Holy Warriors (9 page)
Authors: Jonathan Phillips
Usama grew up with many indigenous Christians in the vicinity—in fact, at Shaizar in 1114 the Banu Munqidh menfolk joined the local Christian villagers in their Easter celebration. Yet he obviously disapproved of their morals, as shown in this tale told to him by a bath-keeper:
I once opened a bath in al-Ma’arra to earn my living. Once, one of their knights came in. Now, they don’t take to people wearing a towel about their waist in the bath, so this knight stretched out his hand, pulled off my towel from my waist and threw it down. He looked at me—I had recently shaved my pubic hair. . . . Then he moved in closer to me. He then stretched his hand over my groin, saying, “By the truth of my religion, do that for me too.” He then lay down on his back: he had it thick as a beard in that place. So I shaved him and he passed his hand over it and, finding it smooth to the touch, said: “Salim, by the truth of your religion, do it to Madame!” . . . meaning his wife. The attendant brought her. . . . She lay down on her back and the knight said, “Do her like you did me!” So I shaved her hair there as her husband stood watching me. He then thanked me and paid me my due for the service. Now, consider this great contradiction! They have no sense of propriety or honour, yet they have great courage. Yet what is courage but a product of honour and disdain for ill repute.
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Understandably Usama found Christian theology to be deficient and, on many occasions, he ends an anecdote with an almost reflexive imprecation: “May God curse them!” In spite of this stereotypical invective, his writings reveal that he had much to do with the Frankish elite, particularly during his service to Unur of Damascus around 1140. As well as giving us colorful information about Usama’s career and personality, these episodes may reveal some pertinent features of Frankish rule and Christian–Muslim relations.
In the course of one embassy to Jerusalem, Usama was permitted to visit the Temple complex of the holy city. This contains the Dome of the Rock and,
more importantly, the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is the place the Prophet led the other prophets in prayer during his Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem.
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During his stay Usama observed the difference between those Franks settled in the Levant and their coreligionists who had just arrived from the West:
Anyone who is recently arrived from the Frankish lands is rougher in character than those who have become acclimatised and have frequented the company of Muslims. Here is an instance of their rough character (may God abominate them!). Whenever I went to visit the holy sites in Jerusalem, I would go to the al-Aqsa Mosque . . . where the Templars, who are my friends, were. They would clear out that little mosque so that I could pray in it. One day, I went into the little mosque, recited the opening formula “God is great” and stood up in prayer. At this one of the Franks rushed at me and grabbed me and turned my face towards the east saying, “Pray like this.” A group of Templars hurried towards him, took hold of the Frank and took him away from me. I then returned to my prayers. The Frank, that very same one, took advantage of their inattention and returned, rushing upon me. . . . So the Templars came in again, grabbed him and threw him out. They apologised to me, saying, “This man is a stranger, just arrived from the Frankish lands . . . he has never before seen anyone who did not pray towards the east.” “I think I have prayed quite enough,” I said and left. I used to marvel at that devil, the change of his expression, the way he trembled and what he must have made of seeing someone praying towards Mecca.
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This dramatic vignette shows the sharp contrast between those accustomed to dealing with Muslims on a daily basis, both as inhabitants of their own lands and as political neighbors, and the new arrival, stirred up by the inflammatory rhetoric of crusade preachers and lacking any sense of tolerance toward his religious opponents. The story also demonstrates the diplomatic courtesies extended to a high-level ambassador and proves that even in Jerusalem itself, during the mid-twelfth century at least, a Muslim was permitted private prayer. Perhaps the most surprising remark in his testimony was the description of the Templars as Usama’s friends. As we will see below, these men were usually the most implacable opponents of Islam, sworn to its destruction, yet in this case they evidently felt it appropriate to protect Usama.
Friendship could find a basis in the shared interests of an equestrian elite.
