The Decline of Eastern Christianity: A Review

The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: 

From Jihad to Dhimmitude

 by

Bat Ye’or

A Review by Dr. Helena P. Schrader

Bat Ye’or’s book is a comprehensive and significant work, which examines a topic far too often ignored in histories of the Middle East, Islam and the crusades: the fate, status and experience of Christians and Jews living under Muslim rule from the 6^th to the 19^th centuries. It is based on a wealth of documentary evidence drawn from Arab, Turkish, Armenian, Latin, Greek and Balkan sources. It includes a discussion of the sources and a 23 page-long bibliography. It also analyzes the historiography to date and provides an appendix of documentary evidence supporting her principle theses, translated into English, which encompasses 175 pages of evidence.

In short, this is an eminently well-researched and meticulously documented scholarly book rather than a polemical or popular work of history — which perhaps explains why it has not received the prominence it is due. Another factor contributing to the apparent neglect of this important work is that it depicts the fate and represents the views of the victims, who are now for the most part exterminated, forgotten and powerless, in contrast to narratives written from Arab/Islamic or Western European perspectives. I can’t help but wonder if the fact that Ms. Ye’or is an Egyptian, a woman, and a Jew but not a professor, has not also contributed to her work being unjustly slighted by academics, without anyone undertaking a serious refutation of her basic findings.

Ye’or notes that the most common terminology for Jews and Orthodox Christians in Muslim states is as “protected minorities.” This very term, she argues, is misleading. The Orthodox Christians were throughout most of the 1,300 years covered in this book the majority population of the states in which they lived. Second, they were not ‘protected’ but rather, in the course of more than a thousand years, gradually driven to near extinction. This book describes in great detail how that came about.

Ye’or is careful to note the acquiesce and indeed collaboration of key elites in the conquered communities. In the beginning, “treaties” with the ravaging nomadic tribes from the Arabian Peninsula seemed like common sense and self-defense once the imperial powers of Byzantium and Persia became too weak to protect the local population. Paying “tribute” seemed like the lesser evil to hopeless defiance.

Ye’or likewise describes without apology the rivalries and hatred between the various Christian sects and their anti-Semitism, factors that enabled the Muslim conquerors to effectively play the groups off against one another. She makes no secret of the religious fanaticism among some Christian monks, which undermined a sense of solidarity among the Christian subjects of Islam. Ye’or is also quick— and nowhere more bitter — than in pointing out that it was above all the religious leadership that profited from the new situation. Christian and Jewish leaders alike became the representatives of their respective communities and were made responsible for collecting the tribute and paying their Arab masters. This gave them greater autonomy than under the former Byzantine regime, while also offering multiple opportunities to enrich themselves. Last but not least, Ye’or freely acknowledges and highlights the degree to which some elites — secretaries and translators, accountants and bankers, merchants and professionals —adapted to the new situation and, in exchange for collaboration, were allowed to prosper — at the expense of the vast majority of the co-religionists.

Yet Ye’or musters overwhelming and almost numbing evidence that the vast majority of Christians and Jews living under Islamic regimes were subjected to frequent waves of violence punctuated by periods of oppression and humiliation. She describes how the repeated extortion of money, goods, livestock, and even children, reduced entire populations to such destitution that they abandoned their lands altogether and fled into the mountains to be hunted down like outlaws and wild beasts. She describes how the repeated raids by nomadic tribes turned entire regions into wastelands, because no crop could be sown much less harvested. “The once-flourishing villages of the Negev had already disappeared by about 700, and by the end of the eighth century the population had deserted the greater part of the region stretching from south of Gaza to Hebron, fleeing back northwards, abandoning ruined churches and synagogues.” (102) This depopulation and desertification of once-flourishing and densely populated regions, described in full by both Muslim and Christian chroniclers, was the result of the massive deportation of captives — that is the enslavement of entire populations.

