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- [00:00]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb. If you'd like Not Just the Tudors ad free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to historyhit with a historyhit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my own recent two part series A World Torn, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward/subscribe.
- [00:31]
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- [01:38]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. If you are anything like me and can't get going in the morning without a good coffee, today's episode could be very eye opening indeed because we're going to dive into one of the most extraordinary and not often talked about aspects of the history of Europe. It's a story of forgotten civilizations, secret identities, scientific consensus, conspiracies, and cultural exchanges so profound they shaped the very way we live today. Including the drinking of coffee. Between 1492 and 1700, the boundaries between Christian and Islamic civilizations in Europe were not the rigid walls we might imagine, rather people, ideas, entire cultures and new beverages flowed back and forth in some quite unexpected ways. For example, we've discussed, discussed on not just the Tudors before, how Queen Elizabeth I secretly considered joint invasion of Spain not with fellow Christians, but with a Moroccan Muslim sultan. But did you know that in Isaac Newton's library you would have found Arabic biographies of the Prophet Muhammad sitting alongside his groundbreaking scientific works? Meanwhile, European royalty included, including our very own Tudors, enthusiastically dressed in Turkish turbans and Ottoman kaftans, while under the Stuarts, people sipped coffee in establishments that became hotbeds of political revolution, all modeled on Islamic institutions. Tulips from Turkey sparked Europe's first economic bubble, and the very carpets beneath European feet carried Islamic prayers and symbols into the heart of Christendom. My guests today is Dr. Elizabeth Drayson, emeritus Fellow in Spanish at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. Her books include the Moore's Last Stand and Lost the Story of Granada, which she came on the podcast to talk about. And her monumental new work, Crucible Of Light, traces the relationship between Islam and Europe from the 8th century to the present day. And what I found so fascinating is it presents a European far more interconnected, far more Islamic in its foundations and far more fluid in its religious boundaries than we normally expect. A continent shaped by eight centuries of Islamic civilization, a debt that Europe has largely chosen to forget. This isn't just a story about culture exchange. It's about hidden scientific underpinnings, religious survival under persecution and identity transformation so complete that pirates, scholars and even saints cross between Christianity and Islam as if changing clothes. So settle down with your favourite brew as we journey into the hidden history of Europe and Islam. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb, and this is Not Just the Tudors. From history hit. Dr. Drayson, welcome back to Not Just.
- [05:04]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
The Tudors, but thank you very much, Susannah. It's lovely to be back again.
- [05:08]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So would you say that Europe has somehow acted as a crucible where Islam and Christian cultures have merged or melded together in a hybrid society? To what extent is that true?
- [05:22]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
To a very great extent, I think, which I hope the book shows, because I think running alongside that legacy, war and conflict, there's a different history, and it's one of brilliant innovations and transformations of collaborations and tolerance that have molded Europe's hybrid identity today. And I think I like to see it somehow as a kind of great cultural mosaic whose shifting patterns and shapes are all, if you like, magnetized by the twin poles of religious faith and the quest for knowledge. So the vex cultural and religious interchanges between Europe's Muslim and Christian peoples, often amid war and persecution, is true, created and continue to create a civilization in progress. So that was really what led me to the idea of the crucible of light, which has forged and is forging something unique and very special.
- [06:19]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So rather than focus on differences and conflicts, as you've said, you're highlighting this shared heritage. So what are some of the areas, thematic and geographical, where that crucible of cultures can most be found?
- [06:34]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Okay, starting with the geographical areas. I mean, this was something that changed over time. Inevitably from the year 711 onwards, the focus was the Western Islamic Emirates, because 711 was the year of the Islamic conquest of Iberia, the Iberian Peninsula, and that emirate lasted for nearly 800 years. And then after 1492 and the conquest of Granada by the Christians, and of course, just before it, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the focus completely changed to the geographical opposite, to the east, when the Ottoman Empire became a dominant force. And then, I think after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, really the crucible of Christian and Muslim cultures mostly remained in the east, with its supreme contemporary example of the state of Tatastan and the Russian border. But I would like to make the point that not everywhere had a Muslim presence all the time. But nevertheless, at no time was there not a significant Muslim presence in Europe. So on a thematic level, I think I. I'd probably pick three main areas to look at, to talk about. So the first one being words, books and learning. Both Christianity and Islam are based on written scholarship. And that scholarship, the idea of learning associated with it, has always had a kind of ambiguous role to play. It's been instructive, it's delighted. It was the vehicle for the transmission of a huge body of forgotten knowledge, Greek knowledge and. And then new Arabic knowledge, to the rest of Western Europe. But there's also been a source of great negativity and a force for the spread, I think of intolerance, because many early historians, Christian historians, created this idea of negativity and prejudice against Islam and the whole idea of religious difference. I might also think of journeys and travel and nomads, I suppose. The Prophet Muhammad himself was a migrant. He was an exile. He fled to Mecca. And in a way, the development of the Muslim empire was, I think, part of a natural movement linked to clans, to nomadic lifestyles. But of course, it was associated with land and dominance and violence and war. And the third thematic area, which I think is important, is the area of trade, which was A fundamental foundation of Islam. And it relied on alliances, collaborations on understanding. And many scholars and merchants and diplomats were constantly on the move, and they often left quite surprising legacies.
