CHAPTER
III.
THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN
NATIONS OF WESTERN ASIA
After
the death
of Muḥammad, the army he had intended for
Syria was despatched thither by Abū Bakr, in spite of the protestations made by certain Muslims in view
of the then disturbed state of Arabia.
He silenced their expostulations with the words: "I will not revoke any
order given by the Prophet. Medina may
become the prey of wild beasts, but
the army must carry out the wishes of Muḥammad." This was the first of that wonderful series of campaigns in which the Arabs overran Syria, Persia
and Northern Africa—overturning the
ancient kingdom of Persia and
despoiling the Roman Empire of some of its fairest provinces. It does not fall within the scope of this work to follow the history of these different
campaigns, but, in view of the
expansion of the Muslim faith that followed the Arab conquests, it is of
importance to discover what were the
circumstances that made such an expansion possible.
A
great historian[1]
has well put the problem that meets us here, in the following
words: "Was it genuine religious enthusiasm, the new
strength of a faith now for the first time blossoming forth in
all its purity, that gave the victory in every battle to the arms of the Arabs
and in so incredibly short a time founded the greatest
empire the world had ever seen? But evidence is wanting to
prove that this was the case. The number was far too small of those
who had given their allegiance to the Prophet and his teaching with
a free and heartfelt conviction, while on the other hand
all the greater was the number of those who had been brought into the ranks
of the Muhammadans only through pressure from
without or by the hope of worldly gain. Khālid, 'that sword of the
swords of God, exhibited in a very
striking manner that mixture of force and persuasion whereby he and many
of the Quraysh had been converted, when he
said that God had seized them by the hearts and by the hair and compelled them to follow the Prophet. The proud
feeling too of a common nationality had much influence—a
feeling which was more alive among the Arabs of that time than (perhaps) among any other people, and which
alone determined many thousands to give the preference to their countryman and his religion before foreign teachers. Still more powerful was the attraction
offered by the sure prospect of
gaining booty in abundance, in fighting for the new religion and of exchanging their bare, stony deserts, which offered them only a miserable subsistence,
for the fruitful and luxuriant countries of Persia, Syria and
Egypt."
These
stupendous conquests which laid the foundations of the Arab empire,
were certainly not the outcome of a holy war, waged for the
propagation of Islam, but they were followed by such a vast defection
from the Christian faith that this result has often been supposed to have
been their aim. Thus the sword came to be looked upon by Christian
historians as the instrument of Muslim propaganda, and in the
light of the success attributed to it the evidences of the genuine
missionary activity of Islam were obscured. But the spirit
which animated the invading hosts of Arabs who poured over
the confines of the Byzantine and Persian empires, was no
proselytising zeal for the conversion of souls. On the contrary,
religious interests appear to have entered but little into the
consciousness of the protagonists of the Arab armies.[2]
This expansion of the Arab race is more rightly envisaged as the
migration of a vigorous and energetic people driven by hunger
and want, to leave their inhospitable deserts and overrun the richer
lands of their more fortunate neighbours.[3]
Still the unifying principle of the movement was the theocracy established in Medina, and the organisation of the new state
proceeded from the devoted companions of Muḥammad, the faithful depositaries of his teaching, whose moral weight
and enthusiasm kept Islam alive as the official religion, despite the
indifference of those Arabs who gave to it a mere nominal adherence.[4]
It is not, therefore, in the annals of the conquering armies that we must look for the reasons which lead to the so rapid spread of the Muslim faith, but
rather in the conditions prevailing
among the conquered peoples.
The national character
of this ethnic movement of migration
naturally attracted to the invading Arab hosts the outlying representatives of
the Arab race through whom the path of
the conquering armies lay. Accordingly it is not surprising to find that many of the Christian Bedouins were swept into the rushing tide of this
great movement and that Arab tribes,
who for centuries had professed the
Christian religion, now abandoned it to embrace the Muslim faith. Among these was the tribe of the Banū Ghassān, who held sway over the
desert east of Palestine and southern
Syria, of whom it was said that they were
"Lords in the days of the ignorance and stars in Islam."[5]
After the battle of Qādisiyyah (A.H. 14) in which the Persian army under Rustam had been utterly discomfited, many Christians belonging to the Bedouin tribes on
both sides of the Euphrates came to
the Muslim general and said: "The
tribes that at the first embraced Islam were wiser than we. Now that Rustam hath been slain, we will accept
the new belief."[6]
Similarly, after the conquest of northern
Syria, most of the Bedouin tribes, after hesitating a little, joined themselves to the followers of the
Prophet.[7]
That
force was not the determining factor in these conversions may be judged from
the amicable relations that existed between the Christian and
the Muslim Arabs. Muḥammad himself had entered into treaty with several Christian tribes, promising them his protection and
guaranteeing them the
free exercise of their religion and to their clergy undisturbed enjoyment of their old rights and
authority.[8]
A similar bond of friendship united his followers with their fellow-countrymen of the older faith, many of whom voluntarily came forward to assist the Muslims in
their military expeditions in the
same spirit of loyalty to the new government as had caused them to hold
aloof from the great apostasy that raised the
standard of revolt throughout Arabia
immediately after the death of the Prophet.[9]
It has been suggested that the
Christian Arabs who guarded the
frontier of the Byzantine empire bordering on the desert threw in their lot with the invading Muslim
army, when Heraclius refused any longer to pay them their accustomed subsidy for military service as wardens of
the marches.[10]
In
the battle of the Bridge (a.h. 13)
when a disastrous defeat was imminent and the panic-stricken Arabs were hemmed
in between the Euphrates and the Persian host, a Christian chief of
the Banū Ṭayy sprang forward like another Spurius Lartius to
the side of an Arab Horatius, to assist Muthannah
the Muslim general in defending the bridge of boats which could alone afford the means of
an orderly retreat. When fresh levies were
raised to retrieve this disgrace,
among the reinforcements that came pouring in from every direction was a Christian tribe of the Banū Namir, who
dwelt within the limits of the Byzantine empire, and in the ensuing battle of Buwayb (a.h.
13), just before the final
charge of the Arabs that turned the fortune of battle in their favour, Muthannah rode up to the Christian chief and said : "Ye are of one blood with us;
come now, and as I charge, charge ye
with me.” The Persians fell back
before their furious onslaught, and another great victory was added to the glorious roll of Muslim
triumphs. One of the most gallant
exploits of the day was performed by a
youth belonging to another Christian tribe of the desert, who with his
companions, a company of Bedouin horse-dealers,
had come up just as the Arab army was being drawn up in battle array. They threw themselves into the fight on the side of their compatriots; and while the
conflict was raging most fiercely, this
youth, rushing into the centre of the Persians, slew their leader, and
leaping on his richly-caparisoned horse, galloped back amidst the plaudits of
the Muslim line, crying as he passed in triumph: "I am of the Banū Taghlib. I am he that hath slain the
chief."[11]
The
tribe to which this young man boasted that he belonged was one of those that
elected to remain Christian, while other tribes of Mesopotamia,
such as the Banū Namir and the Banū Quḍā'ah, became Muslim. The Banū
Taghlib had sent an embassy to the Prophet as early
as the year a.h. 9. The heathen
members of the deputation embraced Islam and he made a treaty with
the Christians according to which they were to retain their old
faith but were not to baptise their children. A condition so
entirely at variance with the usual tolerant attitude of Muḥammad
towards the Christian Arabs, who were allowed to choose between
conversion to Islam and the payment of jizyah and never
compelled to abandon their faith, has given rise to the
conjecture that this condition was suggested by the Christian
families of the Banū Taghlib themselves, out of motives of
economy.[12]
The long survival of Christianity in this tribe shows that
this condition was certainly not observed. The caliph 'Umar forbade any pressure
to be put upon them, when they showed themselves unwilling to
abandon their old faith and ordered that they should be left
undisturbed in the practice of it, but that they were not to oppose the
conversion of any member of their tribe to Islam nor baptise the children
of such as became Muslims.[13]
They were called upon to pay the jizyah[14]
or tax imposed on the non-Muslim subjects, but they felt it to be humiliating
to their pride to pay a tax that was levied in return for protection of life and property, and petitioned the
caliph to be allowed to
make the same kind of contribution as the Muslims did. So in lieu of the jizyah they paid a double Ṣadaqah or alms,[15]—which
was a poor tax levied on the fields and cattle, etc., of the Muslims.[16]
It especially irked the
Muslims that any of the Arabs should remain true to the Christian faith. The majority of the
Banū Tanūkh had become
Muslim in the year a.h. 12, when
with other Christian Arab tribes they
submitted to Khālid b. al-Walīd,[17]
but some of them appear to have remained
true to their old faith for nearly a century and a half, since the
caliph al-Mahdī (a.h. 158-169) is said to have seen a number of them who
dwelt in the neighbourhood of Aleppo,
and learning that they were
Christians, in anger ordered them to accept Islam— which they did to the number of 5000, and one of
them suffered martyrdom rather than
apostatise.[18]
But for the most part, details are
lacking for any history of the disappearance of Christianity from among
the Christian Arab tribes of Northern
Arabia; they seem to have become absorbed in the surrounding Muslim community
by an almost insensible process of
"peaceful penetration"; had attempts
been made to convert them by force when they first came under Muhammadan rule, it would not have been possible for
Christians to have survived among them up to the times of the 'Abbāsid caliphs.[19]
The
people of Ḥīrah had likewise resisted all the efforts made by Khalīd to
induce them to accept the Muslim faith. This city was one of the
most illustrious in the annals of Arabia, and to the mind of the impetuous hero
of Islam it seemed that an appeal to their Arab blood would be enough to induce them to enrol themselves with the
followers of the Prophet of Arabia. When
the besieged citizens sent an embassy to the Muslim general to arrange the
terms of the capitulation of their
city, Khalīd asked them, "Who are you? are you Arabs or Persians?" Then 'Adī, the
spokesman of the deputation, replied,
"Nay, we are pure-blooded Arabs, while
others among us are naturalised Arabs." Kh. "Had you been what you say you are, you would not have opposed us or hated our cause." 'A.
"Our pure Arab speech is the
proof of what I say." Kh. " You speak truly. Now choose you one of these three things:
either (1) accept our faith, then
your rights and obligations will be
the same as ours, whether you choose to go into another country or stay in your own land; or (2) pay
jizyah; or (3) war and battle. Verily,
by God! I have come to you with a
people who are more desirous of death than you are of life." 'A. "Nay, we will pay you
jizyah." Kh. "Ill-luck
to you! Unbelief is a pathless desert and foolish is the Arab who, when
two guides meet him wandering therein — the
one an Arab and the other not — leaves the first and accepts the guidance of the foreigner."[20]
Due provision was made
for the instruction of the new converts, for while whole tribes were being
converted to the faith with such rapidity,
it was necessary to take precautions
against errors, both in respect of creed and ritual, such as might
naturally be feared in the case of ill-instructed converts. Accordingly we find that the caliph 'Umar appointed teachers in every country, whose duty it
was to instruct the people in the
teachings of the Qur'ān and the observances of their new faith. The
magistrates were also ordered to see that
all, whether old or young, were regular in their attendance at public prayer,
especially on Fridays and in the
month of Ramaḍān. The importance attached to this work of instructing the new converts may be judged from the fact that in the city of Kūfah it was no
less a personage than the state treasurer who was entrusted with this task.[21]
From
the examples given above of the toleration extended towards
the Christian Arabs by the victorious Muslims of the first century
of the Hijrah and continued by succeeding generations, we may surely infer that
those Christian tribes that did embrace Islam, did so of
their own choice and free
will.[22]
The Christian Arabs of the present day, dwelling in the midst of a Muhammadan population,
are a living testimony of
this toleration; Layard speaks of having come across an encampment of Christian Arabs at al-Karak, to the east of the Dead Sea, who differed
in no way, either in dress
or in manners, from the Muslim Arabs.[23]
Burckhardt was told by
the monks of Mount Sinai that in the last century
there still remained several families of Christian Bedouins who had not embraced Islam, and that the last of them,
an old woman, died in 1750, and was buried in the garden of the convent.[24]
Many
of the Arabs of the renowned tribe of the Banū Ghassān,
Arabs of the purest blood, who embraced Christianity towards the
end of the fourth century, still retain the Christian faith, and since
their submission to the Church of Rome, about two centuries ago, employ the
Arabic language in their religious services.[25]
If
we turn from the Bedouins to consider the attitude of the
settled inhabitants of the towns and the non-Arab population towards the new
religion, we do not find that the Arab conquest was so rapidly
followed by conversions to Islam. The Christians of the great
cities of the eastern provinces of the Byzantine empire seem
for the most part to have remained faithful to their ancestral creed, to
which indeed they still in large numbers cling.
In
order that we may fully appreciate their condition under
the Muslim rule, and estimate the influences that led to
occasional conversions, it will be well briefly to sketch their
situation under the Christian rule of the Byzantine empire which fell back
before the Arab arms.
A
hundred years before, Justinian had succeeded in giving some show of unity
to the Roman Empire, but after his death it rapidly
fell asunder, and at this time there was an entire want of common national feeling between the provinces and the seat of government.
Heraclius had made some partially successful efforts to attach Syria again to
the central government, but unfortunately the general methods of reconciliation
which he adopted had served only to increase
dissension instead of allaying it. Religious passions were the only existing substitute for national feeling, and he tried, by propounding an exposition of faith, that
was intended to serve as an eirenicon, to stop all further disputes between the contending factions and unite the
heretics to the Orthodox Church and to the central government. The Council of Chalcedon (451) had maintained that
Christ was "to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, change,
division, or separation; the difference of the natures being in nowise taken away by reason of their union, but rather the
properties of each nature being preserved, and concurring into one
person and one substance, not as it were divided
or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and only
begotten, God the Word." This council was rejected by the Monophysites, who only allowed one nature in the person of Christ, who was said to be a
composite person, having all attributes divine and human, but the substance bearing these attributes was no longer a
duality, but a composite unity. The
controversy between the orthodox party
and the Monophysites, who flourished particularly
in Egypt and Syria and in countries outside the Byzantine empire, had been hotly contested for nearly two
centuries, when Heraclius sought to effect a reconciliation by means of the doctrine of Monotheletism: while conceding the duality of the natures, it secured
unity of the person in the actual
life of Christ, by the rejection of two series of activities in this one person; the one Christ and Son of God effectuates that which is human and that
which is divine by one divine human
agency, i. e. there is only one will
in the Incarnate Word.[26]
But
Heraclius shared the fate of so many would-be peace-makers
: for not only did the controversy blaze up again all the more fiercely, but he
himself was stigmatised as
a heretic and drew upon himself the wrath of both parties.
