Muslims in European History (Our Common History – Through the Prism of History Textbooks)

TATARICA: CULTURE, PERSONALITY AND EDUCATION MUSLIMS IN EUROPEAN HISTORY (OUR COMMON HISTORY – THROUGH THE PRISM OF HISTORY TEXTBOOKS) Marat Mingalievich Gibatdinov, the Institute of History, Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, entrance 5, Kremlin, Kazan, Russia, 420014, [email protected] The paper presents the results of the collaborative research pursued by an international group of scholars under the aegis of European Science Foundation and Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research. The results of cross-reference analysis of the images of Islam and Muslims in Eu- ropean and Russian History textbooks show the neglect of Muslims presence in European history. However, these neglected parts of our common history can become a good ground for the intercultural and interfaith dialogue and can promote mutual understanding on the basis of shared history and memory. Disregard for those leads to misunderstanding of the past and creates obstacles to the construction of a peaceful and respectful future for Europe as a multicultural society. The results of the research can be used in textbooks and teaching materials development for multicultural education in Europe and Russia. Key words: history teaching, European history, image of Muslims, history textbooks, multicultural society. Quite often, Muslims and Islam are represented However our long shared history includes alien and dangerous to European culture and civili- many more examples of positive and negative rela- zation. The political discourse “approved” the im- tionships between Europe and Islam and none of age of European history represented mostly as the the parts is to be ignored. development of “Christian civilization”. But it is How is this common past represented in based on a selective memory about European past. History textbooks? Let’s briefly look through Entire Muslim periods in European history are now Greek, Spanish, Italian, Russian and German cases. almost forgotten and neglected. They are either to- The textbook analysis shows the Muslim pe- tally ignored (as the Muslim rule in Spain) or pre- riod of Spain history is totally ignored. Tradition- sented in a negative way (e.g. the Ottoman reign in ally the textbooks say that Reconquista starts “im- Greece). The cross reference analysis of the Euro- mediately” after the Arab invasion: “Spanish histo- pean History textbooks makes it obvious. In this riography barely acknowledges the existence of paper I present only a brief overview of the main Muslim societies on the Iberian Peninsula between picture based mostly on the results of the research 711 and 1492. As a result, inimical old blueprints pursued by our international group [1]. of Muslims and Islam are still being perpetuated in The main points of Muslim presence in Euro- regional educational practices” [7; 40]. pean history are as follows: Old historiography is strongly influenced by 800 years of Muslim reign in Iberia. “Maurophobia” or “Islamophobia”, and the presen- Ottoman reign in South of Europe. tation of Muslims is used to create an image of the The Golden Horde (the European part of Russia). “other” because it helps “to create one’s own im- Tatars as European Muslims (Poland, Lithua- age and consolidate awareness of oneself ... in the nia, Finland). process of defining an enemy” [7; 47]. Nowadays, Islam in Italy 827-1300. it is realised that this approach has not only been a Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe 11- hindrance for the understanding of the past but has 13th centuries (science, art etc.) [2]. also become a much more essential threat to the Muslims and European Renaissance [3]. Crusades as the way of intercultural communi- cation [4-6]. manya–Türkiye arasında gidip gelen yasamlar) / Zuerst 1 einmal bin ich Mensch (Lebenswege zwischen Deutsch- Personal and family histories . land und der Türkei). The Project is aimed at bringing out the memories and life stories of Turks in Germany. 1 “Deutsch-türkische Biographien” the project of Anne Individual recollections present a broad picture of Mus- Frank Zentrum, Berlin (Herşeyden önce insanım (Al- lim communities in Europe. 