Jihad in More Recent Times
Throughout Islamic history there have been numerous reform movements, missionary activities and frontier struggles conducted under the banner of jihad – the Almohads in Spain and the Ghaznavids and Ghurids in Muslim India, to mention but two examples. It is, however, in the Muslim response to the Crusades in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that we find perhaps the most seminal expression of jihad. This came in response to the irruption of the Crusaders from western Europe into the heart of the Islamic Near East and their seizure of Muslim territories and, above all, Jerusalem. The jihad programme which developed in Syria and the Holy Land in reaction to this unheralded external aggression from western Europe has become the model for subsequent manifestations of the spirit of jihad.168
The legal theory of jihad, as enshrined in the Shari‘a, has been the mainspring of important movements of conquest, proselytism and defence throughout Islamic history. The special emphasis placed in this chapter on jihad in the Crusading period is not without its relevance to the modern Arab and modern Muslim consciousness. The Crusades are viewed by some Muslims as the first attempt by the West at colonisation of the ‘House of Islam’. It was, moreover, the successful exploitation of the jihad ideal which removed the alien presence of the Crusaders from Muslim soil. There are lessons here for our own age. To many Muslims in the 1990s Israel is the new Crusader state against which jihad must now be waged. The enduring value of the jihad concept is thus vividly illustrated. The legal intricacies of jihad are not understood by many Muslims today; for them, jihad is nothing but a rhetorical term, a rallying, unifying cry which appeals to the emotions but for which there is no clear programme. Awkward legal questions are not asked in such an atmosphere. The term jihad is bandied about by modern heads of state who do not have the supporting system of lawyers, tract-writers and preachers who underpinned the claims of a Nur al-Din or a Saladin to be waging Holy War, and who carefully defined the implications and targets of jihad. But, at the end of the twentieth century, Jerusalem is as much on the scene as it was in Crusader times.
Figure 4.39 Madrasa al-Shibliyya, mausoleum, plan and elevation, early thirteenth century, Damascus, Syria
Notes
1. H. Djait, Europe and Islam, London, 1985, 70.
2. For the estrangement between Nur al-Din and Saladin, cf. Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, XI, 150; Ibn al-Furat, Tarikh al-duwal wa’l-muluk, ed. H. al-Shamma, Basra, 1967–9, 184–6.
3. ‘Imad al-Din, Sana, 289; al-Maqrizi, trans. Broadhurst, 63, 70, 81.
4. Al-Maqrizi, trans. Broadhurst, 79–80.
5. M. C. Lyons and D. E. P. Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War, Cambridge, 1982, 41.
6. Al-Raba’i, Fada’il al-Sham wa Dimishq, ed. S. al-Munajjid, Damascus, 1950.
7. Ibn al-Jawzi, Fada’il al-Quds al-sharif, ms. Princeton, Garrett, Arabic 586, mentioned in Sivan, L’Islam, 117.
8. Sivan, L’Islam, 143.
9. Entitled Tuhfat al-talibin fi’l-jihad wa’l-mujahidin; cf. Sibt, VIII, 520.
10. J. Rikabi, La poésie profane sous les Ayyoubides, Paris, 1949, 75–6; 293–4.
11. Ibid., 75–6; 293–4.
12. Cf. also Sura 101: 5, ‘And the mountains will become as carded wool.’
13. Cf. P. Balog, The Coinage of the Ayyubids, London, 1980, 77.
14. Cf. the huge gold coins minted by the Ghurids and the Almohads.
15. 532/1137–87-558/1163 (1 page), 558/1163–583/1187 (40 pages), 583/1187–589/1193 (170 pages); P. M. Holt, ‘The sultan as ideal ruler: Ayyubid and Mamluk prototypes’, in Suleyman the Magnificent and His Age, ed. M. Kunt and C. Woodhead, Harrow, 1995, 124, page nos. from Ibn Shaddad, Al-nawadir al-sultaniyya, ed. J. El-Shayyal, Cairo, 1964.
16. Ibn Shaddad, Nawadir, 40; al-Maqrizi makes the same point: ‘Repenting past wine-bibbing, he renounced drink and shunned frivolous pleasures’ (trans. Broadhurst, 37).
