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A
The world moves fast. Your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365 copilot Ugh. You said you were over him, but his hoodie's still in your rotation. It's time. Grab your phone, snap a few pics and sell it on Depop. List it in minutes with no selling fees. And just like that, a guy 500 miles away just paid full price for your closure. And right on cue. Hey, still got my hoodie? Nope. But I've got tonight's dinner paid for start selling on Depop where taste recognizes taste list. Now with no selling fees, payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details. This episode is brought to you by White Claw Surge. Great podcast pick, friend. No surprises there. After all, you're all about finding the tastiest flavors out there, just like White Claw Surge. And with big, bold flavors to enjoy like blood orange, BlackBerry, cranberry and more, it's time to go all in on taste. Unleash the flavor. Unleash White Claw Surge. Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors, 8% alcohol by volume. White Claw Seltzer Works Chicago, Illinois K Pop Demon Hunters Haja Boy's breakfast meal and Hunt Trick's meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day. It is an honor to share. No, it's our honor. It is our larger honor. No, really, stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side and participate in McDonald's while supplies last. From the magnificence of the Alhambra to the forgotten resting places of the Prophet Muhammad's own relatives, Islam has long been a part of Europe's history. In this episode of the History Extra Podcast, Danny Bird speaks to Tariq Hussein about this continent spanning saga exploring Islam's rich legacy within Europe. Tariq, your book begins with you recounting your visit to the Halasotan Mosque in Cyprus. A moment that completely shifted how you saw Islam and Europe. Can you take us back to that day and Tell us what changed for you there.
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B
In a way, it didn't change on the day, Danny, as you know from having read it, it didn't change on the day because I didn't know about the history of Islam in Europe, so I didn't know what I was encountering in that moment. I didn't know what I was visiting. You know, as I say in the book, it's. You know, we find ourselves on this very ch. Cheap but very long layover in Larnaca in Cyprus, a place that I had never even heard of at that point. And I was just looking for something to really kill time because we. We had a toddler with us, and the prospect of, you know, hanging out nine hours in this tiny little airport where the toddler was just gonna drive us nuts. And I come across this description of a mosque, you know, we're talking about long before the Internet was any good. So I must have come across it in some book or some. Some mention somewhere. And I thought, oh, great, that's. That's a fantastic way to, you know, kill a bit of time. And we go over there and of course, the context and backdrop to all of this is I'm making what Muslims call hijra. I'm about to leave Europe, I'm about to leave Britain, I'm about to leave my home, because I don't feel like I belong here anymore. And as far as I was concerned, everything I'd been taught up to that point through my history books, through my education, was just confirming that. That there was nothing here for me as a Muslim. There was no European history. And then, you know, I turn up at this decrepit mosque, badly neglected because, of course, the country had been ruptured with the ethno religious clashes. And this was a Muslim site in the south. And the south is, of course, seen as predominantly Greek Orthodox now. And it had been neglected for various reasons. And we turn up and. And we're wandering around this space with no context whatsoever. I'm looking at a mosque that is clearly Ottoman, but I don't even know it's Ottoman at this point because my education in these things is so poor. The old man who's taking us around doesn't really know what he's showing us either, and he can't speak English. And the thing that really tips the balance, shall we say, for me at that moment, is the fact that he shows us what appears to be a tomb in a mosque. And my kind of theological position, shall we? The version of Islam I was following at the time was really put out by this, as was my wife's. And so we kind of said, right, yeah, we're done with this, let's leave. This is clearly some very strange deviant place that we don't really want an association with. And it was only because he handed us a booklet as we left. And it was at least two years later when I migrated, so to speak, to Jeddah to work as an English teacher and the experiment wasn't going very well. I was having a look at some of the literature I'd brought over with myself. I stumbled upon this booklet again. And that's when it completely blew my mind. Because the booklet claimed that the tomb I've been so quick to dismiss was apparently the tomb of a relative of the Prophet Muhammad, which just threw everything out of the window as far as I was concerned. Because there I was thinking there is no real Islamic history in Europe. And suddenly I'm presented with the reality that not just any old first generation people, relatives of the Prophet himself, came to Europe.