Usama and the Frankish knights were both products of a culture in which the horse was a status symbol, an essential companion in battle and on the hunt. While each could admire the other’s bravery in warfare, they might also, in the case of the hunt, enjoy a pastime together. In the early 1140s Usama was in the company of Unur of Damascus when the Muslim ruler went hunting with King Fulk of Jerusalem—another great devotee of the chase—on lands near Acre. Unur was quite taken with a large falcon that had been trained to bring down cranes and even to attack gazelles; he asked the king if he could have the falcon and Fulk duly obliged. Such diplomatic niceties helped to seal an alliance between Damascus and Jerusalem when both parties feared the growing power of Zengi, atabeg of both Aleppo and Mosul, and deemed it prudent to make such a deal: just one of many examples of a Christian–Muslim pact.
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Given the basic parameters of the Crusades, on the surface at least, arrangements of this sort seem unlikely, but the day-to-day realities of living in close proximity to each other meant that such relationships—be they personal, like Usama’s, or political, as in this case—were not impossible. The zeal of the First Crusaders, wading through Jerusalem in the blood of their enemies, had become tempered by basic practicalities and the settlers’ lack of numbers. We can see a recognition of this from a Christian perspective too; Fulcher of Chartres, a First Crusader who chose to remain in the Levant, wrote a famous assessment of the inhabitants of the Frankish lands around 1120: “We who were once Occidentals have now become Orientals. . . . He who was of Rheims or Chartres has now become a citizen of Tyre or Antioch. We have already forgotten the places of our birth; already these are unknown to many of us or not mentioned any more. Some already possess homes or households by inheritance. Some have taken wives not only of their own people, but Syrians, Armenians, or even Saracens who have achieved the grace of baptism. Words of different languages have become the common property known to each nationality, and mutual faith unites those who are ignorant of their descent. . . . He who was born a stranger is now as one born here; he who was born an alien has become a native.”
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Thus, the Franks had become “easternized” and acculturated to their new surroundings, the local people and their practices. It would be a grave exaggeration to claim that anything approaching a “rainbow nation” had emerged, but indications of assimilation and interaction do exist and suggest a fuller picture and more nuanced version of the standard “Christian fights Muslim” dichotomy.
Usama himself was obsessed with hunting. The land near his native Shaizar was a mix of woods and marsh, home to gazelles, boar, hares, and, most challenging of all, lions. It may be no coincidence that Usama actually means “lion” and his
Kitab al-I’tibar
is packed with stories about his adventures. Pride of place is held by his single-handed killings of the beast; he claimed that he had more experience with lions and knowledge about fighting them than any other person. He told of a hunt with his father:
I mounted my horse with my spear by my side and charged at the lion. The lion faced me and let out a roar. My horse reared and my spear, because of its weight, fell out of my hand. The lion chased me for a good stretch, then turned back to the foot of the hill and stood there. It was one of the biggest lions I had ever seen, like the arch of a bridge, and ravenous. Every time we approached it, it would come down from the hill and chase after the horses. . . . I saw it leap onto the haunches of the horse belonging to an attendant of my uncle, tearing the man’s clothing and leggings with its claws. Then it returned to the hill. There was thus no way of getting at the lion until I climbed above it on the slope of the hill and rushed my horse down upon it and thrust my spear at it, piercing it. I left the spear sticking in its side. The lion then rolled over onto the slope of the hill with the spear still in it. The lion died. Usama was so devoted to the hunt that he even imported dogs and falcons from Byzantium.
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The finer points of warfare were also of interest to Usama. His terse assessment of Frankish strategy reflected their need to preserve men and horses: “The Franks (God curse them) are of all men the most cautious in war.”
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This was also a strategy born out of bitter experience. On several occasions the Christians’ excitement caused them to chase Muslim forces, apparently fleeing in disarray, only for the “defeated” enemy to turn, encircle their pursuers, and slaughter them. On a personal level Usama was keen to inform his audience about his own heroic achievements and to pass on tips; the list of “my favourite lance thrusts” is—to a nonexpert—perhaps a little self-referential, but it shows one measure of esteem among the military classes of the Muslim Near East.
