Frederick II: Medieval Multiculturalism? January 5, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval , trackback
Frederick II stands as one of the most fascinating figures of the Middle Ages. Not the least interesting aspect of his personality was his entirely unmedieval attitude to God and to matters religious, perhaps partly a result of his upbringing in a still residually Muslim Sicily: he had a disconcerting habit of acting like an enlightenment prince, who had accidentally walked into the thirteenth century. This is a passage from Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi, Mirat al Zaman, relating to Frederick’s negotiated ‘conquest’ of Jerusalem:
When the time came for the midday prayer and the muezzins’ cry rang out, all his pages and valets rose, as well as his tutor, a Sicilian with whom Frederick was reading [Aristotle’s] Logic in all its chapters, and offered canonic prayer, for they were all Muslims. The emperor Frederick, as these same custodians recall, had a red skin, and was bald and short-sighted. Had he been a slave he would not have been worth two hundred dirham. It was clear from what he said that he was a materialist and that his Christianity was simply a game to him.
This is pretty perceptive. Love the slave crack. What comes next is remarkable.
Al-Kamil [the Egyptian sultan] had ordered the qadi of Nablus, Shams ad-Din, to tell the muezzins that during the emperor’s stay in Jerusalem they were not to go up into their minarets and give the call to prayer in the sacred precinct. The qadi forgot to tell the muezzins, and so the muezzain ‘Abd al-Karim mounted his minaret at dawn and began to recite the Koranic verses about the Christians, such as ‘No son did God beget’, referring to Jesus son of Mary, and other such texts. In the morning the qadi called ‘Abd al-Karim to him and said ‘What have you done? The sultan’s command was thus and thus.’ He replied ‘You did not tell me; I am sorry.’ The second night he did not give the call. The next morning the emperor summoned the qadi, who had come to Jerusalem as his personal advisor and he been responsible for handing the city over to him, and said: ‘Qadi, where is the man who yesterday climbed the minaret and spoke these words?’ The qadi told him of the sultan’s orders. ‘You did wrong, qadi; would you alter your rites and law and faith for my sake? If you were staying in my country, would I order the bells to be silenced for your sake? By God, do not do this; this is the first time that we have found fault in you!’ Then he distributed a sum of money among the custodians and muezzins and pious men in the sanctuary; ten dinar to each. He spent only two nights in Jerusalem and then returned to Jaffa, for fear of the Templars, who wanted to kill him. [translation taken from Hallam, Crusades]
It would be interesting to know if the Muslims in Jerusalem were as disgusted as the Christians, Beach suspects so. Poor old Frederick was born in the wrong century, no one admired a medieval liberal: drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com
