The BBC broadcast last week a two-part series entitled “After Rome: Holy War and Conquest”. It was presented and researched by London Mayor Boris Johnson.
Johnson traveled the Mediterranean and the Middle East filming this program. The series reopens old files and recounts the history of the encounter between Islam and the West. The program, which was well researched and balanced, tried to go back to the beginning of Islam’s early conquests and clashes with the Roman Empire. It explores the relations between the Muslims and their new subjects. By and large those relations were cordial and harmonious, as the new rulers did not prosecute the inhabitants of the conquered nations nor did they force them to convert.
The program describes how the West decided to hit back in the form of military campaigns known as the Crusades. It shows how Christians, Muslims and Jews lived in the Holy Land and contrasts this to the way Crusaders resorted to killing Muslims and Jews.
More than once Johnson refers to the Crusades and describes how it colored the attitude of Muslims toward the Christians. He traveled to old castles where battles took place and he interviewed university professors to give a historical background to the events.
Johnson’s narrative is quite lively. He uses British slang and modern references in such an amusing way when talking about historical facts. He stresses the fact that people in the Middle East see a close resemblance between what is happening to them now and what happened hundreds of years ago. One of his interviewees said that Arabs feel marginalized and under attack from the West that they dream of a new Saladin, but they were fooled several times by impostors. Here the program was alluding to Saddam Hussein and his efforts to invoke the image of Saladin.
In Spain, Johnson handles another subject dear to Muslim hearts. The loss of the Andalusia and the fall of Granada are still vivid in Muslim memory. Here he had a chance to explore how the Arabs lived with Christians and Jews peacefully. Some scholars said that in Muslim Spain, Jews and Christians were treated as second-class citizens, but others point out that the persecution of Jews followed the defeat of Muslims. In history books, Cordoba was called the Ornament of the World, because it presented a society in which Muslims, Christians and Jews can live together and create a flourishing society.
The defeat of the Arabs opened another chapter in the Arab-West relations, one that is not very happy, one has to say. The program stops with a reference to the 9/11 attacks if only to remind us that the relations between Muslims and the West can develop in ways unimaginable.
What the program did not say is that whereas during the Crusades Muslims were all on one side (this was the case when they were driven out of Spain too) the situation is entirely different now. Overall, the program did a great job in discussing the relations between Muslims and the Western world in a balanced and lively manner.
