Gone Medieval - Medieval Europe's Encounter with Islam

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

What if the Renaissance was powered by Arabic science?Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by Dr. Elizabeth Drayson to uncover how figures like Constantine the African and Fibonacci transformed European learning and commerce by channelling Islamic knowledge into Latin Christendom. They dive into records from multicultural Spain and Sicily, where Islamic science, mathematics, and medicine helped forge the foundations of “Western” progress.MOREThe Rise and Fall of Al-AndalusListen on AppleListen on SpotifyThe Destruction of Charlemagne's LegacyListen on AppleListen on SpotifyGone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanorianica and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots and murders that tell us who we really were.

And how we got here. I want you to imagine the dusty road from Tunis to Salerno sometime in the 11th century. A weary traveler is making his way towards Europe, carrying not silks, not gold, but books. His name is Constantine the African, a merchant-turned scholar who has spent years in the libraries of North Africa, immersed in the medical wisdom of the Islamic world. When he arrives at the medical school of Salerno, he has brought with him Arabic manuscripts on pharmacology, surgery, and the theory of disease. Works by Avicenna and Al-Razi. For the first time, European students can begin.

to learn medicine not just from Galen or Hippocrates, but through the lens of Islamic science, preserved, expanded, and translated by Muslim scholars. It is a turning point. The Mediterranean here is a bridge, not a boundary. One generation later, another restless mind is following the same path. Alderate of Bath, an English scholar with a taste for travel, crosses into Spain and southern Italy to study Arabic. He will later confess,

I learn from my Arab teachers, and return to England with treasures. Euselid's elements, works on astronomy, and instruments for observation. He will introduce not just text, but methods, reasoning, experimentation, calculation, calculation, that will reshape how Europeans approach science. To Aldred, Arabic learning isn't foreign.

It's a revelation, a window into a deeper intellectual tradition. And then, into the early 13th century, along comes Leonardo of Pisa, better known as Fibonacci. Unlike Constantine or Aldred, his journey isn't spurred by books but by business. Growing up in the bustling ports of Algeria where his father works as a merchant, young Leonardo has been struck by the elegance of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. He has marveled at how easily traders perform calculations with these strange symbols. It's so much more efficient than the cumbersome Roman numerals still used in Europe. When Fibinacci brings this system home, he unleashes a quiet revolution.

merchants learn how to balance accounts, convert currencies, and measure profit with unprecedented precision. Suddenly, European commerce can keep pace with the sophistication of Islamic markets. The very fabric of trade, double-entry bookkeeping, contracts, loans, will rest on a foundation that can be traced back to Baghdad, Damascus, and Cordoba. The examples of Constantine the African, Adelarcki, of Bath and Fibonacci are just three among a multitude of stories that challenge the conventional narrative of perpetual conflict between Christians and Muslims in Europe. In her new book, Crucible of Light, Islam and the Forging of Europe from the 8th of the 21st century, my guest today, Dr. Elizabeth

Dr. Elizabeth Dr. Jason presents Europe as a vessel of transformation, where Islamic and Christian civilizations forged a hybrid European identity through both conflict and collaboration. from the 8th to the 21st centuries. It's the story of ideas in motion, how Islamic knowledge didn't just flow into Europe but transformed it, laying the groundwork for the Renaissance and beyond. It's a reminder that the progress of civilization has always depended on exchange, curiosity,

and the courage of wanderers who dared to learn from the other. Elizabeth, welcome to God medieval. Hello, Eleanor. you very much. Thank you for welcoming me. It's great to be on the show. We are delighted to have you here because I cannot say enough good things about Crucible of Light and what I think is a really important book, both just historically in general, but especially in the current political climate. And I suppose a great place to start talking about it is to talk about your really incredible ability to write this book that goes against the overly simplistic

and let's be honest, really childish clash of civilization's narratives that a lot of us have grown up with. And that we're really familiar with as a result, what were some of the things that surprised you when you were doing this research? Some of the things that I think you've done a great job of highlighting in the book are that there are Islamic influences behind things that we now just consider to be totally quintessentially European. Well, I suppose the biggest thing

you mentioned the translation of learning and what was translated from Arabic. A huge amount. I mean, the main body, I would say, of Greek mathematical and scientific learning was translated originally into Arabic by the Arabs. And then when they had a foothold in medieval Spain, majority, I would say, the important texts of that body of work were translated from Arabic