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A
And as you were saying that the premise of your book is the point that Islam has been part of Europe for 1400 years. Why do you think that story has been so hidden or even denied in the way that most people engage with Europe's history?
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B
I think there are many factors and of course I allude to these factors throughout the book in various ways. The broad brush way of putting it is, you know, when it comes to Europe, in that great clash between Christendom, out of which emerges Europe versus Islam, which arrives and stayed. But ultimately, whether it was the Umayyads early on in the Iberian Peninsula and later on the likes of the Almoravids, the Almohads, whoever in that southern peninsula or later the Ottomans, they quote, unquote, lost. And there's that famous saying, isn't there, that the winners write history. And so I obviously allude to that throughout the book. I make the point that from almost the advent of the Crusades, when the anti Muslim narratives begin across what was slowly becoming a united Christendom, right through to when the dominant European identities emerge, and especially in the region that I'm dealing with in the book, we are faced with the Reconquest narrative, later we have the Antioch Ottoman narratives. All of these contribute to this what I've termed an anti Muslim DNA that seems to run through the popular European identity. And I mean the popular European identity as in the Western European identity. And of course, I then show how things like reconquest legends and nation building mythologies, such as Matamoros and the Tribute of the Hundred Virgins that became very, very popular and almost became central to the reconquest narrative. These help rein these anti Muslim sentiments, but we also see it through other localized legends that are still apparent today. You can rock up in most parts of Europe where there used to be a historic Muslim presence, and you'll find that and this is a very natural thing as well, of course, when we look across the globe. So it's not. I'm not suggesting this is all some cynical, very well planned out operation to create this, but the reality is it happened. I also allude to some of the kind of destruction of the Islamic heritage over the centuries, whether it's by being completely written out of our history books deliberately or consciously or unconsciously. In some cases, this might have been done inadvertently. But then we also see examples in the book where clearly archaeologists didn't really care much for this Islamic history either. And then, of course, there's misappropriation of the history as well. In the book, I'm in the Alhambra and I talk about how sad I am in the way it's been historically presented with these projections of kind of later European either romanticism or projections of being barbaric or being overtly interested in sexuality or whatever you wish to call it. I also start off by pointing out how sadly, as a result of all of this Building up over 1400 years, popular historians today continue to reinforce this in the books that we can pick up in any good bookshop. And that really does sadden you. And this is why, of course, as somebody who's always read, I turned up in the Hallasultan all those years ago and nearly fell off my chair when I realized what was going on. Because the history books that I loved had never told me about this. They'd never told me about this place, they never told me about the significance of Cyprus. And even when I started reading the academic books, I could see that the perspective that they were being written from. And it's very important to make clear here as well, Danny, that, you know, I am talking about Eurocentric histories here. I am talking about histories in the English language. And of course, one things that I try to do to try and counter this is I try to focus a lot on retrieving this history from Muslim sources and in some cases Jewish sources as well. And suddenly the narrative is very, very different. Suddenly the. The kind of significance of these moments is made much more apparent. Earlier, you and me, before this interview started, were talking about the Balkans and How this is full of Muslim heritage. In fact it's full of living indigenous European Muslims and yet we don't consider it to be Europe, really not in our minds. So this is another example of how we've othered European Muslims. The indigenous European Muslims predominantly live in a part of Europe that we always seem to qualify by calling it Eastern Europe. And that's a very interesting thing. And of course everybody listening is going to say, well of course Tariq, that's to do with the fact that they were behind the iron curtain, there was communism and all of this. But then you start looking into the historicity of this and you, you explore the literature that's been written about this of the world pre communism and it was being othered for a long time before that. And of course the main reason is because this is where the Ottomans were, this is where Muslim Europe was until very, very recently. And this is also a part of this narrative. I mean, I don't go into it as much in this book because it's something that I covered in my previous book, but it's all part of the same 1400 years, which, which in itself is interesting because I am referring to the Islamic calendar there deliberately. So any mathematicians who done the maths will work out that if Muslims did indeed arrive in 647, it's not exactly 1400 years according to the Gregorian calendar, but it is according to the Islamic one.
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A
I'd like to go back to what you said there about particularly textbooks, school textbooks, but also academic books in general. But school textbooks kind of still talk about Muslims in Europe as invaders who came and went. But your book challenges that idea head on, of course. What's wrong with this version of the story and what does the historical record look like when we dig into it?
