The Crusades- Islamic Perspectives

by Carole Hillenbrand

  The Neglect of Muslim Cemeteries

  It seems that demoralisation or restrictions – or perhaps just the advanced age and lowly social status of those Muslims who did stay on in the Kingdom of Jerusalem – discouraged the upkeep of cemeteries and tombs. ‘Ali al-Harawi, who visited the area in the early 1180s and wrote a guide to the pilgrimage sites there, suggests that neglect and ignorance had set in.142 He writes that in the cemetery at Ascalon as well as Gaza, Acre, Tyre, Sidon and the whole coastal region there are many tombs of holy men whose identity is no longer known. The same criticism is addressed to the upkeep of the tombs near the walls of Jerusalem.143

  Figure 6.32 (above and opposite) Animated inscription on the Fano Cup, inlaid metal, c. 1250, Syria

  Muslims under Frankish Rule: Better to stay or Better to Leave?

  The Christian reconquest of the eleventh century, in Sicily, Spain and the Levant, created a new problem for the Muslim lawyers whose system was predicated on the basis that Islam was society’s predominant faith. Instead, steadily in Sicily and Spain and suddenly in the Levant, long-established Muslim populations found themselves under Christian rulers. This was a disturbing experience.144 Should they leave for Muslim lands or should they stay, and if so, on what basis?145

  Sometimes the Franks made efforts to induce the Muslims back to their homes. According to Ibn al-‘Adim, at Atharib in northern Syria, shortly after the surrender of Sidon, Tancred tried to persuade Muslims to stay and organised the return of their wives who had fled to Aleppo.146

  As usual, Ibn Jubayr offers comments but, as Kedar points out, his evidence is flawed by the disadvantage that he stayed only thirty-two days in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, of which thirteen were spent on a ship in the harbour at Acre, waiting for a favourable wind.147

  At the time of conquest, flight was often the favoured Muslim option. However, the pull of the homeland would be strong, as Ibn Jubayr points out: ‘But there were some whose love of native land impelled them to return and, under the conditions of a safeguard which was written for them, to live amongst the infidels.’148 Ibn Jubayr, the traveller from distant Spain, is uncomprehendingly judgemental about such Levantine Muslims: ‘There can be no excuse in the eyes of God for a Muslim to stay in any infidel country, save when passing through it while the way lies clear in Muslim lands.’149

  Figure 6.33 Brass casket with benedictory Kufic inscription, late twelfth century, Iran

  Muslim Views of Frankish Government

  Ibn Jubayr’s verdict on Crusader Tyre is relatively favourable:

  Its roads and streets are cleaner than those of Acre. Its people are by disposition less stubborn in their unbelief, and by nature and habit they are kinder to the Muslim stranger. Their manners, in other words, are gentler. Their dwellings are larger and more spacious. The state of the Muslims in this city is easier and more peaceful.150

  Cultivation in the valley below the fortress of Banyas was an interesting example of Muslim-Frankish co-operation. According to Ibn Jubayr, who passed by the area in 580/1184,

  The cultivation of the vale is divided between the Franks and the Muslims, and in it there is a boundary known as ‘The Boundary of Dividing’. They apportion the crops equally, and their animals are mingled together, yet no wrong takes place between them because of it.151

  A well-known passage in Ibn Jubayr’s account speaks of good relations between Franks and the Muslims under their rule in the area between Tibnin and Acre. It is worth quoting at length:

  Our way lay through continuous farms and ordered settlements, whose inhabitants were all Muslims, living comfortably with the Franks. God protect us from such temptation. They surrender half their crops to the Franks at harvest time, and pay as well a poll-tax of one dinar and five qirat for each person. Other than that, they are not interfered with, save for a light tax on the fruits of trees. Their houses and all their effects are left to their full possession. All the coastal cities occupied by the Franks are managed in this fashion, their rural districts, the villages and farms, belonging to the Muslims.152

  Ibn Jubayr goes on to reflect that it is very unfortunate that these Muslims are receiving better treatment under Frankish rule than others who are governed by their co-religionists:

  They observe how unlike them in ease and comfort are their brethren in the Muslim regions under their (Muslim) governors. This is one of the misfortunes afflicting the Muslims. The Muslim community bewails the injustice of a landlord of its own faith, and applauds the conduct of its opponent and enemy, the Frankish landlord, and is accustomed to justice from him.153

  According to Ibn Jubayr, in that same area near Acre the Franks had appointed a Muslim headman to oversee Muslim workers.154

  Another extract, this time from ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, corroborates the view of Ibn Jubayr who might otherwise be criticised for having the superficial view of a tourist:

  As for Nablus, the inhabitants of its villages and most of its people were Muslims and were threaded on the thread of the subject people of the Franks (i.e. lived as subjects of the Franks) who annually collected from them a tax and did not change any law or cult of theirs.155

  This suggests that the Franks were levying something similar to the Islamic poll-tax (jizya) from their Muslim subjects.

  Figure 6.34 Terracotta figurine of a dancer, thirteenth century, Wasit, Iraq

  Frankish Justice

  Usama relates two stories in this connection. The first one is about a duel in Nablus between two Franks, a healthy young blacksmith and a strong-willed old man. It is a bloody and protracted struggle, supervised by the lord of the town and watched by the people in a circle. In the end, the old man is killed, dragged away and hanged. Usama comments wryly: This case illustrates the kind of jurisprudence and legal decisions the Franks have – may Allah’s curse be upon them!’156

  Usama’s second story concerns a Frankish ordeal by water, the victim being a Muslim man accused with his mother of assassinating Frankish pilgrims:

  They installed a huge cask and filled it with water. Across it they set a board of wood. They then bound the arms of the man charged with the act, tied a rope around his shoulders and dropped him into the cask, their idea being that in case he was innocent, he would sink in the water and they would then lift him up with the rope so that he might not die in the water; and in case he was guilty, he would not sink in the water. This man did his best to sink when they dropped him into the water, but he could not do it. So he had to submit to their sentence against him-may Allah’s curse be upon them! They pierced his eyeballs with red-hot awls.157

  Travel

  Travel in medieval times was difficult, dangerous and slow. Nevertheless, many a trip was undertaken, for reasons of administration, war, commerce, piety and the search for knowledge. According to Goitein’s analysis of the Geniza documents, a collection of medieval documents found in Fustat (Old Cairo), people preferred to travel by water rather than overland, even for short distances.158 The Islamic sources do not conceal the fact that Christian travellers from Europe often perished at Muslim hands. Frankish ships carrying pilgrims or Frankish pilgrims (hujjaj al-afranj) travelling on land did not always reach their destinations. Ibn Muyassar mentions the slaughter of an entire group of pilgrims in or near Tripoli in 546/1151.159 In 551/1157 ships carrying Christian pilgrims were wrecked in the port of Alexandria: the pilgrims were captured and sent to Cairo.160 For security reasons it was customary for land journeys to join caravans, which came into special prominence in the winter months when it was not possible to travel by sea. Overland travel was especially slow, expensive and hazardous. Wheeled transport was very rare.161

  Figure 6.35 A messenger, painting on paper, twelfth century, Egypt

  Travel on land was facilitated by the vast network of caravansarais (also called khans) where the traveller, merchant or pilgrim could put up under the same roof as his beast and his belongings. Ibn Jubayr’s account is sprinkled with references to the khans where he stayed during his trip
. When located in remote places, the khans were vulnerable to attack and had to be well fortified. One such place was the Khan of the Turcomans in Baqidin in Syria, south of Aleppo. As Ibn Jubayr remarks: ‘The khans on this road are like fortresses in their unassailableness and their fortifications. Their doors are of iron, and they present the utmost strength.’162 The khans were not just well defended. Ibn Jubayr describes the Khan of the Sultan on the road from Hims to Damascus as having ‘running water which flows through underground conduits to a fountain in the middle’.163

  Figure 6.36 Lady travelling in a litter on a camel, Blacas ewer, 629/1232, Mosul, Iraq

  However, there were obvious dangers. Being attacked by highwaymen was common.164 Usama describes how he protected money with which he had been entrusted. When the caravan stopped he would put the bags containing the money in the centre of a rug, fold its ends around them, spread another rug on top and sleep on top of the bags.165