17. Quoted by Gabrieli, 87.
18. Gabrieli, 88. Indeed in 1191 he put to death the Sufi al-Suhrawardi for alleged heretical beliefs (Illuminationism – ishraqiyya).
19. Al-Maqrizi, trans. Broadhurst, 99.
20. ibn Shaddad, quoted by Gabrieli, 93.
21. Gabrieli, 93.
22. Gabrieli, 98.
23. Gabrieli, 98.
24. Fi sabil Allah, a common Qur’anic phrase.
25. Ibn Shaddad, RHC, III, 106.
26. Gabrieli, 99.
27. Gabrieli, 100.
28. D. S. Richards, ‘A consideration of two sources for the life of Saladin’, JSS, 25/1 (1980), 46–65.
29. Holt, ‘The sultan’, 126.
30. Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, XII, 63.
31. Ibn Jubayr, Broadhurst, 33.
32. Ibn Jubayr, Broadhurst, 35.
33. Ibn Jubayr, Broadhurst, 311.
34. Al-Maqrizi, trans. Broadhurst, 105.
35. ‘Imad al-Din, Sana, 100; al-Maqrizi, trans. Broadhurst, 54.
36. Abu Shama, II, 65.
37. Sana, 328, according to Lyons and Jackson, Saladin, 246.
38. Sana, 331, according to Lyons and Jackson, Saladin, 246.
39. Abu Shama, II, 70; according to Lyons and Jackson, Saladin, 245.
40. Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, XII, 62.
41. Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, XII, 62.
42. S. Lane-Poole, Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, London, 1985.
43. H. A. R. Gibb, The achievement of Saladin’, in Saladin: Studies in Islamic history, ed. Y. Ibish, Beirut, 1972, 176.
44. A. S. Ehrenkreutz, Saladin, Albany, 1972, 237.
45. Lyons and Jackson, Saladin, 240.
46. Köhler, 316.
47. Cf. G. Wiet, Tes inscriptions de Saladin’, Syria, 3 (1922), 307–28.
48. Köhler, 320, n. 382, citing ms. Bibi. nat. arabe 6/24, fol. ior.
49. H. Möhring, ‘Der andere Islam: Zum Bild vom toleranten Sultan Saladin’ in Die Begegnung des Westens mit dem Osten, ed. O. Engels and P. Schreiner, Sigmaringen, 1991, 140.
50. Al-Qadi al-Fadil, quoted by Lyons and Jackson, Saladin, 85.
51. Cited by Lewis, Islam, I, 67.
52. RHC, IV, 336. Cf. also the text of a letter written by al-Qadi al-Fadil on Saladin’s behalf to the caliph al-Nasir, in al-Qalqashandi, Subh ala’sha, ed. M. A. Ibrahim, Cairo, 1913–20, vol. VIII, 282–9.
53. Ibn Shaddad, RHC, III, 100–1.
54. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, II, 633–42; ‘Imad al-Din, Sana, 314.
55. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, II, 635.
56. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, II, 636.
57. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, II, 636–7.
58. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, II, 640.
59. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, II, 637.
60. ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, Kitab al-fath al-qussi fi’l-fath al-qudsi, ed. C. Landberg, Leiden, 1888, 413.
61. RCEA, IX, inscription no. 3447, 174–5, quoted by Lewis, Islam, I, 65–6.
62. Ibn Shaddad, RHC, III, 265; D. Little, ‘Jerusalem under the Ayyubids and Mamluks 1197–1516 ad’, in Jerusalem in History, ed. K. J. Asali, London, 1989, 179.
63. ‘Abd al-Latif, quoted in Ibn Abi Usaybi‘a, ‘Uyun al-anba’, II, 206, quoted by Lewis, Islam, I, 66.
64. Cf. H. Daiber, ‘Die Kreuzzüge im Licht islamischer Theologie’, in A. Zimmermann and I. Craemer-Ruegensberg, Orientalische Kultur und europäisches Mittelalter, Berlin and New York, 1985, 77–85.
65. ‘Imad al-Din, Sana, 52 and 56.
