Abdal Hakim Murad – Cosantino of Paros Paradigms of Leadership
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I've been cheating by using an AI bot in order to generate images of
the simple people who wouldn't usually get themselves depicted
and it makes it more visually interesting. So I tell them not to
create these images in the style of Zora Baran or Caravaggio or
Canaletto. Smilla hear of manual
hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah. Early, he was a
happy woman while up.
So
you get to
a free CMC fellowship. I think if you already knew all about this
particular individual, quite often in this now fairly extended series
we have dealt with celebrities, Muslim household names, starting
with Imam sham Ella, and moving through Imam Buhari has read off
man and so forth with a few startling detours reflecting the
disordered reading habits which I've acquired over many decades
now. And today, I'm going to be introducing you to somebody who
really is oddly known at all, and would not have been known at all
like 99% of our brothers and sisters and Benny Adam, fading
away after their grandchildren died into oblivion and into the
mercy of God.
Today's theme is going to be, well a variety of reflections. Looking
at the very fraught interface, the leaky iron curtain between
Christendom and the Islamic world, in the heyday of the Ottoman
Empire, basically the time of assault on Salah man and his
immediate successes.
One reason for doing this is that very often, this story has been
underreported.
Historians inevitably import their own preferences, particularly when
confronted by what is probably history's greatest and most
emotive binary, that Islam West standoff. Now 14 centuries old and
still occupying our headlines in various aberrant ways both sides
misbehaving 911 on one side, Abu Ghraib on the other it gets in the
way.
And it's interesting, I think, as we rewind 400 years to consider
similarities and differences between the then and the now. But
essentially, the the main theme that I want to talk about is the
underestimated story of European Islam. The standard image is Islam
as Asian religion, North African religion.
But Europe has always contested the viability of the idea of it
being a European religion, as well, and many of the identity
forming events, and epics of European history have been
precisely the struggle to exclude the possibility of an Islam
indigenous to Europe. Europe, to two very common cliche, has *
borders, to the east, the story of CO Cassia, generally not known
amongst non Muslims, but a kind of burden on the Muslim memory, the
biggest massacre in Europe in the 19th century 85% of the Muslim
population wiped out big for Muslims for the West, hardly
known. And then you have the sorry, tale of
the massacres in the Balkans, the destruction of Hungarian Islam,
the near destruction of Bosnian Islam, even in the last 30 years,
and then the tragic story of the Crimea and those southern
Ukrainian areas, which are currently being fought over with
those strangely Turkic names that all of those little villages seem
to have a forgotten history. Then the story of Muslim Sicily, the
story of Muslim Spain, one of the most agonistic, and protracted of
all of these Titanic confrontations and always the
story is the Muslim, the Saracen the Ishmael light doesn't belong
and must be cleansed. It's a recurrent feature of European
history. But those who challenged that, including really very
simple, illiterate folk, like the one we'll be considering today
complexify this blur the Iron Curtain and remind us that Islam
has a very distinguished and protracted European history as
well. That'll be the first thought challenging that stereotype and
the second will be the idea of what it means to be a hero.
It feel kind of a humble person
from the margins, excluded, illiterate, never went to school,
got jobs where you could normally the kind of pay
Paul who on whose laboring backs the rest of Civilization is built,
but to usually don't get to look in at all in the history books.
And I'll also be talking about the way in which Western Christendom
institutionalized the struggle to cleanse it lands off the Sarah
cynic but also the Jewish presence,
which was the Inquisition, so much of today's talk will be rather
grim data about the Inquisition, which is why perhaps
underestimated the extent to which children surf broadly nowadays, I
suggested that smaller children should not attend this, in many
ways, traumatic narrative. Now, when we think of the Inquisition,
we think of the Spanish Inquisition, it's almost kind of
the same thing. But there are other inquisitions with their own
hierarchies established by different Pope's using the same
kind of methods of documentation, arrest, interrogation, sentencing,
it was the same thing directed by the pope himself, the Holy Office
conceived as a, as a sacred ritual, as we'll see. But there
was a Portuguese Inquisition,
though inquisitions further east for Goa and those places that are
being progressively kuthodaw sized, wherever there was a need
to ensure religious conformity and compliance, and to investigate and
to scrape away at areas of society that weren't fully subscribing to
the creed of the church, there was this very formidable institution,
the pre modern World's Most international and abiding
organization, and something
which Muslims, as in many cases, not always, its chief victims and
suspect need to be aware of the Spanish Inquisition is the first
one is the famous one. It's the attempt of Spanish Catholicism to
affect a spiritual as well as a military conquest of the former
Muslim lands of the Southern three quarters of Spain. Some of you may
already have heard, Juan Perez is to sonnets in praise of the holy
one sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, which went up on the Muscat Media
website a couple of weeks ago, very interesting reminder of the
incredible persistence of Islam in a city like Toledo. In his day,
more than five centuries after the Reconquista, reconquest had taken
the city. Nonetheless, Muslims maintaining a toehold in that city
which of course, centuries was the capital of Spain. He had to flee.
He wrote these poems in Tunis, and many people in North Africa, not
just Morocco, Algeria, and Libya and so forth will proudly tell you
that they are actually and Lucien exiles. It's an ongoing diaspora.
So this is the famous image the first big painting that we have of
the Spanish Inquisition. This is by Alfonso Barrow getapp. It'll
get to the elder it's in the Prado, in Madrid.
When you see it there,
you tend to forget that it's actually a religious image. And it
was designed to be an altarpiece in a major church, I forget which
one, so that while you were praying and receiving the
Eucharist, you would be inspired by this image of this is St.
Dominic presiding over the trial and the burning of two, I guess
Albigensian or Katha heretics.
And this became a kind of Tableau and many of the kinds of
hierarchical sacral images
generated during this time, continue and intensify as Spain in
particular, tries to cement its identity as a complete, uniform
100% Catholic communicant society with any hint of Jewish or Muslim
or Protestant influence being strictly regulated and suffocated.
Basically the purpose of the Inquisition was not primarily to
deal with people who are born Muslims and never been baptized,
but to deal with people who are practicing on official forms of
religion, or purely monotheistic forms of religion, Judaism, and
Islam, while ostensibly practicing Catholicism. So in many cases is a
story of, of real heroism and of courage here is really the great
icon of the Inquisition. The patron saint of Spain, is none
other. Then
this individual San Jaime Matamoros, St. James the Muslim
killer Matamoros means guild, the Muslims or the Muslim killer, the
patron saint of Spain a
couple of years ago, I went into the
Church of the Spanish armed force
was in Madrid. And yeah, they have one of these that still inspires
them. And as you can see from this, this is from Segovia
Cathedral, the very racialized image usually the more who's
cowering beneath the triumphant hooves of the White Horse written
by St. James supposedly Christ's apostle who miraculously appears
to lead the Christians to crusaders to victory against the
evil Saracens is always a racialized image and many
theorists of West racism in the West trace one of the key
tributaries of Western racism back to the racializing of religious
difference difference at the time of
the Western crusade to crusade in Portugal, the crusade of the
Western Mediterranean, and there are 1000s Do these images all over
churches in Spain.
If you go to the capital of this cult, which is Santiago de
Compostela, Western Europe's main pilgrimage road leads to Santiago
de Compostela. It's the town which is supposedly the town of St.
James, the Muslim killer is one of these things. And if you can
scroll around, you can find images of how the slightly embarrassed
modernist clergy are dealing with this emblem of absolute
xenophobia. Racist as well as triumphantly Christian. And the
latest thing that they've done is that the lower part of it, which
has the kind of suffering cringing, black skinned Muslim, is
covered in flowers now. So they kind of screen it out. They censor
it, they blanket, they cancel it. But he still remains Spain's
patron saint and invoked by many far right groups, not just in
Spain, but the matomo. In France is also a considerable thing. But
even in the new world. Once I was traveling in the mountains of New
Mexico, historically, part of the Spanish Empire went into this
little colonial church in the village high up in the mountains,
and lo and behold, there was the cross and the wooden pews, but the
retablo behind the altar is the image of St. James the Muslim
killer
1000s of miles perhaps from the nearest Muslim communities very
deeply embedded, and some modern scholarship about the way in which
the Americas were conquered and Christianized.
reflect on the fact that the methods for forced
Christianization of the Americas were an extension of the methods
used to compel Jews, Muslims and other heretics into the fold of
the one true faith very often those and assimilation of the
Indians, the native populations to the Moors.
