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Al-Sulami's Kitab Al-Jihad and Continuity In Marshall, Kenneth 2020 History Thesis Title: Fighting the Jihad of the Muslims: al-Sulami's Kitab al-Jihad and continuity in Islamic thought during the "counter-crusade" Advisor: Magnús Bernhardsson Advisor is Co-author/Adviser Restricted Data Used: None of the above Second Advisor: Release: release now Authenticated User Access (does not apply to released theses): Contains Copyrighted Material: No FIGHTING THE JIHAD OF THE MUSLIMS al-Sulami’s Kitab al-Jihad and continuity in Islamic thought during the “counter- crusade” By KENNETH THOMAS MARSHALL Professor Magnús T. Bernhardsson, Advisor A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in History WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, MA April 27, 2020 Contents Acknowledgments i Map of the ‘Abbasid Caliphate c. 750 iii Introduction 1 Chapter I: Jihad: A Dynamic Inheritance 17 Chapter II: The Enemy 41 Chapter III: Jihad Against the Muslims 69 Epilogue: “Are these not the Rum?” 97 Bibliography 102 i Acknowledgments Completing this thesis marks the culmination of what I see as a continuous period of growth as a student of history. I am finding it bittersweet to say farewell to this time in my life, at least for the time being, but I think my reticence to move on indicates how fortunate I am to have encountered such thoughtful and inspiring people along the way. I would first like to thank my advisor and professor Magnús T. Bernhardsson, who graciously stepped out of his period of expertise to guide me in this project about a medieval Islamic manuscript. I am indebted to Professor Bernhardsson for his counsel and his appreciation of my historical interests, not to mention his regular reassurance that I would reach this day with a full thesis in hand. I also would like to thank my advisors, both student and faculty, from the history thesis seminar. I am grateful for the thoughtful guidance and edits from Professor Dubow, Professor DeLucia, and Professor Garabarini as well as the camaraderie, collaboration and support provided by my peers, Kevin Silverman, Kees Humes and Hannah Tager. I would also like to thank my student and faculty readers. This thesis could not have been possible without the education I received from every single one of my professors. In particular, I want to thank Professor Lama Nassif, Professor Kirten Beck and Professor Brahim El Guabli from the Williams College Arabic Studies department. I have you all to thank for my ability to access these sources in their original Arabic, as well as my ability to connect with speakers of such a beautiful language. I would also like to thank Professor Saadia Yacoob for introducing me to Islamic History and the Qur’an, and Professor Eric Knibbs for teaching me how to read and write about medieval texts. I am also ii grateful to Dr. Catherine Holmes for listening to my proposal for this thesis and encouraging me to pursue it. I am grateful to my family and friends for their encouragement. My mother and father always enabled my passion for history, and I could not have reached the end of this project without their support of my interests. I am grateful for my brother Kevin and sister Kaylin and their tolerance for my preoccupation with boring things like the Crusades. If it were not for my cousin Daniel McNamara blazing a trail for me to follow in the study of Islamic History, I do not believe I would have chosen to pursue such a satisfying topic. I want to thank my friends and teammates at Williams College. I am especially thankful for the support and friendship of Robert Delfeld, who travelled with me every step of the way, Charlie Ide, who always found the time to read my drafts and was always ready with an out-of- doors distraction, and for Omar Kawam, with whom I spent many long evenings discussing history and religion. I am also very grateful for my brilliant, tenacious teammates, who pushed me to my breaking point on and off of the track, especially Sam Wischnewsky, Ryan Cox, William McGovern, Tristan Collaizi, Jenks Hehmeyer, Ben Hearon, Peter Kirgis, Nick Gannon, Zeke Cohen, Lucas Estrada, Mitch Morris, Walker Knauss, Chris Avila, Will Young, Aidan Ryan, and Matthew Peacock. Finally, I am forever grateful to my earliest mentor, Medha Kirtane of Ridgewood High School. Ms. Kirtane was the first to set me on this journey through higher education; she taught me how to think, write, and work hard. Most importantly, she made sure that I was aware of my abilities, and that I should expect nothing less than my best from myself. Ms. Kirtane, you set all of this into motion. Thank you. iii Introduction “East and west of God’s earth will be mine, [and] Christianity will triumph under my sword,”1 reads a tenth century Arabic poem attributed to the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II Phokas. It arrived in Baghdad, at the