Let’s Hear It for the Franks!
What’s not to like about The New Yorker’s Joan Acocella? First, the very name sings. Second, the lady knows dance: her ballet reviews and criticisms are splendid. Third, her book reviews are sharp, even provocative. I called attention some months back to her review of a new translation of Dante’s Paradiso. Now she’s considering an earthly paradiso: David Levering Lewis’s God’s Crucible:Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215.
In Mr. Lewis’s view, the Muslims’ civilizing habits easily trump the brutish Franks. Ms Acocella gives Lewis his say in a quite extended review (James Wood, take note!), but then opines:
If, as Edward Said wrote, the old history books were covertly ideological, the current ones tend to be overtly ideological, as each new generation of scholars rides in to rescue supposedly worthy peoples who were wronged by earlier scholarship and, in their time, by axe-wielding conquerors. But all these peoples, or all the ones in Lewis’s book, were conquerors. If the Christians took Spain from the Muslims, the Muslims had taken it from the Visigoths, who had appropriated it from the Romans, who had seized it from the Carthaginians, who had thrown out the Phoenicians. Lewis does not pretend that the Muslims were not conquerors; he simply justifies their conquest on the ground of their belief in convivencia, a pressing matter today. I can foresee a time when another matter important to us, the threat of ecological catastrophe, will prompt a historian to write a book in praise of the early Europeans whom Lewis finds so inferior to the Muslims. The Franks lived in uncleared forests, while the Muslims built fine cities, with palaces and aqueducts? All the better for the earth. The Franks were fond of incest? Endogamy keeps societies small, prevents the growth of rapacious nation-states. The same goes for the Franks’ largely barter economy. Trade such as the Muslims practiced—far-flung and transacted with money—leads to consolidation. That’s how we got global corporations.Each new problem in our history engenders a revision of past history. Many of today’s historians acknowledge this, and argue that their books, if politicized, are simply more honest about that than the politicized books of the past. This pessimism about the possibility of finding a stable truth may be realistic, but it seems to sanction, even encourage, special pleading—of which “God’s Crucible,” for all its virtues, is an example.
I haven’t read the book, and would be interested in the reactions of any who have. What about “politicization,” “ideology,” and “special pleading?” Are they endemic to historical writing — with invocation of “truth” only a pious veil or an asymptotic mirage (whew!)? Any advocates for “endogamy is beautiful?”
I haven’t read the book either but I did note its subtitle: “… Europe, 570 to 1215.” It’s all well and good for people to praise how wonderfully Muslims treated non-Muslims 800 years ago. The problem is that too many Muslims today–even if they are the minority–are drunk with a blood lust they call “jihad.” What other major religion has within its most sacred doctrines a call to holy war?
Christianity certainly does not. And don’t compare jihad to the Crusades–despite its sanctioning by popes, crusading was just war hiding behind religion. The word doens’t even appear in the Bible, nor did Jesus ever command anyone to go out and kill the infidels. Far from it: our prophet is a savior who allowed himself to be horribly tortured and murdered for our sakes, and martyrs who died rather than give up their faith–not like the Muslim’s so-called “martyrs” who try to take a huge body count with them to “paradise.”
Perhaps the Muslims need to read their own history a little closer.
It’s nonsense to say that the Europeans began the battles between the European Christians and Muslims. As the review says, first the Muslims conquored Spain, and in the 8th century, hundreds of years before the Crusades, they tried to conquor what was to become France. In 732 Charles Martel rallied the Frankish barons to defeat the Muslims at the Battle of Tours. This was the inception of the Carolingian dynasty, which can be called the inception of “Europo”. In other words, Europe didn’t even exist as such when the Muslims tried to conquor European lands, but succeeded only in Spain for a while.
Amazing how cultural patterns persist. I’m of French descent, and even my recent ancestors tended to marry each other. My parents were fifth cousins, and I knew one of my great-grandmothers who was married to a first-cousin. So I say yay Frankish endogamy — I wouldn’t be here without it.
Yes, Joan Acocella is an admirable writer. Her introduction to The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky (which was written when he was mad) is a paradigm of compassion for the insane.
Lewis might have made a more important contribution if he pointed out how the scientific revolution basically passed Islam by or was ignored by Islam. It is true that it was a crime how western historians failed to give the Arabs credit for so many advances in civilization. Certainly, this was not part of my childhood education. I was surprised when, as late as 15 years ago, reading my daughter’s high school Eastern history books how rich the contribution was from the East in general. Thankfully, decades too late, that gap is being taken care of.
The scientific revolution, which most agree started with Copernicus, may have passed us by if it were not for the Reformation. Some may argue that the church is still fighting science. Though we know now that the enlightenment might have been too optimistic about the future, all agree that it was a positive event. And it emerged out of a Christian mileau. Yet even in the West there have continually been Christian voices which have condemned the “evil” of science while opining that divine intervention will lead the way.
That was clearly the case with the theocons before and during the early stages of the Iraq war. Heaven knows what divine edicts would have come out of Washington if the war had gone smoothly. Should we thank the Iraqis? George W is not only not crowned as king but he is humbly ackowledging that we have to do something about the economy.
Thankfully, our system allows that the people’s voice can be heard against violence towards other nations. Would that Islam had a similar mechanism.