- [09:33]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Now, as I mentioned, this is a monumental work. It spans, what, 13 centuries. But I'd like to take a kind of whistle stop tour through the 16th and 17th centuries in particular, which are firmly in not just the Tudor's territory. And one of the wonderful things you've done is to showcase some incredible stories of individuals and events that reinforce your thesis. So I want to know how you went about finding these lesser known stories.
- [10:00]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Thank you, Susanna. Actually, I think many of the less well known but astonishing individuals that take the stage in this history actually found me. They usually materialize when I was reading about something quite different, and they sort of grabbed my attention. One example would be the story of the 15th century Romanian ruler, Vlad Dracula, the Impaler. And he turned up when I was researching the life of the great Ottoman sultan, Mehmed ii, with whom Vlad grew up. And Vlad's life is one of those, I think, unseen histories that generally people know nothing about. Another example is the extraordinary Saida Allura, who was born in Granada, and she was a powerful woman politician, a slave trader who was a privateer, an overseer of pirates who operated out of Morocco. And this was in the 16th century, and she came into view when I was exploring piracy along the North African coast. So there's definitely an element of serendipity in discovering interesting characters to write about.
- [11:06]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Okay, well, let's perhaps pick up with some detail with the period where cultural understanding and tolerance is not especially apparent. 1492, the year that the Spanish Jews were expelled from Granada. How did that affect the Muslims who had initially received guarantees of religious freedom?
- [11:25]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yeah, that's a very good question. Well, I think the Jewish expulsion set the tone really, for what would become a complete betrayal of the terms of the capitulations agreed between the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, and Sultan Mohammed Xiuabdil, who was the last Muslim ruler of Granada. And it had been promised that Muslims could continue practicing their religion, as you said, for all time. But the Catholics very soon went back on that promise. And so Ferdinand and Isabella announced the shocking alhambra decree in April 1492, just a few months after their capture of the city. And the decree ordered all Jews of Granada, who were also incidentally protected, in theory by the capitulations, either to convert to Catholicism or leave the country within three months. And I think it came as a terrible warning to Granada's Muslim population. And of course, it would lead to a really brutal program of ethnic and religious cleansing. At the start of the year 1500, the Christian authorities declared the capitulations null and void. And so the Muslims in turn had to either convert to Christianity or face exile.
- [12:42]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So we have this forcible conversion. They become known as the Moriscos, those who have converted to Christianity, but many secretly maintained their Islamic practices. How did they do that?
- [12:54]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Basically, they went underground because Islam as a public religion in Spain and Portugal was dead. And so crypto Islam was born. Just to give an idea, in the year 1500, we know there were over 8,000 forced conversions of Muslims to Christianity. And the Moriscos had appealed to the Egyptian Mamluks and the Ottoman Turks for help, but none was forthcoming because they were both fighting each other, the other two factions. They were greatly helped in their secret lives, if you like, by a fatwa that was delivered in 15 oh by the Mufti of Oran. And this was an exceptional document that we still know today. It exists today. And basically it allowed Muslims to stay in Spain by permitting them to pretend to be Christians while maintaining their inner intention to be Muslims. So really, it gave them carte blanche to lead a double life. And in that double life, something really interesting happened, which was the invention of a secret language similar to Jewish Ladino. And they called it Al Hamiyya. And it was written in Castilian Spanish, but it used the Arabic Alphabet. And I think in using that language, the Moriscos were asserting their loyalty to Islam. And of course, it also maintained their threatened identity. And interestingly, Al Jamiyeh embraced two cultures. It embraced the Morisco's Spanish identity and also their Arabic and Muslim ones. They still carried on with classes on the Quran. They held them in the utmost secrecy, you know, really at risk to their lives, of course. And so falsity and ambiguity ruled in everyday life. And we also know the Moriscos held secret meetings in different towns in Spain on a regular basis and where they sort of exchanged ideas and discussed their plans. So, yes, I think they were very successful in maintaining, you know, what they'd lost to a certain extent. Definitely.
