God's Armies

by Malcolm Lambert

  This book is dedicated to the memory of Leo Liepmann, co-founder of Oxfam and at one time our landlord in Oxford. Jewish in origin, Quaker in belief, Professor of Economics at Breslau, he left Germany in 1933, as soon as Hitler came to power, carrying with him a giant bottle of aspirins which I remember admiring in his kitchen.

  CONTENTS

  Maps

  Introduction

  1. The Origins of Islam

  2. The Search for the Just Society

  3. The Dog That Did Not Bark

  4. The First Crusade

  5. The Great Might-Have-Been

  6. From Warlord to Jihadi: Nur al-Din and Saladin

  7. Saladin and the Lionheart

  8. Strategic Crusades and the Coming of the Mongols

  9. The Victory of the Mamluks

  10. The Long Aftermath

  11. Modern Times

  12. Reflections

  Guide to Further Reading

  Glossary

  Illustration Credits

  Acknowledgements

  Illustrations

  Index

  MAPS

  INTRODUCTION

  Emmanuel Sivan* drew me into writing this book. I chanced to come across his work at Bristol University, made it the theme of a contribution to a symposium of the Medieval Society and was thereafter intrigued.

  Sivan approached crusading history from a less familiar angle, using Arabic poems and chronicles to show how the First Crusade, by capturing Jerusalem in 1099 from the Muslims, permanently altered its importance as a pilgrim’s objective for the Islamic world. Mecca and the Kaba should be visited once in a lifetime, is the Prophet’s command to believers. Medina is the site to which Muhammad fled to avoid persecution and likely death and holds his tomb. It is second to Mecca. Jerusalem, the site of Mount Moriah and of the Night Journey of the Prophet, was also a place of pilgrimage, but it ranked third and had fallen away in importance. The crusade changed everything: Jerusalem became a vital objective. Poets, preachers and Muslim leaders called for jihad, war for the defence of Islam to recover Jerusalem. It became the most divided city in the world, sacred to three religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. However, Sivan was too good a historian not to note that the changes he described took time. Muslims at first saw the capture of Jerusalem as a temporary phenomenon and were distracted by plague and their own dissensions. There was much abuse and self-interest behind early talk of jihad.

  Sivan changed my view in another way. He taught me how important Nur al-Din was, the true master of Saladin and a broader thinker, who developed from being a self-seeking warlord to a true jihadi and a protagonist of moral rearmament within Islam to win God’s favour for the recovery of Jerusalem. He was a propagandist of great style, who commissioned a pulpit to be put into the al-Aqsa mosque when the city fell to Muslim troops. But he also spoke for jihad to recover purity of faith, to establish Sunni orthodoxy against what he saw as the heresy of Shiism. This, I came to realise, was the more important objective for him, leading him to commission an architecture reflecting Sunnism and to sponsor a script for the Quran replacing the traditional Kufic, designed to eliminate obscurities in textual readings which aided Shiite missionaries.

  Saladin acted for Nur al-Din and was a former mercenary who made his way from a humble position by sheer talent and achieved two vital objectives: Jerusalem and the elimination of the Fatimids as a power holding Cairo. There is no doubt which mattered more to Nur al-Din, and he lived to see it, as the khutba – the prayer for the ruler – ceased to be spoken for the Fatimid caliph in Cairo. Saladin it was in 1187 who took Jerusalem and installed Nur al-Din’s minbar, the specially constructed pulpit, in the al-Aqsa mosque after his death.

  The conflict between Sunni and Shiites remains the deepest source of division within Islam, as was painfully apparent in 2015 with the emergence of the Isil group. My first chapter surveys the period 610–61, which is vital for understanding how the conflict originated and is appropriately studied by a medievalist.

