History 541
Religion and Power: Islam and Christianity in the Middle Ages
Dr. Mahmood Ibrahim
Office: 94-325; x-3867
mibrahim@csupomona.edu
There are many factors to consider when the relations between Europe and the Middle East are examined. It is a relationship as ancient as time and as current as today's events. For the purpose of this Readings seminar the period of study will be 500-1500 A.D, roughly, the European middle ages and the rise of Islamic civilization. While a very long period indeed to be closely examined, we shall view it partly through the interplay of Islam and Christianity in the politics of the middle period of world history; a study of the relationship of religion to politics and the influence they had on each other and on contacts between the people who lived around the Mediterranean.
Overall, the two regions went through opposite historical trends with a perspective that introduces far more interesting epistemological questions for further research and enquiry. In Europe, the first leg of this crossed path, Germanic tribes hastened the collapse of the Roman Empire. New social, political, economic, and religious structures developed in the aftermath. 1- Politically decentralized (Kings, Vassals, and Knights), a Germanic dominated aristocracy emerged (landlords and serfs); and an agrarian economic system based on self-sufficiency and barter (feudalism, manorialism) replaced the once active and prosperous Roman overseas trade. 2- The Church and the monastic orders (Benedictine, Cluniac, and Cistercians) became sensitive players in this system. In fact if it was not for the Church, this system may not have lasted this long. The interaction between these two great institutions, the one political the other religious, can be illuminated, expanded, or made more problematical by the study of theological developments, debates, and controversies that either brought them together or set them apart (the Investiture Controversy, the Crusades). Theology in this period became largely neo-Platonist and neo-Platonism is usually associated with the rise of a mystical order (to what extent is this true?) between god and man, an order that justified itself by cultural production that legitimized the institution, from astronomical arrangements to the proper order of social classes. The fortunes of Byzantium were even more closely tied with their Muslim neighbors and theirs was a relationship that culminated in the ottoman conquest of Constantinople.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Mediterranean, in southwest Asia and northern Africa, a region that has been historically close with developments in Europe, Islam was founded in the Hijaz by 632 and the Arabs thereafter established a prosperous state (the Umayyad Caliphate) that laid the foundation for the flowering of later Islamic civilization, much of which occurred during the heyday of the Abbasids. This period is generally characterized as mercantilist (local and long distance trade) and politically centralized (the Caliph in Damascus or Baghdad-the golden age of Islam). Aristotelian rationalism came to influence Islamic philosophy and theology after the translations movement (the Mu'tazila, al-Kindi). A culture was constructed to realize significant scientific advances and other achievements (medicine, astronomy). Therefore, in many respects, Europe and the Middle East experienced opposite trends during this period, keeping in mind that the two regions have always had contacts and relations. Egypt, for example, was once a province of Rome, then of Constantinople, followed by Medina, Damascus, and Baghdad before it became the center of Fatimid power that controlled much of the Mediterranean in the 10th and 11th centuries. The Iberian Peninsula and Sicily also changed hands and eventually became centers for the transfer of knowledge to medieval Europe.
This dialectic continued until about the end of the 11th century. Of course, as historians we know that it is difficult to locate a precise date for major historical transformations. Events lead to others so that a social pattern or practice or behavior becomes normalized to “characterize” that age. The 10th and 11th centuries could be considered as a transitional period, a period when the turn around began to take shape. Political and religious controversies raged on both sides of the divide to set in motion great upheavals. The Mihna of al-Ma'mun and the Investitutre Controversy between Pope Gregory and king Henry IV are good cases in point for the purposes of this seminar.
The Caliphate, the state that unified many provinces around the Mediterranean, the state that stretched from North Africa to Central Asia gradually gave way to regional authorities in former provinces of the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties. In this decentralized and fragmented environment Iqta', a form of payment to the military, evolved into an agrarian system that to some extent functioned like the feudal system in Europe. Provinces were nearly always autonomous despite some vague allegiance to the Caliph in Baghdad. Often some of these provinces were united, as the Ayyubids and the Mamluks had done. In general, the military, and a foreign one at that (the Mamluks), came to rule. Long distance trade thrived here and there, but never in the same proportion that it had when Muslim shipping dominated the seas. European merchants filled the slack in trade, and the vacuum created by the absence of the Muslims gave ample space in which Venice, among others, could establish their maritime powers. Cultural developments seem to have reversed too: neo-Platonism gradually replaced Aristotelian thought amongst the Muslims. Mysticism (Sufism) evolved over a period of a hundred years before and the sufi tariqas would emerge and define popular religion and piety. Muslim theology which was based on reason practically disappeared. In Europe, meanwhile, the feudal order declined. Long distance and regional trade not only made a comeback but thrived (Italian city-states and the Hanseatic League) and a new social order emerged in cities, and in centralized monarchies. Aristotelianism, which passed to Europe through Ibn Rushd and the Latin Averroests, paved the road for the later intellectual developments in Europe.
This outline is to get you to think of ways that you could approach a study of the Middle Ages. One could easily take the Indian Ocean, for example, as a unit of inquiry and substitute peoples and cultures. Other frameworks within which to study the history of regions and their people abound. The following reading list is suggestive. (As graduate students, you should never limit yourself to the references in the syllabus.)
These texts have been ordered by the Bookstore:
Norman Cantor: The Civilization of the Middle Ages. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Albert Hourani: A History of the Arab People. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Daniel Pals. Eight Theories of Religion.
