Moslems

[Honorius]

Emperor Theophilus in the 9th century was pretty fond of arab art and culture i believe.. so i suppose during his reign muslim inhabitants within the empire were fairly treated. Not saying that they werent during the reigns of other emperors.

[Kosmo]

In the period of arab expansion the two did not like each other, but there were no muslims in the empire. Sometimes, arbas and romans got along and there was cultural exchange. Perhaps the iconclast movement it's made under the muslim influence.

During the byzantine counter attack some areas in Syria and the islands were retaken, but this areas had also large christian population.

Similar events occured after the Commnens retook parts of Anatolia. I know of high byzantine officials of selgiuk origins, but not about their religion.

A mosque was build in Byzantium, but I don't know the date.

Muslim selgiuk turks were colonised in Dobrogea ( today Constanta area - SE Romania) in an autonomus community that still survives.

Many selgiuk and ottoman pretenders and exiles lived in the City. This is the reason for the 1453 events.

I believe that muslims were not persecuted in the empire and that they always were a small minority.

Armenian church survived unmolested in the empire until the end. Bulgarian patriarchy was recognized, despite serious differences and political conflicts, and her stile was spread by byzantines in Russia and other areas.

Even catars (bogumili) survived for long despite alliances and conflicts with the power (like the relation with Alexios Commnen)

So, not so much fanaticism and persecution.

 

Pecenegs and cumans were not muslims. Some of chazars and the Volga Bulgarians were muslims, but these were far to the East and North. Only after the Golden Horde han Berke converted to islam the stepe people became muslims.

[Andrew Dalby]

In the period of arab expansion the two did not like each other, but there were no muslims in the empire. Sometimes, arbas and romans got along and there was cultural exchange. Perhaps the iconclast movement it's made under the muslim influence.

During the byzantine counter attack some areas in Syria and the islands were retaken, but this areas had also large christian population.

Similar events occured after the Commnens retook parts of Anatolia. I know of high byzantine officials of selgiuk origins, but not about their religion.

A mosque was build in Byzantium, but I don't know the date.

 

I believe the mosque was built in the 12th century, under the Komnenoi. The main reason was that there was a large Muslim trading community in Constantinople by that time -- it is true, also, that a few areas which were formerly Muslim had been recaptured by the Byzantines.

 

There was probably considerable interchange in the highlands of Anatolia between Christians and Muslims, and the borders kept shifting. The Greek epic of Digenis Akritas, which might have originated roughly in the same period, tells of Muslim-Christian battles but also love affairs and intermarriage -- very much like similar epics from medieval France and Spain.

 

No, the Pechenegs were not Muslim. Turkish peoples originated in southern and eastern Siberia (where some still live). Those who migrated south-west, towards central Asia and Persia and eventually Turkey, gradually adopted the Muslim religion. Those who took a northerly route (including the Pechenegs, and also I think the Chuvash of modern Russia) were never reached by Muslim culture.

[Ludovicus]

It's probably worthwhile to recall that relations between Muslims and Christians, both within the Byzantine world and without, were much more complex than is generally appreciated. I know that El Cid of Spain was a mercenary of Muslim princes at least once in his life. The wonderful Italian Benedictine monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno was destroyed by Muslim raiders whose attack was encouraged by Athanasius II of Bari.

 

 

" Ma nell'881 un nuovo gruppo di Arabi, al servizio del duca-vescovo di Napoli Atanasio II, attacca il complesso monastico saccheggiandolo e mettendolo a fuoco brutalmente."

 

But in 881, a new group of Arabs, in the service of the Duke-Bishop of Naples, Athanasius II, attack the monastery complex brutally sacking and burning it. (my translation)

 

http://www.sanvincenzoalvolturno.it/pg/sez1_0.htm (This site is in Italian)

Edited February 1, 2007 by Ludovicus

[Julius Ratus]

For me it now brings up the question of the Khazars. Were they Jewish? A Lost Tribe?

 

 

The Khazars were Jewish and were converts, not a lost tribe. As far as I know, they converted to Judaism so they could trade with both the Moslems in Baghdad and on the Volga (Bulgars), and with the Christians in The Empire.

[Kosmo]

There was probably considerable interchange in the highlands of Anatolia between Christians and Muslims, and the borders kept shifting. The Greek epic of Digenis Akritas, which might have originated roughly in the same period, tells of Muslim-Christian battles but also love affairs and intermarriage -- very much like similar epics from medieval France and Spain.