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B
Well, no matter what period of Islamic history we're talking about, it's almost always depicted. Even, even if it was, for example, the Spanish experience was 800 years, the Portuguese experience was 500 years, the Sicilian experience was over 200 years. And if you count the Muslims that were still there when the very admittedly relatively enlightened Arab Norman period comes along, we're talking over 300 years there as well. Now, whenever these people periods are spoken about, even if the Muslims that are living in those eras are as Spanish, if you want to use a modern phrase, or Portuguese as a modern person might be, it's still referred to as an invasion. And that's a very, very strange way to speak about an 800 year presence. To use a modern example we would never refer to America and the kind of European, the legacy of the European presence there now as being some kind invasion. And yet historians were still talking about the Islamic presence in that part of Europe and later in the Balkan region as being some kind of invasive presence. Now, whether the powers that brought the Muslims there or not is seen as being invasive. The. Certainly the people who lived there and still continue to live there are not invaders at all. Looking at the arrival of the Muslims in Spain, often when we, when we hear about this, one of the things, one of the areas that really badly overlooked is that when Tariq IBN Ziyad arrives, he is of course, the Berber general who's been sent across to conquer Al Andalus or to conquer the land of the Vandals, what was then the Visigothic territories. And often one of the really, really interesting aspects that's overlooked is the influence of the local Jewish community. Now, when we look at what the local Jewish community were experiencing at the time, it was horrific. It was absolutely horrific. And nobody can get away from that. Okay? In fact, it was so horrific that some Jewish historians suggest that it was the Jews that reached out to the Muslims across the way to come and try and liberate these lands. And I'm using that term because if that is the case, and there's enough evidence to suggest that they were certainly working together. So, for example, the 17th century Muslim scholar Al Makari, who writes about this presence, says that after capturing cities, what Tariq and his commanders would do, because they were only a tiny group, when you look at the size of the Iberian peninsula, and often people will talk about the rapidity with which they would. They had taken this peninsula, and one of the key reasons they were able to do this is because they had local help. So Makkari tells us that every time they took a city like Cordoba, like Granada and even Toledo, what they would do is they would leave the local Jewish community in charge. So this, this tells you that they, they not only had local help, they trusted this community enough. And in many ways, the local Jewish community clearly saw them as liberators, you know, to use a modern term. And without getting into too much detail, we know of plenty of examples where, how can I put it? Western governments have gone off to liberate the oppressed in the East. When I read this through the Muslim and the Jewish sources, I don't really see it as being that different, because clearly after this, the Jewish, domestic Jewish population, that is, if we use that term, liberated from the horrific conditions that they were living under with the Visigothic rulers and even the local Christians to some degree. And certainly from a Jewish perspective, it leads to, if not to at least one golden age. So I don't even know if it's always fair to say, was that as much of a kind of conquest as it was a liberation? When you look through certain sources. But of course, the way we've been historically told to read this particular arrival of the Muslims, it is deemed as being a kind of conquest. And this is why you later have the narrative of the reconquest, which in itself is interesting because the people who lead the reconquest come from somewhere else entirely as well.