66. Abu Shama, RHC, IV, 12.
67. Abu Shama, RHC, IV, 12.
68. Holt, ‘The sultan as ideal ruler’, 128.
69. EI2: Salah al-Din.
70. Ibn Khallikan, de Slane, II, 639.
71. Cf. R. S. Humphreys, ‘Ayyubids, Mamluks and the Latin East in the thirteenth century’, Mamluk Studies Review, 2 (1998), 1.
72. Ibid., 4.
73. Ibid., 5.
74. P.M. Holt, The Age of the Crusades, London, 1986, 61.
75. Ibn Wasil, IV, 97.
76. Humphreys, ‘A
yyubids, Mamluks’, 10.
77. Ibn al-Athir, Kamil, XII, 497, quoted byD. S. Richards, ‘Ibn al-Athir and the later parts of the Kamil’, in Medieval Historical Writing in the Christian and Islamic Worlds, ed. D. O. Morgan, London, 1982, 97; cf. also a similar view expressed by Ibn ‘Abd al-Zahir, Rawd, 46.
78. Balog, Coinage, 45.
79. Cf. L. Atrache, Die Politik der Ayyubiden, Münster, 1996, 236.
80. D. Sourdel and J. Sourdel-Thomine, ‘Un texte d’invocation en faveur de deux princes Ayyubides’, Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and History Studies in Honor of George C. Miles, ed. D. K. Kouymjian, Beirut, 1974, 349.
81. Qur’an 3: 200.
82. M. van Berchem, ‘Eine arabische Inschrift aus dem Ostjordanlande’, in van Berchem, Opera Minora, Geneva, 1978, vol. I, 539. Another inscription dated 627/1229–30 is in the name of ‘Uthman b. al-Malik al-‘Adil – al-mujahid al-murabit al-ghazi al-shahid: M. van Berchem, ‘Le château de Bâniâs et ses inscriptions’, in van Berchem, Opera Minora, 282–3.
83. Sibt b. al-Jawzi calls this Ayyubid prince ‘a jihad fighter in the path of God’ in his obituary, VIII/2, 644.
84. R.S. Humphreys, ‘Politics and architectural patronage in Ayyubid Damascus’, in The Islamic World from Classical to Modern Times, ed. C. E. Bosworth et al., Princeton, 1989, 157–74.
85. Little, ‘Jerusalem’, 180.
86. Ibid., 181.
87. Sibt, VIII/2, 601.
88. Sibt, VIII/2, 601.
89. For a record of the contacts between al-Kamil and Frederick, cf. Ibn Wasil, IV, 242 and 244–5; Ibn Nazif, 176–7.
90. Ibn Wasil, IV, 243–4; cf. also al-Maqrizi, trans. Broadhurst, 26; quoted by Little, ‘Jerusalem’, 184.
91. Little, ‘Jerusalem’, 184.
92. Sibt, VIII/2, 653.
93. Sibt, VIII/2, 654; Ibn Wasil, IV, 245.
94. L. Pouzet, Damas au Vlle/XIIe siècle, Beirut, 1988, 140, n. 159.
95. Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 1; al-Maqrizi, trans. Broadhurst, 272.
96. Al-Maqrizi, trans. Broadhurst, 272; Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 1; Little, ‘Jerusalem’, 185.
97. Al-Maqrizi, trans. Broadhurst, 274.
98. Sibt, VIII/2, 746; cf. also Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 5.
99. Except for a short period in 647/1249.
100. C. Cahen and I. Chabbouh, ‘Le testament d’al-Malik as-Salih Ayyub’, Melanges Laoust, BEO, 29 (1977), 100.
101. Pouzet, Damas, 284–5; Sivan, L’Islam, 136, 140.
102. Sivan, L’Islam, 144.
103. The reading sahn (courtyard) makes better sense than hisn (citadel) here.
104. There was an acceptable density of people needed to perform the prayer properly. That density involves a certain distance between worshippers so that they can accomplish the movements of prayer. But since this was a Saturday, the body of people in the mosque could have been much more tightly packed since it appears that they were there to hear Sibt b. al-Jawzi address them and could therefore sit much more closely together.