Indeed,
so bitter was the feeling he aroused that there is strong
reason to believe that even a majority of the orthodox subjects
of the Roman Empire, in the provinces that were conquered during
this emperor's reign, were the well-wishers of the Arabs ; they
regarded the emperor with aversion as a heretic, and were afraid
that he might commence a persecution in order to force upon them his Monotheistic
opinions.[27] They
therefore readily — and even eagerly — received the new masters who promised them religious toleration,
and were willing to compromise their
religious position and their national
independence if only they could free themselves from the immediately impending danger.
Michael
the Elder, Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, writing in the latter half of the
twelfth century, could approve the decision of his
co-religionists and see the finger of God in the Arab conquests
even after the Eastern churches had had experience of five centuries of
Muhammadan rule. After recounting the persecutions of Heraclius, he
writes: "This is why the God of vengeance, who alone is all-powerful,
and changes the empire of mortals as He will, giving it to whomsoever He will,
and uplifting the humble — beholding the wickedness of the
Romans who, throughout their dominions, cruelly plundered our
churches and our monasteries and condemned us without pity — brought
from the region of the south the sons of Ishmael, to deliver us through
them from the hands of the Romans. And, if in truth, we have
suffered some loss, because the catholic churches, that had been
taken away from us and given to the Chalcedonians, remained in their
possession; for when the cities submitted to the Arabs, they assigned
to each denomination the churches which they found it to be in
possession of (and at that time the great church of Emessa and that of Harran had been taken away from us); nevertheless it was no slight advantage
for us to be delivered from the cruelty of the Romans, their wickedness, their wrath and cruel zeal against us, and to find
ourselves at peace."[28]
When
the Muslim army reached the valley of the Jordan and Abū 'Ubaydah
pitched his camp at Fiḥl, the Christian inhabitants of the country wrote to the
Arabs, saying: "O Muslims, we prefer you to the
Byzantines, though they are of our own faith, because you keep
better faith with us and are more merciful to us and refrain from
doing us injustice and your rule over us is better than theirs, for they have
robbed us of our goods and our homes."[29]
The people of Emessa closed the gates of their city against the army of
Heraclius and told the Muslims that they preferred their government and
justice to the injustice and oppression of the Greeks.[30]
Such was the state of
feeling in Syria during the campaign of
633-639 in which the Arabs gradually drove the Roman army out of the province. And when Damascus, in
637, set the example of making terms
with the Arabs, and thus secured
immunity from plunder and other favourable conditions, the rest of the cities of Syria were not slow to follow. Emessa, Arethusa, Hieropolis and other towns
entered into treaties whereby they
became tributary to the Arabs. Even the
patriarch of Jerusalem surrendered the city on similar terms. The fear
of religious compulsion on the part of the heretical
emperor made the promise of Muslim toleration appear more attractive than the connection with the Roman Empire and a Christian government, and after the
first terrors caused by the passage
of an invading army, there succeeded a
profound revulsion of feeling in favour of the Arab conquerors.[31]
For
the provinces of the Byzantine empire that were rapidly acquired by the prowess of the Muslims
found themselves in the enjoyment of a
toleration such as, on account of
their Monophysite and Nestorian opinions, had been unknown to them for many centuries. They were
allowed the free and undisturbed exercise of their religion with some few restrictions imposed for the sake of preventing
any friction between the adherents of the rival religions, or arousing any fanaticism by the ostentatious
exhibition of religious symbols that
were so offensive to Muslim feeling.[32]
The extent of this toleration—so striking in the
history of the seventh century—may be
judged from the terms granted to the
conquered cities, in which protection of life and property and toleration of
religious belief were given in return
for submission and the payment of jizyah.[33]
The
exact details of these agreements cannot easily be disentangled
from the accretions with which they have become overlaid, but whether verbally
authentic or not, they are significant as representing the historic
tradition accepted by the Muslim historians of the second century of the
Hijrah—a tradition that could hardly have become established had there been
extant evidence to the contrary. As an example of such an
agreement, the conditions[34]
may be quoted that are stated to have been drawn up when Jerusalem
submitted to the caliph 'Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb: "In
the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate! This
is the security which 'Umar, the servant of God, the commander
of the faithful, grants to the people of Ælia. He grants to all,
whether sick or sound, security for their lives, their possessions, their churches and
their crosses, and for all that concerns
their religion. Their churches shall not be changed into dwelling places, nor destroyed, neither shall they nor their appurtenances be in any way
diminished, nor the crosses of the inhabitants nor aught of their
possessions, nor shall any constraint be put
upon them in the matter of their
faith, nor shall any one of them be harmed." [35]
Tribute was imposed upon them of five dīnārs for the rich,
four for the middle class and three for the poor. In company with the
Patriarch, 'Umar visited the holy places, and it is said while they
were in the Church of the Resurrection, as it was the appointed hour of
prayer, the Patriarch bade the caliph offer his prayers there, but he
thoughtfully refused,
saying that if he were to do so, his followers might afterwards claim it as a place of Muslim worship.
It is in harmony with the same spirit of kindly
consideration for his subjects of another faith, that 'Umar is
recorded to have ordered an allowance of money and food to be made
to some Christian lepers, apparently out of the public funds.[36]
Even
in his last testament, in which he enjoins on his successor
the duties of his high office, he remembers the dhimmīs (or
protected persons of other faiths): "I commend to his care the dhimmīs,
who enjoy the protection of God and of the Prophet; let him see to it that the
covenant with them is kept, and that no greater burdens than
they can bear are laid upon them."[37]
A later generation attributed to 'Umar a number of
restrictive regulations which hampered the Christians in the
free exercise of their religion, but De Goeje[38] and Caetani[39]
have proved without doubt that they are the invention of a later age; as,
however, Muslim theologians of less tolerant periods accepted these ordinances
as genuine, they are of importance for
forming a judgment as to the condition of the Christian Churches under Muslim rule. This so-called ordinance of 'Umar runs as follows:—"In the
name of God, the Merciful, the
Compassionate! This is a writing to
'Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb from the Christians of such and such a city. When you marched against us, we asked of you protection for ourselves, our
posterity, our possessions and our
co-religionists; and we made this stipulation
with you, that we will not erect in our city or the suburbs any new
monastery, church, cell or hermitage;[40] that we will not repair any of such buildings that may
fall into ruins, or renew those that may be
situated in the Muslim quarters of the town;
that we will not refuse the Muslims entry
into our churches either by night or by day; that we will open the gates wide
to passengers and travellers; that we
will receive any Muslim traveller into our houses and give him food and lodging for three nights; that we will
not harbour any spy in our churches or
houses, or conceal any enemy of the
Muslims; that we will not teach our children the Qur'ān;[41] that we will not make a show of the
Christian religion nor invite any one to embrace it; that we will not prevent any of our kinsmen from embracing Islam, if
they so desire. That we will honour
the Muslims and rise up in our
assemblies when they wish to take their seats; that we will not imitate them in
our dress, either in the cap, turban,
sandals, or parting of the hair; that we will not make use of their
expressions of speech,[42]
nor adopt their surnames; that we will not
ride on saddles, or gird on swords, or
take to ourselves arms or wear them, or engrave Arabic inscriptions on our rings; that we will not sell
wine; that we will shave the front of
our heads; that we will keep to our
own style of dress, wherever we may be; that we will wear girdles round our waists; that we will not
display the cross upon our churches or display our crosses or our sacred
books in the streets of the Muslims, or in
their marketplaces;[43]
that we will strike the bells[44] in our churches lightly; that we will
not recite our services in a loud voice when a Muslim is present, that we will not carry palm-branches or our images in procession in the streets, that at
the burial of our dead we will not chant loudly or carry lighted candles
in the streets of the Muslims or
their market-places; that we
will not take any slaves that have already been in the possession of Muslims, nor spy into
their houses; and that we
will not strike any Muslim. All this we promise to observe, on behalf of ourselves and
our co-religionists, and receive
protection from you in exchange; and if we violate any of the conditions of this
agreement, then we forfeit your
protection and you are at liberty to treat us as enemies and rebels."[45]
The earliest mention of this document is made by Ibn Ḥazm,
who died in the middle of the fifth century of the Hijrah;
its provisions represent the more intolerant practice of
a later age, and indeed were regulations that were put into
force with no sort of regularity, some outburst of fanaticism
being generally needed for any appeal to be made for their application.
There is abundant evidence to show that the Christians in the early days of the
Muhammadan conquest had little to complain of in the way of religious
disabilities. It is true that adherence to their ancient faith
rendered them obnoxious to the payment of jizyah—a word which
originally denoted tribute of any kind paid by the non-Muslim
subjects of the Arab empire, but came later on to be used for the
capitation-tax as the fiscal system of the new rulers became
fixed;[46]
but this jizyah was too moderate to constitute a burden, seeing that
it released them from the compulsory military service that
was incumbent on their Muslim fellow-subjects. Conversion to Islam
was certainly attended by a certain pecuniary advantage, but
his former religion could have had but little hold on a convert who
abandoned it merely to gain exemption from the jizyah; and
now, instead of jizyah, the convert had to pay the legal alms, zakāt, annually levied on most kinds of movable and immovable
property.[47]
The
pecuniary temptation to escape the incidence of taxation by means of conversion
was considerably lessened when financial
considerations compelled the Arab government, towards the end of the first century, to insist on the new converts continuing to pay jizyah even after they
had been received into the community of the faithful.[48]
On the other hand it must be
remembered that the non-Muslim sections of the population always ran the risk of becoming the victims of fiscal oppression when the state was in need of
revenue.
The
rates of jizyah levied by the early conquerors were not
uniform,[49]
and the great Muslim doctors, Abū Ḥanīfah and Mālik, are not in agreement on
some of the less important details;[50] the following facts taken from the Kitāb al-Kharāj,
drawn up by Abū Yūsuf at the request of Hārūn al-Rashīd (a.d. 786-809) may be taken as generally representative of
Muhammadan procedure under the 'Abbāsid Caliphate.
The rich were to pay forty-eight dirhams[51]
a year, the middle classes
twenty-four, while from the poor, i.
e. the field-labourers and artisans, only twelve dirhams were taken. This tax could be paid in kind if
desired; cattle, merchandise,
household effects, even needles were to
be accepted in lieu of specie, but not pigs, wine, or dead animals. The tax was to be levied only on
able-bodied males, and not on women
or children.[52]
The poor who were dependent for their
livelihood on alms and the aged poor who
were incapable of work were also specially excepted, as also the blind, the lame, the incurables and the
insane, unless they happened to be
men of wealth; this same condition
applied to priests and monks, who were exempt if dependent on the alms of the rich, but had to pay if they were well-to-do and lived in comfort. The
collectors of the jizyah were
particularly instructed to show leniency, and refrain from all harsh treatment or the infliction of Corporal punishment, in case of non-payment.[53]
This
tax was not imposed on the Christians, as some would have us think, as a penalty for
their refusal to accept the Muslim faith, but was paid by them in common with
the other dhimmīs or non-Muslim
subjects of the state whose religion precluded them from serving in the army, in return for the protection secured for them by
the arms of the Musalmans.
When the people of Hīrah contributed the sum agreed upon, they expressly mentioned that they paid this jizyah on condition that
"the Muslims and their leader protect us from those who would oppress us, whether they be Muslims or others."[54]
Again, in the treaty made by Khālid with
some towns in the neighbourhood of Hīrah, he writes: "If we protect you, then jizyah is due to
us; but if we do not, then
it is not due."[55]
How clearly this condition
was recognised by the Muhammadans may be judged from
the following incident in the reign of the Caliph 'Umar. The Emperor Heraclius had raised an enormous army
with which to drive back the invading
forces of the Muslims, who had in
consequence to concentrate all their energies on the impending encounter. The Arab general, Abū 'Ubaydah, accordingly wrote to the governors of the
conquered cities of Syria, ordering
them to pay back all the jizyah that
had been collected from the cities, and wrote to the people, saying, "We give you back the money that we took from you, as we have received news that a
strong force is advancing against us.
The agreement between us was that we should protect you, and as this is not now
in our power, we return you all that
we took. But if we are victorious we shall consider ourselves bound to you by
the old terms of our agreement."
In accordance with this order,
enormous sums were paid back out of the state treasury, and the Christians called down blessings on the heads
of the Muslims, saying, " May God give you rule over us again and make you victorious over the Romans;
had it been they, they would not have
given us back anything, but would
have taken all that remained with us."[56]
As
stated above, the jizyah was levied on the able-bodied males,
in lieu of the military service they would have been called
upon to perform had they been Musalmans; and it is very noticeable that when
any Christian people served in the Muslim army, they were exempted
from the payment of this tax. Such was the case with the
tribe of al-Jurājimah, a
Christian tribe in the neighbourhood of Antioch, who made peace with the
Muslims, promising to be their allies and fight on their side in battle, on condition that they should not be called upon to pay
jizyah and should receive
their proper share of the booty.[57]
When the Arab conquests
were pushed to the north of Persia in A.h.
22, a similar
agreement was made with a frontier tribe, which was exempted from the payment of jizyah in consideration of military service.[58]
We
find similar instances of the remission1 of jizyah in the
case of Christians who served in the army or navy under the
Turkish rule. For example, the inhabitants of Megaris, a
community of Albanian Christians, were exempted from the payment of this tax on
condition that they furnished a body of armed men to
guard the passes over Mounts Cithæron and Geranea, which lead to
the Isthmus of Corinth; the Christians who served as pioneers of the
advance-guard of the Turkish army, repairing the roads and bridges,
were likewise exempt from tribute and received grants of land quit
of all taxation;[59]
and the Christian inhabitants of Hydra paid no direct taxes to
the Sultan, but furnished instead a contingent of 250
able-bodied seamen to the Turkish fleet, who were supported out of
the local treasury.[60]
The
Southern Rumanians, the so-called Armatoli,[61]
who constituted so important an element of strength in the Turkish
army during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and
the Mirdites, a tribe of Albanian Catholics who occupied the
mountains to the north of Scutari, were exempt from taxation
on condition of supplying an armed contingent in time of war.[62]
In the same spirit, in consideration of the services they rendered to the
state, the capitation-tax was not imposed upon the Greek Christians
who looked after the aqueducts that supplied Constantinople with
drinking water,[63]
nor on those who had charge of the powder-magazine in
that city.[64]
On the other hand, when the Egyptian peasants, although Muslim in faith, were made
exempt from military service, a tax was
imposed upon them as on the Christians, in lieu thereof.[65]
Living
under this security of life and property and such toleration of religious
thought, the Christian community— especially in the
towns—enjoyed a flourishing prosperity in the early days of the Caliphate.
