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 PrintableVersion ConstantinopleThe last great siege, 1453Islam in Europe: advance and retreatTHE VICTORS AND THE VANQUISHED THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 1453 CONSTANTINOPLE The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s produced a surprise for most British Muslims; they suddenly discovered a community of native, white European Muslims in the middle of Europe. However, they found out about this community through TV images of raped Bosnian women, of Muslim villages destroyed, of mosques desecrated. Nonetheless, the recognition that Bosnian Muslims existed served to remind Europeans that Islam is not a recent presence in this continent, as might be supposed when they survey Muslim communities of largely immigrant origins in the West today. Islam has been present in Europe for centuries — even in Western Europe, as one of the books under review here demonstrates. Yet for most Europeans that presence was viewed as an intrusion, something which had no place in Christendom. This view was accentuated by the fact that the Muslim presence had its origins in military invasion, as was the case with the conquest of Constantinople. Advance and retreatIn some ways this provides a parallel for today. Muslims often feel pressured in Europe — especially since the Bosnian crisis, which made them fear for their lives. It is not lost on Western Muslims how for several centuries a thriving Muslim civilisation was concentrated in Spain. Ironically, the remnants of that civilisation were vanquished by Spanish Catholicism only a few decades after the greatest symbolic victory of Islam in Eastern Europe — the conquest of the Eastern Orthodox city of Constantinople. So, as Islam advanced in the east of Europe, it retreated in the west. To Europeans of the time, Islam was an alien, militarily menacing foe bent on global conquest, which inspired fear and hostility — the image of the ‘marauding Turk’ — and which had to be confronted. There are obvious parallels with the present; not only skinhead elements see Muslims as outsiders; liberals often agree, from a different perspective, based on the treatment of women, minorities and the shari’a punishment of criminals (chopping off hands). The rise of Al-Qaida has renewed fears of Islamic militarism. Since 7/7, many Muslims and dark-skinned people in general have experienced fear and hostility on the tube and elsewhere. ‘Those who stayed’These books are therefore invaluable aids to examine the early interaction of Islam and Europe within the continent. Catlos’s book is particularly useful because commentators often tend to concentrate on two periods in the Islamic history of Spain — the Caliphate period, and the fall of Granada in 1492. Yet the Muslim presence — and its decline — ante-dated the ‘Moor’s last sigh’ at Granada, and even as the Catholic Reconquista (‘Reconquest’) progressed, Muslims in several areas were able to continue co-existing with their Catholic neighbours. The Victors and the Vanquished is not a light book, and it is perhaps handicapped for the average reader by its sociological approach, making it somewhat academic in tone. Catlos shows that the Reconquista ‘did not mark the immediate demise of Muslim society. Almost universally the conquering rulers endeavoured to persuade Muslim inhabitants to stay on as subjects, tempting them with offers of self-administration and social and judicial autonomy’ (p.2). Interestingly, despite shari’a rulings that usually require emigration to the Islamic world from non-Muslim states, Catlos shows that many — ‘in all likelihood the majority — accepted, and these people and their descendants became known as mudejars’ — i.e. ‘those who stayed’. In fact, it is noteworthy that religion was not always the defining factor in political alliances. Catlos shows that ‘Christians and Muslims were frequently drawn into military adventures against their coreligionists’ (p.73). By this time a kind of reverse jizyah (tribute tax paid by non-Muslim subjects) was in effect, with Muslim statelets paying for protection to their stronger Catholic neighbours. Sometimes these Muslim statelets would play off the rival powers of Aragon and Castile against each other. This practice of playing-off rival Catholic powers faltered at the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Thereafter, Spanish Muslims were at the mercy of a unified Spanish power. Catlos shows that reconquered areas soon became magnets for Catholic settlement, even as some Muslims emigrated — usually the elite (p.101f) — leaving the masses to fend for themselves without