105. Sibt, VIII/2, 544–5.
106. Sibt, VIII/2, 604.
107. Humphreys, ‘Ayyubids, Mamluks’, 7.
108. For a recent assessment of jihad in the Ayyubid period, cf. Atrache, Die Politik, 234–5.
109. J. P. Berkey, The Mamluks as Muslims: the military elite and the construction of Islam in medieval Egypt’, in The Mamluks in Egyptian Politics and Society, ed. T. Philipp and U. Haarmann, Cambridge, 1998, 167.
110. Quoted by Lewis, Islam, I, 98.
111. Holt, The Age of the Crusades, 95.
112. An excellent summary can be found in Berkey, The Mamluks as Muslims’, 163–5.
113. For a recent analysis of Mamluk-Mongol relations, cf. R. Amitai-Preiss, Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260–1281, Cambridge, 1995.
114. RCEA, XII, inscription no. 4556, 104. There are echoes of this in the Mamluk sultan Qalawun’s inscription over the entrance to the gatehouse of the Aleppo citadel. Cf. Irwin, ‘Islam and the Crusades, 1096–1699’, 225.
115. RCEA, XII, inscription no. 4556, 104–5.
116. RCEA, XII, inscription no. 4589, 125–6.
117. Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 89.
118. E. Herzfeld, Matériaux pour un corpus inscriptionum arabicarum: Deuxième partie: Syrie du Nord, vol. I/1, Cairo, 1955, 90, inscription no. 40.
119. Al-Qalqashandi, Subh al-a‘sha fi sina‘at al-insha’, ed. M. A. Ibrahim, Cairo, 1913–20, VII, 378–9.
120. Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 78.
121. Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 7 8–9.
122. Quatremère, I, 152.
123. Quatremère, I, 156.
124. Rawd, 76.
125. Holt, The sultan as ideal ruler’, 131; Ibn ‘Abd al-Zahir, Al-rawd al zahir fi sirat al-Malik al-Zahir, ed. A. A. Al-Khuwaytir, Riyadh, 1976.
126. Rawd, 77–8.
127. Holt, The Age of the Crusades, 97.
128. It is entitled Husn al-manaqib al-sirriyya al-muntaza’ and was finished in 716/1316.
129. Holt, The sultan as ideal ruler’, 136–7.
130. ‘Izz al-Din Ibn Shaddad, author of the geographical work Al-a‘laq al-khatira, wrote a biography of Baybars called Al-rawd al-zahir fi sirat al-Malik al-Zahir. The part before 670/1271 is lost but the rest is extant. Cf. Ibn Shaddad, Eddé, xiii.
131. Sivan, L’Islam, 172; citing Shafi‘ b. ‘Ali, Husn al-manaqib, ms. Paris arabe 1707, fol. 89a. The work was edited by A. A. Al-Khuwaytir, Riyadh, 1976.
132. Sivan, L’Islam, 172, citing Shafi‘, fol. 103a.
133. Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 75.
134. Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, 92.
135. P. Thorau, The Lion of Egypt, trans. P. M. Holt, London, 1992, 254.
136. Baybars wandered around the province of al-Gharbiyya, for example, to collect information on its governor; cf. Quatremère, I, 231.
137. Baybars al-Mansuri, Zubdat al-fikra, 278.
138. Sivan, L’Islam, 178.
139. Ibn al-Furat, Lyons, no.
140. Sivan, L’Islam, 173.
141. Cf. M. Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem, London, 1987.
142. Qalawun is also presented by Shafi‘ b. ‘Ali and other Mamluk sources as a great mujahid against the Mongols and the Franks.
143. D. P. Little, The fall of ‘Akka in 690/1291: the Muslim version’, in Studies in Islamic History and Civilisation in Honour of Professor David Ayalon, ed. M. Sharon, Jerusalem, 1986, 170.
