Jaume I of Aragon, one of the greatest Christian warriors of all time, once wrote in his autobiography, “Thus we went to Borriana. And when the moment arrived when we wished to raise a camp, a swallow had made her nest on the pole of our tent, and we ordered our men not to take it down until she and her little ones had gone, because she had trusted us.”
On the other hand, Arab historians recount how the Kurdish warlord Salah al-Din had brought a Frankish king and prince as prisoner after battle into his tent. They had been forced into thirst for several days before the battle, and they were now sitting there quietly and weakened after battle. The king took the water on the table, and as Ibn al-Athir recounts, “The King drank and handed the rest to the prince who also drank. Saladin said: This godless man did not have my permission to drink! And he will not save his life that way!” What proceeded was Saladin taking his sword, and slowly chopping off the prince’s head as the prince screamed in terror, as the king sobbed and prayed to God to forgive Saladin, and as the other subjects watched grinning. Saladin had his soldiers then throw the body out to the vultures and the head discarded.
So my question: Why are Christians so chivalrous and Muslims so cruel?
Why does a Christian king treat even swallows as a beauty of God’s creation, while a Muslim king does not see fit a human being to drink water and slowly severes his head in front of his father out of mere spite?
Prateek, your analysis is viciously anti-historical. Have you ever heard the term “adversarial source”? Surely, an auto-biography does not count as an adversarial source, I would put scant weight on anything related in an autobiography (modern ones included).
As for Saladin’s behavior, I do not see him as especially sociopathic among the pantheon of sociopaths who, throughout history, have filled the ranks of “royalty” or “nobility.” I suppose the Christian king Vlad the Impaler on whose myths the Dracula story was based - or even the “man after God’s own heart”, King David, with his heartless murder of Uriah to cover up his impregnation of Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba - are examples of the great, Christian* kings who treat all of God’s creation with kindness?
Clayton -
*Yes, I know David was not a Christian king, but Christians believe in a continuity between Old Testament Judaism and New Testament Christianity.
I was under the impression that Saladin was looked upon as a chivalrous figure. From wikipedia -
Despite the Crusaders’ slaughter when they originally conquered Jerusalem in 1099, Saladin granted amnesty and free passage to all common Catholics and even to the defeated Christian army, as long as they were able to pay the aforementioned ransom (the Greek Orthodox Christians were treated even better, because they often opposed the western Crusaders). An interesting view of Saladin and the world in which he lived is provided by Tariq Ali’s novel The Book of Saladin.[95] Though contemporary views on Saladin are often positive, Saladin’s qualities are often exaggerated, mainly under influence of the image created during the 19th century.
Notwithstanding the differences in beliefs, the Muslim Saladin was respected by Christian lords, Richard especially. Richard once praised Saladin as a great prince, saying that he was without doubt the greatest and most powerful leader in the Islamic world.[96] Saladin in turn stated that there was not a more honorable Christian lord than Richard. After the treaty, Saladin and Richard sent each other many gifts as tokens of respect, but never met face to face.
In April 1191, a Frankish woman’s three month old baby had been stolen from her camp and had been sold on the market. The Franks urged her to approach Saladin herself with her grievance. According to Bahā’ al-Dīn, Saladin used his own money to buy the child back:
He gave it to the mother and she took it; with tears streaming down her face, and hugged it to her breast. The people were watching her and weeping and I (Ibn Shaddad) was standing amongst them. She suckled it for some time and then Saladin ordered a horse to be fetched for her and she went back to camp
But either way- this seems like an oddly out of place question coming from a bright guy like yourself. What I find funny is that you label James of Aragon a great warrior- but Saladin a warlord. You already labeled one to be good and the other bad. But both were involved in conquests.
I think there is much in Islamic culture to admired, and Saladin has been a stereotypical model for chivalry. If you want to buy into the notion that some Catholic King in the same era was chivalrous, you would probably have to do the same for Saladin. That said, I am a bit suprised you buy into the “age of chivalry” thing, being that it has been for the past 100 (hell maybe even since the 18th century) years or so, one of the more fashionable areas for the mainstream to deconstruct.
That said, don’t take super simplistic historical narratives too seriously.
