Medieval Europe's Encounter with Islam

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. MORE The Rise and Fall of Al-Andalus Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rise-and-fall-of-al-andalus/id1564113746?i=1000684104899 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/002twq95e9c98IlLHYWAfd The Destruction of Charlemagne's Legacy Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/mt/podcast/the-destruction-of-charlemagnes-legacy/id1564113746?i=1000691130017 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/3AIz8betOfIH4sNk4SY2T0 Gone 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: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost 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/subscribe.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the Headline Hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasiapro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 1:48Speaker 03

  In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the third century? I'm Misha Glennie, and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world.

• 2:04Speaker 04

  It's one of the first times, really, that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers.

• 2:08Matt Lewis?

  If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  In Our Time, listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Tea or coffee? Love a cup of tea.

• 2:24Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga 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 gob-smacking 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.

• 3:03Eleanor Janega?

  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 is brought with him Arabic manuscripts

• 3:41Eleanor Janega?

  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.

• 4:15Eleanor Janega?

  One generation later, another restless mind is following the same path. Aldred of Bath, an English scholar with a taste for travel, crosses into Spain and southern Italy to study Arabic. He will later confess, "I learned from my Arab teachers, and returned to England with treasures: useless elements, works on astronomy, and instruments for observation." He will introduce not just text, but methods: reasoning, experimentation, calculation, that will reshape how Europeans approach science.

• 4:55Eleanor Janega?

  To Aldred, Arabic learning isn't foreign. It's a revelation, a window into a deeper intellectual tradition.

• 5:04Eleanor Janega?

  And then, into the early 13th century, along comes Leonardo Pisa, better known as Fibonacci.

• 5:13Eleanor Janega?

  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.

• 5:42Eleanor Janega?

  When Fibonacci 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.

• 6:17Eleanor Janega?

  The examples of Constantine the African, Adelard 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 to the 21st century, my guest today, Dr. Elizabeth Drayson, 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

• 7:02Eleanor Janega?

  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 Gone Medieval.

• 7:24Speaker 06

  Hello, Eleanor. Thank you very much. Thank you for welcoming me. It's great to be on the show.

• 7:30Eleanor Janega?

  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 civilizations 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?

• 8:15Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, 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.

• 8:27Speaker 06

  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, of 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

• 9:07Speaker 06

  based in the city of Toledo. And you have some, we have some in the 12th century, we have some in 13th century. What happened was that scholars travelled 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, 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

• 9:49Speaker 06

  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 fit its way into the evolution of scientific knowledge in Europe.

• 10:08Eleanor Janega?

  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 Alphons 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.

• 10:51Eleanor Janega?

  But I mean, you've mentioned already the fact that this is a history, this, you know, the convivencia, you know, which is, 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 threatening Central European ideals as well. And this is something that is really kind of pushed forward in an imperial context there

• 11:36Eleanor Janega?

  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?

• 11:52Speaker 06

  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 reconquest Was finally achieved and Granada fell to the Christian monarchs 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, national Catholicism as well.

• 12:36Speaker 06

  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, you know, 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.

• 13:18Speaker 06

  And in fact, he based it very closely upon 12th century Arab astronomers' work.

• 13:24Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, this is how we get most of our Aristotle, really. In the Middle Ages, specifically through the Arabic school. Which I always find that very funny, because you know, 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 is 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.

• 14:02Speaker 06

  Absolutely, Eleanor, yes. I mean, I think the fall of the Roman and Persian empires 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 Muhammad founded this... Completely new egalitarian religious movement that rocked 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 spread so lightning

• 14:46Speaker 06

  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 the collapse of their known societies and systems. 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.

• 15:18Eleanor Janega?

  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, Constantinople is losing its ability to have quite as much say in what's going on, for example, in

• 15:58Eleanor Janega?

  the African literal. Do you think that that plays a part of what we see as this quite meteoric rise?

• 16:07Speaker 06

  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 if we count from the year 622, which was the date of the Haggira. Or Mohammed's flight from Mecca to escape from the hostility of the Meccan pagans. It took approximately eighty eight years for them to reach Europe. It's astonishing, you know, so a Muslim, the very first Muslim raiding party landed in Tadifa on the coast of southern Spain in seven ten. And then the following year, the Berber general Tadi Ibn Ziyad landed at Gibraltar and defeated

• 16:48Speaker 06

  the Visigothic armies of King Roderick 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 seven fourteen, what 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 postscript to that, that obviously that

• 17:29Speaker 06

  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 they'd been trading with them for hundreds of years. So what was new in that was the advent of Islam.

