Infidels: A History of the Conflict Between Christendom and Islam Read online

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  The Road to War (with Richard Overy)

  Zones of Conflict: An Atlas of Future Wars (with John Keegan)

  Who’s Who in Military History: From 1453 to the Present Day (with John Keegan)

  Copyright © 2003, 2004 Andrew Wheatcroft

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  This work was originally published in the U.K. by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books, in 2003.

  RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reproduce an extract from “Lepanto” by G. K. Chesterton. Reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt, on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Wheatcroft, Andrew.

  Infidels : a history of the conflict between Christendom and

  Islam / Andrew Wheatcroft.

  p. cm.

  Originally published: London : Viking, 2003.

  eISBN: 978-1-58836-390-9

  1. Islam—Relations—Christianity. 2. Christianity and other

  religions—Islam. 3. Kufr (Islam) I. Title.

  BP172.W52 2004

  261.2′7′09—dc22

  2003070378

  Random House website address: www.atrandom.com

  v3.1

  For

  ERIC OSCAR WHEATCROFT

  in love and gratitude

  History is the most dangerous product ever concocted by the chemistry of the intellect. It causes dreams, inebriates nations, saddles them with false memories … keeps their old sores running, torments them when they are not at rest, and induces in them megalomania and the mania of persecution.

  PAUL VALÉRY

  Reflections on the World Today

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgments

  Editorial Note

  Maps

  Preface

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1 “We Praise Thee, O God”: Lepanto, 1571

  CHAPTER 2 First Contact

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 3 Al-Andalus

  CHAPTER 4 “The Jewel of the World”

  CHAPTER 5 Eternal Spain

  CHAPTER 6 “Vile Weeds”: Malas Hierbas

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 7 To the Holy Land

  CHAPTER 8 Conquest and Reconquest

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER 9 Balkan Ghosts?

  CHAPTER 10 Learning to Hate

  CHAPTER 11 “A Broad Line of Blood”

  PART FIVE

  CHAPTER 12 “Turban’d and Scimitar’d”

  CHAPTER 13 The Black Art

  CHAPTER 14 Maledicta: Words of Hate

  CONCLUSION

  CHAPTER 15 The Better Angels of Our Nature

  Notes on the Text

  Sources and Select Bibliography

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  THESE PAGES RECORD MY THANKS TO SOME OF THOSE WHO HAVE helped me understand the Infidels conundrum. With many, like Hassan and Mahmud, who appear in the preface, I do not know their full names. Chance has also played a large part. Often it was an unexpected and anonymous conversation in Amman or Texas that propelled me in a new (and profitable) direction. But I am particularly grateful to some I can name. First, those who have undertaken the thankless task of reading part (or all) of the text and putting me right. Dejan Jović has been kind enough to read through my chapters on the Balkans, suggesting many changes and improvements, and has not scorned my temerity (and ignorance) in trampling around in a field where I had so shallow a knowledge. Part of my newfound passion for southeastern Europe stemmed from the excellent “Creating the Other” conference at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis). Organized by the Center for Austrian Studies in May 1999, it had many Balkan tensions bubbling away below the surface. Yet we talked as dispassionately as possible about tragic events. With this book, likewise, detaching my own feelings from the subject matter that I was writing about has not always been easy.

  Another area that I entered with very little prior knowledge was the role of language. Lance Butler has read every word, not just the material on language, and his advice and support have been invaluable. So too have Susanne Peters’s help and advice. She has also read every chapter, sometimes in several variants. She provided me with a stream of books and articles to read, found many unusual and unexpected sources, as well as giving me consistent encouragement. Judy Delin explained complicated ideas in linguistics with such clarity that I could understand them, plus the directness to tell me when I should not use them. Michael Rice invariably gave me good advice on the texts I sent him, from his profound knowledge of many areas of the Middle East. Finally, my father, E. Oscar Wheatcroft, has read it all, an especial labor of love given his failing eyesight. Thankfully, his critical sense is still hyperactive and he saved me from many errors, such as having my galleys rowing in reverse, the result of landlubberly ignorance. None of them bear any responsibility for the flaws that remain.

  I have also made myself a nuisance to many others with naïve questions that they answered with good grace. John Drakakis, Neil Keeble, Robert Miles, David Bebbington, Mark Nixon, Oron Joffe, in particular, must have dreaded my appearing round the corner at Stirling. This is also the first book I have completed with the full availability of e-mail and the Internet. While my colleagues have had some reason for answering my questions, those thousands of miles away who had never heard of me had no reason to do so. I am thankful for the help and advice of Carter Vaughn Findley, Jonathan Bloom, Dan Goffman, Robert Michaels, Larry Wolff, David Nirenberg, and Eva Levin. Others, like Stephen Greenblatt, Roger Chartier, Thomas Emmert, Hugh Agnew, Margaret Meserve, Nancy Wingfield, and Maiken Umbach, have had the misfortune to be pinned to a wall over a conference coffee break or interrogated over dinner. From John Keegan, I have understood, over so many years, to try and see things with clarity, regardless of the “fog of battle.” It was John who suggested my first book, so my gratitude extends back a very long way. From Colin and Charlotte Franklin, I learned the importance of feeling and touching books, and amid the riches of their “book barns” at Culham, learned well. Two people have helped me with research for this book, where either I did not have the time or the languages. Lina Barouch (whom Avi Shlaim shrewdly suggested) helped me enormously by assessing Hebrew material, reading the text, and advising me on it. She has a wonderful eye both for things that don’t work and for the inspired suggestion of something that might work. Anneyce Wheatcroft has never complained about being asked to burrow in the darker and dirtier parts of libraries and archives on my behalf. She too has the instinctive sense for unlikely but invaluable material. I am very grateful to them both.