Mu'āwiyah
(661-680) employed Christians very largely in his service, and other
members of the reigning house followed his example.[66]
Christians frequently held high posts at court, e.g. a Christian
Arab, al-Akhṭal, was court poet, and the father of St. John of Damascus,
counsellor to the caliph 'Abd al-Malik (685-705). In the service of the
caliph al-Mu'taṣim (833-842), there were two brothers,
Christians, who stood very high in the confidence of the Commander
of the Faithful: the one, named Salmūyah, seems to have occupied somewhat the
position of a modern
secretary of state, and no royal documents were valid until countersigned by him, while his brother, Ibrāhīm, was entrusted with the care of
the privy seal, and was
set over the Bayt al-Māl or Public Treasury, an office that, from the nature of the funds and their
disposal, might have been expected to have been put into the hands of a Muslim; so great was the
caliph's personal affection for this Ibrāhīm,
that he visited him in his sickness, and was
overwhelmed with grief at his death, and on the day of the funeral ordered the
body to be brought to the palace and
the Christian rites performed there with great solemnity.[67]
'Abd
al-Malik appointed a certain Athanasius, a Christian scholar
of Edessa, tutor to his brother, 'Abd al-'Azīz. Athanasius
accompanied his pupil, when he was appointed governor of Egypt, and there amassed
great wealth; he is said to have possessed
4000 slaves, villages, houses, gardens, and gold and silver " like stones "; his sons took a dīnār from each of the soldiers when they received
their pay, and as there were 30,000
troops then in Egypt, some idea may be
formed of the wealth that Athanasius accumulated during the twenty-one years that he spent in that country.[68]
At the close of the eighth century, a certain
Abū Nūḥ
al-Anbārī was secretary to Abū Mūsā b. Muṣ'ab, governor of Mosul, and used his powerful influence for
the benefit of his Christian co-religionists.[69]
In
the reign of al-Mu'tadid (892-902), the governor of Anbār,
'Umar b. Yūsuf, was a Christian, and the caliph
approved of the appointment on the ground
that if a Christian were found to be competent, a post might well be given to him, as there were better reasons for trusting a
Christian than either a Jew, a
Muslim or a Zoroastrian.[70]
cAl-Muwaffaq, who was
virtual ruler of the empire during the reign of his brother al-Mu'tamid (870-892), entrusted the
administration of the army to a
Christian named Israel, and his son, al-Mu'taḍid, had as one of his
secretaries another Christian, Malik b.
al-Walīd. In a later reign, that of al-Muqtadir (908-932), a Christian was again in charge of the war office.[71]
Naṣr
b. Hārūn, the Prime Minister of 'Aḍud
al-Dawlah (949-982), of
the Buwayhid dynasty of Persia, who ruled over Southern Persia and 'Iraq, was a Christian.[72]
For a long time, the government offices,
especially in the department of finance,
were filled with Christians and Persians;[73]
to a much later date was such the
case in Egypt, where at times the
Christians almost entirely monopolised such posts.[74]
Particularly as physicians, the Christians frequently amassed great wealth and were much honoured in the houses of the great. Gabriel, the personal
physician of the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd, was a Nestorian Christian and derived a yearly income of 800,000
dirhams from his private property, in addition to an emolument of 280,000 dirhams a year in return for his
attendance on the caliph; the
second physician, also a Christian, received 22,000 dirhams a year.[75]
In trade and commerce, the Christians also attained considerable affluence: indeed it was frequently their wealth that excited
against them the jealous cupidity
of the mob—a feeling that fanatics took advantage of, to persecute and oppress them.
Further, the non-Muslim
communities enjoyed an almost complete autonomy, for the government placed in their hands the
independent management of
their internal affairs, and their religious leaders
exercised judicial functions in cases that concerned their co-religionists
only.[76]
Their churches and monasteries were, for the
most part, not interfered with, except in the large cities, where some of them were turned into mosques— a measure that could hardly be objected to in view
of the enormous increase in the
Muslim and corresponding decrease in
the Christian population.
Recent
historical criticism has demonstrated the impossibility of the
legend that when Damascus was taken by the Arabs, the churches were equally divided
between the Christians and the conquerors,
on the plea that while one Muslim
general made his way into the city by the eastern gate at the point of the sword, another at the
western gate received the submission
of the governor of the city; a similar
scrutiny of historical documents as well as of the topography of the building has shown that the great
cathedral of St. John could never
have been used in the manner described
by some Arabic historians as a common place of worship for both Christians and Muslims.[77]
But the very fact that these
historians should have believed that such an arrangement continued for nearly eighty years, testifies to the early recognition of the liberty granted to
the Christians of practising the
observances of their religion.
The
opinion of the Muhammadan legists is very diverse on
this question, from the more liberal Ḥanafī doctrine, which
declares that, though it is unlawful to construct churches
and synagogues in Muhammadan territory, those already existing can be repaired if they
have been destroyed or have fallen into
decay, while in villages and hamlets, where
the tokens of Islam do not appear, new churches and synagogues may be built—to
the intolerant Ḥanbalite view that
they may neither be erected nor be restored when damaged or ruined. Some legists held that the privileges varied according to treaty rights: in towns taken
by force, no new houses of prayer might be
erected by dhimmīs, but if a special treaty had been made, the building of new churches and synagogues was allowed.[78]
But like so many of the lucubrations of
Muhammadan legists, these prescriptions bore
but little relation to actual facts.[79]
Schoolmen might agree that the dhimmīs
could build no houses of prayer in a
city of Muslim foundation, but the civil
authority permitted the Copts to erect churches in the new capital of Cairo.[80]
In other cities also the Christians were allowed to erect new churches and monasteries. The very fact that 'Umar II (717-720),
at the close of the first century of
the Hijrah, should have ordered the
destruction of all recently constructed churches,[81]
and that rather more than a
century later, the fanatical al-Mutawakkil
(847-861) should have had to repeat the same order, shows how little the prohibition of the building of
new churches was put into force.[82]
We have numerous instances recorded, both by
Christian and Muhammadan historians,
of the building of new churches : e.g. in the reign of 'Abd al-Malik (685-705),
a wealthy Christian of Edessa, named
Athanasius, erected in his native city a fine church dedicated to the Mother of God, and a Baptistery in
honour of the picture of Christ that
was reputed to have been sent to King
Abgar; he also built a number of churches and monasteries in various parts of Egypt, among them two magnificent
churches in Fusṭāṭ.[83]
Some Christian chamberlains in the service
of 'Abd al-'Aziz b. Marwān (brother of 'Abd al-Malik), the governor of Egypt,
obtained permission to build a church
in Ḥalwān, which was dedicated to St. John,[84]
though this town was a Muslim creation. In a.d.
711 a Jacobite church was built at Antioch by order of the caliph
al-Walīd (705-715).[85]
In the first year of the reign of Yazīd II (a.d. 720),
Mār Elias, the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, made a solemn entry into Antioch, accompanied by his clergy and monks, to consecrate a new
church which he had caused to be built; and in
the following year he consecrated another
church in the village of Sarmada, in the district of Antioch, and the only
opposition he met with was from the
rival Christian sect that accepted the Council of Chalcedon.[86]
In the following reign, Khālid al-Qasrī, who was governor of Arabian and Persian 'Irāq from 724 to
738, built a church for his mother,
who was a Christian, to worship in.[87]
In 759 the building of a church at Nisibis was completed, on which the Nestorian bishop, Cyprian, had expended
a sum of 56,000 dīnārs.[88]
From the same century dates the church of
Abū Sirjah in the ancient Roman fortress in old Cairo.[89]
In the reign of al-Mahdī (775-785) a church was erected in Baghdād for the use of the Christian
prisoners that had been taken captive
during the numerous campaigns against the
Byzantine empire.[90]
Another church was built in the same
city, in the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd (786-809), by the people of Samālū, who had submitted to the
caliph and received protection from
him;[91]
during the same reign Sergius, the
Nestorian Metropolitan of Baṣrah, received permission to build a church in that city,[92]
though it was a Muslim foundation,
having been created by the caliph 'Umar in the year 638, and a
magnificent church was erected in Babylon in
which were enshrined the bodies of the prophets
Daniel and Ezechiel.[93]
When al-Ma'mūn (813-833) was in Egypt
he gave permission to two of his chamberlains to erect a church on al-Muqaṭṭam, a hill near Cairo; and by the same caliph's leave, a wealthy
Christian, named Bukām, built several
fine churches at Būrah in Egypt.[94]
The Nestorian Patriarch,
Timotheus, who died a.d. 820,
erected a church at Takrīt and a monastery at Baghdād.[95]
In the tenth century, the
beautiful Coptic church of Abū Sayfayn was built in Fusṭāṭ.[96]
A new church was built at Jiddah
in the reign of al-Ẓāhir, the seventh Fāṭimid caliph of Egypt (1020-1035).[97]
New churches and monasteries were also built in the reign of the 'Abbāsid, al-Mustaḍī (1170-1180).[98]
In 1187 a church was built at Fusṭāṭ and dedicated to Our Lady the Pure Virgin.[99]
Indeed,
so far from the development of the Christian Church being
hampered by the establishment of Muhammadan rule, the history of
the Nestorians exhibits a remarkable outburst of religious life
and energy from the time of their becoming subject to the
Muslims.[100]
Alternately petted and persecuted by the Persian kings, in whose dominions
by far the majority of the members of this sect were found, it had passed a
rather precarious existence and had been subjected to
harsh treatment, when war between Persia and Byzantium exposed it to the
suspicion of sympathising with the Christian enemy. But, under the rule
of the caliphs, the security they enjoyed at home enabled them
to vigorously push forward their missionary enterprises
abroad. Missionaries were sent into China and India, both of which
were raised to the dignity of metropolitan sees in the eighth
century; about the same period they gained a footing in Egypt, and later spread the
Christian faith right across Asia, and by
the eleventh century had gained many
converts from among the Tatars.[101]
If
the other Christian sects failed to exhibit the same vigorous
life, it was not the fault of the Muhammadans. All were tolerated
alike by the supreme government, and furthermore were prevented from
persecuting one another.[102]
In the fifth century, Barsauma, a Nestorian bishop, had persuaded
the Persian king to set on foot a fierce persecution of the Orthodox Church, by representing Nestorius as a friend of the Persians and his
doctrines as approximating to
their own; as many as 7800 of the Orthodox clergy, with an enormous number of laymen, are said
to have been butchered
during this persecution.[103]
Another persecution was
instituted against the Orthodox by Khusrau II, after the invasion of Persia by Heraclius,
at the instigation of a Jacobite,
who persuaded the King that the Orthodox would always be favourably inclined towards the Byzantines.[104]
But the principles of
Muslim toleration forbade such acts of injustice as these: on the contrary, it seems to have been
their endeavour to deal fairly
by all their Christian subjects: e.g. after the conquest of Egypt, the Jacobites took advantage of the expulsion of the
Byzantine authorities to rob
the Orthodox of their churches, but later they were restored by the Muhammadans to their rightful owners when these had made good their claim to possess them.[105]
In
view of the toleration thus extended to their Christian subjects in the early
period of the Muslim rule, the common hypothesis
of the sword as the factor of conversion seems hardly satisfactory, and we are compelled to seek for other motives than that of persecution. But
unfortunately very few details are
forthcoming and we are obliged to have recourse
to conjecture.[106]
In an age so prolific of theological speculation, there may well
have been some thinkers whose trend of
thought had prepared them for the acceptance of the Muhammadan position. Such were those Shahrīghān or landed proprietors in Persia in the eighth
century, who were nominally Christians, but maintained that Christ was an ordinary man and that he was as one of the
Prophets.[107]
They appear at times to have given a good deal of trouble to the Nestorian clergy, who were at great pains to draw them into the paths of orthodoxy;[108]
but their theological position
was more closely akin to Islam than to Christian doctrine, and they probably went to swell the ranks
of the converts after the
Arab conquest of the Persian empire.
Many
Christian theologians[109]
have supposed that the debased condition—moral and spiritual—of
the Eastern Church of that period must have alienated the hearts
of many and driven them to seek a healthier spiritual atmosphere
in the faith of Islam which had come to them in all the
vigour of new-born zeal.[110]
For example, Dean Milman[111]
asks, " What was the state of the Christian world in
the provinces exposed to the first invasion of Mohammedanism? Sect opposed to sect,
clergy wrangling with clergy upon the most
abstruse and metaphysical points of doctrine. The orthodox, the Nestorians, the Eutychians, the
Jacobites were persecuting each other
with unexhausted animosity; and it is not judging too severely the evils
of religious controversy to suppose that
many would rejoice in the degradation
of their adversaries under the yoke of the unbeliever, rather than make
common cause with them in defence of the common
Christianity. In how many must this incessant disputation have shaken the foundations of their faith! It had been wonderful if thousands had not, in
their weariness and perplexity, sought refuge from these interminable and implacable controversies in the simple,
intelligible truth of the Divine
Unity, though purchased by the acknowledgment
of the prophetic mission of Mohammed." Similarly, Caetani sees in the spread of Islam, among the Christians of the Eastern Churches, a revulsion
of feeling from the dogmatic
subtleties introduced into Christian
theology by the Hellenistic spirit." For the East, with its love of clear and simple concepts,
Hellenic culture was, from the religious point of view, a misfortune, because it changed the sublime and simple teachings of Christ into
a creed bristling with incomprehensible dogmas, Pull of doubts and uncertainties; these ended
with producing a feeling of deep dismay and
shook the very foundations of religious belief; so that when at last there
appeared, coming out suddenly from the
desert, the news of the new revelation,
this bastard oriental Christianity, torn asunder by internal discords, wavering in its fundamental
dogmas, dismayed by such incertitudes, could no longer resist the temptations of a new faith, which swept away at
one single stroke all miserable doubts, and offered, along with simple, clear and undisputed doctrines, great material
advantages also. The East then abandoned Christ and threw itself into the arms of the Prophet of Arabia."[112]
Again,
Canon Taylor[113]
says: "It is easy to understand why this reformed Judaism
spread so swiftly over Africa and Asia. The African and Syrian doctors had
substituted abstruse metaphysical dogmas for the religion of Christ: they
tried to combat the licentiousness of the age by setting forth
the celestial merit of celibacy and the angelic excellence of
virginity—seclusion from the world was the road of holiness,
dirt was the characteristic of monkish sanctity— the people were practically polytheists,
worshipping a crowd of martyrs, saints and
angels; the upper classes were effeminate
and corrupt, the middle classes oppressed by taxation,[114]
the slaves without hope for the present or the future. As with the besom
of God, Islam swept away this mass of
corruption and superstition. It was a revolt against empty theological polemics; it was a masculine
protest against the exaltation of
celibacy as a crown of piety. It brought
out the fundamental dogmas of religion—the unity and greatness of God, that He is merciful and righteous, that He claims obedience to His will, resignation
and faith. It proclaimed the responsibility of man, a future life, a day of judgment, and stern retribution to fall upon
the wicked; and enforced the duties of
prayer, almsgiving, fasting and benevolence. It
thrust aside the artificial virtues, the religious frauds and follies, the perverted
moral sentiments, and the verbal subtleties
of theological disputants. It replaced
monkishness by manliness. It gave hope to the slave, brotherhood to mankind, and recognition to the fundamental facts of human nature."