Yet even during periods of comparative stability when the caliph and/or sultan was able to exert his authority over the tribes and, out of self-interest in the revenues derived through the exploitation of the subject peoples, prevent outright slaughter and deportation, the situation of the conquered non-Muslims was deplorable. The non-Muslim population enjoyed no legal protections because their word was considered worthless in an Islamic court. They were required by Sharia Law to live in smaller and more dilapidated houses. They were not allowed to build houses of worship, to conduct any religious rite or ceremony in public, and were prohibited from wearing symbols of their religion. They were required to wear distinctive clothing and carry proof that they had paid their taxes. They were forbidden from riding horses or camels and from bearing arms.  The Muslim population was actively encouraged to demonstrate contempt for non-Muslims by shoving them aside or otherwise demeaning them. And they were always just a false-move away from being robbed and beaten by the mob (or just hooligans) or enslaved for some alleged crime.

No, that is not the politically correct narrative that has been popular in Western Europe and the Islamic world for the last two centuries. But Ye’or has the evidence — the chronicles and the statistics — on her side.

Furthermore, as she notes, the treatment of the non-Islamic inhabitants of Dafur at the hands of the Muslim Sudanese rightly outraged the international community — yet this treatment is identical, indeed the formulaic, meticulously documented and theologically justified treatment of conquered populations in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Anatolia and the Balkans. The descriptions of the raids, extortion, capture of children, ransom of captives, enslavement and destruction of entire villages recorded by the UN and various aid organizations in Dafur read exactly like the chronicles describing Arab conquests in the Middle East in the sixth to ninth centuries. Why were Sudanese actions in Dafur “atrocities” and the Arab conquest of the Middle East and Balkans “enlightened”? Why are the peoples of Dafur victims and the Christians of Egypt, Palestine and Syria “protected” and “privileged”?

Tragically, the myth of Islamic tolerance is now so deeply embedded in modern perceptions of the medieval world that I will no doubt be vilified and insulted for writing and publishing this review. Yet it is precisely because this book challenges politically correct versions of history with irrefutable evidence drawn from contemporary sources, including Arab and Turkish sources, that this book deserves to be read and discussed — not ignored or dismissed.

The status of Orthodox Christians in the crusader states is a recurring theme in all Dr. Schrader's novels set in the Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades:

                                             

All books are available in paperback or as ebooks on amazon and Barnes and Noble. Find out more about them at: http://www.helenapschrader.com/crusades.html

 

Saladin and Byzantium - An Unholy Alliance

The brutal sack of Constantinople in 1204 dominates discourse about the relationship between the crusaders and the Byzantine Empire. Yet, as important and shocking as it was, this one episode should not be allowed to obscure everything that preceded and followed it. Relations between Byzantium and the crusader states were complex and fraught with misunderstandings and mutual misconceptions, but they were also punctuated by periods of cooperation. 
Equally important: the Byzantines were not innocent lambs devoured by evil Latin wolves. Rather, the attack on Constantinople had its roots in actions taken by the Byzantines themselves, one of the most important of which was an alliance forged with Saladin with the goal of destroying the Crusader States. 

 

Andronicus I Comnenus swept into power on the back of fervent anti-Latin feelings, directed against the Dowager Empress Marie of Antioch, who was regent for her underaged son Alexius II, the son of Manuel I. Following anti-Latin riots in Constantinople in 1182 in which the Genoese and Pisan residents of the city were slaughtered, Andronicus seized power. He had Empress Marie and her lover murdered, and in September 1183 had himself crowned co-emperor with Alexius. Within two months, he had strangled Alexius and seized sole power for himself, "legitimizing" his actions by marrying the murdered Alexius' 13-year-old bride.

While his domestic policies included attempts to fight corruption and reform the administration in the Empire, particularly in the provinces, his foreign policy consisted fundamentally of a repudiation of Manuel I Comnenus' pro-Western policies and alliances with the crusader states. Significantly, Andronicus had been an exile from Manuel's court and had fled to Damascus and Baghdad, where he had been well-received by Nur al-Din. 

In June 1185, two years into his reign as Byzantine Emperor, Andronicus sent an envoy to Saladin, Nur al-Din's successor, proposing a treaty of alliance between their empires. The purpose of the proposed alliance was the destruction of the crusader states. After a successful conquest of the crusader states, the Byzantine Emperor generously offered to divide the spoils, by retaining Jerusalem and all the (wealthy) coastal cities for himself and giving the rest (Transjordan?) to Saladin. All Andronicus required of Saladin was an oath of homage and the promise to render assistance to the Eastern Roman Empire whenever requested. One can only imagine Saladin's response for it is not recorded, but it is not hard to imagine that he laughed out loud at so much unfounded insolence.