In any case, talking too much about that might take us far
afield, but the Inquisition comes generally in the wake of the
Reconquista, and the key date is 1212. The battle of Al or BB north
of Cordoba, when the forces of Alfonso the eighth of Castile
defeat this alternative than we're heading, and NASA This is the big
catastrophic battle
that enables the Christians to occupy and cleanse the great
Muslim cities of southern Spain including Cordoba, and Seville.
This is after Pope Innocent of hurt is declared a crusade
specifically in in Spain. So ruling a population which was for
the great part Muslim, with a Christians kind of conquering
elite meant that there were very serious problems for the Catholic
Church in terms of rendering the population.
accessible to Christian truth and different solutions were proposed.
This guy is really the theorist of the Spanish Inquisition.
The first Grand Inquisitor Torquemada was a dominican monk
who founds with permission from the Pope 60s, the fourth in the
air 1478, the Spanish Inquisition
and in 1492, with a capture of the last Muslim city in Spain, which
had been a refuge for dissidents of various kinds and was still the
center of a significant Jewish community. First thing they did,
because this is an age in which
anti semitism is really important given the seemingly anti semitic
statements of the Christian Bible, that 1492 One of his first IIDX
was the expulsion of the forced conversion of the Jews of Granada.
The Jews were often the first target.
So that expelled 1492 That's the end of publicly visible and
tolerated Judaism in Spain, they're allowed to leave. They're
not allowed to take gold and silver, so their wealth remains
behind. A few of the Jews convert most of them leaving Where did
they go, of course, to the Muslim world, Dar Al Islam, one of the
titles of the assault on his island pinna, the rest
Each of the world one reason for Ottoman diversity is that it
accepts waves of people fleeing persecution in Europe. Because
this is the beginning of the Sephardic Jewish stories.
Those who remained were called marranos. These are people who are
Jewish converts to Christianity, but a secretly still practicing
Judaism, very, very persistent community. And this is one reason
for the purity of blood limpia 30 Sandgren laws in traditional
Spain, you weren't allowed to get on a ship and Cadiz to cross to
the new world unless you could prove with a documentary
certificate that the 10 generations you had been a
Christian.
And this idea of limpia, 30, sangri purity of blood became one
of the ways in which they tried to limit the spread of the Semitic
monotheism in the new world, not very successfully, there were
persecuting Muslims and Jews in places like Peru, Mexico City, but
that's another story. So talking about
is the one who systematizes the mechanisms of the Inquisition. And
during his time, the estimate is about 2000 people received the
supreme penalty, which has been burnt at the stake.
So he creates a regional hierarchy, offices everywhere, the
institution of meticulous documentation, which is how we
know about this guy Cosentino because they would write
everything during that interrogation, so that if there
was an inquiry from another province, that located the same
individual, they would be able to compare notes and proceed
accordingly. And he writes some of the books that become fundamental
for the Inquisition, particularly his treaties against Midianite,
and Ishmaelites. Israelites, of course, this is us. So you have
progressively the forbidding of Islam, because they're not
converting. They send out Arabic speaking priests to Grenada and
places to tell them about the Trinity, the blood atonement, the
authority of St. Peter, etc. And it doesn't really work to the
perplexity. And so in 50, and 26, they bring in a new enactment,
which is to forbid the practice of Islam. And the Muslims, again, all
go along to church and accept baptism, but they're practicing
secretly, they have fat to us to allow that.
And so you have this phenomenon of these kind of covert Muslims, who
are going to church and reciting the Creed and sending the kids to
Sunday school, but at home secretly, they will be teaching
Islam to their children, and this goes on for hundreds of yours.
They're all called one and Isabella, but the church knows
that that's not what they really are. So the purpose of the
Inquisition is to try and as it were kicked down their doors and
find out what they're really doing. So 1556, when it becomes
clear to the church, that these people are persisting in being
most Muslims, secretly while going to church and doing those things.
The Inquisition becomes fiercer, particularly against the Alpha
keys, who are the class of Muslims who are scholars who are trying to
maintain the tradition of Islam. Very often, the landowners don't
like this, because the Muslims are very economically useful and still
in this period, that a significant chunk of the population
there's also the fear of the phenomenon of the L chair and l
chairs complex term, but generally used for people who convert to
Islam, even after the reconquest of southern Spain by the
Christians. This is a particular kind of neuralgic issue for the
clergy. And they're sought out and persecuted with particular
vehemence. And so the priests are now not allowed to learn Arabic,
in case they get contaminated. They're not supposed to get into
discussions with these people. The Inquisition would never involve
itself in theological argument, it will just try and figure out what
you were and rule accordingly.
So the usual kind of Islamophobic things that even we're seeing
today in some European countries, prohibitions on Muslim Halal
slaughter, prohibition on the face, veil and so forth, these
familiar things are brought in, but what to do with them by the
end of the 16th century. This is a big problem. It's kind of
humiliating, that you have a significant portion of the
population maybe even Heaven forfend, marrying your daughter,
although the racial laws often made that much more difficult, and
perhaps even bringing up their children to be not quite right
doctrinal. So various solutions were proposed.
Some of them advocated the complete mass castration of all
Morisco boys at birth. This was considered by the king but
regarded as problematic. Some of them said send them off
to the new world, they can all go to Colombia or somewhere and be
out of our way.
Some of them advocated mass execution. So a certain tribe
leader who is a Dominican priest, did a calculation and reckoned
that the entire Morisco population could be executed in a single day.
And this was sent to, again, the Royal authorities were kind of
caught between the need to make the country governable on the one
hand, and on the other hand,
the need to make it religiously uniform. That option was not
proposed, or should they all be sent as galley slaves?
There were just too many of them. And also, what do you do with the
women, the children, their nose pulling, or so these were were big
issues, people were publishing books advocating different final
solutions to the Morisco problem, because these people persisted,
they even had their little rituals. So there was something
that the Spanish called the feather ritual. You take your baby
to church, the church is anointed with holy oil, and it's baptized
and the bells ring, you take it home, and then you recite the
Fatiha and you wash off the ritual oil
as if nothing's ever happened. And this was known to be very
recurrently, practiced by the Moriscos. And it was really
angering the church.
Let me just read to you something. Hopefully that isn't too long that
will give you a sense of, you know, the suffering of these
people. This is a poem written by a Muslim in Grenada
lamenting the miserable situation
it's hard for us really to imagine what it was like yeah, so this is
by said Mohammed bin Mohammed bin doubled
in
Granada, just before a rebellion by the Muslims of 1568. So he
gives us a lot of praise to Allah in praise of His messenger.
Listen, while I tell the story of sad Andalusi as fate peerless once
and world renowned in all that makes a nation great, prostrate
now encompass drowned by heretics with cruel force. We her sons like
driven sheep or horsemen on unbridled horse, we are forced to
worship with them in their Christian rights unclean, to adore
their painted idols mockery of the great unseen no one dares to make
remonstrance, no one dares to speak a word, who can tell the
anguish wrote on us the faithful of the Lord.
When the bell tolls, who must gather to adore the image file, in
the church, the preacher rises harsh voiced as a screaming owl.
He the wine and pork in focus, and the mass is wrought with wine,
falsely humble, he proclaimed myth that this is the Lord divine.
Yet the holiest of their shavings nothing knows of right or wrong,
and they bow before their idols shameless in the shame really
strong. Then the priest descends the altar holding up a cake of
bread, and the people strike their bosoms, as the worthless mass is
said.
All our names are set in writing young and old are summoned or
every four months the official makes on all suspect his call.
Each of us must show his permit or must pay his silver. As within
Quan pen and paper on he goes from door to door. Dad all living each
must pay it young, old or ritual poor. God help him who cannot do
it pains untold he must endure
in their hideous jail stay through him every hour fresh terrorists
wave from his ancient faith to tear him as they cry to him
believe and the poor rich weeping wanders on from hopeless thought
to thought, like a swimmer in midocean by the blinding Tempest
caught long they keep him wasting rotting in the dungeon, foul and
black. Then they torture him until his limbs have broken on the rack.