into Latin and later into vernacular Spanish. And that was carried out at various times at translation schools, which were mainly based in the city of Toledo. And we have some in the 12th century, we have some in 13th century. What happened was that scholars traveled from northwestern European countries, from the UK, from France, from Italy, from Germany, to translate collaboratively at the school. And they worked very often with an Arab colleague and a Jewish colleague. Jewish scholars often acted as intermediaries between Arabic scholars and the European ones. And so it was in that way, it was a very long, painstaking process, really,

that took place over probably a couple of hundred years, that this enormous body of learning that had sort of really lost to Europe, Northwestern Europe at the time, was translated and made its way up into northwest Europe and was discussed in the universities there and gradually fed its way into the evolution of scientific knowledge in Europe. Yeah, I think that that's such an important one because, you know, in my studies I was always quite taken with because one of my side interests is magic. And so I was really particularly interested in the court of Alphonse of the 10th and the scriptorias that he controlled. And how much was being translated in and out of Arabic into Latin and all of the really incredible science that is making its way through there.

I mean, of course, you know, we tend to call it a natural philosophy now. But the way that there is a very lively interplay between the Islamic world and Christian world, I think is often completely overlooked for any number of reasons. But I mean, you've mentioned already the fact that this is a history, this, you know, the convivencia, you know, which I think we don't want to kind of overdo it, you know, this idea that there is always a really peaceful and harmonious relationship between Muslims and Christians on the Iberian. Peninsula, but it certainly is there. And we know for a fact, for example, this is something that is suppressed under Franco, but we see similar things, for example, in the Central European context, because there is rather a lot put into this idea that there is this constant Ottoman looming, that is the threatening Central European ideals as well. And this is something that is really kind of pushed forward in an imperial context there as well. I mean, these are, you know, the more

obvious examples because you have these particular political movements that seek to put forward that ideal. But what else can we see across Europe that feeds this? Well, I think there are two aspects to that. I mean, I think as regards the legacy of medieval history, certainly in Spain after 1492, which was the year when the Christian reconquist was finally achieved and Granada fell to the Christian monarchs of Ferdinand and Isabella. After that, there was a great suppression of what was Islamic. And Spain forged a completely different country from the one that there had been. They suppressed knowledge. They tried to make it solely a Catholic country, and that went on really until the death of Franco. Because he espoused this policy of National

Catholicism as well. which I sort of talked about how that all changed in the 1980s. And I think later the Renaissance scholars turned to the Greek and Latin past and bypassed the Islamic element. I think there was just a persistent unwillingness to acknowledge that presence. Although we come across great scholars like Sir Isaac Newton, who had a selection of important Arabic works in his library, his personal library, and referred to them and used them in his own work.

And we have examples, you know, like Copernicus, who everyone thinks. I think that Copernicus discovered the heliocentric system for the universe himself. And in fact, he based it very closely upon 12th century Arab astronomers' work. I mean, this is how we get most of our Aristotle, really, in the Middle Ages, is specifically through the Arabic school, which I always find that very funny because, you know, that there's the myth of this idea that medieval Europe has completely lost all classical knowledge and it needs to sit around and wait for the Renaissance. But at the same time, part of the reason why that myth is so pervasive as nobody wants to admit that the way that we got it was through

the Arabic line of thinking, which I thought. And I find that really interesting, you know, this desire to simply erase an entire mode of philosophy in order to serve a very particularized political agenda. Absolutely, Eleanor. Yes. I mean, I think the fall of the Roman and Persian empers was a huge historical turning point. And I think it left a vacuum. I think it left a kind of space for the new to emerge. And the new was obviously poised to do that.

And it was revolutionary. You know, I mean, the Prophet Mohammed founded this completely new, egalitarian religious movement that rock the political and religious foundations of the known world, basically, and it had this radical new ethic of the family, and it wanted to return to monotheism. And I think the fact that it spreads so lightning fast, which was quite remarkable,

was in part due to the great appeal of that for people at that time who were probably, you know, left rather stunned by what was happening around them with a collapse of their known societies and sisters, And of course, I think as well that in Islam, religion is intertwined with politics and militancy to a fine degree. And I think that helped Muslim armies to establish new states and systems much more quickly. Quite so. I mean, it's such an incredibly fascinating story. But I suppose one thing that we need to do is kind of go right back. I've launched us into the politics of it. But if we can kind of go back to the origins of Islam, How important do you think it was that this is kind of coming up as a major religion at the same time that the Persian Empire is falling apart? Certainly we've seen the Roman Empire crumbling a bit.

