with human blood.

  What was the state of the Empire of Baghdad at this time? The Abbasides continued at the head of it. They were still the Caliphs, the Commanders of the Faithful. But they were nominal heads, having little power. We have already seen how their empire split up and the provincial governors became independent. Mahmud of Ghazni, who raided India so often, was a powerful sovereign who threatened the Caliph, if the latter did not behave according to his wishes. Even in Baghdad itself the Turks were really masters. Then came another branch of the Turks—the Seljuqs—and they rapidly established their power and spread, victorious, to the gates of Constantinople itself. But the Caliph still remained the Caliph, though with
no political power. He gave the title of Sultan to the Seljuq chiefs, and the Sultan ruled. The Crusaders had thus to fight against these Seljuq Sultans and their followers.

  In Europe the Crusades increased the idea of “Christendom”— the world of Christianity, as opposed to all non-Christians. Europe had a common idea and purpose—the recovery of the “holy land” from the so-called infidel. This common purpose filled people with enthusiasm, and many a man left home and property for the sake of the great cause. Many went with noble motives. Many were attracted by the promise of the Pope that those who went would have their sins forgiven. There were other reasons also for the Crusades. Rome wanted once for all to become the boss of Constantinople. You will remember that the Constantinople Church was different from that of Rome. It called itself the Orthodox Church and it disliked the Roman Church intensely and considered the Pope an upstart. The Pope wanted to put an end to this conceit of Constantinople and to bring it within his fold. Under the cloak of a holy war against the infidel Turk, he wanted to obtain what he had long desired. That is the way of politicians and those who consider themselves statesmen! It is well to remember this conflict between Rome and Constantinople, as it continually crops up during the Crusades.

  Another reason for the Crusades was a commercial one. The business people, especially of the growing ports of Venice and Genoa, wanted them because their trade was suffering. The Seljuq Turks had closed many of their trade routes to the East.

  The common people, of course, knew nothing about these reasons. No one told them. Politicians usually hide their real reasons and talk pompously of religion and justice and truth and the like. It was so at the time of the Crusades. It is so still. People were taken in then; and still the great majority of people are taken in by the soft talk of politicians.

  So large numbers gathered for the Crusades. Among them were good and earnest people; but there were also many who were far from good who were attracted by the hope of plunder. It was a strange collection of pious and religious men and the riffraff of the population, who were capable of every kind of crime. Indeed, these Crusaders, or many of them, going out to serve in what was to them a noble cause, committed the vilest and most disgusting of crimes. Many were so busy with plundering and misbehaving on the way that they never reached anywhere near Palestine. Some took to massacring Jews on the way; some even massacred their brother-Christians. Fed up with their misbehaviour, sometimes the peasantry of the Christian countries they passed through rose and attacked them, killing many and driving the others away.

  The Crusaders at last managed to reach Palestine under a Norman, Godfrey of Bouillon. Jerusalem fell to them and then the “carnage lasted for a week”. There was a terrible massacre. A French eyewitness of this says that “under the portico of the mosque the blood was knee deep and reached the horses’ bridles”. Godfrey became King of Jerusalem.

  Seventy years later Jerusalem was re-taken from the Christians by Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt. This excited the people of Europe again and several Crusades followed. This time the kings and emperors of Europe came in person, but they had little success. They quarrelled among themselves for precedence and were jealous of each other. It is a dismal story of ghastly and cruel war and petty intrigue and sordid crime. But sometimes the better side of human nature prevailed over this horror, and incidents took place when enemies behaved with courtesy and chivalry to each other. Among the foreign kings in Palestine was Richard of England, Coeur de Lion, the Lion-Hearted, noted for his physical strength and courage. Saladin was also a great fighter, and famous for his chivalry. Even the Crusaders who fought Saladin came to appreciate this chivalry of his. There is a story that once Richard was very ill and was suffering from the heat. Saladin, hearing of this, arranged to send him fresh snow and ice from the mountains. Ice could not be made artificially then by freezing water, as we do now. So natural snow and ice from the mountains had to be taken by swift messengers.

  There are many stories of the time of the Crusades. Perhaps you have read Walter Scott’s Talisman.

  One batch of Crusaders went to Constantinople and took possession of it. They drove out the Greek Emperor of the Eastern Empire and established a Latin kingdom and the Roman Church. Terrible massacres also took place in Constantinople and the city itself was partly burnt by the Crusaders. But this Latin kingdom did not last long. The Greeks of the Eastern Empire, weak as they were, came back and drove away the Latins after a little over fifty years. The Eastern Empire of Constantinople continued for another 200 years, till 1453, when the Turks finally put an end to it.

  This capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders brings out the desire of the Roman Church and the Pope to extend their influence there. Although the Greeks of this city had, in a moment of panic, appealed to Rome for help against the Turks, they helped the Crusaders little, and disliked them greatly.

