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Perceptions
of Islam in the Christendoms
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.
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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 after 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.
Dr. Nasir Khan has his own blog at http://nasir-khan.blogspot.com
through which he can be contacted.
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