You know, in the West we're already into the successor states. In the East, Constance Opo is losing its ability to have quite as much say in what's going on, for example, in the African literal. Do you think that that plays a part of what we see is this quite meteoric rise? Yeah, well, I mean, in less than a century, the Islamic Empire had stretched from Central Asia to Tangiers in North West Africa. And then from, we count from the year 622, which was the date of the Hegira or Muhammad's flight from Mecca to escape from the hostility of the Mecca and pagans. It took approximately 88 years for them to reach Europe. It's astonishing. You know, so the very first Muslim raiding party landed in Tadipha on the coast of southern Spain in 710.

And then the following year, the Berber General Tadikibin Ziyadh landed at Gibraltar and defeated the Visigothic armies of King Roderic in a battle in southern Spain in July of that year. And that's the date, you know, we usually take as the date of the Islamic invasion, as it's called. So Tariq just swept through Spain. He swept northwards without any real resistance. And he got as far as the Pyrenees, with the only exception being the Christian stronghold of Asturias in the sort of mountain fastnesses up there in the north. So by 714, what we call the Muslim conquest of Iberia was actually, was complete. It was amazing. But I would think I should add, as a sort of post-scriptive that, obviously, that it was an incredibly dramatic time for the native inhabitants of Iberia, but they were not entirely unfamiliar with the Berbers and Arabs of North West Africa

because they'd been trading with them for hundreds of years. So what was new in that was the advent of Islam. And speaking of, how long does it take for Islam to reach Europe? Because we see a pretty rapid expansion into the former Byzantine areas. But what does that? What is it take in terms of getting into Europe proper? Yeah, I mean, that's right, where the Muslim is actually invited in sometimes, and I think that's a really interesting thought. If we think take the founding legend of Spain itself, which was this, you know, the story of Count Julian, who was one of Roderick's Visigothic generals, and he was posted in Saita on the North African coast. The legend goes that he

had a beautiful daughter who Roderick either violated or had a passionate affair with. And as an act of revenge, Julian invited the Muslim leaders, of course, he was in contact with being in North Africa himself, to assist him in invading Spain and defeating his enemies. So that's, you know, a sort of primary example, if you like, of inviting in the invader. Of course, that is a legend, but I think it's not far off there are lots of elements of truth in that story. One point as well I thought that I think is interesting in this regard is particularly in relation to what's going on in the world at the moment, that the first instance I know of of an alliance between peoples of the three faiths, you know, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, comes really early in the history of Islam in Europe.

And when the city of Cordoba was captured in 7-11, so in that first year, the Muslim leaders left it in the hands of a garrison made up of Jews and Christians and Muslims, and they were all in charge of its defence together. And Jewish groups often welcomed in the Muslims as they arrived in Tanza cities further north because they knew they were going to live under far less severe conditions than they'd lived under with the Visigoths. So I think that's interesting too. Yeah.

And I think that's a really important point. There tends to be this idea that there is some kind of. stasis. But even in terms of what's going on in the Iberian Peninsula, we've already very recently seen the takeover of the Visigoths. You know, we're already used to new groups coming in and controlling things. So this is just sort of, you know, one of the groups we already know, kind of moving in a little bit more. But you make a really great point in the second chapter of your book about when the so-called conquest happens. Because this isn't always necessarily a matter of bloody conquest, right? You know, there's a sort of.

times when people say, oh, look, it's our neighbors, the Berbers. Come on in. Yes, I mean, that's absolutely right. You know, it's a very complex situation, really. There's nothing clear-cut or black and white about it. And I think, you know, an awful lot of the time, yes, I mean, certainly if people resisted the Muslim armies at the beginning, then they didn't meet a very nice fate. But people seem to soon, very soon, settled down. And of course, they intermarried, mixed with each other at an early stage. That changed later on in the Middle Ages. But there was a very great degree of interchange and interaction on what I think are quite amicable, tolerant terms, really right from the start. Oh, absolutely. And this is something that we see repeatedly, especially in this period that I don't think you can talk about it enough, really, is that

when you do have Muslims come and take over a particular. particularly high society, they want Jewish people and Christian people around because someone has to pay the jiz yet. You know, someone's got to pay the taxes around here. So it's not as though that this is something that is an all-crushing, all-consuming cultural defeat. It's more of an opening up for a lot of people, and certainly for Jewish people. It represents new possibilities for freedom, really. Oh, my goodness, yes. Yes. I mean, we have fabricated, holy writings, we have hostile histories, and even in sung poetry. So what come to mind are three instances of that. And the first one I know of was a book by a Syrian priest, which has the rather