  I am very grateful to all those who have helped me by pointing out mistakes in the first printing of this book, in May 2003. Rana Kabbani, Jonathan Falla, Jonathan Benthall, and John Adamson have all been kind enough not only to remind me of literals, but also to suggest where another interpretation was better than the one I had offered. I have been very happy to adopt their suggestions,
and thank them both for their courtesy and their careful reading. Carol Buchalter Stapp spent hours patiently disentangling the complex issues in the last chapter: her insights have been invaluable. I also want to thank John Torpey, who has generously responded to all my questions and uncertainties concerning the same endlessly revised and updated chapter.

  Writing a book like this, which ranges over so many disparate areas and subjects, makes a real imposition on your friends. Rosemarie Morgan bore the brunt of the first phases. She smoothed access at Yale, provided endless hospitality, and employed an incisive critical pencil. Without her help, this book would have been much harder to write. John Brewer and Stella Tillyard have been the best friends (and hosts) anyone could have, in Florence and in Oxford. They have also contributed more to this book, from what they have written, from conversations, or from chance asides, than they could ever have realized. So too have Fuad Qushair in Amman, with whom I roamed over deep questions concerning the Arab world and the Arabic language; Mamdouh Anis and Christian Koch in Abu Dhabi, from whom I learned how to keep a book on track. In England I am grateful to David Batson, with his knowledge of the early church; Richard Stoneman, for his expert knowledge of Greece and Turkey; Geoffrey Best, for his friendship over many years; and Roy Douglas, who helped me to decipher images. Among many others who have “been there” with advice, help, or company when I needed it, I want to mention in particular Mohammad Cherki and Djaffar Hadji, who introduced me to the new literature of Algeria; Angelica Hamilton, whose constant verve and enthusiasm stopped me doubting the whole enterprise; Nagdi Madbouli, on whom I tested Arabic meanings; Andrew Sobić and Alec Stanković, with whom I talked endlessly about the Balkans; and finally Freddie Merle and Charlie Seddon, the good companions.

  In Granada, many years ago, Don Jésus Bermudez Pareja and Srta. Angelina Morena allowed me to roam in the archives of the Alhambra, and gave me introductions to the other archives in the city. Through them also I found my way into the mountains, to the Alpujarras, the last redoubt of the Moriscos. Those experiences have colored my life and career ever since.

  Two museums were invaluable for the part of the book that deals with the printed word. The first was the Musée de l’Imprimerie de Lyon, established with the guidance of Henri-Jean Martin, and the other the Gutenberg Museum, Mainz. Sadly, my visit to the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp had to be canceled. These museums were most helpful to me and they offer a unique opportunity to get a clear sense of the world of print. This is especially true for the first three centuries and all the processes that then went into the making of books.

  I want to express my continuing gratitude for access to the world of old books through the Library of Congress and the Folger Library in Washington, D.C.; the Sterling, Beinecke, and Seeley G. Mudd libraries at Yale; and the Wilson Library at the University of Minnesota. Also the University Library at Texas Tech University, where I have worked happily over a number of years. Closer to home much of my work has been done in the British Library, with the book collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum and in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London; at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh; in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Library of the University of Leeds. Cambridge University Library, the Library of the Warburg Institute, and the Special Collections of the University of Edinburgh Library have been invaluable sources of material.

  In Vienna, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek proved a treasure trove for the early images of the infidels. I have also had the benefit of using the resources of ENSSIB in Lyon. On other visits I have benefited from IRCICA in Istanbul, and the Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan. But I have two special debts that should be acknowledged. The first is to Dr. Jamal S. Al-Suwaidi, who invited me to work at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR) on a number of occasions over a period of four years. I benefited a great deal not only from using their excellent library, but also from Jamal Al-Suwaidi’s advice and interest in my work. The second is closer to home, in Stirling. Not only has the university given me generous sabbatical leave, but the work of the staff in the library at Stirling has been far above the call of duty. I think I hold the university record for interlibrary loans. This has meant that with a topic covering so many different areas and languages, I have been able to spend the time reading and writing that I had previously spent in traveling. This library cannot compare in the size of its holdings with larger institutions, but what it stocks has been well chosen. And there were many surprises. When a much larger library did not have the mid-nineteenth-century volumes of Punch that I needed, I found them sitting on the shelf at Stirling.