Then within the Plaza Hotel been to square in Grenada, the crowds
assemble fast. Like unto the day of judgment, they erect a scaffold
vast. If one is to be re released, they clothed him in a yellow vest,
while with hideous painted devils to the flames they give the rest.
That's how we encompass drowned as with a fairly fiercely burning
fire, wrongs past Behringer heaped on us higher yet an even higher,
vainly would bend way to their mandate Sunday's feast days though
we keep fasting Saturdays, never safety, can we reap,
etc, etc.
There's more of it. This is in a rather old book, The Moriscos
the secret Muslims of Spain by Henry Charles Lee, which is an old
book that he translated some of the texts in quite a
evocative way so this is how this community is now trying
To survive.
So these various theories about how we're going to assimilate
these people, should we force them all to marry old Christians, so
that the children we brought up as good Christians, and the final
solution is affected. But the bishop said no, because the
Christian spouse might be tempted to become an LP. So they really
didn't know what to do. So
this was the look at a text in Lee's book, again, a kind of
battle between the landowners who knew that the country depended on
the skills of the Muslim particularly in irrigation, for
his posterity, and the church who wanted this religious uniformity.
So, one reason for the decline it is said of Spain in this period
and subsequently is
listed here by the the decadence of Spain was not caused merely by
its loss of population in banishing Jews and Moriscos it was
that the Jews and Moriscos were economically the most valuable of
its inhabitants, whose industry in great part supported the rest. The
pride that was taught to regard work as unworthy of an old
Christian, and led the beggared Hidalgo to starve rather than to
earn an honest living, the indolence that preferred beggary
or robbery to labor, the fanaticism that regarded religious
unity as the summum bonum to make be maintained at the cost of any
and all sacrifice, the impulses that consigned so many 1000s to a
life of celibacy, and financial systems are elaborately bad that
in the effort to favor the consumer, it will nice strangled
production, a theocratic spirit would stifled intellectual
progress, all these united in preventing Spain from filling the
gap in population and productiveness, left by the expert
expatriation of Jews and Moors.
So
the landowners used to say ctns, Morrow, TNS Oro, if you have a
more a Muslim working for you, you have gold, moral, oral, they
really didn't like this church, persecution and the various means
of removing them, then the Moriscos are banished in the
second decade of the 17th century. But some are still secretly
practicing.
1769 King Carlos the third was told that a secret mosque had been
discovered in the city of Cartagena, and it continues. But
obviously, as information is lost, rituals become a bit garbled and
it becomes just a kind of family memory, rather than a systematic
practice of the of the Sunnah. So slowly through ignorance,
and the exiling of the scholars, and this very difficult minority
situation, Muslim stain is effectively extinguished.
So moving on now to the actual methods of the Inquisition.
Each village will be visited by the Inquisitor who was a church
meant anti scribe. And then they'd listened to the parish priest to
find out what was going on locally, who knew the local
gossip, who was really sincere in going to Mass and who was making
fun of it. Sometimes when they saw the visit of the Inquisition,
people would come forward spontaneously to confess
something, because they were afraid that their neighbors would
denounced them, which was more dangerous. To confess it to
accusations were regarded as being enough to arrest someone, their
names were always kept secret. So during the interrogation, you
couldn't discredit the witnesses because you never told who they
were.
The first hearing would be to establish the identity of the
accused, there was always unlike in non English law and in Sharia
the presumption of guilt, not innocent, but you are not told
what you are suspected of. They wanted to sweat it out of you.
So there was a period of grace in the jail in which you could
voluntarily confess that you'd have the wrong idea about the
Trinity, or whatever it was. And if you confess spontaneously, then
the treatment would be relatively lenient.
If you didn't confess, and you didn't denounce others, you didn't
cooperate, your food would be slowly reduced, you'd be chained
up. And then if it still wasn't working, the priest would come and
describe the torture to the suspect. And then he would show
the suspect the instruments of the torture, he'd be taken to the
torture chamber and get a sense of what was going to happen. And then
because the priests themselves wouldn't engage in the torture,
they'd bring in professional torturers. And much of this seems
quite familiar, a kind of Guantanamo, or black site scenario
where you don't know who the accuser is, you don't know what
you're being accused of. You're kind of in the dark, and that's
part of the psychological pressure. As at Guantanamo, there
isn't a trial, only a series of interrogations, after which you
Go back to yourself.
There was no need to specify the crimes. So quite often people
under torture would confess, not knowing what the crimes crimes
were. And this was often an effective way of getting out of
people something that was really going on, although, again as
Guantanamo and with modern American torture systems, you know
that sometimes under extreme pressure people will confess to
anything.
It's a very unreliable method.
So here you have the famous painting by Goya, the early 19th
century, dark Spanish artists, you saw the last days of the the
Inquisition.
And you can see that the accused have to wear this special garment
called a San Benito, San Benito is the patron saint of Europe. And
whenever you're outdoors or out of the sale, you have to wear this if
you're a suspect, or if you've been convicted in any way. And it
had this long point it has if you go to the Jewish Museum and
Cordoba they have some replicas, very good. Good display, they have
just opposite closet, God is old house, his wife still still
living. So long long, kind of dumps his hat, and it will be
painted with flames and demons to remind you that these people were,
we're going to go to *, the shirt of flame. Another symbol of
the Inquisition, not shown here was the famous Green Cross that
was a symbol of the Inquisition, which will be unveiled at moments
of triumph during the interrogations. And during the
trial. This continued until 1826. When the Inquisition
put an end to its last victim, a certain que eternal, the ripple.
Probably not anybody connected to Judaism or Islam. But it seems
that he had the wrong ideas about the incarnation. He said Jesus is
not the Son of God. So he was executed. To the annoyance of the
church is executed by the civil authorities. This is after Spain
has been under Napoleonic X occupation. And Napoleon really
didn't like the Inquisition. He shut it down after the end of
Napoleon 1815 is revived again briefly. And so the civil
authorities accept the sentence but they have been hanged. And the
church is really angry. And they have the body exhumed, stuffed in
a barrel, the barrel is painted with these flames and demons, and
then it's covered with tar and ritually burned, just so they can
feel that the proper punishment has been done. And after that
time, in Europe, with the beginnings of the Enlightenment
ideas seeping into Spain, after that time, the Inquisition in
Spain is stopped, the Roman Inquisition persists longer.
The Inquisition even though it knew that torture was kind of
unreliable, and some people will say anything and everything did
try to systematize it so they had manuals, which explained the
different levels of resistance, the different strategies which
people would employ, a doctor would always examine the detainee
first, again, they do this in Guantanamo. And they have a fixed
number, it was very strictly regulated.
One of the most popular methods was a kind of water torture called
the taka, which is quite similar, but different to the American
tradition of waterboarding.
Up to 10 liters of water would be forcibly
forced by mouth into the individual to cause extreme pain.
That but it would always be for a specific period, usually of 45
minutes, and then it would have to stop, the priests would turn the
glass and it would have to stop. And then there'll be another
medical examination. And they wouldn't do this for an extended
period because they knew after a while, you're not going to get
anything. Unlike Guantanamo, some of you might have seen her The New
York Times feature about Abu Zubaydah, probably not the kind of
person
that a CMC would take tea with. But he's been going through this
for 16 years now. completely out of control. But with many of the
same techniques, *, for instance, the use of religious
symbolisms, you reach for the cross at Guantanamo, if you're
ready to talk, that kind of thing, is still well recorded. So he's
one of the Forever prisoners but Inquisition would never do that.
They didn't go that far.
Another method there would be a pulley whereby your answer would
be tied behind your back and then you'd be jerked upwards, which
could dislocate your limbs, there was the rack for stretching you.
It was very rare for somebody simply to be acquitted. Because
the Inquisition as part of the church couldn't be seen publicly
to have made a mistake. So when they thought, This is rubbish,
just his jealous neighbor is trying to grab his land or
something. They would suspend the case. But acquittals are pretty
rare. So the Inquisition
is vested in this kind of sense of the church's infallibility. And
the, the building, the palace of the Inquisition was always seen as
a kind of secret, holy, mysterious place.
