ISLAMIC EMPIRE OF FAITH PBS Special – PART 2
THE AWAKENING
THE AWAKENING
During the 7th and 8th century a powerful new faith has changed the world, the faith of Islam. Its followers launched a conquest not only by the sword but by the power of ideas. Two hundred years after the death of Muhammad his message and the new empire has transformed three continents.
Now comes a new empire, a political new configuration driven by a religious newly defined civilization. This new civilization was expanding beyond its dreams within a period of a very short time, literally the largest civilization empire ever known.
The Arabic world for conquest [futuh] literally means openings. Islam sown it seeds to the faith of four winds and a world of opportunity opened before it. But the vast spiritual empire, spiritual core remains at its birth place, the Holy City of Mecca. From every corner of the Muslim world the faithful embark on the traditional journey to Mecca the sacred pilgrimage known as the Hajj. The pilgrimage is a central devotional ritual in Islamic life. It shows unity and equality among all people. The Hajj set humanity in motion. For the first time since the reign of Alexandra the Great, culture and caravans freely flowed boarders closed for 1,000 years now opened. If there was ideas on inventions the next year it would follow in their area and people met once a year then things would radiated back home. Where pilgrims went traders followed. Muhammad brought his message with him.
Trade was important because of its geographical position. It was between the west and the east. It was a natural land bridge connecting China to Europe. In only two centuries Islam had extended its reach from Spain to the edge of India. It took nearly a year to travel from one end of the Arab Empire to another. At its heart was the city of wealth called Baghdad.
The palaces of ancient Baghdad have been lost over the centuries but the architectural achievement, the pride of Islam is a new age. What made this the greatest city were the scholars. They made it the jewel of the entire world. Baghdad was the center of learning. Innovations came from Baghdad or the people came to Baghdad because the best people came there.
They came in search of answers to pragmatic questions. They had engineering and logistical problems and solving them would take the smartest minds. This new civilization had a need for science and the best minds. The finest went to Baghdad’s House of Wisdom. They came from all over the empire. The great work of the ancients had to be transformed into a whole new body of knowledge.
Competition of jobs had developed. There was no contradiction among them. The Hindus gave mathematic concepts. The Renaissance has their beginnings in Baghdad. Arabic emerges as the language of learning. The Muslims now challenge it. You now have the spirit of questioning when there was an error.
The Muslims have the innovation of medicine. Muslims say disease was transmitted through airborne particles this is where the study of germs came about. Sick people needed to be quarantine until they were better, thus we have the hospitals. Even mental illness was treated. Their study of anatomy was so sophisticated.
Muslim scientists were intrigued by the study of light, lens and the eye. Muslim doctors were removing cataracts first. Their knowledge had to be copied and shared. Paper was invented in the year 1750 and it spreads all over. It became a widespread industry. Now books are invented. All the knowledge is now written down. The Monks of the west put their information on parchments. The Muslims used paper. The Muslim population had people to thank of global as a single unit of humanity.
Of all the global area the Christians could experience the Muslim lifestyle is in southern Spain. Here on the European area people will experience the Muslim life. A thousand years ago the city of Caldiver(?) was a center of learning and culture that rivaled Baghdad. Today Caldiver has narrow lanes which harkens to the medieval past. This was a city of light, a Muslim city. It was one of the biggest exciting in Europe. It had running waters, people lived in big houses. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is here in the middle of town.
The Caldiver Cathedral of today is a mosque of the Islamic Empire. It is the biggest mosque in Southern Europe. The cathedrals of today copied this great mosque. This was the Christian time to see the Islamic world and their architect. Most of Europe was in poverty but Caldiver was beautiful. When the Europeans came they saw the palace called Al Hundra. It is the best remaining example of what a medieval palace looked like. It represented luxury. It revealed the pinnacle of Islamic culture and society. It had different textures and surfaces and running water too. It’s like a symphony of different elements brought together to provide exquisite enjoyment. Here the Muslim elite relished the good life. They walked the grounds through the gardens.