weird title of the apocalypse of pseudo-Muthodeus. And this priest was pretending to be a church father of the fourth century, hence the name Mephodius. So he wrote this book in the late 600s, AD, and in it he paints a picture of Islam as a punishment for Christian sexual depravity, which was also actually what historians made of what happened to King Roderick. They saw the Muslim invasion as a punishment for the sexual depravity of the Visigoths. So this Syrian priest really got his teeth stuck into this and, you know, he criticised homosexuality, cross-dressing and even swinging, he mentioned. So, So, you know, it was really quite an extraordinary sort of start to these fabricated narratives. And then, of course, there was the venerable Beed, the great English historian of the 7th and 8th century as well.

Beed is interesting because he had quite a change of heart about what he thought about Islam and Arabia. And to start with, I don't think he thought anything about Islam, as a matter of fact. He called them Saracens, which means, comes from the Greek word Sarakanoi, which means people of the tents. So he saw them as wanderers as nomads. And he described Arabia as a pleasant place in his writing. And he wrote about how the Muslim Caliphs had allied with Christians against the Jews. However, by about 7.30, which is when Beade was writing his great ecclesiastical history of the English people, there was quite a severe threat from those Saracen invaders because they'd reached Gaul,

which is now, of course, part of France, and so their threat of that was looming. So Bede constructed this really rather extraordinary narrative, which he based on the book of Genesis. And he set out this idea that Ishmael, who was the son of Abraham and is an important prophet in Islam, was illegitimate because he was the son. was legitimate. He was the son of Abraham and his servant Hagar, but therefore Ishmael was an outcast and a wandering warrior, and he founded and prefigured, you know, the advancing Saracen armies. And this was all set in opposition to Abraham's legitimate son with his wife, Sarah, who was Isaac, who's equated with the foundations of Christianity. But I don't think B, he still didn't refer to their religion

as such in his writing. You know, he just seemed to, as you said, really, I think, as you said, really, think to view them as just another group of non-Christian invaders. And then if I may, I'd love just to mention an example of this in the 11th century in sung poetry. And this example is about the great French epic poem, the Chanson de Hollande, the song of Roland. Of course, Roland was a count, a Frankish count at the court of Charlemagne, and very famous, described as Bravest of the Brave. so an elite soldier. And what had happened was that Charlemagne had decided he was going to try and attack the Muslims in Spain.

He launched a campaign against them, and they didn't really get very far. So Charlemagne decided they would high-tail it out of the north of Spain and go back destroying one or two cities on the way. And they had to go through the Pyrenees to do that. And they went through a pass, which is called Rensvopalz or Rompis Valiers in Spanish. And as they did so, Roland was in charge of the baggage train at the back,

and it was attacked by a group of Basque guerrillas, not Muslim guerrillas, but Basques, who were taking revenge for Charlemagne's sacking Pamplona. And shockingly, Roland and his men were all killed to a man, by these bas-garillas. So it was a terrible ignominious defeat for Charlemagne, and it wasn't really written about much in the annals at all and chronicles until quite a bit later. But in the 11th century, a poet wrote this song of Roland, the epic poem, and he completely reinterpreted it, which I think is a rather nice way of putting it in a way.

And he casts Roland as a great hero who fought against the Muslims, and it lionizes Charlemagne, you know, as a champion of Christianity over Islam, and it created what the wonderful historian David Levering Lewis called one of the great constitutive myths of Christendom. And it is quite extraordinary, I think, to me, to see the power of that work of literature and the influence that is exerted on future generations and their view of the conflict between those two faiths. Now, you've already mentioned the legend of Tarek, which is incredibly important, but at the same time that Muslims are really making their mark in Europe, we see similar kind of fabricated narratives that are coming from Christian writers. Is that correct?