Before Saladin's ambassadors could reach Constantinople with his official response, Andronicus was savagely torn to pieces by the mob in Constantinople and replaced by a  man who had rebelled against him and faced arrest and execution: Isaac Angelus. The latter had also sought refuge in the court of Damascus along with his elder brother, Alexis. The latter was still there when Isaac was acclaimed emperor by the mob. Isaac used this fact to renegotiate a new treaty with Saladin, which was duly confirmed by an imperial decree. 

Isaac then recalled his brother, but Alexis foolishly chose to return to Constantinople by way of Acre. It was now 1186, the King of Jerusalem was Baldwin V, a child, and the regent of the kingdom was the savvy Raymond of Tripoli -- who was himself well-connected in Saladin's court. He certainly had wind of the new alliance between Isaac and Saladin targeting Jerusalem, and he promptly imprisoned Alexis. 

An outraged Isaac pressured Saladin to attack Jerusalem and free his brother. Saladin did both -- although it is unlikely that he did so as a favor to the Byzantine Emperor. By January 1188, Saladin was in control of the entire kingdom except for Tyre, and the terms of the treaty with Constantinople were completely irrelevant. Saladin made no move to surrender any territory to the Byzantines, but he did allow the Greek Orthodox Church to take control of the Christian shrines in the newly occupied territories. 

Meanwhile, the Western European powers were preparing to mount a major campaign to re-take the Holy Land. Arab accounts suggest that Saladin was genuinely unsettled. He was particularly concerned about the prospect of the Holy Roman Emperor, Friederick Barbarossa, bringing a large army to the Near East. It was now Saladin's turn to make demands based on the alliance with Byzantium: he sent ambassadors to Constantinople to re-negotiate the terms of the anti-Western alliance. He expected the Byzantines to prevent -- or at least harass, delay, and impede -- the passage of any crusading armies entering Byzantine territory. Isaac happily agreed to the new treaty.

The contents of the treaty did not remain secret. By September of 1188, Conrad de Montferrat sent letters to the West detailing the extent of Byzantine treachery. It must be remembered, that Conrad had himself been married to a Byzantine princess and his brother Rainier had been Emperor Manuel I's son-in-law, the husband of Manual's daughter Maria. Both Rainier de Montferrat and his imperial wife had been murdered in Constantinople at the same time as Marie of Antioch. Conrad had friends in Constantinople, because many there opposed Isaac's new anti-Christian alliance. Allegedly, in return for preventing any crusading armies from reaching the Middle East, Saladin promised to restore Jerusalem and Palestine to Constantinople. In addition, a clause envisaged a joint campaign to reconquer Cyprus, which had rebelled and was independent, not yet a Latin kingdom. 

Isaac, however, maintained a facade of friendliness toward the West, negotiating with Frederick Barbarossa for the passage of his armies "unmolested," and promising to provide markets and ensure a "fair exchange" of currency.  Just before the Holy Roman Emperor set out on crusade in May 1189, he sent envoys to Constantinople to announce his impending arrival. They were promptly imprisoned and their horses and possessions turned over to Saladin's representatives in the Byzantine capital. 

That did not stop Frederick Barbarossa. When the German crusaders found no markets ready to sell them provisions, they 'foraged' for whatever they needed. When units of the Byzantine military poorly disguised as 'bandits' harassed them, they destroyed them. From Nish to Sofia, Barbarossa drove the Byzantines out if their fortifications and at Philippopolis defeated them soundly. He ravaged Thrace from Enos to Thessalonica demanding the release of his ambassadors, but he resisted pressure from within his own ranks to turn his army on Constantinople. Barbarossa remained true to his vow and his aim, which was the liberation of Jerusalem, not the conquest of a Christian country. 

In February 1190, Isaac finally recognized that Saladin wasn't going to do anything to help him stop Barbarossa and that without help he able to stop him. He signed the Treaty of Adrianople, which again promised markets and fair exchange rates. Isaac helped Barbarossa cross into Asia -- and reneged on all other aspects of the agreement. 