  Crusades as a field of study has moved rapidly in recent decades and has been written up by fine historians. Islamic history also has had excellent historians, and both the United States and Britain have made major contributions but it has not been so well publicised. This has encouraged me to give space to the Islamic side, and to devote my second chapter to give a glimpse of the complexity of belief and aspiration in the formative years before the eleventh century and to illustrate the deepening divisions in Islam. Information can only illuminate on both sides. Public opinion in the West has too often been inclined to see Islam as one unified force, often in its most radical form. This is a grave distortion, and I hope to explain something of the variety of forms that Islam takes and the possibilities it offers of healing and reconciliation with Christianity. On the other side, a leading Western theologian on a mission for the Blair Foundation in Iran found that scholars there were surprised and interested to learn of the great variety of opinions within contemporary Christianity.

  After I had embarked on writing, my last inspiration came from Thames and Hudson’s splendidly illustrated account of the making of a new minbar to replace Nur al-Din’s original within the al-Aqsa mosque, destroyed by a deranged Australian arsonist in 1968. It has made me realise what a vital contribution has been made both by the Hashemite rulers of Jordan and HRH Charles, Prince of Wales,† rescuing traditional Islamic workmanship from near extinction, drawing from Turkey the vital walnut and giving the impetus to as exact a reproduction as is possible, recreating the ancient technique, which dispenses with glue, holding in balance patterned wood and inlays of ebony and ivory. The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts brings together skilled workers without distinction of belief, in accordance with his wish to act as Defender of Faiths. I was especially moved by the passages on sacred geometry, the illustration from Chartres Cathedral and the argument that the religions of the world have a major part to play in the combating of crude materialism.

  A last note: in keeping with the notion that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, I have substituted God for Allah, as far as I am able, in the quotations.

  * E. Sivan, L’Islam et la croisade: Idéologie et propagande dans les réactions Musulmanes aux croisades (Paris, 1968).

  † For a broader explanation of the Prince of Wales’s views on materialism, see his book Harmony: A New Way of Looking at our World, written with T. Juniper and I. Skelly (London, 2010).

  1

  THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM

  To the Arab world of the seventh century, the coming of Islam was a major shock. Traditionally idol-worshipping and polytheistic, this was a society which believed in a kind of slot-machine use of deities – of which there were many, each responsible for some of the functions of daily life. Sacrifices to these deities, it was hoped, would produce the results desired. These nomadic desert dwellers inhabited a largely arid peninsula, living by their flocks and herds and, above all, by the camel, which was pre-eminent for raiding, provisioning and trading because of its capacity for speed and for travelling two weeks without water. Possession of, or access to, oases made these people’s hardy life possible. The dull routine of pastoral life was enlivened by the excitement of raiding, driving off animals, fighting over sources of water and grazing rights, avenging deaths of clan members. In this harsh environment the burying alive of unwanted female infants was customary. Poetry celebrating heroic warriors, their victories and their deaths was greatly valued. The Bedouin used magic to propitiate demons (jinn) and worshipped ancestors, sacred stones and the stars. It was an anarchic society, whose tribes were constantly splitting, so kinship ties were vital for community cohesion and law enforcement.

  Beyond the desert, the haram, the pagan sanctuary, gave opportunities f
or common worship and economic exchange, and was a refuge from fighting. Pagan society linked their idols and temples to security of trade and to local commercial transactions, setting aside feuds and allowing for seasons in which trade would be undisturbed by violence. Fighting was never allowed in the temple area.

  Muslim historians described this desert world and its assumptions as the jahiliyya, the ‘time of ignorance’, from which they were delivered by Muhammad, the Prophet of God. To this pagan society a new way of thinking, which passionately preached monotheism and believed the world of idols was wholly wrong, came as a threat, especially since this new preaching came from one of their number. Muhammad was an orphan member of the Hashemites, a lesser clan within the Quraysh ruling aristocracy of Mecca, who had made his way in the world and had risen to become a successful camel trader, a task which automatically demanded literacy. He made a happy companionate marriage with the rich Quraysh widow Khadija, fifteen years his senior, whose business he managed.