Yes. Yes. I mean, it's remarkable. And so it's been it pulled the wool over people's eyes. For Iml, it pulled the wool over my eyes as a student too. I didn't know that at all until I. further into the subject? I think that this is such an important point because I think that there is this tendency to write off literature or mythologies as somehow, oh, I don't know, just fluff. You know, there's just stories that we tell that don't necessarily mean anything. But changing the Basques into an army of Muslims is a pretty big deal. And the chanson de Roland, this is something that gets brought up over and over again. I see people now look to it as though it is a formative text that is telling a real story,

despite the fact that it is literature. This is why, you know, historians have to keep doing the work, right? Because it's so easy to just kind of go along with the story that you're told. And that's why we do the digging in the first place. But, I mean, I don't want to spend the entire conversation just talking about these silly myths. Because one of the things you do really well in the book is you highlight the incredible and very European successes of the Muslims who are living here as well. And in particular, you talk about one of my very favorite places in the world of Cordova,

which in the 8 to 11th centuries experiences this incredible Umeyid golden age. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of Abid al-Raman in this and his emergence? I'd love to do that. Abdel Rahman, the first is one of my great heroes. he was hugely important. He was hugely important because he was Europe's first true emir, and he was a major medieval ruler. And yet, you know, he's not part of traditional histories or educational courses.

I mean, if you ask someone who, you know, who knows a bit about medieval history, they'll probably know about Richard III. They'll probably know about King John. No one, very few people will have heard of Abd al-Rahmahm in the first. And he was nothing short of astonishing. I mean, his life story is startling to start with. I mean, he was an Ayad prince, a prince of that dynasty, and he came from Syria. And his family was massacred, with obviously the exception of himself and his brother,

by a rival tribe, the Abbasids, who did find a really important dynasty with its court in Baghdad finally. but Abdhar Rahman managed to escape with his brother. His brother unfortunately didn't make it. He was massacred in front of Abdel Rahman's eyes. Abdel Rahman and the servant managed to flee across Africa, and they went into exile, got to the North African coast and crossed into Spain. And Abdelah Kham got lots of support when he arrived, and he very quickly conquered Cordoba and set up what was the first.

Emirate in Europe and he was only 24 at the time. And it was an extraordinary state because it had an ethos of tolerance. It was environmentally green. All the agriculture was rethought. The lands were terraced in a different way. Water was conserved. It was a remarkable place and it brought huge prosperity to the people who lived there. And Abd al-Rachman was seen as a great man by other Muslim leaders, in particular his enemy, Al-Mansur, who was another, a minor emir, and he described him as the falcon of the Quresh. Abtar Rahm was a great man.

One of the things that I think as historians, we really have to thank him for, is that in Cordoba, he puts a lot of work into very specifically cultivating a culture of literacy and libraries. I mean, we know that he's got something like, I think it's 70 libraries. that are extant in Cordoba at the time?

That probably sounds about right for that era. Of course, later on, Cordoba became the biggest book market in Western Europe in the 10th century. Maybe I'll say a bit more about that in due course. But yes, the creation of libraries were, it was remarkable. There was this extraordinary desire to pull together knowledge, to collaborate with other Arabic countries, with Baghdad, and, yes, create a generally intellectual climate, I think, of progressive nature there. Also, he created all these extraordinary botanical and herb gardens,

which were really, really important at the time. It was like a green revolution, in that sure, fact. So those herbles and new plants that were grown there all formed part of what became the European herbal later and was a main source for doctors to cure people. And the biggest thing I think Abd al-Rachman founded, perhaps, was the first incarnation of the Great Mosque. Of course, you cannot get away without talking about the Great Mosque. No.

You know, it's just one of those wonders of the world, you know. Absolutely. I mean, it's a major symbol of Islamic power in Europe. And so it had lots and lots of different stages in its development and it was added to and so on. Rahmahuan began it at the end of his reign, and he saw it, his first version finished anyway. So, yeah, so I mean, really he created a kind of cultural utopia of tolerance and abundance and and prosperity.

I think that it is really interesting to talk about the Great Mosque as well, because I think that this is one of these quintessentially really medieval buildings, because you see it containing a lot of nods to the cultures around it. And they recycle Roman and Visigothic materials, which is such a medieval thing to do. You go around, find the good pieces that can be used and reuse them. I think one of the things that is really important about the Great Mosque as well is, you know, it is this really enigmatic building. It's something that still attracts us now.

And it's got all these wonderful medieval elements that bring it together, you know, bits of Roman and Visigothic materials. it's really a great symbol of Cordoba and how it has this melding of cultures. But also I think that there's this kind of tendency to think that it was somehow an affront to Christianity. And I think that's possibly due to its conversion into a cathedral in later years. But one of the things that I used to teach when I would be teaching Charles V, you know, great Holy Roman emperor, very early modern, is he, he's, he, sees the conversion of the great mosque into Cordoba and he has this great quote about it in the 16th century. He says you've taken something that was unique in the world and you've turned it into something mundane. And I think that is incredibly important because when, if we fall into the trap of saying that there's always been this incredibly fracturous relationship between Muslims and Christians. And certainly Charles V is a huge part of this story, you know, with the Habsburgs fighting the Ottomans constantly. that flattens the fact that people are still able to see things like the Mesquita as important,