If you had confessed, and were sentenced to something, and then
were caught again, you are a relapsed impenitent.
And that meant that you couldn't be let off, you had to be
executed. But they were tried to get you to be reconciled to the
church between the time of your sentence and the actual execution.
And the reason why people might be tempted to do that. And that will
be the great moment, the prisoner has repented. And that will be the
unveiling of the Green Cross as part of this very complex process
was that you would be
regarded as somebody who would be saved, even though the execution
couldn't be couldn't be enabled, and you would be executed quickly,
you'd be strangled, usually, before being burnt. So it was a
merciful, merciful end. So this is always a temptation.
But the main purpose according to modern historians, it's not really
so much as to save the sinner soul, although many of the priests
believed that that's what it was all about. But to terrify the
population into compliance. If you go to the palace of the
Inquisition in Malta, which is one of the best
museums of the Inquisition, in Spain, they tend to kind of
suppress them. I looked for the palace of the Inquisition in
Madrid once and it's become an Irish pub, you have to figure out
exactly where it was. It's kind of bad memory. But in Malta, they've
really recreated it, you can see the archives, and the torture
chamber has a big window with bars so that passers by can hear the
interrogation, I hear the screaming as a means of kind of
teaching them a lesson.
Yep, so then there would be the highly public ritual,
you'd be led out, your confession might be read out, which was when
the Green Cross was unveiled. And then there will be the ceremony of
the outdoor cafe, which was a hugely popular
one of the great kind of carnivals of traditional Spain, people would
travel for weeks in order to see a great outdoor cafe. And there
would be vendors and street performers, as well as the main
religious ritual. So here's one of the famous pictures of the last
great outdoor cafe in Madrid 1680. In the plaza mayoral, the place is
still there, the main square of Madrid,
this was
out of the phase act of phase, a religious ceremony that was
integrated into the mass. So first of all that accused sentence would
be brought, you can see them here, just about in the crowd, with a
very clear image, perhaps wearing the Sunday nietos each with two
priests by him to try and reconcile him.
So the ritual was not as a mass, the ordinary of the mass will be
said at the end of which they were pronounced the sentences, and then
there will be a sermon, and then those who've been excommunicated,
were led away because they couldn't take the the Eucharist,
the proper of the mass.
And then you'd have the unveiling of the Green Cross, and they would
sing a particular him.
Yep, so if you were a relapsed heretic, or you've been sentenced
to death, then you would be consigned to the flames. This was
the preferred punishment, and that had to be carried out within five
days of the outer Daffy. Inquisitors don't show up show up
for the Inquisition. The burning, very slow process, surprisingly,
perhaps, might take up to five hours before he had finally
expired. There'd be a big crowd there.
And if you were able to, you might bribe the guards, to put Greenwood
around your friend or your loved one because that would generate a
lot of smoke, and therefore that they did die of asphyxiation
relatively quickly.
So the largest altos Dufay, you'd have maybe 100 or so people burned
simultaneously. As years went by, this is one of the last public
ones.
The church starts to realize that actually for those who sympathize
with the accused,
this is a kind of triumphant procession of martyrs. If you're
secretly Jewish, or secretly Lutheran, who secretly Muslim and
you see your Imam or your rabbi, dressed up like this being taken
to the execution that is kind of a strengthening thing, and
strengthens your sense of yourself as a victimized martyred,
righteous community. So they stop having these big, hugely popular
open things and
and they hold the Alto differ in churches. This one which is the
last, as far as I can tell, there was only one Muslim who has
executed at this 1680 out of their fit a guy called Mustafa,
who is from Seville, originally Lazaro Fernandez. And he was an L
chair, obviously converted to Islam after the RE conquest. And
these are people who are really in for it. And the record say he was
pertinacious in his adopted faith, and was burnt alive. In other
words, that means that that last moment, when you still had the
opportunity of repenting, he didn't do that. And he chose to
remain steadfast in Islam, and chose the five hours, whatever it
was of torment, rather than compromising himself. The very
last moment when you were tied to the stake and the
word was around you, a priest would come and would hold up a
crucifix on a long stick. And if you kissed it, that was regarded
as as a sign of your repentance, and then they would strangle you.
So you wouldn't die, the most painful way but it seems this guy
must suffer. I like him more decided not to kiss the crucifix.
So
we won't dwell on this image.
execution by burning again, the it was less ritualized, the clergy
would not be there, a meal would be arranged to them, and then they
go back to their parishes and bishoprics.
And it will be left to the secular arm actually to perform the the
former execution. So that's the Spanish Inquisition. Most of what
I've said applies also to the Roman Inquisition.
This is later 1542 Pope Paul the third establishes it.
And it's the Roman Inquisition that ends up
sentencing, Galileo, for instance, ends up executing Giordano Bruno,
one of the great kind of liberalizing theologians and
mystics of the 16th century.
But the main reason is because the Roman Inquisition had a
jurisdiction of the central Mediterranean basically. And they
were afraid that as part of the kind of front line with the world
of Islam, they were dealing with a lot of people who had converted to
Islam. They're also worried about reformation, Calvinists,
Lutherans, and so forth. But essentially,
it's about these converts to Islam. So in 1574, the Inquisition
is invited to Malta, by the rulers of Malta, who are called the
Knights of Malta, who are crusading order. So
it's the threat of Islam. So this French historian Anna bergenia,
who's at the University of TESOL, who's one of the authorities on
this Maltese Inquisition
observes this.
Very soon, the Inquisitors work exceeded the simple defense of
Catholicism against heresy, and more and more specialized in the
fight against a new threat to the identity and homogeneity of multi
society, apostasy and conversion to Islam.
This was generally their main fear, and the reason why they
built this palace of the Inquisition in Valletta.
Again, the Polian finally put a stop to that.
But why Malta in particular?
Well, Malta has a very interesting and agonistic history.
There you can see one of their prime tourist attractions, it's in
the museum and goes on. They call it the main mourner stone,
which is a Muslim tombstone.
Perfectly legible and they're all really proud of it. And it is a
very beautiful thing.
to India 870 that the alkyl a bit dynasty, ruling in North Africa
conquers Malta from the baizen times.
Certain musical Sawada bin Mohammed and they build the city
of Medina which is still called Medina in the center of Malta.
Some sources say there's already lots of Muslims in Malta biggest
Eastern Christianity was generally more
tolerant of Muslim presence than the Christians of the West.
1053 The Byzantines try and take it back. By that time, it's
already a Muslim island. They don't succeed.
Was there a continual Christian presence in Malta today with a lot
of Islamophobia and bad feeling and in a way on the new front line
against that kind of Muslim boat people crossing the Mediterranean
you
They like to think of themselves as tradition of Christians going
right back. But most historians would say no. Yarlung was
basically entirely Christian, entirely Muslim
during the later alphabet, period, and in fact, a very thriving
Muslim culture, as you can see from this,
mosques and so forth, completely obliterated now.
But the Maltese today still speak a kind of Arabic sicula Arabic,
which was the kind of strange Arabic with lots of Italian words
that were spoken in the Central Mediterranean island world at the
Dar Al Islam, Sicily, mainly,
but they still have Arabic and in many ways the culture reflects
Muslim traditions the traditional style detta the dark women's dress
that they used to air until a generation ago really looks very
like a kind of traditional Muslim dress 1098 The Normans invade from
Sicily. Normans, in this period, a pretty tolerant of Muslims,
sometimes to the fury of the Pope's, and Islam is still
practice. In the island for 100 years, less than 22 They tried to
rebel, unsuccessfully. 1249 the final edict of deportation, no
more Muslims legally in Malta, and the Normans deport them to a kind
of Muslim ghetto town in Italy, called Hello Sara.
And then finally, the survivors are forced into baptism they're
forced to change their names and a Spanish type of
system takes over.
In 1429, the Tunisians try to recapture the island but
unsuccessful.
Now, for our period, these are the guys we need to know about.
Crusaders crusades didn't stop with Salahuddin. They continue
inaugurated by various books. These are the Knights of St. John,
who move from Palestine to roads suddenly Mandelic nificent defeat
some inroads, but his own pressed by that martial prowess
that he allows them to depart and they go and fought to fortify
mortar. 1530 Grandmaster this very strange idea of monks with swords,
takes possession of the island.