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A
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B
Well, I think if we start to talk about it in that kind of really almost crude way of who was first and who came when. Of course, Islam is definitely a later religion. But what's really, really interesting is the presence of these Muslims, these first generation of Muslims. Being buried in these various places also makes these various places very holy because they become sites of Ziyarah, which is to our listeners, this is pilgrimage. So that's a very important thing to point out when it comes to um Haram, who is of course an aunt of the Prophet in Cyprus. And I discovered through my research on this particular journey that there is also a member of the Prophet's family called Aisha, who's allegedly a niece of the Prophet buried in Sicily from that very brief early period in which Muawiya, who of course was the first Umayyad Khalif, but also the governor of Syria, who leads many of these. They're often dismissed as being raids. This is what we hear when you read the kind of Eurocentric sources on this. But I'm really keen to Reposition that moment for a number of reasons. One, of course, because as we're discussing, it's the beginning of Muslim European presence. And that presence coming back to you, to answer your question, happens within 15 years or so of the Prophet passing on. Now, that's quicker than Christianity arrived. That's quicker than Judaism arrived, going back to this crude way of looking at it, if you want. So Muslims were European quicker than Christians or Jews. And yet we have to consistently fight this battle to kind of justify this label of being European. So that's one of the aspects, aspects to answer that question, the fact that many of these first generation, and in the book you'll see that the Prophet himself says that these first three generations, the companions, the successors, the successes of the successors, these first three generations are amongst the best of humanity of Muslims, however you wish to discuss it. And so anywhere that they are buried around the world, anywhere that we know of a connection to these first generations very quickly becomes a kind of a site of Ziyarah or a very holy place or a very special place. And now, up until very recently, I certainly know that these places existed because most of them, we, we don't know where they are anymore in Europe. And as I said, the fact that there are at least five spaces in Cyprus and the majority of them are in northern Cyprus or what is quote unquote known as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the fact that these sites exist, of course this means that Cyprus is also a very, very holy place from a Muslim perspective. And you, you will have seen in the book, some Muslims in the past considered it to be the fourth holiest site in Islam after, after, you know, the obvious, Makkah, Medina, Jerusalem, and someone even further and suggested it was even more important than Jerusalem, which, you know, is, is quite the stretch for me. But then, like I say, you also have Sicily as well. And it's going back to these, some of these alternative sources that I was looking at at, for example, Al Harawi, who's a medieval writer who writes this wonderful book about the places of ziyarah in the 12th century that Muslims were visiting. And it's through his book that I begin to appreciate some of these amazing places, including, as I said now long lost, the tomb of Aisha, who's apparently the daughter of someone called Junada IBN Uwais IBN Junada. And apparently there was a tomb dedicated to this woman in the city of Trapani, which of course is in Sicily and very similar to, um, Haram. It was attached to a mosque and apparently was the most revered of all of the tombs of the very first three generations on the island. So you could imagine this was a huge revelation to me. The other important thing about the Cypriot moment, shall we say, is that people often forget this is the first time a Muslim navy appears. You see, there was no Muslim navy before this. And you have this wonderful narrative of Muawiyah, the governor of Syria, complaining to Omar the Khalif about he can hear the Byzantine's dogs barking from oms, you know, and that we really should be doing something about this because apparently the Byzantines are constantly raiding along the coast. And he wants permission to launch an expedition to the island of Cyprus, which is a key strategic space. And Omar is completely against it after consulting one of his Egyptian governors about what this thing the sea is like. Because of course, up to this point, the Muslims, all their exploits, all their conquests, all the lands they've taken, they've been able to do across terra firma. And this is the first time they're gonna have to dip their toes literally into the water. And the report comes back to Omar that this is a terrifying creature where it throws human beings around like insects. And Omar is like, oh, I forbid you from putting any of these Muslims to see. And so Muawiyah has to, who's a very ambitious individual, as we know from what he goes on to achieve. He has to be patient. And as luck would have it, the next person who comes in as Khalif is his cousin. So obviously he's got a little bit more leverage here. And he says to Uthman and he puts the case again and he keeps badgering him. And Othman finally agrees on one condition. And the condition is because Muawiyah is probably a bit hot headed, he knows he's ambitious and what have you. He's like, okay, you can only do this if you take your wife with you, because you're more likely to be a bit more cautious with what you're doing and you're more likely to think it through. And this is of course the reason that we believe, um, Haram finds herself on this journey as well and ends up becoming martyred. So the creation of a Muslim navy, which further down the 1400 years we see becomes at various points like the greatest naval presence probably across the globe, but certainly almost immediately with Muawiyah's exploits and what he does and the, and the various places he takes from roads through to Crete, many of the Greek, what are now the Greek islands, all the way to Sicily. And then later when he Comes back as Khalif and continues this and actually launches an assault on the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. We see that this construction of a navy, an Islamic navy, the acquisition of Cyprus is a key moment in the Muslims taking control of what they still called Bahram, the Mediterranean. So it's not just an insignificant moment where it's a minor raid. It plays a huge role in the Muslims then having the security to go on to, of course, launch the later conquests as well, that lead to Sicily, Malta, Portugal, Spain, and other parts that I don't cover because I try to focus on the areas that I feel really tell the story.
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A
One of the most evocative parts of your work is where you talk about something called the Cordoban Caliphate culture.