• 17:45Eleanor Janega?

  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 it take in terms of getting into Europe proper?

• 18:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, that's right. Were the Muslims 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 Syltah in the north, 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, as of course he was in contact with being in in North Africa himself, to assist him in invading Spain and defeating his enemies.

• 18:44Speaker 06

  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 don't, I think it's 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 seven eleven, so in that first year, the Muslim leaders left it in the hands of a garrison made up of Jews and Christians and Muslims,

• 19:28Speaker 06

  and they were all in charge of its defence together. And Jewish groups often welcomed in the Muslims as they arrived in towns and 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.

• 19:46Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah. And I think that's a really important point. There there tends to be this idea that there's 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 times when people say, oh, look, it's it's our neighbours, the Berbers, come on, you know, come on in.

• 20:26Speaker 06

  Yes, I mean, that's absolutely right. You know, it's a very complex situation, really, and 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 in at the beginning, then they didn't meet a very nice fate. But people seemed 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.

• 21:06Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. 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 particularized society, they want Jewish people and Christian people around because someone has to pay the jizyat. 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.

• 21:45Speaker 06

  Oh, my goodness, yes. Yes. I mean, we have fabricated holy writings, we have hostile histories, and even 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 Pseudomethodeus.

• 22:08Eleanor Janega?

  Of course.

• 22:09Speaker 06

  This priest was pretending to be a church father of the fourth century, hence the name Methodeus. So he wrote this book in the late 600s A.D. 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. You know, 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 criticized homosexuality, crossdressing, and even swinging, he mentions. So. You know, it was, it was really quite an extraordinary sort of start to these fabricated narratives.

• 22:53Speaker 06

  And then, of course, there was the venerable Bede, our great, the great English historian of the seventh and eighth centuries. Well, Bede's 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 the people, called them Saracens, which means, comes from the Greek word, Saraceno, which means people of the tent. So he saw them as wanderers, as nomads. And he described Arabia as a pleasant place in his writing. And he wrote about how Muslim caliphs had allied with Christians against the Jews. However, by about seven thirty, which is when Bede was writing his great ecclesiastical history of the English people,

• 23:39Speaker 06

  there was quite a severe threat from those Saracen invaders because they'd reached Gaul, which is now of course, part of France. And that, so the 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, well, he was illegitimate. He was the son of Abraham and his servant Hagar. And 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

• 24:24Speaker 06

  legitimate son with his wife Sarah, who was Isaac, who's equated with the foundations of Christianity. But I don't think Bede still didn't refer to their religion as such in his writing, you know, he just seemed to, as you said, really, I 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 eleventh century. In a song poetry, and this example is about the great French epic poem, the Chanson de Roland, 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.

• 25:09Speaker 06

  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, 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 Ronfes Valles 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

• 25:54Speaker 06

  taking revenge for Charlemagne sacking Pamplona. And shockingly, Roland and his, his men were all killed to a man by these Basque guerrillas. 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.

• 26:36Speaker 06

  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 I think it is quite extraordinary, I think, to me, to see the power of that work of of literature and the influence it's exerted on future generations and their view of the of the conflict between those two faiths.

• 27:04Eleanor Janega?

  Now, you've already mentioned the legend of Tariq, 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?

• 27:23Speaker 06

  Yes, yes. It is remarkable. And so it's been, it pulled the wool over people's eyes for, well, it pulled the wool over my eyes as a student, too. I didn't know that at all until I

• 27:34Eleanor Janega?

  Further into the subject.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 28:58Speaker 07

  After civil war, regicide, and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same. I'm Professor Suzanne Ellipscombe, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty, from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 29:43Eleanor Janega?

  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.

• 30:20Eleanor Janega?

  This is why 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, Cordoba, which in the 8th to 11th centuries experiences this incredible Umayyad Golden Age. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of Abid al-Rahman in this and his emergence?

• 31:05Speaker 06

  I'd love to do that. Abd al-Rahman I 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 Abdurrahman the first. And he was nothing short of astonishing. I mean, he, his life story is startling to start with. I mean, he was a, an Umayyad prince, a prince of that dynasty.