227 M.M.GIBATDINOV construction of a peaceful and respectful future. was the defeat he inflicted on the Arabs in 732 at the However, this new understanding of “oneself” and battle of Poitiers. … If the Arabs had beaten the “the other” has not yet become part of Spanish Francs, they would not have met other resistance History textbooks. and all Europe would have become Islamic. Charles In Greek history the images of Islam and Mus- therefore saved Western civilization” [12; 108]. lims are also sensitive political topics. As the in- As Antonio Brusa told, “it seems that intercul- fluence of Orthodox Church is a time honoured ture stops at the door of the classroom and does not practice in Greece, by tradition it plays an impor- form part of the concrete teaching of any subject tant role in the education of the young and the (history, mathematics or geography)” [11; 153]. school system in general. The “ottoman fear” is a Thus numerous “daily stereotypes” and “cultured long-established part of the Greek national identity stereotypes” [13, 14] prevail in the Italian text- and “cruelty of ottomans” was traditionally widely books. The current mainstream strategy addressing presented in school History textbooks. Any kind of these stereotypes is to use euphemisms or even balanced approach (disregarding only “black and hide previous conflicts, for “xenophobic sweeten- white”) to the ottoman period of Greek history can ing” [15]. hardly be accepted. In Russian History textbooks Islam and Mus- However, there are modern trends ready to look lims are also traditionally neglected, in case it is at the common history of Greeks and Turks free impossible – they are represented as a part of some from old prejudices and preconceptions. A few negative phenomena, as the conflicts and wars with years ago a new history textbook for secondary the enemies. Modern Russian textbooks display schools [8] caused a great row and became a “major old prejudices against Islam and Muslims, that are national issue”. The Greek Orthodox Church and shown as something alien and dangerous for Rus- the right wing parties strongly criticized the text- sia. Paradoxically Russians preserved such preju- book edited by Maria Repoussi, professor of Aris- dices through all periods of Russian history: Impe- totle University in Thessaloniki, for the “underesti- rial, Soviet and Post-Soviet. mation of the role of Church in the national elabora- Living with indigenous Muslim ethnic groups, tion movement” and the “revisionist approach to the Russians, paradoxically, are not much interested in Greek – Turks relations in the past” [9]. After the learning about their Muslim neighbors but accept active protest movements the Ministry of Education the old prejudiced images of Islam and Muslims and Religion Affairs decided to withdraw the text- from European (mostly German) orientalism. In book from schools and suppress it, some copies fact, historians August von Schlezer and Gerhard were burnt by radical marchers in the streets of Ath- Miller1 who received their education in Leipzig ens. However, after the wide rival protests the Min- and Göttingen and worked in the newly founded St istry allowed to use the textbook at schools. Petersburg Academy, were the first to introduce in Unfortunately, the demonization of Muslims Russia the existing historical debates and the stere- and Turks is considered to be the norm rather than otypes of Islam found in German Literature and the exception in European textbooks. As the Coun- History textbooks of the time. cil of Europe’s experts recognize: “In the great ma- The very first History textbook to use in Rus- jority of [European] textbooks the Ottoman Empire sian schools was of German origin. In 1747, 25 is treated solely as the arch-enemy of Christendom years soon after its initial appearance in Berlin, and its cultural influence is, at least by implication, “Introduction to the General History” by Hilmar represented as evil” [10; 7]. Curas [16, 17], was translated into the Russian lan- The Italian case is a typical type of presenting guage. Curas was a teacher at Royal and Protestant Islam. In the majority of Italian school textbooks Joachimthaler grammar school in Berlin. His book euro-centrism and capitalism are considered to be was well received in the reform-minded Prussian synonyms. Muslims, therefore, are depicted as the “favorite fear” of Italians. According to the text- 1 books, they are “guilty” about the creation of the Is- Gerhard Friedrich Miller (1705-83), Leipzig Univer- lamic world “totally different from the Roman one” sity graduate, a member of St Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1725) and the author of “Sammlung Rus- and with a consequent breakdown in the “unity of sischer Geschichte” (1732). August Ludwig von the Mediterranean world” [11; 155]. The term Schlezer (1735-1809) was educated at University of “European” is used to prove that European identity Göttingen, a historian adjunct at St Petersburg Academy was found in the eternal fight against its enemy, Is- of Sciences (1762), a professor in Göttingen (1764- lam: “The greatest achievement of Charles Martel 1804) and one of the founders of the “German School” of Russian Historiography. 228 TATARICA: CULTURE, PERSONALITY AND EDUCATION state and soon translated into several European the Jadidism3 movement, which must be ruthlessly languages, Dutch and Russian included. unmasked as a reactionary ideology

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