Europe: A History (54 page)
As a result of these far-flung conquests, autonomous Islamic states, paying no more than nominal service to the distant Caliphs, emerged in Spain, in Morocco, in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Persia, and in Transoxania. Islam progressed as far in one century as Christianity in seven. In Iberia the Muslim conquerors remembered their history and called the country
El-Andalus
, the ‘Land of the Vandals’, creating many new principalities. The emirate of Cordova, founded shortly after Al-Tariq’s arrival, established the most durable Muslim presence on the European continent. Together with its successors, the Almoravid empire and the emirate of Granada, it was to last for nearly eight centuries. At its height under Abd
al-Rahman (r. 912–61), it covered the greater part of the Iberian peninsula, and claimed the caliphate of all Islam. It brought civilization of the highest order, and a major demographic influx of Arabs, Moors, Berbers, and Jews. There were repeated injections of North Africans into Spain from the eighth to the twelfth centuries, [
MEZQUITA
]
From that point on, Islam has had a permanent presence in Europe. First in the south-west, in Iberia, and later in the south-east, in the Balkan and Black Sea regions (see Chapter VII). The interaction of Christians and Muslims has provided one of the most enduring features of Europe’s political and cultural life. From the eighth century onwards there has never been a day when the
adhan
, the call of the muezzin, could not be heard morning and evening, summoning the faithful to prayer:
Allāhu akbar
ašhadu ‘an lā ilāha illā llāh
ašhadu anna Muhammadu ’rasūlu ’llāh
‘alā ’ l-salãh
hayyā ‘alā’ l-falāh
Allāhu akbar
ašhadu ‘an lā ilĀha illā llāh
(God is most great | I testify that there is no god but God | I testify that Muhammad is the prophet of God | To prayer, | Come on, to salvation! | God is most great | I testify that there is no god but God.)
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At the dawn call, an extra summons is inserted after the fourth formula,
al-salat khair min al-nawm
, ‘Prayer is better than sleep’. All Muslims who hear the call must repeat its words, except after the fourth and fifth formulas, when they recite: ‘There is no power nor strength but in Allah’, and ‘Thou hast spoken truthfully and righteously’. Every adult and healthy Muslim is obliged to perform the
Salat
, or ‘ritual prostrations’, five times each day.
Meanwhile, with the Arabs on the Loire, the Franks steeled themselves to repel the Muslim advance. Charles Martel (c.688–741), mayor of the Merovingian
palace, gathered an army which stemmed the tide. The Battle of Poitiers in 732 may well have been exaggerated by Christian apologists: the Arabs may have been obliged to retreat through over-extended lines of communication. They were, after all, more than 1,000 miles out from Gibraltar. But it inspired some magnificent passages:
The repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or the Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mohammed.
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Thenceforth, in the West, the Muslims were to be held on the line of the Pyrenees. Muslims and Franks were to contest the mountain passes for generations. One such encounter at the Pass of Roncevaux gave rise to the most famous of medieval legends, as celebrated in the
chansons de geste
. Two Frankish knights, variously known as Roland and Oliver or Orlando and Rinaldo, are hard-pressed by the Muslim army as they try to withdraw their forces to safety on the northern side. Oliver urges his companion to sound the signal horn to bring up reinforcements. Roland, more valiant than wise, fails to comply until the battle is already lost. When he finally blows the horn, bursting the veins in his head, it is heard all over Francia. Roland, swooning on his horse, is struck by mistake in the mêleé by the blinded Oliver:
‘Sir cumpain, faites le vos de gred?
Ja est co Rollant, ki tant vos soelt amer!
Par nule guise ne m’aviez desfiet!’
Dist Oliver: ‘Or vos oi jo parler.
Je ne vos vei, veied vus Damnedeu!
Ferut vos ai, car le me pardunez!’
Rollant respunt: ‘Jo n’ai nient de mel.
Jol vos pardains ici e devant Deu.’
