Infidels_ A History of the Conflict Between Christendom and Islam - Andrew Wheatcroft [99]
The Persians’ invasion and occupation of Palestine in the early seventh century, the wars of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius against them, and the Muslim occupation that followed sometimes severely impeded the flow of pilgrims, especially those from the West. But the flow never ceased entirely, and the emperor Charlemagne (who legend held had himself made the pilgrimage) later purchased a hostel in Jerusalem, which welcomed any Western Christians, as well as building a church and a library for their use. In 810 he also sent money to be used for the repair of the main holy sites in the city.9 However, the bulk of pilgrims were not Western Christians, but devout men and women from Egypt and other lands by then under Muslim rule, as well as those from the Byzantine domains. The long journey from western Europe restricted pilgrimage to those who could afford the time and considerable expense.10 Nonetheless pilgrimages from the West had increased steadily. There were six substantial groups from the German-speaking lands in the ninth century, eleven in the tenth, and thirty-nine in the eleventh.11 But by the mid–ninth century the journey had become much more dangerous.
ISLAM MAY HAVE TRIUMPHED IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY BUT POLITICAL and military control over the Muslim lands eventually fragmented. A strategist looking at a map of the Mediterranean would see Africa joined to the Levant and Anatolia by only a narrow bridge of land fringed by desert, across the Sinai peninsula and north along the coastal strip of Palestine.12 The same coup d’oeil would register that the various terrains of North Africa—part coastal littoral, part high mountain ranges, part desert—were distinct from the Muslim lands to the north of the land bridge. Above all, Egypt, at the junction of Africa and the Levant, was a historic entity in its own right. The land of Egypt, like Jerusalem, featured in the Qur’an, and so existed within the Islamic ethos from the outset. The economy of Egypt, based on the Nile, had no equal, and Islam in Egypt had inherited a long tradition of culture, government, and power. With the building of Cairo in the last quarter of the tenth century and the opening of the Al-Azhar mosque and university in 988, Egypt also became an intellectual center of the Muslim world.13
But there were not many other factors in common between the peoples of North Africa and those across the land bridge. Islam in North Africa was formed from both Arab and Berber strands. West from the city of Cairouan, on the great open Gulf of Sirte, it was Berber- and not Arabic-speakers who formed the bulk of the population. From the fringe of these lands came the Fatimid conquerors of Egypt in the mid–tenth century. These adventurers followed the Shia line of the faith, taking their name from the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed, from whom they claimed descent.14 The caliphate they established in Cairo was based on the Shia traditions of Islam, even though the majority of the Muslims they ruled in their new state followed the Sunni line. Much of the subsequent history of the Islamic lands in the Levant was a struggle between those who ruled to the north of the land bridge and those who ruled to the south, regardless of the pattern of Islam to which they adhered.15 From the late tenth century, armies raided more or less continuously back and forth across the narrow coastal strip of the Levant, as they engaged successively with Byzantine armies and the Abbasid rulers of Baghdad. But even more dangerous from a pilgrim’s perspective were the Bedouin tribesmen, who lived by raiding traders and travelers. Palestine had become a zone of war.
Muslim rulers rarely made any attempt to curtail pilgrimage, which provided them with a valuable source of income. There were occasional riots and other popular outbursts, as in 966 when part of the rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed. But in 1003 these