  The Revelations of God which Muhammad believed were transmitted by the Archangel Gabriel came to him in about 610, as he was meditating in a mountain cave at Hira overlooking the town of Mecca. The Revelations, which continued at intervals throughout Muhammad’s life and which were memorised by his followers or recorded on palm fronds and camel shoulder bones, made up the Quran – literally, ‘that which is recited’ – and to this day the recitation of the Quran remains a prime duty of the believer. The power of Muhammad’s preaching and his charismatic personality began to win converts within Mecca, known as the Companions. They were especially dear to him, being the first followers to join him in times of adversity.

  Mecca, on the desert lands of the Hijaz in Western Arabia, was ill equipped for any agriculture because of its poor water supply, but it had become the leading pagan pilgrimage centre of the region, with a massive assemblage of idols and tribal gods in an open temple in the main square. This attracted merchants, making it a commercial centre for trade, largely in raw materials, using camel caravans travelling to the north. Truces associated with the annual pagan pilgrimage gave opportunity for bargaining and for settling disputes. As Muhammad spoke openly of his Revelations, he found the aristocracy of Mecca turning against him, fearful of the effects on their trade of his denunciations of idols and anxious for the fate of their ancestors as he described the torments of scorching fires in hell for all who worshipped idols. Some converts felt such a pressure on them that in about 615 they left for Abyssinia, also known as Ethiopia, where they were given protection by the Christian ruler, Negus. Other converts tended to come from those who were not leaders in trade or from slaves, responding to Muhammad’s teaching about care of the poor and his rejection of the avarice of the ruling aristocracy.

  One exception was Abu Bakr, a wealthy Quraysh and pragmatic fellow camel trader, who sacrificed his fortune to help Muhammad in his mission and to compensate other followers who lacked resources. He suffered damage by adhering to Muhammad’s teaching. It was a personal comfort to Muhammad that Khadija believed in his Revelations and was an unfailing supporter until her death. Among the wives whom he married after Khadija’s death, Abu Bakr’s daughter Aisha was his favourite, having the greatest influence on him as well as a willingness to speak independently.

  Muhammad’s cousin Ali, a devoted early supporter married to Fatima, daughter of the marriage to Khadija, was a hero in the tradition of pre-Islamic Arabia, admired for his poetic gifts and reckless valour. He was in a sense the son which Muhammad never had, for with Khadija he only had daughters, their two sons dying in infancy. Ali occupied a special place in Islamic history because of his undeviating integrity: both his strength and his weakness.

  In 619 Muhammad’s uncle and clan leader, al-Abbas, died. Although he never became a Muslim himself, he had defended Muhammad from enemies, and his death exposed the Prophet, for that was what he had become, to the danger of sharp counteraction by Quraysh kinsmen determined to put a stop to the continuing Revelations and the effects they might have on their commercial power.

  The bitter disputes of the two major pagan clans in Medina, an oasis town a little over 200 miles north of Mecca, had issued in a disastrous battle in which many men had been killed. In about 620 a deputation called on Muhammad to ask if he would become an independent arbiter to ensure that there would be no recurrence. After negotiation he agreed. The decision, enshrined in a formal agreement between Muhammad and the people of Medina, provided a potential haven for Muhammad and his followers when they were persecuted in Mecca.

  Muhammad in Medina

  When Abu Bakr and Ali uncovered a plot by the Quraysh to assassinate Muhammad, preparations to move to Medina were implemented. In 622 about seventy of his followers were sent to the town in small batches so as not to arouse suspicion. Medina was a settlement with wells, some agriculture, silver and gold mines and with basalt volcanic rock on three sides, making it highly defensible. While Abu Bakr and Muhammad slipped away and hid in a cave overnight before making their way by little-known paths to Medina, Ali took the risk of sleeping in Muhammad’s bed, infuriating the assassins and narrowly escaping death. This emigration, the hijra, forms the starting-point for the Islamic calendar. Diplomatically, according to tradition, Muhammad let his camel choose the spot where he would stay in the long line of fortified farms and water sources which made up Medina.

