| Posted By Dr. Sahib M
Bleher
"Why then do you call him a
prophet and a messenger of God, who
was but a voluptuary, defiled to the
very core, a brigand, a profligate, a
murderer and a robber? Tell me, pray,
what do you mean by prophecy and by
apostle? God knows you would not be
able to tell had you not been taught
by the Christian!" But for its
greater eloquence this late Byzantine
polemic by Bartholomew of Edessa
differs little from today's bile spat
out against the prophet Muhammad and
Muslims in general by the tabloid
press in support of a wider political
agenda. In Norway , a little further
north from Denmark , where similar
polemic was recently directed in
pictorial form against the prophet in
series of cartoons, a Muslim
historian, Dr Nasir Khan, has given us
a very useful tool in understanding
the mindset of the West when it comes
to Muslims and their religion. His
book "Perceptions of Islam in the
Christendoms" is a historical
survey of centuries of distorted
encounters between Christians and
Muslims.
Khan does not hide his own leanings,
and to claim complete neutrality would
imply a level of dishonesty even for a
historian, but he desists from
polemicising himself, quoting instead
extensively from original sources. If
his book causes embarrassment for
Western readers it is simply because
their history is embarrassing and to
be reminded of it may prove painful.
For example, Fulcher of Chartres gives
the following eye witness account of
the Crusades at the end of the 11th
century: "This may seem strange
to you. Our squires and footmen …
split open the bellies of those they
had just slain in order to extract
from the intestines the gold coins
which the Saracens had gulped down
their loathsome throats while alive
… With drawn swords our men ran
through the city not sparing anyone,
even those begging for mercy … They
entered the houses of the citizens,
seizing whatever they found in them
… whoever first entered a house,
whether he was rich or poor … was to
occupy and own the house or palace and
whatever he found in it as if it were
entirely his own … in this way many
poor people became very wealthy."
Khan does not sensationalise. As a
serious historian he tries to offer
explanations for how the negative
stereotypes of the other came about,
including probing into the social and
economic causes. He starts his survey
by giving a background to the
development of early Christianity and
its numerous, competing, sects. When
Islam started to spread as a new faith
from Arabia , Christians mainly viewed
it as just another heresy from the
officially accepted dogma, like
Gnosticism, Manichaeism, or
Nestorianism. Until Islam became
viewed as more of a serious political
threat their efforts against their own
co-religionists with differing
interpretations of what it meant to be
Christian were much more pronounced
than those aimed at Islam of which
they knew little. However, Islam did
not simply collapse and go away as
predicted, and with taking
Constantinople and pushing Christendom
out of much of its previous territory
became a serious contender. It was at
this time, between the 12th and 14th
centuries, that the misrepresentative
image of Islam was created which still
dominates the European psyche today.
At the same time, due to the status
afforded to Christians in the Qur'an
as people of the book, the Ottoman
rulers tolerated the practice of
Christianity amongst themselves to a
degree that at times emboldened their
Christian subjects to openly challenge
them and test the waters.
A similar arrogance was displayed in
the 9th century by the movement of the
martyrs of Cordoba who purposefully
tried to blaspheme against the prophet
in order to be punished and put to
death. Their aim in instigating
conflict arose from the deep worry
that many Christians were drawn to
Islam and its culture and sciences in
spite of the bigoted image their
church elders painted of it. Paul
Alvarus, for example, observes at the
time: "My fellow Christians
delight in the poems and romances of
the Arabs; they study the works of
Mohammedan theologians and
philosophers, not in order to refute
them, but to acquire a correct and
elegant Arabic style. Where today can
a layman be found who reads the Latin
Commentaries on Holy Scriptures? Who
is there that studies the Gospels, the
Prophets, and the Apostles?"
Again, this observation of more than a
thousand years ago has surprisingly
modern undertones in the fear of
losing one's own heritage to a more
attractive, albeit misguided, culture.
Khan quotes Grunebaum summing up the
Christian approach as follows:
"When the Christian looked upon
Islam, his primary task was not to
study this phenomenon of an alien
faith that seemed both akin to and
apart from his own but rather to
explain the unexplainable, to wit, the
artful machinations by which Mohammed
had won over his people to the
acceptance of his absurd
confabulations. There is always,
evening the most aggressive and
contemptuous discussions of Islam, an
element of apologetic self-defence in
the utterances of the Christian
writers, almost a touch of the
propaganda for the home front. It is
as if only the most derogatory
presentation of the despicable but
powerful enemy could allay the
suspicion that his case be stronger
than it was wise to admit." And
he cites Southern describing their
wilful ignorance of the religion of
Islam: "They were ignorant of
Islam, not because they were far
removed from it like the Carolingian
scholars, but for the contrary reason
that they were in the middle of it. If
they saw and understood little of what
went on round them, and if they knew
nothing of Islam as a religion, it was
because they wished to know nothing
… They were fleeing from Islam: it
is not likely that they would turn to
Islam to understand what they were
fleeing from."