MILLER. Power and the Holy in the age of the Investiture Controvrsy
Further Readings will be found in the following:
David Abulafia, “The Role of Trade in Muslim-Christian Contact during the Middle Ages” Arab Influence on Medieval Europe. Dionisius Agius and Richard Hitchcock (eds.). Ithaca Press, 1996.
Aziz al-Azmeh. Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian and Pagan Traditions. London and New York: I. B. Taurus, 19997.
Antony Black. A History of Islamic Political Thought.
Claude Cahen, “Iqta,” in Encyclopedia of Islam.
Evans, G. R. The Medieval Theologians. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.
Dimitri Gutas. Greek Thought Arabic Culture. London: Rutledge, 1998, pp. 107-120.
Andrew Jotischky, Crusading and the Crusader States. New York: Pearson, 2004.
Philip Kennedy, “The Muslim Sources of Dante,” Arab Influence on Medieval Europe. E Dionisius Agius and Richard Hitchcock (eds.). Ithaca Press, 1996
John Milbank. Theology and Social Theory. London: Blackwell Publisher, pages, 9-48.
Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari. Ta'rikh. Events of the Year 218 A. H. (833 A.D.)
Winks, Robin and Teofilo Ruiz, Medieval Europe and the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Students are responsible for the readings and for participating in the seminar discussion. Each shall submit a 3-5 page essay describing the main points of the weekly readings. Students shall also prepare, present and lead discussions on a weekly reading of their choice. In addition, a 10 page research paper, on any topic pertaining to the seminar is required. Topics to be selected in consultation with the professor. A schedule should be established to ensure the successful completion of the project by the end of the quarter.
M. Jan. 7th : Introduction. Readings. Pals, Hourani, Cantor, Miller, supporting materials.
M. Jan. 14th : Pals :from Animism to Marx.
Monday January 21st Martin Luther King Day Observed
M. Jan. 28th : Pals: From Eliadeh to end. Milbank 7-48.
M. Feb 4th : Cantor, Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11;
M. Feb. 11th : Hourani, pp. 7-205. Cahen, Iqta'.
Tabari, Year 218.
M. Feb.18th : Cantor, Chapters 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18.
M. Feb. 25th : Miller
M. March. 3rd : Black. Pages 8-164. Ibn Rushd.
Selected Bibliography:
Al-Azmeh Aziz:Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian, and Pagan Polities.
Ahmad, Leila. Women in Islam.
Asad, Talal. "Anthropological Conceptions of Religion: Reflections on Geertz." Man (New Series) vol. 18 (1983)
Ashtor E. A Social And Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages.
Bamyeh, Mohammed:The Social Origins of Islam: Mind, Economy, Discourse.
Black, Anthony. History of Islamic Political Thought.
Brooke, Z. N. "Lay Investiture and its Relation to the Conflict of Empire and Papacy," Proceedings of the British Academy, XXV (1939).
Brundage, James. Law, Sex, and Society in Medieval Europe.
Cahen, Cl. “Iqta',” The Encyclopedia of Islam.
Cantor, Norman F.The Civilization of the Middle Ages.
Colish, Marcia. Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition 400-1400.
Eliade Mircea:The Sacred and the Profane: the Nature of Religion.
Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy.
Geertz, Clifford. Islam Observed.
Gilchrist, John. The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages.
Gurvich, Aron. Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Beliefs and Perceptions.
Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture.
Hill, B. D. Church and State in the Middle Ages.
Hillenbrand, Carol.The Crusades: An Islamic Perspective.
Hodges, Richard. Dark Age Economics: The Origins of Towns and Trade, Ad. 600-1000.
Holt, P. M. The Age of The Crusades.
Ibrahim, Mahmood:Merchant Capital And Islam.
Lambert, Malcolm. Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from Bogomil to Hus.
Lampton, A. K. S. Landlord and Peasant in MedievalPersia..
Lampton, A.K.S. “The evolution of Iqta' in medieval Iran,” Iran, Vol. 5(1967), pp. 41-50.
Lapidus, Ira. A History of Islamic Societies.
Lawrence, C. H. Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in the Middle Ages.
Lopez, Robert.The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950-1350.
Maalouf, Amin. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.
Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges: institutions of higher learning in Islam and the West.
Madelung, W. Religious Schools and Sects in Medieval Islam.
Momen, M. An Introduction to Shi'i Islam.
Musallam, Basim. Sex and Society in Islam.
Pierenne, Henri. Medieval Cities: Their Origin and Revival of Trade.
Ostrogorsky, George.History of the Byzantine State.
Rahman Fazlur:Islam.
Rodinson, Maxime:Islam and Capitalism.
Rosenthal, E. I. J.Political Thought in Medieval Islam.
Schimmel, Ann Marie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam.
Stanton, Charles. Higher Learning in Islam: The Classical Period, A. D. 700-1300.
Tellenbach, Gerg:Church, State and Christian Society at the Time of the Investiture Contest.
Trimmingham, J, S. Sufi Orders in Islam.
Udavitch, A. (ed.) The Islamic Middle East 700-1900: studies in economic and social history.
Ullman, Walter.The Growth of Papal Power in the Middle Ages: A Study in the Ideological Relations of Clerical to Lay Power.
Vasiliev, A. A.History of the Byzantine Empire.
Von Grunebaum Gustave E.Medieval Islam: A Study in Cultural Orientation.
Walzer, Richard. Greek into Arabic: Essays on Islamic Philosophy.
Watt, W. M. Islamic Philosophy and Theology.
Watt W. M. The Formative Period of Islamic Thought.
Watt, W. Montgomery. The Majesty that was Islam.
Weber Max:The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Weber Max:The Sociology of Religion.
Young, M. L. (ed.)Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period.