even when they're in the very midst of these real battles. Yeah, it was slightly ironic, really, because Charles V gave the permission for the cathedral to be built in the center of the mosque. He hadn't seen it at that stage, had he? And that was begun in 1523. I think it had really arisen because there was a great deal of lobbying on the part of the Christian authorities in Cordoba to bring it into the programme of conversion of Muslim buildings, of Islamic buildings, after 1492, when there was this programme of making or Christianising everything, and that included the environment, the skyline, everything, you know, buildings particularly.

but I think probably what Charles saw when he actually had it in front of him, as it were, was he realized that it was usurps and appropriates what was there, which was, you know, unique, as he put it. And of course it asserts Christian authority, doesn't it? So on that level, I think it's, you know, it's seen as a very contentious a building altogether, the cathedral inside the mosque. You might say, well, isn't it a sign that, you know, the coming together of the two religions, but no, of course, one is imposed rough slap-bang in the centre,

the centre of the mosque, part of which had to be demolished to do that. You know, and really, it was a bit of cultural brutality, I think, to do that in actual fact. But, of course, you know, I mean, as you know, I'm sure there's still a great deal of contention surrounding the Great Mosque nowadays because Muslims still aren't allowed to worship in a building which was where that was the original purpose of it. Yeah. It's always, it's been a very contentious building since it was then. I think it's got the conversion of it into a cathedral

has tremendous historical importance, but I'm telling you it is a crime against architecture and taste. It is, it's truly hideous what they did in what is otherwise one of the most sublime buildings in the world. So it's, but... Yeah, I agree with you. Okay, but well, let's not dwell on it. But let's talk a little bit more about the Islamic contribution to scholarship and science at the time, which is, especially in the sixth chapter of your book, you talk about this a lot. What kinds of things here might the average person find surprising about the Islamic contribution to mathematics, for example? Okay. Well, I think in a more general way, what was very surprising about the Islamic contribution to scholarship and science

was the collaboration and the deep reverence for scholarship that took place amid severe conflict that was going on in other parts of the world and around them. And you had these collaborations between Cordoba and the Byzantine Empire and Baghdad. And in addition to that, I think what was surprising was the degree of cultural importance of the work carried out in Cordoba. You mentioned mathematics. Well, we take the example of the scholar Al-Qarizmi, who was head of the famous House of Wisdom,

which was this wonderful library and scholarly sort of center in Baghdad, and he was a mathematical genius. And the Cordoban polymath Ibn Afirnas, him of the first flight and the feathered wings, traveled to Baghdad to bring back copies of Al-Qarizmi's great mathematics. works. And in doing so, he introduced to Cordoba and ultimately to Western Europe what we call our Arabic numerals. And as I mentioned, a while back algorithms, which of course is a Latinized version of Al-Qarizmi's name. And those discoveries, I mean, they underpin the whole mathematical

knowledge, I think, of the entire Western world. That's the astonishing thing to take on board. But, I mean, there was a similar process with the medical works, too, medicine. The great Al-Zafrawi, who was called Abul-Kasiz in Latin, was born in Cordoba. And he was a court physician to the caliph. And he wrote a book called The Method of Medicine, which contained pioneering discoveries we still use today, particularly in the field of surgery. But he pioneered the use of forceps, the surgical syringe. early inhaled anaesthetics. And he was the main source of medical knowledge in Europe for centuries.

And so that was an important medical text that got translated and relayed to North Western Europe. How long did it take these sorts of information to filter through to the generalized European population? Is this something that has a tremendous uptake right away or does it take a while to get people on board? Well, I mean, it took. I mean, you can imagine it took a long time. It was a long time. slow process of translation and assimilation. I would say over several centuries, really. And it was done in Spain and in Sicily too, and there, you know, Christian, Muslim and Jewish scholars all collaborated on translations that passed that vital scientific knowledge to the West. And one of my examples and springs to mind is Gerbert of Oriak, who studied Arab science at a monastery near Barcelona.

and the bishop of that monastery called Atta had travelled to Cordoba and he'd met the caliph and he told Gerbert about all the wonders of Arab culture and a science, including he told him about the new mathematical system of numbers, the Hindu, what they called the Hindu Arabic numerals. So Gerbert was the first Christian scholar to take Arabic knowledge outside Spain, in fact. He invented an abacus or a sort of preliminary, counting machine, counting system, which used Arabic numerals rather than the Roman ones they'd used before. And the amazing thing about German was that he became Sylvester II and head of

the Christian church. So here we have an illustrious scientist who admired and embraced Muslim knowledge, and yet he was at the peak of the Christian, head of the Christian church. So it was a great symbol, I think, of the harmonious conjunction of Muslim. and Christians in that regard. Another translator, an important translator, was Gerardo Cremona, who lived in the 12th century, and he was really a giant. So he travelled from Italy to Toledo, and he translated over 70 of the most brilliant works of Arab science during his lifetime.