Prateek, my country has been under the rule of a Muslim Empire for five centuries. Let me tell you this: I’d trade another of those five centuries if I could erase just one year of Rankovich’s christian efforts to cleans Kosovo of the ‘muslim heathens’.
Also, ask Sephardims, who where kinder to them, the Christian Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, or the ottoman sultans?
Religion has scantly anything to do with cruelty (or better, the specific religion, for religion in general has much to do with cruelty).
What about specific religions that actively preach cruelty? I’ve seen one, an ancient Indian one, where there is a story about some soldier who felt remorse about the many many lives he took. And the Indian God came down from up high and told him “You pussy, you are soldier. You are supposed to be cruel. Now get back in there and chop heads off the kiddies.”
What about specific religions that actively preach cruelty? I’ve seen one, an ancient Indian one, where there is a story about some soldier who felt remorse about the many many lives he took. And the Indian God came down from up high and told him “You pussy, you are soldier. You are supposed to be cruel. Now get back in there and chop heads off the kiddies.”
Excepting religions to explicitly preach cruelty would be like excepting states to actively advertise their nature as a violent monopoly. The practical effect of organized religion are, just as the practical effect of statist ideologies of all stripes, cruelty toward others and internal regimentation.
All religions that steer away from this model do so despite themselves, not because of themselves. Religion, as states, evolve to match the psychological requests of their target group, which is why modern Christianity has lost much (but not all) of the early crazy flavor of the Old Testament.
What about specific religions that actively preach cruelty?
For those of us (such as myself) who are hard line materialistic/ deterministic atheists, it doesn’t matter. The things written are simply things written, all that matters is the human actions and consequences of those actions. The correlation is not much to speak about, or be concerned with. Concern with such things is just typical intellectualism trying to mystify words.
I mean, I suppose there are interesting things to do with studying cultures within context, but it is kind of irrelevant.
To answer the questions that wont go way off topic into tangents:
I specifically stated my point of view just to define my terms and context, not to debate the premise I am starting with. If I were a spiritualist I would have stated “from religion X’s point of view…”
All that matters is the human action involved, there can be nothing said about the psychological processes that lead to such an action. Furthermore it is impossible for a doctrine; be it spiritual, legal, ethical, or whatever to state in words some concrete and definite way someone ought to act. The definitions will become meaningless upon scrutiny, all that can be established is a randomly personalized contextualization of a culture/tradition/custom of whatever tings you wish to examine, and I am deliberately trying to avoid an aesthetic examination of an Indian custom or culture I know nothing about. I may even argue that there is no such thing as a specific religion, custom, tradition, etc; there is only a specific sequence of words on parchment.
The only thing that can determine one’s behavior is one’s behavior; and one’s behavior is a continually changing contextualization of the world. That is a British Christian named Tom sitting in a chair holding a spoon at 2:00 who says “I am Christian” is 100% different being in a 100% different catagory than the same thing at 2:01.00001. Religion can only state and concern itself with religion, oneself can only state and concern itself with oneself, no matter which words one wishes to use.
I was using the term “intellectuals” as a class of people the way Shumpeter or Mises use the term.
Here is a Muslim Syrian warrior, Usama ibn Manqidh, recounting what happened once in Damascus.
And another Muslim, Ibn Jabyr, wrote: “The Muslims own their own houses and rule themselves in their own way. This is the way farms and big villages are organized in Frankish territory. Many Muslims are sorely tempted to stay here when they see the far from comfortable conditions under which their brethren live.”
So let’s see: By the admission of two Muslims of good repute on both sides, Muslims were treated fairly by Franks and were allowed to live comfortably with their own property without despotic conditions. Even a criminal Frankish prince was forced to pay 400 gold coins of his own treasury to a mere shepherd who was once a soldier.
And now, for those who said Salah al Din was an example of chivalry: how chivalrous was it of him that he told one conquered city that its residents pay him a certain number of gold coins per person, and those who could not would be taken into slavery and sold? And that’s how 160,000 slaves were taken in a month by him? How chivalrous was it that this man once asked a Frankish knight to convert to Islam in his tent, and then had him beheaded in front of him when he refused? How chivalrous was this man that he once had peasants and children take their turns at stabbing Christians taken prisoner with a spear in festivities after a victory? How chivalrous was this man that he even executed Muslims he did not like, such as philosophers who spoke too well of Persians before Islam? As it is, he bought back a three month old child who was to slavery, but he never abolished slavery itself or saw any wrong with it.