It didn't matter. The German Emperor soon crossed into the Sultanate of Rum, where he promptly and decisively defeated the Seljuk army at the Battle of Iconium. His tragic death four months later put an effective end to the German contribution to the Third Crusade -- but it was hardly Isaac's doing.

Saladin recognized this. Arab sources summarized the alliance with Constantinople as follows: "In truth, the Greek king has never succeeded in his enterprises; we gain nothing from his friendship, and need fear nothing from his enmity." (1)

But the damage to Byzantine relations with the West had already been done. Although the alliance between Damascus and Constantinople ended in 1192 it left a legacy of bitterness and mistrust. The West, particularly the Holy Roman Empire, viewed the Byzantines as duplicitous traitors to Christianity. Here, along with the massacres of the Italians in 1177 and again in 1182, are the seeds of the Fourth Crusade.

(1) Abu Samah, quoted in Charles Brand, "The Byzantines and Saladin, 1185-1192: Opponents of the Third Crusade," Journal of Mediaeval Studies, Vol. XXXVII, # 3, April 1962, 178.

The Third Crusade is the focus of "Envoy of Jerusalem," recognized as the Best Biography 2017 by Book Excellence Awards and as Best Christian Historical Fiction 2017 by Readers' Favorite Book Awards. Find out more at: https://www.helenapschrader.com/envoy-of-jerusalem.html

John d'Ibelin Part III

Contemporaries praised his wisdom and restraint, churchmen called him "exceedingly Christian and energetic,"(1) and modern historians have drawn parallels between him and St. Louis.(2)

Significantly, despite his rebellion, John d'Ibelin was never viewed as a rebel, much less a hothead, and while he won the decisive battles of his war against the Holy Roman Emperor, he was admired not as a military man, but rather as a statesman.

Today Dr. Schrader concludes her three-part biography of John d'Ibelin.

When the Emperor sailed away from the Holy Land in May 1228, he evidently believed he had succeeded in his objectives. He had obtained the nominal return of Jerusalem to Christian hands (and others would have to worry about the details of defending it), and he had worn the Imperial crown in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, gaining a great propaganda victory in his struggle with the papacy. That he left behind outraged subjects (who expressed their feelings by throwing offal at him) apparently did not bother him in the least. He never once returned to Jerusalem, nor did he send any of his sons to rule the kingdom in his name. Although he claimed the title and the revenues, he left the business of ruling to the lieutenants he appointed. In doing so, he made a major miscalculation: he treated John d'Ibelin as an irritant to be exterminated with the wave of the imperial hand.

On Cyprus, Frederick appointed five men joint "baillies" and ordered them to dispossess the Ibelins and their partisans of their lands and to further ensure that the neither the Lord of Beirut nor any of his sons, kinsmen or supporters ever set foot on the Island of Cyprus again. Note, there had never been a trial before the High Court of Cyprus to establish any wrong-doing on the part of Beirut. The latter had not been given a chance to defend himself before his peers. His sons and supporters were even more innocent of any crime. The emperor's actions were not only arbitrary, they were petty and vindictive.

The five baillies, furthermore, had been appointed in exchange for payment of 10,000 marks. They needed to raise that revenue. Evidently, expropriating properties of the Ibelins and their supporters did not promise sufficient revenue to pay that debt in full, because they set about raising taxes.  The actions against the House of Ibelin and their supporters resulted in hundreds of women and children seeking refuge with the militant orders, particularly the Hospitallers, while the new taxes simply served to make the baillies unpopular with the rest of the Cypriot population. 

From the Lord of Beirut's perspective the Emperor had now gone back on his word three times. First, at the banquet when he promised to honor his "beloved cousins" and "honored uncle." Second, during the crusade when, despite swearing to forgive all that had gone before, he attacked the women and children of Ibelin and his supporters while their men served in the Emperor's army, and third, by ordering the baillies to dispossess him and his followers without a judgement of the court, a condition that the Emperor had accepted in his signed agreement with Beirut from September 1228.