Islam
has, moreover, been represented as a reaction against that
Byzantine ecclesiasticism,[115]
which looked .upon the emperor and his court as a copy of the Divine
Majesty on high, and the emperor himself as not only the supreme earthly
ruler of Christendom, but as High-priest also.[116]
Under Justinian this system had been hardened into a despotism
that pressed like an iron weight upon clergy and laity alike. In 532
the widespread dissatisfaction in Constantinople with both
church and state, burst out into a revolt against the
government of Justinian, which was only suppressed after a
massacre of 35,000 persons. The Greens, as the party of the
malcontents was termed, had made open and violent protest in the
circus against the oppression of the emperor, crying out, " Justice has
vanished from the world and is no more to be found. But we will become Jews,
or rather we will return again to Grecian paganism."[117]
The lapse of a century had removed none of the grounds for
the dissatisfaction that here found such violent expression,
but the heavy hand of the Byzantine government prevented the
renewal of such an outbreak as that of 532 and compelled the
malcontents to dissemble, though in 560 some secret heathens
were detected in Constantinople and punished.[118]
On the borders of the empire, however, at a distance from the
capital, such malcontents were safer, and the persecuted heretics, and others
dissatisfied with the Byzantine state-church, took refuge in
the East, and here the
Muslim armies would be welcomed by the spiritual children of those who a hundred years before had desired to exchange the Christian religion for another
faith.
Further,
the general adoption of the Arabic language throughout the empire of
the caliphate, especially in the towns and the great centres
of population, and the gradual assimilation in manners and customs that in the
course of about
two centuries caused the numerous conquered races to be largely merged in the national life of the ruling race, had no
doubt a counterpart in the religious and intellectual life of many members of the protected religions. The
rationalistic movement that so powerfully influenced Muslim theology from the second to the fifth century of the Hijrah
may very possibly have influenced
Christian thinkers, and turned them from a religion, the prevailing tone
of whose theology seems at this time to have
been Credo quia impossibile. A Muhammadan
writer of the fourth century of the Hijrah has preserved for us a conversation with a Coptic Christian which may safely be taken as characteristic of the
general mental attitude of the rest
of the Eastern Churches at this period
:—
"My
proof for the truth of Christianity is, that I find its
teachings contradictory and mutually destructive, for they
are repugnant to reason and revolting to the intellect, on
account of their inconsistency and mutual contrariety. No
reflection can strengthen them, no discussion can prove them;
and however thoughtfully we may investigate them, neither the intellect nor the
senses can provide us with any argument in support of them.
Notwithstanding this, I have seen that many nations and mighty
kings of learning and sound judgment, have given in their allegiance to the Christian
faith; so I conclude that if these have accepted it in spite of all
the contradictions referred to, it is because the proofs they have
received, in the form of signs and miracles, have compelled
them to submit to it." [119]
On
the other hand, it should be remembered that those who passed over from
Christianity to Islam, under the influence of the
rationalistic tendencies of the age, would find in the Mu'tazilite
presentment of Muslim theology, very much that was common to
the two faiths, so that as far as the articles of belief and
the intellectual attitude towards many theological questions
were concerned, the transition was not so violent as might be
supposed. To say nothing of the numerous fundamental doctrines,
that will at once suggest themselves to those even who have only a slight knowledge of the teachings of the Prophet, there
were many other common points of view, that were the direct consequences of the close relationships between the
Christian and Muhammadan theologians
in Damascus under the Umayyad caliphs
as also in later times; for it has been maintained that there is clear evidence of the influence of
the Byzantine theologians on the
development of the systematic treatment of Muhammadan dogmatics. The very form and arrangement of the oldest rule of faith in the Arabic
language suggest a comparison with
similar treatises of St. John of Damascus
and other Christian fathers.[120]
The oldest Arab Sūfīism, the trend of which was purely towards the ascetic life (as distinguished from the later pantheistic Ṣūfīism)
originated largely under the
influence of Christian thought.[121]
Such influence is especially
traceable in the doctrines of some of
the Mu'tazilite sects,[122]
who busied themselves with speculations
on the attributes of the divine nature quite in the manner of the Byzantine theologians: the
Qadariyyah or libertarians of Islam
probably borrowed their doctrine of the freedom of the will directly
from Christianity, while the Murji'ah in
their denial of the doctrine of eternal punishment were in thorough agreement with the teaching of the Eastern Church on this subject as against the
generally received opinion of orthodox
Muslims.[123]
On the other hand, the influence of the more orthodox doctors of Islam
in the conversion of unbelievers is attested
by the tradition that twenty thousand
Christians, Jews and Magians became Muslims
when the great Imām Ibn Ḥanbal died.[124]
A celebrated doctor of the same sect,
Abu'l-Faraj b. al-Jawzī (A.D.
1115-1201), the most learned man of his time, a popular preacher and most prolific writer, is said to have
boasted that just the same number of
persons accepted the faith of Islam at
his hands.[125]
Further,
the vast and unparalleled success of the Muslim arms shook the
faith of the Christian peoples that came under their rule and saw in these
conquests the hand of God.[126]
Worldly prosperity they associated with the divine favour
and the God of battle (they thought) would surely give the victory only
into the hands of his favoured servants. Thus
the very success of the Muhammadans seemed to argue the truth of their religion.
The
Islamic ideal of the brotherhood of all believers was a
powerful attraction towards this creed, and though the Arab
pride of birth strove to refuse for several generations the
privileges of the ruling race to the new converts, still as " clients
" of the various Arab tribes to which at first they
used to be affiliated, they received a recognised position in
the community, and by the close of the first century of the
Hijrah they had vindicated for this ideal its true place in
Muslim theology and at least a theoretical recognition in the
state.[127]
But
the condition of the Christians did not always continue to
be so tolerable as under the earlier caliphs. In the interests of the true
believers, vexatious conditions were sometimes imposed upon the non-Muslim
population (or dhimmīs), with the object of securing for the faithful superior social advantages. Unsuccessful
attempts were made by several caliphs
to exclude them from the public
offices. Decrees to this effect were passed by al-Manṣūr (754-775), al-Mutawakkil (847-861),
al-Muqtadir (908-932), and in Egypt
by al-Āmir (1101-1130), one of the Fāṭimid
caliphs, and by the Mamlūk Sultans in the fourteenth
century.[128]
But the very fact that these decrees excluding
the dhimmīs from government posts were so often renewed, is a sign of the want of any continuity or persistency in
putting such intolerant measures into practice. In fact they may generally be traced either to popular indignation excited by the harsh and insolent
behaviour of Christian officials,[129]
or to outbursts of fanaticism which forced upon the government acts of
oppression that were contrary to the general
spirit of Muslim rule and were consequently
allowed to lapse as soon as possible.
The
beginning of a harsher treatment 8f the native Christian
population dates from the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd (786-809) who ordered
them to wear a distinctive dress and give up
the government posts they held to Muslims. The first of these orders shows how little one at least of the
ordinances ascribed to 'Umar was observed, and these decrees were the outcome, not so much of any purely religious feeling, as of the political
circumstances of the time. The
Christians under Muhammadan rule have often had to suffer for the bad faith kept by foreign Christian powers in their
relations with Muhammadan princes, and on this occasion it was the treachery of the Byzantine Emperor, Nicephorus, that caused the Christian name to stink
in the nostrils of Hārūn.[130]
Many of the persecutions of Christians in
Muslim countries can be traced either to distrust of their loyalty,
excited by the intrigues and interference of Christian foreigners and the enemies of Islam, or to the bad feeling stirred up by the treacherous or brutal behaviour
of the latter towards the Musalmans.
Religious fanaticism is, however,
responsible for many of such persecutions, as in the reign of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil (847-861), under whom severe
measures of oppression were taken against the Christians. This prince took advantage of the strong Orthodox reaction that had set in in Muhammadan
theology against the rationalistic
and freethinking tendencies that had had
free play under former rulers,—and came forward as the champion of the extreme orthodox party, to which the mass of the people as contrasted
with the higher classes belonged,[131]
and which was eager to exact vengeance for the persecutions it had itself suffered in the two preceding reigns;[132]
he sought to curry their favour by persecuting the Mu'tazilites, forbidding all further discussions on the Qur'ān and declaring the doctrine that it was
created, to be heretical; he had the
followers of 'Alī imprisoned and beaten, pulled down the tomb of Husayn at
Karbalā’ and forbade pilgrimages to be made to the site. The Christians shared in the sufferings of the other heretics; for
al-Mutawakkil put rigorously into
force the rules that had been passed
in former reigns prescribing a distinction in the dress of dhimmīs and Muslims, ordered that the Christians should
no longer be employed in the public offices, doubled the capitation-tax, forbade them to have Muslim slaves or use the same
baths as the Muslims, and harassed them with several other restrictions.
It
is noteworthy that the historians of the Nestorian Church—which had to
suffer most from this persecution describe
it as something new and individual to al-Mutawakkil, and as ceasing with his death.[133]
One of His successors, al-Muqtadir (a.d.
908-932), renewed these regulations,
which the lapse of half a century had apparently caused to fall into disuse.
Other
outbursts of fanaticism led to the destruction of churches
and synagogues,[134]
and the terror of such persecution led to the defection of
many from the Christian Church.[135]
But such oppression was contrary to the tolerant spirit of Islam,
and to the teaching traditionally ascribed to the Prophet;[136]
and the fanatical party tried in vain to enforce the
persistent execution of these oppressive measures for the humiliation of the non-Muslim
population. " The '
ulama ' (i. e. the learned, the clergy) consider this state of things; they weep and groan in silence,
while the princes who had
the power of putting down these criminal abuses only shut their eyes to them."[137]
The rules that a fanatical priesthood may lay
down for the repression of unbelievers cannot always be taken as a criterion of
the practice of civil governments: it is
failure to realise this fact that has rendered possible the
highly-coloured pictures of the sufferings of the Christians under Muhammadan
rule, drawn by writers who have assumed that
the prescriptions of certain Muslim theologians represented an
invariable practice. Such outbursts of persecution seem in some cases to have
been excited by the alleged abuse of their
position by those Christians who held high posts in the service of the
government; they aroused considerable hostility of feeling towards themselves by their oppression of the Muslims, it
being said that they took advantage of
their high position to plunder and annoy the faithful, treating them with great
harshness and rudeness and despoiling
them of their lands and money. Such complaints were laid before the
caliphs al-Manṣūr (754-775), al-Mahdī
(775-785), al-Ma'mūn (813-833), al-Mutawakkil
(847-861), al-Muqtadir (908-932), and many of their successors.[138]
They also incurred the odium of many Muhammadans by acting as the spies of the
'Abbāsid dynasty and hunting down the
adherents of the displaced Umayyad family.[139]
At a later period, during the time of the Crusades they were accused of treasonable correspondence
with the Crusaders[140]
and brought on themselves severe restrictive measures
which cannot justly be described as religious persecution.
In
proportion as the lot of the conquered peoples became harder
to bear, the more irresistible was the temptation to free themselves from their
miseries, by the words, " There is no god but God : Muḥammad
is the Apostle of God."
When the state was in
need of money—as was increasingly the
case—the subject races were more and more burdened with taxes, so that the condition of the
non-Muslims was constantly growing
more unendurable, and conversions to Islam
increased in the same proportion. The dreary record of scandals, with
which the pages of the Christian historians of
this later period are filled, would suggest that the Christian Churches had failed to develop a moral
fibre strong enough to endure the
stress of adverse conditions, and when
persecution came, the reason for the defection that followed might—as the historian of the Nestorian
Church suggests[141]
—be sought for in the prevailing negligence in the performance of religious duties and the evil life of the clergy.
Further
causes that contributed to the decrease of the Christian population
may be found in the fact that the children of the numerous Christian captive
women who were carried off to the harems of the Muslims had to be
brought up in the religion of their fathers, and in the frequent
temptation that was offered to the Christian slave by
an indulgent master, of purchasing his freedom at the price
of conversion to Islam. But of any organised attempt to
force the acceptance of Islam on the non-Muslim population,
or of any systematic persecution intended to stamp out
the Christian religion, we hear nothing. Had the caliphs chosen to
adopt either course of action, they might have swept away
Christianity as easily as Ferdinand and Isabella drove Islam out
of Spain, or Louis XIV made Protestantism penal in France, or the
Jews were kept out of England for 350 years. The Eastern Churches in
Asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of Christendom,
throughout which no one would have been found to lift a finger on
their behalf, as heretical communions. So that the very survival of
these Churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally tolerant attitude of the Muhammadan governments towards them..[142]
Of
the ancient Churches in Western Asia at the time of the
Muhammadan conquest, there still survive about 150,000 Nestorians,[143]
and their number would have been larger but for the proselytising
efforts of other Christian Churches; the Chaldees who have
submitted to the Church of Rome number 70,000, in 1898 the
Nestorian Bishop Mār Jonan, with several of the clergy and 15,000
Nestorians were received into the Orthodox Russian Church; and numbers of
Nestorians have also become Protestants.[144]
The Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch exercises jurisdiction over
about 80,000 members of this ancient Church, while 25,000
families of Uniat Jacobites obey the Syrian Catholic Patriarch.[145]
Belonging
to the Greek Orthodox Church, there are 28,836 families under the Patriarch of Antioch and more than 15,000 persons under the Patriarch of Jerusalem,[146]
while the Melchites or Greek-Catholics
number about 130,000.[147]
The Maronite Church, which has been
in union with the Roman Catholic
Church since the year 1182, has a following of 300,000.[148]
The
marvel is that these isolated and scattered communities should have
survived so long, exposed as they have been to the ravages
of war, pestilence and famine,[149]
living in a country that was for centuries a continual
battlefield, overrun by Turks, Mongols and Crusaders,' it being further remembered that they were forbidden by the Muhammadan law to make good this decay
of their numbers by
proselytising efforts—if indeed they had cared to do so, for they seem (with the exception of the Nestorians) even before the Muhammadan conquest, to have lost that
missionary spirit, without which, as
history abundantly shows, no healthy
life is possible in a Christian Church[150].
It has also been suggested that the
monastic ideal of continence so widespread in the East, and the
Christian practice of monogamy, together with the sense of insecurity and their
servile condition, may have acted as checks
on the growth of the Christian population.[151]
Of
the details of conversion to Islam we have hardly any information.
At the time of the first occupation of their country by the
Arabs, the Christians appear to have gone over to Islam in very
large numbers. Some idea of the extent of these early
conversions in 'Irāq for example may be formed from the fact
that the income from taxation in the reign of 'Umar was from
100 to 120 million dirhams, while in the reign of 'Abd al-Malik,
about fifty years later, it had sunk to forty millions : while this fall in the
revenue is largely attributable to the devastation caused by wars and
insurrections, still it was chiefly due to the fact that large numbers of the
population had become Muhammadan and consequently could no longer be called
upon to pay the capitation-tax.[152]
This
same period witnesses the conversion of large numbers of
the Christians of Khurāsān, as we learn from a letter of a
contemporary ecclesiastic, the Nestorian Patriarch Ishō'-yabh III, addressed to
Simeon, the Metropolitan of Rev-Ardashīr and Primate of Persia. We possess so
very few Christian documents of the first century of the Hijrah, and
this letter bears such striking testimony to the peaceful character of the
spread of the new faith, and has moreover been so little noticed by
modern historians—that it may well be quoted here at length.