- [14:56]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
You tell the amazing story of an extraordinary forgery, the lead books of Granada. Can you briefly explain what happened? Were people taken in by the forgery?
- [15:05]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yes, briefly. Gosh, that's a big ask. I'll do my best. It's an extraordinary story. And yes, in brief, they were taken in by the story for quite a long time. So what happened was that it was in April 1595, there were a group of treasure hunters digging on a hillside outside Granada and they found a total of 22 mysterious books which were written on disks of lead, which were about 10 centimeters, 4 inches in size, and they were inscribed in ancient Arabic and Latin, and of course, nobody could read what was on them. Two Moriscos were engaged to translate the writings. One of them was a man called Miguel de Luna, who was the court interpreter from Arabic to King Philip ii, so he was in an important position at the royal court, and another man called Alonso del Castillo. And they discovered, as they translated, that the lead books were actually holy Christian texts. And they included sayings of the Virgin mary, sayings of St. Peter and St. James. And so Granada was absolutely enchanted by this. They let off fireworks, they had artillery salutes, they had bell ringing. It caused a religious sensation at the time. And the king's confessor, Diego de Yepes, compared them in importance to the Ark of the Covenant. So it was a really big deal. So this lasted quite a long time, really. But then rumors did begin to circulate that they weren't genuine items, and the Vatican got involved and they insisted on more investigations and eventually took them off to Rome amid great protest. And so they were finally condemned by the Vatican as heretical Islamic writings in 1682, so nearly 100 years after they were discovered, and they weren't actually returned to Granada until 2001. And, of course, it transpired that they were in fact fabrications and they had been created by the Morisco Miguel de Luna, which is another. His story is another fabulous story, along with, I think, quite a lot of other people who must have helped him. And Miguel, we know, attended the meetings of crypto Muslims, and he spoke of the purpose of the lead books there as creating what he thought was an improved version of Christianity, but also asserting the preeminence of Islam as a religion. So they were subversive and compelling weapons in the fight to defend Morisco cultures and values and validate their right to stay in their homeland.
- [17:48]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Also in the 16th century, and also under Philip II, we have outbreaks of violence which led to some 300,000 moriscos being exiled to North Africa. What kind of impact did that have on Spain's economy?
- [18:03]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Oh, it had a disastrous effect, particularly on the flourishing silk industry in the south. Many, many key workers were lost, including silk workers, agricultural labourers, horticulturalists, people who underpinned the whole structure of food production, really, in the country. And as I said, silk was big business then, so a huge amount of money was lost. The city of Valencia itself lost 30% of its population. And many landlords who'd rented out land or property to Moriscos had faced ruin and poverty. So they were in a very bad way. And I think that crisis of manpower was later seen as a key factor in the rapid decline of Spain. And I think that really, it was a key factor in its political and economic decline for several centuries, really up to the 20th century, to be honest, they shot themselves in the foot.
- [19:00]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So eight centuries of Islamic civilization ended in Iberia. But remarkably, some Muslim communities survived. How do we know about them?
- [19:08]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yeah, well, that's a very good question, and it's not commonly known. But in the 17th century and also as late as the 18th century, the Inquisition, which of course had been established by Ferdinand and Isabella in the late 15th century, rooted out several hundred heretics. These crypto Muslims, they were all married and they all lived incognito in their communities. And a lot of them were artisans, silk dealers, livestock breeders, sugar traders and so on. And as well as these middle class Moriscos, there was a new elite group of families who were often wealthy, who were completely integrated into the Granadan society of the 17th century. And usually they were professionals like doctors, lawyers, castle governors, and even, rather ironically, priests, and some of very high rank in the church. So they had fake identities, you know, they had forged documents that created a plausible ancestry for them. And they were protected, amazingly, by powerful local Christian aristocrats. So basically they hid in plain view. And quite a lot of those Muslims were persecuted by the Inquisition and they fled or were imprisoned. But a remarkable number went on living in Granada and got completely absorbed into the community by the 18th century. So really, try as they might, the Spanish church in the state couldn't ever entirely eradicate native Muslims from the Iberian peninsula.
- [20:45]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
There are areas where Christians and Muslims intersected, and you list these as mysticism, piracy and slavery. Let's start with mysticism. We have examples of movements or doctrines that influence both Islamic and Christian mysticism, which is amazing. Tell us about Ibn Al Arabi.