Beirut had had enough. He raised an army in Syria which included his brother-in-law the Lord of Caesarea. With this small force, he forced a landing at Gastria, and then rode inland toward Nicosia. During this advance, he announced his intention only of securing the safety and control of the properties that had been illegally confiscated.  He stated that he did not seek to secure restoration of his position as baillie of Cyprus.  In short, he attempted to build a bridge to the Imperial baillies, offering them a compromise that would enable them to retain power, as long as they recognized that no confiscations could take place without a judgement of the High Court.  The baillies chose not to accept this compromise.  They called up the Cypriot army and marched out to meet the Ibelins in battle. 

On July 14, 1229 in a plowed field outside of Nicosia, the Ibelins routed the army of the five baillies. However, all five of the emperor's deputies escaped the field and took refuge in the royal castles at Kantara, Kyrenia, Buffavento and St. Hilarion. The Ibelins successfully besieged these castles, and one by one they fell to the Ibelins, the last being St. Hilarion shortly after Easter 1230. 

Significantly, Beirut -- against the advice of his closest advisorers -- granted amnesty to the five baillies. Equally significantly, the young King of Cyprus, who had been in the custody of the Emperor and, after his departure, the baillies, welcomed the Ibelins. Indeed, for the rest of his life, Henry of Lusignan favored the Ibelins. It is King Henry's staunch support for the Ibelins even after he was king, combined with the fact that he sought independence from the Holy Roman Emperor, that belie the suggestions Beirut was disloyal to his king. 

In 1232, Emperor Frederick sent an army to Outremer under a Sicilian admiral, Richard  Filangieri.  The latter had the explicit mandate to re-establish Imperial authority -- and to confiscate all lands and titles from the Ibelins and expel them from both Cyprus and Syria. As before, no charges were brought against Beirut, certainly not with regards to his right to hold Beirut for which he held clear royal charters. Curiously, roughly a dozen other Syrian lords were also summarily dismissed by the Holy Roman Emperor at this time.  As before, the Emperor felt entitled to act without a hearing or judgement by their peers. Again Beirut, and now a dozen other Syrian barons, was to be denied the right to defend themselves before a court. This was a blatant and crude violation of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Beirut got wind of Filangieri's approach and rushed to Cyprus with all his men. On finding Ibelin troops in possession of the ports of Cyprus, Filangieri did not attempt a landing but sent envoys ashore to King Henry of Cyprus demanding that he banish from his kingdom the Lord of Beirut "and all his relatives." The King replied, he could do neither. First, he could not banish Beirut because he was his vassal and deserving of his support, and, second, he could not banish Beirut's relatives since he too was a kinsman of Beirut. (His mother was Beirut's niece.) 

So Filangieri sailed away and laid siege to John d'Ibelin'ss power base: Beirut itself. Although the city surrendered quickly, the citadel held out. Beirut mustered all the support he had, including King Henry of Cyprus, and made a dangerous winter crossing to Syria. His initial efforts to lift the siege of Beirut failed, but he managed to slip some reinforcements into the citadel.  He next tried to attract the support of the Prince of Antioch, but this also ended in failure.  Next the Templars, who had initially supported him, turned against him on instructions from the pope, who was temporarily reconciled with the Hohenstaufen.  Meanwhile, his sons suffered a major defeat at the hands of Imperial forces at Casal Imbert.  Nevertheless, Beirut persisted and dramatically won over the commons at Acre and the Genoese to his cause. Imperial forces were at last forced to lift the siege of Beirut.

Meanwhile, King Henry had come of age, and he remained by Beirut's side. Together, they returned to Cyprus where, in their absence, Imperial forces had seized control of the capital, the ports and were laying siege to the Ibelin women and King Henry's sister in the fortress of St. Hilarion.

 The castle of St. Hilarion

In a full-scale battle, the Lord of Beirut routed the Imperialist army, forcing it to retreat to Kyrenia, and lifted the imperial siege of St. Hilarion. The re-capture of Cyprus took only days, and the population welcomed the return of their King and the Ibelins as liberators. Although the siege of Kyrenia dragged on, the surrender was inevitable and the Emperor never again attempted impose his governors or will on Cyprus. Instead, in 1248 the Pope formally absolved Henry I of all oaths he had made to the Holy Roman Emperor, and Cyprus became a completely independent kingdom, no longer a part of the Empire.