They don't really make themselves terribly popular, even though
their fellow Catholics wish the Byzantines hadn't been because
they don't like the Maltese language. And they make Italian,
the official language
they become very wealthy, because they're engaged in a form of
piracy. They're Corsairs using their galleys they tend to prefer
galleys, usually man by Muslim slaves against Muslim shipping
in the Mediterranean
50 and 65. The Ottomans really annoyed by the fact that the
galleys were raiding had ships and so forth, and people thought they
were going to cover and they end up enslaved in Malta. They
launched the
grand siege
1565 and absolutely apocalyptic event. By this time, of course,
there's gunpowder, awkward buses, mortars, and so forth. Titanic
event that the Knights hold on the Ottomans, sail away.
So the Roman Inquisition in Malta, slowly getting to my subjects
here. And this is the building which is still there, which is now
this
quite instructive, if somewhat sobering Museum, it's been
reconstructed really well. You can see that where the Grand
Inquisitor would live, where the archives are these huge
volumes where everything was taken down.
It's in Vittoriosa, which is the district of Valetta.
What happened in this place is quite similar to the procedures
which I've described in connection with the Spanish Inquisition. And
as with much of the Spanish Inquisition, the archives given a
historian a real treasure trove of information, because they would
try and write down everything that the accused said. And I've even
seen some transcripts, which is people under torture, mostly
screaming, but even try and write down the screams. very
extraordinary, and how people are calling up the various saints and
screaming again, but the priests still
grim because presumably, that's a verbatim record of somebody's
agony.
So we have these archives.
And you can see throughout the history of the Maltese
Inquisition, the great fear was that we used to be Muslim. There's
Muslims next door. You
Ottoman Empire is the world's great superpower. Their chips are
everywhere. We need to watch out for anybody who has relapsed from
Catholicism into the evil Sarah cynic or Ishmaelites heresy, this
is their main thing. Now, why were they so concerned?
Well, here you can see another modern historian, the historian of
the time, I'm sorry, 17th century, which is from our period, where a
German visitor talking about this very hierarchical society.
With the Knights of St. John, who mainly came from Catalonia, Spain,
and so forth, and weren't Maltese, ruling over a very poor illiterate
population. You can see that this historian says the Maltese have to
be disciplined and restrained by the knights to keep them away from
the idea of going over to their Turkish enemies.
In other words, it kind of the idea, his perception was that
Malta was a kind of prison. And that the local population, really
many of whom were sailors, fishermen, at and against engaged
with Muslims didn't buy the official view of Muslims as idol
worshipers, and murderers. And we're really interested and found
the official ideology difficult. Because we don't have many
accounts from Maltese themselves during this period, at least none
that would dare to express such a view. We have to look at
secondhand accounts such as this.
But nonetheless, historian says that whole boats full of
volunteers went from Malta to North Africa, to accept Islam and
to look for more freedoms in North Africa.
Why would they perceive that we'll talk about it a little bit later.
But here's one testimony that we do have certain gelled into your
Magary from the letter. Having come to know that in Turkey and
other heretical countries, there is freedom of conscience, I wish
to be there is what he's saying to the inquisitors. Turkey is more
free. That was their perception. It wasn't a single monolithic, one
confession society. But the Ottoman Empire was really diverse
and they didn't really care what you were.
Also, there's no feudal system. In the Ottoman lands of North Africa,
it's very meritocratic.
They had what's called the tea Mara system, particularly in the
eastern Mediterranean. If you'd serve the salt hand with
distinction, perhaps on the field of battle, he would give you a
title and a landed estate. Here is 50 villages in Bosnia and so
forth. But you didn't really own them, though you did if Edward the
third gave you some land in England. Instead, you had the
right to the taxation from that land for your lifetime.
And when you died, it didn't go to your eldest son, the way it always
did in Western Europe, it went back to the state. So it tended to
be much more meritocratic, and people who have quite simple
origin could get to the top quite quickly. You just had to
distinguish yourself in battle or in performing some service to the
assault on in his Arsenal's or his mint, and you would get one of
these to Mars. This meant that just about anybody could rise up
through the Ottoman system. And we're beginning to note because
Europe has not really been very happy with this realization. How
incredibly important convert European converts to Islam were to
the whole Ottoman State.
This is a nice book that came up quite recently.
Tobias Graf, the Sultan's renegades, Christian, European
converts to Islam and the making of the Ottoman elite 50 and 75 to
1610. Oxford University Press, a very good piece of work, in which
he combs to all of the records, the archives, travelers tales and
so forth, to depict the image that Europe kind of knew, but found
itself really allergic to which is that the Convert played or his or
to underestimated to unsuspected role
in the Ottoman government and administration.
So,
here's a quote that he provides from the Venetian Ambassador the
bylaw, Mateos Annan, retired in 1594, who divided all of Ottoman
elite society into born Turks, Turks, native Turkish speakers,
and renegades, these European converts. And he says, The career
options for the Born Turks was usually in the elmia the religious
hierarchy, they'll become godless muftis and so forth. Converts very
rarely got into that. And the latter, he said, entrusted to
their hands, the army, the government, the wealth and in
conclusion, the whole empire. So his perception in Istanbul was the
It's the convicts who are running the show.
And in the 16th century of the 24 Grand visitors of the Ottoman
Empire, only four of them were born Muslims. The others were
cracked Hungarians, whatever the Ottomans didn't care. If you are
capable, you could get to be Prime Minister, not assault on you might
become the assault on his wife, rather different arrangements
there.
So here's another example. John Barton was the second ever British
ambassador to the Ottomans time of Elizabeth the first. And in 1591,
he writes a diplomatic note to Lord Burley who is the Lord High
treasurer, telling him that the ultimate high Admiral, really
important posts a couple down Pasha has died, and to the local
use of Sinan Pasha has been appointed to be his successor. And
then he notes has an Pasha had been Venetian cierva Loblaw had
been Genoese. So they got to be First Sea Lord in English term,
but they weren't even locals like nowadays.
A refugee from Togo, becoming
First Sea Lord in England that's kind of even today regarded as
something very unusual for the Ottomans. That's usually what
happened.
The senior people were usually people who have been promoted to
this meritocratic system became aristocratic, but not feudal
lords. Because there's no feudal system. There's no enslavement or
encirclement of the village population.
And this is really quite attractive to a lot of people on
the edges. If you're a Maltese guy, and you fish for sardines,
off the coast of Algeria, and you talk to other fishermen,
you'll meet converts, you'll see. It's quite interesting on the
other side.
You also had,
and so the,
the Knights of John of St. John, were raiding the Muslim coastline
and taking slaves and taking treasure. That was their vocation.
That's what they did the defense of Malta and pursuing the
Bennelong sanctum, the holy war against Muslim adversary and they
would capture chips, and they would enslave the Muslims that
they found on board, and anybody who looked as if it wants to be in
a Christian that send them off to the palace of the Inquisition for
further questioning. Sometimes it will capture women as well, on the
ships, or in raids on the coast. These wouldn't be used for as
galley slaves, the most common use for them would be to be sold into
the brothels of the coastal towns of Italy. We don't have much
information about them, for obvious reasons, usually, their
life expectancy will be quite short.
But the problem of the Renegades What do you do with the fact that
your most significant adversaries onboard ship throughout the
Mediterranean or actually not Turks or Berbers or Arabs, but
your own people who have gone over to Islam and kind of like it, and
the more fluid societies of the Muslim Mediterranean.
Initially, the Inquisition in Malta been created to deal with
some of the knights who were flirting with Protestantism. But
very quickly, it became clear what the real issue was.
The expulsion of the Muslims from sane began really the age of the
court says first court says tended to be Spanish wanted to get their
own back. And so let's say allowed to various Moroccan Algerian
tunisienne ports,
specifically to attack Spanish shipping,
and it becomes a running war.
And when Europeans, free Europeans went to North Africa, they were
often appalled by the huge number of the population that were
actually Europeans who become Muslim, so a certain Diego to
Adel.
