Cross and the Crescent

¶ … Cross and the Crescent

The main role of Richard Fletcher's The Cross and the Crescent is that it presents a concise history of the relations between Muslims and Christians in a period characterized by histeria and fear in the United States, regarding anything related to Muslims. This history of Muslim-Christian relations comes at the opportune moment, as it explains in a very balanced way the relation that these two different cultures had in time, partly explaining the actual conflict between these two worlds.

While the discussions in the Middle East between Christians and Muslims were peacefull, the same can not be said about the way Muslims were seen in the Christian world. They were always regarded as a potential threat, due to some historical events that pointed in this direction (for example, Constantinopole was constantly under attack).

Not all relations between Muslims and Christians were of a violent nature, as there existed some colaboration between them in history. This colaboration was in the area of commerce that the two developed in the Mediterranean region. This commerce led to a trade in technology (the invention of abacus and the production of paper) that led to a stronger relation between cultures. But this relation of trade was not later developed any further, as the two did not show any interest in eachother's religion.

The relation between Islam and Christianity was not a very close and cooperative one throughout history, as it is not so even today. The historical tour that Fletcher makes ends in the early 16th century, when the Islam world was far more developed and sophisticated than the western Europeans. This is why Muslims did not view Christians as competition. But, as the European civilization developed in a spectacular way, the Muslims were shocked by the effect that this new rising civilization had on them.

Fletcher's book focuses on the attitude that the Muslims had regarding to the Christians and vice-versa more than to purely historical aspects. For example, he pays not so much attention to the historical events of the crusades, but to the effect they had on the Muslim population. The book provides a valuable insight to Islam and to the relations between Islam and Christianity.

The Muslims were seen as barbarians, as they invaded many Christian countries and conquered, especially during the Ottoman Empire, large territories of Christian population. This almost permanent military conflict between Muslims and Christians led to the formation of various anti-Muslim opinions in the Christian writings. By comparison, the Muslims rarely mention the Christians in their writings, and when they do, they refer to them as being ignorant, backwards, this due to the fact that in the time frame that Fletcher presents, the Muslims were far more civilized and evolved than the Christians.

The Muslims were technologically speaking more evolved than the Christians and believed to be superior to them in many aspects. As Islam was an evolved civilization with a strong culture, they were superior from some points-of-view to the Christians. The western civilization was not yet defined at that time and this is why when the Muslims felt superior, they were not completely wrong.

The importance of analyzing the relations between Muslims and Christians is great in a point where wars and very violent conflicts bring the two cultures to different sides. The hatred of the Muslims against America and other western countries (Christian) is rooted in the historical background that led to the so radical separation between the two cultures. It is important that we have an insight into the Muslim world in order to understand some aspects of their culture.

Richard Fletcher presents how misunderstandings between Muslims and Christians have been present since their earliest encounters. Both sides have always regarded the other religion as fundamentally different, despite any interaction that took place in history. Christians saw Muslims as barbarian pagans and Muhammad as a false prophet, while Muslims believed that Christianity was a gathering of sects. As Fletcher put it, "Christian and Muslim lived side by side in a state of mutual religious aversion. Given these circumstances, if religious passions were to be stirred up, confrontation would probably be violent."

The Cross and the Crescent provides some very important information about the Islam civilization and culture and thus it presents the Arab world in a more comprehensive way, by introducing the westerner into history while underlining the Muslim culture. As the author presents in the first chapter, Ishmael's Children, "the Arabs were semi-nomadic tribes people," often seen with disdain and characterized as "a destructive people." A very interesting aspect that the book reveals is that the Christian writers explained how the Arabs are by appealing to the Bible. In genesis 16 we discover the life of Ishmael and he is described as "a wild man, his hand against every man's, and every man's hand against his; and he shall live at odds with all his kinsmen." It is interesting to see how little the attitude of Christians towards Muslims has changed. The Arabs were seen as barbarians because of their nomad way of life. Their goal was to conquer as many land as possible, using its richness and then move on. This aspect was still preserved in the later centuries, when Arabs managed to create empires, remaining well-known for their violent way.

Islam is presented in this book as a culture and a civilization that evolved from a nomad style of living to an imperialistic one, but at all times their characteristics of conquerors remained. The Arabs as a general term used by Christians for all Muslims were seen as being violent and constantly trying to enlarge their territories.

Another aspect that is revealed by The Cross and the Crescent related to the relations between the Arab world and the Christian one. In the second chapter, identified sugestively An Elephant for Charlemagne, the author presents the building of the Islamic empire and the role that the existing christian and persian state structures played in the Umayyad Caliphate, and how the Abbasid Caliphate sought and achieved an entirely Muslim identity, symbolized in the capital moving from Damascus to the purpose-built Baghdad.

The title of the chapter comes from the gift that the Abbasid Caliph Harun ar-Rashid gave to Charlemagne on the occasion of his crowning as Emperor in Rome in December 800. Along with the elephant, the caliph also gave Charlemagne a mechanical clock, that was seen as a marvellous mechanical contraption, a symbol of how evolved the Arabs were. This object must have represented for Charlemagne an ocassion of learning and progress, as it was far more advanced technologically speacking than the Christian technology. But the gift with the elephant proves that there were some connections between Muslims, Christians and Nordic pagans. The elephant was given as a gift in order to present to the whole world the richness of Islam, as this must have been the conclusion that the Christians have drawn. They must have seen Islam as a rich, developed part of the world, that had acces to technological progress and richness.