  Corrupt officials were a hazard, especially in Upper Egypt, according to Ibn Jubayr, who complains bitterly about the humiliation experienced by pilgrims to Mecca, such as he was:

  The stopping of travellers’ ships and their search and examination, the plunging of hands into the clothing of the merchants in search of what dirhams and dinars they might have under their arm-pits or in their bosoms, is abominable to hear, and hateful to relate … amongst these tax-receivers the pilgrims stand in shame and abasement … There was no bundle or sack into which they did not drive those accursed staves …166

  Figure 6.37 Camel rider on a glazed ceramic vase, twelfth century, Iran

  Figure 6.38 Staging post near al-Qutayfa, plan, thirteenth century, Syria

  Figure 6.39 Khan al-‘Arus, staging post/caravansarai built by Saladin, 587/1191–2, Syria

  Figure 6.40 Khan al-Inqirata, staging post/caravansarai, plan and perspectival view, 773/1371–2, Syria

  In the twelfth century it was common for people from the Islamic countries to travel on Genoese, Pisan and other European ships, as the Geniza documents testify.167 It is not clear whether it was always possible for Muslims to secure separate accommodation from Christians when travelling by sea. Certainly there is no mention of such an arrangement when Ibn Jubayr set out from Spain eastwards in 578/1183. However, on his return journey he states specifically: ‘The Muslims secured places apart from the Franks.’168

  The traveller by sea was totally dependent on the winds. If they did not blow, the ship could be delayed for a considerable time, as was the fate of Ibn Jubayr in the ship at Acre. In Rajab 580/October 1184 he was obliged to wait twelve days for a favourable wind to sail westwards. As he rightly puts it: ‘Voyagers to the Maghrib, to Sicily, or to the lands of the Rum, await this east wind in these two seasons as they would await (the fulfilment of) an honest pledge.’169 Later, as a result of a long buffeting in the ocean, he reflects: ‘All (modes of) travel have their (proper) season, and travel by sea should be at the propitious time and the recognised period.’170

  A wind from the west could sabotage the journey westwards. Thanks to the skill of Genoese sailors, although the ship on which Ibn Jubayr was travelling lost half its mast and the attaching sails, the situation was rectified.171 A little later, the ship was becalmed when the sea became like ‘a palace made smooth with glass’.172

  Ships carried a wide variety of food products for sale to the passengers, if Ibn Jubayr’s experience is typical; he mentions pomegranate, quince, water-melon, pear, chestnut, walnut, chick-pea, broad bean, onion, garlic, fig, cheese and fish.173 This would be supplemented by fresh produce, such as bread, meat and oil, which would be sold by local people to the ship as it passed by an island or a piece of main-land.174 However, after a long time at sea, the food supplies inevitably petered out; most travellers brought enough food for fifteen or twenty days.175

  The Conduct of Religious Worship: The Appropriation of the Religious Monuments of ‘the Other Side’

  Since the days of the Islamic conquests in the seventh century the Muslims had on occasion taken over existing Christian places of worship or built on sites that other faiths had held to be holy. During the period of the Crusades, both Franks and Muslims generally tended to retain the function of religious buildings when they appropriated them from the enemy and to respect their sanctity, although they adapted them to the rites of their own faith.

  How the Franks Treated Islamic Monuments

  Despite the Franks’ initial brutality, their bestial qualities which were condemned in the Muslim sources, and the conviction that the Dome of the Rock had been ‘polluted’, its fabric was not damaged and its inscriptions were not destroyed. In the early period of Crusader occupation, the same process was repeated outside Jerusalem. For example, in Ascalon the Green Mosque became the church of Sancta Maria Viridis.176 As Ibn Jubayr sadly laments in the case of Acre: ‘Mosques became churches and minarets bell-towers’.177

  Yet it is important to point out that despite the sense of Islamic public outrage and humiliation, certain Muslim observers were able to comment on the fact that the Franks had sometimes behaved with commendable restraint towards Muslim religious monuments. Al-Harawi mentions, for example, that in the Aqsa mosque, the mihrab of the second caliph ‘Umar had been left untouched by the Franks. He then speaks of an inscription on the ceiling of the mosque in the name of the Fatimid caliph al-Zahir dated 426/1035: ‘This whole inscription, the gold mosaic foliages as well as the Qur’anic verses and the caliphs’ names above the doors have been left intact by the Franks.’178 According to al-Harawi, the Franks had also not touched the mihrab of ‘Umar in Bethlehem.179