When he went to Algiers, he lists about 30 different European
nationalities that he finds the and he says half of the population
of Algiers is made up of renegades Europeans who have converted come
to North Africa, or they've been enslaved by Ottoman ships, and
then they've been given their freedom and they stay as Muslims.
And the core says the Muslim seamen, almost all renegades.
So the inquisition of Mauricia in Spain deals with
prisoners from a Muslim ship that's been captured by a
Neapolitan galley and they find in this ship, one French Muslim, two
Portuguese Muslims, three Spanish Muslims and two English Muslims.
The most famous of all of the
Corsair expeditions which is a raid on
Iceland was led by Murad race, who was actually a Fleming from
Belgium now, young yawns.
But the English courses are particularly interesting. There's
three of them.
Incidentally, in case you're wondering where these images come
from,
I've been cheating by using an AI bot in order to generate images of
the simple people who wouldn't usually get themselves depicted
and it makes it more visually interesting. It's a nice minor
game for you to play. So I tell the bot create these images in the
style of zurbaran or Caravaggio, or Canaletto. So see if you can
get this artificial intelligence mind resonating with you I think
this is supposed to be can lead to anyway this is supposed to be
three English Quad Core says most of the Englishmen who are Muslims
in this era comes from London, Plymouth, Exmouth, Weymouth and
Bristol. And we know this because it's part of the interrogation. So
examples Thomas haddock of Newcastle, Phillip pitch of
Plymouth, George Crampton of London. There was one guy who said
he was just Mamiya Algiers, who was English, but he said he
couldn't even remember his English name.
Alexander Harris
was an English guy arrested and he said, Oh, they forced me to become
Muslim. They forcibly circumcised me and I'm so happy to see you
guys. The Inquisitor said, Well, if your conversion was not
sincere, why were you reading our ships for seven years and kind of
clinched it. Certain Francis bonds with Inquisition
record indicated that he wanted to continue praying and fasting while
in prison and so forth. A lot of them is another my favorite
because it's from Norfolk.
Sampson, right Rowley has an author who becomes one of the key
figures in the
regency of Algiers dies after that 1581. Another kind of even better
known one, and they were Elizabethan plays, and poems about
famous pirate, Jack Ward, use of rice. If you look at the BBC
history website, you'll find that he was the original Jack Sparrow.
When they were at those Pirates of the Caribbean thing, they look for
characters, they actually based it on this rather wild guy from fat
ocean, who've been given by the British government a letter of
marque, which is basically a license to piracy against Spanish
ships. And he died in 1622, and quite wealthy himself. He's buried
currently in in Tunis.
The captain Ward, the thing that the church was most anxious about
was its own people. Going over to Islam. This is a source of
considerable anxiety. We've already seen the Spanish
Inquisition had banned the learning of Arabic, because they
were afraid of this. They didn't want arguments about the Trinity.
You know, you just find out what people are guilty of.
So in the archives, and this comes from one of my favorite books,
have told me Ben Nazar, who is a French historian, his book
liquidity and Allah, Allah's Christians, which is all about the
Inquisition archives, and what they tell us about European
Muslims at the time. So these
this data comes from him. A Franciscan priest Christoval,
Rodriguez, became ally, became a soldier 1625 He gets caught by the
Inquisition in Mercia, who sentenced him is still a new 22
A famous Augustinian monk in Algiers,
converted to Islam and became very active in the Dawa amongst
Christian prisoners in the manuals of Algiers. There seems to have
been quite a large number of convert priests, at least
according to Ben Lasar. So this story of one of the respected
priests in Algiers Nicholas Botha, who went from saying mass to the
Mufti his house, comes out wearing a turban, great scandal for the
Christian population. Alongside the Luna theology students who
have been from Grenada but an old Christian. Their policy and
settling southern Spain was quite similar to what the Israelis are
doing on the West Bank, you kind of force people out and bring in
your own people who can trust to take take the land, so he's from
one of the settlers. very educated guy been in correspondence with a
pope 6019 is captured, he's become Muslim. They torture him, he
confesses, he gets life imprisonment. So these are the
kind of later equivalent of the NHS.
Okay, this is the actual torture chamber in the museum in Malta,
where you can see most of the things that they would use.
There's a press that squeezes your ankles. And then there's a car
have sharp horses that you sit on while weights are attached to your
feet. And after half an hour or so it becomes very painful. And the
priest is sitting at the desk writing down everything that you
say.
The problem with the English prisoners in particular as becomes
clear from these archives is that they're kind of double heretics.
When they converted to Islam, they'd already been Protestants,
which in the eyes of the church was kind of just as bad.
So, usually, English sailors in the Muslim regencies of North
Africa aware that one day they might have to
prove to the Inquisition, that they were real Christians had to
learn about Catholicism, so that they could persuade the priests
that actually they hadn't been heretic Protestants, but they'd
been Catholics, and then they'd been wickedly converted to Islam.
And it was all a big mistake.
So it was a complex process for them. But it was something that
they would talk about a shore and on land in North Africa, what to
say if you get caught, which quite often happened. And of course,
there's certain convergences the Protestants, like the Muslims
didn't like images. They didn't believe in the Sacrament of
Confession. They didn't respect the Pope. So in the eyes of some
of the priests, there's a kind of similarity though.
The most common strategy, if you are under interrogation was of
course to say, I was forced into it. I maintain my Christianity in
secret. I've always been a Catholic. So one guy, Albert, true
who's from Corfe Castle, which I think is in Devon. And they used
to priests by knowing all the answers, recited the Catechism,
and here with the saints, and here is the papal authority and they
released him.
Now, the guy from Plymouth Lewis crew confessed that he'd been
practicing Islam for 13 years. They sent us into the galleys.
When they questioned him again four years later, he gave such a
wonderful, perfect exposition of Catholic scholastic theology and
metaphysics, the power of the pontiff and so forth. All right,
and they kind of unchained him. You can imagine that it was
difficult but they were like this guy Mustafa from Seville. The
stubborn ones, as they were called. So mammy, the Englishman
who has written the Jonas of Dartmouth, faced with the
Inquisitors of Barcelona, insisted that Islam was superior. He wasn't
going to make the pretense a Sicilian, Antonia daily Perry.
According to witnesses believed in the sector, Mohammed with
obstinacy, claimed that the Muslim religion is superior. He threw a
rosary on the ground and stomped on it refuses to bow to a statue
of Christ on the cross and covers his eyes.
A guy from Menorca. Yosef Hina, said, the Christian God is a bit
of bread and wine.
George Saba, a Greek 1679, the Roman Inquisition is trying him or
at least inquiring at Palermo. And the head of the prison was a
Dominican Dominican center be highly educated theologically. And
they have theological exchanges. They do actually talk about
doctrine. He goes to his trial, and in the corridor, he sees
another Dominican priest bowing to a crucifix. And so the Greek guy
said, What are you looking at? What are you doing? And he said,
This is my Lord. And he urges George to purify his soul before
the trial.
George says, obviously a courageous guy. What do you
worship as God is not God? What do you take to be God is only a piece
of wood. It is written over the gate of heaven that no one shall
enter who has not believed in Muhammad, I am a took, I wish to
die as a Turk. And I will give my life 1000 times to defend the law
of Muhammad.
The Dominican said, The day will come when you will see your error.
And George says, If God killed us both this instant, you would see
how I go to heaven while you go to *. So by no means all of them
were taking this kind of Sharia legitimate thing of pretending to
be something else. These kinds of dramatic heroics are not
necessarily required of Muslims. Some of them wouldn't take that
rasa, and would rather continue with the shahada, and pay their
final penalty. So finally, we come to today's story, having given you
the background, Cosentino of Paris
and I'm taking most of this stuff from really a great book by a
historian called Kenneth gambin. I'll talk about it a little bit
later on, but he's done an admirable job of sifting through
the archives and giving. I'd recommend that you order it
actually it's a short book paperback and get it online.
So most of this comes from Him. So Paris is a little island
And now for the kind of naked Germans toasting on the beach, you
can imagine what it's like now but back then,
quiet Island, a Greek island in the central the GN in the 60s,
complex political history. Byzantium, then crusaders who
persecuted the Greeks and the Venetians who didn't like the weak
much either. The Orthodox Church was suppressed
1537 The Ottomans turn up and it becomes Ottoman until the
beginning of the 19th century.