And what made it even more remarkable was that he didn't know Arabic. So when he got to Toledo, he had to teach himself So that gives you an idea, Eleanor, if you like, of the sort of laboriousness of the process and how long it must have taken. And then, you know, he was helped by an Arab friend he had who translated some of the Arabic works into vernacular Spanish, and then he put it into Latin. And so it was in this way that the great medical works by Galen, Hippocrates, and Ptolemy's Alamogest, the greatest astronomical work were translated. and that's how that Greek and Arab learning reached North Western schools and monasteries. I'm going to drag us, I think, kicking and screaming out of Spain

because I wanted to talk a little bit about Sicily, which I'm also slightly obsessed with. We really see another one of these multicultural societies to emerge there. What's special about the Sicilian context? And is this really something that we can say is brought about as a result of Roger the second of Sicily? or am I being overly simplistic if I say that?

No, I don't think you are. Sicily was a Muslim island for 250 years. It started off being a Byzantine Christian island, and then it was invaded by Sunni Muslims from Tunisia in the 9th century. And, you know, it had lots of parallels with Al-Andalus in Spain. It was cross-cultural. It had a thriving intellectual community. It was a place where Arab and Byzantine and Latin cultures met.

but then in the late 10th century, the Normans who controlled southern Italy took it over. And there they created, what they managed to do was to bring together lots of different cultural groups on the island and created a tolerant, flourishing community of diverse religions. And Roger, I think Roger the second of Sicily probably is the great epitome of that in his persona. I mean, his father, Roger, who was also Roger, Roger the first, who was count of Sicily, had begun life as a Norman warlord who lived as a bandit in the hills and robbed people. But when he got the opportunity to really make something of Sicily, he did. He laid the groundwork for what was going to become an exceptional society.

And then Roger, his son, really brought together Christian Muslims. and Jewish elements in his culture. And all was interesting is it was an inverse, the inverse of what happened in Al-Andalus, because this time, you know, it was a Latin Christian Norman ruler who was fully embracing the Muslim other, as well as the Greek and Byzantine heritage.

And so, you know, Roger, he dressed in Muslim clothes, and he had coins minted with Arabic inscriptions on them. And I think he even had a Muslim chef, I believe, I recall that correctly. You know, in his persona, he was a symbol of this extraordinary hybridity, I think. And, yeah, I mean, I think also he had this amazing map of the world created. He commissioned it, and it was created, it was called the Book of Roger, and it was created by a Muslim scholar, Muhammad Ali Dresi,

and it was the greatest single work of geography of the Middle Ages. And so it was the most accurate map of the world. world for over 300 years. And I think that map and the scope of it epitomized Rogers' immense cultural ambitions. And it was, yeah, it was engraved on a cutting edge flattened hemisphere, apparently, which weighed a huge amount, something like £400. But it was a most remarkable thing for his time and a symbol of, I suppose, his cosmopolitanism in a way and what he achieved. And what I really love about Norman, Sicily, is. Eleanor, is that, to me, it shows that kind of hybrid society can thrive.

People can exist peacefully altogether, and it can work. And I think that's very heartening thought in present times. Oh, absolutely. And I think that there's one of the things that your book does a really great job of pointing out is that oftentimes when we look at these hybrid societies, if we're looking at Norman Sicily, if we're looking at the varying Spanish kingdoms, we see these places where we have this heavy diversity as being actually at the forefront of driving progress, of driving forward intellectual pursuits.