- [21:04]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Oh, yes, he's a fascinating and wonderful figure. Well, he was born. He's a Spaniard. He was born in Murcia in the south of Spain in the 12th century. And he went to Mecca, where he had a vision of the heavenly throne. And he became the greatest Sufi visionary. In fact, he was said to be able to summon people from the dead. And he's communicated regularly, he said, with Jesus and Muhammad and Moses. And he wrote a famous book called the Meccan revelations that became a cornerstone of mystical Sufi ideas. Basically, it described all human existence as an exploration of divine being. And that idea of unity brought together Sufi thought and Neoplatonic thought, Muslim and Christian thought together. So Ibn Al Arabi was particularly important in relation to the Sufi Islam that became such a powerful factor in the Ottoman Empire in early modern times. Sufism, obviously, is part of Islam, but it's very much, if you like, a doctrine of saints and miracles. But it became crucial in maintaining social order in Ottoman lands. And it had this wonderful combination of Christian and Sufi religious practices and syntheses. So Ibn Al Arabi was, if you like, fundamental to all that falling into place.
- [22:27]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And then we have an extraordinary uprising against the Ottoman Empire. How did that unite Christians, Jews and Muslims?
- [22:36]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Well, we have to talk about dervishes here, I think, Susanna. Dervishes, who were often known as, in the Ottoman Empire at this time as deviant dervishes, they had some very strange practices. They drank a lot, they took drugs, they had very strange body piercings, they went around wearing dirty old sacks or just hardly anything at all. They were abusive, they were rebellious, but they fostered tolerance of Christian communities and they created all kinds of new religious syntheses. And of course, the greatest Sufi poet, I think we have to mention Rumi here, who was a contemporary of Al Arabi's, founded the Mehlevi Order of dervishes, who most of us would know from their famous dance, you know, the whirling dervish ritual dance. And they were the favorite religious association of the Ottomans. So perhaps it was even more surprising that the biggest rebellion in Ottoman history, certainly up to that time, which was in the 15th century, was led by an infamous dervish called Sheikh Bedreddin. He was the son of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, and he became a really prominent spiritual guide. And he had a huge following of peasants from Anatolia who were both Christian and Jews. And Bedreddin's two original disciples were a Jew and a Muslim. And so he was seen as a great threat to the Ottoman dynasty by Sultan Mehmed I. And he was imprisoned, but from prison he sent his deputy in 1416 to lead thousands of Christians and Muslims in a rebellion in Anatolia. And they caused a huge amount of disruption and trouble to the Ottomans. In the end, the uprisings were quashed by the Janissaries, the crack army of. Of the Ottoman Empire. And Sheikh Bedreddin was hung stark naked from a tree. But what was really surprising, again, was that the Ottomans were completely shaken to the core by this. They'd never had anything like this before. And now the unheard of prospect loomed of more popular peasant uprisings that united Christians and Jews and Muslims against them. Yes, they were really unsettled by that rebellion.
- [24:55]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
We've spoken recently on, not just the Tudors, about Barbary pirates. How did that forced immersion of Europeans into an Islamic context, influence, and vice versa, create bridges between Islamic and Christian worlds?
- [25:12]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yeah, I think mainly because of swapped identities and role reversals. And perhaps I can think of two examples, perhaps to illustrate that. One was Leo Africanus. He was a scholar, born in Granada as a Muslim. His name was Al Hasan al Wazan, and he was exiled around the time of the conquest of Granada to Fez, and he made his life there. He worked as a diplomat and traveled a lot. And in 1518 he was on a sea voyage and was imprisoned by Christian pirates who thought that they got rather a good thing with this important diplomat and that there might be some mileage in it. So they sent him to the Pope, to Pope Leo X, to see if they could get anything out of it, I suppose. And there Alwazan joined a small group of elite Muslim slaves who were useful to Christian authorities because of their scholarship. And he became a very successful scholar. And he was later actually baptized as a Christian in St. Peter's in Rome. And he took the name Leo Africanus and he wrote a famous geography of Africa, which was the first of its kind and which was a complete revelation to Western Europe, because nobody really knew anything about Africa, what it looked like, what animals it had, what geography it had. And so he made a very big contribution culturally, and he's thought to have returned somehow to Tunis later in his life. It must have been in secret. And he reconverted to Islam. Yes, he made a big contribution to Christian as well as world scholarship. Another example of this, perhaps an opposite example, is the case of Samson Rowley, who was a man from Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, which actually happens to be my own birthplace. And he was taken prisoner on a pirate ship and he was enslaved by the Ottomans and obliged to convert to Islam and he adopted the name Hassan Aga. And amazingly, we have a portrait of him, I think, made by a German tourist. And he's wearing a large turban and he's got very pale skin, so we know it's him. And he changed his religious and cultural identity under duress, obviously, but he rose to become the treasurer of Ottoman Algiers and he's thought to have been murdered about 1588. And I think his life is a really, I suppose a striking counterpoint to the life of Leo Africanus. You know, these are contrary transformations of religious identity, so one permanent and the other much more fluid and changeable.