If you're interested, there's a book by Greek historian elettaria.
Ze, on the history of Paris, in the Ottoman century is
quiet doozy, small island, apparently with a very small
number of Muslims, the Ottomans didn't really have a policy of
settlement
unless they were dealing with specifically difficult areas. So
maybe 20 or so Muslims, they appointed are called the poor guy
didn't have enough to afford a servant. And when the Knights of
Malta turned up, he would have to hide because he would certainly be
captured and enslaved by them.
Sometimes,
the Venetians would raid or the knights would rate they would only
oppress the Greeks didn't really couldn't find the Muslims. And
then after they left, the Greek population would go on to
persecute the islands, Catholics
and of Northern Ireland type situation.
But the island was famous for the Ottomans in that it seems to have
been the birthplace of one of the best known Ottoman women, nor ban
or assault on.
Many Turks will remember this name Northern ban or assault on dies in
1583. She's a valid assault on in other words, she is the mother of
assault on in this case Murad, the third, historians argue are she a
Venetian from the island level Catholic? Or was she a Greek from
the island, therefore Orthodox, but certainly she was famous for
her beauty very intelligent. And as she moved up through the
Ottoman female hierarchy, she kind of CO administered the whole
empire beside the Grand Vizier, so called Nomad Pasha,
who is also a convert background. He was originally Orthodox and
Herzegovina, and it seems that she took religion seriously because
she built a number of mosques in Istanbul if you go to Oscar doubt,
and you go up the hill, the top of the hill, there is her Mosque, the
Artic Validus upon kuliah see, really nice, one of the oldest
Ottoman mosques in escudo, with a great view, which has a dervish
lodge, I think for the Shabbat near next to it.
And also madressa,
which when I first visited was kind of
a ruin. But Richard Chen token is people have resurrected it and has
become a center of higher Islamic Studies and looks really nice now.
But you know, she is the patroness of that building all of the great
mosques in your school dar
were built by women
marry muscle time built the Great Mosque by the by the sea and
Ottoman sort of gossip is good are is the place where you go if
you're angry with your husband. So this is anyway. But yeah, female
mosques there. So we move on.
The Knights are reading and our hero Cosentino of whose life we
only have the testimony of the Inquisition archives.
was born on the island of Paris in 1609.
And his nickname was moneta, which is kind of Italian for somebody
with a defect in his hand. We don't know exactly what it was,
but it was quite visible on orthodox Greek.
Not many opportunities for teenagers in Paris in the 16th
century. So he becomes a sailor at the age of 15, goes to sea with a
Greek captain, who treated him really badly. And when he had
finished his journey, the captain kind of kicked him off with a
friend who was a carpenter on the ship, not paying him. So this kind
of leaves him saw, and he joins another ship. And this ship is
captured by a Muslim vessel from North Africa. And he's taken to
prison in Tripoli. Now, of course in Libya, and they say, You're a
sailor, you're going to sail with us.
And so he joined to Corsair ship ship with a Muslim captain, but
you didn't have to be Muslim to sail on a Corsair ship.
At some point we don't know when exactly he took his shahada
on board, it will probably just mean raising your finger saying
the the words maybe having a haircut there also certain rituals
at the time. If you're a sailor, you probably had a red cap which
indicated you're a Christian who's listed two out on the floor one
stamp on it
I will put on a white turban and then you will be regarded as a
member of the OMA of Islam. Sometimes the Ottomans like to
have really elaborate processions
with janissaries and bands and you get taken to the saints tomb to
the mosque, and everybody's cheering it becomes a kind of
public festival.
These guys who are kind of on the borders anyway and probably knew a
lot about Islam anyway and kind of Eastern Mediterranean oriental
type people anyway, it wasn't really perceived as a big deal.
But because anti no is now Rajab.
Seven years
he works as a Corsair doesn't want to go back to boring old Paris.
But in 1631, his ship is captured by the other side, a galley of the
Knights of Johnson John out of Malta.
And when he gets to Malta, he pretends to be a born Muslim, in
which case, he has problems but the Inquisition can't touch him.
But somebody who knew him, recognizes him and denounces him
to the Inquisition.
As we've seen the usual inquisitorial practice is to hold
the prisoner without informing him of the charge, you just get kind
of softened up as you reflect, hoping that after a while, you've
confessed to something
Cosentino already knows what the charge is, is being suspected of
conversion to Islam. So he does usual things saying I wasn't truly
converted at a much about religion, I'd be constrained I was
always really a Christian at heart. And he remembers part of
the Lord's Prayer which he recites in Greek to try and impress the
inquisitors. But the Grand Inquisitor Martino Alfieri doesn't
believe him. He's seen this too many times. So he ordered him to
be tortured quite severely, to see what he's really going to say. But
despite the torture, he sticks to his story. After a year, October
1716 32, the Inquisitor kind of shrugs and gives up on the
torture, and just sentences him to five years in prison, he can't
work as a galley slave because of his crippled hand.
He's also
required to go to the church of St. Lawrence holding a candle, the
San Benito, before the altar day for him into vehemently denouncing
Islam.
So he's stuck in the jail. Getting the cells are still there
hasn't really changed since his time, you get quite a good sense
of
what it's like. And in jail, he meets somebody who he already
knows who is also from Paris Juwan there who has also become more
odd.
They've actually sailed together so nice to see a familiar face.
And they try to figure out what can we do about this miserable
situation? We'd love to get back to Tripoli, somehow.
Now the prison has a warder called USIP Pagle. This is an old guy,
and he's really lazy. And he used to break the rules. He used to
chat to the prisoners, and he got bored. You go to the cells to
drink with them. You play dice or cards. And sometimes when he was
feeling lazy, he would let a prisoner out and say Get me my
macaroni from the kitchen, please. Here's the kind of original sloppy
tool set pay. I think there's I don't think the pizza is named
after him. But it's a kind of stereotype. So you get them
sweeping the corridors and cooking. Gambians book will
describe all of this, sometimes even take the prisoners up to the
first floor of the palace to watch a fiesta or carnival that was
taking place, or even take them to the door of the prison which leave
open saying look, here's the here's the procession. So this of
course gives them an idea
and they talk to fellow prisoners and to that mammy rice and a
Giovanni Cagliari. And they oil a padlock during the day with oil
that they've purloined from the kitchen, so that it will be silent
when they finally force it to make a loud clanking noise that will
get sloppy juice up out of his kind of alcoholic coma, trotting
along to see what's going on silent. So they do this. And they
climb onto the roof of the palace.
And then they with a couple of garments tied together. They climb
down into the next yard where they free. The two guys from Paris plus
another guy has just turned up with Russian gold Akhmad
and the five of them
escaped from the prison
and they leave Valletta and they hide in the fields
Moving around, eating anything that they can find it's growing
fugitives. Then as the Inquisition is sending soldiers after them.
But then they have a dilemma. His Greek friend Murad walks with a
crutch, he can't move very fast. Should they leave him behind and
make straight for the coast and steal a boat, or bribe somebody
and escape. But without Murad, and it seems what they do is decide
not to abandon him. And so in rather slow pace, they reached the
coat to try and
get back to North Africa. And this time, not just in Malta, but all
around the southern Mediterranean coast of Italy and so forth. The
boats and the beaches are guarded, because there's so many people
trying to get across. After four days, unsuccessfully trying to get
a boat, they're recaptured. And they're taken right back to the
Inquisitors palace. They wonder if they're going to be punished, but
actually is just pay who gets the punishment, because the Escape is
seeing a seen as being his fault. They said, Oh, we didn't want to
go to Muslim country. We just wanted to be free and what's wrong
with that? But in any case, they're back in jail.
You have kind of arduous, nice painting of Rajib and Murad
looking a bit thoughtful in their cell.
So as a result of this escape attempt, there's no more torture
the sentence is not added to.