And to think that the First Crusade itself was caused by Selijuk Turks who nailed Christian slaves to a rope, marched them across the desert, and before selling them, ripped off the rope in a manner that caused their flesh and clothes to be torn off? And all of this done to women, children, and elderly, all of them half naked and battered from how they were treated? And this pillaging and enslaving was done for three decades before they decided to call the Crusade. These were the people that Christian knights from Europe treated so mercifully
The point about methodological individualism is understood, but I am mainly discussing the Christian establishment and the Muslim establishment - meaning the kings, generals, and magistrates on both sides. Ordinary people can’t choose where they are born, and follow the dictated customs of their own place and time. I don’t judge them. What speaks badly of the Muslim establishment need not speak badly of Muslims, especially when Muslims flee the Muslim establishment to live under the just rule of Frankish knights. Indeed, I do not remember who it was, but one Muslim emperor once said, “When I am gone from this world, there shall be no Islam”, because he saw how Muslims fled to live under Christians.
PS: I find those Old Testament characters to be generally crazy, and otherwise, wasn’t Vlad an Orthodox Christian and not a Catholic Christian? Considering the likes of Orthodox Christian rules from Rus, you’d have a point about them, although I speak mainly of Catholics.
I don’t see that any faith, religion, or personal belief can explain aggression and violence. Individual perception concerning in-tolerance (toward any other faith, religion or personal belief) is the motivation toward aggression or cooperation.
Motivation one way or another cannot be generalized because it goes both directions, to greater or lesser degrees, and varies from moment to moment in the hearts and minds of each individual concerned.
Your example demonstrates the particular tolance of a Christian towards a sparrow and says nothing of the degree of tolerance or intolerance toward his declared enemy.
The actions of the Arab demonstrate a particular intolerance toward a person at a particular time and may not necessarily be interpreted and a long-standing or permanent intolerance toward Christians or the Christian religion. That singular action does not rule out a general desire for long term cooperation as a current or future preference. It is just that at that particular time, with that particular person an aggressive action was chosen.
That one is religious does not cancel out or eliminate the rational basis of action. Differences of any kind, religious or otherwise, offer opportunity for both cooperation or violence. It is, after all, differences that induce the motivation for economic exchange. Current preference for one perception or the other are demonstrated by the resulting action. Perception can change - we can hope )or some pray) for the better.
You seem to have some type of ulterior motive than historical analysis; there is simply no good reason other than modern political/religous ideology to attribute Saladin to the side of the barbarians as opposed to any of his contemporaries. Even the rather ignorant 18th century Western historians/ Romantics saw him in a good light. There really isn’t much in older traditions on any side to that portray Saladin in a “negative” light.
Be honest now, where are you reading your history?
Well, generally to kill time, I try to find books on public domain on Books.Google or otherwise, and I was mainly interested in Arab Historians of the Crusade and An Arab-Syrian Gentleman. I read a few stories from them from time to time.
Ulterior motives? Perhaps unconsciously, although I think Muslims are the most unfairly demonized group today, especially considering that 9/11 wasn’t even done by practicing Muslims but nominal Muslims from secular families like Atta and Jarrah and especially considering there is no such thing as “global” Islamic jihad.
My point with this thread was trying to understand what seems to be unreasonable cruelty, how anybody could force and stomach himself to do it over and over, and why it has been, um, so over-represented in certain cultures? I figured that religious tradition may have caused it, but who knows? Actually, if Salah al-Din was a devout Muslim and his few acts of chivalry show him acting sincerely as per his faith, then could it be that his cruelty also reflects what imams and mullahs would have either condoned or encouraged in him as consistent with his faith? Isn’t it the argument of some of the smartest atheists like Dawkins and the rest that religion is the one way you can get good people to do bad things? Could it be in the religion itself?
I wish I had been more specific in the OP, but I guess I was hasty in writing it.