And I really do think the key here, as you've managed to highlight so well, is a willingness to take on other viewpoints and to truly consider things from the outside. You know, it's a rigidity and a desire to only do exactly one thing that prevents you from considering, I think, the new ideas that could perhaps drive progress. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Yeah, I agree. And I think, just kind of to wrap us up, one thing that, because I hadn't really considered this before I read about it in your book. you know, everyone kind of knows, well, everyone, I say everyone, medieval historians, we all like

this story of St. Francis of Assisi going to the Sultan al-Kamil during the Crusades. And there's this really simplistic idea of looking at the Crusades that people specifically from the European side have. It's like, oh, the Crusades look these ongoing conflicts because Christians and Muslims were always at each other's throats. And, you know, if you go ask Muslim scholars, they're like, what? No. You never see any trace of this idea that Christianity is offering some kind of ongoing threat to Islam. That is just not how they perceive it to be at all. But there's this hilarious story. Here comes St. Francis of the Sisi on the Fifth Crusade.

And he's going to attempt to convert the Sultan al-Kameel. And I find this really interesting because the Sultan and sort of more or less says, no, thank you. and kind of said St. Francis on the way, which I think is a really important story, because if we really did see this existential hatred between Muslims and Christians, I just don't think it would have happened this way or played out at all. No. And I mean, I think it's an extraordinary example of how, you know, two completely disparate people from different faiths can meet together. and get on and be in a tolerant way.

I mean, this was in the Fifth Crusade, and the aim of that was to conquer Egypt and Jerusalem. And I think at the time the Christians were at the Egyptian port of Damieta, that was where their camp was in 1219. And then St. Francis decided he'd travel to Egypt and hope he could make this miraculous conversion, you know. He was incredibly brave, I think. And I suppose he wanted to try and sue for peace

and stop people being killed. But anyway, as you said, he crossed over from the Christian camp and went to see the Sultan al-Kameel in his tent. And, yeah, I think he was greeted with polite amusement. His offer of peace was rejected. But, I mean, it's just an example of a surprising and peaceful encounter between a Muslim ruler and a Catholic monk at the height, right in the middle, literally, of a violent confrontation between the faiths.

And I think there's another example of that with the relationship between Saladin and Richard the third in the crusade, you know, I mean, they had great respect for each other. So I think also I absolutely agree with you that, you know, it was really on the Christian side that people saw the crusades as a kind of never-ending conflict between the two faiths, and the Muslims didn't have that view at all of it. Yeah, I think it is an interesting one because we see, like, St. Francis in a way, almost kickstart of fad for Franciscan's attempting over and over again to intervene with really high-level Muslim rulers. In the 15th century, they're forever kind of wandering into the different conates and attempting to, to, it's very funny because everyone has sort of been mused that they're in Kazakhstan in sandals in winter and saying, oh, you know, we already have Christians, you know, and this sort of thing. But it's very sweet.

I quite like Franciscans. I have a real soft spot for them. Certainly. Well, I suppose a good way to sort of wrap up. We've been hinting at this the entire time is talking a little bit about why it's important to have these discussions, why it's important to point out that we have lots of Arabic words that have entered European languages as a result of this period.

You know, how Islamic architecture has influenced our own building practices You know, how this is as much a part of the European story as anything else. Because I do think that, you know, the 20th century did a real number on the way that we tend to think about the past. And it's attempted to put forward these myths in order to, I don't know, well, I mean, very specifically, in order to get the wars that we want to get done, done. And I think that your book has gone such a long way to questioning this idea of an ongoing class of civilization. So do you have anything else you'd like to sort of say about that before we sign off? Yes, absolutely. What I would like to think is that this will make people think in different ways about the relationship between the two cultures, you know,

and maybe to encourage better kinds of political and cultural and social interaction between Muslims. Muslim groups and non-Muslim groups and Christian groups. Because what I think really is one of the important messages I wanted to convey in the book is that I think we need to rethink the nature of European identity. You know, it isn't separate. It isn't here's Europe and here are the Islamic empires. They are on a continuum and they are part of each other and they are so deeply interwoven at all levels. that we need to think of it in a different way historically entirely.

And I think, yes, that's really what I would like to say to finish off with, I think. Thank you so, so much for coming on to talk to us about this. I think that the book is an absolute triumph. And, you know, if anyone has history buffs on their list for Christmas, look no further than this particular book, because it's an absolute tour to force and really fun. That's the other thing about it. A lot of information, really, really fun.

So Elizabeth, thank you ever, ever so much for coming on to chat with me today. That's be an absolute pleasure, Al, and I thank you very much indeed for inviting me. My thanks to Dr. Elizabeth Dr. Elizabeth Dr. Jason and to you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my new film, Joan of Arc, as well as ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com forward slash subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify where you can leave us comments and suggestions

or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all your friends and family that you, Gone Medieval. Until next time.