- [28:05]
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- [28:40]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
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- [28:41]
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- [29:05]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
What started the Civil War?
- [29:07]
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What ended the conflict in Vietnam?
- [29:10]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Who was Paul Revere and did the Vikings ever reach America?
- [29:17]
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I'm Don Wildman and on American History.
- [29:19]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
At my Expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years to uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors where the nation was formed, meet the characters who have altered it with their touch, and count the votes that have changed the direction of our laws and leadership. Find American History hit twice a week.
- [29:42]
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- [29:45]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Hit a podcast from History Hip and.
- [30:03]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
There'S another one actually I wanted to ask you about, which was Sir Francis Verney, who went from being an English knight to a Muslim pirate. What on earth was going on there?
- [30:13]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yes, that's an extraordinary story. Yes. An English nobleman from Hertfordshire converted to Islam. Yes. What a thing. Sir Francis Verney was born in 1584 and he married the daughter of his stepmother, which was in some ways to be his downfall. He got involved in a legal dispute with his stepmother, who of course was also now his his mother in law over some land, over a field, I think. And he lost the dispute and it ruined him. So he was obliged to flee and he went to Morocco and he fell in there with a band of English mercenaries. We know that in 1609 he was operating as A pirate on the Barbary coast, which I suppose isn't bad for a man who knew nothing about seafaring. And in Tunis, he converted to Islam and that caused a sensation back in England. His family were horrified, embarrassed and so on, but he didn't have a good end. He was captured and spent two years as a galley slave. And then he died in poverty in Sicily and his turban and silk slippers were sent back to his family, who I believe still have them today. So, yeah, quite a story.
- [31:34]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Wow. And if we're thinking about these spaces where cultures collided, can we chart any kind of lasting impact? What's the result of this?
- [31:43]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yeah, that's a good question, Susanna. Well, those spaces, you know, which were the margins of society or the high seas, were transitional spaces between two worlds and two religions. And in some cases, yes, the impact was lasting. The Sufi order flourished and it still flourishes today. And some crossovers of identity, such as Samson Rowley's and Francis Verney's, were more permanent. Well, they were permanent. Others were fluid and reversible, like Leo Africanus changing from Muslim to a Christian, then back to a Muslim again. I think, though it's important to say that all such crossovers and collisions of religion and culture searched for and found common ground instead of difference and otherness. And there were changes of social status, too. Verney went, as you said, from lord to pirate. Rowley was a lad from Yarmouth who became an Ottoman government official. And there was intellectual crossover too, in the case of Leo Africanus, but also the example of the great Miguel de Cervantes, the Spanish genius, who was captured and enslaved for about four years in Algiers and wrote that his experiences in those four years influenced his writing of John Quixot, which is one of the masterpieces of Western literature.
- [33:10]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I'd like to talk a bit about what you call Odette disowned. It's not widely acknowledged that Islam had a profound impact on the European Renaissance and what we call the scientific revolution. In what areas do we find the greatest influence?
- [33:27]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Just to give a bit of context, I suppose that the basis of the Renaissance, as we know, was the revival of classic Greek and Latin philosophy and learning. And the renewed interest in the ancient world seemed to bypass Arabic learning in favour of the rediscovery of original Greek scholarship. So the fascination of Western European thinkers with the roots of Islamic learning is a little known story nowadays, and it revises the traditional view that the great expansion of learning that produced the development of literature in Latin and vernacular languages had classical Western Origins. And you asked what was the greatest area of Islamic influence? And I think we have to say it's in the field of science. So, for example, we find the basic principles of what is now known as the scientific method, which is based on data gathering, empirical observation, and that's generally accepted as established in the Renaissance by Francis Bacon. But in fact it was created long before by an Iraqi scholar who lived in cairo in the 10th century called Ibn Al Haytham. Other examples of influence on philosophers or the historical works of 17th century French, English and Dutch scholars who described Islam as rational, tolerant, civilizing. And these ideas were picked up by French philosophers, Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, who praised Islam's religious tolerance. And that idea became one of the key tenets of the 18th century Enlightenment.
- [35:03]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And how about Isaac Newton?