  But the most terrible of all these Crusades was what is called the Children’s Crusade. Large numbers of young boys, chiefly French and some from Germany, in their excitement, left their homes and decided to go to Palestine. Many of them died on the way, many were lost. Most of them reached Marseilles, and there these poor children were tricked and their enthusiasm was taken advantage of by scoundrels. Under the pretext of taking them to the “holy land”, slave-traders took them on their ships, carried them to Egypt, and sold them into slavery.

  Richard of England on his way back from Palestine was captured by his enemies in eastern Europe and a very heavy ransom had to be paid for his release. A King of France was captured in Palestine itself, and had to be ransomed. An Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick Barbarossa, was drowned in a river in Palestine. Meanwhile, as time went on, all the glamour went out of these Crusades. People got fed up with them. Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands, but the kings and people of Europe were no longer interested in wasting more lives and treasure for its recovery. Since then for nearly 700 years Jerusalem continued to be under the Muslims. It was only recently, during the Great War, in 1918, that it was taken from the Turks by an English general.

  One of the later Crusades was interesting and unusual. Indeed, it was hardly a crusade at all in the old sense of the word. The Emperor Frederick II, of the Holy Roman Empire, came and, instead of fighting, had an interview with the then Sultan of Egypt and they came to a friendly understanding! Frederick was an extraordinary person. At a time when most kings were hardly literate, he knew many languages, including Arabic. He was known as the “Wonder of the World”. He cared little for the Pope, and the Pope thereupon excommunicated him, but this had little effect on him.

  The Crusades thus failed to achieve anything. But this continuous fighting weakened the Seljuq Turks. Even more than this, however, feudalism sapped the foundations of the Seljuq Empire. The big feudal lords considered themselves practically independent. They fought each other. Sometimes they even went so far as to ask for Christian help against each other. It was this internal weakness of the Turks that played into the hands of the Crusaders sometimes. When, however, there was a strong ruler like Saladin, they made little progress.

  There is another view of the Crusades, a recent view put forward by the English historian, G.M. Trevelyan (the author of the Garibaldi books which you know). This is interesting. “The Crusades,” says Trevelyan, “were the military and religious aspect of a general urge towards the East on the part of the reviving energies of Europe. The prize that Europe brought back from the Crusades was not the permanent liberation of the Holy Sepulchre or the potential unity of Christendom, of which the story of the Crusades was one long negation. She brought back instead the finer arts and crafts, luxury, science, and intellectual curiosity— everything that Peter the Hermit would most have despised.”

  Saladin died in 1193, and gradually what remained of the old Arab Empire went to pieces. In many parts of western Asia there was disorder under the petty feudal lords. The last Crusade took place in 1249. It was headed by Louis IX, King of France, who was defeated and taken pr
isoner.

  Meanwhile big things had been happening in Eastern and Central Asia. The Mongols, under a mighty chieftain, Chengiz or Jenghiz Khan, were advancing and covering the eastern horizon like a huge dark cloud. Crusader and defender, Christian and Muslim alike, saw this coming invasion with fear. We shall deal with Chengiz and the Mongols in a later letter.

  One thing I should like to mention before I end this letter. In Bokhara, in Central Asia, there lived a very great Arab physician, who was famous in Asia as well as Europe. His name was Ibn Sina, but he is better known in Europe as Avicenna. The Prince of Physicians he was called. He died in 1037, before the Crusades.

  I mention Ibn Sina’s name because of his fame. But remember that right through this period, even when the Arab Empire was on the decline, Arab civilization continued in western and part of Central Asia. Saladin, busy as he was fighting the Crusaders, built many colleges and hospitals. But this civilization was on the eve of a sudden and complete collapse. The Mongols were coming from the East.

  63

  Europe at the Time of the Crusades

  June 20, 1932

  In my last letter we saw something of the clash between Christianity and Islam in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The idea of Christendom develops in Europe. Christianity has by this time spread all over Europe, the last comers being the Slav races of Eastern Europe— Russians and others. There is an interesting story—I do not know how far it is true—that the old Russian people, before they became Christian, discussed the question of changing their old religion and adopting a new one. The two new religions they had heard of were Christianity and Islam. So, quite in the modern style, they sent a deputation to visit the countries where these religions were practised, to examine them and report on them. It is said that this deputation visited some places in western Asia, where Islam prevailed, and then they went to Constantinople. They were amazed at what they saw at Constantinople. The ceremonial of the Orthodox Church was rich and gorgeous, with music and beautiful singing. The priests came in splendid garments and there was burning of incense. This ceremonial impressed the simple and semi-civilized people from the north tremendously. Islam had nothing so gorgeous. So they decided in favour of Christianity, and on their return they reported accordingly to their king. The king and his people thereupon became Christians, and because they took their Christianity from Constantinople, they were followers of the Orthodox Greek Church and not of Rome. At no subsequent time did Russia acknowledge the Pope of Rome.