The conflict now shifted entirely to Syria, where the Emperor's autocratic behavior, not least his repeated attempts to expel Beirut from his fief without cause or trial, had turned the majority of the barons and knights against the Emperor.  As a result, over the next several years a series of legal arguments were developed to deny the Emperor and his heirs any basis of power in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. 

Meanwhile, repeated attempts to mediate between the parties were made by the Teutonic Knights and the pope himself, among others. At one point, the Pope threatened the Lord of Beirut and the citizens of Acre, who were loyal to Beirut, with excommunication and interdict respectively -- only to rapidly back down when he learned the citizens of Acre were simply turning to Orthodox Christianity! One of the more creative suggestions was that the Emperor should recall Filangieri and replace him instead with his kinsman Simon de Montfort. (Frederick had meanwhile married the English princess Isabella Plantagenet, whose older sister was married to Montfort.) Notably, the Lord of Beirut, his sons and two of his nephews were consistently excluded from all the Emperor's promises of pardon, but the barons of Outremer just as steadfastly refused to make a peace without him. 

In 1236, the Lord of Beirut took part in a Hospitaller campaign from Crac de Chevaliers against the ruler of Hamah with 100 Cypriot knights. Beirut, who was now about 57 years old, was involved in some kind of riding accident, in which his horse fell on him. He was so badly injured he took to his bed, ordered his affairs, and then joined the Knights Templar in preparation for death.

According to the account left by Beirut's loyal vassal Philip de Novare, Beirut "died well." Novare writes: "For his sins he made amends, and for many things he made amends which most men would not hold as sins; his debts he paid for he had at that day great belongings and property besides his fiefs, and all he gave for God and for his soul, by his own hand with good memory; many fiefs he gave his children, and commanded that they should be vassals of and hold from their oldest brother."(3) In short, his protracted struggle with the most powerful monarch on earth had been won so completely that he was not even impoverished at his death!

Looking back on his rebellion, what is most striking is that he could defy the Holy Roman Emperor -- and at times the Pope -- without seriously undermining his own popularity and the support and devotion of his sons, his brothers-in-law, nephews, vassals, the commons of Acre, and the majority of peers. Yes, Barlais and his co-regents on Cyprus fought Beirut bitterly. Yes, Balian de Sidon (one of his nephews) long tried to remain neutral in the conflict and mediate. Likewise, Eudes de Montbeliard was an Imperial baillie and clearly not in Beirut's camp -- to be begin with. Yet, it would have been far more normal for the bulk of the knights and barons to side with the "stronger" in any fight, and by an objective measure the Holy Roman Emperor was "the stronger. " 

Frederick Hohenstaufen had destroyed his Welf rival in Germany. He had eradicated the Saracen threat on Sicily and obliterated the last traces of independence among his Sicilian barons. He scattered the forces of the pope simply by landing in Sicily. How was it possible he was defeated by an obscure Syrian baron? Was it simply that he never devoted enough force and attention to a problem he considered an irritant rather than a threat to his grand vision of Emperor of Christendom?  Or was the fundamental injustice of his cause the real reason for his defeat?

Frederick II's war against the Ibelins was a vindictive personal war against a vassal without a trace of evidence or an attempt to rely on rational argument -- in some ways worse than his vicious persecution of his loyal spokesman della Vigna. For an monarch usually held up by historians as the embodiment of reason in a age of alleged "bigotry" and "fanaticism," Frederick II's war against the Ibelins was a ugly and distasteful vendetta that historians prefer to sweep under the carpet.

1) Wilbrand, Bishop of Oldenburg, quoted in Peter Edbury, John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Boydell, 1997.
2) La Monte, John. The Wars of Frederick II against the Ibelins in Syria and Cyprus by Philip de Novare, Colombia University Press, 1936, p. 49.
3) Novare, Philip. Translated by La Monte, The Wars of Frederick II against the Ibelins in Syria and Cyprus by Philip de Novare, Colombia University Press, 1936, p. 169.

The struggle between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Ibelins is the subject of Dr. Schrader's current series starting with:

Best Christian Historical                                                                  Best Historical Fiction

Fiction 2019!                                                                                               2020

                    

BUY NOW!                                        BUY NOW!