- [35:06]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yes, Isaac Newton. Would people have known that Newton was influenced by Islamic thought? I wonder? I don't think it is widely known. Or was that Isaac Newton had quite a large collection of, or not a large collection, but a collection anyway of Arabic books in his personal library. You mentioned right at the beginning, a couple of them, one of which was a biography of the Prophet, as you said, and a history of the Saracens, meaning of the Muslims. So that, to start with, was an unusual thing for his time. Renaissance learning was so focused on the heritage of classical knowledge, Greek and Christian Latin. I don't think it would have occurred to most educated people that Renaissance scholars were at all in touch with Arabic learning. And it's only relatively recently that interest has arisen in Newton's awareness of Islamic thought and method. On the other hand, I think it's possible that European scientists maybe were on the lookout for Islamic ideas more than we realize. The physician of Charles V of Spain spoke of Arab science as being as familiar as Greek knowledge, and he thought it was better than Greek knowledge, which is interesting. But in terms of Newton's basic work, the pioneering work on lenses and prisms which was done by Al Haifam, was the basis of Newton's study of the nature of light, which is one of his fundamental areas of research. He had a copy of Al Haifam's Book of Optics in his library. And he also had some alchemical works by another Arab Muslim scientist, an Iraqi of the 9th century, known to the west as Joubert the alchemist. There was undoubtedly a very, very strong link there.
- [37:06]
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- [37:42]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
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- [37:46]
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- [38:15]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
And there's.
- [38:15]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Also influence in the world of astronomy, isn't there?
- [38:18]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yes, and I think this is particularly revealing, particularly fascinating. One of the great revelations of the Renaissance, I think, that most people know of, is of the astronomer Copernicus heliocentric theory that the Earth moved around the sun instead of vice versa. And this was the big thing that rocked the Renaissance, I suppose, wasn't it? And that harked back, actually to similar theories which were advanced by an ancient Greek astronomer called Aristarchus. But Copernicus also drew greatly on the work of 13th century Persian astronomers, especially a scholar called Al Tuzi, whose drawing, known as the Tuzi Couple, describes the Earth moving around the Sun. And Copernicus used Al Tusi's diagrams almost exactly in his own planetary models. And I think they're conclusive proof that he borrowed from the work of these Persian astronomers. But it's not something that he ever acknowledged.
- [39:17]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes, it's very much the case in this period that imitation is not considered to be plagiarism. It's the highest form of flattery. But the story then goes that we lose the trace of the influence of these Islamic sources which you're drawing out so brilliantly. I mean, around this time we begin to see Orientalism emerge. So the beginnings perhaps of European academics taking an interest in Islam in an acknowledged way. Did this Renaissance Orientalism differ from later colonial attitudes? And if so, how did it represent a kind of genuine scholarly engagement with Islamic civilization?
- [40:01]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yes, it really did, and it was different. I think there'd been a growing interest in Islamic culture in the west around this time, because after 1453 and 1492, Europe seemed to have polarized into the Muslim east and the Christian West. And so a kind of awareness of difference in opposition between the two sparked this desire to learn more about Arabic culture, I suppose. And so that early version of Orientalism was actually based on interest in the Arabic language itself. And the first European professorship in Arabic was in 1535 in Paris at the College de France. And at the same time there were visits, many visits of French and other ambassadors to the Ottoman court at Constantinople, or Constantinje as they called it then. And they brought back Arabic books and manuscripts which were mainly on medicine and mathematics. At this time, the first dictionary of Arabic appeared in Western Europe and more European chairs in Arabic were established. So the interest of those scholars lay in the linguistic and religious foundations of Islamic culture. And how it differed from 19th century orientalism was that in the 19th century, Muslim Arab culture was seen as something exotic and something other than. But as you said, it was seen through the lens of colonialism and that emphasized the idea of Western superiority. And it saw that culture as frightening and unprogressive and inferior. And that certainly wasn't something. Those weren't ideas that were present in the early version of orientalism in the 16th century.
- [41:45]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It's also interesting to consider the way in which the Prophet Muhammad was used by Protestants as a tool against the Catholic Church. How do we see that appearing? What kind of impact did Islamic tolerance and unity have on the Reformations?