144. Ibid., 178; Sivan, L’Islam, 183.
145. Cf. Chapter 3, 101–2.
146. Sivan, L’Islam, 183.
147. Cited by Sivan, L’Islam, 183.
148. Little, /fAkka’, 179.
149. Ibid., 179.
150. Ibid., 181; cf. also Sivan, L’Islam, 183–4.
151. The root in Arabic has pejorative connotations: ‘may God turn your face yellow’ is what was said if a person wished ill on someone. The origin of the term used here, ‘Banu’l-Asfar’ is disputed. According to Dozy, it was used for the Byzantines and Christians more generally. ‘His blood is yellow’ means ‘he is a coward’. This whole root in Arabic has meanings associated with pallor, jaundice, bile, etc. R. Dozy, Supplement aux dictionnaires arabes, Leiden, 1881, vol. I, 835–6.
152. Sivan, L’Islam, 183.
153. Already as Qalawun’s heir-apparent he had been given such a title: Salah al-Dunya wa’l-Din (the probity of this world and religion) in 689/1290, perhaps as a pious spur for him to emulate Saladin. Cf. RCEA, XIII, inscription no. 4927, 87.
154. Sivan, L’Islam, 165; Baybars al-Mansuri, Tuhfa, 127.
155. Balog, Coinage, 121.
156. Ibid., 122.
157. RCEA, XIII, inscription no. 4946, 98–9: the inscription is on the Khan Ayyah in Damascus.
158. RCEA, XIII, inscription no. 4947, 100–1.
159. A. Morabia, ‘Ibn Taymiyya, dernier grand théoricien du jihad médiéval’, BEO, XXX/2, 1978, 85–99; cf. also A. Morabia, Le gihad dans l’islam medieval, Paris, 1983.
160. El2: Hanabila.
161. For the views of Ibn Taymiyya on jihad, cf. the works of A. Morabia; H. Laoust, Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques d‘Ibn Taymiyya, Cairo, 1939, 360–70.
162. Ibn Taymiyya, Majmu’ fatawa Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad b. Taymiyya, Riyadh, 1383, vol. XXVIII, 441–4.
163. Ibid., 442.
164. Sivan, L’Islam, 165.
165. Cf. Chapter 5.
166. Sivan, L’Islam, 205–6.
167. Köhler, Allianzen.
168. For a more extended discussion cf. Chapter 9.
CHAPTER FIVE
How the Muslims Saw the Franks: Ethnic and Religious Stereotypes
Purification is half the faith.1
(a saying of the Prophet Muhammad)
Introduction
THIS CHAPTER will look at the broad cultural and religious dimensions of the conflict between the Muslims and the Franks. In particular, it will emphasise the longevity and unchanging nature of the negative perceptions of the peoples of western Europe which can be found at least from the tenth century in Islamic literature. It will also explore the nexus of ideas associated with the ritual impurity caused by the Frankish occupation of Islamic religious sites. Muslim views on such matters as the cross, Christian religious images and buildings, Christian doctrine and the Papacy will also feature in the discussion.
We have already seen that the Muslims’ initial psychological response to the coming of the Crusaders was one of outrage and horror, at least amongst those who experienced first-hand the massacres and depredations perpetrated by the invaders, or who lived close enough to feel the repercussions of their presence. The rest of the Muslim world stood by and was too absorbed in its own preoccupations to react one way or the other.
Over the two hundred years of Crusader occupation in Syria and Palestine, however, there must have been more considered and protracted Muslim reactions to the Franks and a clearer view of them as a separate phenomenon must have emerged in Muslim society. Indeed, there can be no doubt that the Muslims were interested in the newcomers and that they formulated opinions on them which they recorded for posterity. Bernard Lewis is surely too negative in his statement that ‘For two centuries the Muslims of the Middle East were in intimate if hostile contact with groups of Franks established among them – yet at no time do they seem to have developed the least interest in them’.2 Of course, as Lewis goes on to point out, it is true that medieval Muslim historians did not view the Crusades as a separate phenomenon and that they evinced no interest in the government of the Frankish states in the Near East nor about Europe.3 Nevertheless, as this chapter and the next will attempt to show, the Frankish presence must have had a profound impact not only on those Muslims who found themselves ruled by the Franks, but also on the Muslim leadership, the military, and the religious classes – as well as the soldiery from the territories adjacent to the Crusader states who inevitably came into frequent contact with the Franks.
The Crusades- Islamic Perspectives Page 30