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B
Yes.
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A
A world of poetry, architecture and science that connected Europe and the Muslim world. Can you paint a picture for us of what that culture looked and felt like?
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B
We are talking about a period of real scientific, philosophical, cultural brilliance in a way that, you know, many people had never witnessed in Europe. We're talking about a lot of the ancient Hellenic works that had been completely lost in Western Europe, returning via these scholars that first began to pitch up in places like Cordoba, began to pitch up in Palermo, obviously, across the way in Kairoan, in what is later Cairo as well. In all this area, which is referred to by the early medieval historian Al Maqdisi as being more of a province. So even though we had the Bahra Room going through it, when the Muslims start to take these lands, it's considered like almost like a province. And at the heart of it, of course, is Cordoba, which, you know, shines almost the most, brightest in many, many ways. And I think what's really amazing about this period is it's not just the Muslims that benefit from all of this wonderful advances in medicine, advances that continue impact Europe for long after the Caliphate culture disintegrates. My sadness, shall we say, that the credit isn't given where it should be. And yet we can see the obvious link between figures like Ibn Sina, who himself wasn't from Cordoba, but his work arrives through the Cordoban Khalifa culture. Al Bukhasis, who, as he's known in Latin, is actually someone who's born in the great caliphate city of Medina, Al Zahra. That's why his name is Al Zahrawi, because, of course, that's where he's born. To give you an example of these advances, Al Zahrawi publishes his book in the year 1000, when at the same time, on the other side of the continent here In Britain, you know, we're still using leech books. And of course, you know, the reason why they're called leech books is because leeches remain central to medicinal practices. And yet when we read Zahrawi's book, the Kitab al Tashrif, which was first translated into Latin in the 12th century, Al Zahrawi will was the first physician to provide a description of a surgical procedure to relieve fluid from the brain of a child, as well as of migraine surgery in his Kitab al Tasrif. This is in the year 1000. And in his book he's covering things like surgery, medicine, orthopedic, ophthalmology, dentistry, pathology and childbirth. And he wasn't alone. You've got books by Al Razi. And of course the most influential, without any shadow of a doubt when it comes to medicine is Ibn Sina, whose canon of medicine condenses the Greek and the modern Arabic theories. I suppose that really brings out what was brilliant about this period. It wasn't just about, oh, Muslims came along and invented all these great amazing things. What the Muslims were doing was they were very open to the historic knowledge that they had acquired from their, from their exploits in the east. And then they advanced it and took it further, whether it was through somebody like Ibn Rules Bush, who of course is able to make Aristotle so accessible and so much more palatable to people that he's dubbed the commentator throughout medieval kind of studies of philosophy. So it's these individuals that really begin to completely revolutionize the landscape of Western Europe. But we also have these revolutionary moments happening not just in advances of science and medicine, but also just culturally and in the way we live our lives. In the book I speak about this fascinating figure called Abu Al Hassan Ali bin Nafi, who's known as Ziriyab. And he's somebody who kind of arrives into Cordoba like a rock star from Baghdad around the year 822. And he teaches us about eating etiquette. And we go from serving food on plane tables, we put leather covering over it and we start eating with cutlery and we drink out of crystal goblets and this idea of a three course meal, having a soup and then ending it with a sweet and having fish and meat in the middle. So there are many, many ways. And Ziriyab also influences the, the music of the day as well. And it's this very, very enlightened culture. It's about what it then does to the rest of Europe really and how it offers the seeds of the Renaissance and That's really the biggest legacy because it's from the Renaissance. We then have the Enlightenment. But you can, those of us that are looking into this, when you start to really unpick it, you can see the line going straight back to this period. One of the most wonderful ways to kind of describe what happened in that caliphate culture was put forward by the 19th century author Victor Robinson. And I love his quote because it kind of sums it up in all the varieties. And he says Europe was darkened at sunset. Cordova shown with public lamps. Europe was dirty. Cordova built a thousand baths. Europe was covered with vermin. Cordova changed its undergarments daily. Europe lay in mud. Cordova's streets were paved. Europe's palaces had smoke holes in the ceiling. Cordova's arabesques were exquisite. Europe's nobility could not sign its name. Cordova's children went to school. Europe's monks could not read the baptismal service. Cordova's teachers created a library of Alexandrian dimensions. And I think that really kind of sums it up for me. And I love that quote and it's one of the reasons I used it in the book, to kind of try and make clear just how brilliant this period was.