- [42:03]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yes, this is great. I mean, well, Islam and the Prophet were used as Christian propaganda in the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants across Europe. And so Islam became a kind of yardstick against which to measure those conflicting versions of Christianity. And on the Protestant side, Luther wrote that Muhammad, in his view, was a saint compared with the Pope, although another Protestant, John Calvin, thought that Muhammad was actually a sorcerer and a seducer. So there were different views of Muhammad, but there was also a debate. He was in the mix, you know, he was being talked about. And there was historian in the 17th century called Henry Stubb, and he wrote what he called an account of Mohammedanism, which was the first full work in English to discuss Islam and to be sympathetic to it. But of course he was unable to get it published, so it circulated quite widely, privately. I think one of the most interesting things though, is how in the 17th century Muhammad was recruited by the Catholics across Europe as an ally in their campaign for the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the virgin. And this was. It actually originated in the lead books of Granada, which explicitly stated that the Virgin Mary was born without original sin. So there were a number of quite significant paintings made all across Europe, including in Serbia at this time, of the Virgin Mary illustrating the conception of her conception without original sin. And so Muhammad appears in a lot of these paintings. So it's a really rather ironic and unexpected. I mean, it's not a Muslim belief, original sin anyway. But still he was harnessed to support their claim. So I think, you know, the Christians of Europe were no longer allied in their opposition to Islam.
- [44:00]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Now we must talk about the whole obsession that Europeans began to develop with what they called Turkery. So what kind of impact do we see Islamic fashion, textiles, habits having on European life?
- [44:13]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yes, well, this came out of all the new trade deals and closer diplomatic contacts with the Ottoman Empire. So lots of new ideas and commodities were available. And so luxury goods became available to the middle classes. Things like printed engravings, clothing, home decor. In France, they adopted the sofa. It was the first country to adopt the sofa, which comes from an Arabic word meaning sofa. And they also, you could see lots of Ottoman chairs which had canopies and rounded backs in elegant French homes. They were very popular and so really better off. Christian homes across Europe really took on the appearance of Islamic culture in the textures and patterns and styles of their home decorations. There were Turkish carpets which were prestige items then and they still are today, of course. And we know that In Venice, in St. Mark's Square, on special occasions, the Ottoman carpets would be hung from balconies on special occasions and they were commonly used in aristocratic houses in Europe. There were also Turkish carpets in many artworks, detailed, accurate representations, often of religious subjects. And we know. Well, Susanna, I'm sure this is, you know this as well. There are several paintings of the English king, Henry VIII seated on a chair on an Anatolian carpet. And then you mentioned the dress of the royal court. As you said, Henry VIII wore Ottoman style caftans. And at a banquet in Westminster, he wore a fabulous Turkish outfit of gold and silk and a crimson velvet turban. And Queen Elizabeth I also had her portrait painted, I think with an Ottoman style bodice on. So this enacting of Turkish identity, if you like, extended to the general well heeled populace. European women loved Muslim headdress because they felt it was liberatingly loose and luxurious. And many people wore turbans at the time, included the English traveler Robert Shirley, who wore his turban to an audience with King James I and nearly caused a dramatic crisis. Of course, the king thought he was showing his allegiance to the Ottoman ruler and not to him. Anyway, that must be an interesting scene.
- [46:35]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Absolutely. Well, Nowhere is this more prevalent, perhaps, than when it comes to coffee houses and Satan's drink, as it was called. But it's not just the drink, is it? It's the kind of coffee house itself, as an esc establishment for the exchange of ideas. What would such place have looked like in London, for example? What kind of impact did it have? Did it produce opposition, fear even?
- [47:01]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yeah, the first London coffee house was opened in 1652 in the Cornhill, and it had a big signboard with the image of the proprietor, a man called Pascal Roset, on the signboard. And you could read a sales pitch, I think, on the door, about the medical benefits of coffee, which claim to be able to cure all sorts of diseases, gout, scurvy, dropsy and so on. But as well as having, obviously, all these medical benefits, coffee houses, as you said, had a vital role, really, in the exchange of news and ideas. They were hubs of social communication. People transacted business in them and artistic activity went on. There were story recitals, puppet shows, music poetry recitals. Sometimes people read the news aloud to people who couldn't read. So they had a political dimension as forums for public opinion. But, yes, there was fear and opposition. Coffee was associated with Islam and the Turks. And coffee beans were known, as well as Satan's drink, as Mahometan berries. I think I'm going to start calling it that now. And some denounced coffee because it induced men to convert to Islam. So there was religious prejudice against it, especially in England. And one broad sheet in London, I think, actually suggested that drinking coffee could give you what they described as a swarthy Moorish complexion. And women drank coffee, too, but not in public. They drank at home in coffee mornings, which I suppose is something that we're so familiar with now. But it didn't go down well with their male counterparts there. Many men accused their wives of neglecting the domestic routine. I think they were frightened of the empowerment it gave these women, which is interesting. And quite a lot of women became coffee addicts. Bach actually wrote a short comic opera about women coffee addicts. So it must have been quite a problem. And I think by the 18th century, really poorer social classes were also drinking coffee as well as the bourgeoisie. So coffee was a force for social, intellectual and political change. No question about that.