A icel mot l’un a l’altre ad clinet.
Par tel amur as les vus desevred.
(‘Companion, Sir, did you intend this stroke? | For I am Roland who loves you so dear, | And you have not defied or challenged me.’ | Oliver said: ‘Now I can hear you speak | But see you not; God keep you in his sight! | I have struck you? Forgive me then I beg!’ | Roland replies: ‘I have come to no harm. | You have my pardon here and before God.’ | At this, each bows towards the other’s breast. | See with what love they to their parting come!)
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‘Alas, sweet Francia, today you will be shorn of your good vassals.’
In the East, the Christian line was held by the Byzantine forces. But the Muslim presence was felt deep into the Slavonic hinterland. The Muslim world had a growing appetite for slaves, and raw-boned Slavs were a favourite commodity. Jewish traders and Vikings acted as the middlemen and the carriers, especially through Crimea [
KHAZARIA
] [
RUS’
,] but later in the Baltic and Central Europe
[
DIRHAM
]. Such was the association of Slavs with the slave-trade that the two words ‘Slav’ and ‘slave’ have widely been thought to be synonymous. The Arabic word for eunuch,
sakaliba
, is also considered to derive from ‘Slav’. It is no accident that the first surviving eyewitness report of the Slavonic lands was written by a Moorish Jew, a merchant from Tortosa (see p. 454).
MEZQUITA
N
O
building in Europe better illustrates the cycle of civilizations than the Mezquita Aljama, now the cathedral church in Cordoba. Its oldest part dates from the reign of Abd-al-Rahman I (r. 755–88). As a treasure-house of Hispano-lslamic art, it ranks with the Alcazar in Seville or the fabled palace of Alhambra at Granada. But its originality lies in the use of materials taken from the demolished Latin-Byzantine Basilica of St Vincent which stood until 741 on the same site, and which had once been shared by Christian and Moslem congregations. What is more, both mosque and basilica rested on the foundations of a great Roman temple, which in its turn had replaced a Greek or possibly a Phoenician edifice. Only St Sofia in Istanbul can match such varied connections.
The proportions of the Mezquita befit a city which outgrew medieval Rome many times over. Together with its central Orange-Tree Courtyard, it covers an area of 130 m.
x
180 m., surrounded by walls and decorated battlements. Most impressive, however, are the many features which combine Islamic and Christian elements. The great nave is filled with a forest of multicoloured marble columns supporting two layers of arches. The columns, topped by variegated capitals, came from the old basilica. The lower, ‘horseshoe’ arches are made from alternating segments of white limestone and red brick. The upper layer of round arches is pure Roman. The main northern door is covered with metal plates at the centre of which the word
deus
alternates with
al-mulk lilah
(‘The empire and power are God’s alone’). The exquisite Dove’s Door has an ornate Arabian arch embellished by a medieval ogive surround. The
miharab
or ‘niche of orientation’, indicating the direction of Mecca, was built by Syrian architects, who duly pointed it to the south. It takes the form of a small octagonal room under a single conchshell ceiling. It is entered by an archway in polychrome mosaic and preceded by a vestibule under three Byzantine cupolas. Persian-style cufie inscriptions abound, even in sections such as the Royal Chapel, which was refurbished with gothic ornament and feudal heraldry in the fourteenth century. Christian Baroque inspired the altar and entablature within the mosque, and the Chapel of the Incas.