- [30:02]
A
Now, a powerful argument you make in the book is that Europe's long habit of erasing its Muslim past is linked to the anti Islamic sentiment we see today. When you look back, what are some of the earlier examples or turning points where that erasure really began? When Islam started to be pushed out of Europe's story and what do you think was driving that? Was it fear, Politics, Religion, Identity?
- [30:23]
B
We really begin to see it almost immediately with the advent of the Crusade narratives, when the calls from various popes for Christendom to unite, to do away with this infidel presence, to do away with this scourge. And it starts to pick up pace at various points depending on where you are looking at this particular history. But of course, in the Spanish example we start to see this really starts to gather pace with things like the adoption of Matamoros or Saint James as Spain's patron saint. And this is one of those myths, these, one of these legends that are part of Europe's identity and in this case the Spanish European identity that really nail down the anti Muslim sentiment. And a lot of people, when I tell them about Matamor, they really have no idea about who this individual is. And he was dubbed Santiago Matamoros, St. James the Moorslayer, for miraculously appearing in, in a mythical battle where he arrives on the back of a White horse, complete with banner to help the Christians defeat the Muslims. Now the mythology of this cult, you know, it was conceived towards the end of the 12th century. Now this is four centuries after the made up battle was supposed to have taken place. And it's really the first time, time also that we see another powerful Islamophobic myth appear in Spanish Catholic law as well. And this is the tribute of a hundred virgins that the, apparently the King of Asturias was forced to send to the Umayyad rulers every year. And these were 50 of noble blood and 50 of common lineage. And so in these two examples of these two mythologies which become so popular that even as, you know, late as the 19th century, we're seeing plays being put on in Spain and of course, you know, all the various festivals that we all, we're all aware of across the Iberian peninsula where they allude to these particular mythologies and they really help to forge the modern Spanish identity. And it becomes manifest in many, many ways. Like, like the Matamoros figure, for example. Up until very, very recently, almost every church in Spain had a statue of Matamoros. And this statue depicted, you know, St. James slaying Muslims. So it was part of the visual culture, it was the propaganda of the day, it was the way in which people in that part of the world identified as being Spanish. And so it's in these different ways that we begin to see the construction of that anti Muslim identity.
- [33:14]
A
I wanted to ask you, Tarek, if you could sneak a few pages into every European history textbook, which stories or figures would you add first and why?
- [33:22]
B
Yeah, again a huge question. I suppose one of the most interesting ones has to be Abdurrahman iii. And of course Abdurrahman I is a fascinating character who is the first Iberian Umayyad Khalif, by the way, who declares himself as an actual caliph. So up to this point, what's happened is the Umayyads, you know, they experience a horrific massacre when the Abbasids overthrow their family in 750 in an ambush in Damascus. And only one person survives or one person that can really claim to be an actual heir to the throne. And this is Abdurrahman I. And he escapes initially to the Maghreb to North Africa, and he regroups. And I suppose if I, if you're going to tell the story of Abd al Rahman iii, I would also tell the story of Abdurrahman I. And he gathers enough local support and he makes his way across to southern Iberia six years after these murders. And because of the memory of his family as these caliphs, under whom, of course, the Iberian Peninsula was first, first becomes Muslim. He gets a lot of people that are willing to support him, and he quickly installs himself as a local emir in Cordoba. And it's several generations later, you know, two centuries later, his children and grandchildren slowly begin to take more and more of the Iberian Peninsula, barring maybe a very tiny northern slither, bring the emirat under sway. And then in 929, Abdurrahman III feels confident enough, feels powerful enough, enough to declare himself Khalif of the entire Muslim world. And it's an interesting moment to do this because, of course, we already have the Abbasid Khalifa in Baghdad, and then of course, we also have the Shia Fatimid Caliphate in what is now Tunisia as well, declaring itself. So it's a strange moment during Muslim history where there are free claimants to the Caliphate. And of course, Abd al Rahman III also goes on to build this wonderful city, which some historians have done, the Versailles of Muslim Spain. Madina az Zahra. And one of the reasons he builds it, of course, is to announce his caliphate. So I think he would be definitely a very, very interesting person to have in there. He looks as Western European as anybody might do. He's descended from a long line of European mothers and grandmothers. He's got kind of Hispano Basque look about him. He had white skin, blue eyes, and reddish blonde hair. In fact, this is at a time obviously went Arab culture, and being Arab was seen as being the elite. And so he apparently felt so uncomfortable about the fact that he didn't look Arab enough that he would dye his hair black to try and look more Arab. So I think there's obviously an interesting personality there as well. And Ziryab, of course, who I mentioned before, is another interesting personality who comes over and brings all these norms from the great caliphate culture in Baghdad. And even though we have these two historically rival factions, the Umayyads and the Baghdadi caliphates, running in tandem, what's interesting is during this period, be it for the sake of stability or be the fact that, you know, the Cordobans are so far away from the Abbasids, they don't really think they're that much of a threat, there is a degree of stability that scholars are able to move across this Muslim commonwealth. And this also plays a huge part in the exchange of all of the knowledge that we've alluded to before.