- [49:17]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
The other thing I really want to ask you about is the effect of the arrival of the tulip from the Ottoman Empire on Europe, especially Holland. Tell me about that.
- [49:26]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yes. Tulips come from Anatolia, and their name comes from the Persian word for A turban. And they have a unique meaning in Turkish culture. They are talismans for protection. They symbolize beauty, abundance. I think today in Istanbul, you can see something like 30 million tulip bulbs coming into flower in the spring, which must be an amazing sight. And in the 16th century, the second half of the 16th century, the Austrian ambassador to Constantinople, a man called Ghislaine de Busbeck, he's credited with sending back tulip bulbs to the Netherlands. And they instantly became popular and sparked an obsession across Christian Europe. And, of course, Dutch art in particular was full of paintings of tulips, and the actual bulbs could reach exorbitant prices, especially if they were rare. The tulip market crashed in Holland in the 1630s, but by that time, they'd come to represent the culture of the Netherlands as well as Turkish culture.
- [50:36]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So we've got an interesting dichotomy here. We've got a European world that fears Ottoman military power, and yet visually, in terms of taste of all sorts, everyone's going crazy for Islamic culture. So is this purely aesthetic appreciation, or do you have a feeling that there was a deeper desire to understand the ideas that were underpinning, you know, the geometry, the beauty, the luxuriousness of Eastern goods?
- [51:04]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Well, another good question. I think aesthetic appreciation was important, although it was the artists, textile designers, fashion designers, who really appreciated the techniques and substances needed to create those goods. What I do think there was was a deeper desire in people, and that was to test out a new identity. If you like, Christendom performed Oriental Muslim identity, and many people converted to Islam in this era. And it may have been a guilty desire, which I suppose revealed the unsettling outer differences in appearance and lifestyle between the two cultures, but it also revealed the humanity that Christians and Muslims had in common. And I think that's quite an important element, too.
- [51:54]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And how long do you think this appreciation for Islamic culture and aesthetics lasted? How did it end? Or did it not really die out? Has it just been subsumed into Britishness? I'm thinking of William Morris's designs, for example, which look like they draw on Islamic motifs.
- [52:16]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Yeah. On one level, I think it ended as the Age of Discovery found Muslim lands to conquer, and that led on to colonialism. And later, you know, there were nationalist revolutions in Europe, which also set Islam and Christianity on a less amenable footing. On the other hand, that fascination for and admiration of Christians for Muslim culture, I don't think it's ever really died out. It was very apparent in 19th century Orientalism, and I believe it still exists today, although. Yes, I mean, I think you're right. I think to an extent it was subsumed into Englishness and into the cultures of other Western European countries. But in English, we might think of the number of Arabic words that are part of the English language, words relating to botany, textiles, music, chemistry, commerce, masses of them. And another purely English example, I suppose, would be alongside William Morris, which I think is a good, interesting example. It would also be the folk custom of Morris dancing, which I think we consider to be typically English, yet it's actually a dance that mimicked the conflicts between Moors and Christians. And Morris is a corruption of the word Moorish.
- [53:31]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Oh, how wonderful. So as we end, then, could I ask you something that sort of returns to the first point you made? What do you hope we can learn from this long history of relationships and cultural exchange that has existed between Islam and Europe?
- [53:51]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
I think the book demands that we rethink the nature of European identity and view it as a hybrid identity, yes, one influenced by many past cultures, but fundamentally one shared between Christians and Muslims. And I hope that the many interchanges this book describes over the course of 1300 years, you know, might give pause for thought and remind us that we do have more in common than what divides us and that our history, it has never been us and them, but always both Christian and Muslim, since the beginning, since 7 11.
- [54:28]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Well, Dr. Elizabeth Drayson, thank you so much for joining me today and for sharing the fruits of all this remarkable research. It's been a real pleasure.
- [54:36]
Dr. Elizabeth Drayson
Thank you very much, Susanna. I've enjoyed it very much indeed. It's been a pleasure to talk to you.
- [54:45]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Thank you for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors from History Hit. Thank you also to my researcher, Max Wintool, my producer Rob Weinberg, and to Amy Haddow, who edited this episode. We are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line@notjusthetorshistoryhit.com and I look forward to joining you again for another episode. Next time on Not Just the Tutors, but from history hit.
- [55:21]
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