  I am especially grateful to my editor, Eleo Gordon, on two particular grounds. First, she accepted that, while delivery kept on slipping, I was in fact working hard on the book. Second, as with my two previous books for Viking, every editorial suggestion she has made has been delivered with such tact that it was easy to accept. And in every case, her judgment has been incisive and absolutely right. I am especially grateful, too, for Elisabeth Merriman’s patient and painstaking editing of the text. Her suggestions for rephrasing, clarification, or additions have almost invariably been an improvement; I have adopted them readily and with gratitude.

  The final part of the book is different in this edition from the text I completed in the summer of 2002. Connecting the present to the immediate past has proved much more complex than I had first imagined. So I am immensely grateful to Will Murphy, senior editor at Random House, who courteously but decisively stripped away redundancies, byways, and authorial meandering. The responsibility for the book is entirely mine, but it has gained a great deal from working with a fine, creative editor.

  There is a penultimate acknowledgment that I must make. I knew Lawrence Stone for over twenty years, for some of that time in the ambiguous role of his “commissioning editor.” Being Lawrence’s editor was a wholly one-way process. He wrote and his editor merely organized the book for publication. It was not that he would not take advice, which he did, but it was rarely needed. In the reverse process, seeking his advice for my own work, it was a very different matter. Lawrence contributed a great deal. We met annually, either in Oxford or in Princeton. He made suggestions, provided contacts, was a rigorous critic of my musings, but always encouraged me to continue. Lawrence was a wonderfully supportive friend, and had I written a little faster and followed fewer of the byways that Lawrence so actively endorsed, he might have seen this book before his untimely death.

  My last and greatest thanks are due to my wife, Janet Wheatcroft. She has suffered from more than ten years of my worrying preoccupation with this dark topic, read drafts that are too many to count, and gently edged me away from the wildest extremities. But she has also measured what I have written against her own experience of living an essentially medieval life, solitary, in another culture, with no roads, without electricity, telephone, and lacking a common language. She lived by her wits and the loving-kindness of those around her. They could not understand why she was there, but they accepted her presence. That was in Nepal, not a Muslim culture, but that made little difference. She was a silent observer, seeing Sherpa family and village life and relating it to her own experience. What I could only sense about the past, about similarity and difference, she could gauge against what she had seen and felt. Without the benefit of her insight gained over those many months, painfully lonely for both of us, I should never have been able to complete this book.

  Editorial Note

  PROBLEMS OF TERMINOLOGY ARE INHERENT IN A BOOK LIKE THIS. “West” and “East,” “Europe,” “Mediterranean Islam,” “Christendom” are all terms that I have used regularly, while recognizing that they will offend purists. Likewise I have been very chary about using now commonplace, heavily charged terms like “the Other,” “Orientalism,” or “fundamentalism,” and on the whole avoided all three.

  Place-names and proper names always pose a problem, especially in this book, where the name
s themselves can be a source of bloody dispute. The general rule has been to use the form most recognizable to the English-speaking reader, but even that is not wholly systematic. The normal English version for Islam’s holy text is “Koran,” but I have habitually written “Qur’an.” There are other similar instances.

  I have also faced a dilemma. Many images are mentioned in this text, many more than are actually illustrated. Where I have not shown a visual image that is significant for the argument, I have described its content in detail. But one of the problems of using pictures is that they now come at a high cost. Ideally, I would have liked to use many more. But for those readers who, like Doubting Thomas, need to see for themselves, I can only answer mea culpa.

  For using the word “infidel,” however, I make no apology. For convenience I have taken the European, Latinate word “infidel,” both for the way that the Christians referred to Muslims and as the equivalent for the Arabic kafir, which was how the Islamic world regarded the Christians. Other words were used, but the category—those without the benefit of the true faith, Islam for one world, Christianity for the other—was roughly symmetrical. That suggestion of a mirror image, and its consequences, underpins what follows herein.

  Preface

  I REMEMBER SITTING BESIDE A ROAD IN THE MIDDLE OF MOROCCO, alone and fearful. Two men in an ancient little truck stopped and asked, first in Arabic and then in French, where I was going. I told them, north, to Tangier, and then to Spain. As we drove, very slowly, we talked in a desultory way, but most of the journey was silent. But when we got to the city, they insisted that I stay with them.

  These two brothers took me to their home, where I stayed for several days. They showed me the low life of the city, which was extensive, and we spent (it seemed) many hours in the suq, drinking Moroccan mint tea, for which I have never lost the taste. At night the power invariably failed, leaving the center of Tangier in darkness. The hubbub would stop for a few seconds, and then lights and candles would be lit, people shifting effortlessly from a modern to a more traditional pattern of life. Eventually, and with some reluctance, I said that I had to catch the boat to Malaga, and undertake another long walk to Granada. My new friends, Hassan and Mahmud, took me to the port and I left. I never saw them again, but that is where this book began.