  In Medina, Muhammad and the Companions gained freedom of worship but had to fight against the Meccans as the Quraysh sought to eliminate them. The Revelations in the Quran from the Meccan period urge the believers to show patience and forbearance under suffering and deter them from any retaliation. In the Medinan period they are urged to take direct military action to defend themselves and their beliefs against attacks which could well have extinguished the young religion, while at the same time many detailed instructions are given for the practice of faith in daily living. In effect a theocratic mini-state was being called into life.

  In all, only twenty-four verses in the whole of the Quran mention jihad (literally, ‘striving’), and most frequently they have a spiritual meaning, inspiring the hearer to a total commitment of possessions and mind to obedience to God. Jihad, striving in the way of God, however, in the Medinan period for the elite leadership often had the meaning of fighting for the faith – albeit with careful restrictions on when and how this should be done. Warriors from the desert, accustomed as they were to fighting, took up arms willingly, while the example of Muhammad’s actions and the words of the Quran inspired the leaders who took charge of the early Muslim armies.

  Muhammad used his preaching power to make converts in Arabia, being prepared to endure hostility, even missile-throwing, and sending out letters to clan leaders and rulers – even, according to tradition, to the Christian Byzantine leader, the emperor Heraclius – calling on them all to recognise his divinely inspired teaching. He attacked the Quraysh by launching fighters against camel caravans, on which their prosperity was based, successfully assaulting them at the well of Badr in 624, overcoming a much superior Meccan force and gaining wealth to sustain Medina. In the aftermath of their defeat at Badr he became aware of the unwillingness of Jewish clans in Medina to accept his leadership and dispatched one of the clans to exile at the oasis of Khaybar, north of Medina, confiscating their goods. The Meccans reacted with subtlety to defeat at Badr and in 624–5* sent an army to the hill of Uhud, whence they were able to raid Medina and damage crops while not endangering their cavalry, among its trees and defences. Muhammad accepted the challenge and went out to fight but was injured. Meanwhile, the Jewish clans remained neutral, and Muhammad began to see that he could not win security in Medina for himself and the faith as long as they remained; another clan was sent into exile to Khaybar. Finally in 627 his army faced its most serious challenge, from the Quraysh. At the battle of the Trench the Prophet made his own military decision, ordering the digging of a trench at the north side of Medina, the one point where there were no rock formations to ward off cav
alry attack. His decision led to a Meccan defeat and also to a final reckoning for the last Jewish clan, the Banu Qurayza, whom he believed to be treasonable. For the battle of the Trench, Jews from Khaybar had joined forces with the Quraysh army. It was the last straw. Muhammad accepted the decision of an intermediary that the clan should be eliminated, the men being beheaded and the women and children sent into slavery. The qibla, the direction of prayer, which had been Jerusalem, was changed to become Mecca. Pagans had accepted Muhammad, Jewish opposition had been eliminated and a way of life set out, with the duties for the faithful that are the Five Pillars of Islam: the profession of faith in one God, prayer, almsgiving, fasting and pilgrimage. Medina, and the decisions made there were thus formative for the Muslim future. An umma, the community of faith based on the conduct of Muhammad and the teachings of the Quran, had come into being. The term subsequently applied to all Muslim believers in the world.

  In the aftermath of the suppression of Khaybar, Muhammad developed his teaching on the role of the dhimmis, the Peoples of the Book, principally the Jews and Christians, who had sacred scriptures of their own. They were misguided in Muhammad’s teaching: Jesus, for example, was a prophet to be venerated but never worshipped as God and is depicted as sorrowing in heaven at the grievous misunderstanding of his role by the Christians. Still, the dhimmis were to be distinguished from the polytheist pagans and their rights were to be respected. They should pay a special tax, the jizya, not an unduly arduous sum and not imposed on the poor. Over time it might well act as an inducement for them to convert to Islam, although it was expected that they would in any case come to understand the superiority of the Muslim faith. Muhammad’s teaching was the culmination of all previous prophecies and intimations of God’s will, while Judaism and Christianity represented stages on the way to the full and final revelation proclaimed to the world by Muhammad.