• 31:49Speaker 06

  And he came from Syria and his family was massacred with, obviously the exception of, of himself and his brother, uh, by a rival tribe, the Abbasids, who did find, found a, a really important dynasty with a, with its, uh, court in Baghdad finally. But Abdurrahman managed to escape, uh, with his brother. Uh, his brother unfortunately didn't make it. He was massacred in front of Abdurrahman's eyes. Abdurrahman, the servant, managed to flee across Africa. Then they went into exile, got to the North African coast and crossed into Spain. And Abdurrahman got lots of support when he was, he arrived and he very quickly conquered Cordoba

• 32:34Speaker 06

  and set up what was the first emirate in, 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. Uh, it was a remarkable place and it brought huge prosperity to the people who lived there. And Abdurrahman was seen as a great man by other Muslim leaders, in, in particular, his enemy, Al Mansur, who was another, a minor emir. And he spoke, described him as the falcon of the Quraysh. Abdurrahman was a great man.

• 33:19Eleanor Janega?

  One of the things that I think as historians, we really have to thank him for is that in Cordoba, he puts a, 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?

• 33:40Speaker 06

  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 was remarkable. There was this extraordinary desire to pull together knowledge, 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. And it was like a green revolution

• 34:22Speaker 06

  in actual fact. So those herbals 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 Abdul Rahman founded perhaps was the first incarnation of the Great Mosque.

• 34:43Eleanor Janega?

  Of course, cannot get away without talking about the Great Mosque.

• 34:46Speaker 06

  No.

• 34:47Eleanor Janega?

  You know, it's just one of those wonders of the world, you know?

• 34:51Speaker 06

  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. But Abdul Rahman 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 prosperity.

• 35:16Eleanor Janega?

  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 know, 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,

• 35:57Eleanor Janega?

  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 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."

• 36:42Eleanor Janega?

  And I think that is incredibly important because when, if we fall into the trap of saying that there's always been this incredibly fractious 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 Mesquite as important, even when they're in the very midst of these real battles.

• 37:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was slightly ironic, really, because Charles V gave the permission for the cathedral to be built in the center of the mosque, but he hadn't seen it at that stage, had he? And that was begun in 1523. And 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 fourteen ninety-two, when, you know, there was this programme of of making of christianising everything, and that included the environment, the skyline, everything, you know, buildings particularly. But I think probably what Charles

• 37:58Speaker 06

  saw when he actually, you know, had it in front of him, as it were, was he realised 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, um, a very contentious building altogether, the cathedral inside the mosque. You might say, well, isn't it a sign that, you know, of the coming together of the two religions? But no, of course, one is imposed rough slap bang in the centre of the mosque, part of which had to be demolished to do that, you

• 38:38Speaker 06

  know, and really, it was a bit of of cultural brutality, I think, to do that in actual fact. But of course, you know, I mean, as you, as you know, I'm sure it's still, there's still a great deal of contention surrounding the Great Mosque nowadays, because Muslims still aren't allowed to worship in in the 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 then.

• 39:20Speaker 08

  Ready to feel more energised and in control of your health? If you've tried diet and exercise but still aren't seeing the results you're looking for, it may be time to explore a different approach. At orderlymeds.com you can connect with licensed medical providers through a simple virtual process, all from the comfort of home, and find out if a GLP-1 treatment may be right for you. Learn more at orderlymeds.com. That's orderlymeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of the best one yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithgemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 40:39Eleanor Janega?

  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.

• 40:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, I agree with you.

• 40:57Eleanor Janega?

  OK, 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. Then what kinds of things here might the average person find surprising about the Islamic contribution to mathematics, for example?

• 41:20Speaker 06

  OK, 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

• 42:03Speaker 06

  wonderful library and scholarly sort of centre in Baghdad. And he was a mathematical genius. And the Cordoban polymath Ibn Afirnas, him of the first flight and the feathered wings, travelled to Baghdad to bring back copies of Al-Qarizmi's great mathematical 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 Latinised 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 an astonishing

• 42:48Speaker 06

  thing to take on board. But I mean, there is a similar process with the medical works too, medicine. The great Al-Zahawi, who was called Abu Qasis in Latin, was born in Cordoba and he was 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.

• 43:32Eleanor Janega?

  How long did it take these sorts of information to filter through to the generalised European population? Is this something that has tremendous uptake right away? Or does it take a while to get people on board?