- [37:00]
A
Finally, Tariq, your book really shows that Europe's story at its heart has for 1,400 years been a shared one between Muslims and non Muslims. What do you think both groups can do today to recover that heritage together? And are you hopeful this fuller, more honest approach to Europe's past can take root?
- [37:16]
B
I'm tentatively hopeful because one of the nice things that we're experiencing is that we are going through a period where a lot more people than historically are comfortable revisiting what we have accepted as historical facts in the past or what we have accepted as the historical narrative. And I think we're living in a moment where people are willing to revisit histories and that's a good start. Whether or not we can undo what is 1400 years of creating a anti Muslim European narrative, whether we can begin to get people to embrace the Muslim aspect of this European culture that is often labeled as being Judeo Christian, which in itself is a really problematic term if we start looking at actual European history. Because of course this suggests some cozy alliance between, between Jews and Christians historically. And as you know from the book, you know, during those 1400 years, the amount of massacres, the amount of pogroms, the amount of genocides committed against the Jews by the historical Christian community of Europe is just innumerable. It was horrific. And in fact, most of the time the Jewish community, their safest places were in parts of Muslim Europe. So if those moments of recall, if those moments are remembered, if those moments are made a part of the mainstream understanding of what it means to be European and we start to acknowledge our commonalities, then yes, slowly the tide might turn. But I think, you know, certainly it's not something I hold out hope for in my lifetime, unfortunately. I think we're at the very beginning and a lot of people are very uncomfortable with this. A lot of people are very uncomfortable with being told that Europe is, is as Muslim as it might be, Christian or Jewish. This makes people very, very uncomfortable. And, and I've alluded to the reasons why, because of the historic othering of Islam within Europe and the historic anti Muslimness that runs through the modern European identity. So all of that is going to take a lot of work and a lot of effort and it's going to take a lot of bravery as well. When I'm writing these things, I'm also opening myself up to a lot of people becoming very upset, shall I say, to put it nicely, people who don't want to hear these things. And so it does mean that I have to be prepared for that. And I think anybody that wants to stick their head above the parapet to say these things knows what comes with it. We only have to look at others. I've alluded to the other people who are trying to offer a more wider understanding of history. Whether it's David Olusoga, whether it's Satnam Sangera. If you just look at the abuse these amazing historians are getting for the work they're trying to do, it's not easy for people to say, okay, I'm going to come and tell you something about your history. You know, the thing that you love and cherish, the thing that has defined who you are. It's quite a tough path to walk, I think is the best way to put it.
- [40:17]
A
That was Tariq Hussain speaking to Danny Bird. Tarek is an award winning authority, author, historian and travel writer specializing in Muslim heritage and culture. His new book is Muslim A Journey in search of a 1400 year history. Found something funny?
- [40:39]
B
Send it instantly. TikTok makes sharing with friends effortless. One tap.
- [40:44]
A
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- [40:48]
B
Now.
- [40:53]
A
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- [41:14]
B
Did the car have a sunroof?
- [41:15]
A
It did actually.
- [41:16]
B
Okay, good story.
- [41:17]
A
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