 

 

Interchange indeed, but not equal. Selgiuk and ottomans were heavily influenced under a lot of aspects by byzantines. For example the timar system of landed soldiers was very similar with byzantine recruiting system of thema. Byzantine art was the base for muslim arhitecture from the arab begginings when they helped in the building of a mosque in Damasc to ottomans mosques copied after Hagia Sophia and from that to Taj Mahal. Miniature art of Byzantium was also very influential on muslim painting. The romans were less influenced by muslims..Thruout Islam christians lived for a long time (some still do) and for a long period being more numerous and civilised while the gradually shrinking roman empire never had many muslims.

 

Maybe even more interesting it's the fact that the "arab" army that conquered Spain from the Visighots was largely made from christian, latin speaking berbers. The Iron Curtain was a XX C invention.

 

PS A nice novel about muslim painting at the height of ottoman power it's "My Name is Red" by 2006 Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_is_Red

He speaks about byzantine and chinese influences on persian miniature that was the best in Islam.

[Gaius Octavius]

J. Ratus, the Bulgars were Moslems?

[Julius Ratus]

The Volga Bulgars were, they sent the Moslem representatives to Saint Vladimir when he decided to upgrade religions. I don't think the Bulgars in modern Bulgaria were Moslems, though.

[Gaius Octavius]

J.R., Upgrade religions?

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Maybe even more interesting it's the fact that the "arab" army that conquered Spain from the Visighots was largely made from christian, latin speaking berbers. The Iron Curtain was a XX C invention.

Kosmo, that army invaded in two waves. The first one, led by Tariq bin Ziyad, did largely consist of Berbers. The second one, led by Musa bin Nusayr, was largely Arab.

Do you have any evidence for stating that the Berbers in that expedition were mostly Christian? That really is new to me. IIRC they were Berber converts to Islam. Not disputing you claim, btw, just asking for some evidence.

[Kosmo]

I've been looking for the source, but I can't find it. It is somewhere here

http://libro.uca.edu/title.htm

Sorry!

 

"Moreover, there was little sense of racial antipathy; the majority of the first wave of invaders were not even Arabs, but Berbers who differed little in appearance from the Hispanic people. Some of these Berbers were themselves not yet fully assimilated into Islam. (For that matter, the Berbers of northwest Africa were not effectively converted until after the adoption of the local Kharijite doctrines in the eighth century.) "

 

http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/spainport1.htm

 

Not exactly what I was looking for but close.

[DecimusCaesar]

One book dealing with the early confrontations between Muslims and the Eastern Roman Empire I was hoping of getting is: Yarmuk by David Nicolle. Although the main focus of the book is the actual battle that took place between these two forces, I am sure it will mention the Byzantines' attitudes towards the Muslims.

Either way, according to Steven Runciman in his History of the Crusades vol.1, the Byzantines had a very bitter and pessimistic attitude towards confrontation with the Muslims in the early days, after coming out of a long and bloody war with the Sassanid Persians. Even so, The Emperor Heraclius saw the threat that they posed to the Empire and therefore set about organizing his damaged armies to confront the new threat. I believe that later on, the Byzantines were on good or at least neutral terms with the Muslim Arabs but there were frequent hostlities between them and the Muslim Turks.

[Divi Filius]

 

The minaret is the remained of a Byzantine era mosque inside a fortress of what is today Berat, Albania. Dated around the later 1300's it was used by Turkic mercenaries in the Byzantine army.

[DecimusCaesar]

The minaret is the remained of a Byzantine era mosque inside a fortress of what is today Berat, Albania. Dated around the later 1300's it was used by Turkic mercenaries in the Byzantine army.

 

Moslems did serve in the Byzantine army, and the links between them could sometimes be peaceful. For instance, shortly before the Third Crusade, Saladin after he had captured Jerusalem, gave over many sacred Christian objects to the Byzantines. Thena again, he might have done this to annoy the Latin Christians whose Kingdom he had just conquered.

 

EDIT: Oops, I wrote scared instead of sacred.

Edited February 4, 2007 by DecimusCaesar

[Ludovicus]

Here's a remarkable article from the New York Times on St. Francis of Assisi's visit to the Egyptian court of al-Malik al-Kamil, nephew of the great Saladin.

 

 

By THOMAS CAHILL

Published: December 25, 2006

 

AMID all the useless bloodshed of the Crusades, there is one story that suggests an extended clash of civilizations between Islam and the West was not preordained. It concerns the early 13th-century friar Francis of Assisi, who joined the Fifth Crusade not as a warrior but as a peacemaker.

 

Francis was no good at organization or strategy and he knew it. He accepted the men and women who presented themselves as followers, befriended them and shared the Gospel with them. But he gave them little else. He expected them to live like him: rejecting distinctions of class, forgoing honors of church or king or commune, taking the words of Jesus literally, owning nothing, suffering for God