" Where are thy sons, O father bereft of sons ? Where is
that great people of Merv, who though they beheld neither sword, nor
fire or tortures, captivated only by love for a moiety of their goods, have
turned aside, like fools, from the true path and rushed headlong into
the pit of faithlessness—into everlasting destruction, and
have utterly been brought to nought, while two priests only
(priests at least in name), have, like brands snatched from the burning, escaped
the devouring flames of infidelity. Alas,
alas! Out of so many thousands who bore the name of Christians, not even one single victim was consecrated unto God by the
shedding of his blood for the true faith. Where, too, are the sanctuaries of Kirmān and all Persia ? it is not the coming of Satan or the mandates of
the kings of the earth or the orders
of governors of provinces that have laid
them waste and in ruins—but the feeble breath of one contemptible little demon,
who was not deemed worthy of the
honour of demons by those demons who sent him on his errand, nor was endowed by Satan the seducer with
the power of diabolical deceit, that
he might display it in your land; but merely by the nod of his command
he has thrown down all the churches of your Persia.
. . . And the Arabs, to whom God at
this time has given the empire of the world, behold, they are among you, as ye know well: and yet they attack not the
Christian faith, but, on the contrary, they
favour our religion, do honour to our priests and the saints of the
Lord, and confer benefits on churches and monasteries.
Why then have your people of Merv abandoned
their faith for the sake of these Arabs? and that, too, when the Arabs,
as the people of Merv themselves declare, have
not compelled them to leave their own religion but suffered them to keep it safe and undefiled if
they gave up only a moiety of their
goods. But forsaking the faith which brings
eternal salvation, they clung to a moiety of the goods of this fleeting
world : that faith which whole nations have purchased
and even to this day do purchase by the shedding of their blood and gain thereby the inheritance of eternal life,
your people of Merv were willing to barter for a moiety of their goods—and even less."[153]
The reign of the caliph 'Umar II (a.d. 717-720)
particularly was marked with very extensive
conversions : he organised a zealous missionary movement and offered every kind of inducement to the conquered peoples to accept Islam, even making them grants of money; on one occasion he is
said to have given a
Christian military officer the sum of 1000 dīnārs to induce him to accept Islam.[154]
He instructed the governors of the provinces to invite the dhimmīs to
the Muslim faith, and al-Jarrāḥ
b. 'Abd Allāh, governor of Khurāsān, is said to have converted about 4000 persons.[155]
He is even said to have written a letter to the Byzantine Emperor, Leo III, urging on him the acceptance of the
faith of Islam.[156]
He abrogated the decree
passed in a.d. 700 for the purpose
of arresting the
impoverishment of the treasury, according to which the convert to Islam was not released from the capitation-tax, but was compelled to
continue to pay it as before;
even though the dhimmī apostatised the very day before his yearly payment of the jizyah
was due or while his
contribution was actually being weighed, in the scales, it was to be remitted
to the new convert.[157]
He no longer exacted the kharāj from
the Muhammadan owners of landed property,
and imposed upon them the far lighter burden of a tithe. These measures, though financially most ruinous, were eminently successful in the way the
pious-minded caliph desired they
should be, and enormous numbers hastened to enrol themselves among the Muslims.[158]
It
must not, however, be supposed that such worldly considerations were
the only influences at work in the conversion of the
Christians to Islam. The controversial works of St. John of Damascus, of the
same century, give us glimpses of the zealous Muslim striving to
undermine by his arguments the foundations of the Christian faith.
The very
dialogue form into which these treatises are thrown, and the frequent repetition of such phrases as "
If the Saracen asks you,"—"
If the Saracen says . . . then tell him" . . . —give them an air of vraisemblance and make
them appear as if they were intended
to provide the Christians with ready answers to the numerous objections which
their Muslim neighbours brought
against the Christian creed.[159]
That the aggressive attitude of the
Muhammadan disputant is most
prominently brought forward in these dialogues is only what might be expected, it being no part of
this great theologian's purpose to enshrine in his writings an apology for Islam. His pupil, Bishop Theodore Abū Qurrah,
also wrote several controversial dialogues[160] with Muhammadans, in which the disputants range over all the points of dispute between the two faiths, the Muslim as before being
the first to take up the cudgels, and enabling us to form some slight idea
of the activity with which the cause of Islam was prosecuted at this period. " The thoughts of the Agarenes," says the bishop, " and all their zeal, are
directed towards the denial of the divinity of God the Word, and they
strain every effort to this end."[161]
The Nestorian Patriarch, Timotheus, used to hold discussions on
religious matters in the presence of the
caliphs, al-Hādī and Hārūn al-Rashīd, and embodied them in a work that is now lost.[162]
Timotheus had secured his election to
the patriarchate in the face of the active opposition of many of the most powerful ecclesiastics of his own
Church; among these was Joseph, the metropolitan of Merv, who intrigued against
him with the caliph, al-Mahdī (775-785), but
was persuaded by the caliph to accept Islam and was rewarded for his apostasy with rich presents and an official appointment in Basrah.[163]
These
details from the first two centuries of the Hijrah are
meagre in the extreme and rather suggest the existence of
proselytising efforts than furnish definite facts. The earliest
document of a distinctly missionary character which has come down to us, would
seem to date from the reign of al-Ma'mūn (813-833), and takes the form of a letter[164]
written by a cousin of the caliph to a
Christian Arab of noble birth and of
considerable distinction at the court, and held in high esteem by al-Ma'mūn himself. In this letter he
begs his friend to embrace Islam, in
terms of affectionate appeal and in
language that strikingly illustrates the tolerant attitude of the Muslims towards the Christian
Church at this period. This letter
occupies an almost unique place in the early history of the propagation of
Islam, and has on this account been given in full in
an appendix.[165]
In the same work we have
a report of a speech made by the caliph at an assembly of his nobles, in which
he speaks in tones of the strongest contempt
of those who had become Muhammadans merely
out of worldly and selfish motives, and compares them to the Hypocrites who while pretending to be friends of the Prophet, in secret plotted
against his life. But just as the
Prophet returned good for evil, so the caliph resolves to treat these
persons with courtesy and forbearance until God should decide between them.[166]
The record of this complaint on the part of
the caliph is interesting as indicating
that disinterested and genuine conviction was expected and looked for in the new convert to Islam, and that the discovery of self-seeking and unworthy
motives drew upon him the severest
censure.
Al-Ma'mūn
himself was very zealous in his efforts to spread the faith of Islam,
and sent invitations to unbelievers even in the most distant parts of his
dominions, such as Transoxania and Farghānah.[167]
At the same time he did not abuse his royal power, by attempting to
force his own faith upon others : when a certain Yazdānbakht, a leader of the Manichæan sect, came on a
visit to Baghdād[168]
and held a disputation with the Muslim
theologians, in which he was utterly
silenced, the caliph tried to induce him to embrace Islam. But Yazdānbakht refused, saying, " Commander of the faithful, your advice is
heard and your words have been listened to; but you are one of those who do not
force men to abandon their
religion." So far from resenting the
ill-success of his efforts, the caliph furnished him with a bodyguard, that he might not be exposed to
insult from the fanatical populace.[169]
Some
scanty references are made by Christian historians to
cases of ecclesiastical dignitaries who became Muhammadans,
e. g. George, Bishop of Bahrayn, about the middle of
the ninth century, having been deposed from his office for
some ecclesiastical offence, exchanged the Christian faith
for that of Islam,[170]
and the conversion of a brother of Gabriel, metropolitan
of Fārs about the middle of the tenth century, only
receives mention because the fact of his having become a Muslim was alleged as
disqualifying Gabriel for election to the
patriarchate of the Nestorian church.[171]
In
the early part of the same century, Theodore, the Nestorian
Bishop of Beth Garmai, became a Muslim, and there is no mention of any
force or compulsion by the ecclesiastical historian[172]
who records the fact, as there undoubtedly would
have been, had such existed. Some years later (between a.d. 962 and 979),
Philoxenos, a Jacobite Bishop of Ādharbayjān,
also became a Muslim,[173]
and in the following century, in 1016,
Ignatius,[174]
the Jacobite Metropolitan of Takrīt,
who had held this office for twenty-five years, set out for Baghdād and embraced Islam in the
presence of the caliph al-Qādir,
taking the name of Abū Muslim.[175]
It would be exceedingly interesting if
an Apologia pro Vita Sua had survived
to reveal to us the religious development that took place in the mind of either of these converts. The Christian chronicler hints at immorality in
the last three cases, but such an
accusation uncorroborated by any further evidence is open to suspicion,[176]
much as it would be if brought forward by a
Roman Catholic when recording the conversion
of a priest of his own communion to the Protestant
faith. It is doubtless owing to their exalted position in the Church that the conversion of these prominent
ecclesiastics of two hostile Christian sects has been handed down to us,
while that of more obscure individuals has not been recorded. As Barhebræus brings his ecclesiastical chronicle nearer to his own time, he gives fuller
details of the career of such
converts, e. g. in recording the public lapse of some of the Jacobite
bishops, in the middle of the twelfth century
he makes particular mention of Aaron, bishop of a town in Khurāsān,
as having become a Muhammadan after having
been convicted of some moral fault; repenting of this change, he wished to regain his episcopal status, and when this was refused him, went to Constantinople
and abjured the Monophysite doctrines
of the Jacobite Church; then
apparently dissatisfied with the reception he received in Constantinople, he returned to the Jacobite
Patriarch, but a second time went over to Islam " without any
reason "; then repenting again, he
finally ended his days among the Maronites of Mount Lebanon.[177]
A contemporary of Barhebræus, in the middle
of the thirteenth century—Daniel, Bishop
of Khabur—who is said to have been proficient in secular learning,
sought to be appointed to the diocese of Aleppo,
but disappointed in this ambition, he abandoned the Christian faith and to the grief and shame of all Christian people " became a Muslim; but God (praise be
to His grace!) soon consoled his
afflicted people and took away the shame
from the redeemed, the redeemed of the Lord; for a few months later that unhappy wretch died
miserably in a caravanserai; his name
perished, he was taken away out of our midst, and no man knoweth his abiding
place."[178]
But
that these conversions were not merely isolated instances we have
the valuable evidence of Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre (1216-1225), who thus
speaks of the Eastern Church from his experience of it in the
Holy Land:
"Weakened
and lamentably ensnared, nay rather grievously wounded, by the
lying persuasions of the false prophet and by the allurements of carnal
pleasure, she hath sunk down, and she that was brought up in
scarlet, hath embraced dunghills."[179]
So
far the Christian Churches that have been described as coming within the sphere
of Muhammadan influence, have been the Orthodox Eastern Church and the
heretical communions that had sprung out of it. But with the close
of the eleventh century a fresh element was added to the Christian
population of Syria and Palestine, in the large bodies of Crusaders
of the Latin rite who settled in the kingdom of Jerusalem and
the other states founded by the Crusaders, which maintained
a precarious existence for nearly two centuries. During this
period, occasional conversions to Islam were made from among these foreign immigrants.
In the first Crusade, for example, a body of Germans and Lombards
under the command of a certain knight, named Rainaud, had separated
themselves from the main body and were besieged in a castle by the
Saljūq Sultan, Arslān; on pretence of making a sortie, Rainaud and his
personal followers abandoned their unfortunate companions
and went over to the Turks, among whom they embraced Islam.[180]
The
history of the ill-fated second Crusade presents us with
a very remarkable incident of a similar character. The story,
as told by Odo of Deuil, a monk of St. Denis, who, in
the capacity of private chaplain to Louis VII, accompanied him
on this Crusade and wrote a graphic account of it, runs as follows.
