Among the many colourful and captivating characters who people Elizabeth Drayson’s authoritative, fascinating account of 1,300 years of shared Islamic and European history is Abbas ibn Firnas, born around 810 in what is now southern Spain but was then the Muslim-ruled emirate of Cordoba. An innovative scientist who is remembered as the father of aeronautics and optics, he attempted an Icarus-like experiment in early flight which did not go well. Luckily, he survived to conduct important work on corrective reading glasses.
The there is Adelard of Bath, born around 270 years later in the south-west English city. Also a scientist, he made long journeys throughout the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean in an effort to learn from Arab scholars. On his return to England, he became an adviser at Henry I’s court and eventually retired to publish a hugely important translation of key works by Arab mathematicians which introduced algebra to Christian Europe.
Drayson also recounts the deeds of the extraordinary Hungarian ruler Vlad Dracul, and his better-known son, Vlad III the Impaler, who fought the forces of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II after murdering two envoys in predictably brutal fashion. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was at the battle of Lepanto in 1571, which halted the Ottoman naval advance westwards. He was later captured by Muslim privateers, from whom he eventually escaped on his fourth attempt to return to Spain. His experiences of living among Muslims left a fundamental imprint on his masterpiece Don Quixote, since he was heavily influenced by an Arabic manuscript that he had discovered in a market.
Later, there is a Parisian artist who founded a society of orientalist painters, then bought a house in Algeria and converted to Islam; and, more or less contemporaneously, an Egyptian scholar and reformer who travelled to the French capital and returned home sufficiently impressed to introduce words such as ‘republic’ and ‘nation’ into Arabic. There is Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the radical modernising leader, whose mix of visionary politics and violence is nicely described, as well as his influence on the Nazis.
To these can be added a host of ambassadors, tradesmen, kings, queens, sultans, translators, errant poets, lovers, spies and, of course, soldiers. Drayson does not shy away from the violence and confrontation that is as much a part of the relationship between Islam and Europe as the scientific, commercial and cultural exchanges she spends much of the book describing.
Throughout, Crucible of Light underlines the complexity of relations, both individual and collective, between the Islamic world and Europe. Visitors to the Crusader colonies in Palestine were astonished to find trade thriving between the newer arrivals and Arab businessmen. Soldiers who fought and killed under the banner of faith were often acting for other motives, and many had a genuine respect for and interest in their enemies. The close relationship of successive rulers of France, monarchic and republican, and the Ottomans, survived successive conflicts involving other Christian and Muslim powers. There were medieval rulers in Europe who spoke good Arabic and made significant efforts to understand the Muslim faith. El Cid, the great Christian warrior of legend, also fought for Muslim rulers as a mercenary. Muslim combatants were key to the Polish king Jan Sobieski’s victory over the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683. The men who built the magnificent cathedral of Chartres used Islamic designs and techniques.
Happily, Drayson avoids simplistic conclusions. Early on, she takes issue with Samuel Huntingdon’s 1996 prediction that future conflicts would inevitably see a clash between the Muslim world and western Christendom. Huntingdon’s claim that Islam has ‘bloody borders’ received much attention in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and is now reprised by certain right-wing figures in Europe, the US and the UK. But Drayson also acknowledges that ‘there is no doubt that contemporary Europe is at political, religious and cultural loggerheads with Islam’, and that
with some justification we might see current encounters with Islam precisely in terms of migration, extreme violence and religious hostility, all issues with deep roots going back to the birth of Islam itself and its arrival on the European continent.
Along with the characters that throng her busy pages, Drayson fills Crucible of Light with careful explorations of Sicily, Malta, Tatarstan, Granada, Cordoba and odd corners of the Balkans, where, as she points out, a huge European Muslim population lived for many centuries. Venice, she notes, came close to becoming an oriental city, thanks to its close commercial relationship with the Sublime Porte. Her scholarship provides much evidence that any community which shuns the exchange of ideas with different cultures is much the poorer, both intellectually and economically.
A clear-eyed recognition of the shared historical experience described in her book could ‘sow the seeds of understanding, reconciliation and respect’, Drayson suggests, and perhaps lead to acceptance and mutual enlightenment. She cites Daniel Barenboim, the Jewish pianist and conductor, who, with Edward Said, the late Palestinian-American academic, founded in 1999 the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which brings together musicians from Muslim, Christian and Jewish countries of the Middle East and Spain. Barenboim admitted that such an endeavour might not lead to peace; but it could at least prompt individuals to listen to the narrative of others. In these times, such prompting is needed more than ever.
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