proper leadership. With all this in mind, we can see that the catastrophe of 1492 was virtually inevitable. ConstantinopleThe other catastrophe that was inevitable — this time from the perspective of Christendom — was the fall of Constantinople. In contrast to Catlos’s work, the books by Runciman and Crowley are eminently accessible and readable. One feels almost as though one is caught up in a historical thriller, and the tragedy at the conclusion is so devastating precisely because one finds oneself empathising so closely with the doomed populace of Constantinople. Runciman knocks some historical presuppositions on the head with his work. Two are of particular mention. Firstly, the theory that the fall of Byzantium caused the Renaissance is debunked with the observation that for the previous half-century Byzantine scholars had been emigrating from their poverty-stricken city to wealthier Chairs of learning in the West (p.xi). Secondly, Sultan Mehmet was far from a model Muslim. Runciman reveals that in modern parlance, he swung both ways — one aristocratic boy, enslaved by Mehmet after the conquest, was ‘slain by the Sultan for refusing to submit to his lusts’ (p.152). Another noble and his two sons were executed after the wine-bibbing Sultan demanded the man’s 14 year-old ‘son for his pleasure’, which the noble refused (p.151). By 1453, the once-mighty Byzantine Empire consisted of Constantinople, some southern Greek areas and little else. It was almost wholly surrounded by Ottoman territory, and it should have been obvious for some time that its fate was sealed. The only way it could have persevered was if help had come from the West. Crowley shows that the Byzantine populace was too prejudiced against the Catholic West to do what was necessary to defend itself. Latin empireThis was the consequence of a Western action which was the subject of a previous review — the 1204 Fourth Crusade, which led to the Catholics capturing Constantinople and establishing a ‘Latin Empire’ that lasted 60 years. The city never recovered from this act of treachery. Crowley observes that, ‘The Byzantine empire was dismembered into a scattered collection of Frankish states and Italian colonies, while a large part of the population fled to Greece…When they recaptured Constantinople in 1261 they found the city’s infrastructure close to ruin and its dominions shrunk to a few dispersed fragments’ (p.28). Thus, when menaced by the Ottomans, Constantinople was undermined by looking at its Western neighbours with fear as well. This was compounded by the religious differences between East and West. Just as Sunni-Shia divisions have been a major cause of Muslim weakness and arguably aided the occupation of Iraq, so the theological divide between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, buttressed by the memory of the Fourth Crusade, was a principal cause of the inability of Byzantium to survive. The great Western maritime powers of the day — Genoa and Venice — were more concerned to protect their own interests and not provoke the Turks (Runciman, pp.67-68; Crowley, pp.62-63). The only person who could help was the Pope and, though not unsympathetic, the only way he could seriously help was if the Byzantines converted. Although Emperor Constantine was willing to do this, his subjects regarded the Pope as the Antichrist — ‘Better the Sultan’s turban than the Cardinal’s hat’ (Runciman, p.21). Thus, when Mehmet finally attacked, Western aid was derisory. Fulfilled prophecy?The end, when it came on Tuesday May 29 1453 (Greeks still regard Tuesday as a day of ill-omen, Runciman, p.191), was consummated with gang rape, pillage and enslavement, although Mehmet was concerned to maintain a Greek presence and gave limited toleration to the Orthodox Church. Although of little practical import, the symbolism of the fall of Constantinople was as traumatic for Europeans as the fall of Andalus was for Muslims. Danish King Christian I derided Mehmet as the Beast of the Apocalypse (Crowley, p.239). There were huge laments across Christendom. For Islam, however, the capture of the city was seen as fulfilment of prophecy. Mehmet kept advancing into Europe (p.241), as the Turks were to do off and on for over two more centuries, besieging Vienna twice — one reason for Austrian opposition to Turkish membership of the EU. However, history has a habit of irony. Today, Muslims are once again present in large numbers in Spain, and culturally and politically, through the EU, Europe has conquered Turkish Constantinople. Dr. Anthony McRoy© Evangelicals Now - April 2006 |
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