While endeavouring to make their way overland through Asia Minor to Jerusalem
the Crusaders sustained a disastrous defeat at the hands of the
Turks in the mountain-passes of Phrygia (a.d. 1148), and with difficulty reached
the seaport town of Attalia. Here, all who could afford to
satisfy the exorbitant demands of the Greek merchants, took
ship for Antioch; while the sick and wounded and the mass
of the pilgrims were left behind at the mercy of their treacherous
allies, the Greeks, who received five hundred marks
from Louis, on condition that they provided an escort for the pilgrims and took care of the sick until
they were strong enough to be sent on after the others. But no sooner had the army left, than the
Greeks informed the Turks
of the helpless condition of the pilgrims, and quietly looked on while famine, disease and
the arrows of the enemy carried
havoc and destruction through the camp of these unfortunates. Driven to desperation, a party of three or four thousand attempted to escape, but
were surrounded and cut to pieces by the
Turks, who now pressed on to the camp to
follow up their victory. The situation of the survivors would have been utterly hopeless, had not the sight of their misery melted the hearts of the
Muhammadans to pity. They tended the
sick and relieved the poor and starving
with open-handed liberality. Some even bought up the French money which
the Greeks had got out of the pilgrims by
force or cunning, and lavishly distributed it among the needy. So great was the contrast between the kind treatment the pilgrims received from the
unbelievers and the cruelty of their fellow-Christians, the Greeks, who imposed forced labour upon them, beat them and
robbed them of what little they had left, that many of them voluntarily embraced the faith of their deliverers. As
the old chronicler says: " Avoiding their co-religionists who had been so cruel to them, they went in safety among
the infidels who had compassion upon
them, and, as we heard, more than
three thousand joined themselves to the Turks when they retired. Oh, kindness more cruel than all
treachery! They gave them bread but robbed them of their faith, though it is certain that contented with the services they
performed, they compelled no one among
them to renounce his religion."[181]
The
increasing intercourse between Christians and Muslims, the
growing appreciation on the part of the Crusaders of
the virtues of their opponents, which so strikingly distinguishes
the later from the earlier chroniclers of the Crusades,[182]
the numerous imitations of Oriental manners and ways of life by the
Franks settled in the Holy Land, did not fail to exercise a
corresponding influence on religious opinions. One of the most
remarkable features of this influence is the tolerant attitude of
many of the Christian Knights towards the faith of Islam—an
attitude of mind that was most vehemently denounced by the Church. When
Usāma b. Munqidh, a Syrian Amīr of the twelfth century, visited
Jerusalem, during a period of truce, the Knights Templar, who had
occupied the Masjid al-Aqṣā, assigned to him a small chapel
adjoining it, for him to say his prayers in, and they strongly
resented the interference with the devotions of their guest on
the part of a newly-arrived Crusader, who took this new
departure in the direction of religious freedom in very bad part.[183]
It would indeed have been strange if religious questions had not
formed a topic of discussion on the many occasions when the
Crusaders and the Muslims met together on a friendly footing, during
the frequent truces, especially when it was religion itself
that had brought the Crusaders into the Holy Land and set them upon
these constant wars. When even Christian theologians were led by
their personal intercourse with the Muslims to form a juster
estimate of their religion, and contact with new modes of
thought was unsettling the minds of men and giving rise to a
swarm of heresies, it is not surprising that many should have
been drawn into the pale of Islam.[184]
The renegades in the twelfth century were in sufficient numbers to be noticed
in the statute books of the Crusaders, the so-called Assises
of Jerusalem, according to which, in certain cases, their bail
was not accepted.[185]
It
would be interesting to discover who were the Muslims who
busied themselves in winning these converts to Islam, but
they seem to have left no record of their labours. We know,
however, that they had at their head the great Saladin himself,
who is described by his biographer as setting before his
Christian guest the beauties of Islam and urging him to embrace it.[186]
The
heroic life and character of Saladin seems to have exercised an especial fascination
on the minds of the Christians of his time;
some even of the Christian knights were
so strongly attracted towards him that they abandoned the Christian
faith and their own people and joined themselves
to the Muslims; such was the case, for example, with a certain English Templar,
named Robert of St. Albans, who in a.d. 1185 gave up Christianity for Islam
and afterwards married a
grand-daughter of Saladin.[187]
Two years later, Saladin invaded Palestine and utterly defeated the Christian
army in the battle of Ḥiṭṭīn, Guy, king of Jerusalem, being among the prisoners. On the eve of the battle, six of
his knights, " possessed with a devilish spirit," deserted the king and escaped into the camp of
Saladin, where of their own accord
they became Saracens.[188]
At the same time Saladin seems to
have had an understanding with Raymund
III, Count of Tripoli, according to which he was to induce his followers to abandon the Christian faith and go over
to the Muslims; but the sudden death of the Count effectually put a stop to the execution of this scheme.[189]
The fall of Jerusalem
and the successes of Saladin in the Holy Land stirred up Europe to undertake
the third Crusade, the chief incident of
which was the siege of Acre (A.D.nSg-1191). The fearful sufferings that
the Christian army was exposed to, from
famine and disease, drove many of them to
desert and seek relief from the cravings of hunger in the Muslim camp. Of these deserters, many made their
way back again after some time to the army of the Crusaders; on the other hand, many elected to throw in their
lot with the Muslims; some, taking
service under their former enemies,
still remained true to the Christian faith and (we are told) were well pleased
with their new masters, while others
embracing Islam became good Muslims.[190]
The conversion of these deserters is recorded also by the chronicler who accompanied Richard I upon this Crusade
:—" Some of our men (whose fate cannot be told
or heard without grievous sorrow) yielding to
the severity of the sore famine, in
achieving the salvation of the body, incurred the damnation of their
souls. For after the greater part of the affliction was past, they deserted and fled to the Turks: nor did they hesitate to become renegades; in order that they
might prolong their temporal life a
little space, they purchased eternal
death with horrid blasphemies. O baleful trafficking! O shameful deed beyond all punishment! O
foolish man likened unto the foolish beasts, while he flees from the death that must inevitably come soon, he shuns not
the death unending."[191]
From this time onwards
references to renegades are not infrequently
to be met with in the writings of those who travelled to the Holy Land and
other countries of the East. The
terms of the oath which was proposed to St. Louis by his Muhammadan captors when he was called upon to promise to pay the ransom imposed upon him (a.d. 1250), were suggested by
certain whilom priests who had become Muslims;[192]
and while this business of paying the ransom was still being carried on, another renegade, a Frenchman, born at Provins, came to bring a present to the
king : he had accompanied King John
of Jerusalem on his expedition against
Damietta in 1219 and had remained in Egypt, married a Muhammadan wife and become a great lord in that country.[193]
The danger of the pilgrims to the Holy Land becoming converts to Islam
was so clearly recognised at this time that
in a " Remembrance," written about 1266 by Amaury de la Roche, the master of the Knights
Templar in France, he requests the
Pope and the legates of France and
Sicily to prevent the poor and the aged and those incapable of bearing arms from crossing the sea to
Palestine, for such persons either got killed or were taken prisoners by
the Saracens or turned renegades.[194]
Ludolf de Suchem, who travelled in the
Holy Land from 1336 to 1341, speaks of three
renegades he found at Hebron; they had come from the diocese of Minden and had been in the service of a Westphalian knight, who was held in high honour by the Soldan
and other Muhammadan princes.[195]
These scattered notices
are no doubt significant of more extensive
conversions of Christians to Islam, of which no record has come down to us : e. g. there were said to be about 25,000 renegades in the city of Cairo
towards the close of the fifteenth
century,[196]
and there must have been many also to
be found in the cities of the Holy Land after the disappearance of the Latin princedoms of the East.
But the Muhammadan historians of this period seem to have been too busily engaged in recording the exploits of
princes and the vicissitudes of
dynasties, to turn their attention to religious
changes in the lives of obscure individuals; and (as far as I have been able to discover) they as little notice the conversions of Christians to Islam as of those
of their own co-religionists to
Christianity. Consequently, we have to depend
for our knowledge of both of these classes of events on Christian writers, who,
while they give us detailed and sympathetic accounts of the latter, bear
unwilling testimony to the existence
of instances of the former and represent the motives of the renegades in the
worst light possible. The possibility of any Christian becoming converted to Islam from honest conviction, probably never
entered into the head of any of these
writers, and even had such an idea occurred to them they would hardly
have ventured to expose themselves to the
thunders of ecclesiastical censure by giving
open expression to it.
As
an example of the rare instances of such a conversion being
recorded, the account may here be cited which Fürer von Haimendorf, who was
in Cairo in 1565, gives of the conversion of
a German scholar who had studied in the University of Leipzig. " Sed dum nos hanc moram Cairi nectimus, accidit ut Justus quidam Stevenius Germanus Hamelensis qui in iisdem ædibus nobiscum habitaverat, fide
Christianorum abnegata Turcarum religioni se initiandum atque circumcidendum obtulerit. Vir erat doctus, qui diu se Witebergæ ac Lipsiæ studiis operam dedisse sæpe
nobis narrabat:
verum de hoc facto interrogatus, peculiarem nunc sibi Spiritum adesse ajebat, sine cujus instinctu
nihil vel facere sibi, vel
cogitare fas esset; quæ hominis apostasia nimium quantum animos nostros commovit,
et ad fugam quasi excitavit. Eodem quoque die Judæus quidam, qui paucis diebus ante religionem Mahumetanam amplexus fuerat, triumphali pompa per urbem
circumducebatur; quod idem
cum Stevenio isto futurum esse, Janissarii quidam nobis affirmabant."[197]
From
the historical sources quoted above, we have as little information
respecting the number of these converts as of the proselytising
efforts made to induce them to change their faith. A motive
frequently assigned for going over to Islam is the desire to
escape the death penalty by means of apostasy. European
travellers make frequent mention of such cases. A late
example of such an account may be selected, for the picturesqueness of its
language, from the report of a Jesuit, who was in Cairo in 1627; he saw a
Copt who, having allowed himself to be carried away "
partly by passion and partly by the violence of an indiscreet
zeal, had killed his brother with his own hand, in detestation of
his having in a dastardly manner left Jesus Christ to
embrace Mahometanism, in order to deliver himself from the vexation
of the Turks. The poor man was at once seized in the heat of
his crime, and he boldly confessed that the renegade, unworthy of being his
brother, could only wipe out so black a spot by his blood. He
was urged to abandon his faith in order to save his
life," but he declared that he was resolved to die a Christian;
the cruel torments, however, inflicted on him by the executioners,
weakened his resolution and he yielded at the last moment. " This
disaster changed him in a moment from a confessor into a
renegade, from a martyr into an apostate, from a saint into one
of the damned, and from an angel into a veritable devil. He made the profession
of faith or rather of perfidy, after the manner of the Mahometans
... he was set at liberty, the liberty
not of the sons of God, but of the sons of perdition." Later
on, the reproaches of his conscience caused him again to recant and he was put to death by the Muhammadans for his apostasy.[198]
The
monk Burchard,[199]
writing about 1283, a few years before the Crusaders were driven out of their
last strongholds and the Latin power in the East came utterly to
an end—represents the Christian population as largely outnumbering
the Muslims throughout the whole of the Muhammadan world, the
latter (except in Egypt and Arabia) forming not more than three or four per cent.
of the whole population. This language is
undoubtedly exaggerated and the good
monk was certainly rash in assuming that what he observed in the cities of the Crusaders and of the kingdom of
Little Armenia held good in other parts of the East. But his words may be certainly taken to indicate that during the period of the Crusades there had
been no widespread conversion to Islam, and that when the Muhammadans resumed their sovereignty over the Holy
Land, they extended the same toleration to the Christians as before, suffering them to " purchase peace
and quiet" by the payment of the
jizyah. The presumption is that the conversions
that took place were of individual Christians, who were persuaded in their own minds before they took the final step. Instances have already been given of
Christians who took service under
Muhammadan masters, in the full enjoyment of their own faith, and the Assises
of Jerusalem made a distinction
between "those who have denied God and
follow another law " and " all those who have done armed service to the Saracens and
other miscreants against the
Christians for more than a year and a day."[200]
The native Christians
certainly preferred the rule of the Muhammadans
to that of the Crusaders,[201]
and when Jerusalem fell finally and
for ever into the hands of the Muslims (a.d.
1244), the Christian population of Palestine seems to have welcomed the new masters and to have submitted
quietly and contentedly to their rule.[202]
This
same sense of security of religious life under Muslim rule
led many of the Christians of Asia Minor, also, about the
same time, to welcome the advent of the Saljūq Turks as their deliverers from
the hated Byzantine government, not only on account of its
oppressive system of taxation, but also of the persecuting spirit of
the Greek Church, which had with such cruelty crushed the heresies of the
Paulicians and the Iconoclasts. In the reign
of Michael VIII (1261-1282), the
Turks were often invited to take possession of the smaller towns in the interior of Asia Minor by the
inhabitants, that they might escape
from the tyranny of the empire; and both rich and poor often emigrated
into Turkish dominions.[203]
Some
account still remains to be given of two other Christian Churches
of Western Asia, viz. the Armenian and the Georgian. Of the
former it may be said that of all the Eastern Churches that have
come under Muhammadan rule, the Armenian Church has probably given fewer of its members
(in proportion to the size of the community) to
swell the ranks of Islam, than any other. So in spite of the interest that attaches to the story of the
struggle of this brave nation against overwhelming
odds and of the fidelity with which it has clung to the Christian faith— through centuries of warfare and
oppression, persecution and
exile—it does not come within the scope of the present volume to do more than briefly indicate its connection with
the history of the Muhammadans. The Armenian kingdom survived the shock of the Arab conquest, and in the ninth century rose to be a state of some importance and
flourished during the decay of the caliphate of Baghdād, but in
the eleventh century was overthrown by the
Saljūq Turks. A band of fugitives founded the kingdom of Lesser Armenia,
but this too disappeared in the fourteenth
century. The national life of the
Armenian people still survived in spite of the loss of their independence, and, as was the case in Greece under the Turks, their religion and the
national church served as the rallying point of their eager, undying patriotism. Though a certain number, under the
pressure of cruel persecution, have
embraced Islam, yet the bulk of the
race has remained true to its ancient faith. As Tavernier[204]
rather unsympathetically remarks,
" There may be some few
Armenians, that embrace Mahometanism for worldly interest, but they are generally the most obstinate persons in the world, and most firm to their
superstitious principles."
The
Georgian Church (founded in the early part of the fourth
century) was an offshoot from the Greek Church, with which she has
always remained in communion, although from the middle of the
sixth century the Patriarch or Katholikos of the Georgian Church
declared himself independent. Torn asunder by internal
discords and exposed to the successive attacks of Greeks,
Persians, Arabs, Turks and Mongols, the history of this heroic
warrior people is one of almost uninterrupted warfare
against foreign foes and of fiercely contested feuds between
native chiefs : the reigns of one or two powerful monarchs who secured for
their subjects brief intervals of peace, serving only to bring out in
more striking contrast the normally unsettled state of the
country. The fierce independent spirit of the Georgians that
could not brook a foreign rule has often exasperated well-nigh to madness the
fury of their Muhammadan neighbours, when
they failed to impose upon them either their civil authority or their religion.
It is this circumstance—that a change
of faith implied loss of political independence—which explains in a great measure the fact that the
Georgian Church inscribes the names
of so many martyrs in her calendar,
while the annals of the Greek Church during the same period have no such honoured roll to show.
It
was not until after Georgia had been overrun by the devastating
armies of the Mongols, leaving ruined churches and monasteries and
pyramids of human heads to mark the progress of their
destroying hosts, and consequently the spiritual wants of the people had remained long
unprovided for, owing to the decline
in the numbers and learning of the clergy—that
Christianity began to lose ground.[205]
Even among those who still remained
Christian, some added to the sufferings of the clergy by plundering the
property of the Church and
appropriating to their own use the revenues of churches and monasteries,
and thus hastened the decay of the Christian
faith.[206]
In 1400 the invasion of
Tīmūr added a crowning horror to the
sufferings of Georgia, and though for a brief period the rule of
Alexander I (1414-1442) delivered the country from the foreign yoke and drove but all the Muhammadans— after his
death it was again broken up into a number of petty princedoms, from which the
Turks and the Persians wrested the last
shreds of independence. But the Muhammadans always found Georgia to be a
turbulent and rebellious possession, ever ready to break out into open
revolt at the slightest opportunity. Both
Turks and Persians sought to secure
the allegiance of these troublesome subjects by means of conversion to Islam. After the fall of Constantinople and the increase of Turkish power in
Asia Minor, the inhabitants of
Akhaltsikhé and other districts to the
west of it became Muhammadans.[207]
In 1579 two Georgian
princes—brothers—came on an embassy to Constantinople with a large retinue of about two hundred persons : here the younger brother together with his
attendants became a
Musalman, in the hope (it was said) of thereby supplanting his elder brother.[208]
At a rather later date, the conquests of the Turks brought some of the districts in the very centre of Georgia into their
power, the inhabitants of which
embraced the creed of the conquerors.[209]
From this period Samtzkhé,
the most western portion of Georgia, recognised the suzerainty of Turkey : its
rulers and people were
allowed to continue undisturbed in the Christian faith, but from 1625 the ruling dynasty became
Muhammadan and many of the
chiefs and the aristocracy followed their example.