1
A few sites in Spain, like the Mezquita of Cordoba or the old city of Toledo, do convey a strong sense of continuity. Modern tourists love to be told that Muslim Spain introduced Europeans to oranges, lemons, spinach, asparagus, aubergines, artichokes, pasta, and toothpaste, together with mathematics, Greek philosophy, and paper, [
XATIVAH
]
But the fact is that the continuities are few. Muslim civilization in Spain was not just superseded; wherever possible it was eradicated (see p. 345). Visitors might get a truer sense of history if they visit the lonely Muslim castle of Trujillo in Extremadura or the deserted walled city of Vascos in Castille. In Cordoba, one should proceed from the Mezquita to the palace of Madinat al-Zahra (Medina Azahara) outside the city. It was once the residence of a caliph who could contact Egypt within twenty-four hours along a network of sun-mirror stations, and who required foreign ambassadors to approach his throne-room under a canopy three miles long and supported by a double row of his Berber soldiers. It once housed a population of 20,000 including a harem of 6,000. Damaged by the Berber revolt in 1010, its ruins were not rediscovered by archaeologists until 1911.
2
When Spaniards shout ‘Ole’, many do not care to remember that they are voicing an invocation to Allah.
Islam’s impact on the Christian world cannot be exaggerated. Islam’s conquests turned Europe into Christianity’s main base. At the same time the great swathe of Muslim territory cut the Christians off from virtually all direct contact with other religions and civilizations. The barrier of militant Islam turned the Peninsula in on itself, severing or transforming many of the earlier lines of commercial, intellectual, and political intercourse. In the field of religious conflict, it left Christendom with two tasks—to fight Islam and to convert the remaining pagans. It forced the Byzantine Empire to give lasting priority to the defence of its Eastern borders, and hence to neglect its imperial mission in the West. It created the conditions where the other, more distant Christian states had to fend for themselves, and increasingly to adopt measures for local autonomy and economic self-sufficiency. In other words, it gave a major stimulus to feudalism. Above all, by commandeering the Mediterranean Sea, it destroyed the supremacy which the Mediterranean lands had hitherto exercised over the rest of the Peninsula. Before Islam, the post-classical world of Greece and Rome, as transmuted by Christianity, had remained essentially intact. After Islam, it was gone forever. Almost by default, the political initiative passed from the Mediterranean to the emerging kingdoms of the north, especially to the most powerful of those kingdoms in ‘Francia’.
In the course of that eighth century, therefore, when Europe’s Christians were digesting the implications of the Islamic conquests, the seeds of a new order were sown. The Bishop of Rome, deprived of support from Byzantium, was forced to turn to the Franks, and to embark on the enterprise of the ‘Papacy’. The Franks saw their chance to back the Pope. Indirectly, Charlemagne was the product of Muhammad (see below, pp. 284–90). According to Henri Pirenne, whose thesis shattered earlier conceptions as surely as Islam shattered the ancient world, ‘The
Frankish Empire would probably never have existed without Islam, and Charlemagne without Mahomet would be inconceivable.’
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The arguments of Pirenne have been diminished on detailed points, especially regarding the alleged break in commercial relations. But they revolutionized the study of the transition from the ancient to the medieval worlds.
To talk of Muhammad and Charlemagne, however, is not enough. Islam affected Eastern Europe even more directly than it affected Western Europe. Its appearance set the bounds of a new, compact entity called ‘Christendom’, of which Constantinople would be the strongest centre for some time to come. It set a challenge to the pagans on the eastern fringes of Christian-Muslim rivalry, who henceforth faced the prospect of choosing between the two dominant religions. Above all, it created the cultural bulwark against which European identity could be defined. Europe, let alone Charlemagne, is inconceivable without Muhammad.
Christianity’s rivalry with Islam raised moral and psychological problems no less profound than those already existing between Christianity and Judaism. Both Christians and Muslims were taught to regard the other as the infidel. Their misunderstandings, antagonisms and negative stereotypes were endless. It was never popular, least of all among the clergy, to stress how much the three great monotheistic religions held in common. As a result, a strong dichotomy developed between the Christian ‘West’ and the Islamic ‘East’. Medieval Europeans commonly referred to Muslims as ‘Saracens’, an epithet derived from the Arabic word
sharakyoun
or ‘easterner’. Among those Westerners who have imagined themselves to be the bearers of a superior civilization, there has been a long tradition of viewing the Muslim East with mindless disdain.