Whilst criticising Islam for alleged
loose sexual morals European capitals
were awash with debauchery; whilst
attacking Islam for its alleged
warlike nature in contradiction to the
peaceful teachings of Jesus, Christian
rulers made ready for war against
Islam. The reconquista was the
beginning of the Christian counter
attack. The conquering Normans took
Sicily and Malta back from the Muslims
and the Spanish Catholics prepared for
pushing the Muslims out of the Iberian
peninsula . Meanwhile there were
internal conflicts both in Europe and
in the Muslim world. The Seljuk Turks
pushed from the East into Byzantine
and in their advance made inroads into
the Christian Levante, eventually
capturing Jerusalem . The Berbers of
North Africa kept the Spanish attempts
in check for some two centuries, but
eventually had to recede back to
Africa due to internal problems of
dissension. When the Spaniards took
full control under Isabella they meted
out merciless retribution to the
infidels, the Jews and the Muslims.
Those who escaped the decimation fled
to North Africa and Turkey , which is
how the famous Jewish city of
Thessalonica became established within
the Ottoman realm. The papacy in Rome
started to press for the crusades with
the purported objective of recapturing
Jerusalem , but once stripped of the
propagandistic justification, the real
aims were mainly economic and
political. When the first wave of
Crusaders moved eastwards they were
just as good at plundering the towns
and villages of their own
co-religionist allies as they were at
destroying Muslim towns and villages
in their path. Maybe today, we would
call it "friendly fire". The
cruelty and barbarism of the crusaders
contributed to a shift in the Muslim
perception of Christianity and the
goodwill previously afforded to the
people of the scripture started to
evaporate and be replaced by an enemy
image.
Whilst the crusades proved highly
profitable for the West, enriching
cities like Venice , Paris and Turin ,
and provided the desired achievement
of the conquest of Jerusalem , they
remained very much a side show for the
realm of Islam. The biggest threat to
its existence came from the East in
the form of the Mongol invasion begun
under Genghis Khan. Initially they had
marched through the Caucasus and
southern Russia in their conquest of
the world in which "all cities
must be razed so that the world may
once again become a great steppe in
which Mongol mothers will suckle free
and happy children." They would
have overrun Western Europe in the
13th century had it not been for the
fact that Batu Khan, who had led the
attack on Hungary, had to hurry back
upon the news of the death of his
uncle Ogodai (Ghengi's Khan's son) in
order to qualify as a potential
successor. Europe was spared and the
Middle East lay in the uninterrupted
path of advance of the Mongols
instead. The crusaders saw this as a
divine sign and even tried to make
alliances with the Mongols, but since
they made such offers preconditional
on their conversion to Christianity,
they had limited effects. In the end
the Mongols were checked by the
Mamluks in Egypt and prevented the
eradication of Islam, and over time
the erstwhile enemy was converted and
provided strength to the recovering
Islamic caliphate.
With the failure of the crusades and
the early beginnings of the
Renaissances the Western hopes of
conquering Islam gave way to a more
conciliatory approach in the hope of
converting Muslims to the gospel,
placing emphasis, however, less on
Church doctrine and scripture and
relying more on philosophical
arguments. Roger Bacon and St Thomas
Aquinas, for example, represent this
new methodology. For the centuries to
come the Christian dominions remains
fearful of the Turkish threat, and
when Luther and Calvin led the revolt
against Papal authority, they did,
nonetheless inherit the same venomous
antipathy for Islam. With the new
intellectual freedoms gained in the
reformation, however, Arabic learning
also became popular in the West, and
the early Western universities as well
as the Western philosophers of the
17th and 18th centuries seriously
engaged with Arabic literature and
sciences. Gradually the image of Islam
became a little more complete and less
distorted. They respite, however, was
short-lived, since European
expansionism once more opted for the
military solution during the period of
imperialism and colonialism justified
polemically by social Darwinism
calling for the need to convert and
civilise the savages of conquered
lands. Missionary activity flourished
in this political climate.
After two savage world wars, powered
by Europe 's industrial killing
machine and unprecedented in human
cost, the imperialist project faltered
and former colonies were given a level
of independence, replacing direct with
indirect rule. Khan ends his book on a
positive note, pointing to serious
attempts by Church and secular
establishments during the 20th century
to re-engage with Islam on the basis
of mutual understanding. When looked
at a year afteP the publication of the
book, however, it seems that this
interlude was as short-lived as
previous ones, and power politics and
economics once again dominate the
relationships between the
post-Christian and Islamic
civilisations. In their rhetoric the
new crusaders in the White House and
their allies in Europe and Australia
draw on the same old worn clichés of
the past. Nasir Khan's book is an
excellent resource to enlighten these
confusing times by providing a
historic backdrop against which they
can be evaluated, and to my knowledge
it is the first such attempt. It is an
excellent exposition both for Muslim
and non-Muslim readers and helps them
in understanding both of the origins
of modern polemics against Islam as
well as their ultimate futility.
Nasir Khan, Perceptions of Islam in
the Christendoms - A Historical
Survey, Oslo 2006: Solum Forlag, 487
pages.
Fly
With Flying Imam
<>
TrueTranslation
by
Dr.
Sahib M Bleher,
a
professor of linguistics and
translation, member of the Chartered
Institute of Linguists <>
Books
& Audio
|