Christianity
retained its hold upon the peasants much longer, but when the
clergy of Samtzkhé refused allegiance to the Katholikos of
Karthli, there ceased to be regular provision made for
supplying the spiritual needs of the people: the nobles, even
before their conversion, had taken to plundering the estates of the Church, and
after becoming Musalmans they naturally ceased to assist it with
their offerings, and the churches and monasteries falling into decay
were replaced by mosques.[210]
The
rest of Georgia had submitted to Persia, and when Tavernier
visited this part of the country, about the middle of
the seventeenth century, he found it divided into two kingdoms, which were
provinces of the Persian empire, and were
governed by native Georgian princes who had to turn Muhammadan before being advanced to this dignity.[211]
One of the first of such princes was
the Tsarevitch Constantine, son of King Alexander II of Kakheth, who had
been brought up at the Persian court and had
there embraced Islam, at the beginning
of the seventeenth century.[212]
The first Muhammadan king of Karthli, the Tsarevitch Rustam (1634-1658), had also been brought up in Persia, and he
and his successors to the end of the
century were all Muhammadans.[213]
Tavernier
describes the Georgians as being very ignorant in matters of
religion and the clergy as unlettered and vicious; some of the heads
of the Church actually sold the Christian boys and
girls as slaves to the Turks and Persians.[214]
From this period
there seems to have been a widespread apostasy, especially among the higher classes and those who sought to win the favour of the
Persian court.[215]
In 1701 the occupant of
the throne of Georgia, Wakhtang VI, was a
Christian : for the first seven years of his reign he was a prisoner in Ispahan, where great efforts were
made to induce him to become a
Muhammadan; when he declared that he
preferred to lose his throne rather than purchase it at the price of apostasy, it is said that his
younger brother, although he was the
Patriarch of Georgia, offered to abandon Christianity and embrace Islam, if the
crown were bestowed upon him, but
though invested by the Persians with the royal power, the Georgians refused to accept him as their ruler, and drove him out of the kingdom.[216]
Towards the close of
the eighteenth century, the king of Georgia
placed his people under the protection of the Russian crown. Hitherto their intense patriotic feeling had
helped to keep the Christian faith alive among them so long as their foreign invaders had been Musalmans, but now that the foreign power that sought to rob them of
their independence was Christian,
this same feeling operated in some of the districts north of the Caucasus to
the advantage of Islam. In Daghistan
a certain Darvīsh Manṣūr endeavoured
to unite the different tribes of the Caucasus to oppose the Russians; preaching the faith of Islam he succeeded in converting the princes and nobles of
Ubichistan and Daghistan, who have
remained faithful to Islam ever since;
many of the Circassians, too, were converted by his preaching, and preferred exile to submitting to
the Russian rule.[217]
But in 1791 he was taken prisoner, and in 1800 Georgia was formally incorporated in the Russian empire.
Darvīsh
Manṣūr was not alone in his efforts to convert the Circassians.
When the treaty of Kūchak-Qaïnarji in 1774 had recognised the
independence of the Crimea and opened the Black Sea
to Russian vessels, the Turkish government
became alarmed at the prospect of a further movement of Russian domination along the eastern coast of the Black Sea and resolved to make an attempt to stir the
Circassians to resistance. A Turkish
officer, named Faraḥ 'Alī, was sent in
1782 to establish a military colony at Anāpa, near the outlet of the sea
of Azov, and to enter into relations with the
Circassian tribes. Faraḥ 'Alī's first care was to seek the hand of a daughter of one of the Circassian beys,
offering rich presents of arms,
horses, etc., to her father; the marriage was celebrated with great pomp and ceremony, and Faraḥ 'Alī encouraged his soldiers to follow his
example, by promising to defray the
expenses of their nuptials. The result was that a number of Circassian women
joined the little colony and accepted
the religion of their husbands, and with the zeal of new converts won over to Islam their fathers and brothers. An active movement of proselytism began,
and the Circassians who came in contact with the Turkish colony appear
readily to have abandoned their pagan beliefs for the religion of the Qur'ān, the mollas were kept busy in instructing the new Muslims, and help had to be
sought from Constantinople to deal with the increasing number of conversions.[218]
But the work of Faraḥ 'Alī was short-lived; he died in 1785 and his tomb was reverenced as that of a saint, but his work perished with him. Anāpa passed into
the hands of the Russians in 1812,
and when the resistance of the Circassians was finally overcome in 1864,
more than half a million Circassian Muhammadans
migrated into Turkish territory.
Under
Russian law conversions to any faith other than that of the Orthodox
Church were illegal, and the further progress of Islam was stayed until the
promulgation of the edict of toleration in 1905. One of the
results of this in the Caucasus was a large accession to Islam from
among the Abkhazes, who had long been nominal converts to Christianity,
but now became Muhammadans in such numbers that the Orthodox clergy
became alarmed and founded a special society for the distribution
of religious tracts among them, in the hope of combating Muhammadan influences.[219]
[1] Döllinger, pp. 5-6.
[2] Caetani, Studi di Storia Oriental, I, p. 365
sqq. (Milano, 1911.)
[3] This interpretation of the Arab conquests as the
last of the great Semitic migrations has been worked out in a masterly manner
by Caetani, vol. ii. pp. 831-61.
[4] Caetani, vol. ii. p. 455; vol. v. p. 521. (" In Madīnah si
formò un considerevole nucleo religiose, composto d'elementi eterogenei, ma
forse in maggioranza madinesi, i quali presero 1'Islām molto sul serio e
cercarono sinceramente di osservare la nuova dottrina, per la convinzione che,
così agendo facevan bene, ed in devoto omaggio alla volontà del Profeta.")
[5] Mas'ūdī, tome iv. p.
238.
[6] Muir's Caliphate, pp.
121-2
[8] Caetani, vol. ii. pp.
260, 299, 351.
[9] Id. pp.
792-3; vol. iii. p. 253 (§ 8).
[10] Id. pp. 1112-15.
[13] Ṭabarī,
Prima Series, p. 2482.
[14] For an exhaustive study of the jizyah, with a
masterly array and critical examination of all the available historical
materials, see Caetani, vol. v. p. 319
sqq.; for Egypt during the first century of Muslim rule, see Bell, p. 167 sqq.,
and Becker, Beiträge zur Geschichte
Aegyptens unter dem Islam, p. 81 sqq.
[15] Caetani (vol. iv. P. 227) believes that this story
is the invention of a later epoch, to explain the fiscal anomaly of a Christian
tribe being treated as if it were Muslim.
[16] The few
meagre notices of this tribe in the works of Arabic historians have been
admirably summarised by Lammens: Le Chantre des Omiades. (J. A., ix. sér., tome iv. pp. 97-9, 438-59.)
See also Caetani, vol. iv. p. 227 sqq.
[17] Caetani, vol. ii. p. 1180.
[18] Barhebræus (3), pp. 134-5.
[19] Caetani, vol. ii. p. 828.
[20] Ṭabarī, i. p.
2041.
[21] Mas’ūdī, tome iv. p. 256.
[22] " Gli Arabi nei primi anni non
perseguitarono invece alcuno per ragioni di fede, non si diedero pena alcuna
per convertire chicchessia, sicchè sotto l’Islām, dopo le prime conquiste, i
cristiani Semiti goderno d'una tolleranza religiosa quale non si era mai vista
da varie generazioni." (Caetani,
vol. v. p. 4.)
[23] Sir Henry Layard: Early Adventures in Persia,
Susiana and Babylonia, vol. i. p. 100. (London, 1887); R. Hartmann : Die
Herrschaft von al-Karak. (Der Islam, vol. ii. p. 137.)
[24] Burckhardt
(2), p. 564.
[25] W.G. Palgrave: Essays on Eastern Questions, pp.
206-8. (London, 1872.)
[26] I. A.
Dorner: A System of Christian Doctrine, vol. iii. pp. 215-16. (London, 1885.)
J. C. Robertson: History of the Christian Church, vol. ii. p. 226. (London,
1875.)
[27] That such
fears were not wholly groundless may be judged from the emperor's intolerant
behaviour towards many of the Monophysite party in his progress through Syria
after the defeat of the Persians in 627. (See Michael the Elder, vol. ii. p.
412, and Caetani, vol. ii. p. 1049.) For the outrages committed by the
Byzantine soldiers on their coreligionists in the reign of Constans II
(642-668), see Michael the Elder, vol. ii. p. 443.
[28] Michael the Elder, vol. ii. pp. 412-13. Barhebræus,
about a century later, wrote in a similar strain. (Chronicon Ecclesiasticum,
ed. J. B. Abbeloos et Lamy, p. 474.)
[29] Azdī, p. 97.
[30] Balādhurī, p. 137.
[31] Caetani, vol. iii. p. 813; vol. v. p. 394. (" Gli abitanti
accettarono con non celato favore il mutamento di governo, appena ebbero
compreso che gli Arabi avrebbero rispettato i loro diritti individuali, ed
avrebbero lasciata completa libertà di coscienza in materia religiosa. In
Siria, città ed interi distretti si affrettarono a trattare con gli Arabi anche
prima della rotta finale dei Greci. Nel Sawād si lasciarono passivamente
sopraffare accettando il nuovo dominio senza pattuire condizioni di sorta; è
probabile che anche in Siria questo fosse il caso per molte regioni remote
dalle grandi vie di comunicazioni.")
[32] Gottheil has
brought together a valuable collection of documentary evidence as to the
condition of the protected peoples under Muslim rule in his "Dhimmīs and
Moslems in Egypt."
[33] Balādhurī, pp. 74 (ad fin.), 116, 121
(med.).
[34] For a discussion of this document, see Caetani,
vol. iii. p. 952 sqq.
[35] Ṭabarī, i. p. 2405.
[36] Balādhurī, p. 129.
[37] Ibn S'ad, III, i. p. 246.
[38] Mémoire sur la conquête de la
Syrie, p. 143 sq.
[39] Annali dell' Islām, vol. iii. p. 957.
[40] Some authorities on Muhammadan law held that this
rule did not extend to villages and hamlets, in which the construction of
churches was not to be prevented.
(Hidāyah, vol. ii. p. 210.)
[41] "The Ulamā' are divided in opinion on the question
of the teaching of the Qur'ān : the sect of Mālik forbids it: that of Abū Ḥanīfah
allows it; and Shāfi'ī has two opinions on the subject: on the one hand, he
countenances the study of it, as indicating a leaning towards Islam; and on
the other hand, he forbids it, because he fears that the unbeliever who studies
the Qur'ān being still impure may read it solely with the object of turning it
to ridicule, since he is the enemy of God and the Prophet who wrote the book;
now as these two statements are contradictory, Shāfi'ī has no formally stated
opinion on this matter." (Belin, p. 508.)
[42] Such as the forms of greeting, etc., that are only
to be used by Muslims to one another.
[43] Abū Yūsuf
(p. 82) says that Christians were to be allowed to go in procession once a year
with crosses, but not with banners; outside the city, not inside where the
mosques were.
[44] The nāqūs,
lit. an oblong piece of wood, struck with a rod.
[45] Gottheil, pp. 382-4, where references are given to
the various versions of this document.
[46] There is evidence to show that the Arab conquerors
left unchanged the fiscal system that they found prevailing in the lands they
conquered from the Byzantines, and that the explanation of jizyah as a
capitation-tax is an invention of later jurists, ignorant of the true condition
of affairs in the early days of Islam. (Caetani, vol. iv. p. 610 (§ 231); vol.
v. p. 449.) H.
Lammens: Ziād ibn Abīhi. (Rivista degli Studi Orientali, vol. iv. p. 215. )
[47] Goldziher,
vol. i. pp. 50-7, 427-30. Caetani,
vol. v. p. 311 sqq.
[48] Caetani,
vol. v. pp. 424 (§ 752), 432.
[49] Balādhuri,
pp. 124-5.
[50] A. von Kremer (i), vol. i. pp. 60, 436.
[51] A dirham is about fivepence.
[52] Bell, pp. xxv, 173.
[53] Abū Yūsuf, pp. 69-71.
[54] Tabarī, Prima Series, p. 2055.
[55] İd. p. 2050.
[56] Abū Yūsuf, p. 81.
[57] Balādhuri, p. 159.
[58] Ṭabarī, Prima Series, p. 2665.
[59] Marsigli, vol. i. p. 86 (he calls them "
Musellim").
[60] Finlay, vol. vi. pp. 30, 33.
[61] Lazăr, p. 56.
[62] De la Jonquière, p. 14.
[63] Thomas Smith, p. 324.
[64] Dorostamus, p. 326.
[65] De la Jonquière, p. 265.
[66] Lammens, p. 13.
[67] Ibn Abī Usaybi'ah, vol. i. p. 164.
[68] Michael the Elder, vol. ii. p. 475.
[69] Mārī b.
Sulaymān, p. 71 (1.16). Abū Nūḥ
al-Anbārī wrote a refutation of the Qur'ān and other theological works (Wright,
p. 191 n. 3).
[70] Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 84.
[71] Hilāl al-Ṣābī, p. 95.
[72] Ibn al-Athīr, vol. ix. p. 16.
[73] Von Kremer (1), vol. i. pp. 167-8. Lammens, p. 11.
[74] Renaudot, pp. 430, 540.
[75] Von Kremer (1), vol. ii. pp. 180-1.
[77] Caetani, vol. iii. pp. 350 sq., 387 sqq.
[78] Gottheil,
pp. 360-1. Goldziher:
Zur Literatur des
Ichtilâf al-mâdahib, ZDMG., vol.
38, pp. 673-4.
[79] On this theoretical character of much of Muslim
legal literature, see Snouck Hurgonje: Mohammedanisches Recht in Theorie und
Wirklichkeit.
[81] Gottheil, pp. 358-9, however, doubts whether there
is evidence for attributing this intolerance
to 'Umar II.
[83] Michael the Elder, vol. ii. p. 476. Renaudot, p. 189.
[84] Eutychius, II, p. 41 init. Severus (p. 139) says " two
churches."
[85] Von Kremer (1), vol. ii. p. 175.
[90] Yāqūt, vol. ii. p. 662.
[91] Yāqūt, vol. ii. p. 670.
[92] Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 73.
[93] Ishok of Romgla, p. 266.
[95] Von Kremer (1), vol. ii. pp. 175-6.
[99] 'Abū Ṣāliḥ, p. 92.
[100] A Dominican monk from Florence, by name Ricoldus de
Monte Crucis, who visited the East about the close of the thirteenth and the
beginning of the fourteenth century, speaks of the toleration the Nestorians
had enjoyed under Muhammadan rule right up to his time: " Et ego inveni
per antiquas historias et autenticas aput Saracenos, quod ipsi Nestorini amici
fuerunt Machometi et confederati cum eo, et quod ipse Machometus mandauit suis
posteris, quod Nestorinos maxime conseruarent. Quod usque hodie diligenter
obseruant ipsi Sarraceni." (Laurent, p. 128.)
[101] J. Labourt: De Timotheo, Nestorianorum Patriarcha,
p. 37 sqq. (Paris, 1904.)
[102] E. von Dobschütz, p. 390-1.
[103] Michael the Elder, vol. ii. p. 439-40.
[104] Makīn, p. 12.
J. Labourt: Le Christianisme sous la dynastie sassanide, p. 139 sq. (Paris, 1904.)
[105] Renaudot, p. 169.