court of the Caliph al-Muti‘a, between 963 and 969 AD during the Byzantine reconquests that Nikephoros II led into Syria. In his poem, Nikephoros II promised to bring his army against Baghdad, and that his next target would be Damascus, the “dwelling of [his] ancestors.”2 Throughout the following years, he succeeded in capturing Tarsus, Mar‘ash, Edessa, and Aleppo, destroying the mosques in each city as he went.3 But according to a relieved Syrian preacher named Ibn Nubata al-Fariqi, Nikephoros II was “killed 4 through his supporters in his homeland” before he could reach either Muslim capital. The Muslims of the Levant had been spared total defeat at the hands of the Byzantines, but further, more notorious attempts were to be made to subdue them beneath Christian rule by another enemy. In 1105, almost a century and a half after the assasination of Nikephoros II, a Damascene legal scholar named ‘Ali ibn Tahir ibn Ja’far al-Sulami wrote that another “congregation” of Christians had “come down upon the island of Sicily,” and conquered one city after another in al-Andalus, the part of Iberia ruled by the Umayyad Caliphate throughout the medieval period.5 According to al-Sulami, these Christian conquerors realized after achieving success in Sicily and Spain that the Muslims of the Levant were too busy fighting amongst 1 Nikephoros II Phokas, trans. Nizar F. Hermes, The [European] Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012) 148. 2 Nikephoros II Phokas, trans. Nadia Maria El Cheikh in Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 173. 3 El Cheikh, Nadia Maria, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, 172. 4 Ibn Nubata al-Fariqi, trans. Niall Christie in The Kitab al-Jihad of ‘Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami (d. 1106) (New York: Routledge, 2015), 380. 5 ‘Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami, Kitab al-Jihad trans. Niall Christie (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), 206. 1 themselves to mount an effective defense. They seized their opportunity and snatched the holy city of Jerusalem, their most coveted objective, from Muslim control. Al-Sulami was referring to the Frankish expedition of 1097-1099 to the Levant, commonly known as the First Crusade. Although al-Sulami demonstrates no awareness of the western forces behind the arrival of the First Crusade, Western scholars believe that these Christian knights were in large part inspired by Pope Urban II’s promise, made at the Council of Clermont in 1095, that those who trekked to the holy land to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims would be absolved of their sins.6 Historians estimate that as many as 70,000 European knights and foot-soldiers set out for the east after the Council of Clermont. Sources in several languages report that these divinely-inspired warriors all wore the sign of the cross into battle.7 Those Franks who made it to the Byzantine capital of Constantinople were supplied and ferried across the Bosphorus Strait in 1097 by the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Comnenus, and pressed south, capturing Nicaea, Antioch, and Edessa from the Muslim Seljuqs before finally conquering Jerusalem in 1099.8 Many westerners may not be aware that there were several crusades that took place between the late eleventh and late thirteenth centuries. Crusading has become distinguished in our memory not by its history per se as much as by its ideological essence. It is almost second nature for English-speakers to refer to a value-laden movement as a crusade and to call its leaders and constituents crusaders in the struggle for their cause. For a colloquialism, the use of the term crusading to describe contemporary activism is, according to the western historical 6 Tyerman, Christopher, The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 11-13. 7 Ibid, 13. 8 Christie, Niall, Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity’s Wars in the Middle East, 1095-1382, from the Islamic Sources (New York and London: Routledge, 2014), 18-19. 2 narrative, rather fair.9 During a time when, at least in Europe, warfare was an arbitrary performance ingrained in a feudal society ruled by a military aristocracy, Pope Urban II’s promise of heavenly reward in exchange for selfless military service in the holy land revolutionized the rationale for fighting among Christian knights.10 The historical campaigns that westerners collectively refer to as the Crusades were distinguished by the religious fervor of their participants, just as crusaders in our own times display a commitment to their beliefs, religious or otherwise, above all else. Westerners preserve certain historical specifics of these campaigns in their popular culture as well. Deus vult, first chanted at the Council of Clermont in 1095, remains a recognizable Latin phrase in the west.
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