Prateek: I don’t think we need to chain ourselves to methodological individualism… however, excessive collectivization is a constant problem, especially in modern times, given the hyper-collectivist mindset in modern academia. This is an example of the collectivism that I think you’re falling into:
Some particular Muslims were treated fairly by some particular Franks. There’s a million reasons why it’s not valid to generalize from the specific historical examples.
Now, I will grant your overall point that societies can be ill or healthy. But I don’t think you can make meaningful statements about the illness or health of such broad categories as “Islam” or “Christianity.” Those categories are just too large and the boundaries are just too fuzzy for any meaningful discourse. Try to restrict your analysis to be as specific to time, place, culture, religious denomination and theological particulars, as possible. There are patterns in human behavior… orthodox Jewish communities in Israel have their quirks that are different from the quirks of the casual, semi-secular Jewish communities of New York City… Dutch Reformed communities have their quirks that are different from the quirks of Orthodox Presbyterian communities, and so on. And to the extent that these communities are not even closed social systems, like the Amish nearly are, it is difficult to separate out the effects of their dogmas versus the effects of the wider community in which they are embedded. Identifying real patterns in social systems - rather than noise you perceive to be patterns - is hard.
Isn’t it the argument of some of the smartest atheists like Dawkins and the rest that religion is the one way you can get good people to do bad things? Could it be in the religion itself?
This is an awful argument. Dawkins is a smart biologist and nothing more. I have yet to see decent social commentary come out of his mouth. If Dawkins wants to state something like"religion causes people to do bad things", he must be treated as nothing more than a religous nut himself. The fact is history can make no real correlations on “religion”, any modern narrative that wishes to do so ought to send off a flag of dubiousness.
There are self interest, political entities and people in power, they will always use whatever tools are to their advantage at the moment; be it it democracy, Islam, atheism, scientific narrative, whether Jim should have been voted off the island instead of Sally on Who Wants to Be A Reality Star, or “the good cause”.
As far as to “how can one be cruel over and over again”, this is simply inherent in the nature of a position of authority, not of “religion”. It is in the culture and mechanics of authority (be it by libertarian standards"just" or “unjust”). That said, while you can call Saladin “cruel”, I still don’t see how he is “more cruel” than his average contemporary Western king.
Saladin a devout muslim according to who? From what you told me it comes obvious that he wasn’t devout since the only fighting he’d be allowed to undertake would be in defense.
But the picture you paint is real slanted- who at the time of Al-Andalus wanted to live in Christian Europe? Why ignore all the slaughters of innocents that the crusaders took a part in- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews_in_the_First_Crusade . That wasn’t very nice either.
Either way- it can’t be the religion itself. Simply because there are adherents of the religion that don’t engage in barbarous acts(and see the religion as condemning that kind of stuff). Its people- whatever justification they use is irrelevant and will only force you to collectivize individuals.
Religion isn’t the only way you can get good people to do bad things- people who say that have an agenda and just aren’t creative enough.
Just to clarify who those people are in this story- was it Raynald of Chatillon that was beheaded? "Saladin invited the king [Guy] to sit beside him, and when Arnat [Raynald] entered in his turn, he seated him next to his king and reminded him of his misdeeds. “How many times have you sworn an oath and violated it? How many times have you signed agreements you have never respected?” Raynald answered through a translator: “Kings have always acted thus. I did nothing more.” During this time King Guy was gasping with thirst, his head dangling as though drunk, his face betraying great fright. Saladin spoke reassuring words to him, had cold water brought, and offered it to him. The king drank, then handed what remained to Raynald, who slaked his thirst in turn. The sultan then said to Guy: “You did not ask permission before giving him water. I am therefore not obliged to grant him mercy.” After pronouncing these words, the sultan smiled, mounted his horse, and rode off, leaving the captives in terror. He supervised the return of the troops, and then came back to his tent. He ordered Raynald brought there, then advanced before him, sword in hand, and struck him between the neck and the shoulder-blade. When Raynald fell, he cut off his head and dragged the body by its feet to the king, who began to tremble. Seeing him thus upset, Saladin said to him in a reassuring tone: “This man was killed only because of his maleficence and perfidy”.
That guy was the one who attacked a caravan which broke the truce between Saladin and the Crusaders. The picture is a bit different from the one painted. According to my extreme research using wikipedia resources- Raynald was seen as kind of a pirate.