Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Islam, Muslims believe, is not a new religion but the refinement and ultimate manifestation of the mono-
theistic religions. As such, Muslims are respectful of Christianity and Judaism and their adherents
(known as 'People of the Book'), and acknowledge the debt to the revelations of the Bible and Torah,
predating the Quran.
Foray into Europe
The monotheistic faiths became powerful cultural and political entities in the world be-
cause they broke the geographic confines of their origins. Islam is no exception and it
soon spread across neighbouring countries, shifting capitals from Mecca to Damascus and
then peacefully to Jerusalem. From here traders from Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean
and North Africa were exposed to the new religion and recognised in it a practical, port-
able faith which they voluntarily took home with them.
The first major impact that Islam made on the West was through the campaigns of the
Muslim armies who spread into Spain from North Africa in 711 and settled in Andalusia.
During their occupation of this part of Spain, they built the great citadels and mosques of
Granada and Cordoba and entered into a creative and largely peaceful dynamic with
Christendom that lasted for seven centuries.
The early Islamic encounter with Europe resulted in cultural cross-pollination. The scholars of Muslim
Spain translated classical works of medicine, astronomy, chemistry, philosophy and architecture from
Greek and Roman sources, lost to the Europe of the Dark Ages. This helped bring about the Renaissance
- upon which modern Europe is built.
The Crusades
Not everyone was pleased with the Muslim legacy, however, and pockets of resistance to
the spread of Islam finally took a militant shape in the form of the Crusades which took
place between 1096 and 1272. In the ominous name of a 'just war', Christian zealots
wrested the Holy Land from the Muslims in 1099 in a battle to regain Jerusalem. Unfortu-
nately, the nine Crusades attracted not only the pious but also every kind of adventurer
and miscreant out looking for a fight, and victory was marked by wanton bloodletting. In
1204, for example, the sacking of Constantinople by Crusaders led by the Venetians in-
volved widespread slaughter and looting - as evidenced by the bronze horses plucked
from the hippodrome in Constantinople that now grace St Mark's Basilica in Venice.
Atrocities abounded on both sides, such as the slaughter of 2,700 Muslim men, women
and children by Richard I of England and Philip II of France on 20th August 1191. Re-
prisals came swiftly in the form of the torture and slaying of Christian prisoners
throughout Saladin's empire. Despite such animosity between the two sides, later travel-