The problem the authorities have is that there's insufficient space
in the jail. And generally people get released before the end of
their sentences. So Murad, the one with a bad leg is released in
1637. He's been given a life sentence but only serves four
years. And they say well, because he got moved very fast. You can
get anywhere you like in the island, but you can only leave the
island with the permission of the Inquisition. So he finds a little
tobacco shop in Valetta and he becomes a tobacconist. However, he
doesn't stay that whenever the coast is clear, obviously wants to
get back to the Dar Al Islam. He jumps his bail gets on a night of
Malta ship. That goes to Livorno in Italy. He travels overland from
the volcano to Venice, which is very well connected to the Muslim
world, and then takes a Greek ship to Tripoli. So after a month from
his abandoning his shop, is back in North Africa. He's actually
made it
so he goes to see the passion.
The governor and explains his story.
Now, the Ottomans hadn't had anything like the Inquisition.
They're not going to figure out well, you became a Christian
again, but you were originally a Christian, what's going on? They
didn't have anything like the Inquisition. And he said, Well, I
went to church and mortem every Sunday. But you know, whenever I
left, I'd kept the host the wafer in my mouth, and when nobody's
looking at to spit it out on the ground. Christianity never entered
my heart.
And then he throws his red berry on the ground throws down his
rosary stamps on them, announces that his back, is Murad again,
wants to die in Islam. The Pasha is perfectly happy. No
investigation required gives him a place to stay gives him some
money.
What about our hero, Cosentino the guy who doesn't have a bad leg but
has the bad and he's been given a five year sentence. But after only
two, they let him out because somebody who becomes his owner
effectively is a slave Keyaki powerlet had asked the Inquisitors
let him out. He can be useful to me. He's just being useless and
lazy. In the prison, I can put him to work pallet and sells him to
another owner who uses him as a deckhand because that's his skill
onboard his ship.
In 1637, the ship docks in the Rica, which is now in Croatia, and
Costantino goes for a walk, doesn't come back, makes his way
to Venice, again, finds a Greek ship, which takes him to xante,
which is a Greek island and then another ship. He goes home to
Paris, his home island to see his family.
But he never gets that. On the way the ship anchors at a place called
madonn, which is a fortress town in the Peloponnese, which is
famous for
the massacre of its he was entirely Muslim by the time of the
Greek War of Independence. They were all wiped up. That's in 1826
or something. But at this time is very mixed place. It had been a
Venetian Venetian fortress. So Muslims who knew him in his seven
years at sea recognize him
and they say what's going on through job Bay, and he tells them
the story of his adventures and how he's escaped.
They give him some money. They give him some Muslim clothes. So
he's Rajab, again. It's Ramadan. he fasts. So now he goes to
Tripoli.
And the pasha again says, Fine, I understand your story and gives
him his back pay.
And
the pasha says, You have to go to see again. So he does and happily
meets his old friend Murad again, and they go happily out to see,
after a few days on the horizon, they see the galleys of the
Knights with a big Maltese cross, that hot sink one ship, again,
six, and galleys are very maneuverable, because they can do
whatever they like, even if there's no wind. There's rovers
tend to tire out after about six hours, but during those six hours,
that can be pretty fast. So the nights attack them and defeat them
and they go back to Grand Harbor. And, of course, they go back
rather unhappily through the doors of the palace of the Inquisition.
Case is more serious now because they've gone back to their
original reconversion to Christianity wasn't real, they
went back to the Dar Al Islam. So the Inquisitor Fabian chi writes
to Rome to the Pope's office for instructions.
There interrogated tortured, and Murad says he only went to Tripoli
to collect some of his belongings. He had certainly not trampled on
the rosary. He was still a Christian, that the Inquisition
managed to get some witnesses. We saw him praying, we saw him doing
these Muslim things. He was real. Roger, the same story. I just
wanted to go back home to Paris. With a gift of money from my
parents, I went to AAA to collect my pay, and I was going to give it
to my mom, and my dad, I didn't want to go course airing. But the
passur forced me to do this. And during the fight with the knights,
he had not fought, but he'd gone below, hoping the nice Christians
would save him. But again, the court produces witnesses against
him and he's tortured, he finally confesses.
And in the account, which gambin transcribed, it's an Italian that
can be translated the whole thing. He says, The truth is that I
believe to save my soul if I had died as a Muslim.
That's it. He was sincere. So the letter comes back from Rome.
from Morocco, the only chance is, it's clear that he didn't know
that he was with other converts to Islam, but it was obvious that he
did. So Rome is very clear. The Inquisitor has to appoint a lawyer
for Murad in case something new comes up, but it doesn't. So it's
the death penalty is given as a sentence for both of them.
So there's an image of two men in their San Benito was
looking a bit miserable. Once you'd spent your time in your San
Benito or you've been executed, it will be hung in your local parish
church to remind others to avoid a similar mistake.
So the sentence comes down on seventh of July 16 39.
The Inquisitor sends a Greek speaking priest Catholic priest to
visit them. And he says, You know the deal. If you repent formally,
and return to Christianity, you'll be strangled before they burn you.
And Murad and Reggie, reflect on this and actually accept the
accept the sacrament, which you could say is probably the
appropriate Muslim thing to do. Because the alternative is a kind
of suicide. In anyways, this is what the record indicate 10th of
July, the sentences are announced in public in Vittoriosa and 11th
of July, they go to the steak. The faggots of wood are there but
they're strangled by Representative the Knights the
priests wouldn't do the actual execution. And then they were
burnt ritually in front of a large crowd. And when the news reached
Pope Orban, he said he received it consumed more piacere with great
happiness. So from his point of view, a happy ending.
And there you have Gambians book, which I've taken most of this
stuff about the two Greeks from
two death sentences by the Inquisition tribunal of Malta
1639. And you can see in the asymmetry which Gambian is very
clear about the pasha welcomes them back, accepts their story and
rewards them the Inquisition does the exact opposite. So gambin
writes this reflecting on their
stories that were erected against the civilization that oppressed
them by switching allegiance to Islam and fighting wholeheartedly
against their former colleagues. They did so because they found a
new lease of life under Muslim society. In the latter, they're
not without difficulties. They could express their talents, and
were appreciated and valued for what they were and for what they
were capable of doing. They will also offer the chance for social
advancement, irrespective of their humble origins and background,
something that in their case was practically impossible in
Christendom.
So
just to wind up
these little stories of heroism, their misadventures? What do we
learn that from that very different age?
Well, firstly, we can see that even simple illiterate people from
an out of the way place, tiny little orthodox corner of the
Sultan's well protected domains were capable of heroism, and of
strength of character in their escapes that venture sadness, that
initiative, that intelligence, even though they were just kind of
simple sailors, illiterate people.
Secondly, we've seen the gigantic importance of these renegades, so
forth a convert to the Ottoman State, which was, if not entirely
supported by them, nonetheless, was massively reinforced by them
and had no hesitation, whatever their background in promoting them
to the highest office, something impossible in Feudal and
aristocratic Europe, really until the 19th century. Thirdly, you can
see that people, even if they knew not much about Islam, in Europe,
recognized its seductive and dangerous appeal, a kind of
vertigo. If you look at the other Inquisition records, which are
dealing with people, like the guy in Catalonia, who is the last ever
to be killed by the Inquisition, you tend to see a pattern,
heretical doubts about the Trinity, about the atonement, that
original sin, about the Incarnation, and often about
priestly celibacy as well. One of the things that you find that the
Inquisition in Malta was most tough on was priests who had
seduced women into confessional and they will be very severely
punished. Unlike nowadays, which according to the kind of Cardinal
McCarrick culture, they just get
moved to another parish and the woman's told to be silent in this
organization. So women whose
children were the result of liaisons with priests, it's a
whole thing, but back then they were very strict on it. And this,
to a lot of people seemed merciless and unrealistic.
And fourthly, the meritocratic nature of Ottoman Mediterranean
society, people grew up like a rocket if they were talented, and
this goes to some way to explaining the longevity of the
Ottoman State. British Empire really lasted for 100 years max,
the Ottoman Empire lasted since 1280. Until 1925, which is not
bad, and governing an enormously diverse realm, different
religions, different denominations, different
languages. Somehow we're all incorporated into the Sultan's
well protected domains, not the kind of system which could be
exactly replicated today, no doubt, but nonetheless, one
that proved its worth and was very attractive to people like
Cosentino aka Rajib Rahmatullahi Ali.
So that's the end of the story. Sorry, not to give you a happy
ending. That insha Allah Rahmatullah. He was here