Christian arms due north were struggling on through the dark ages. At the dawn of the 11th century a tragedy in Jerusalem would put Muslims and Christians on a collision course. Jerusalem was ruled by an Egyptian caliph named Al Hakamin. Al Hakamin was a madman. He was insane. Four over 200 years the Christians were protected by the Muslims. In 1001, Al Hakamin broke with that tradition. He ordered the holiest church in Christendom destroyed. He burned down the church of the Holy Sophia in Jerusalem. Nobody knows why he did it. This sent shivers to the Christians. His actions gave way to what the Christians thought all along about Muslims, intolerance, slaves, barbarians. Al Hakamin’s successor rebuilt the church of the Holy Sophia in 1048 with Byzantine help. There was this belief now that things were not going well in the Holy Land.
Pope Irvin the Second brought forth a campaign of bloodshed toward the Muslims. He wanted to exterminate them. “Jerusalem is the naval of the world, she cries out to be liberated, Christ Himself commands it.” You now have military service and religion combining together. This Pope in 1095 made his famous call for the Crusaders to rescued the endangered holy places in the east, especially Jerusalem.
In 1097 the Muslim saw the strike of fair on the Holy Land. When the Crusaders struck the Arab land was weak at that time, broken into kingdoms and dynasties. The Crusaders chose a good time to attack. The rulers at the time had died. The Muslims didn’t think anything was going to be done to them. It was a real surprise. The Muslims thought it was the Byzantine being a nuisance. They didn’t know these people had a religious agenda from western Europe and their aim was Jerusalem.
History is haunted by horror but on June 15, 1099 when the Crusaders entered Jerusalem the massacre was terrible, they feared them and the people were fleeing. The Crusaders saw the Holy City and loved it. This made them want Jerusalem more. It was beautiful. They even slaughter some Christians. At the church of the Holy Sophia dozens of people from different sects were massacred. To the Crusaders they were nothing more than foreigners.
The Christian Chronicles recorded the disaster. They dragged out the bodies and made them into heap piles. No one has ever seen such slaughter. The piles were like pyramids. They shocked the Muslim world. The Muslim poets told of the rape of their land and told of their impurity into the Muslims sacred space. There is no room for pity.
The First Crusade was over. There were 100,000 men who started with this crusade and most returned to Europe having a glimpse of Muslim life. The job of occupying Jerusalem fell to the 20,000 who remained. To secure their occupation they built castles. Their castles were the finest in the world. They are still standing today. Kra Des Chevaliers (Crac des Chevaliers) is one of the greatest castle in Syria. It was big, strong and couldn’t be taken. Inside the castle was constant fear though. The people outside the castle weren’t friendly so they had to be watched.
The Crusaders made treaties and broke them. They harassed the traders who passed by their castles. As they raided the caravans the Crusaders learned of a luxurious lifestyle they never heard of in Europe.
They were blown away with what they found in the Middle East and they took a lot back with them such as inlaid medal work, textiles, silk, things like that they never seen before.
The Crusaders were a decisive force toward the Muslims and world events. While the Crusaders were in their castles, Islam was spreading throughout the world. Muhammad’s message rang out as clear and strong as never before. Mosques were now on every horizon. They welcomed traders, housed schools and hospitals. A vibrate culture was arising on a singular faith.
Faith had launched an empire, culture was now enlightened but what united them was trade. For the Muslims trade like science brought innovation. Business was expedited by a revolutionary concept, the sack, and checks could be written in Spain and cashed in India. Writing a check assume that someone was going to honor it, cash it at the other end. There was some kind of Central Bank honoring the sack. This was based on trust and faith.