  Figure 6.41 Turbat ‘Ali al-Harawi, plan, 602/1206, Aleppo, Syria

  When Saladin’s men entered the Dome of the Rock in 1187, they found that although an altar had been placed on the rock, it was shielded by a fine iron grille. Some damage had been caused, however, by Christian pilgrims, who had broken off small pieces of rock to take home as pious souvenirs.180 One may tentatively suggest on the basis of these details that the Franks seem to have been interested in superimposing large public symbols of Christian domination on key Muslim monuments – the cross on the Dome of the Rock and pictures of Christ and so on – rather than in altering the basic fabric of the buildings.

  Sometimes financial gain could come to the Christians from the use of a Muslim religious monument. ‘Imad al-Din mentions under the year 583/1187–8 that at Sebastiyya (Sivas) the tomb of Zakariyya (Zechariah), the father of John the Baptist,181 had been made into a church by priests:

  It was their venerated place of worship and revered shrine. They had covered it with screens and decorated it with silver and gold. They appointed for it set times for visitors and a community of monks were living in it. Only those who had a present of value with them were allowed to visit.182

  Muslim Treatment of Christian Religious Buildings

  The process of appropriation worked both ways. There were clearly no religious scruples felt by the Muslims about taking over what had been Crusader religious buildings and consecrating them for an Islamic purpose. An early instance of churches being converted into Islamic religious buildings is reported for Aleppo in 518/1124–5 by the local chronicler Ibn al-’Adim.

  Figure 6.42 Church, later transformed into a mosque, section, twelfth century, Ramla, Israel

  Yet, despite local anger at the Frankish raiding of the Aleppan area, the Muslims kept these churches as religious monuments, converting some of them into mosques (figures 6.42 and 6.43) and others, somewhat later, into religious colleges (plates 6.1 and 6.2; cf. plate 6.3).

  Another example of this process was the Salahiyya madrasa, a college founded in 588/1192 by Saladin – as a surviving inscription above the door indicates – for the teaching of Islamic law according to the Shafi‘ite madhháb. Ibn Shaddad was appointed as its first shaykh.183 In Crusader times this had been the fine Romanesque church of St Anne’s, and few architectural changes were deemed necessary for its transformation into a madrasa,184 Saladin als
o dedicated the patriarch’s palace to the Sufis and established a large bequest (waqf) for it.185 A church once belonging to the Hospitallers was made into a hospital.186 Money was allocated to it and rare drugs brought to it.

  Figure 6.43 Cathedral (later turned into a mosque), plan, twelfth century, Tartus (Tortosa), Syria

  Plate 6.1 Madrasa al-Halawiyya (a church converted into a madrasa in 543/1148–9), courtyard, Aleppo, Syria

  (Creswell Photographic Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, neg. C. 5658)

  The Frankish churches built in the Levant were extremely Western in design and decoration. Indeed, they would not have looked at all out of place back in Europe.187 Despite their strangeness in a Muslim context, however, some of them were transformed into mosques, as for example at Ramla, Hebron and Tarsus.188 The remains of the Frankish cathedral at Tripoli are now part of the town’s main mosque which boasts a bulky, rectangular tower with twin and triple arches and shafted openings and stands four storeys high, an unusual sight in a Muslim townscape. The Great Mosque in Beirut, a striking example of Romanesque architecture, was formerly the cathedral church of St John the Baptist.189

  Another interesting example of the wholesale take-over of an existing Crusader monument for an Islamic purpose is the outer cell of the Chapel of the Repose of Christ overlooking the Haram. This became a tomb for a Kurdish Ayyubid amir and was then known as the tomb (madfan) of Shaykh Darbas al-Kurdi al-Hakkari, who died around the beginning of the thirteenth century.190 The particular sanctity of this site to Christians – it was where Jesus was said to have rested after his capture in the Garden of Gethsemane – did not inhibit its subsequent use as a Muslim burial place.