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Usama was also a keen recorder of medical practice. Sometimes he used his observations to ridicule the barbaric Franks—although it is striking that he often followed a ghastly or risible example of ill-treatment with something
more sober or practical; in other words, he wrote in a series of antitheses that should not be broken up.
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Usama reported that a Frankish physician intervened in the treatment of a knight with an abscess on his leg and a woman afflicted with “imbecility.” He asked the knight,
“Which would you like better: living with one leg or dying with both?” “Living with one leg,” replied the knight. The physician then said: “Bring me a strong knight and a sharp axe.” The physician laid the leg of the patient on a block of wood . . . and [the knight] struck him—I’m telling you I watched him do it—with one blow, but it didn’t chop the leg all the way off. So he struck him a second time, but the marrow flowed out of the leg and he died instantly. He then examined the woman and said: “This woman, there is a demon inside her head that has possessed her. Shave off her hair.” So they shaved her head. The woman then returned to eating their usual diet—garlic and mustard. As a result her dryness of humours [“imbecility”] increased. So the physician said, “That demon has entered further into her head.” So he took a razor and made a cut in her head in the shape of a cross. He then peeled back the skin so that the skull was exposed and rubbed it with salt. The woman died instantaneously.
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Easy as it is to mock these episodes they were followed by two stories of successful treatments: first, for the healing of wounds using vinegar; second for dealing with sores caused by scrofula, using a Frankish recipe.
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In fact, the physician who told Usama of these excruciating treatments was an Eastern Christian himself; indeed, it was often the indigenous Christians, along with Jews and Muslims, who had the most advanced medical knowledge. The works of the great classical author Galen had survived in Arabic, rather than Latin, and formed a basis for much contemporary treatment. It was undoubtedly true that, initially at least, the Franks lagged behind the locals; indeed, they often employed them at their own courts. Yet the newcomers began to assimilate eastern practices with their own techniques and in the case of the great hospital of the Knights of Saint John in Jerusalem (which could accommodate up to two thousand people in extreme emergencies), there was a marked improvement in the standards of medical practice, which, in turn, found their way back to Europe.
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By the mid-1170s Usama had joined Saladin’s service and the poet’s son, Murhaf, became a close companion of the sultan and joined him on campaign.
His aging father was, initially at least, very well treated. The sultan showed him great generosity, and Usama, in return, wrote in praise of his military strength, his achievements as the champion of Sunni orthodoxy, and his benevolence: “the sultan of Islam and the Muslims! Unifier of the creed of faith by his light, subjugator of the worshippers of the cross by his might, raiser of the banner of justice and right. The reviver of the dynasty of the Commander of the Faithful.”
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Saladin sought Usama’s advice on warfare and, of course, adab. It is an interesting thought that some of the sultan’s famously courteous behavior could have been learned from the well-traveled poet of Shaizar. Usama’s work was popular at court and he regaled gatherings of the ruling household with his compositions. It was in this period that Usama wrote his major poetry anthology—
The Kernels of Refinement—
and
The Book of Contemplation.
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Yet all was not well. If one reached the age of forty, then one was esteemed in the Islamic world, but by this time Usama was into his eighties. He felt that he had overstayed his time: “my life has been so prolonged that the revolving days have taken from me all the objects of pleasure.” He continued:
Even as I write, my lines seem troubled
Like the writing of one with hands terror-stricken, palsied
I wonder at this feebleness in my hands as they lift up a pen
When previously they had shattered spears in the hearts of lions
.
If I walk, it is with cane in hand, bemired
Are my legs as if I waded through a mud-soaked plain . . .
Destiny has forsaken me, leaving me like
An exhausted ack-camel abandoned in the wastes . . .
A journey is coming, and its time is nigh.
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In his final years Usama seems to have been sidelined from the court and was confined to his own house, reduced to looking back at his exciting youth and lamenting his decline. He acknowledged that God had spared him on countless occasions but now he prepared to meet his destiny. Examples of divine power suffused his writings. God intervened to save a person from death because it was not his or her time to die. God determined the destiny of all and there was no way to avoid one’s fate—Usama finally met his end in Damascus in November 1188.
