When the Norman Crusaders conquered Sicily from the Muslims after a series of bizarre setbacks (like the Christian army being attacked by giant tarantulas in 1064), their treatment of the conquered Muslim subjects, wherein they did not forcefully convert them to Christianity, is often heralded as an example of Christian tolerance in an age of overwhelming Christian brutality. But the Muslim population faded into oblivion within 200 years. How this happened in spite of the Norman tolerance is rarely mentioned. After an amazing period of cultural and even religious exchanges between the Muslims and Christians in what is called the Norman-Arab-Byzantine culture, in 1224 the Norman King Fredrick II had decided Islam would be a friend no more. He deported all the Muslims from Sicily to Lucera where they could practice their faith but the Muslim scholars were forced to leave Norman lands altogether. On Lucera they banned training in Islamic law (in spite of the irony in Norman Sicilian law being based upon it) leaving a Muslim population of laymen with no one of Islamic authority to conduct their religious affairs. This led to a secularism amongst the Muslims that was extraordinarily unique for such a religiocentric time in world history. It led to the disappearance of Islam from Southern Italy. We hail tolerance as a laurel of equitable civilizations but sometimes merely tolerating your neighbors isnt enough to secure their freedoms and it can even be used, as did the Normans of Sicily, to slowly erase a civilization.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 18:56:29 +0000
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