Muslims became some of the greatest merchants of the Middle Ages. There were great craftsmen who were Persians and the Muslims blacksmiths learned how to fold steel to give it strength and flexibility. The sword had no equal in the world but the economic backbone of Islam was expanding through wealth and textiles. The demands for the product of Muslim loons were enormous. Textiles dealt with growing the plants and making dyes which were expensive. The making and transporting of textile was the main economy. The fabrics produced in the Islamic world were the best. They were made of linen, cotton, silk and cloth of gold and their patterns wee complicated. Wealthy Europeans and churches bought theses fabrics. When the Christians need a cloth worthy of rapping the bones of their saints they went to the Muslims but sometimes the fabrics were trimmed with the text from the Holy Quran so the words of the prophet were seen in Christendom’s’ burials. Some Italian paintings whose portraits were taken with fabric from Muslims loons have the word “There is no God but Allah in Arabic.”
After almost 100 years of broken treaties and fighting the Muslims reached their turning point. It came in the person of Isman, most celebrated figure, his name was Saladin.
Saladin was successful. He was a great inspirer of his military followers. In 1187 he led amount of 12,000 warriors and lured the Crusaders on a plain between two hills called the Horn of Hardin. On the evening of July 3 after a long march, the Crusaders camped on a barren hillside. There was nothing but a waterless terrain. As dawn approached Saladin set fire to the tall grass and the fire was carried up to the Crusaders and they found themselves surrounded and panic set in. They were consumed by the fire of flames, thirst, and arrows. The armies of the Crusaders were decimated. The victory was a turning point for Saladin. He knew he could soon take Jerusalem that year. Three months later, Saladin entered Jerusalem. For the first time in over a century the call to prayer was heard in Jerusalem and yet Saladin did not retaliate against the Christians. In the church of the Holy Sophia Mass was as usual and Saladin let the Christians who wanted to leave take their clothes and leave and those who wanted to stay can worshipped as usual.
When Europe heard this Saladin was known as the most famous Muslim of all time. Saladin‘s victories did not put an end to western aspiration in the near east. Other Crusades followed. The Crusaders were driven from their castels and returned to Europe. The returning Crusaders were amazed by the material culture of the Muslims, the quality of the merchandise, the quality of the goods was better than at home. They like highly spiced foods. They liked using soap. After the Crusades they were more aware of what was going on in the Middle East [the Crusaders]. They were opened to what’s out there. Let’s explore it. Let’s learn language and this is when people started to learn Arabic. The barrier of language dissolved ideas born and the great Muslim cities began to filter in Europe, ideas that would forever change western thought.
The scope of Islamic civilization has unified the globe of the world. This golden age of Islam was not to last. After shrugging off the Crusaders and bringing the precious gift of knowledge to Europe the great cities of the Islamic Empire will be brought to ruins by a force more terrible than what the Europeans could muster, their libraries destroyed, their wealth blunder, empty cities stood mute after the devastation came upon them not from the west but the east, it’s know as the Mongol Catastrophe.
The Mongols were Turks Mongolian Nomads from the steps of Central Asia. In the 13th century they rampaged much of Euro-Asia between the Ukraine and China. It was long before they enter Islamic Persia. They were considered savages. Terror was the Mongols principal tactic. The Muslims killed a Mongol and they in turn retaliated by killing off whole towns and built towers of skulls and bodies as examples and the other towns respected them from fear after that.
City after city fell. They finally reached the center of Islamic power. On February 10, 1258 the Mongols took Baghdad. According to the Arab Chronicles the Mongols put Baghdad to the torch, killed 10,000 inhabitants. Mosques and libraries were all set ablaze. Within less than 50 years the Mongols seized the heart of the Islamic Empire from the Arabs. Islamic civilization seem to be on the brink of destruction but then something remarkable happened. They opened the world and became Muslims in the end. They converted to Islam and became great patriots of Islam. The conversion and its lasting effect became extraordinary. Within a decade they no longer built towers of human heads but mosques glorifying Allah.
The land conquered the conquerors. The Mongols became Muslims or Islamic leaders. The Mongols transformed Islam now Islamic powers can be held by anyone not just the Arabs who created it. The Mongols threw open the door for the great gun powder empire to follow, the Empire of the Ottoman Turks. Islam was now set on a new course of expansion to both the east and the west marching to the beat of Turkish drums.
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