I find great irony in Edward Said’s claims about covertly ideological history books, since he created his personal history out of numerous lies for his own political purposes. A devastating article in Commentary in September, 1999 exposed the whole lot. It was titled, “‘My Beautiful Old House’ and Other Fabrications by Edward Said,” and was written by Justus Reid Weiner. I have a copy, but the link here is only to the archive where the text can be purchased.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/My-Beautiful-Old-House-and-Other-Fabrications-by-Edward-Said-9062
Snip: Said, writing in various publications:
“I was born, in November 1935, in Talbiya, then a mostly new and prosperous Arab quarter of Jerusalem. By the end of 1947, just months before Talbiya fell to Jewish forces, I’d left with my family for Cairo. . . . ["Palestine, Then and Now," Harper's, December 1992] [31]
I was born in Jerusalem and spent most of my formative years there and, after 1948, when my entire family became refugees, in Egypt. ["Between Worlds: Edward Said Makes Sense of His Life," London Review of Books, May 7, 1998] [32]
. . . my recollections of my early days in Palestine, my youth, the first twelve or thirteen years of my life before I left Palestine. [The Pen and the Sword] [33]
This same rendering of his early years recurs over and over again in writings both by and about Said.[34] (Thus, for example, the website of the Nation, a magazine with which he is affiliated as a music critic: “In 1948, Said and his family were dispossessed from Palestine and settled in Cairo.”)[35] It is what undergirds his self-definition as an archetypal “exile”–i.e., one who, like his people in general, was separated from his homeland in a sudden act of historic violence. Except for the detail of his birth, it is a tissue of falsehoods.”
Said was an exemplar of what he criticized, but with an added layer of vitriol. Stanley Kurtz noted, Said labeled Slobodan Milosevic a “rank amateur in viciousness” compared to the genocidal US policies of Clinton, and dismissed our constitution because it was written by “wealthy, white, slaveholding, Anglophilic men.” Oh my.
Nonetheless, the answer to Fr. Imbelli’s question is “yes.” I believe it is possible to write truthfully, dispassionately, with nuance, perspective and credible scholarship. Absolutely, since we Catholics do not traffic in relativism (grin). As for “asymptotic,” which I had to look up, maybe the curve comes so close to the mark that it does not matter.
dot.Commonweal is my brain fitness program, if anyone is watching PBS in the Boston area these days.
Speaking of which, here is an example of impeccable scholarship on the Middle East: “The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem” in Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2001. Someone I gave this to ended up handing out 50 copies. It has a point of view, but is amply substantiated (and long).
The link should work; I just tested it. http://www.meforum.org/article/490
Since when is it possible to write well without one’s “passion” being involved? Using words–the essense of one’s very own being–cannot help but use these symbols of the lifeblood of ALL that we are. And, yes, words are THAT important. There IS an attempt being made to undermine their importance, I’m aware. We who recognize what is going on, poiitically, religiously, and socially continue to work for the enlightenment of humankind on all these issues.
Carolyn,
Thank you for the link to the Pipes’ article which I too appreciated. I like your image of “the curve coming close to the mark.” A commitment to ongoing discernment and an openness to correction seem to me to be among the conditions for homing in on the truth.
With Letha I agree that “words are that important.” I try occasionally to re-read Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” as a much-needed exercise in asceticism — a sort of secular Lent.
I think it might be important to distinguish between the two Muslim groups that “invaded” Spain.
Those from the east were generally tolerant and improved life for Jews, both in Spain at the time and those who sought sanctuary in Spain under the Muslims. Jews were getting kicked out of other countries when the loans they made to Christian monarchs started to come due. Jews found their niche as intermediaries between Muslims and Christians.
I would characterize this first wave of Muslims as “settlers” as much as invaders. Certainly, they were not invited in. Yes, there were wars. But Spain was not a united kingdom at the time, but a lot of little kingdoms and regions, some of which did not even speak the same language (Catalonia and the Basque country). It was fairly easy to move in and set up shop without whole sale destruction.
The north African Muslims were newer Muslim converts, and had bloodier notions about “infidels.” This second wave of Muslims began to invade later and fight with the original Muslims who were already established. Alliances among the older Muslim groups, Christians, Jews and the north African Muslims slipped around a lot.
Eventually Ferdinand and Isabella joined forces, uniting Castile and Aragon, and systematically knocking heads together until the country was united under a single monarchy.
I mention this only to clarify that Islam was not a monolithic or even very unified religion even in its early days. Like Western Christianity, it absorbed a great deal of the tone and attitude of the pagan cultures it converted as it spread. The vestiges of the old warrior culture of pagan Europe was eager, as Robert noted, to justify war in the name of religion. Ditto the Muslim invaders from north Africa in Spain.
I’m not a scholar on Islam by any stretch, but I found this interesting background when reading the medieval legends of El Cid.
The question of what really happened is as difficult in history as it is in one’s life.
The Crusaders, for example, thought they were engaging in a holy war and that their piety was real. They didn’t know that their piety and even the religious orders they set up were actually cynical fronts for an old fashioned land grab; that the Bible said nothing about holy wars and that therefore such a thing could not exist.
In our own day, most Muslims think that they are getting on with their own lives as family members and as citizens of their own countries with their own local interests and forms of patriotism. They don’t know that they are actually representatives of a violent military religion that seeks world domination.
The clarity of the well informed outsider’s view is always a blessing.