• 43:47Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, it took, I mean, you can imagine it took a long time. It was a long, 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 to the West. And one of my examples springs to mind is Gerbert of Oriac, who studied Arab science at a monastery near Barcelona. And the bishop of that monastery, called Atto, had travelled to Cordoba and he'd met the caliph. And he told Gerbert about all

• 44:27Speaker 06

  the wonders of of Arab culture and 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, you know, 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 Gerbert was that he became Sylvester the Second and head of the Christian Church. So here we have an illustrious scientist who admired and embraced Muslim knowledge,

• 45:10Speaker 06

  and yet he was at the peak of of the Christian, head of the Christian Church. So it was a great symbol, I think, of the harmonious conjunction of Muslims and Christians in that regard. Another translator, an important translator, was Gerard of 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 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

• 45:54Speaker 06

  the process and how long it must have taken, you know, 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 this in this way that the great medical works by Galen Hippocrates, Antolomys Al Majest, the greatest astronomical work were translated. And that's how that Greek and Arab learning reached northwestern schools and monasteries.

• 46:23Eleanor Janega?

  I'm going to drag us, I think, kicking and screaming out of Spain. But because I wanted to talk a little bit about Sicily, which I'm also slightly obsessed with. And 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?

• 46:49Speaker 06

  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 ninth 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

• 47:33Speaker 06

  island and create 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

• 48:13Speaker 06

  Christian, Muslim and Jewish elements in his culture. And what 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.

• 48:51Speaker 06

  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 Muslim scholar, Muhammad Ali Drissi. And it was the greatest single work of geography of the Middle Ages. And so it was the most accurate map of the world for over 300 years. And I think that map and the scope of it epitomized Roger's immense cultural ambitions. And it was, yeah, it was engraved on a, on a cutting edge flattened hemisphere, apparently, which weighed a huge amount, something about 400 pounds. But it was the most remarkable thing for his time and a symbol of, of, I suppose, his cosmopolitanism

• 49:35Speaker 06

  in a way, and what he achieved. And what I really love about Norman Sicily, Eleanor, is that, to me, it shows that kind of hybrid society can thrive, people can exist peacefully all together, and it can work. And I think that's very heartening thought in present times.

• 50:00Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, absolutely. And, 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.

• 50:17Eleanor Janega?

  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.

• 50:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Yeah, I agree.

• 50:59Eleanor Janega?

  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 Saint Francis of Assisi going to the Sultan Al Camille 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?

• 51:35Speaker 06

  No.

• 51:36Eleanor Janega?

  Like, 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 of here comes, here comes Saint Francis of Assisi on the Fifth Crusade, and he's going to, he's going to attempt to convert the Sultan Al Camille. And I find this really interesting because the Sultan sort of more or less says, no, thank you, and kind of sent Saint 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,

• 52:20Eleanor Janega?

  I just don't think it would have happened this way or played out at all.

• 52:24Speaker 06

  No, and I mean, I think it's an extraordinary example of how, you know, two completely disparate people from different faiths can can meet together and get on and be in 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 Damietto, that was where their camp was, in twelve nineteen. And then Saint Francis decided he'd travel to Egypt and hope he could make this miraculous conversion, you know. And he was incredibly brave, I think. And and I suppose he wanted to try and sue for peace and stop

• 53:05Speaker 06

  people being killed. But anyway, he, as you said, he crossed over from the Christian camp and went to see the Sultan Al Kamil 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 III in the Crusade, you know, I mean, they they had great respect for each other. So, and I think also, I absolutely

• 53:50Speaker 06

  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.

• 54:00Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I I think it is an interesting one, because we see, like, Saint Francis, in a way, almost kickstart of fad for Franciscans attempting over and over again to intervene with really high-level Muslim rulers. You know, in the fifteenth century, they're forever kind of wandering into the different conates and attempting to to it. It's very funny, because everyone is sort of amused that they're they're in Kazakhstan in sandals in winter and 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, so.

• 54:35Speaker 06

  Certainly.

• 54:36Eleanor Janega?

  Well, I suppose the good way to sort of wrap up, and 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, and 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

• 55:19Eleanor Janega?

  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 like, an ongoing clash of civilizations. So do you have anything else you'd like to sort of say about that before we sign off?

• 55:40Speaker 06

  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 Muslim groups and non-Muslim groups and Christian groups. Because I think, 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, it isn't, here's Europe and here are the Islamic empires. They are on a continuum, they are

• 56:22Speaker 06

  part of each other, and they are so deeply interwoven at all levels, that we need to think of, think of it in a different way historically entirely. And I think, yes, that's really what I would like to. Just say to finish offering, I think.

• 56:37Eleanor Janega?

  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 de 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.

• 57:02Speaker 06

  It's been an absolute pleasure, Alan. I thank you very much indeed for inviting me.

• 57:07Eleanor Janega?

  My thanks to Dr. Elizabeth Drayson 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/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've gone medieval. Until next time.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing and AI powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.