[106] Von Kremer well remarks: " Wir verdanken dem
unermüdlichen Sammelfleiss der arabischen Chronisten unsere Kenntniss der politischen und militärischen Geschichte jener Zeiten, welche so genau ist als dies
nur immer auf eine Entfernung von
zwölf Jahrhunderten der Fall sein kann; allein gerade die innere
Geschichte jener denkwürdigen Epoche, die Geschichte des Kampfes einer neuen,
rohen Religion gegen die alten hochgebildeten, zum Theile überbildeten Culte
ist kaum in ihren allgemeinsten Umrissen
bekannt." (Von Kremer (2), pp. 1-2.)
[107] Thomas of Margā, vol. ii. p. 309 sq.
[108] Thomas of Margā, vol. ii. pp. 310, 324 sq.
[109] Cf. in addition to the passages quoted below,
M'Clintoch & Strong's Cyclopædia, sub art. Mohammedanism, vol. vi. p. 420.
James Freeman Clarke : Ten Great Religions, Part ii. p. 75. (London, 1883.)
[110] Thus the Emperor Heraclius is represented by the
Muhammadan historian as saying, " Their religion is a new religion which
gives them new zeal." (Ṭabarī, p. 2103.)
[111] History of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. pp. 216-17.
[112] Caetani, vol. ii. pp. 1045-6.
[113] A paper read before the Church Congress at
Wolverhampton, October 7th. 1887.
[114] For the oppressive fiscal system under the
Byzantine empire, see Gfrörer:
Byzantjnische Geschichten, vol. ii. pp. 337-9, 389-91, 450.
[115] " Der Islam war ein Rückstoss gegen den
Missbrauch, welchen Justinian mit der Menschheit, besonders aber mit der
christlichen Religion trieb, deren oberstes geistliches und weltliches Haupt er
zu sein behauptete. Dass der Araber Mahomed, welcher 571 der christlichen
Zeitrechnung, sechs Jahre nach dem Tode Justinians, das Licht der Welt
erblickte, mit seiner Lehre unerhörtes Glück machte, verdankte er grossentheils
dem Abscheu, welchen die im Umkreise des byzantinischen Reiches angesessenen
Völker, wie die benachbarten Nationen, über die von dem Basileus begangenen
Greuel empfanden." (Gfrörer: Byzantinische Geschichten, vol. ii. p. 437.)
[116] Id. vol. ii. pp. 296-306, 337.
[117] Id. Vol. ii. pp. 442-4.
[118] Id. vol. ii. p. 445.
[120] Von Kremer (2), p. 8.
[121] Id. p. 54 and (3), p. 32. Nicholson, p. 231.
[122] Among the Mu'tazilite philosophers, Muḥammad b. al-Huzayl, the teacher of al-Ma'mūn, is
said to have converted more than three thousand persons to Islam. (Ahmad b. Yahyā b. al-Murtadā, p. 26, 1.
7.)
[123] Von Kremer (2), pp. 3, 7-8. C. H. Becker:
Christliche Polemik und islamische Dogmenbildung (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie,
xxvi. 1912).
[124] Ibn Khallikān, vol. i. p. 45.
[125] Wüstenfeld, p. 103.
[126] Michael the Elder, vol. ii. pp. 412-13. Caetani,
vol. v. p. 508. (" Le vittorie sui Greci e sui Persiani non solamente erano il
trionfo della razza araba sulle popolazioni delle provincie conquistate, ma
nella mente orientale che vede in tutto la mano di Dio, costituivano un trionfo
del principio islamico su quello cristiano e mazdeista, ma sovrattutto sul
cristiano.")
[127] Goldziher, vol. i. chaps. 3 and 4.
[128] The last of these was prompted by the discovery of
an attempt on the part of the Christians to burn the city of Cairo. (De
Guignes, vol. iv. pp. 204-5.) Gottheil, p. 359, Journal Asiatique, IVme
série, tome xviii. (1851), pp. 454, 455, 463, 484, 491
[129] Assemani, tom. iii. pars. 2, p. c. Renaudot, pp. 432, 603, 607.
[130] Muir: The Caliphate, p. 475.
[131] Von Kremer (3), p. 246.
[132] Muir (1), pp. 508, 516-17.
[133] Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 79 sq. Ṣalībā b. Yuḥannā, p. 71.
[134] Gottheil, p. 364 sqq.
[135] Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 114 (ll. 14-16).
[136] This tradition appears in several forms, e. g.
" Whoever wrongs one with whom a compact has been made (i. e. a dhimmī)
and lays on him a burden beyond his strength, I will be his accuser."
(Balādhuri, p. 162, fin.) (Yaḥyā b. Ādam, p. 54 (fin), adds the words,
" till the day of judgment.") " Whoever does violence to a dhimmī
who has paid his jizyah and evidenced his submission—his enemy am I." (Usd
al-Ghāba, quoted by Goldziher, in the Jewish Encyclopædia, vol. vi. p.
655.) The Christian historian al-Makīn (p. 11) gives, " Whoever torments
the dhimmīs, torments me."
[137] Journal Asiatique, IVme série, tome xix.
p. 109. (Paris, 1852.) See also R. Gottheil: A Fetwa on the appointment of Dhimmīs
to office. (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, vol. xxvi. p. 203 sqq.)
[138] Belin, pp. 435-40, 442, 448, 456, 459-61, 479-80.
[139] Id. p. 435, n. 2.
[140] Id. p. 478.
[141] Mārī b. Sulaymān (p. 115, ll. 1-2) offers this
explanation of the defections that followed the persecution towards the close
of the tenth century.
وأسلم خلق كثير وكان أصل
ذلك تجوّز الناس في أديانهم وقبح سيرة الكهنة في المذبح والبيع وبيوت المقدس
[142] The Caliph of Egypt, al-Hākim (A.D. 996-1020), did
in fact order all the Jews and Christians to leave Egypt and emigrate into the
Byzantine territory, but yielded to their entreaties to revoke his orders.
(Maqrīzī (1), p. 91.) It would have been quite possible, however, for him to
have enforced its execution as it would have been for the ferocious Salīm I
(1512-1520), who with the design of putting an end to all religious differences
in his dominions caused 40,000 Shī'ahs to be massacred, to have completed this
politic scheme by the extermination of the Christians also. But in allowing
himself to be dissuaded from this design, he most certainly acted in accordance
with the general policy adopted by Muhammadan rulers towards their Christian
subjects. (Finlay, vol. v. pp. 29—30.)
[143] Silbernagl, p. 268.
[144] Id. p. 354.
[145] Id. pp. 307, 360.
[146] Id. p. 25-6
[147] Id. p. 335.
[148] Id. p. 384.
[149] See A. von.Kremer (1), vol. ii. pp. 490-2.
[150] The sack of Constantionople by the Crusaders in 1204
may be taken as a type of the treatment that the Eastern Christians met with at
the hands of the Latins. Barhebræus complains that the monastery of Harran was
sacked and plaundered by Count Goscelin Lord of Emessa, in 1184, just as though
he had been a Ṡaracen or aTurk. (Barhebræus (1), Vol, ii. Pp. 506-8).
[151] H. H. Milman, vol. ii. p. 218.
[152] A. von Kremer (1), vol. i. p. 172.
[153] Assemani, tom. iii. Pars Prima, pp. 130-1.
[154] Ibn Sa'd, Ṭabaqāt, vol. v. p. 258.
[155] Id. p. 285.
[156] Maḥbūb al-Manbijī, p. 358 (ll. 2-3).
[157] Ibn Sa'd, Ṭabaqāt, vol. v. p. 262.
[158] August Müller, vol. i. p. 440.
[159] Migne : Patr. Gr., tom. 96, pp. 1336-48.
[160] Migne : Patr. Gr., tom. 97, pp. 1528-9, 1548-61.
[161] Id. p. 1557.
[162] 'Amr b. Mattai, p. 65.
[163] Id. p. 72.
[166] Kindī, pp. 111-13.
[167] Balādhuri, pp. 430.
[168] It is very probable that the occasion of this visit
of Yazdānbakht to Baghdād was the summoning of a great assembly
of the leaders of all the religious bodies of the period, by al-Ma'mūn, when it
had come to his ears that the enemies of Islam declared that it owed its
success to the sword and not to the power of argument: in this meeting, the
Muslim doctors defended their religion against this imputation, and the
unbelievers are said to have acknowledged that the Muslims had satisfactorily
proved their point. (Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. al-Murtaḍā: Al-munyah wa'1-amal fī sharḥ
kitāb al-milal wa'1-niḥal. British Museum, Or. 3937, fol. 53 (b),
ll. 9-11.)
ll. 9-11.)
[169] Kitāb al-Fihrist, vol. i. p. 338.
[170] Barhebræus (1), vol. iii. p. 194.
[171] Mārī b. Sulaymān, p. 101 (ll. 3-4).
[172] Barhebræus (1). vol. iii. p. 230.
[173] Id., (1), vol. iii. p. 248.
[174] All the
Jacobite Patriarchs assumed the name of Ignatius; before his consecration he was called Mark
bar Qīqī.
[175] Barhebræus (1), vol. iii. pp. 288-90. Elias of Nisibis, pp. 153-4. He returned
to the Christian faith, however, before his death, which took place about twenty years later. Two similar cases are recorded in the annals of the Jacobite Patriarchs of Antioch in
the sixteenth century : of these
one, named Joshua, became a Muhammadan in 1517, but afterwards recanting fled to Cyprus (at that time in the hands
of the Venetians), where prostrate at
the door of a church in penitential humility he suffered all who went in or out to tread over his
body; the other, Ni'mat Allāh (flor. 1560), having abjured Christianity for
Islam, sought absolution of Pope
Gregory XIII in Rome. (Barhebræus (1).
vol. ii. pp. 847-8.)
[176] In fact Elias of Nisibis, the contemporary
chronicler of the conversion of the Jacobite Patriarch, makes no mention of
such a failing, nor does Mārī b. Sulaymān (pp. 115-16), the historian of the
rival Nestorian Church, though he accuses him of plundering the sacred vessels
and ornaments of the churches. As
Wright (Syriac Literature, p. 192) says of
Joseph of Merv, " We need not believe all the evil that Barhebræus
tells us of this unhappy man."
[177] Barhebræus (1), vol. ii. p.
518.
[178] Id. vol. ii. p. 712 sq.
[181] Odo de Diogilo. (De Ludovici vii. Itinere. Migne, Patr, Lat.,
tom. cxcv. p. 1243.) " Vitantes igitur sibi crudeles socios fidei, inter
infideles sibi compatientes ibant securi, et sicut audivimus plusquam tria
millia iuvenum sunt illis recedentibus sociati. O pietas omni proditione
crudelior! Dantes panem fidem tollebant, quamvis certum sit quia, contenti
servitio, neminem negare cogebant."
[185] Assises de la Cour des Bourgeois. (Recueil des historiens des
Croisades, Assises de Jerusalem, tome ii. p.
325.)
[186] Bahā al-Dīn, p. 25.
[187] Roger Hoveden, vol. ii. p. 307.
[188] Benedict of Peterborough, vol. ii. pp. 11-12.
[189] Id., vol. ii. pp. 20-1. Roger Hoveden, vol. ii. pp.
316, 322.
[190] Abū, Shāman, p. 150.
[191]
Itinerarium
Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Richardi, p. 131. (Chronicles and Memorials of the reign of Richard I. Edited by William
Stubbs.) (London, 1864.)
[195] Ludolf de Suchem, p. 71.
[196] Lionardo Frescobaldi, quoted in the preface of
Defrémery and Sanguinetti's edition of Ibn Baṭūṭah,
vol. i. p. xl.
[199] "Notandum autem in rei veritate, licet quidam
contrarium senciant, qui ea
volunt asserere, que non viderunt, quod oriens totus ultra mare Yndiam et Ethiopiam nomen Christi confitetur et predicat, preter solos Sarracenos et quosdam Turcomannos, qui in
Cappadocia sedem habent, ita quod pro
certo assero, sicut per memet ipsum vidi et ab aliis, quibus notum erat, audivi, quod semper in omni loco et regno
preterquam in Egypto et Arabia, ubi
plurimum habitant Sarraceni et alii Machometum sequentes, pro uno Sarraceno triginta vel amplius invenies
Christianos. Verum tamen, quod Christiani
omnes transmarini natione sunt orientales, qui licet sint Christiani,
quia tamen usum armorum non habent multum, cum impugnantur a Sarracenis, Tartaris, vel aliis quibuscumque, subiciuntur eis et tributis pacem et quietem emunt, et
Sarraceni sive alii, qui eis dominantur,
balivos suos et exactores in terris illis ponunt. Et inde contigit, quod regnum illud dicitur esse Sarracenorum, cum
tamen in rei veritate sunt omnes
Christiani preter ipsos balivos et exactores et aliquos de familia ipsorum, sicut oculis meis vidi in Cilicia et
Armenia minori, que est subdita dominio
Tartarorum." (Burchardi de Monte Sion Descriptio Terræ Sanctæ, p. 90.)
[202] The prelates of the Holy Land wrote as follows, in
1244, concerning the invasion of the Khwarizmians,
whom Sultan Ayyūb had called in to assist
him in driving out the Crusaders :—" Per totam terram usque ad partes Nazareth et Saphet libere nullo resistente
discurrunt, occupantes eandem, et
inter se quasi propriam dividentes, per villas et cazalia Christianorum
legatos et bajulos præficiunt, suscipientes a rusticis redditus et tributa, quæ Christianis præstare solebant, qui jam
Christianis hostes effecti et
rebelles dictis Corosminis universaliter adhæserunt." (Matthei Parisiensis Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, vol.
iv. p. 343.) (London, 1872-83.)
[203] Finlay, vol. iii. pp. 358-9. J. H. Krause: Die
Byzantiner des Mittelalters, p. 276. (Halle, 1869.)
[204] Tavernier (1), p. 174.
[205] Joselian, p.
125. All the Abkhazes, Djikhethes,
Ossetes, Kabardes and Kisthethes fell away from the Christian faith about this
time.
[206] Id. p. 127.
[207] Id. p. 143.
[210] Brosset, IIe
partie, Ire livraison, pp. 227-35.
Description géographique de la Géorgie par le Tsarévitch Wakhoucht, p.
79. (St. Petersburg, 1842.)
[212] Joselian, p. 149.
[213] Id. pp. 160- 1.
[214] Tavernier (1), pp. 124, 126. He estimates the
number of Muhammadans at about twelve
thousand. (Id. p. 123.)
[215] Brosset, IIe
partie, Ire livraison, pp. 85, 181.
[216] Documens originaux sur
les relations diplomatiques de la Géorgie avec
la France vers la fin du regne de Louis XIV, recueillis par M. Brosset jenne. (J. A. 2me série, tome ix. (1832), pp.
197, 451.)
[217] Mackenzie, p. 7. Garnett, p. 194.
[218] Barbier de Meynard. p. 45 sqq.
[219] R.
du M. M., VII, p. 320 (1909).
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